by Jessie Cole
‘Okay, sit her down on the couch so we can have a look.’
Rory led me into the lounge room and we sat down, huddled together. Beside me, he was wide-eyed and quiet.
‘You hold bubs while I get a washer,’ Sophie said, handing me down the baby. Lila wriggled in my lap, but then she seemed to settle. I rubbed my chin on the top of her head, slowly from side to side. Sophie came back in with a clean, wet washer. She looked at me and the babies, taking us in.
‘Something happen, Baby-girl?’
I shook my head, but she knew I was lying. She just raised her eyebrows, crouching down at my feet.
‘Mema, it’s really bleeding. You should have said you were hurt. Called out or something.’
‘It’s okay.’ I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. Rory peered around at my foot, his eyebrows pushed together in a tight frown.
‘Hurts?’ he said, patting my arm. I don’t think he’d ever seen me cry. His bottom lip started to quiver. Sophie looked from me to him, putting a hand out to squeeze his foot.
‘It’s alright, little man,’ she said. ‘Mema’s okay.’ His lip kept trembling, but he was holding it all in. ‘Mummy’s going to clean it up and put a Band-Aid on, then it’ll be fine.’
Sophie picked up my foot gently, wiping away the blood. ‘You haven’t done this to yourself in a while.’ She peered at the skin. ‘You pushed it too hard.’
I nodded, my foot throbbing in her hand. ‘I think I’ve sprained it a bit too,’ I said. ‘It feels all wrong.’
She inspected it, testing my joint.
‘Yeah, it looks a little swollen.’
I glanced around the room. There was no sign of Mum. ‘Where is she?’ I asked.
‘Just ducked out to the shed. We’ve been here a while already.’
Rory jumped off the couch then, caught by a new idea. His bottom lip was still wobbling, but he was choosing to ignore it.
‘Nanny got some flowers!’ He ran to the kitchen table, pointing. I twisted my head around to look behind me. There was a bunch of red crucifix orchids in a jug on the table, stringy but vibrant. I looked back at Sophie.
‘Someone left them at the end of the driveway, under one of the big trees.’
For a second I thought they might have been for me and my heart jumped. Sophie must have seen it in my face ’cause she looked down at my foot, saying, ‘They were for Mum. There was a note. I think it was Frank Brown of all people.’
I felt a rush of disappointment. Never before had I thought one of my mother’s random gifts might be meant for me. The stirring of my hope made me feel ashamed. Frank Brown had left flowers for my mother. It seemed in line with him and his gentlemanly ways. I wondered how long he’d been pining after her.
Behind me I could hear Rory clambering up onto one of the chairs to get a better look at the flowers.
‘Careful, sweetpea,’ my sister called out to him. Those sorts of statements had slipped out of Sophie’s mouth for as long as I could remember, comforting in their familiarity. She got up to find a bandage, patting my head on the way past. Lila started fussing on my lap so I turned her around, bouncing her gently on my knee. Her face had changed a little since the last time I’d seen her. Eyes more focused, nose more pointed. She was taking shape. I thought maybe there were glimpses of Sophie that I hadn’t seen before. Usually I enjoyed holding the baby, having her stare with those big blue eyes right into mine, but after what had happened with Anja, Lila’s gaze seemed uncomfortably discerning.
My sister came back in carrying an assortment of bandages. ‘Soph, it’s not that bad,’ I said, but deep down I was grateful.
Sophie ignored me, picking up my foot and going to work. Sometimes the skin on the side of my bung foot gets stretched beyond its limits, and it ruptures, so she put some Band-Aids over that. Then she wrapped the whole foot up tight with a bandage, trying to relieve the sprain. We’d done all this in the past, from time to time.
‘Okay,’ Sophie said, reaching out to take Lila. ‘Now just put it up for a while. No more running around.’
‘I might go and lie on my bed for a bit.’
I needed to be alone and if I stayed out on the couch Rory would climb all over me. Sophie looked at me carefully, weighing me up. ‘You sure nothing happened, Mema?’ She reached out an arm towards me. ‘You sure you’re okay?’
It was the last thing I wanted to talk about, so I just nodded, moving away from her outstretched hand.
