Fifteen Love (17 page)

But no, he's not here, which means he's somewhere else. But where?

I am running out of possibilities.

The park, of course! Of course, Dave is in the park – doing his chin-ups, proving to himself, yet again, that he's stronger than his big brother. The park is the place I should have looked first. Dave isn't running away. He's in the park, waiting patiently to take Harriet for a walk.

The park seems like a long, long way from the pool. It's a sunny afternoon and by the time Harriet and I get there we are both panting loudly and soaked in sweat. The park is deserted. There is nothing but trees and grass in every direction. Out of desperation, I let Harriet off the leash and she runs away, spurred on by some unknown excitement. I follow her at a distance, doing my best to keep up as she speeds towards the chin-up bars, barking with excitement.

There, on the ground, I see something that lifts my hopes like a wave, then smashes them against the rocks.

It is Dave's empty wheelchair, collapsed and lying on its side.

MIA

‘Should we call the police?' Mum asks, on the way to rehearsal.

‘Definitely not!'

‘What about Harriet? What if something has gone wrong?'

‘Will is probably . . . caught up in something,' I say, trying to sound convinced.

‘Is he coming to the concert? Does he know when it starts?'

‘He knows . . . He's coming.'

‘Well, I hope he's not late. Remember, he's already let you down once.'

‘He won't be late, Mum . . . He'd better not be.'

WILL

Dave has disappeared into thin air. Dave has evaporated. He has been abducted, assassinated, sold into slavery, murdered. Harriet is barking up a tree, but it's the wrong tree. There is no sign of Dave in any direction.

‘Dave!' I shout. ‘Where are you?'

No answer. Not even an echo.

Harriet suctions the folded wheelchair for clues, then suddenly takes off across the grass in the direction of the lake. There's a big clump of reeds growing by the water's edge. Maybe Dave has crawled in there or
been dragged in there
by some mutant urban
THING
! Harriet is almost to the reeds when she hears another dog barking. From across the park, a mongrel comes running – a big ugly bruiser of a dog without a collar. Harriet stops. With her tail in the air she turns to face the new dog, which wastes no time in sniffing her out. But before Harriet has time to return the compliment, the brute is snarling. Harriet's tail drops. She yelps and tries to run, but the heavyweight mongrel grabs her by the throat and starts to shake her violently, trying to break her neck.

‘GET AWAY!'

I pick up a stick and run towards them. When the mongrel sees me coming it releases Harriet and bares its teeth. Instead of turning to run it snaps its jaws again and – like Iron Mike Tyson – bites off a piece of Harriet's ear. Only after I hit it hard across its back and kick it does it finally run away.

Harriet is instantly on her feet, barking excitedly with blood streaming from her mauled ear. From a tree beside the lake, I hear a wild thrashing of leaves. I look up and see Dave, half-falling, half-climbing down from way up high. A twig snaps and I watch in horror as he topples head over heels, clears the lowest branch and lands, somehow, on his feet! For what seems like forever, he stands in that miraculous position, screaming at the fleeing mongrel, before finally sinking to his knees.

‘Dave!'

‘Call an ambulance, Will! We've got to get Harriet to hospital!'

MIA

I show Ms Stanway my new viola while the orchestra is setting up on the stage. Ms S inspects it briefly, plays a few bars and tells me I am a lucky girl. The musicians are tuning their instruments, playing their scales and running through their different parts. There is no sound on earth so chaotic yet so full of expectation as an orchestra tuning. Ms S runs through her reminder notes, then she has a pink fit about how we will take our bows and in what order, who will carry their instruments and who will leave them behind. In the time remaining, we play the Vivaldi – all twelve movements – stopping only once, when the woodwinds launch in two bars early. I play my parts without a mistake, but even on my new viola it is hard to play with passion. My eyes follow the notes without reading them and my fingers go through the motions. Whenever anyone arrives or leaves the hall, I look up hoping to see Will.

WILL

Dave and I sit in the waiting room while behind the white door, the vet stitches Harriet's ear. I have never seen Dave so worried. He wriggles and fidgets and keeps asking questions.

