Dialogue: Beery benevolence a bonanza for dogs

The girls were young and I was drunk. Not tumble-drunk but good drunk, benevolent drunk, the-world-is-an-all-right-place drunk. Drunk jolly, in other words, but not jolly drunk.

They were young and merry and sober. Two English girls, secretarial types, they were travelling in the manner made fashionable by young Australasians: go for a year or more, work a bit, live a bit, do it while you can. It is wholly admirable.

Seated at the bar the girls were lamps. Men were moths. One youth, in particular, blundered and pestered, got singed, flew straight back for more singeing, hauled to his doom by the blind imperative of pheromones.

Quite why the girls started talking to me I don't know. Perhaps it was because in the dim light of bars I am sometimes mistaken for Paul Newman. Or perhaps it was to discourage the moths. Anyway, they did.

We talked of London and Melbourne. They told me some thin truths of their travels. I told them some good fat lies. We got on fine. They took me back years to when I did a little meek and solitary travelling of my own.

And fired by beery benevolence and memories of the awkwardness of travel, the difficulties of washing and cooking, the awfulness of tents and rented beds, I said that they were welcome to come and stay at my house if they wished.

They said thank you and goodbye and faded into the night air of Lyttelton, swatting as they went at the undissuadable moths.

I went home singing in the rain until I reached the foot of the steep hill to my house. Then I just went home in the rain.

Sunday morning was Sunday morning. They are always much the same. Their indefinable Sundayishness squats on the shoulders like a dull monkey.

Plutonium-grade coffee helped a bit and a long walk with the dogs a bit more and then I went to the shops for bread. As I pulled the car out of the drive, the girls arrived.

I pretended to be pleased, sent them up to the house to be mauled by the dogs.

Driving down the road I cursed the generosity of beer. My solitude was broken. I had planned to work the Sunday, but I cannot work when people are in the house. I sense cramping eyes on my neck and the words go into hiding.

At the supermarket I bought a chicken on special. I would at least feed the girls well. I roast a fine chicken with garlic and rosemary and butter and, critically, lemon juice.

When I got back there was an orgy going on. The girls were murmuring baby talk and the treacherous dogs had rolled on to their backs to be tickled.

My return with the chicken went unnoticed. I felt like a caveman dragging a mammoth home to a family of ingrates.

The girls slept the afternoon. I tried to work but the Sundayishness of Sunday torpedoed it. I read and snoozed and at 6, I set to work on the chicken. I buttered and garlicked and rosemaried it and found I'd forgotten to buy a lemon and thought to hell with it and flung it into the oven with oiled and salted potatoes.

At 6.30, the girls got up and were straight back down to dog stroking. Whimpers of delight all round. Even the cat sidled up for a piece of the action.

At 7, I boiled carrots. At 7.10, I steamed asparagus into limpness. The girls remarked on the fine smells. At 7.15, I served the chicken with a side salad of smugness.

Both the girls were vegetarian. I ate the whole bird. It needed lemon juice. At 8, the girls went out on a moth-hunt.

I went to bed early but for once I couldn't sleep. I got up and made a peanut butter sandwich. I turned the radio on and listened to a programme about religious chanting. But I found my mind running along old familiar tracks which I thought I had ripped up long ago.

Round and round went the old debate of solitude against company, freedom against responsibility, selfishness against selflessness and the same old conclusions came and went like stations along the line.

Barking woke me. Barking turned to delighted whining. The girls were back. It was 3.30 am.

"And where do you think you've been? Well? What have you got to say for yourselves? I've been worried sick, I have," I muttered to the pillow and went straight back to sleep.

When I woke again they had gone for good. There was a bottle of wine on the table and a pair of dried pig's ears, one for each dog. The dogs will miss the girls.