There’s a book called “What I talk about when I talk about running”. I think it’s by a Japanese author; I could be wrong. I tried reading it several times, mostly because I should. I love running and I love others who love running, and the author was Japanese. Very high brow. I just couldn’t quite turn my attention to someone else’s story of the long miles – it just wasn’t interesting. But I have often wondered what my own running story was.
As I sit here nursing a very painful shoulder (which has a date with a heat pack very shortly), as I as I try to ignore the guilt I am, again, lugging about from missing all but one training session this week (said guilt is probably sitting on said shoulder), and as I flex my right toes in and out in a vain attempt to loosen my plantar for tomorrow’s race, I wonder why I love running so much. Because, like writing, it sucks. It hurts. I’m either waiting for the pain to start, or waiting for it to stop. I fail more often than I pass. I can’t remember the last time I exceeded expectations since the glory days of 2007 when we used to go for a quick 15(km) run before coffee, when I was first to arrive at the 5am run meets, and I effortlessly inched my way towards my first marathon. Nowadays, bits chafe. Toe nails bruise and then fall off. Other bits cramp, strain, blister, fail. I’ve never been Good again.
Running sucks.
And I’m an addict.
Aren’t I?
I read once that users of crystal meth only have one amazing high, and that’s the very first time they take it it’s like a sexualised, slash euphoric, pleasure; so glorious and fulfilling that they create a self-harming career trying to recreate that first time.
Except here’s the catch. You get one, and only one, first time. That’s it. Game over. It will never ever be the same again. Even if you double the dose every week until it kills you.
Now I’ve never been a user of meth (red wine is my drug/carb of choice) but that sounds VERY MUCH LIKE my running.
Why am I still running? Am I really in a committed relationship with the love of my life? Or am I a meth user trying to recreate that first time when the pleasure was so great that I can still feel it almost 10 years later? Am I addicted to the idea of what running was, or could be? Am I just chasing the high (while nursing another twinge of ITBS)?
Because when I talk about running, that’s what I’m talking about.
Once upon a time there was the greatest band in the world. Do I even need to say their name? You should know, right? Okay, okay – I assume too much about my taste and your opinion. So I will just tell you, and you can humour me.
The Beatles.
Come on, you know it. Even if they’re not your number one, they’d have to be in the Top 10-20. Unless you’re some sorta indie douche. Although – maybe they are old enough to be hipster cool? I have no idea.
Anyway. My point is, I am trying to recreate this cool photo of Paul McCartney for my Insta. (Poptart1999 btw, I follow back) I have got the outfit. Black trousers, jumper – beige, although I am guessing here, the photo is black and white – white collared shirt and black tie, tucked neatly into the pullover, as my pom dad would call the jumper. Also the chunky gold watch, juuuust hidden under the cuff. My brows are totally on point and while I don’t have the camera he is using to take his selfie (totally meta, no?) I have printed out a pic of it and put it on cardboard and cut a hole so I can hide my phone behind it and take the pic. The logistics of how I will hold the pose and take the photo currently baffle me. Either way, the whole idea is kinda genius.
Every day leading up to this epic selfie of a selfie I have been wondering if I should go for the hair, too. Artistic integrity/sacrifice and all that. Little bit Ruby Rose in execution, Lady Gaga in showmanship. Not quite sure how I’d go pulling the lads with that do, but meh. Least of my worries, really. Contouring is where those lie. I have to nail the deep-set eyelids, the light stubble above the bow lips, and the dimpled chin.
One day I will master this stuff. Stuff being contouring plus life. Shit. What must you think of me already? Self-obsessed, social media whore teen. Perhaps you wouldn’t be wrong. But it ain’t as if I am chucking a duckface in my parents bathroom, toothpaste spattered mirror in the background and crumpled towels on the floor, in my undies. I am trying to give my minion followers some history and culture, yo.
Because of that, that leads my to the conundrum of the ‘do. Yeah, I know I am not Sigourney in Aliens or the American Psycho Batman dude who lost all that weight. It is one photo. But maybe it is just that one photo that makes you. Invents, or reinvents, as the case may be. Not just like everyone else, but a risk-taker or an artiste. A unique snowflake. Anyway – my sis is keen to have at me with the scissors…
And because of that, I have become some sort of half legend/half weirdo. My Insta peeps ate that shit up. With lots of vacuous Yasssss! You go! and #shelovesyou comments. Course there was the homophobic shit but I feel like if I am confusing and confronting people? Good! At school my friends were all, ‘It’ll grow back!’ Whatevs. Once I would have been, well. Once I wouldn’t have done any of it.
