Listen (26 page)

‘Oh, Ol, really, how can you possibly know that? When you’ve only ever seen one before? And
must
you talk like some sort of dog association manual?’

Olivia shrugged, sat down on the arm of the couch. The pup’s eyes were fixed on her and it was struggling to get free of Deborah’s grip.

‘What are you going to call him?’ she asked.

‘Congo. Because basenjis come from the Congo originally,’ said Deborah.

‘Good name.’

‘Glad you approve,’ said her mother tartly.

‘Well, I can
try
to train him,’ Olivia offered.

‘No!’ cried Deborah, pulling the pup back close to her body. ‘You’ve got a bloody menagerie as it is. This dog is special and he’s
mine
! Everyone else in this house has things that are special, except me. And, and, things that love them, except me. And this dog is mine.’

Olivia looked at her mother properly for the first time since she’d walked in. She looked really tense. The muscles in her neck were ropy and her face was sort of too lit up, too eager. The puppy twisted, turning now to face Deborah and pushing at her with all four legs.

‘
My
special thing and see, he loves me already.’

Congo sank his teeth into the forefinger of Deborah’s right hand, a quick, hard efficient nip. She shrieked and jumped to her feet and as she did the puppy flew, it seemed, into Olivia’s lap, where he stood with his forepaws on her chest and his little clever face raised to hers, sniffing her intently. He licked her cheek, two licks, a kind of tasting or testing.

Deborah, sucking her knuckle, looked at them furiously. ‘Don’t you go imagining this is
your
dog, young lady!’ she cried.

‘Mum, honestly…’

‘And don’t roll your eyes at me like that either, I won’t stand for it! I found the breeder, I paid for it and he’s
mine
.’

‘Did the breeder warn you about basenjis being hard to train?’

‘Of course he did! You’re not the only person in the world who knows about animals, Olivia. I chose that dog and he loves me already, I could tell when I picked him, and I’ll have him trained in no time. I’ll even take him to dog obedience classes if I have to. Puppy kindergarten.’

‘Fine, Mum. Fine. But love is only a part of successful training, you know. Firmness, patience and constant repetition are the foundation of —’

‘Oh, put a bloody sock in it, will you, Olivia? And go and do your homework or something.’

Deborah snatched the puppy from her, taking it off into the kitchen. Olivia sat very still on the couch.
That is just too much, even from Mum
, she thought, and followed her out to the kitchen. Deborah was standing over by the fridge, watching the puppy guzzle food from a bowl.

‘Mum,’ said Olivia in a firm voice. It was a statement in itself.

‘Sorry, Ol, I’m just really tired,’ her mother said, not looking at her. Olivia knew that was all the apology she was likely to get.

Little Congo waddled a few steps, dropped his hindquarters a tad and released a flood of yellow pee across the floor. It was amazing how much fluid such a small body could hold. Deborah yelled and
snatched up a handful of paper towels. Olivia watched her mopping frantically away.

‘Oh, Ollie, can’t you give me a hand here? I’m sorry.’

Olivia relented. ‘Have you got a litter tray for him?’ Deborah shook her head. ‘How about a bed?’ Again the shake, this time accompanied by a little grimace and then a
Would you?
expression.

‘Okay, I’ll get ’em together,’ Olivia said, heading for the back door. She scooped the puppy up as she went by. ‘And it’s time for the others to meet him.’

‘Okay,’ Deborah agreed, conciliatory.

As Mintie and Fly-by avidly inspected every centimetre of the new puppy’s body, Olivia glanced back towards the house. She saw her mother standing in the middle of the kitchen, unmoving, staring into space. She looked like someone on the TV news, someone who’d been through a disaster, a bushfire maybe. She looked
old. Something’s happened
, Olivia thought,
and I don’t know what it is.

PART FIVE

CHAPTER 19

Olivia felt quite disgusted with her parents. They were being so pathetic, arguing behind closed doors, shutting up suddenly when she came into the room, all that crap. Trying to hide things from her, and worse, imagining they
could
hide it from her. What did they think she was, a child? It was an insult!

