Electric and Mad and Brave by Tom Pitts

Author:Tom Pitts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Published: 2022-06-23T00:49:19+00:00

Tuesday, 12 January

Twenty-four hours now since I contacted Ali.

No reply.

When Yoav showers, he listens to music. He turns the volume all the way up so he can hear it above the water . . .

Wednesday, 13 January

I’ve never lost the image of Connie falling out of the car. Even now, if I want, she hits the gravel and scrambles to her feet, bursting out of the shadow and becoming suddenly radiant; then caressing Mr Harvey in the back seat as the gates took forever to open. She’d said, ‘My man, my man,’ over and over again, stroking his belly and keeping him awake. It was more than a dog she was cradling, all of us knew; Aunty Carol’s eyes in the rear-vision mirror, flicking back at her sister, who seemed to believe her husband was in her arms once again, crooning in an eerie way that suggested a glimpse into their most intimate scenes in the hospital. ‘My man, my man,’ she’d said again and again as Aunty Carol broke every rule on the road and the car hurtled towards Beach Street Veterinary Clinic.

Then at the clinic: Christina, Ali and I sitting absurdly like butchers in a row with lashings of blood covering our arms and thighs and shirts; sitting beside a portly woman with a snarling Pomeranian who despised my shoes. All about us, owners stood neat and laundered, scanning magazines and peering up at the television babbling in the corner. Connie had exploded into the waiting room, shrieking and howling before disappearing with Aunty Carol, Harvey, and a stunned veterinarian behind an office door. Now all was silent and the three of us strained to make something of the hubbub creeping under the door – frantic, it seemed, though impossible to make out. Were they operating? Perhaps there was no point? Pamphlets had explained that dogs could die within half an hour if not treated. Mr Harvey had not been treated within half an hour. It was only his leg though – how much blood could he have lost? I looked at the TV to take my mind off things: an exposé on hunger strikes in the Woomera detention centre. Asylum seekers had sewn their lips together. A woman was weeping before the camera. Such sorrow in the world – and now Mr Harvey . . .

The door opened and Aunty Carol stepped out gravely. She paused as something was explained behind her, then nodded and made her way to the desk. Connie followed, clutching pamphlets as if they were vital organs. Mr Harvey was nowhere to be seen. The room hushed as everyone craned to hear what had become of the poor dog rushed in so grotesquely. Now appeared the veterinarian – only he was no longer stunned. Instead, he swept the door closed with the grace of a conductor, striding to the desk.

It had been close, he said, quite an ordeal, and Harvey was lucky to have escaped the way he had. They would have to

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