Until finally, I decided to stop waging self wars. I decided that no fucks would be given. I’d think of what society wanted me to do and do the exact damn opposite. I mean, not like breaking the law, but like, having Paul McCartney hair and not shaving my bits every second day, and running cos I love it and eating a double whopper cos I crave it.
My dear ol’ mum calls me precocious and I don’t deny it. She tells me self-awareness is a scary and beautiful gift. She says I am awesome and quirky (mum code for lovably strange) and the best thing she has created. Naw, shucks.
However, I digress. I was actually wondering if you’d like to come on an adventure with me? There’ll be kissing stories, descriptions of meals, betrayal and youtube cat videos. I might even show you that photo, if you’re good. <insert winky emoji>
Once upon a time there was a black Mercedes, a zipped-up, low-to-the-ground number that oozed status and symbolism from every curve. The brand-spanking new car was owned by the father of my son’s new friend; a nice enough fellow who was clearly proud of his kids, but was probably more proud of his wheels. Who could blame him for that? Even I, a luxury car ignoramus, could tell that this one was something special.
His son had come to play at our place with my seven-year old after cricket on one of those blistering Perth summer mornings. It was stinking hot. The kids were ratty, and the parents even more so – two hours in the sun was affecting everyone. We were milling around at the end of the cricket session – James my son was scouting for potential playmates. He eyed a new friend of his, George.
“Does James want to come to our place?” the father (let’s call him Mr Mercedes) had asked. No, I said, it’s fine, we live just up the road from the oval so how about George just comes home with us.
I asked him to swing by to pick George up from our place at around eleven.
Which he did.
In the Merc.
I watched him park in our driveway and saw a flash of recognition in his face as he smiled towards our neighbour and trotted towards him, hand outstretched. The two were old Uni friends, apparently, so Mr Mercedes wandered over to catch up with his old mate. I stood and watched watched from the window for a minute, not wanting to be too quick to open the front door and head out to greet him. (I wouldn’t want him to think I had nothing to do but watch and wait for him to arrive, was my logic).
So I was in the prime position to watch the unfolding meeting of the vehicles.
My car is everything that the Mercedes is not. An ageing Australian classic might be a polite way to put it, but “classic” is far too generous a term. Really, it’s nothing more than an old shit box. It grinds and groans whenever I turn too sharply to the left. Or to the right, for that matter. Sometimes I try to catch the eye of other drivers to see if they can hear the groaning noises as clearly as I can. (No one has let on that they can, but I’m sure they’re just being polite). It’s never clean, and that’s because I don’t really see the point. I have no attachment to my car. I laugh about it to my friends, and I pretend that I don’t care, but I actually do. I wish it was something else. And every time I turn the wheel and the shit box emits its groan, something inside me twinges with shame. One day, I’d tell myself, I’ll get a new car. Nothing flash, but hopefully quiet.
On this particular day Gary my husband needed to use the shit box. He never drives it, but it has one advantage – it’s big. It’s just the thing you need to get your stuff home from a trip to Bunnings. The timber planks could stretch comfortably from the back bumper bar through to the front window. The shit box was in demand, and Gary was, as usual, in a hurry.
He’d told me that morning he’d be leaving around eleven.
Apparently it’s almost impossible to use a rear view mirror as intended (that is, to see what you might be backing into) if you are reversing up a hill. And our garage just happens to be at the bottom of a hill. The Mercedes was parked at the top.
The noise from the Australian classic wasn’t so much of a groan this time as a sickening crunch. Metal struck metal. Shit box struck Merc. Merc came off second best. The sleek panel over the rim of its front right tyre had been reduced to a crinkled mess, and it took the efforts of three men – husband, neighbour, and Mr Merc himself – to pull the rim away from the tyre so that the wheels could turn and car could be driven away.
“Totally awks, Mum”, said James, as the car finally backed out and gingerly crept away.
“You can go to his place next time. I’ll walk over to pick you up.”
Years ago, a very good friend of mine confided to me that for span of several years, while her children were very young, she was a cow. Not a female person unfortunately inclined to behave badly to others, but an actual cow.