‘Shows how little they know about me. Or about anything,’ she said sourly to Mintie, who was snuggled up beside her on the bed. That never used to be allowed, but Olivia figured that if everyone else could toss the rules aside, so could she. And Mintie needed a bit of extra attention; the new puppy was driving her up the wall, though Fly-by was delighted to have a playmate even crazier than herself.

Olivia fondled Mintie’s ears absently as she tried to read her book, but it was hard to concentrate over the sound of her parents’ voices rising and falling from their bedroom. Every so often one of them would go to the bathroom, or the kitchen, and then back to resume the battle. It was nearly Easter and they were fighting about the holidays: who would go and who would stay, and where and with whom. Olivia wished they’d both just shut up and nick off. She had
made it clear she wasn’t about to go anywhere with either of them; she was staying home with the animals. Her father had wanted to go away somewhere unspecified, refusing to admit ‘with Marion’. Then Deborah was determined to fly to Sydney to stay with her cousin.
Fine. Go!
Olivia silently urged. But now her mother was trying to extract a promise from Angus that he wouldn’t see ‘that woman’ while Deborah was away.

Suddenly their door opened and the voices were all too clear.

‘Can’t you keep your hands off her for five days?’ Deborah wailed. ‘When you’re supposed to be looking after your daughter?’

Olivia heard her father in the hallway snarl, ‘Keep your voice down, for god’s sake!’ and a house-shaking rattle as he slammed the bedroom door again. Then her mother’s muffled sobbing, her father banging things around in the kitchen.

‘Charming,’ Olivia commented to Mintie.
I hate this, I hate this
. How come adults got
away
with this sort of crap? Yelling and fighting, drinking too much, neglecting their responsibilities. Olivia knew for a fact that her mother was way behind schedule with important work stuff: she’d heard her making excuses on the phone. Her dad veered between dazed and frantic; pity the poor person who got
him
as a lawyer right now! And, as parents of an almost-teenager who had just started at secondary school – well, weren’t they supposed to show
some
interest?
I could be on drugs for all they know
, she thought darkly.
I could be wagging school every day and
… her imagination faltered. What
would
she be doing if she wasn’t going to school?
Probably volunteering at the Lost Dogs’ Home
, she thought, and even Olivia had to smile at how totally un-wicked she was.

Fleur was the only reason she’d stayed sane these past weeks. Now, as Deborah joined Angus in the kitchen and their voices rose again, Olivia reached across and picked up her mobile from the desk beside her bed. She keyed in a text message: Tonight I may be forced to kill my parents. Within a minute her phone beeped and there was Fleur’s response: W8 til they r asleep
.

Olivia smiled, pressed the keys rapidly. Will you be my alibi? And Fleur: U’ve been here since 6.

Heh-heh. Almost made it worth putting up with. And to be fair, the fighting between her parents hadn’t been non-stop. Sometimes when her parents were together there was a stiff courtesy between them, or worse, her mother trying to be super-nice to Dad,
flirting
even. That was truly awful. It made her feel so sorry for her mum but at the same time so angry too.

Last night her mum had gone out, and Uncle James rang and asked to speak to Angus. After they’d been talking for a while Olivia overheard her father saying in an incredibly intense voice, ‘Well I’m not going to end it, James. Don’t even ask. I love this woman like I’ve never loved anyone in my life before.’ He sounded like someone from a movie, not like her dad. It was scary. Olivia was sure her mum had asked Uncle James to make that call. To plead on her behalf.

‘It’s all too horrible,’ she told Mintie, and the dog shifted slightly to plonk her head comfortingly on Olivia’s thigh, eyes fixed on her face. ‘Well, not
all
, Mints. Not you. Dogs aren’t horrible – just people.’

Deborah flew to Sydney on the Thursday, just before Easter, and from the moment Olivia got home from school that day she felt her mother’s absence. It was as though the whole house had let out a long-held breath, every piece of furniture, the air itself, everything. There was a huge storm that night; the clamour of rain on the roof woke her up. Like the sky was crying buckets.

The next morning, the storm had blown itself out. Olivia spent Good Friday looking after the animals. She felt exhausted, and these chores and the company of her little critters were the most restful things she knew. Fleur was away, Laurence was busy. She even took a nap mid-afternoon, feeling like a tired little kid.

