Fog a Dox (4 page)

Yes, people left Mrs Cartright-Sellers to herself but Dave wasn't going to risk people finding out about the Lovelock bit. He got his mail delivered to Dave, Boulder Creek Camp, near Narkoonjee.

Dave wanted a fat, warm pup because he was a soft sort of man, which no-one knew, and a lonely
man, about which no-one cared, or so it seemed to Dave. He wanted a fat, warm pup to climb in under his old army blanket and settle itself behind the small of his back because his hut could be fearful cold in winter and his arthritis was beginning to give him gyp. He also wanted the company of a fellow living creature. Someone to talk to while he rubbed her little fat silken ears with his rough timber cutter's fingers.

Yes, Dave had the right dog. When he stroked the perfect dome of her little head he marvelled at the perfection of creation. He'd lift her baby-pink feet, smell the warm nuttiness of them and kiss her between the eyes when she went all dozy in front of the fire.

He found something strange in his chest one lunch time when she paddled up to him in her tumbly clumsy puppy way and crawled onto his lap. Very strange sort of feeling in his chest. He was chuckling. Laughing at the ridiculous little dog. What a strange sensation laughing is, especially if you haven't been able to do it for a while.

Oh, he loved that Queenie Bess and she loved
him. And kept him warm. And loved. And everyone needs that, someone to think they're really special.

Now the men and women of the forest gathered around Brim's second litter and the pups gradually left: one to mind sheep; another to look after little Gabby Arnold because he was stuck in a wheelchair, poor blighter; another to keep an old dog company; one just to be an ordinary sort of dog; and the last to get run over by a truck because no-one in the Howard house had time or love enough to stop it chasing cars.

And so there were only fox cubs left. One, two … er … oh, you know how many foxes were left, lotsa the silly little coots.

Like any mother, Brim was distraught when the pups were taken from her, but Albert was the boss in her world and she was reassured by his love. To say that she was a reluctant mother of the remaining fox cubs is not quite correct. The foxes loved her and believed she was their mother; they thought of themselves as dogs. And while Brim was conscientious, she seemed slightly alarmed by
them, unnerved by their foxy behaviour.

The look of bewilderment never left her face. She would let them drink and dutifully clean their faces and fur with a thoroughness that was out of her control, but whenever they gave their strange little fox yips and whines the poor dingo flinched in alarm.

Nevertheless she grew them up and tried to teach them how to be good dogs. The foxes loved their mother and tried to be just like her, but they weren't.

Brim liked to give her territory a good sniff every morning and the foxes followed suit, but the urge to hunt anything that moved was irresistible. They ate grasshoppers and worms, quail chicks and lizards, anything they could sniff out with their sharp little noses. Brim looked on amazed and at times seemed a little repulsed.

All baby animals grow up and their most endearing traits – their clumsiness, their playfulness and their ability to fall asleep in the most unlikely places – were replaced by stealth and wariness, latent aggression and an altogether
more serious outlook on life.

Gradually the foxes extended their range and the time they spent away from Brim and each other. The two females in particular seemed to be itching to explore as far as they could, sometimes not returning to the hut until dusk was well advanced. Soon they'd be hunting in the dark. As foxes do.

But not Fog. The boy had all the slinky stealth and hunting lust of his sisters but he was always the first to seek out Brim and rest in the shade with her or find Albert's coat and try to get back in the pocket to sleep, even though he was now far too big.

The smell of the coat was important to Fog, almost as if he remembered being bundled in there by the old man's hands all those months ago. Whenever Albert wore the coat Fog would try to climb onto his lap. If he took the coat off Fog would sleep on it. Brim was never far from the coat either. She knew her job was to guard Albert first and his things second. If Albert didn't want her under his feet while he split timber Brim
would always go back to sit beside his coat or the lunch things. The vixens would get bored almost immediately and slope off into the forest, but when Albert looked around from his work Brim was always watching him as she lay with jaw resting on paws … And more often than not Fog was asleep on his coat.

One warm evening when the moon was three-quarters full and rose just after sunset the vixens didn't come home.

Albert looked for them the next day although he wasn't really expecting their return, but he wanted to reassure himself that they hadn't fallen victim to wild dogs or eagles.

No, they'd just gone off. Off to be wild, Albert thought with approval, not without a pang of loss, because they were charming animals, a delight to have around with their bright-eyed intelligence and outright beauty.

They'd gone because they were fully weaned and independent. Why Fog remained was a mystery. Were the males slower to develop and leave home or was there something else?

Brim took to sleeping on Albert's bed, as much to ease her arthritis as anything, but perhaps also to declare her rights above those of Fog, a mere fox.

A fox or a dox? Albert wondered, looking at the animal lying in front of the wood stove. Even though the evenings were warm Fog liked to be near the stove or more particularly the coat, which Albert hung on the back of his fireside chair whenever he came inside.

It was a peculiar family. Albert found there were plenty of people who disapproved, most of whom had never even seen Fog, but this didn't stop them from accusing the dox of having stolen their chickens and ducklings.

Unlike his two wild sisters Fog hardly went anywhere on his own. He learnt to be content with whatever food Albert provided, and he was happiest when Albert wore his coat. Fog was a homely dox.

But people can't abide anything different and many can't relax until the difference is destroyed. Fog would have got blamed if the cat had kittens.
As far as Albert was concerned Fog had decided he was a dox and that was good enough for Albert. Albert's heart was a very decent piece of machinery.

I know this is a story and the hero of a story usually has to be good, kind, brave and good-looking, but the truth of the matter is that while Albert was demonstrably good and kind, in his mind they were just habits he couldn't break. And as for courage, how do you know if you've got it until you need it?

