I press the phone to my ear. ‘What is it, Rose?’
‘Oh, good, you’re there. I hope it didn’t scare you, me calling like this, but I have just heard from the neighbour and she said Alfie has been barking a lot.’
I scan my brain for a reason why Rose might be calling from Europe to tell me this.
‘Was she okay this morning when you fed her?’
I start to get a bad feeling. ‘I didn’t feed her this morning.’
‘You didn’t?’ Rose says. ‘Why not?’
‘Why not?’ I repeat, trying to make sense of the question. But I can’t.
‘Fern,’ Rose says, ‘tell me you have been feeding and walking Alfie.’
‘I . . . I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘Why do you want me to tell you that?’
There is a long silence, followed by a long, low expletive. I wait, suddenly feeling quite ill.
‘Fern! I told you I would put him in a kennel!’ Rose has her breathless, flustered voice on – the one she uses when talking to people about packages not arriving or being overcharged for the electricity bill. She hardly ever uses this voice with me. ‘You insisted! You said you would feed Alfie!’
I have no recollection of this. But if Rose says I did, then I did. I take a moment to consider the ramifications of this. It’s been four days since Rose went away. Four days since Alfie has been without food or walks. I search my brain for information on how long dogs can survive without food. But I don’t know. I think I might be sick.
Rose is clicking her tongue in that way she does when she is panicking. ‘What are we going to do?’ she says.
I look at Wally, who is watching me intently. ‘You said your van is down the road?’
He nods.
‘Rose,’ I say into the phone. ‘I’m on my way to your house.’
*
Wally is very efficient with time management, as it turns out. After I explain what has happened, he offers to run and get his van (and he does, indeed, run) while I pack up the picnic. By the time I shove everything into the bags and get to the gate, Wally is waiting for me in an orange vintage-looking kombi van. He opens the passenger door from the inside.
‘Where to?’ he asks, and I direct him to Rose’s house, a fifteen-minute drive from the Botanic Gardens. He leaves the radio off as we drive and does me the favour of not talking, which I appreciate as I need to keep my brain space clear to focus on Alfie. Not that I can think much. I feel wobbly with the anxiety of it all. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to keep myself calm. I will be of no use to Alfie unless I can stay calm.
When we pull up outside Rose and Owen’s house, it looks the same as always. Someone must be collecting the mail because there isn’t any sticking out of the letterbox. I wonder why Rose didn’t ask whoever was collecting the post to feed and walk the dog too – if she had, maybe Alfie would be all right.
Wally gets out of the car first. ‘Where will he be?’
‘In the backyard,’ I say.
Wally races up the side of the house and flings open the gate while I walk more slowly behind him, arms still wrapped around myself. When I get to the backyard, I see Alfie is lying on his dog bed on the back verandah. He’s utterly still. I try to take a step toward him but find myself frozen on the spot.
He’s so still. Unmoving. I see him. I feel his skin and hair in my grasp. Wet, dead flesh.
I’ve done it again.
Wally kneels at Alfie’s side. ‘He’s alive. It’s all right, Fern, he’s alive.’
I nod, but relief is slow to come. Alfie’s alive. Not everyone has been as lucky.
‘His water bowl’s dry,’ Wally continues. ‘Where can I find the hose?’
I don’t reply. Wally looks around and finds it himself.
‘We need to take him to the vet,’ Wally says to me, filling the bowl. When I don’t reply, he says, ‘Fern? Fern, I need you to listen to me, okay?’
This appears to be a circuit-breaker, and I snap to attention. ‘Yes. Okay. The vet.’
Wally places the filled water bowl in front of Alfie. When he doesn’t drink, Wally cups water in his hands and holds it to Alfie’s snout. After he’s had a drink, he picks up Alfie as if he were a newborn baby.
‘Fern,’ Wally says. ‘Can you get the car door?’
I do. Once I’m strapped into the passenger seat, Wally passes Alfie to me, positioning him so Alfie’s head is supported by my elbow. The whole process means that Wally is required to touch me several times, and while I am aware of it, I don’t recoil.
The vet has thick grey eyebrows. I am staring at them as he tells us Alfie is lucky. He’s dehydrated apparently (Alfie, not the vet), but he has been rehydrated on intravenous fluids for hours and he’s doing much better now. In fact, most of the vet’s concerns are about how the mix-up happened in the first place. He tells us that in these sorts of cases he usually calls the RSPCA, who then check to ensure the dog is in an adequate home, but Wally manages to convince him that Alfie will be fine in our care. He is impressively convincing. By the time he is finished, even I almost believe him.
‘I assure you,’ he says, ‘it was all a misunderstanding. Alfie could not be in better hands.’
I look at my hands. When I look up again, the vet is looking at me.
‘Do you work, Ms Castle?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I’m a librarian.’
‘So you’re out of the house most of the day?’
‘Yes, but–’ I say.
‘I’ll be with Alfie when she’s at work,’ Wally cuts in. ‘I’m the dog-sitter. Alfie won’t be alone for a moment.’
I look at Wally in
