The boys and I had mongrel dinner that first night back from The Barn. Mongrel meals consist of ‘any mongrel I find in the fridge’ and generally occurred the night before a big shop. The boys vacuumed up fish fingers, frozen peas, grilled halloumi, scrambled eggs, cut up apples, half a bag of mushrooms fried in garlic butter and some two-minute noodles – served on brightly coloured plastic Ikea plates. I wasn’t hungry, but suddenly, fuck, I was tired.
‘My nest!’ I thought, ‘I need to make my nest.’
Whenever I arrive somewhere new or land back home after a long trip, the first thing I do is sort out my bedding and make a nest to collapse in. I have learnt from experience that after a long day travelling at some point I will abruptly fall in a heap, without warning, as if I have been shot by a tranquilliser gun.
With my last skerrick of energy, I staggered past the boys watching television and muttered half-heartedly, ‘Put your pyjamas on, don’t worry about having a bath.’ I flicked on the light in the office at the front of the house, hauled the mattress off the floor and flipped it on its side, the sheets, doona and pillows falling to the floor, and dragged it through the doorway and into the bedroom next door. The room had been our room, then Marz’s room and now it was my room. I slid the mattress into the middle of the empty room and let it go. It made a satisfying thump and released the smallest puff of dust. I lurched back to my office, picked the bedclothes up off the floor in one big armful, holding the pillow under my chin, hobbled back into the bedroom and dumped them on my mattress. I spread them around just enough to make the roughest semblance of a bed. Sheet on the mattress, pillow where the head goes, doona cover opening at the foot end. That’ll do. Perfect is the enemy of good enough.
Since I’d been sleeping in the office, I’d had a colourful patchwork quilt on the bed. I’d bought it from Ishka just after I’d decamped from the bedroom, along with a bouncy pot plant, and a candle with the scent of balmy summer nights, in an attempt to cheer myself up. The quilt now smelled like dog. I extracted it from the bedclothes, took it out into the living room and threw it on the couch. Archie stood up from Charlie’s lap, stretched, shook, jumped up onto the patchwork pile, circled around a spot, carved out his own nest and lay down.
‘You sleep out here now, Archie,’ I told him. ‘I don’t want my bedroom smelling like a kennel anymore. But thank you for your service.’
In September 2009, a year earlier, I’d set up this makeshift bedroom in my office. Marz had returned after having moved out for six months; things had improved enough for us to decide to give it another go.
We decided to try being single people living under the same roof parenting together. Marz wanted me to stay in our bedroom and offered to clear out his darkroom and make himself a bed there. But I was very happy making a little nest on the floor in the room where I worked. And it made sense. It meant our bedrooms were next door to each other so the boys could easily get to us if they needed. I hated the idea of Marz sleeping in the darkroom: it was cold and there were no windows.
I bought a cheap recycled mattress from the op shop, which did the trick. I liked sleeping on the floor; it reminded me of sleepovers at friends’ places during high school or waking up in share houses next to boys I’d picked up the night before at the Punters Club, the Espy or The Standard, and of bedding down in Japan on futons and tatami mats in my twenties when I lived in Tokyo working as an English teacher.
Often, when I’d arrive home late at night after a gig, an opening night, or a dinner with the dollies, I’d find either Charlie or Hugo asleep in my bed alongside Archie the dog. It was the dog who was there most often.
Archie had never slept on the bed Marz and I shared. He’d slept on the couch or with the boys. But when I moved to sleeping on the mattress in the office, the low rise and the common presence of the boys resulted in the dog inveigling himself into the sleeping love tangle.
I’d drive slowly down our dark street and park outside the quiet house guarded by a protective Silver Princess eucalyptus in the front yard. Her strong trunk and sturdy limbs towered over our home and she was adorned with bright pink gum-nuts dancers swaying next to slender silver-green leaves the shape of daggers, ready to launch into action at the first hint of danger.
I’d turn the engine off, slip the key out of the ignition, grab my bag, step out of the car, lean against the door, look up at the sky and inhale the stillness. It was always a sweet moment. A portal between my two worlds. For that one peaceful exhale there was balance, and all was well. I had one foot in each world.
I’d sleepily walk down the side path, damp tendrils from the passionfruit vine grasping at me as I passed, and through the back door. The dishes would be done but there’d be traces of post-dinner snacking on the benches. I’d slip off my shoes before passing the schoolbags, lunchboxes, folded washing and notes to be signed as I headed off to bed. I’d peel off my clothes in the dark as quietly as I could and slip in under the quilt to join whichever creatures or kids were already there and watch the moonlight through the window as I fitfully drifted off to sleep.
Archie was a Jack-Russell-Staffy cross I bought from the Trading Post as a puppy for Hugo’s eighth birthday. Hugo had nagged for a dog for years and it finally paid off with the arrival of a white and brown fur-ball. As my relationship with Marz deteriorated, I started to regard the dog more and more as a good idea. The fluffy little thing was both a distraction and an incredible source of comfort and focus for the boys.
I’d always known dogs were healing, but I experienced that on a much deeper level in those few months on the mattress on the floor. I sleep on my side with bent knees. I’d wake during the night and feel Archie pressing himself against the back of my legs, snuggling in, sometimes with a paw proprietorially over my thigh or calf. I struggle to explain or even fully comprehend the deep comfort I got from his warmth and presence. He asked for nothing. He was blissfully unaware of everything that was going on. Waking in the middle of the night and feeling this dear little warm lump, like a furry hot water bottle pressed up against me, was a balm.
Over the years since, I’ve had regular flashbacks of waking in my default panic default setting at 4 am and being instantly soothed by the feeling of a sleeping pup cuddled in the crook of the back of my knee. Those moments made me realise dogs have the power to repair people.
Someone once told me ‘All animals are service animals, most are just freelancing.’
From my memoir True North published by Black Inc Books
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Archie died on May 17 2023
Archie died a beautiful death yesterday. He was 14. We thank the staff at Heritage Veterinary Clinic Sydney Rd Coburg for his swift and gentle send off. Special love to our darling friend Dr. Darrell Gust from Brimbank Veterinary Clinic who regularly took a break from fisting rottweilers, coping with the Chernobyl strength halitosis of Maltese Shitzus with underbites and being savaged by ferrets to care for Archie his entire life.
Archie is survived by Hugo, Charlie and Dom, his dogfather Ian Dowsett and a garbage bag of medication with a street value of $2.4 million. (If you are in the market for some Viagra, Prozac, Malaseb, Pyohex, Furosemide, Vetmedin or Apoquel hit me up.)
Archie was rarely alone for his 14 years and, although It’s fair to say he wasn’t everyone’s favourite dog, (hello to Sam and Helen if you are reading) he was our leg humping, fear biting, face licker and you could not find a dog who was a better friend and ally to cats and kittens.
Archie was an excellent guard dog (apart from that one time five menacing drunk blokes in a ute turned up Anzac Day night looking for me. Luckily the sound of their mate Moisty playing The Last Post on our front nature strip on a trumpet didn’t interrupt his evening of doing fuck all while waiting for the occasional sound of a piece of bacon to ‘accidentally’ fall on the kitchen floor.) On the upside he was vigilant protecting us from the danger of a garage door opening a few suburbs away, that one leaf on the magnolia tree that looked like it might rustle, and the visitors to The Chuff Bunker he had met hundreds and hundreds of times.
No pity or sympathy necessary. It’s not a loss , it was a privilege.
Job well done, mission complete. Thank you for your love Archie. You were, indeed, a very good boy.