The old dog walks a few paces, sniffs the air, then turns and looks back, checking up on the woman. In the western sky a quarter moon hangs. The woman is a silhouette against the evening sky.
I watch her slow steps; she is hunched over a walker. Her white cardigan sits over her light blue dress and highlights her hair. She pushes the walker along the rough grass beside the street, past an empty block. The German Shepherd waits patiently. Behind her is another shape smudged in the darkening light. A cat. Moving slowly too, slower than both of them, following.
On the trio go, spread apart, unhurried. The houses in the street are sunken, low-roofed, on foundations that have let them down. Some are tilted slightly, falling down like their inhabitants, like the town. There are boarded-up shop windows, others are just dusty. I look past the houses into a dusk-filled nothingness. It could be any Australian outback town.
I wonder what this woman would make of city life – the youngsters with long hair and dreadlocks, and skateboards, and bits of wire dangling from their ears into layers of dark clothing.
But wait. She has stopped, a hundred metres or so into her evening walk. She swivels her walker deftly around, to face back towards her house. Then out of somewhere she pulls a plastic bag. She lets go of the walker and takes a couple of unsteady steps, looks down and slowly bends and scoops and gently gathers up her old dog’s mess, from the country town grass. The slow procession then heads back the long 100 metres.
The left over daylight fades quickly, leaving just the moon’s reflected glow. She has to open the gate. The dog waits. I didn’t see this awkward manoeuvre on the way out. I look away for a moment and the low house swallows them up, the woman, the dog and the cat. There are no lights. I hope there are lights around the back.
Across the road beside other caravans and campervans scattered around the free camping area, I sip my wine and think about cooking our evening meal, maybe a stir-fry tonight. I watch her house and wonder what she is eating for dinner. We will move on tomorrow.
Annie Barrett 2010
Won 2nd place in the 2011 PenTales/Itaca International Travel Writing Competition. Published online and exhibited in New York, USA and Bologna, Italy.
