Beside that miracle, it was scarcely remarkable that Iris Loxley, née de Souza, who had sausage curls and climbed a banyan in the monsoon, Iris, who had an eighteen-inch waist and rode a pony by a mountain stream, that gardenia-scented Iris, bare-shouldered and straight-spined in the gilt-lace frame beside the telephone, should have mutated into this mound of ruined flesh, which had flouted gravity for eighty-two years and was afraid of falling.
N
ELLY HAD
her head back, drinking water. When she passed him the bottle Tom said, ‘Have you noticed? We’ve both stopped calling.’
‘It’s the sun, on top of not enough sleep. Making us dopey.’
‘Or because we know he can’t still be alive.’ Tom said, ‘Look, I can drive you back this evening. Or drop you at a station. No point us both wasting our time.’
‘So let’s say he’s dead. Don’t you want to keep looking anyway? We can still take him home.’
‘Hey, look.’
They bent over the wing: bone and cartilage and dusty brown feathers. Tom’s toes drew back in his boots.
‘Do you think . . . ?’
He sniffed: nothing. ‘Probably been there for days.’
In the clearing nothing seemed to have changed. The smooth tyre, an assortment of damp rubbish. Tom had half expected the remains of brutality: smashed bones, slit corpses strung from trees. His foot stirred a set of filthy cardboard corrugations stamped with a brewer’s logo and uncovered a condom.
‘Did you hear the motorbike? Last night, when you were out?’
‘Don’t think so.’
‘I came looking for you. Couldn’t see you.’
Nelly yawned. Then said, indifferently, ‘I walked up to the top of the hill.’
Tom fastened a length of yellow tape to a branch. Nelly was somewhere on the hillside below. He stepped forward, trying to do so soundlessly. For a while now it had been gaining force, the impression that something was listening to him.
A stick cracked in the distance. Tom peered through the undergrowth and caught a glimpse of red between jittery leaves. He was about to call out to Nelly, when he remembered his dream of the previous week, the stumpy child raging over the roof, its face full of fury. Suddenly he was very frightened. Trees he couldn’t name pressed about him.
Fear revived the memory of an exchange that had taken place months earlier, not long after Tom had begun visiting the Preserve. A tiny fat woman he knew by sight, a friend of Yelena’s, had been complaining about another student. ‘It creeps me out, how she never says much. But just hangs about
watching
everything—you know?’
Yelena said amiably, ‘You are right, it is very powerful this way to be still and observe.’ Her gaze drifted about the little group drinking shiraz from a cardboard box. ‘It is frightening. Like Tom.’
People concentrated on the contents of their glasses. The fat girl’s eyes met Tom’s briefly. A terrified giggle broke from her, and she spoke at once of something else. The conversation slid gratefully away.
Pinned in Nelly’s armchair, Tom was returned to a rainy morning when, in the course of a schoolboy discussion about breakfast, a classmate of his, a boy named Sanjeev Swarup, had said, ‘Boiled eggs make your breath stink. Like Loxley’s.’
There was the shock, never adequately anticipated, of finding himself, the sovereign subject, an object of conversation. There was the terrible content of the statement, of course. But what had pierced Tom was the casualness of Swarup’s remark; a fatal lightness echoed in Yelena’s words. Like Sanjeev Swarup, she had intended neither harm nor provocation, had referred merely to a known, accepted fact. Tom thought, So that is how they see me! It was as if he had glanced down and discovered a precipice at his feet.
It was an incident he had dismissed over time, reasoning that as Yelena and the others came to know him, their view of him had altered. If he had failed to smother the recollection altogether, nevertheless its power to disturb had grown feeble.
But now a curious notion came after Tom, took hold of him and swivelled him, as he blundered among unfamiliar trees. He had assumed that Posner’s hints about Nelly’s fragility had been designed to frighten him off. But what if the dealer had been trying to protect her? From me, thought Tom, horri-fied. The idea was like coming upon something unholy. He fled from it, refusing to look over his shoulder.
He came out of the bush on the southern trail and found Nelly waiting there. She gestured at the shawl of paddocks below them fastened with the bright brooch of a dam. ‘We should search the farm. Jack—even Mick—would’ve spotted anything obvious. But they won’t have been everywhere. There could be something they’ve missed that we’d see.’
Her eyes were pouchy, the whites stained. Tom looked at her scratched hands and grimy clothes and thought, She wants a break from this.
