The Fence Read Online Free PDF Page B

She’s wearing those oversized sunglasses in fashion these days. Her skirt flares around her boots and a long cardigan flaps over the whole ensemble. It is an unfortunate look on a woman barely scraping five foot four. The proportions emphasise that she is a shorty, or as Eric likes to call them, ‘a duck’s arse’.
    The kids are released one by one. First comes a little boy with blond hair past his shoulders so it is only the snowman t-shirt that makes Gwen certain he is a he. Next comes a little girl identical in looks and dress. The pair scamper straight into the garden, trampling the native violets under the camellias as they go.
    The father holds a fat toddler with remarkable ginger hair wearing the same outfit as her siblings but Gwen is more interested in how the man is dressed. Pretending to rake some leaves from under the buddleja in the front border, she sneaks closer, bending to peer through its branches.
    He wears black jeans and a bulky fisherman’s jumper with a pea coat over the top. It’s Rosedale not Russia, thinks Gwen. But it’s the hat that annoys her most. More of a giant tea-cosy than a hat. A beanie, she supposes, but not the kind that a real fisherman might wear to protect himself from the bitter winds of the Black Sea, no, this beanie sort of sags at the back. When Jonno was in his teens he used to like that Bob Marley who wore a not dissimilar beanie over his dreadlocks. On a handsome black man like Bob Marley, a baggie beanie looked stylish, but on a weedy white man, it looks pretentious.
    He passes the squirming toddler to its mother and retrieves the last member of their family, a plump baby girl, dressed in a glittery pink wraparound cardigan, silver stockings, silver shoes and a tutu. Given she looks to be about six months old, Gwen wonders what kind of ballet lessons a child this age could possibly attend.
    As if this is not enough, the mother opens the boot and out jump two woolly coated dogs, one brown, one golden. Labradoodles, the breed of the moment. If you could call it a breed. Only the other day Gwen was at Rosedale Shopping Square and saw them at fourteen hundred dollars a pup, and some awful combination of Jack Russell and Pug for a similar amount. It staggers belief that people could charge that kind of money for a bitzer. When she was a girl, if the German Shepherd jumped the fence and made your Corgi a mother, it wasn’t called a Corgi Shepherd and the pups flogged for a cool thousand plus dollars. No, it was called a mutt and you were lucky if you could give the pups away.
    The dogs’ noses go straight to the ground and they snuffle amongst the leaf litter. The brown one lifts its leg and sprays the box hedge surrounding one of the crab apples and the golden dog prances over to Gwen’s front yard and leaves a large deposit in the middle of her bowling green lawn where it steams in the cool morning air.
    Its business finished, the dog rushes to where Gwen stands, rigid with indignation, and plants its wet nose in her crotch.
    â€˜Butter! Stop that,’ the woman says, not in a stern voice inferring that such behaviour is unacceptable but in a soft, wheedling tone as if begging the dog’s forgiveness.
    â€˜We’ll clean that up,’ the man says, joining his wife.
    Gwen glances at the other dog, which sniffs at her shrubbery before taking another pee and galloping into the open garage where Eric is working.
    She has no choice but to come around the buddleja and introduce herself.
    â€˜Gwen Hill,’ she announces, offering her hand.
    The woman takes it though it is clear she’d prefer Gwen had not made the offer. ‘Francesca Desmarchelliers. And this is my husband, Brandon.’
    Brandon nods at Gwen, making no attempt to shake hands.
    â€˜I know your name from somewhere,’ Francesca adds, a thoughtful look on her face.
    Gwen is used to people saying that. Whilst her media presence is modest, she is often