In Time
By a.hutchinson
- 521 reads
In
Time
align="justify">Harriet is beside me, on the passenger seat, a pink
bow around her tiny body. I don't know how to tie it, a bow, so my wife
did it before we left. It's for the TV appearance. Harriet is our dog.
For those who know, Harriet is a terrier, a small dog. My wife's baby.
See, we didn't ever have children ourselves because we met later in
life. Never even really talked about it. So Harriet is my wife's child,
and Harriet does this trick. She backflips. Straight over. My wife has
taught her to do this, spent hours patting her on the head and saying
'who's a good girl?'. And now Harriet is going to be on TV, in a dog
show. My wife, she cried when the station called her up, covered her
mouth in surprise. align="justify">So Harriet and I are driving across two states,
whistling along traffic and rest stations. My wife didn't come, she is
sick. I don't know what she's sick with, she doesn't tell me. It sure
will make her happy to see Harriet on TV though. She loves that dog.
Harriet just looks at me, asking 'are we there yet?' with her tiny
eyes. She doesn't care about television or pink bows. To be honest, I
don't care too much either. I don't know my life anymore. And I don't
know if we are ever going back. align="justify">
What I didn't
tell my wife is that I'll be passing through my old home. I didn't tell
her that I'd have to come through the small town where I grew up with
dirty knees and bike rides. I never told my wife about this, about my
stopping there on the way through. I never told her about my leaving
that old town either, back when I wasn't old enough. When I left and
never came back.
down, her tail flicking at the air. I tell her, I say 'This is where I
used to live. See that?' and I point to the green off into the distance
through the windscreen. 'That there is old Mr. Beard's potato field.'
The plants ripple in the wind, sway in time. 'I used to sit over there,
by Beard's fence, me and my girl back then, her name was Elise. And me
and Elise, we'd sit there on the fence and dare each other to run
through the field. Mr. Beard, he'd shoot us if he ever saw us in his
potatos, he'd said as much to us. So we'd dare each other to run
through and we'd fake like we were going to. We'd do that till the day
went to orange, then night, then Elise would point out satellites to me
in the sky. She said they were like stars, but moving. I never could
see them, but Elise, she picked them out everytime. She knew things
like that. I liked to watch her do this, when she wasn't aware I was
looking, see her smile at her thoughts.' Harriet wags her tail at my
words, her tongue sliding back and forth. I walk her along the fence,
watch the potato plants dance in the afternoon winds. align="justify">
In the morning I
walk Harriet down the main street, her pink bow shining in the sun. I
wonder if she's embarassed by it. She trots along in front, sniffing at
the ground. The shops have changed, from tiny milkbar to supermarket,
empty land to development. And the people, I don't them. There was a
time when everyone knew. I take a seat at the bus station just to look
around for a moment, let Harriet chase invisible insects around the
grass.
'That's a nice looking dog' An
older man laughs.
I remember echoes
through the old house where I lived, sliding along the floor boards in
my socks, rolling plastic motorbikes along the wood of the verandah. I
remember travelling to other worlds underneath my bed and in wardrobes.
But it's all gone. Where my house once was, there is framework, black,
brittle, burnt. Only the bricks of the fireplace resemble anything of
life. Sometimes when elephants die they stay standing, just an empty
frame of what once was life, asleep on its legs. They just stand there,
their essence gone. Here in the dead, blackened frame, touching the
charcoal doorframes it reminds me of this. A life that was once in this
shell.
'Can I help you?' a woman is
walking towards Harriet and I, holding her hat so as it's not taken by
the wind.
'No, sorry, I was
just...'
'This is private property,
Sir' She's wearing glasses that have darkened in the
sunlight.
'Yes' I say, taking Harriet
up into my arms. 'Yes, I am sorry, I was just...'
me better. 'You were just?'
'I was...
You know what nothing, I'll leave' Stepping over the frail
ground.
'So, you were just here to
check out where you used to live and you thought you'd sneak through
town without a word' She is not angry, the woman, she is smiling. And
minus the years I recognise my old neighbour.
hand out for me to shake.
'Nice
looking dog you got there'.
Sarah drives me
through the back streets that I once knew, telling me about the whole
world I had left. She tells me about births, deaths, arrivals,
departures.
'What's made you come
back?' She asks.
'I don't know, just
thought I'd...'
'No one blames you
for what happened to Elise' Sarah states. Harriet looks at my face, as
if she could feel my heart flatten in my chest.
everyone is past it now. I don't even know what went on with you two.
That's not the only reason you left though...?' Ine my mind my hand is
touching Elise's, her skin.
'No, it
was other things.'
'What have you
been doing?'
'I moved to the city and
started to work.'
'And that's it?
That's the last twenty years?' New houses are coming together along the
roadside, reaching out fingers of wood towards the clouds.
'I moved out to the city by myself,
in a small apartment with two windows. On a nice day the trees would
move aside just enough for me to see the tops of the city buildings. I
mostly kept to myself, spent time watching films and making my garden
on the window cill. Plants that flower once a year. I don't ever really
meet so many people. I met a beautiful woman one night at a house
warming party. She was very nice and laughed a lot and my friend said I
should ask her out. So I did that. We started seeing each other, she
asked me to marry her. She has been my wife for four years. We never
did have any kids. This is Harriet. She's our baby. Harriet is going to
be on TV'.
