Stray Dog Winter Read online

  He woke to the rustle of the flowering gums, the scent of the eucalypts, his father opening the passenger door. Fin, his father said softly, but the girl was still sleeping. The sound of her nickname made Darcy want to say it too, but his father lifted her, still blanketed, out into the morning and Darcy sensed she was already being taken away. His mother in the sitting-room window glowering, guarding the house now, eyes on the girl called Fin.

  The girl struggled awake, ripped herself free like she shouldn’t be touched. What are you doing? she asked Darcy’s father as he put her down. He never did anything right.

  I got you in at Toorak College, he said. As a boarder. I’m taking you. He guided her gently into the kombi.

  Darcy grabbed her knapsack from the front seat and followed, handed it up to her. She glared down at Darcy as he closed the door, and then the kombi was rattling down the drive.

  Ulitsa Kazakov, Late Sunday

  The Moscow night was still and quiet save for a TV somewhere. No neighbours talking nor any sign of the woman through the uncurtained glass across the way, just silent flurries of snow. A black phone that wasn’t connected. He sorted through Fin’s tapes—Joy Division, Boomtown Rats—flipped on the portable tape deck and lay on her bed in his underpants listening to the Divinyls’ ‘Boys in Town.’ The ceiling above him stained and peeling, pasted with roses and butterflies, and pictures from Soviet magazines. Antiquated blenders and appliances, dresses and hairdos. The raspy verse that ended with get me out of here. He tried not to believe in signs but the words had him wishing he still had his passport strapped against him.

  There was no evidence of what she’d been commissioned to paint. Books lined a shelf in the headboard: The Wretched of the Earth, The Soviet Achievement, Nagorno-Karabakh and Other Nationalities. He picked out Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? Phrases underlined: The task of our Social Democracy is to subvert spontaneity. That didn’t sound like the Fin he knew. Maybe she had become a commo instead of just being left wing and chic. No wonder she’d lost her sense of humour. He flipped the pages. Only those devoid of principle are capable of change. Maybe that made sense; he wasn’t sure.

  He nuzzled the familiar slightly stale bed-smell, smoky sheets that hadn’t been washed for his arrival. He reached for a narrow volume called The Meaning of Love by Vladimir Solovyov, a philosopher he’d never heard of. It had a chapter entitled ‘Love in humans is not akin to propagation.’ A possible vindication, he thought. He nestled his hand under the elastic of his boxers and conjured the soldier at the railway station in Prague, the falseness of that as intimacy, rutting hurried as primitives, then the euphoric recall of his recent visit to Sydney for New Year’s Eve stole over him.

  He never even saw the Harbour Bridge illuminated with fireworks or homing pigeons released from the wings of the Opera House. The alternative had slipped over him as easy as skin. The car almost drove itself to Centennial Park, the paradise of his despair. Men marauded there in silent ritual, triceps tattooed, the shadows of a chain-link fence. Down in the Brambles there was Kleenex in the dirt. He skirted the edges like a fringe-dweller, the way he’d done before, following a man with clamps on his nipples, thin as a snake with arms. Darcy hadn’t seen the new virus up close. He imagined it twisting through veins as he watched the young man suction liquid with an eyedropper from a small brown bottle, squirt it into his mouth, then offer Darcy a sample. Darcy accepted with a cautious insatiability, as if to celebrate the end of life as he’d known it. A taste like wheat in his teeth, infusing him and making the darkness seem light. He thought of his mother, drunk and alone in Mount Eliza, watching the living-room clock as the New Year struck, looking for Darcy in the crowd on TV, but she’d lost him this time.

  As the fireworks lit up the distant midnight, it was the dawn of 1984, the Orwellian era, but not as he’d expected. The poofter-bashers came through the trees like fluid, with Clockwork Orange nightsticks, and Darcy glimpsed his thin sick friend folded up in the paspalum, being beaten. Darcy ran blind through the park in a sort of paranoid fulfilment, strung on a line like a dress in the wind, there but far away. Even as he was escaping, tearing through branches in the dark, he knew if he stayed in Sydney he’d be back there again. Like a dog that returns to its vomit.