I was in my early twenties at the time and generally clueless when it came to relationships between mothers and their very young children. My relationship with my own mother was strained, at best, and I didn’t yet have children of my own. So, while this revelation of my friend’s was remarkable enough to be remembered when so very many others were lost, at the time that she said it, I didn’t know what she meant. At least, I was aware that it didn’t really have to do with breastfeeding (maybe a little bit, at one time?) but it’s less obvious implications were beyond the reach of my capacity to understand – shadowy things, less substantial than smoke and just as difficult to grasp.
I do get it now. I have had very young children and there were days when I, too, was a cow. Probably both sorts at once. I was a source of food, a propagator of another generation of my kind, a creature enslaved to a mundane daily ritual involving milk, nurturing and lots of walking; and when prevailing conditions were stormy, I turned my arse to the wind and rain and tried to keep the worst of the weather out of my face.
My children represent the best of my life. I love them dearly and nurturing them is my privilege. But at that time, I lost my higher functioning self, my last best version of myself, and became a cow for a while. As far as cows go, I think I did alright. I quite like cows actually. But I am forever grateful to those other mothers in my life whose care and conversation – whose presence in my kitchen on windy, rainy days – helped me to re-integrate my soft-eyed cow with a newer alternative version of thinking, mostly-human woman.
Describe the beach. I left my shoes under that tree that is no longer there. I left that tree behind a long time ago and walked off barefoot, never looked back and now, looking out this window, looking back, the shore is so far away. The window is round and a gull soars past and I can’t see which way is back because all around me is sea, sea, sea. So tranquil.
Describe the beach, describe the beach.
I waited.
The sun slanted into the kitchen, it was late afternoon and that old radio was on, before you swiped it off the shelf just like that, you said ‘Enough of those voices, that infernal music, why can’t we all just be QUIET?’
Describe the beach describe the beach describe the beach.
By the time we got there our footprints were long gone and the sand was strewn with starfish. There must have been hundreds of them, all beached, all grey. Perhaps in the water, before, they were luminous, but now they were such a dull grey, like the sand, the sky, all such a dull grey, the only light emanating from behind the waves, the Indian ocean glowing jade green under winter’s white foam. Occasionally one of their legs moved, twitched a last flick of life before stillness, the absenting of life, the last star going out before everything turns to dust.
Describe the beach. Long, quiet, ten minutes end to end. One step before the next, on the liminal shore.
I have this cleaner called Sandra. She’s been our cleaner for 20 years. She’s the only person I am terrified of. And I am really fucking terrified of her. If you live in Brunswick you know Sandra. Everyone knows Sandra. And everyone is terrified of her. She thinks the answer to every question is bleach, a jumper or another serve of lasagne. 20 years she has cleaned for me and I have never left her a note. Why? Because she’s an excellent cleaner? Fuck no. Because I am PETRIFIED OF HER. Does she leave me notes? Sure! I have a file of them. All written with a pink highlighter a mix of upper and lower case letters. The way you would imagine a serial killer would write.
This is a typical exchange;
Sandra: ‘Andrew…Alastair…Anthony whatever his fucking name is. Does he run?’
Me: ‘Anthony? Yes. Yes he runs.’
Sandra: ‘Was he running along Sydney Road last week?’
Me: ‘Yes! That would have been him.’
Sandra: ‘Well tell him to move his arms when he fucking runs. And buy Domestos. I just used the last of it.’
So she was cleaning on Tuesday and I said ‘Hey Sandra, we’re having this thing on Sunday. It’s a wedding. We’re calling it a Love Party.’
Sandra: ‘So you’re having a party?’
Me: ‘No. It’s like a wedding basically but no god no government.’
Sandra: ‘So you’re getting married?’
Me: ‘No’
Sandra: (GETTING REALLY EXASPERATED) ‘So you are signing the fucking paper and sending it into the fucking government?’
Me: ‘Yes we are signing a certificate but we are not sending it to the government.’
Sandra: (EXPLODING): ‘Well what’s the fucking point of that then?’
Me: ‘Joy, delight, love, celebration…’
Sandra: ‘What the fuck would I know about any of that?’
The closer we get to the Love Party the more pro-wedding I get and the more anti-marriage I become. Why I didn’t think was possible.
Since we came up with the idea of the Love Party over five years ago and set a date about six months ago many, many people have said ‘Ah yeah! We did that too. We had a Love Party.’
Me: ‘Really! I haven’t met anyone who has. So no god no government…?’
Them: ‘Totally! My dad didn’t give me away, I kept my name, we didn’t have a reception we had a BBQ, our honeymoon was going to Cambodia to help in an orphanage…’
Me: ‘So you had a wedding but you didn’t get married?’
