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back window. Magic Happens. I Heart My Dalmation. I
Heart My Corgi. No McDonald s for Byron Bay.
Now, Alice. A bit of info for you. Mr Chang we ve
spoken about he gets carsick, so we ll have him in the front
by himself in case he does a little chuck on the way. And
these two gorgeous boys are called Zoltan and Tikyo.
Zoltan and what? It hadn t occurred to me that I will
have to memorise the names of all the dogs at Bark s of
Byron Bay. These two sound as if they ve been named
after alien fighter missiles.
What I m going to do with you, Alice, is drop your bags
with the dogs back at the kennel, then take you straight
out to dinner. I thought you might like to meet up with
some friends of mine.
Lovely.
We bundle into the big silver BMW and Danielle insists
I call her Dani. Put the iPod on shuffle, darl, she instructs
me, and I try my best. Soon we are listening to random
Sting, followed by random Enya and then more random
Sting. By now, Nash would be sticking his fingers down
his throat and pulling faces.
When we finally arrive at Bark s, I take in as much as I
can, even though it s dark. The place is vast, like a health
farm, and appears to be bordered by live electric fences
and monitored by a Colditz-style CCTV system.
Dani takes the two Labradors in first, while I m
left to talk to Mr Chang, who has indeed been carsick
down the front of his gingham rompers. I suppose the
rompers have a nappy built into them. I wonder where
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his famous incontinence cushion is. Poor thing. I pat him
on the head and he tries to lick my hand off. I m sure
nobody ever shows him any affection. Should I be doing
something? I m not sure. Perhaps I still have guest status
at the moment so I m not obliged to carry out any dog-
wrangling duties. Then again, Mr Chang looks desperate
for a wee.
Before I can make a move, Dani is back, wearing a
pair of rubber gloves with frills on the cuffs.
He can pee like a brewer s horse, she advises me,
before lifting Mr Chang out of the front seat and taking
off his rompers. I wonder if he has a selection of pants to
choose from. I certainly hope so. Otherwise I will probably
be handwashing the gingham rompers once we return
from dinner.
There are about fifty dogs here on the weekend, Dani
explains, once she s lugged my cases into the house and
we re driving again, towards the centre of Byron Bay.
We have our regulars too. I call it my little dog therapy
clinic. Mr Chang is a permanent resident from Friday to
Sunday his parents have a weekender up here. They ll
be at dinner, by the way. Robert and Georgie. Robert s got
a few vineyards along the north coast.
Poor Mr Chang. He must be like one of those forgotten
children of Hollywood celebrities, left with the nanny while
their parents jetset around the world. No wonder he pees
everywhere. So would I.
Dani s a terrible driver, mainly because she talks into
what she calls her Blueteeth while she s supposed to be
keeping her eyes on the road. Blueteeth appears to be some
kind of invisible telephone. She can hear the person who s
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rung her up but I can t. I can hear her replies though, which,
along with the sound of her GPS tracking device s robotic
monotone, makes for a very odd atmosphere in the car.
Yiss, he s been having a bad trot lately, Dani says, as
we narrowly avoid crashing into a lamppost. So I basically
said, Up your nose with a rubber hose darling, I couldn t
care less . If his brains were dynamite, they wouldn t blow
his hat off, she goes on, and I realise she must be talking
about my predecessor at Bark s. I find myself wondering
how many kennel assistants Dani has actually employed
and what happens to them. Maybe she rolls over them
with her Pilates ball.
We go into the restaurant after an amazingly bad
piece of parking by Dani and there is suddenly a copious
amount of what Nash would call mwah-mwah kissing
among her friends.
The group of smiling, kissing people around the table
is a silver blur of platinum rings, metal chairs, gleaming
candlesticks, shiny hoop earrings and metallic handbags.
All the silver contrasts with the tans, which are deep and
golden, and the whole thing is reflected in an enormous
mirror on the back wall. I am introduced to everyone and
instantly forget their names except for Georgie, wife of
Robert, because she s sitting next to me.
The restaurant is BYO so everyone is drinking wine
from Robert s vineyard. Because he s slightly drunk and
not listening to me properly and because the music is
so loud you can t hear anyway he makes the mistake
of thinking I m a businessperson too. We order our first
course and Robert starts talking. And talking. He talks
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across Georgie and Dani and then across me, occasionally
sending tiny bits of spit flying across the table.
See the way Danielle parked her truck out there? he
asks me, without waiting for an answer. She s a shocking
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