  Darcy woke with a start to bolts being opened, Fin’s peasant dresses hanging above him and the radio turned up in the other room. She came in and switched off the bedroom light. Jesus, he said, you scared me.

  Sorry. She lit a candle on the ledge beside the bed. Darcy looked at his watch; she’d been gone an hour.

  Did you find food in the fridge? she asked. The candlelight wavered a shape on the wall as she took off her coat and clothes, went into the bathroom.

  I was too tired to look.

  The hushed sound of her peeing, brushing her teeth, cleaning off her make-up. She emerged without lipstick or eye shadow, slightly older-looking but lovely, ready for bed.

  How did it go? he asked.

  I’ll tell you about it in the morning. She lay on the bed and kissed him gently on the mouth. I hope I didn’t seem angry at the station, she said. I was just worried. I’ll get your passport back.

  You should have told me if I was carrying something, he said.

  She put her finger to his lips this time. I know. She turned her back to him, the nape of her neck pale where her hair had once covered it. He touched a small tattoo at the knobbly top of her spine: a red swallow, its wings spread and flying upwards. A sailor’s tattoo. She blew out the candle and moved closer to him in the dark. He traced the tattoo’s shape with his finger, the curve of the wings. If he’d ever wanted to be with a woman it would have been her. The apple shampoo scent in her hair, the muted whistle with each of her breaths reminded him of things. He hugged her gently from behind, his arm draped over her ribs.

  When were you first with a man? she asked.

  Darcy stared into the soft white nape of her neck, pretended he was asleep.

  Ulitsa Kazakov, Monday morning

  Darcy squinted at Fin’s lime green travel clock. It was 10 am. The sound of Russian voices in the other room, but this time he knew it was only the radio. The bedroom door was open and the apartment ice-cold; the heater had gone from full steam to freezing. Fin? He waited. Nothing.

  He got up.

  Snow spilled down outside the sitting-room window and the pipes that ran along the wall were barely warm. No Svetlana in the kitchen opposite. He checked on the orange laminated counter that separated the kitchen from her living area. No note, no breakfast.

  He dragged a poloneck and a windcheater from his duffel bag, pulled his black cords over his thermals. White letters painted on one of the hanging black dresses, a looping script: The mysteries of the clitoris. Had that been there last night? He folded her Polaroid camera into itself, silver with inlaid wood, angles of a small architectural building, and slid it into his daypack. He grabbed some cheese-sticks from the fridge and an apple, ventured into the corridor. She’d left him no keys but at least she hadn’t locked him in.

  He tested the door; he was now locked out.

  Triangular stains on the walls the shapes of sconces, but no hall-watcher lurking at the dark end. He ate as he moved down the stairs and found the main entrance, the one they’d circumvented last night. Steel-rimmed swinging doors, glassed and unattended, an empty desk and chair. Why hadn’t she left a note?

  Outside everything seemed bleak and deciduous, even the buildings were bare, the street covered in dove-grey snow, an arctic beauty. Darcy’d never seen a city so bathed in snow, was surprised by its silence—squat figures in fur walked with their heads down past the bleached alabaster structures. He decided to head back to the Byelorussian Station and try to retrieve his passport, see about his Pentax. Maybe that’s where she was. But as he examined his plastic foldout map it seemed too far to walk and the wind was like an icepick. He’d hail a taxi.

  Out on the slush-covered boulevard a trolley bus passed, whining on its overhead wires
; if only he knew where it was going. He turned to get his bearings. The distant Ferris wheel rose above the leafless trees in Gorky Park as promised, a couple of bundled-up bodies suspended in air, small as frozen peas. In spring it might have held a certain beauty but the cold had crept deep into his feet already, through the sheepskin lining of his combat boots. He wasn’t bred for this, his skin and his blood were too thin, and the station suddenly seemed too difficult.