‘Will Harriet have a general anaesthetic, Will, or just a local?'

‘I don't know, Dave.'

‘Will it hurt, Will? Will she be scared?'

‘She's a brave little dog, Dave.'

‘Will she be okay, Will? Will she still be able to hear?'

‘I'm sure she'll be fine.'

‘Will you miss the concert? Will Mia be mad at you?'

‘I hope not, Dave.'

‘It wasn't our fault, Will. It was that other dog. Why was it so angry?'

‘Some dogs are bred to fight, Dave.'

‘Why do people
have
dogs like that, Will?'

‘Some people are like their dogs, Dave. They're bred to fight.'

‘But we weren't scared of it, were we?'

‘I was a bit scared, Dave.'

‘Me too, Will.'

‘You didn't look scared, Dave. You looked angry.'

‘Dogs know it when you're scared, don't they, Will? They can smell fear.'

‘Everyone can smell it, Dave.'

‘Is that why you lost the tennis match, Will?'

‘I guess it is.'

‘But you're not a choker, Will. You weren't scared of those boys at the party.'

‘I was a bit scared, Dave.'

‘Did you ever feel like running away, Will?'

‘I think everyone feels like running away sometimes, Dave.'

‘It would be pretty stupid if everyone ran away, Will. Where would they all go?'

‘How did you get up that tree, Dave?'

‘I climbed, of course.'

‘But how did you get there without your wheelchair?'

Dave grins. ‘What? Do you think I'm disabled?'

MIA

Boys are unreliable. They are fundamentally, genetically and
primordially
unreliable. They will do anything to try to meet you, but then they can't talk. They will invite you to the tennis, even though they can't actually
be
there. They will trample your flowers. They will treat you like cattle. They will sleaze around with your ex-best friend. They will promise to come to the most important event in your life, but instead they will steal your dog and never come back. Will Holland is unreliable – he cannot be relied on. If this were a tennis match; if I was an athlete, instead of a musician; if there were any gold medals to be won or toe-sucking to be had, I'm sure things would be different.

Slowly but steadily, the clock ticks down to starting time. The doors open and people begin to stream in. They take up their seats and start reading their programs – all the mums and dads and brothers and sisters and grannies and grandpas and aunties and uncles, come to see the concert, come to be reliable. Mum and Dad arrive together, but not together, if you know what I mean. I give Mum a hopeful look and she shakes her head grimly. No Harriet. No Will. Nothing to rely on.

The lights of the house go down and Ms Stanway walks onto the stage. She welcomes the audience and tells them about the composer.

‘Antonio Vivaldi was born in Venice in the seventeenth century. A prolific composer and a virtuoso violinist, he was rich at the height of his fame but died in poverty. Of the 500
concertos
he wrote, the most popular were four known as
Le Quattro Stagioni
–
The Four Seasons
.'

The audience applauds as Ms S takes up her baton and turns to face the orchestra. We raise our instruments and with a nod from Ms S we're away!
Allegro
– the first movement of ‘Spring'. It's the catchy, melodic, swingy,
springy
movement that everyone instantly recognises and the orchestra knows off by heart. There are a few tricky bits where the violins spin and weave like butterflies, then a fast bit for the strings, which we play almost perfectly. Ms S is smiling. All her hard work is paying off.

When the first movement ends, there's a brief pause before the second –
largo e pianissimo sempre
. As the players turn the pages of their sheet music, preparing to start, there's a sound as explosive as gunshots, coming from the back of the hall.

Someone is clapping!

WILL

Dave and I sneak in the door as the orchestra is starting. There are no empty seats. If Dave hadn't been in a wheelchair, we might not have been let in. We move to the back corner without being noticed, but when Dave starts clapping at the end of the first movement, people turn around in disgust. When they see who he is, their angry stares change to amusement, which in my book is even worse. Instead of telling Dave to stop clapping, I join in.