Them: ‘Oh yeah we got married. But we didn’t do any of the traditional stuff.’
No. You did all the traditional stuff. You got married. That is all the traditional stuff. The rest is window dressing. Doing things you consider creative, individual or progressive does not make it less of a marriage. It doesn’t matter that you had a cupcake wedding cake, you wore lime green and the best man was a women. You got married. You didn’t have a Love Party.
Good for you.
Not for me.
‘So how’s your future hubby going?’
‘Err what the fuck? Hubby? We are not getting married. I am anti marriage.’
‘Okay then well how is your future committed partner going?’
‘The Love Party isn’t a commitment ceremony. Nothing is changing. We are celebrating what we are doing and have been doing for almost six years and what we are going to continue to do.’
‘So what’s the point of the Love Party?’
‘Love, joy, delight, sharing our happiness, treating our friends. Reflecting on all the love in our lives. And hopefully giving our guests a chance to reflect on the love in their lives.’
‘So it’s like a non wedding then?
‘No. It’s totally a wedding. There is just no marriage.’
‘So it’s not a real wedding?’
‘I would argue that what we are doing is a real wedding because the wedding is simply the party as opposed to people who marry and add the wedding on to sweeten the deal. Perhaps they only marry because they think it’s the only way to have a wedding.’
A lot of people seem to find it really hard to get their head around the concept of a Love Party. ‘So why are you’re wearing a veil….?’
‘Because I want to.’
‘But you said you’re not getting married.’
‘We’re not.’
‘So you’re not having a celebrant’
‘We are having two celebrants!’
‘But you said you are not getting married.’
‘We’re not.’
We are fine with the words, wedding, groom and bride. We are not happy with the words marriage, husband and wife. I ‘identify’ as a bride.
It seems people think you are not allowed to have a veil, flower girls, rings, a cake, confetti, a reception, celebrants or a wedding if you are not getting married. It’s like the spoon full of sugar to make the medicine go down. Only if you sign up to Love Jail are you allowed the fun stuff.
Why did you swallow that bullshit? And who fed it to you? And do you like the taste? And why are you feeding it to other people?
If there were no weddings attached to marriages would people still do it? If it was just like filling in a tax return would they get married? I think no.
I am constantly horrified by stories of people’s weddings being deeply miserable affairs because their mother wanted this and their father wanted that and their partner’s parents wanted something else.
WHAT THE FUCK HAS SOMEONE’S WEDDING GOT TO DO WITH ANYONE OTHER THAN THE TWO PEOPLE GETTING WEDDINGED?
(And what’s with people’s parents paying for their daughters weddings? Super. Fucking. Creepy.)
All the parental involvement makes me wonder what the wedding and the marriage is actually all about. Is it about approval from their parents? It it about their family only taking their relationship seriously if they are married? Is it something they want to do so they can be princess for a day? Do they feel they owe it to their parents to allow their mum and dad to feel a sense of success? Does it make them feel safe? Different? Like someone chose and now owns them? Are they doing it to break away from their family so they feel like proper independent adults? Do they think the event ‘wedding’ has a gravitas about it that makes people make a fuss, turn up and forces the to buy gifts? Or is it about brokering a deal. ‘Okay you be the man and I’ll be the lady. This is my apron and that is your brief case. I keep house and you go to work. FOREVER.’
There are people contacting me saying since they heard about what we are doing and they are no longer marrying but having a Love Party instead. Five times as many have contacted me saying ‘I wish we’d had a Love Party and not gotten married. I didn’t even think of it.’
How could you not? I find marriage such an abhorrent concept I am staggered people just ticked the terms and conditions so they could have a party. Or so they say. Why would you chose going from an intimate realtionship with just you two, to having a third and or forth party (god and or government) involved?
YOU CAN HAVE EVERYTHING YOU WANT FROM A WEDDING WITHOUT GETTING MARRIED.
So why do people do it? Why do they get married when they have the choice not to? No one can explain it to. ‘Just wanna’ is the only response I get.
We are two days out from the Love Party and I have never been as happy and excited in my life. The household is fizzing. Rings are done, cake is being cooked, flowers being sorted, dress back from the drycleaner, suits picked up, vows are written, today we are off for a ‘couple pampering session’ a bunch of our friends have chipped in for and Saturday we do our regular thing and get a pedicure with our friend Vic.
