The Idea of Perfection (35 page)

Outside she heard the dog bark once, a deep confident bark. That was its way of reminding her. Just the one courteous little bark. Just to let her know it was still there, still hungry.

Instead of going back to the discouraging heap of fabric on the table, she sat down on the couch. She was upright, polite, like a visitor. Lorraine Smart had been reading a glossy magazine with ARE YOU HAPPY? on the cover. She flipped through the pages. Happy faces smiled back at her, holding casseroles and babies, telling her about Virgo’s February, being pleased with their lipstick.

You could do a quiz to see if you were HAPPY, but Harley did not do that. When she came to that page, she turned quickly on.

No, she wanted to tell someone. No, I am not happy.

It was silly, and she would not, but she wanted to cry.

 

 

Later, trying to sleep, she lay on Lorraine Smart’s lumpy daybed, watching the sky outside the window. It was like the sleepout at Gran’s:
inside,
but
outside
too. The stars were big, close, busy twinkling away to each other. In the country, looking up at the sky at night, it was hard not to start thinking about eternity. Thinking about eternity was supposed to bring on calm and cosmic thoughts. It was supposed to be good for
unwinding
you.

It did not seem to be having that effect. She lay stiffly staring into the dark, trying to breathe evenly. With the light off, the night was suddenly full of many small surreptitious noises. There were rustlings and swishings that could be the sound of wind in the leaves. But they could also be the anxious and unhappy small noises made by a hungry dog ranging around the backyard, wondering what it had done wrong.

She hoped it had given up when it saw the last light go out, and was lying down now on its sack, preparing for sleep in spite of its empty stomach. She hoped it was not still standing out there, ears pricked forward, tail poised ready to wag, watching the back door for her to appear there with the chipped enamel plate and the tin of Pal.

She lay on her back, clenching her fists.
Tight, tight, tighter.

Something in the backyard made a sharp snap.

Her neck was rigid with the strain of holding herself still, listening. She felt she had become one big ear, swivelled out into the backyard.

She could feel her fingernails digging into the palm of her hand.

Her hand was
relaxed,
but the rest of her was not. She was getting a cramp in one leg from trying so hard to
relax.

It was a relief to fling back the covers and go out to the kitchen. The light sprang on so harshly she had to cover her eyes. The door of the cupboard banged angrily as she got out the tin of Pal, the giant size, big enough for a whole kennel ful of dogs. The Mini-Mart had
just sold the last
of all the smaller tins.

She opened the door and her shadow, very black, zigzagged away from her feet down the back steps, the light behind her sending a frail yellow wash out into the blackness of the backyard.

The dog came up out of the shadows straight away, not at all surprised, right up the steps to her feet. It waved its tail, panted, shifted from paw to paw, backing clumsily down in front of her, one step at a time, turning on each to make sure she was still there. She held the green enamel plate up in the air and pushed at the dog with the side of her foot. She did not exactly kick it, but it had to move quickly.

At the foot of the steps it turned and stood staring up at her so intently it forgot to go on wagging its tail. It smacked its mouth closed with a slurp of its tongue and cocked its head sideways at her. Its eyes went from her face to the plate and back again.

When she put the plate down on the square of pink concrete under the Hill’s Hoist, the dog was on it before it touched the ground. It ate in ugly gulps, jerking the food down. Even after the food was gone, it went on licking the plate so hard it was pushed around and around the square of pink concrete with a desperate scraping noise. Finally the plate was clean, smeared only with dog spit, the pink concrete dabbed with darker patches where its tongue had gone looking for every crumb. Then it looked up at her with its ears pricked so hard it looked painful.

It was the look of
adoration
that filled her with a kind of panic.

No, she said.

It was the first time she had said anything to the dog. Its tail beat faster, backwards and forwards.

No! she said, louder.

The dog did not seem to realise that
no
was a rejection. It only knew the difference between words and not-words. As far as the dog was concerned, a
no
was just as good as a
yes:
it was a
conversation.

She jabbed into the tin with a spoon, raking out another plateful.
All right then,
she thought angrily.
Take that, then.
When the dog had eaten that, she scraped out another, thumping the spoon furiously on the plate.
All right, go on.
Then a third. Still the dog gulped the food down, chased the plate around the concrete with its tongue, panted up at her for more. She stabbed angrily at the last of the red jelly in the tin, slopping it furiously out on to the plate.
Take it then, if you want it so much. Go on.
This time the dog only sniffed and mumbled at the food. Suddenly it bucked, jerked, and on a hoarse abrupt bark brought it all up.

The bird started up again with the only words it had.
Come here! Come here, Johnny! Johnny!

She made a disgusted grunt and hurled the empty tin at the fence. The bird squawked once and was silent.

In the grass near the steps, a cricket went on blandly.
Tickticktick ticktick ticktickticktickticktick.

 

 

Back in bed, she thought of the dog, hungry again, sniffing at its vomit out in the dark. She could imagine the puzzled look it would have. She imagined it coming up to the steps, looking up, meek, silent, prepared to wait.

She thought of herself, vengefully hacking the dog food out of the tin. It was always like that when things turned into
relationships.
Where there were relationships there was no avoiding
meanness, malice, fear, guilt.
Every kind of
danger.

She lay awake for a long time. It was a hot night, but her feet seemed cold.