'That's why the
bow?'
'I don't know how to tie a bow.
My wife did it.'
'So why didn't she
come with you?'
'She's
sick.'
'What with?'
align="justify">'I don't know. She doesn't tell me'. Sarah laughs alittle.
'Well it's good to see she
has made you happy'.
'I didn't say
that'.
'No, but you married her, she
must make you happy.' I thought about this for a moment, of all the
times that my wife and I have been us. Of what it used to be to touch
her. I'd never told her I loved her, in all our time. I'd only ever
said that to one girl.
'She's very
beautiful. One of the nicest people I have ever met.'
Harriet walks
along in front of me, down the dirt driveway. We should have left for
the TV studio by now. But Harriet doesn't care about TV. Across the
empty field I can see the house, an old white building in the middle of
the fruit trees. There's old style furniture on the verandah, the smell
of fresh cut grass. An old man sees us coming, walks to meet us. He
recognises me straight away, a serious look. He shakes my
hand.
'Nice dog' He says through an
old grey moustache, leads the way up to the house. We sit sit opposite
sides of the painted white wooden table, overlooking the rows of trees
streaming across the hills. He makes a noise like he wants to say
something, but doesn't let it past his lips.
sorry' The old man doesn't meet my eyes, stares out and
away.
'Long time ago now boy.' He
mumbles. 'My daughter, she...' He stops.
but I haven't really spoken to many people.' align="justify">'Elise.' Her father stops as if to let the name sink
into the air. 'She ran away from us for her own reasons.'
In my mind, I remember lying with
her on the night she left. Elise, she was beautiful, brown eyes, brown
hair that always used to tickle across my face. I loved that she smiled
because of me. She was touching my cheek when she said to me that she
thinks about running away, leaving everything behind. Elise didn't get
along so well with her step mother. Sometimes she'd show me the
bruises. She told me that she wanted to go, see what else there was,
because it was weird to think that this world that we know, this was
just a tiny speck on what else there is. I said to her that she should
do it. We should go, because our life is now. She smiled, 'It's a
beautiful world.' She said ' If you look around.' And she kissed me for
a long time that night. I didn't ever want to be without that. Not in
mylife. I loved her very much. The next day she was gone, left a few
empty shelves and drawers and she was gone. Her room like an empty
shell. No-one saw her again. Everyone blamed me. I blamed me. And I
cried for what seemed years.
'I am
sorry.' Her father takes a deep breath.
without her.' Her father clenches his teeth in his closed mouth, looks
to his feet.
'Mine either,
boy.'
back down the old driveway. From behind us, I hear her father calling,
saying something over the leaves clapping together above. He walks to
me, a slight limp in his aged body, hands me a letter. align="justify">'I wasn't going to show you this, boy. I want you to
know that. But I know now that you never meant...' I nod to him. The
letter is from Elise, how she lives overseas now, has a good career, a
family. It has photos of her and her children. Her brown eyes in each
of them. And Elise, she looks happy with her family. On a ski trip. At
the beach. She looks happy, like she found what she wanted. In the
letter it says my name, how she loved me so much. How she doesn't know
that she'll ever love someone the same way again. It says 'I don't know
if you see him, if he's still around. But if you do, tell him he always
makes me smile, even now. And tell him to make sure he takes time to
look around.' align="justify">Her father smiles to me, takes the letter back into
his dusty shirt pocket, walks away, grabs at a tree leaf as he goes
by. align="justify">Harriet has her paws up at the dashboard, her ears
in the air. She looks over the potato fields, taking in every
sound.
'You wanna' go for a run
girl?' I ask, she flicks her tail excited. Harriet leaps out ahead, her
pink bow bouncing over the potato plants, in between the green. She
bounces across the field, me chasing behind. She barks for me to
follow, leads off further through. Harriet jumps up at me, lets me get
close to catching her then runs. There are no clouds today. And Harriet
seems to be smiling. Laughing. Jumping through the plants. I cradle her
tiny body up in my arms, her tongue flicks across my
chin.
'Who's a good girl?' I say.
'Who's a good girl?'
It's late
when we get to the television studio, maybe too late. We run in, get
led through, people saying you might be too late, we'll check'. The
lights to the side of the stage are off, the last of the dogs in the
show now running back to their owners. I imagine my wife at home,
watching, waiting. I can feel her heart weighing more in her chest, her
confusion. My wife. She is beautiful.
Then Harriet runs
through from the darkness, her pink bow shining in the studio lights,
like she's smiling. Harriet flips, skips on her tiny legs. My wife,
she's at home, she has her hand over her mouth, tears in her eyes.
She's so happy. Her good girl, her baby. Harriet runs around the stage
one more time, comes running back to me, her tiny heart beating
fast.
'That's one nice looking dog'
The presenter says to me, patting Harriet on the head.
'cause I know you've travelled quite a ways to get
here.'
'Yeah, I just want to say hi
to my wife, back home, Natalie is her name. And just to tell her I love
her. I love her very much'
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