Everyone is beside themselves with excitement. Every single one of them (many do weddings all the time for work) say ‘This is so much more exciting than a wedding. Much more special…”
‘Really? Seriously?’ I probe. ‘Why?’
It seems to feel more ‘special’ because of the lack of the default settings and obligations and the fact we have selected exactly what we have wanted. As opposed to starting with a basic wedding format and altering to suit. Insert bride’s name here insert groom’s name here. People seem deeply moved that it’s really and truly only about love. And spoiling our friends. That’s a huge part of it. The Love Party is a small way we can show them we love them. By treating them. They have loved us so hard over so many years and troubles we want to take a day to say ‘Thank-you. We love you. We are here and happy today because of you all. We are at your service.’
Someone said, ‘People talk about doing stuff like this but never do it. That’s what makes it so special. That you are going to the effort. For no reason other than love.’
People are also interested and supportive of the concept. And curious. The can’t wait to see the pics and find out how it went. It seems to be a case of ‘you can’t be it unless you can see it’. More Love Parties is my hope. I’d be thrilled if that was the case.
The enthusiasm, generosity and big heartedness from people has floored me. My phone is dinging off the hook with mates and people coming to and working on the Love Party telling me how excited they are. The cake maker, florist, catering manager, DJs, ring maker, photographer, video guy, even the people providing the garden wedding setting and the portaloo just can’t do enough. But this is the best thing. Perhaps there is a god….
YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HAPPY THIS MAKES ME!
When you are getting married you start STALKING the weather. This time last week I was on a long range forecast website and it said Love Party weather was going to be 16 and raining. I was a little glum. Coincidently my sister pinged me and the same time and said ‘Weather looks brilliant for Love Party!’ I thought she was taking the piss. No, she was just on a different 14 day forecast and it said the weather was going to be 27. I then just went to the website she was going to.
I’m rapt the weather is going to be lovely. I’m looking forward to treating our friends and hopefully creating magical, dreamy love filled memories. But most of all I can’t wait to stand in front of all those people, 26 years after first setting eyes on this guy and thinking ‘I wish I were good enough to have a boyfriend like that’ and saying ‘I do’ to this magnificent man. Yes. We’re saying I do. We’re also saying ‘til death do us part’.
She looked at me like she knew me already. She didn’t ask questions but she told me her stories openly and freely. We sat in her clean, sparsely-decorated, empty home. On the mantelpiece sat five shells. One shell for each of her miscarriages. Each was vastly different, as each loss had been. There was a jagged white one – the first, she told me – a small blue one, another white shell, a red-tinged one and a purple one. I imagined her walking along the beach, tears in her eyes, and a hole deep inside as she collected rocks and shells, feeling them between her fingers over and over before pocketing the right one. Five sad trophies side by side in a lonely house. “I couldn’t do it to him anymore,” she said of her absent husband “I couldn’t do it to myself anymore.”
I sat in silence on the other side of the room. My story was different to hers, and one I could not tell her; one she could not hear. I did not pick out a shell, or any other rare treasure from the sea after my abortion. I didn’t see the foetus as a baby, as a life. Pregnancy was a condition I was desperate to be cured of. I needed distance between me and him and I aborted the thing we made that would have glued us together for the rest of our lives. It was not sad, and there was no remorse. It was clean. It was clinical. I signed some paperwork and changed into a paper gown and put my legs in stirrups. And when I woke up they fed me miniature sandwiches and apple juice. A friend drove me home where I slept some more and in the morning I packed one suitcase and took the train to the airport. I couldn’t handle looking into his eyes one final time, nor being held hostage by his mood swings and inexplicable rage. On the bench at home, if he looked, he would find my note: “You already know why.” If he didn’t see it coming then he’d never understand the leaving; he didn’t deserve the explanation he couldn’t understand.
“Do you think you’ll have children one day?” She asked me hopefully, a sad smile on her face. I looked at her collection of shells before I met her eyes “I’m not sure.” I shrugged gently.
Once upon a time there was a woman who became a mother. It didn’t happen overnight. Obviously. It started over night but then took 9 months to come to fruition. After nine months she had a round wrinkly little thing that could do nothing but required everything. And the mother wrung the best bits out of the grey world that surrounded her to try and grow and stretch and toughen up this little beast. The sky where they lived was never visible. It was always cloaked in a dirty grimy blanket of grey, but she would leave the kid to roll around in the tiny outdoor space they had, to soak up whatever withered traces of sunshine it could.
