The Lost Dog
Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated to Australia when she was 14. She was educated in Melbourne and Paris. Michelle has worked as a university tutor, editor and a book reviewer. She is the author of two other novels,
The Rose Grower
and
The Hamilton Case
.
Praise for
The Lost Dog
‘A captivating read . . . I could read this book 10 times and get a phew perspective each time. It’s simply riveting.’
Caroline Davison,
Glasgow Evening Times
‘. . . remarkably rich and complex . . . De Kretser has a wicked, exacting, mocking eye . . . While very funny in places,
The Lost Dog
is also a subtle and understated work, gently eloquent and thought-provoking . . . a tender and thoughtful book, a meditation on loss and finding, on words and wordlessness, and on memory, identity, history and modernity.’
The Dominion Post
‘Michelle de Kretser is the fastest rising star in Australia’s literary firmament . . . stunningly beautiful.’
Metro
‘. . . a wonderful tale of obsession, art, death, loss, human failure and past and present loves. One of Australia’s best contemporary writers.’
Harper’s Bazaar
‘In many ways this book is wonderfully mysterious. The whole concept of modernity juxtaposed with animality is a puzzle that kept this reader on edge for the entire reading.
The Lost Dog
is an intelligent and insightful book that will guarantee de Kretser a loyal following.’
Mary Philip,
Courier-Mail
‘Engrossing . . . De Kretser confidently marshals her reader back and forth through the book’s complex flashback structure, keeping us in suspense even as we read simply for the pleasure of her prose . . . De Kretser knows when to explain and when to leave us deliciously wondering.’
Seattle Times
‘De Kretser continues to build a reputation as a stellar storyteller whose prose is inventive, assured, gloriously colourful and deeply thoughtful.
The Lost Dog
is a love story and a mystery and, at its best, possesses an accessible and seemingly effortless sophistication . . . a compelling book, simultaneously playful and utterly serious.’
Patrick Allington,
Adelaide Advertiser
‘A nuanced portrait of a man in his time. The novel, like Tom, is multicultural, intelligent, challenging and, ultimately, rewarding.’
Library Journal
‘This book is so engaging and thought-provoking and its subject matter so substantial that the reader notices only in passing how funny it is.’ Kerryn Goldsworthy,
Sydney Morning Herald
‘. . . rich, beautiful, shocking, affecting’ Clare Press,
Vogue
‘. . . a cerebral, enigmatic reflection on cultures and identity . . .
Ruminative and roving in form . . . intense, immaculate.’
Kirkus Reviews
‘De Kretser is as piercing in her observations of a city as Don DeLillo is at his best . . . this novel is a love song to a city . . . a delight to read, revealing itself in small, gem-like scenes.’
NZ Listener
‘. . . de Kretser’s trademark densely textured language, rich visual imagery and depth of description make
The Lost Dog
a delight to savour as well as a tale to ponder.’
Australian Bookseller and Publisher
‘A remarkably good novel, a story about human lives and the infinite mystery of them.’
Next
‘Confident, meticulous plotting, her strong imagination and her precise, evocative prose. Like
The Hamilton Case
,
The Lost Dog
opens up rich vistas with its central idea and introduces the reader to a world beyond its fictional frontiers.’ Lindsay Duguid
, Sunday Times
“[a] clever, engrossing novel . . . De Kretser’s beautifully shaded book moves between modern day Australia and post-colonial India. Mysteries and love affairs are unfolded but never fully resolved, and as Tom searches for his dog, it becomes apparent that its whereabouts is only one of the puzzles in his life.” Tina Jackson,
Metro
‘A richly layered literary text.’ Emmanuelle Smith,
Big Issue
First published in 2007
This edition published in 2008
Copyright © Michelle de Kretser 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
The Australian Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218
Email: [email protected]
Web:
www.allenandunwin.com
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
De Kretser, Michelle.
The lost dog.
