That’s me, Woffie, the dog, a small animal of mixed breed with enough papillon for me to have great-looking ears, and enough Jack Russell for me to catch a rat. Parts of me shine golden in the sun. I choose to think I have a whole lot of papillon in me, mainly because I like to imagine myself as a bit of a ‘continental toy spaniel’. What a lovely mouthful. Daphne is the daughter of the late caretaker of St Blaise’s little old church, bluestone, on the edge of the Melbourne CBD. We have each other, Daph and me. That’s all we have, but it’s enough. For us. I should make it clear, right here and now, that we are very happy. In case you were wondering. Or perhaps I should say ‘reasonably happy’. The need for this modification will possibly become clear when I tell you that we spend the day on the pavement outside the Dolce&Gabbana shoppe on Collins Street. Daph sleeps all day while I man the wooden box she uses as a begging bowl. Well, for the time being we’re here, but in our profession these things never last. ‘C’est la vie,’ says the continental toy spaniel. If you come looking for us, we might not be there, might have moved on to pastures new.
You could be wondering how the caretaker’s daughter became the woman on the lolly-pink mattress on the pavement outside D&G. Well, you would be forgiven for going back to that old old song about who takes care of the caretaker’s daughter when the caretaker’s busy taking care—is the title copyright, or can I just come out and say it like that? It seems to me to be so very relevant, particularly since I have the perfect response to the question of who takes care. Obviously I do. Woffie takes care of Daph, and Daph takes care of Woffie. Like I said, we have each other. And, well, the caretaker has shuffled off this mortal coil, and since he left no funds behind to speak of, and since it wasn’t possible for Daphne to continue to live in the three rooms behind St Blaise’s, we set sail together, and after a few years of trying to make a go of things in the city, we gave in to temptation and settled here, on the pavement outside Dolce&Gabbana.
Now most of the Passers-By are seriously fixated on passing by in shiny shoes and navy suits with silver buttons, but the few who hesitate are inclined to drop paper money in the box. When they do, I pick up the note and jump over Daph and tuck it in under her left shoulder, safe as houses. Sometimes, when handsome lady tourists from afar see me perform this trick, they put forward another note from their bottomless genuine-leather shoulder bags, and bingo! Woffie repeats the performance. How they smile and laugh and go on their way refreshed. Nobody has ever handed over a third note, but I imagine that one fine day, you know, they might. I said before that I have quite a bit of Jack Russell in me.
Going back to the three rooms behind St Blaise’s for a minute—you wonder why some arm of the church wasn’t extended to Daphne, the Caretaker’s Slightly Disabled Daughter, when the caretaker had been finally taken care of. Well, you’re quite right to wonder about that. Arms, shoulders, hostels, shelters—oh, you name it, those things were offered, but part of Daph’s condition is that she is a free spirit, and in fact she, with my help of course, escaped from the arms of the church and the shelter of the shelters. It’s a little mental disability she has, and most of the time you wouldn’t even know it. Her mother? Ah, Mrs Caretaker died soon after Daphne was born, and thereafter Daph was her father’s responsibility, and—well, you know the old song—who takes care … If you don’t know it you can easily get it on YouTube.
She was 48 when her father died, and now I think she’s 52. We must have been together for about five years, but it seems like forever. We met one afternoon on platform ten at Flinders Street Station. It was deserted, and by some miracle she approached from one end and I came trotting along from the other and bingo! So we have been together ever since, first of all in the caretaker’s rooms, and then out in the world. I have very little memory of my life before Daph, and what I do recall I try to forget. Let’s just say I’m a Stray. Daph called me Woffie. She imagines we have a guardian angel, but I don’t go in for that kind of thing myself.
Even though I have to be forever vigilant as Daphne sleeps her life away on the pavement, I must say I do enjoy the sight and sound of the trams sailing up and down the hill, delivering hordes of careworn people to their places of work, love affair, residence, entertainment, nourishment, worship and so forth. And sometimes I like to look in the window of Dolce&Gabbana. Oh my! Right now they are featuring the most amazing black and scarlet dresses, shoes, scarves, bags all thickly decorated with elaborate images of poppies. Like something from the battlefields of France, but elegantly glittering with gobs of jewels, and gleaming with golden thread. I have to be careful not to stare, since my job is vigilance, and it’s also doing the little dollar dance up over the sleeping body of my darling, tucking the crisp colourful notes under her shoulder.
Up above us, above D&B, above Christian Dior, above Montblanc, inside the grandeur of the gracious edifices, believe it or not, there are hundreds of people sitting with their mouths open in the chairs of hundreds of dentists while the dentists in white or blue coats drill and polish away. And here’s a nice story: One time a dentist from up there came down in a rare moment of strange charity and, after he had deposited his five-dollar note in the box and observed my antics, he said in a loud voice, ‘Excuse me!’ He bent over Daphne and kind of shouted. She stirred but did not wake. I barked. Five Passers-By jolted to a halt and stood there, bewildered, watching. It was a scene. ‘Oh, excuse me!’ the dentist said again. I growled. It’s a pretty menacing low growl I have perfected, and believe me I can do a lot of damage when I put my mind to it. Then up strolled two handsome young policemen in those yellow hi-viz jackets, with every sort of weapon at the ready. The dentist desperately explained that he was planning to offer Daphne a free examination and treatment of her teeth and gums upstairs above the lovely scarlet poppy dresses and shiny poppy handbags. The police spokesperson—his eyes were cold and knowing—then quietly explained that it was better not to disturb the peace of the sleeping woman and her yapping dog. And the dentist then apologised to the police and went on up the street with his tail between his legs. (I made that up about the tail.) I smiled at the policemen, and the frozen Passers-By came back to life and passed by. I felt a bit regretful about Daphne missing the chance to go up in one of the lifts to have her teeth done. I’ve seen a photo of her when she was younger—she had a lovely smile with a fine set of teeth, and a twinkle in her eye. I even dreamt that the thoughtful dentist might be able to give my teeth the once-over—and not before time, I can tell you.
So that’s more or less a day in the life of Daph and Woffie. I take care of the caretaker’s daughter and she takes care of me. You might ask where we spend our nights, after our lovely days—what we do at night, all night, when the lights of Dolce&Gabbana gleam on like a hallucination, when the jewels on the poppy sandals glitter like the stars. Ask what we do when Daphne opens her eyes and feels under her shoulder and counts her blessings and packs her bags and rattles my chain and we move slowly down the hill at twilight towards the great Town Hall. You can ask. But that would be telling. •
Carmel Bird writes fiction and essays, and she has published over 30 books. Her 2019 novel is Field of Poppies. In 2016 she won the Patrick White Literary Award.