  Across the street the low swinging gates of a local park that wasn’t Gorky, empty but for an elderly baba pushing at snow with a wooden scraper, a keeper of paths in the frost-bitten wind. He could take a picture of her in the avenue of bare elm branches that umbrellaed the pathway. Surely that wasn’t strategic. But as he reached for the camera a man glanced back at him nervously. Darcy wondered if this could be his shadower, but he led a narrow dog in a quilted tartan blanket, a whippet or miniature greyhound, the type Darcy imagined being walked by a gay man in New York, not a KGB agent. The man glanced back again. Striking aquiline features, dark for here, late thirties, slender-lipped and earnest in his horn-rimmed specs. Darcy heard Fin’s words: Be careful, the places you go. He heard his own promise but the intrigue already flitted about his consciousness, luring him like a finger seeking its hook inside his mouth, and he’d barely stepped out the door. He tried focusing elsewhere but the man loitered near a bench, averting his eyes, then he stared furtively. Intellectual, Jewish perhaps, thought Darcy, if you could still be Jewish here. He remembered the Spartacus Gay Guide only listed ‘outside the Bolshoi in summer’ under ‘Cruising in Moscow’, and warned against it. But it was winter now and this wasn’t the Bolshoi. The man removed his fur hat and Darcy received it as a signal. His hair was silver-flecked and wavy, a few strands flew up like a crest in the wind and the pleading in his eyes spoke a need that Darcy recognised, mirrored. Too cold to be hatless and waiting unless you wanted something badly.

  The shivering whippet sat on the path like a statue, its head into the wind as if it were a dog at sea. Darcy waited for the man to make a next move but he seemed stricken with uncertainty, so Darcy, emboldened by nothing but a rush in his brain, turned off the track into a thicket of prickly evergreens. He realised he wasn’t so cold anymore as he pulled off a glove and held it under his arm and the man began fumbling, tying the windswept dog to the bench. He began to pick his way through the icy branches but as Darcy unzipped himself a figure approached, obscured by foliage. With neither a word nor a smile the Russian was panicking, backing away through the trees. Darcy shook his head—it was only the babushka, she couldn’t see them—but the man was already scaling a low metal barrier. Hands deep in pockets, he leaned into the wind and half ran towards the road. He’d forgotten his dog.

  The baba, buried in her coat and scarves, sat down on the bench where the dog was tied. The woman looked over at Darcy as he appeared from the trees, narrowed her sunken eyes into their creases. Seduced and abandoned, said Darcy, then he remembered Fin’s other warning. Don’t trust anyone here.

  The dog’s tail curled under its crouching loins, its pelt a brindled silver. It greeted Darcy cautiously as he felt the ridges of its spine through the blanket. He pulled out the camera and unfolded it, took a close-up of the dog’s fine face, one ear forward, one back, then a second, better one, with its head slightly cocked and both ears pricked. It had no tag on its collar—Darcy wasn’t even sure if they did that here.

  He flapped the Polaroids dry and the woman looked over, confused but unmoved. She had a postcard face, so he took a photo of her too, felt a certain guilt about his foreigner’s presumption. At least she wasn’t a bridge or a reservoir; still she shot him a look of distaste that chilled him.

  With the whippet on its lead by his side Darcy felt less foreign, as if this could have been his city. Together, they walked through the snow-fleeced park to the wrought-iron arch at the main entrance. A woman in a woollen balaclava was opening the flap on an old yellow van. She uncovered a row of red sausages on buns. Darcy reached for his wallet but the dog lifted a paw, its leg as fine as a knitting needle, and began to whine, snatching at the leash and pulling. Darcy felt conspicuous. He caught sight of the delicate man in the distance, returning, and Darcy unclipped the lead, let the whippet loose before it barked. It rippled across the frosted ground, galloping low like a racing dog, and the man leaned down to greet it. Darcy gazed at them, suddenly alone, the fine leather dog leash in his hand.

  Mount Eliza, Summer 1969

  Darcy’s mother was doing her best; she had her shiny housecoat on, buttoned up over her nightie, her hair tied back in a ponytail. Her hands looked thin coming out of the sleeves to serve dinner, but she didn’t eat. She sipped her brandy and dry; she switched to brown drinks after dark. Darcy’s father had returned from the egg run, he’d showered and slicked back his hair. Did you have a good day? his mother asked. Spreading your eggs around? But his father never looked at her. He lifted a chop and chewed it. Darcy didn’t tell him there was something wrong with the chops, that she’d fried them before they were thawed. Darcy pushed his food about his square plate; the instant mashed potato looked lumpier than usual.

