The patchwork was like a dark pelt spilling into her lap as she turned and flipped and folded. All the small squares and rectangles of fabric drank the light. Even the extra, yellow light beaming down over the needle did not make the fabric bright.

She had covered several of the mirrors with towels, but the room was still full of reflections like pools of glimmering water. Every time she moved she glimpsed an answering shadowy movement, a flickering from all around the room.

Something made a noise outside the window and she glanced around quickly, over her shoulder. Her reflections in the mirrors all glanced around quickly too, a crowd in the room with her, furtive, stopping when she looked at them. She sat rigid, listening. The reflections were still, but she knew they were there, watching.

She sighed and held up the patchwork. To her it was obviously inspired by the shapes of an old wooden bridge. But to anyone else it would probably just look like something gone wrong. Stitched up next to each other, the pieces all looked the same: the lights and the darks all looked dirty and drab under the yellow light. The whole thing was shapeless, puckered, a wounded creature with a sad brown look. It bulged along the edges, thick and lumpy. The seams did not quite line up. It was on purpose, of course, but no one in Karakarook was likely to know that.

Outside in the big rough country night, the dog was standing, waiting for her to feed it. It did not bark or whine, but she knew it was there, waiting to be fed, still patient, still optimistic, even though the square of the kitchen window was black now, all the noises and smells of dinner gone.

However, she could see now that there was no such thing as being neutral with a dog. A dog had an all-or-nothing approach, and to this dog, just this once was the same as for ever and ever.

She could see she should have been firm with it from the start. That very first day, she should not have let it get into the car. She should have handed the problem to Coralie then and there. It’s not my dog, she should have said. I don’t want it.

She supposed she had been flattered by the dog’s attention, the way it had chosen her, the way it seemed to like her. She told herself, grimly, forcing the fabric along under the needle, that it was naive to think it liked her. Sucked in, as the tough boys down at the school would say. It was just that she was the one who opened the tin of dogfood. As far as the dog was concerned, she was just an elaborate extension of the tin opener.

She had let herself be flattered, and now she was stuck with a situation she should never have allowed to develop. The thing was, there was no way you could explain to a dog. You could not say, I was wrong to encourage you, politely but firmly. You could not say, Thanks so much, but I have had enough of you now.

The solution was to stop feeding it, and she was going to start tonight. For a while it would think that she had simply forgotten. It would wait patiently. She had learned how patient it could be. In the morning it would be hungry, and by tomorrow afternoon it would be extremely hungry. Some time tomorrow night, or at the worst the day after, it would finally get the hint.

There was a rustling close by outside, then a dull tap and a swish. Then nothing, only distant noises: the frogs again, some kind of plaintive honking, and far over in Karakarook North, a tiny distant squeal of tyres on a corner and a thin faraway car horn.

She felt herself straining to hear the small nearby sounds. When she turned her head deliberately to meet herself in the nearest mirror she saw how pale her face was against the room full of shadows behind her. Lit from below by the yellow light of the Singer, her face was stern with listening too hard: cruel, angular, her eyes shadowed, inhuman, unfeeling. She did not intend to look that way, but she did.

The roof gave a loud creak, then another. It was like slow footsteps.

She wished now that she had not mentioned the bridge patchwork to Coralie. Donna’s pieces had got her excited, but everything looked good in the beginning. It was only later, putting the pieces together, that it turned into something less than you had hoped. It seemed she would never learn that was the way things always were.

It made it worse at the end, if you had been eager in the beginning. It was better never to be enthusiastic.

Coralie would be understanding. She could imagine her coming close, putting her hand on her arm, the way she did. Not to worry, pet, she would say. No worries.

But she did not want to be understood. She had to go on. There was no use hoping to make it different now, or better. It would simply have to go on being what it was.

She bowed her head to the Singer again, head down like an animal, feeling all her obstinacy driving her on. She worked quickly, fitting her corners together, lining up her seam allowances just slightly off, pressing the seams open. The shapes repeated themselves under the yellow light: light, dark, light, dark. She set her mouth hard round the pins and felt her cheeks shake as she jerked the threads down hard and snapped them off. She caught sight of herself again in one of the mirrors: her mouth was sardonic with the pins bristling between her lips, her face fierce, her shoulders angry.

She got up abruptly and went over to the black square of window to try to close the curtain that never worked properly. She felt exposed and ridiculous, standing in the window as if on a stage, pulling at it. She jerked hard, something gave with a bang, the way it always did, and the curtain slid reluctantly across.