Lying on my bed, all the things I had gathered, all my knickknacks and clothes, the nests and the stones, the books, they all seemed dull, like the sheen had gone off them. I gazed around looking for one thing that would give me comfort, but nothing did, and finally I turned over and stared at the wall. I tried not to think of Anja’s kiss, of the softness of her mouth against mine, but the feeling of it came rushing in. I could see us as we’d been, pressed up against each other in the abandoned hut. Anja caressing my face, gentle but firm, as though I was something precious she held between her palms. I covered my eyes with my hands, trying to block it out, but the image of us grew there behind my eyes, the colours even brighter in my head than they’d been in the hut. And the more I tried to force it from my mind the bigger it became, until all I could see was me and her, larger than life—her rough bush hands tender against my cheek, stray ants fleeing along her arms, and her ruby red lips reaching down for mine.
I must have fallen asleep ’cause I sat up with a start when the door opened. It was Mum. She hovered near the doorway and I could tell straight away that something was wrong.
‘Mema,’ she said quietly. ‘Old Dog’s on her way out.’
‘What?’ I was still disorientated by sleep.
‘She can’t get up.’ Mum stepped closer to the bed. ‘I noticed her food from this morning was still in the bowl and I just went to check on her.’
I scrambled off the side, landing hard on my foot. My ankle collapsed under me, and I went down on the wooden floor with a clunk. Mum leaned down and helped me up, her lips a grim line.
‘She’s still breathing,’ she said, tucking a loose strand of my hair behind my ear. Mum was usually so unflappable, but her face was pale and drawn. Old Dog had been old as long as my memory stretched, so it shouldn’t have come as a shock that she would die, but somehow it did.
‘She’ll be alright,’ I said, hobbling out to the veranda as fast as I could. Old Dog lay in the spot she always did, her brown body still, her eyes closed. If I concentrated hard I could see the faint rise and fall of her ribs, achingly slow and feeble. I crouched down beside her, stroking my hand along her back.
‘Old Dog,’ I whispered, but there was no movement to show she’d heard, not even the blink of an eye. I glanced back at Mum, but she was looking around at the walls in alarm.
‘What?’ I said. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Oh, Mema.’ She shook her head. ‘The ants are coming. They’re coming for her.’
I stood up to see what she meant. There were lines of small black ants streaming across the house, heading towards us. They were coming from all over, inside the house and out. Anja’s hut and the piano flashed in my mind, her hands and arms and cheeks crawling with ants. I shook my head to clear it, but the image stuck. Now the ants were marching here too.
‘But she’s not dead yet, why are they coming if she’s not dead?’ I asked Mum, my voice straining.
‘I don’t know, Mema,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve never seen it before.’
Squatting beside Old Dog, I glared at the ants marching across the rough wooden floorboards. I couldn’t let them get her before she was ready.
‘We have to take her to the vet.’ Trying to bundle her into my arms, I looked around for Sophie but she must have gone home.
‘She’s dying, Mema. There’s nothing they can do.’
‘We don’t know that.’ My eyes were filling up and spilling over. ‘We can’t just let the ants have her.’
She was a big dog and it was a battle f
or me to pick her up. ‘Mum,’ I held her gaze through my tears, ‘you’ve got to drive me to the vet.’
She looked at me struggling with Old Dog, and I could see she was wavering.
‘We don’t have the money to pay a vet. You know that.’
‘I don’t care.’ I was hugging Old Dog’s body close, trying to keep her with me. ‘We’ll pay it off. I’ll pay it off.’
Mum shook her head. ‘She’s not going to make it, Mema. She probably won’t even make the drive.’
The ants were coming closer. They were nearly at my feet.
‘I can’t let them have her, Mum. Please. What if it takes days?’
I stood up, grappling with the dog until I had her in my arms. My bung foot was throbbing beneath the extra weight. I wouldn’t be able to lift her under normal circumstances, but these weren’t normal.
‘Okay,’ Mum said finally, staring around at the ants. ‘We’ll go. Do you want me to carry her?’
I shook my head. My mum was strong as an ox, but Old Dog was mine and I wasn’t giving her over.
