It was a ruin; a steaming, smouldering wreck that could not be retrieved. The hot mess in front of me was supposed to be corned beef fritters. At best it was an abject failure. At worst, it would be something that anyone who’d ever strolled past the television during a cooking program might describe as ‘deconstructed’. All the ingredients were present and accounted for; all that was left was for me to pull the whole thing together. It was in this regard that I had failed and failed miserably at that. Despite my adherence to the recipe, the fritters were determined to break apart. Regardless of the effort I took and despite the abundance of caution I exercised, after mere moments in the fry pan they began to disintegrate. As the remnants sizzled in front of my eyes, all I could think was: this is a symbol of everything that has gone wrong.
It was a ruin; a steaming, smouldering wreck that could not be retrieved. The hot mess in front of me was supposed to be corned beef fritters. At best it was an abject failure. At worst, it would be something that anyone who’d ever strolled past the television during a cooking program might describe as ‘deconstructed’. All the ingredients were present and accounted for; all that was left was for me to pull the whole thing together. It was in this regard that I had failed and failed miserably at that. Despite my adherence to the recipe, the fritters were determined to break apart. Regardless of the effort I took and despite the abundance of caution I exercised, after mere moments in the fry pan they began to disintegrate. As the remnants sizzled in front of my eyes, all I could think was: this is a symbol of everything that has gone wrong.
My wife went away for a month. Having finished one job and not being due to start the next one for a few weeks, she decided to make the most of the opportunity and head overseas. Having lived with someone for ten years, to have her suddenly absent was extremely disorienting. Not that the full force of it hit me straight away. It began, as these things do, with a trip to the airport. As far as excursions go into the alternative luminescent reality that is Tullamarine, it was a complete triumph. We arrived in the dead of night but in plenty of time, and lined up for the check-in counter along with tennis players who’d just been beaten at the Australian Open and were understandably keen to leave the country as quickly as possible. After saying our goodbyes, I drove towards home, getting stuck in a traffic jam on the Bolte Bridge at midnight because that’s when they change the light bulbs on the street lamps. I can’t tell you how many road workers it takes to change a light bulb, but I can say that it involves a really big cherry picker and causes some pretty serious traffic congestion.
In an ideal world, a late night would be followed by a sleep in. But the world is not ideal, especially when it includes a dog that regards not letting her out at 5am as a substantial deprivation of liberty and refuses to be quiet about it. Long before the sun had shown its face, I was out of bed. Over a period of time, the dog and I have developed something of an understanding: I’ll get up early on weekends if she’ll let me use that time to write. But as I sat at my computer, all was well in my weary world until I thought I heard the sound of paper being torn.
Curious, I got up from my chair to investigate. Walking through the kitchen the sound only got louder. It grew louder still as I walked through the hall to the bedroom. There I found our dog, Fozzie, sitting on the bed and tearing the third volume of Clive James’ memoirs, which I was part way through reading, to pieces. Personally, it was a book I’d been enjoying very much, and I had no idea that the dog felt otherwise. I wondered whether this act of wanton destruction might, in fact, be the start of her career as a literary critic. More than once in the weeks that followed, I have wondered whether the mess I was picking up in the backyard might, in fact, be Fozzie’s review of the ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ series. I’d certainly like to think so.
It was an inauspicious start. Clearly, the dog and I needed to work a few things out if both of us were to survive the next few weeks – if she could stop eating my books, I would do my best to cease mistaking her dog food pellets for breakfast cereal. Granted, I realised something was wrong after the first seven or eight spoonfuls, but she seemed to take my innocent mistake quite personally.
Before Kate, I lived by myself for a long time. And given all those years of practice, I should really good at it. But a household is a delicate thing, and an absence will inevitably upset the natural balance if not completely disturb the space / time continuum. The dog was clearly put out; taking any chance she got over the next few weeks to burst into the bedroom in search of Kate or to lie in front of the door in the belief that she would, eventually, have no choice but to emerge.
Meanwhile, we developed a routine in which we went to the park for a walk every day. Once, getting her to walk up the street was a stop-start proposition. Now we set a great pace. It was at the park that I realised just how friendly our dog is, as she greeted canines and humans with equal enthusiasm. Not that our troubles were at an end. Sensing weakness, the dog took to jumping up on the couch, forcing me to place upturned chairs on the cushions. The end result was a lounge room that looked as if it had a giant porcupine squatting in it.
I had help of course – lots of it. Thanks to the generosity of my mother in law and nephews, the dog was well looked after during the day. And yet things felt inordinately busy. As though they might slip off the rails at any give moment. But as I shovelled deconstructed corned beef fritter over my lips, it tasted a lot better than it looks. Perhaps despite the chaos and things not turning out quite how you expect, things can still be all right. Or they’re okay so long as you keep your books out of harm’s way. I’m sure Clive James would agree.