Every day, she would strap the child to her front and hug it to her chest like a hot water bottle. They would walk through narrow industrial streets, with gritty gutters and wrappers collecting in the corners and alleys. They would walk to the baby girl’s childcare centre, which was full of bright light and primary colours. Then the mother would go and spend hours cutting carrots into items of intricate garnish for high end catering events.
One day, stepping across the threshold from the coarse and grinding city, into the smooth and shiny reflections and colour of the child care centre, the mother was hit by the contrast in a way she had never experienced before. She couldn’t leave the girl there, where there was no chance of skinned knees from angry gravel or scratches from misjudging a rough corner.
Because of that, she decided to take her child with her, back out into the grey, and try to find the real colour and softness and grit and texture that she knew was out there somewhere in the world. They started small. One bean, sitting in some rubbishy dirt in a mug on their kitchen counter, sent up two small leaves at the top of a tender stalk.
And, because of that, a little colour started to leach into their life. And the child soaked it up. They collected snippets of coloured wool and painted patches of garish wall. They grew tall sunflowers with awkwardly heavy heads and mixed colours that were against the rules. The child began to speak, and began to point out the snatches of colour that might otherwise have disappeared into the overwhelming grey of the sky and heavy cogs of the growling industrial city where they lived.
Until finally, the child had absorbed all that there was to provide light and life in that city. She had grown from a round, wobbly small thing, into an almost adult. What colour they could collect from they streets around their little flat, she had harvested, accumulated, carried in and arranged on the shelves and on the walls. And it was time for her to go. There was nothing left for her to feed and grow from. When she left her mother, and left the city, the colour and the variety and the possibilities of the rest of the world swallowed her up. Occasionally notes and pictures find their way back to her mother, little snippets of the countries she had worked her way through or the people she had met. Biology students in Guatemala, theatre directors in New York, orangutan rehabilitators in Borneo.
Her mother tried to be glad for the colour and life her daughter was moving through, but all she thought was “Oh my god I miss you”.
Once upon a time there was a dog who thought he was a man named Steve. He had chosen the name himself, after his favourite cricketer. Steve loved cricket. There was something about it that just spoke to him. Steve was a fielder. He sometimes thought that nothing made him happier than running after balls.
This made office work rather dull. It was drag for everyone, as Steve knew only too well from the walk around the coffee machine, but it was really, really hard when all you wanted to do all day was run around after balls.
Steve’s office didn’t even have a window. But he realised this might not be a bad thing – being able to see the park all the time may have pushed things from bad to unbearable.
Every day Steve had to walk past the families and the trees and grass of that park. There was one tree that he always stopped at. Not to do anything; just to sniff. He could find out a lot that way – who was around, who was getting some and what meat was cheap at the butcher.
One day as he walked past, the tree had a message for Steve, a message of love, of longing, of need. Steve stood there for a good five minutes, just inhaling the message.
Signing off on the accounts that afternoon took him much, much longer than normal. Steve kept drifting back to his message.
He knew that she wanted, he knew where she had been, but he didn’t know where she was…or who she was.
He just knew that he would know her when he smelled her.
Because of that, Steve kept his nose to the ground for the next few days. He took more works than usual. He got up earlier. He also took the unprecedented step of having a quiet pee behind a tree in the park. The homeless man in the sleeping bag under the adjacent tree was quite surprised.
But to no avail. His mysterious someone didn’t turn up.
Days passed in a steady stream of accounts, audits, orders and reports. He signed forms in triplicate. He gave PowerPoint presentations to yawning faces. All was as it normally was.
Steve found it hard to focus. His work suffered. A steady drum beat of questions pounded in his ears. Who was she? Where was she?
Slowly, her scent faded from the tree.
And because of that, Steve’s hopes began to fade too. His ears drooped. His tail hung loosely under his jacket.
But one morning, on the first warm air of spring, he caught a whiff – just the faintest trace of her. She was somewhere within the nearest mile, he judged by the air currents, and she was south.
He looked at his Blackberry. He had no meetings until 10. Dash it, he would be late in today.
He pointed his nose to the south and set off.
After only a few blocks the smell grew stronger, richer, more complex, until finally he came to a small house with a green front door.
It was being locked by the finest bitch he had ever seen, from her pillbox hat to her neat navy pumps below a sharp pencil skirt.
Their eyes met. In spite of his best efforts, Steve’s tail began to wag. And he could see hers twitch beneath her jacket.
‘Easy, boy!’ he whispered to himself, and trotted forward to meet his future.