She was saying, ‘Like there’s this old paddock that’s going back to bush with a grassy bit still in the middle. There’s so much you can’t see from the road or take in at a glance, all these tucked-away places.’
‘Why don’t you go back to the house and have a rest? I can keep going here.’
‘I think we should check over the farm. And I’m OK. I don’t need a break.’
Tom could have sworn that the farm track was empty when they first turned on to it. Then he saw that a woman was standing by the bank, in the shade of an overhanging branch. As if released by a Play button, she began moving towards them.
‘I was just on my way up to your place.’ It was the first thing Denise said, as if her presence there required justification. And then, ‘Hi Nelly.’
‘Hi.’ After a moment, Nelly said, ‘How you doing?’
‘Yeah, good. You?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s good. You look good.’
This was so patently absurd that Nelly smiled. At once, something invisible altered, as if a breeze had found its way into a room.
Denise looked at Tom. ‘This bloke came into the clinic who’s done his hamstring. He said he saw your dog up near Walhalla.’
‘That’s miles away!’ But hope sprang open instantly within Tom. ‘When was this?’
‘This morning. Oh—when did he see the dog? Sunday, I think. I gave him one of your flyers so he could call you.’ Denise was digging in the back pocket of her jeans; embroidered white cotton tightened over her breasts.
‘Here you go.’ She handed Tom a Post-it. ‘I got his number, in case.’
He had his phone out. ‘Thanks. I’ll take this up to the top of the hill.’
‘You’re welcome to call from the farm if it’s easier.’
‘No, it’s fine. Thanks. Thanks.’
No messages.
He called his landline. Nothing.
He sat on his heels in the grass beside the track. Two magpies swooped low, a third began to sing. A long, greenish beetle lifted one antenna, toiling past Tom’s foot while somewhere a phone rang and rang.
‘Hello?’
He said, ‘Could I speak to Trevor, please? My name’s Loxley.’
‘Who?’
‘Tom Loxley. I think Trevor saw my dog. Is he there?’
He could hear her breathing while she thought it over. Then she shouted, ‘Trev, you there? Trev?’
There were voices; indistinct. Tom pictured the receiver, held against her breast.
A man said, ‘Yeah, g’day?’
Tom explained.
‘Yeah, sorry mate, I was gunna call, but the day got away?’
In the background, the woman said something. Trev said something. Tom cried, ‘You’re breaking up.’
‘What?’
‘I didn’t catch what you said.’
‘Listen, mate, I dunno—’
The woman said, ‘It’s me. Shirl? What he’s trying to say, love, it wasn’t your dog.’
After a moment, Tom said, ‘Are you sure?’
‘I was the one spotted him, love. By the side of this track coupla hundred yards this side of Walhalla? Cute little tyke.’
‘Little.’
‘Yeah, little curly white fella, got a bit of that Malteser in him, I reckon? I didn’t get a real good look. Took off into the bush when I slowed down. Like he just vanished?’
‘So he definitely wasn’t . . .’
‘No, love. Nothing like, except they’re both white. Trev just remembered I said I’d seen a white dog.’
‘Right. OK.’
‘Sorry, love.’
The women’s faces were turned to the bend in the track. Tom saw the light go out of them at the sight of his own.
When he explained, Denise said, ‘That Trevor Opie. Might’ve known—guy’s a dickhead.’
‘At least we haven’t wasted much time. Back to Plan A.’
Tom understood that Nelly’s briskness wasn’t directed at him alone; that one of the people she was trying to rally was herself. All the same, it set his teeth on edge.
She was saying, ‘Nees says she’ll come with us. Help us search the farm.’
Nees! Unreasonably, that grated too.
‘Thanks, Denise. But to be honest, the last thing I feel like doing right now is traipsing around a whole lot of paddocks.’ Tom said, ‘We could look over the farm tomorrow morning if you like. But let’s face it, the whole thing’s a waste of time, really.’
He saw the two of them exchange glances; adults dealing with a fractious child.
Nelly said, ‘It’s just—’ She gestured skywards. ‘This weather.’
‘Yeah, you’ve already made that point. Three weeks without food, three days without water. Wasn’t that how it went?’
Nelly started to say something. He cut across her, keeping his tone very level. ‘Just think it through. If the rope got caught up in some undergrowth, he’s been trapped in one spot for nine days without food. If he’s still alive, he’s already gone twenty-four hours without water. So if we’re looking anywhere, it’s got to be in the bush. Where you know as well as I do, we’ll never find him.’