Towards evening her dad went in to his bedroom; Olivia was pretty sure he was making a phone call. When he’d finished he came into the kitchen where she was making herself some hot chocolate
and said super-casually, ‘I might go out for a while, is that okay with you, Ol?’

Olivia said, ‘Sure, go ahead,’ making her voice sound casual, too. For a moment she was tempted to ask, ‘Are you going to see Marion?’ but she didn’t. The little kid feeling came over her again; she remembered how she used to be scared of standing too close to her bed in case there was something under there that might get her. But she was too scared to look, too. That night she watched a nature doco on TV, with all the dogs there in the living room. When Angus came home they made pasta together. She didn’t ask him where he’d been.

Olivia woke early to a sparkling morning and took the dogs down to the park while it was still early, wanting to give Congo a big training session, and with Mintie’s help she worked the little basenji almost to compliance. Almost, but not quite, and once her pocketful of liver treats was empty he started acting up. ‘Boy, you’re hard work,’ she told him. But secretly – because she didn’t want to make Mintie jealous – she loved this wilful creature with a passion. He was so bold and clever, had such a calculating mind of his own. She had never known a dog like him.
Whatever ends up happening with this whole crappy thing with Mum and Dad
, Olivia thought, bringing him to heel for the hundredth time,
at least I got Congo out of it.

She had some breakfast – Angus was still not up – gave the dogs some bones to chomp on and wrote a note for her dad saying that she was riding her bike over to visit Grandpa. Hey, there was another weird thing: Auntie Meredith being all secretive about the stuff she was doing at Grandpa’s. Olivia and Laurence had talked about it. Why was she so paranoid about being sprung for doing something
good
? That was pretty bizarre! Grown-ups. Go figure.

Grandpa was sitting in the old wooden chair down the end of the garden, with an empty teacup and crusts of toast on a tray, and the Saturday paper on his lap.

‘Hello there, honeybunch!’ he said, looking very pleased. ‘Well, isn’t this wonderful! I was just thinking about you. See here,’ and he
tapped a spot on the newspaper. Olivia came around beside him and read the item – in the gardening pages, of course – aloud over his shoulder.

‘ “Open for today only: Golden Grove. This fabled garden, never before open to the public, was the life’s work of Constance Yule, who died last year aged 91. Miss Yule was a gifted amateur botanist and collected many rare plant specimens in China, Burma and Nepal. An outstanding feature of Golden Grove is the spectacular dahlia garden, at its peak now. The Yule family is opening Golden Grove in honour of their aunt, and to raise money for the orphanage which she supported in a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border.”’

‘Well, Ollie? What do you think?’

‘Sounds pretty fabulous, Grandpa. Bet those dahlias copped it though, in that storm the other night.’

‘True, true. But you know, I’ve heard about this garden for years. I’ve always wanted to have a good look at it.’

‘Okay. And I haven’t brought the dogs with me today, which is good. Where is it?’ She looked in the newspaper again. ‘Oh, that’s over near Auntie Meredith’s place. How’ll we get there?’

‘In my car, of course, darling! I can still drive all right you know, I just pick my times when the roads aren’t so full of maniacs. But Easter Saturday will be nice and quiet.’

Olivia hesitated. Wasn’t there some problem she’d heard mentioned, about Grandpa driving? But his car was still there in the carport, so it must be all right. And they hadn’t been out on an excursion like this for ages.

‘Golden Grove,’ he said wonderingly, looking again at the little piece in the newspaper.

‘Okay, Grandpa,’ she said. ‘Let’s go!’

It took him a couple of tries to back out of the carport, and somehow the passenger-side mirror got a bit of a biff. Didn’t break though. He had used the street directory to pre-plan their route, and Olivia had it open to the page on her lap as he drove. He gripped the
steering wheel hard, staring ahead with utmost concentration, but within minutes they copped a blast on the horn from a car which then swept past them. Pretty soon the next car behind was tooting and flashing its lights at them as well.

‘Bloody maniacs!’ Alex said, clearly flustered. ‘What’s the matter with them?’

‘You could go a bit faster, Grandpa,’ suggested Olivia. ‘This is a sixty kay zone, I think.’

‘I’m going fast enough!’

‘You’re only doing,’ she leaned across to look at the gauges in front of him, ‘thirty.’