The second movement of ‘Spring' is a quiet, gentle number. It's impossible to say for sure what the music is all about, but because it's called ‘Spring', I imagine a garden. The sun is shining and bees are buzzing all around between the brightly coloured flowers. One bee is going about its business when it notices a particular flower. The more the bee looks at this flower, the more and more beautiful it seems. In the third movement, the tempo picks up and the bee starts to go a bit crazy. It buzzes around and around the flower, but doesn't have the nerve to land. In the end the bee returns to the hive, sad and honey-less.

When ‘Summer' comes, everything slows right down. The orchestra has a siesta while the first violinist kills a few blow-flies, turns on the fan and grabs a cool drink from the fridge. In the second movement, he puts his feet up and watches the cricket, then in the third everyone piles into the car and heads off to the beach. The sky is blue and off in the distance two white yachts are racing across the sparkling water. When they get to the floating buoy, one turns around while the other keeps on going. It's all very deep and meaningful.

‘Autumn' starts with a bang. It's as if there's a big game of football between two old rivals. After getting off to a good start, the game begins to get messy. Someone kicks the ball out of the stadium, then the players start fighting and the umpire accidentally gets flattened. The second movement is slow, like falling leaves. The footy game has been abandoned and now everyone is out in the park, helping to rake up the leaves. They make a pile as big as a bonfire, then in the third movement, someone lights a match and the whole thing goes up in smoke. It makes a beautiful blaze, though.

When ‘Winter' comes, the scene shifts to Antarctica. There are mountains of ice and glaciers breaking up into icebergs. In the howling wind, weary explorers are trudging knee-deep through the endless snow. In the second movement, one of the explorers falls down a crack and has to be thrown a rope. It's a tense situation, but they finally get him out, unharmed. By the third and final movement they're all back at base camp, enjoying a cup of hot chocolate. It's a bit of an anticlimax, really.

Suddenly everyone in the audience is on their feet, applauding loudly. For the entire concert the only noise between movements has been old people coughing, babies crying or Dave asking me if he can clap yet.

‘Go for it, Dave!' I say.

The two of us let rip, stomping and whistling until Ms Stanway walks back on stage. The audience sits down as the orchestra prepares to play an encore.

The encore they choose is ‘Spring', so that the concert ends as it started and the seasons continue in an unbroken cycle. Just when you think things are all over, they're starting up again.

I look up at Mia and she sees me. I give her a big thumbs up, to say that Harriet is fine, and she smiles and mouths the words ‘Thank you', as if she can guess what we have been through.

It's spring, all over again.

MIA

After the show there are coffee and biscuits out in the foyer. I talk to Mum and Dad, then I talk to someone else's mum and dad, then someone else's grandma and grandpa. Everyone says what a wonderful concert it was and how beautifully we played. It doesn't matter that I've never seen these people before and will probably never see them again. It feels like one big happy family.

Will and his brother are there in the corner, and finally I get a chance to speak to them. But before Will can say anything, Dave is pumping my arm and raving loudly.

‘It was fantastic, but we almost didn't make it! Poor Harriet! But she's okay, don't worry. I loved
The Four Seasons
, especially the bits when everyone played at the same time. It was so loud! Are you doing another concert, because if you are I want to come. Do you have a CD? Where can I buy it? Tell her that joke, Will – the one about the viola and the trampoline!'

I turn to Will. ‘What happened to Harriet?'

‘She's back at our place,' he says. ‘She was helping me find Dave.'

WILL

Mia wants to see Harriet. Her Mum says it's okay, so she and Dave and I walk home together. Dave is lapping up Mia's attention. He tells her in gory detail all about Harriet's fight, and how he jumped out of a tree to save her.

‘I've decided I don't want to run away from home,' he says. ‘I want to play in an orchestra. I want to learn an instrument like that black one with all the knobs and the silver blower on the end. Will says it's called a baboon!'

Harriet is in our laundry, curled up on an old blanket. She's sedated and bandaged but happy to see us. Mia has tears in her eyes as she kneels down beside the little beagle to give her a loving hug.

‘You were so brave, girl. There are some nasty dogs out there.'