Free New Australian Stories 2 by Aviva Tuffield Page A

waves enthusiastically at their steaming-over of the lounge window, turns and opens the gate, steps through, whistling, shuts the gate — glances up, but the children are already gone.
    He makes his way as far as the next corner, out of sight, rolls himself a smoke, his face concentrated, the pleasure of the good deed already fading from his chest. He attempts to hold on to it, tries to stop it seeping out between his ribs.
    As he licks the paper his gaze is on the hills in the distance. Forty or fifty kilometres away, but there he is looking at them in the blink of an eye. What was distance when you had eyes? When you could see what you were missing.
    At the corner the old man joins the main street and its usual morning hubbub of food-delivery trucks and the unsteady old. Lapdogs are tied up outside the miniaturised supermarket, cafés are full of laptops and blue collars mixing with white — foccacias, lattes and Great, thanks, how are you?
    He travels among the throng, as ignored as if this was an old sepia photo and he’s that smudge of a person moving through the background.
    Outside the pub, he sits with a beer and a Winning Post , people wafting like bees in and out of the supermarket over the road — a woman coming along towing a chocolate labrador, the dog’s underbelly littered with distended teats.
    The old man puts his beer down and watches dog and owner pause outside the supermarket, then go on.
    He relaxes again, picking the paper up and shaking it straight, returning to the column he was reading for the third time. Staring at the picture of the writer.
    An old lady ties a dachshund up outside the supermarket, the dog issuing its outraged yapping at the automatic doors — making them indecisive. The dog jumping back, confused too. Both dog and doors making each other stutter. Both of them seeming panicked.
    The yapping stops and the old man looks up, noticing the chocolate labrador tied up there now.
    He leaves his paper and beer, waits at the crossing, hammering the button.
    The lights change and he’s marching before the beeping’s started.
    On the other side he steps over the dachshund, becomes entangled with it — hops on one leg, the door juddering against him, the labrador at the full extent of its lead, wolfing down some Friday-night vomit near the ATM.
    The old man peers into the supermarket for the owner, then quickly unties the lab and crosses the road with it, darting between moving traffic and away.
    Once home he inspects the labrador’s collar: Chocolate , it reads. A phone number. He removes the collar and heads outside with it, crossing the expansive parking lot at the end jon bauer of his street — checking for any obvious observers before wiping off the evidence with his hanky and chucking both in the bin.
    Back indoors he turns on the radio, horseracing commentary coming at him. He likes it on in the background. The snaffled excitement of the voice. He only hears that on the radio now — that familiar voice.
    He stands at his front window for ages, peeking through the drawn curtains. The dog watching him. The racing commentary turned right down now to just a bubbling stew on the stove or a waiting taxi.
    Eventually he gives up his window vigil and surrenders to the TV in the corner, the labrador by his slippered feet, unsettled but playing the part at least.
    Spring carnival is around the corner and that familiar voice is a face on the news, talking about the influx of overseas contenders and Can Australian racing stand the competition? The chocolate lab plonks her head on his lap, and even though he could never think the same way about dogs again after what happened in the hills those months ago, he leans over the animal and buries himself in the solace.
    Next morning he shuffles out of his bedroom in slippers, lifts the kettle from its throne, gives it a wiggle, shuffles over to the sink, his hair squiffy. His head fogged over with last