Outside she heard the dog bark once, a deep confident bark. That was its way of reminding her. Just the one courteous little bark. Just to let her know it was still there, still hungry.

Instead of going back to the discouraging heap of fabric on the table, she sat down on the couch. She was upright, polite, like a visitor. Lorraine Smart had been reading a glossy magazine with ARE YOU HAPPY? on the cover. She flipped through the pages. Happy faces smiled back at her, holding casseroles and babies, telling her about Virgo’s February, being pleased with their lipstick.

You could do a quiz to see if you were HAPPY, but Harley did not do that. When she came to that page, she turned quickly on.

No, she wanted to tell someone. No, I am not happy.

It was silly, and she would not, but she wanted to cry.

It did not seem to be having that effect. She lay stiffly staring into the dark, trying to breathe evenly. With the light off, the night was suddenly full of many small surreptitious noises. There were rustlings and swishings that could be the sound of wind in the leaves. But they could also be the anxious and unhappy small noises made by a hungry dog ranging around the backyard, wondering what it had done wrong.

She hoped it had given up when it saw the last light go out, and was lying down now on its sack, preparing for sleep in spite of its empty stomach. She hoped it was not still standing out there, ears pricked forward, tail poised ready to wag, watching the back door for her to appear there with the chipped enamel plate and the tin of Pal.

She lay on her back, clenching her fists. Tight, tight, tighter.

Something in the backyard made a sharp snap.

Her neck was rigid with the strain of holding herself still, listening. She felt she had become one big ear, swivelled out into the backyard.

She could feel her fingernails digging into the palm of her hand.

Her hand was relaxed, but the rest of her was not. She was getting a cramp in one leg from trying so hard to relax.

It was a relief to fling back the covers and go out to the kitchen. The light sprang on so harshly she had to cover her eyes. The door of the cupboard banged angrily as she got out the tin of Pal, the giant size, big enough for a whole kennel ful of dogs. The Mini-Mart had just sold the last of all the smaller tins.

She opened the door and her shadow, very black, zigzagged away from her feet down the back steps, the light behind her sending a frail yellow wash out into the blackness of the backyard.

The dog came up out of the shadows straight away, not at all surprised, right up the steps to her feet. It waved its tail, panted, shifted from paw to paw, backing clumsily down in front of her, one step at a time, turning on each to make sure she was still there. She held the green enamel plate up in the air and pushed at the dog with the side of her foot. She did not exactly kick it, but it had to move quickly.

At the foot of the steps it turned and stood staring up at her so intently it forgot to go on wagging its tail. It smacked its mouth closed with a slurp of its tongue and cocked its head sideways at her. Its eyes went from her face to the plate and back again.

When she put the plate down on the square of pink concrete under the Hill’s Hoist, the dog was on it before it touched the ground. It ate in ugly gulps, jerking the food down. Even after the food was gone, it went on licking the plate so hard it was pushed around and around the square of pink concrete with a desperate scraping noise. Finally the plate was clean, smeared only with dog spit, the pink concrete dabbed with darker patches where its tongue had gone looking for every crumb. Then it looked up at her with its ears pricked so hard it looked painful.

It was the look of adoration that filled her with a kind of panic.

No, she said.

It was the first time she had said anything to the dog. Its tail beat faster, backwards and forwards.

No! she said, louder.

The dog did not seem to realise that no was a rejection. It only knew the difference between words and not-words. As far as the dog was concerned, a no was just as good as a yes: it was a conversation.

She jabbed into the tin with a spoon, raking out another plateful. All right then, she thought angrily. Take that, then. When the dog had eaten that, she scraped out another, thumping the spoon furiously on the plate. All right, go on. Then a third. Still the dog gulped the food down, chased the plate around the concrete with its tongue, panted up at her for more. She stabbed angrily at the last of the red jelly in the tin, slopping it furiously out on to the plate. Take it then, if you want it so much. Go on. This time the dog only sniffed and mumbled at the food. Suddenly it bucked, jerked, and on a hoarse abrupt bark brought it all up.

The bird started up again with the only words it had. Come here! Come here, Johnny! Johnny!

She made a disgusted grunt and hurled the empty tin at the fence. The bird squawked once and was silent.

In the grass near the steps, a cricket went on blandly. Tickticktick ticktick ticktickticktickticktick.

She thought of herself, vengefully hacking the dog food out of the tin. It was always like that when things turned into relationships. Where there were relationships there was no avoiding meanness, malice, fear, guilt. Every kind of danger.

She lay awake for a long time. It was a hot night, but her feet seemed cold.