‘But the thing is to act like we will. And to try everything we can think of. Like he might’ve got free at some point. Headed for the farm looking for food and collapsed there.’
‘Yeah, he might have. And he might have been picked up by someone who dumped him on the freeway, or used him as target practice, or took him home as an early Christmas present for the kiddies. Or he might have been bitten by a snake, or a fox might have waited till he was weak enough and finished him off. We can imagine whatever we like. But believing we’ll find him out there is just deluded.’
‘It’s not, it’s hoping. It’s not like giving up’s going to get us anywhere.’
Sweaty and furious, the two of them glared at each other.
Afterwards, they wouldn’t be able to agree on what Denise said. She was looking past them, at the path climbing to the ridge. When she spoke, Tom turned his head. A dog had appeared in the distance, small against the sky.
‘Nearest vet’s Traralgon.’ Denise glanced at her watch. ‘You’ll just make it before he closes. I’ll call and let them know you’re on your way.’
Tom said, ‘The house—’ ‘Leave everything. I’ll lock up and that. Just grab what you need and go.’ She was turning away, heading downhill towards the farm.
Nelly was already running in the opposite direction. Tom gathered up the dog and followed.
As the car approached the farm, Denise came racing out of the gate. She thrust a bag through Nelly’s window. ‘Thermos. Only instant but I figured it was better than nothing. Hope you take milk and sugar.’
‘Denise, you’re a goddess.’
‘There’s some honey there as well. Feed him honey,’ shouted Denise.
Nelly leaned out, waving. The dog was a sack of dull fur on a doona spread over the back seat. In the mirror, Denise stood with her wrists on her hips, watching them go.
‘Getting a bit old for this kind of caper, aren’t you fella?’ The vet’s long nose was blunt at the tip, as if someone had placed a finger there and pushed. He tickled the dog’s chest; examined the gash on his foreleg, the shallower slits above. ‘Rope cuts.
Every time he tugged on it, the rope would’ve twisted tighter around his leg. See how it’s just starting to scab over? I reckon he got free sometime in the last twenty-four hours.’
When Tom put his arms around him, the dog squirmed and struggled. His claws scrabbled on the table. An unbearably light bundle, he hated being carried. He had lost eight kilos, a third of his weight. His hips were angle brackets coated with fur.
‘He’ll need plenty of sleep, plenty of good tucker. Small amounts: four, five meals a day. No meat to begin with and introduce it gradually. Wouldn’t do any harm to have your regular vet check him out in the next few days.’
‘You know, in a way he looks pretty good,’ said Nelly. ‘Look how bright his eyes are.’
‘That’s how fasting works. The toxins go, along with the fat. But I wouldn’t like to say how much more he could’ve taken. You found him pretty much just in time, I reckon.’
‘It was the other way round,’ said Tom. ‘He found us.’
The dog licked honey from Nelly’s fingers. In the waiting room, he strained at a cage of snow-bellied kittens.
On the far side of the clipped pittosporums that separated the clinic from the street, an invisible woman said, ‘She’s good-looking in that really obvious way. You know?’
Tom put his hand over his ear. ‘What?’
In the city, Iris cried, ‘You’re not coming tonight?’
‘Ma, I’m still at the vet’s, it’s hours away—’ Tom broke off. ‘Not tonight. We’ll have dinner tomorrow, OK?’
‘What?’
‘Dinner
tomorrow
!’
‘All right.’
He said, ‘Ma, do you understand? He’s very thin, but he’s basically OK.’
‘I know.’ Iris had greeted the news with the same calm. ‘It’s a miracle. Saint Anthony never fails.’
‘What I don’t get is, if the rope got twisted around something and he chewed through it, or if it wore through somehow, why wasn’t the end of it still tied to his collar?’
‘Because the knot worked loose,’ said Nelly.
‘I’ve had that knot on my mind ever since he ran off. There’s no way it would’ve come undone.’
They shot past a car on the shoulder of the freeway, its hazard lights flashing. A man paced beside it, talking into a phone. A little further on, a billboard floated a lucent female over a city, replacing her entrails with skyscrapers.
‘What was it called, that magic in knots? Didn’t you say it could work for good?’
‘Do you think someone might’ve found him caught up in the bush?’ Tom was hearing a motorbike fading into the night. ‘Just untied the knot and let him go?’