Sitting in the back of the car with Old Dog on my lap, tears streamed down my cheeks. Usually weeping was an effortful thing—there was a blustering, a snuffling, something audible and clogged. But these tears were different—they flowed like a tap left on, limitless and soft. Somewhere inside I knew I wasn’t just crying for Old Dog, but for all those others lost to me. For my brothers, and my dad, and all the dads I never knew. Sorrow had burst inside me, flowing out like a stream.
We drove in silence and I kept my palm against Old Dog’s heart, feeling for her life, trying to keep it within her. When we pulled up at the vet, she was still breathing. Mum opened the door and I shifted around, trying to get out. Old Dog was heavy and her body was already stiffer than it had been before, as though death was claiming her cell by cell. As though she was in the act of becoming other, the matter of her transforming even then, grasped tightly in my arms.
Mum held the door open and I limped inside, holding her high against me until my arms shook with the strain.
The girl behind the counter took one look at my face and said, ‘Go straight through,’ and I loved her in that moment, loved her kind, sorry face.
‘She’s dying,’ the vet said, when we walked in the door.
‘I know,’ I whispered, nodding through my tears.
‘No, I mean, she’s dying now. Right now.’
I slumped down on a chair in the corner, clutching her. The weight was too much, my arms had turned to jelly and I could barely hold her on my lap. My mum and the vet stood watching us—the dying dog and me—and under their gaze my face crumpled like a child’s.
I felt the moment her heart stopped, felt it beneath my palm. Something in the room shifted. The vet crouched down and searched for a pulse, looking up at me with sombre eyes.
‘She’s gone,’ she said. ‘It’s over.’
I nodded, but I didn’t move. The seconds ticked by, stretching into minutes. My tears slowly eased. The vet stood back up and fussed around in the corner of the room, trying to give us space. Finally she faced us, looking from my mother to me.
‘Would you like us to dispose of her or do you want to take her home?’ she asked, needing to move us on.
Dry-eyed, my mum stepped forward. ‘We’ll take her, thanks,’ she said, and lifted Old Dog’s floppy body from my lap.
‘Come on, Mema,’ she said, ‘come on home.’
Back out on the street, the sunlight stung my eyes. Mum put Old Dog in the back of the car, covering her with a hessian sack the vet gave us. I stood on the kerb watching her, sapped and strange. My lips felt cracked and dry, and I wet them with my tongue.
‘I’ve just got to grab some things from the shop, now that we’re here,’ Mum said, squeezing my arm. ‘You wait in the car. I’ll only be a minute.’
I pulled the passenger door open and settled down inside, feeling woozy. Sitting in there with Old Dog dead in the back made me think about what it was that rendered a thing alive—what made a heart start to beat? And what made it stop? I sat in the front concentrating on my breaths, marvelling that such a simple thing as breathing could mean the difference between living and dying.
There was a knock on the window and I looked up, startled. It was him, Hamish.
‘Wakey, wakey,’ he said, grinning. ‘What’re you doing in there?’
He was dressed in the clothes we’d bought, his face shaved, eyes bright. I stared at him for a few seconds, thrown. I guess I should have got out, but I just wound down the window.
‘Look who I found,’ he said, stepping aside. Anja stood behind him. She looked at me but she didn’t smile. ‘She was hitching. Frank and I picked her up.’
I stared up at them from the front seat. Anja tossed her hair and put her hands in her pockets and I knew straight away she was up to no good. Hamish bent down, peering closer in the window.
‘You right, Mema?’
I felt my lips tilt as though I was smiling, but no words came out of my mouth.
‘We’ve just eaten,’ Hamish said, watching my face. ‘Pity we missed you.’
I thought of them sitting there at the Savoy, laughing together about the banana splits. With Old Dog in the back it was too much. I knew I was going to cry. I covered my face with my hands, wishing they’d both disappear.
‘What’s wrong?’ I heard him as though from afar. And then—‘Anja, she’s crying.’
There was a shuffle outside, them changing places. I felt Anja’s hand grab mine through the window, pulling it away from my face.
‘If he’s only a bloke, why are you crying?’ she growled at me, out of his earshot, her face looming, tough-eyed. I tried to loosen my fingers from hers, but she wouldn’t let go.
‘It’s Old Dog,’ I choked out, my voice muffled. ‘She’s in the back. She died.’