But Albert certainly was not handsome, teetering on the edge of ugliness – if it weren't for his smile. He definitely was not young, and to be a respectable hero you have to be young. But the truth is that Albert isn't the hero. He's just a kind man and I don't know about you, but I reckon that's a good-enough reason to include anyone in a story – even an old man whose blunt features could be described as plain if not a bit coarse.

But if you'd met Albert, as I have done, you might see Albert's face as interesting. Because if a person can't have a beautiful face they can
make their face interesting by gazing out of it with intelligence and kindness. When I first saw Albert's face that's what I saw, not the crooked nose, craggy jaw and dodgy teeth, but how he quizzed me with those kindly dark eyes, looked into my soul, looking for
my
goodness.

I'm sticking up for Albert because he suffered other people's unkindness with never a mean remark in return, never a bad deed done to make his detractors fall on their face. Once those fox cubs had licked his fingers, mewled in his ear and nuzzled his neck, he could no more ignore their plight than hurt any human.

Sometimes, after Albert had cleaned up the evening dishes and poured himself a big mug of tea, he'd stare into the firebox of his stove and more often than not catch the earnest gaze of Fog, searching his face with the devotion of a dog and the acute enquiry of a fox.

‘So, Fog, my dox, what do you think about the world and its people?'

Fog studied Albert's face and considered the question but said nothing.

‘You see, my young dox-cub-pup, there are people who will hate you simply because someone else said you were to be hated. Never seen you before, never sat by the fire and had a chat with you, just determined to be afraid of you and hate you because you're different.'

Albert drained his tea. Fog thought Albert made a little more noise sipping his tea than was entirely necessary and felt sure there was no need for him to dunk his nose in it while he was at it. It was a fairly big nose, Albert's, and as we've just discussed his face, you get the picture. But have you ever seen a fox with dirty whiskers? Fog's point entirely.

Fog wasn't judging Albert, but foxes are so neat in their habits that the gorging and slobbering that some dogs and humans went in for remained an unpleasant surprise. Brim was neat and finicky for a dog but still managed to get more of her dinner on her whiskers and chops than Fog thought becoming. Still, he tolerated that – she was his mother.

Brim's summer habit of sleeping on Albert's bed became a very determined winter habit. She wasn't
a young dog, the years were taking their toll, and on some particularly frosty mornings she feigned profound sleep and forgetfulness so that it was just Fog who escorted Albert into the forest to watch over the lunchbox and his coat.

Brim would be waiting in front of the hut when they returned with an air of sham irritation that they hadn't waited that extra one or two or … lotsa minutes for her to get ready so that she could have left with them in the morning.

She wagged her tail and inspected Fog, sniffed the axes, the lunchbox and Albert's trousers to make sure nothing had gone awry in her absence, but ah, the luxury of dozing away by the fire with only the baleful stare of the owl to reprimand her. And it was nearly tea time already! Life was good.

BIRTHDAYS

One Sunday morning Fog and Brim lay in the sun beside Albert's outside chair where he liked to drink his third cuppa. Suddenly the dog and dox pricked their ears and looked toward the forest path with tension and expectation. Brim began a couple of uncertain wags of her tail before remembering that she was a fierce guard dog and bristling the hair about her neck in a show of threat. But soon she could not restrain her tail because she felt sure she knew who was coming.

Cranky Dave stepped into the clearing with his perennial grumpy self-effacement, Queenie Bess heeling beside him. Brim dashed forward and gave the nervous young dog such a sniffing exploration that anyone would have been a bit intimidated.

‘She's four,' Cranky Dave announced, as if everyone should know exactly what he meant. ‘Queenie Bess, she's four today. She wanted to come for her birthday.'

Blimey, Albert thought, he's got worse.

‘Ah, now that's good, Dave, glad to hear it. Almost slipped me mind when the pups were born.'

Dave was staring at Fog who was sitting up like a good dox, all attention and good manners. But it didn't matter which way you looked at it, he was still a fox.

‘That fox there looks pretty tame, Albert.'

Albert passed Dave a good strong cup of tea, marvelling at the extent of Dave's new found sociability. ‘Yes, very quiet, doesn't worry the birds and animals, comes to work every day, never misses a beat.'

‘So, what are you going to do with him?'

‘Nothing, he's a mate. Just like your Queenie.'

‘Oh,' said Dave thinking about it for a moment and deciding that if Albert thought there was no harm in it then there probably wasn't. ‘Well, that's good then, to have a mate.'

The two men sat surrounded by the two dogs and the fox and drank their tea in companionable silence. Dave seemed to relax and expand. It's true that his burst of conversation had dried up but he was like a man practising having a friend. He sat forward in his chair cradling the cup in his big hands and settling his feet in a more relaxed position.

‘It's good to catch up, Dave,' Albert said at last, ‘have a cuppa and a chat.'

Dave made a bit of a noise in his nose that sounded like agreement and shuffled his feet.

‘Here,' Dave said after a long silence, ‘I brought you this. For your fox.' He handed Albert a small parcel.

Albert peeled the coloured paper off carefully. He didn't get many wrapped parcels so he wasn't
going to rush this one. He wanted to show his friend he appreciated it. Whatever it was.

Inside he found a collar made from thongs of kangaroo hide, and in a neat capsule of leather Dave had secured a red stone the size of a two dollar coin.

‘It's not a real ruby,' Dave rushed and fumbled his explanation, ‘garnet, it's garnet. I found a big one in the creek and kind of cut it on me wheel. Bit rough but it shines all right.'