Iris had raised the subject of the floating man with Audrey, referring to him with calculated nonchalance as ‘that thing’. Later she sought a second opinion from her son. He confi rmed Audrey’s diagnosis: the man was connected to the car dealership that had opened on the highway. The name of the dealership was written across his chest, Tommy said, while Iris peered through her window. Her sight was much improved since she had had her cataracts done, but the man often had his back to her and she hadn’t noticed the lettering. He was ‘Like a balloon,’ said Tommy, and offered to drive her past the dealership one day. But he always forgot, making his usual left turn at the Dreamworld showroom instead.
Iris didn’t mind. Facts may reassure, even convince, and yet fall short of adequacy. Every time she saw the man her sense of his power was renewed. Now and then he disappeared for a day or two, which strengthened her impression that their association was not casual. Distance was integral to it. It was akin to her relations with talkback hosts: an intimacy predicated on detachment. Late afternoon sun, pouring into her kitchen, showed her a man touched with fire; caused her to fold her head, for she was mortal and might not look upon such splendour.
Brought up never to importune the Almighty on her own behalf, Iris sometimes asked him to heed the petitions of those striving to find a cure for arthritis. The safe return of a dog was a more straightforward matter. A dozen times between waking and sleeping she began, ‘O holy Saint Anthony, gentlest of saints, your love for God and charity for his creatures made you worthy when on earth to possess miraculous powers.’
This was the third day, and she knew the prayer by heart. It was a powerful incantation, to be used in extremis. Iris had never doubted its efficacy. Yet it was only now, in her kitchen with her eyes closed, that she saw. She had been granted a sign. Matthew Ho’s image had been hung in the sky to show that her prayers were heard in heaven.
Tom said, ‘I’m going to go see Jack. I haven’t thanked him for everything he’s done.’
‘Cool. I’ll come with you.’ Then, in response to his silence, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘What about Denise?’
‘What about her?’
As they walked down the track, Nelly was talking about the terrain around her house being unsuited to mechanised farming. ‘Cows do fine. Machines tip over. That’s what fi nished off the McDermots. Like imagine trying to get a baler around those paddocks.’
The Feeneys, farming at the bottom of the hill, had fared better. ‘Also Jack got himself a licence to dig tree ferns from the bush and sell them to nurseries. He did pretty well out of that.’
Tom asked, ‘Do you think Denise married Mick just so there’d be someone to help Jack with the farm?’
‘Sounds complicated.’ Nelly said, ‘He’s sort of sexy, Mick.’
At the sight of Tom’s face she burst out laughing.
The scrape of the gate sent invisible dogs crazy. Nelly raised her voice: ‘No hatchback, see? Tuesday evenings she’s got clinic.’
‘We’ve had no funny buggers with sheep.’ Mick Corrigan said, ‘If your dog was alive, he’d be after a feed for sure, eh? Nah, tell you what: he copped it from that wallaby.’
‘He’s a city dog. He wouldn’t make the connection between a sheep and food.’
‘Dog’s a dog, mate.’
The scent of sausages hung in the room. Nelly and Jack were by the window, which left Tom with sexy Mick. There was soundless boxing on TV; Mick’s gaze never left the screen. Now and then he tensed as if anticipating a blow.
Tom caught snatches of farm talk from Jack: ‘… fatten them up in about four months’; ‘… picking out the dry ewes.’
Mick sat with his arms crossed over his chest. ‘Best just get a new one, eh?’
But Tom had seen this: as Jack passed his son-in-law’s chair on his way across the room, he had picked up the remote and pressed the Mute button. He addressed no word to Mick, who made no protest. It was a thirty-second silent fi lm summarising what Mick Corrigan was up against.
On the porch, Jack said, ‘The bush was an open place when I was a lad. We’d go running through the trees on the way to school.’ He turned to Tom. ‘There were four farms along this road before the war. I’m the only one left now.’
The old man spoke with a survivor’s pride. But what he was remembering was the sensation of flight. He had emerged from the bush and gone racing down a hillside, unable to stop. He remembered the wind in his face, prickly grass underfoot. He shouted at cows and shocked trees. At the hurtling future.
It was always the worst hour, night coming on, and the dog missing from the circle of firelight. Nothing was said between them, but Nelly lit the lamp and placed candles about the kitchen while a lurid sunset was still smearing itself across the horizon.
With her hand on the blind, she paused.‘Cows. I always want to go over and talk to them. It’s something about their faces.’
‘You could tell them how terrific they’ll look on a plate.’
He had not yet quite forgiven Nelly her assessment of Mick Corrigan.
When they were eating, she said, ‘It used to be solid dairy country round here. Then one day Jack sold off his herd and got sheep in. He’ll tell you that all of a sudden he couldn’t bear to watch cows he’d known all their lives go off to the yards.’
She said, ‘He didn’t sell them all either. One of them, Belle, was still around when I got to know the Feeneys. She ended up with the rest under Jack’s old potato paddock.’
‘So what’s that mob doing out there?’
‘They’re Mick’s. He got them in when wool prices were down. Jack doesn’t really want anything to do with cattle, which is why they’re up here.’
‘Because sending sheep to the abattoir is a different thing altogether.’
‘Yeah, I know it doesn’t add up. And everyone pointed that out, Jack’s wife, the neighbours, everyone. He was a joke throughout the shire. Like it still comes up when people talk about him.’ Nelly said, ‘I’m sure he hated being called sentimental. And irrational. But in the end he wasn’t ashamed to be those things.’
In bed Tom lay thinking about the power of shame.
On learning that he intended to keep searching for the dog, Audrey had said, ‘There’s a limit to how much you can do.’ She was attuned to limits, especially other people’s. Patting the back of her hair, she added, ‘It’s not like losing a kiddy, is it? Count your blessings he’s only a dog.’
Love without limits was reserved for his own species. To display great affection for an animal invariably provoked censure. Tom felt ashamed to admit to it. It was judged excessive: overflowing a limit that was couched as a philosophical distinction, as the line that divided the rational, human creature from all others. Animals, deemed incapable of reason, did not deserve the same degree of love.
Now Tom wondered if the function of the scorn such love attracted was to preserve a vital source of food: because to love even one animal boundlessly might make it unthinkable to eat any. Bodies craving protein justified their desire as a matter of reason. But perhaps the limit at risk was in fact the material distinction between what was and was not considered fi t for consumption.
It was a topic that aroused unease. When eating out with friends, Tom had noticed a fashion for naming the animal that had supplied a dish. I’ll have the cow. Have you tried the minced pig? An ironic flaunting was at work: I know very well that this food on my plate was once a sentient creature, and that doesn’t bother me. Euphemisms are symptomatic of shame; to avoid them was to deny shame, deflecting it with cool.
Another familiar urban scenario: on seeing a beggar, Tom’s first impulse was to reach for money. Then he would imagine being observed in the act of placing a coin in a hand; a sentimental act, an act of feeling. The shame this occasioned was so strong that it triumphed over charity. He would walk on, ignoring the beggar.