Dark Roots (20 page)

When he finally returns she is sitting on the floor in the laundry, grimly going through their socks and picking out the embedded corkscrew grass. Summer hasn't even really hit yet; she'll have months of this ahead.
Get used to it
, she tells herself.
You wanted it, now put up or shut up
. The tightness in her shoulders, the ache from her pointless bout of digging, pulls her neck down, and she leans back against the cool brick of the laundry wall, her throat filling. She hears John pull his boots off one by one and slide open the screen door, and can tell from his footfalls up the hall to bed how tired he is.

She can hear it in his voice, too, when she climbs into bed herself, red-eyed and sniffing, an hour later.

‘What's wrong?' he says. No alarm there, just the tone of someone whose energy is spent, facing more unwelcome work. Someone with no interest in small talk. She can hear what it costs him to even broach that silence.

‘Nothing,' she says. ‘Nothing.' She sees the blue eyelid pulled over the staring dead eye of a chicken, a roll of rippling yellow fat where the dog has held the body down with one paw and ripped upwards with those teeth. The dog's fervour turned to revulsion, pawing at the carcass tied to him. She hears the cargo train bang through the station at 3.20 a.m., the sound rolling up the creek bed, metal striking metal.

She's sure she can hear the dog barking too, echoing and distant, a rhythmic, maddening bark. She strains her ears. Bloody Jake. Must have slipped his chain.

She slides out of bed and walks to the back door, feeling new webs break across her face and arms; freshly repaired webs, looping like a trapeze from wall to wall, untiring and remorseless.

But the dog is there; a dark shape curled nose to tail, sound asleep at the other end of the porch. Helen sits on the arm of the couch and raises her foot in her hand. Hardly broken the skin, really. Just that single puncture on the heel where one curved tooth's penetrated, red and raised. Itching now.

It's only after she has returned to bed and listened again to that distant metronomic barking that it occurs to her that it's no dog she can hear, but her husband's breathing, faint next to her and sunk into his pillow, catching with a small sound each time he exhales.

It follows her into sleep, that flat insistent rhythm. It's like someone resolutely and patiently striking the same match, over and over, ready to stoop and set a stubble field alight.

Acknowledgements

For the sheer pleasure of their talent, thank you to Peter Temple, Tim Winton, Paddy O'Reilly, Kate Grenville, Carrie Tiffany, Peter Carey and so many others.

For their enthusiastic response to my early attempts, thanks to the Sisters in Crime.

For the cup of tea placed thoughtfully at my elbow, thanks to Dave Dore.

The Stories

What Thou and I Did, Till We Loved
won
The Age
Short Story Competition, 2001 (published in
The Age
)

A Pitch Too High for the Human Ear
won third prize in the University of Canberra Short Story Competition, 1997 (published in
Behind the Front Fence
, Five Mile Press, 2004)

Habit
won
The Age
Short Story Competition, 2000 (published in
The Age
, and in
On The Edge
, Five Mile Press, 2005)

Flotsam
won the University of Canberra Short Story Competition, 2002 (published in
Island
, and in
Secret Lives
, Five Mile Press, 2003)

Cold Snap
won the
HQ
/Sceptre Short Story Prize, 2001 (published in
HQ
)

Resize
was shortlisted in the
HQ
/HarperCollins Short Story Competition, 1996 (published in
Enter
, HarperCollins, 1997)

The Testosterone Club
was a prizewinner in the Scarlet Stiletto Awards, 1995

Angel
was highly commended in the University of Canberra Short Story Competition, 1997

The Light of Coincidence
won the
Herald Sun
/Rotary Short Story Competition, 1996 (published in the
Herald Sun
)

Soundtrack
won second prize in the University of Canberra Short Story Competition, 2002

Direct Action
won second prize in the Glen Eira Short Story Award, 2002 (published in
Meanjin
)

The Correct Names of Things
won the University of Canberra Short Story Competition, 1997 (published in
Redoubt
)

Wheelbarrow Thief
was shortlisted in the
HQ
/HarperCollins Short Story Competition, 1996 (published in
Enter
, HarperCollins, 1997)

Sea Burial
was broadcast on ABC Radio National (in a slightly different form) and included on their double CD of
Australian Stories

Dark Roots
,
Seizure
and
Kill or Cure
are all new, previously unpublished stories