Animal People Read Online Free Page B

often labelled with pictures of the pest being schemingly wicked. Stephen supposed it would be harder to kill a snail if you thought it was innocent. If the box had instead, say, a picture of a snail writhing in slimy agony, vomiting blood. If snails had blood.
    Nerida was waiting for him to respond, her free hand delving recreationally inside the roomy pocket of her trousers.
    He said nothing; he did not want to allow Nerida the pleasure of telling him how much was a lot . She’d once uprooted three little native shrubs Stephen had planted on a whim in the nature strip, and replaced them with another two clumps of agapanthus. He hated agapanthus; they reminded him of Fiona’s parents’ long lawns on the far side of the city. But the agapanthus flourished, and the one grevillea Stephen guarded had neither grown a millimetre nor died since he planted it. It stood twenty centimetres high, atrophied in the shadow of the lush, healthy straps of the agapanthus leaves.
    He saw Jill looking down at them from the verandah. The German shepherd, Balzac, was a shadow in the gloom of the hall behind her. Jill had never once, in all the time he had lived here, said hello or spoken to Stephen. Just as his glance met hers now, she averted her eyes as she always did, and stared down the street at the man from the Plaza starting up his leaf blower. Together they watched the leaf-blower man’s slow, zigzagging pursuit of three different leaves. One by one, he escorted each leaf across the footpath into the gutter.
    â€˜I see the beggars have got at your place again,’ called Nerida to Stephen over the noise. She meant the graffiti tags adorning his fence in the back lane. The fence was covered in the squiggles and swearwords and odd, mysterious expressions: Hazfelt is Ace, or Carl Scully is a deadshit. Or in one place, in small black felt pen: forgive me .
    With those two words Fiona’s wide, grey eyes last week—her light puzzlement as she asked him if anything was wrong—came into his mind. But he could not allow this scrutiny today, could not bear the steadiness of her gaze. It must be banished.
    â€˜I’ll paint over it,’ he said to Nerida.
    Up on the porch Jill stooped to hook a leash to Balzac’s collar. The dog was elderly and losing his sight, with a deep, loosely shaggy coat that to Stephen, with his dander allergy, was even more floatingly hairy than the fur of ordinary dogs. But as always, as soon as Balzac’s cloudy old eyes made out Stephen he strained at the leash, pulling Jill along behind him down the stairs and out of the gate.
    Stephen called, ‘Hello Balzac,’ in a weary manner that he hoped might convey to Nerida and Jill just how little he enjoyed what was to come next, and that might even (he knew this was futile) distract the dog. But there was no stopping Balzac doing what he always did—skirting round behind Stephen in a neat side-step, planting his brawny weight on the pavement and lodging his snout firmly up between Stephen’s buttocks. ‘Hellooo,’ said Stephen, trying once again to laugh it off and skipping forward, wriggling to dislodge Balzac’s nose. It made no difference, it never made any difference: the dog merely followed with his own heavy steps, nuzzling his broad snout a little further in. It felt to Stephen that he was balanced on the dog’s nose, legs dangling.
    Nerida and Jill gazed fondly down at the dog. ‘He loves to say hello, don’t you boy,’ said Nerida. ‘ Done choo,’ she repeated, in the low, guttural baby talk people used with dogs.
    At the sound of Nerida’s voice Balzac gave a shiver of enjoyment and, as always, Stephen was forced to reach down behind himself and push the dog’s snout firmly down and out of his bum. He followed this with a swift half-turn, quickly positioning his backpack at his groin so Balzac couldn’t begin again at the front.
    Balzac licked his lips in a