Anja’s face changed then, something about it stilled, like she was folding herself away. She stared at me through the window, releasing my hand from her grip. ‘Well, she was old,’ she said then, as if I wouldn’t know.
‘But she’d always been old,’ I whispered back.
Stepping away, she turned around, muttering something to Hamish, and he crossed over in front of her, his hand on the door frame.
‘The old dog? The big brown one?’ he asked. ‘It died?’
I nodded, wiping my nose with the back of my hand. He glanced from me to the rear of the car.
‘Shit, Mema,’ he said, face solemn. ‘That’s bad news.’ His fingers tapped against the window, softly, marking time. He peered in at the clock on the dashboard.
‘I have to go and meet some people for work,’ he said finally. ‘I only wanted to come say hi.’ He put a hand up to rub across his hair. ‘I would have let you be if I’d known about your dog.’
I looked down at my lap.
‘I’m really sorry, Mema.’ He reached in, placing his fingers on my shoulder, the briefest touch.
I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to.
‘I’ll see you soon, hey,’ he said, straightening up. ‘I’ll be here for another week or so.’
I nodded, waiting for him to leave. He waved goodbye to Anja and then he was off. Anja stood on the kerb, staring down the street, not talking, and in a minute my mum was back in a flurry of skirts, carrying some shopping.
‘Anja,’ she said. ‘What are you doing in town?’ Anja hardly ever came in without me. ‘You want a lift back?’
Anja shrugged, but she opened the door and got in. Mum put the bags in beside her, away from the dead dog, and then heaved her big body into the driver’s seat.
‘I got some ice-cream.’ She looked sideways at me. ‘Thought it might cheer you up.’
Mum never bought us sweets. It was her only rule. I leaned over then and put my head on her shoulder, and she wrapped an arm around me like I was just a kid.
‘It’ll be alright,’ she murmured, hugging me close. ‘Tomorrow—it’ll be alright. It will all be better in the morni
ng.’
16.
We buried Old Dog out near Isis. They’d never been pals in real life, not like her and Thor, but it seemed right that their bones might rest together, two skeletons beneath the earth, stretching out towards each other. Who knew what happened after you died? Maybe there was a communion in it, even if it was just in the slow movement of soil over time, a subtle blending of remains.
Anja took off as quick as she could, gulping down her ice-cream so fast I could see it was giving her brain freeze. She barely said two words to me. When she was gone Mum asked me straight out. ‘What’s going on with Anja?’
Words sat heavily on my chest. I didn’t know how to dislodge them. My mouth was full of pebbles. ‘Nothing,’ was all I could manage.
Mum had a way of looking at me, as though she could see into my brain.
‘You be careful of her, Mema,’ she said, picking up our empty ice-cream bowls and putting them in the sink. ‘You know how she is. When she cracks, she tears everything down.’
I didn’t like it when my mum criticised Anja. It didn’t seem worth it to pick holes in the only friend you had. Mum had high standards when it came to friendship, so high she didn’t have friends. It wasn’t something I wanted for myself, though truth be told, I wasn’t far behind. ‘She’s been through a lot.’
‘I know she has.’ Mum ran the water over the bowls, staring out the window. ‘But we all have, Mema. It’s what you do with it that counts.’
Even though Old Dog never did that much except move from sleeping spot to sleeping spot, her absence filled the house. After dinner, as the evening light faded into darkness, I knew I wouldn’t sleep for hours, so I hobbled out to Mum’s shed, thinking I’d make some mugs.
My whole body ached from scrabbling around trying to hold the dog, so it was hard to isolate the pain in my foot. I knew it must be hurting ’cause I was limping pretty bad. Once I was in the shed I turned on the lamp and sat down under the spotlight. Putting your hands in clay is always soothing, and for a while I just squashed it about with my fingers, enjoying the squeeze and suck. By the time I got the wheel moving, a lightness had entered me. The pebbles in my mouth had dissolved and I hummed a little under my breath. I got the first two mugs out pretty quick, just going with the shape of the clay. But on the third one I started to wonder about the similarities between clay and flesh. I found myself imagining my fingers were curving around the rim of a shoulder, or the swell of a breast.