ISBN 978 1 74175 606 7 (pbk.).
I. Title.
A823.3
Painting by Marina Strocchi
Detail of ‘Red Wheel’ 2005
Acrylic on linen 137 x 122 cm
With thanks to the artist and Nellie Castan Gallery, Melbourne
Text designed by Ampersand Duck
Typeset in Minion by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
THE LoST Dog
MicHELLE de KRETSER
Also by Michelle de Kretser
The Rose Grower
The Hamilton Case
For Gus, of course
The whole of anything can never be told.
Henry James,
Notebooks
CONTENTS
A
FTERWARDS,
HE WOULD REMEMBER
paddocks stroked with light. He would remember the spotted trunks of gum trees; the dog arching past to sniff along the fence.
He cleaned his teeth at the tap on the water tank. The house in the bush had no running water, no electricity. It was only sporadically inhabited and had grown grimy with neglect. But Tom Loxley, spitting into the luxuriant weeds by the tap that November morning, thought, Light, air, space, silence. The Benedictine luxuries.
He placed his toothpaste and brush on a log at the foot of the steps; and later forgot where he had left them. Night would send him blundering about a room where torchlight swung across the wall, and what he could find and what he needed were not the same thing.
On the kitchen table, beside Tom’s laptop, was the printout of his book,
Meddlesome Ghosts: Henry James and the Uncanny.
He remembered the elation he had felt the previous evening, drafting the final paragraph; the impression that he had nailed it all down at last. It was to this end that he had rented Nelly Zhang’s house for four days, days in which he had written fluently and with conviction; to his surprise, because he was in the habit of proceeding hesitantly, and the book had been years in the making.
He owed this small triumph to Nelly, who had said, ‘It’s what you need. No distractions, and you won’t have to worry about kennels.’
This evidence of her concern had moved Tom. At the same time, he thought, She wants the money. The web of their relations was shot through with these ambivalences, shade and bright twined with such cunning that their pattern never settled.
His jacket hung on the back of a chair. He put it on, then paused: shuffled pages, squared off the stack of paper, touched what he had accomplished. James’s dictum caught his eye:
Experience is never limited, and it is never complete.
When Tom called, raising his voice, the dog went on nosing through leaves and damp grass. It was their last morning there; the territory was no longer new. Yet whenever the dog was allowed outside, he would race to the far end of the yard and start working his way along the fence. Instinct, deepened over centuries, compelled him to check boundaries; drew him to the edges of knowledge.
Afterwards, Tom would remember the dog ignoring him, and the spurt of impatience he had felt. The dog had to be walked and the house packed up before the long drive back to the city. He was keen to get moving while the weather held. So he didn’t pat the dog’s soft head when he strode to the fence and reached for him.
The dog was standing still, one forepaw raised; listening.
Tea-coloured puddles sprawled on the track. A cockatoo flying up from a sapling dislodged a rhinestone spray. It was a wet spring even in the city, and in these green hills, it rained and rained.
The dog’s paw-pads were shining jet. He sniffed, and sneezed, and plunged into dithering grass. A twenty-foot rope kept him from farmland and forest while affording him greater freedom than his lead.
The man picking his way through rutted mud at the other end of the rope disliked the cold. Tom Loxley had spent two-thirds of his life in a cool southern city. But his childhood had been measured in monsoons, and the first windows he knew had contained the Arabian Sea. Free hand shoved deep in his pocket, he held himself tight against the morning.
Light rubbed itself over the paddocks. It struck silver from the cockatoo and splintered the windscreen of a toy truck threading up the mountain where trees went down to steel. But what Tom took from the scene was the thrust and weight of leaves, the season’s green upswinging. Over time, his eye had grown accustomed to the bleached pigments of the continent where he had made his life. But love takes shape before we know it. On a damp, plumed coast in India, Tom’s first encounter with landscape had been dense with leaves. A faultless place for him would always be a green one.