  His mother held an unlit cigarette and observed Darcy’s father as if daring him to eat. We had a visitor, she said. Didn’t we, Darce?

  Darcy felt his stomach churn. He didn’t think she’d mention it; she was always good at secrets.

  His mother sipped her drink. Jesus in tight pants, she said.

  Darcy’s face was being searched by his father to see if he should believe her but Darcy looked away from him, down at the radiogram. He was just a missionary, said Darcy.

  Not just a missionary, his mother said, raising her chest as if offended. A Mormon. She turned to Darcy’s father. He took your son for a drive.

  Darcy’s empty fork froze in his hand and then his mother reached and gently took it from his fingers. She smiled to herself. Didn’t he, Darce? Under the table Darcy felt her bare toe stroking his calf, a quiet back-and-forthing.

  You let him go off with a stranger? his father asked.

  What could I do, she said, here on my own?

  The feel of her toe on his leg gave Darcy an eerie feeling. He wished he could disappear, the way his father did after dinner on nights like these, off in the kombi.

  He didn’t have clothes on, his mother said.

  Who? asked Darcy’s father, suddenly flustered.

  Darcy shifted his legs from her touch. I covered myself, he said.

  What with? his mother asked, surprised.

  A Bible, said Darcy. He looked at his father. It had a picture of Jesus in America.

  His mother guffawed. I never saw Jesus when I was there, she said. I suppose he’ll be coming here next.

  Darcy’s father stood, irritated; he hated being teased about Jesus. He took his unfinished plate to the kitchen and started washing up. Darcy lay down on the rug and put his ear to the faintly crackling radio.

  Go help your father, his mother said, but Darcy listened to the distant static as if it were life on a capsule in orbit, felt himself begin to sway. Then there was a kick in his ribs. Where’s the Bible? she asked, suddenly conspiratorial.

  Darcy pretended he couldn’t hear so she kicked him again, her bare foot against his back. For God’s sake leave him alone, his father said, returning for Darcy’s plate.

  It’s just a love kick, she said. She put her silver cigarette lighter against her cheek. If you were a Mormon, she said to Darcy’s father, you could have multiple wives.

  I wonder if you’d be one of them, he said. He took the plate and the placemats back to the kitchen.

  Darcy’s mother lit one of her Virginia Slims. Bring me the Bible, she said, or I’ll tell him everything.

  Darcy got up, flustered, wondering what she meant by everything. He went out in his socks, let the flyscreen bang shut because he knew how much she hated that. Like a car crash, she called it, but her ears were always roaring anyway, something called tinnitus. His fath
er thought she imagined it but she said it’s the same, whether you imagine it or not.

  In the Austin, Darcy opened the glove box. The small light flickered inside it as he took out the Bible from under the Melways. Inside the cover it said The Book of Mormon. The picture of Jesus in white, standing on a rock, the Indians in feathered headdresses. Darcy wondered if the missionary would visit again.

  Through the lit kitchen window he saw his father hang the frying pan on the hook by the sink and put his hands on his hips, staring out into the dark. Darcy could see the creases in his father’s cheeks that he knew were supposed to be from all the smiling, but his father didn’t smile. Darcy suspected he only came home because he had to, and he wondered if his mother had once been different, when they met on the beach near the Mornington pier, or before she left America.

  Darcy’s father closed the flyscreen quietly behind him, and Darcy slid through into the back seat as his father got in the driver’s side, sat with his hands on the wheel. Did anything bad happen today? he asked without turning around.

  No, said Darcy, not moving.

  Can I see the book? his father asked.

  Darcy passed it around the edge of the seat and his father examined it in the dark. Jesus Christ in the Americas, he said, I never knew about that. He put the book down and ran through the gears and Darcy sat up to watch him, then he left it in neutral and looked at Darcy in the rear-view mirror. What are we going to do? he asked.

  Darcy wished his father were talking about the American Jesus but as his mother opened the door and slipped her empties quietly into the box by the rubbish he knew he wasn’t.

  Are you going to leave? whispered Darcy.

  His father shook his head slowly.

  Ulitsa Kazakov, Monday afternoon