IT HAD BEEN Coralie’s idea to put up partitions in the Mechanics’ Institute to make a series of little bays, each one like a real kitchen or bedroom or laundry. The partitions were up now, and so were the shelves and benches. There was a smell of fresh paint from where Harley and Coralie had done them. They had had to leave the blue and pink ceiling because it was too high to deal with, but at eye level it was all white now, ready for the exhibits.

Harley was doing the labels today, a boring job, but people took things more seriously if they had a proper professional-looking label. Coralie had brought an ancient typewriter to do them with that was almost a historical artefact in itself. Sometimes with the museum business it was hard to know where to stop.

Coralie had made a chocolate cake for them to eat before they started, but when she cut it, it was still runny in the middle.

Not to worry, she said. Eat it with spoons, that’s all.

She had brought a bottle of Pimm‘s, too.

Thought we needed a bit of keeping up our strength, you know, while we work.

Outside a harsh dry wind rattled something on the roof and a branch kept tapping against the high windows. The Pimm’s made a cheerful party sound as she splashed it into the glasses.

Harley took a swallow and coughed.

Like it, do you? Coralie said. I’m partial to a Pimm’s on a hot day.

Mrs Trimm’s range had been fitted by Leith’s husband into the HEARTH AND HOME room, with a wooden mantelpiece over it. The effect was very convincing. Mrs Trimm’s range was called REX in black bas-relief, the way Gran’s had been AGA. Harley imagined them:
Agatha
and
Rex,
having their Golden Wedding Anniversary.

AND SO TO BED had the narrow sapling stretcher, and the butter-box cradle and the fruit-box dressing-table with the cretonne ruching. There was a strange yellow velvet object with a hard triangular base, that had come with a note in tremulous old-lady’s handwriting explaining that it was the jawbone of a Tasmanian Tiger made into a pincushion. That sat on the chest of drawers made of kerosene tins, and up on the wall behind it was a picture of a rather podgy kangaroo made of little brown things glued on to a sheet of wood. Harley had thought at first they were pellets of sheep shit, but they turned out to be gumnuts.

More was on its way. A baby’s high chair from butter-boxes had been promised, and a Coolgardie cool-safe. Someone called Pearlie had promised an original jute-bag wagga, and someone else out near Badham had sent word through Coralie that she had a pair of boots home-made by her great-grandfather, mended with nails, and did that count as Heritage?

There would be more than they could ever display, but Freddy Chang was doing well with the photos. He seemed to have really thrown himself into it. Sometimes, now, when she passed the shop, she saw the sign propped up in the window:
Closed.
Back 3
p. m.

Hope Freddy’s business isn’t suffering, Harley said. He’s always in the darkroom, by the look of it.

But Coralie laughed, fanning herself with a big glossy photo of a boomerang-shaped doily.

I wouldn’t worry, pet, she said. Some of us have got a fair idea what goes on at lunch time in Freddy’s dark room.

She was careful to make it two words.

Know what I mean, pet?

A blowfly came at them out of nowhere, buzzed the cake, settled for an instant on Coralie’s hair, zigzagged away and burred against a window. Outside, Harley could hear the wind going on and on.

Chook and I came courting here, Coralie said suddenly. He had a key and that, from being in the woodchop team.

She stood up and smoothed her skirt down over her hips, looking around the hall.

Used to come here and pash in the dark.

She sat down again and poured herself another Pimm’s.

I thought he was that good-looking. He’s thickened out now, type of thing. Plus he was a bit of a hero, being State Champ.

She sipped at her Pimm’s as though it were hot.

Do anything with an axe, made a toothpick for a bet once. But he’s not much of a conversationalist. Not at home. And I like a chat, type of thing.

She glanced at Harley.

Plus I’m a stickybeak, as you know.

She swallowed Pimm’s and smothered a burp.

Pardon me. Now you’re not a stickybeak, are you?

But, not waiting for Harley to find an answer, she got up and went across the hall to where the blowfly was hysterical against the glass, pulled the cord that worked the high window. Suddenly the fly was gone. It left a large silence behind.

Now, pet, she said, and Harley felt the familiar little pulse of apprehension.

Have a look here.

She had something tied up in a sugar-bag.

Made it for Chook to take rabbiting, she said. Donkey’s years ago.

Her strong short fingers were being patient with the knot in the string at the neck of the bag.

Not that he rabbits much any more, she said. Anyway, we’ve gone over to the Dacron now.

She reached into the bag with both arms and pulled out a clot of fabric: a bush quilt, pieces of faded fabric over something lumpy inside.

There’s Auntie Em’s blue coat, and there’s my pink dress I got from Farmer’s.

She touched the square of pink flowered cotton.

My word I loved that dress.

The back was made up of squares of calico with a picture of a big red flower and the words
Wagga Lily Flour
stencilled on each piece. The stitches had come apart in the middle so you could see what was inside.

Woolly socks were good, Coralie said. Open them out flat, the tops, where they weren’t worn.

There it was, a grey sock-top with a maroon stripe.

Everything had been flattened out and roughly tacked down on to the backing with big looping stitches.

The kids wanted me to chuck it out, Coralie said. Mum, they says, it’s a dirty old thing, get rid of it.

Once on the sapling bed it looked less lumpy, and you could see how the big piece of
the dress from Farmer’s
balanced the various pieces of
Auntie Em’s coat.

They stood admiring it. Coralie thought it should go the other way up, so they turned it round and stood back to admire it again. Then Coralie turned towards her with a flash of her glasses.

What did you think of the Panorama, anyhow? she said casually. My niece, that’s my sister’s Janelle, she works up there now. Just part-time.