January, 2007

Ten Thousand Walks

Foxes roam our garden at night, so when digging a small grave you have to make it deep. I didn't want the foxes having the last laugh on Belle by digging up the soil around her.  One of Belle's biggest entertainments in life was chasing the late-night foxes.  Foxes are creatures of habit and Belle knew that they had to come round at the same time every night, so she would press her nose to the window and make worrisome noises until I let her out.  She never caught them and it was almost a structural arrangement rather than a real chase.  After I got past the first two feet of soil the ground was like iron, and I had to saw out roots from a neighbour's poplar tree thick as your arm.  It was hard work, but I was glad of it because it was a way of displacing my grief.

About fourteen years ago I'd been playing pool with a friend at Osborne's Snooker Hall in Leicester.  When we got outside we found a scrap of paper stuck under the wipers on my friend's car.  It was a helpful note from a police officer saying that someone had tried to break into the vehicle and that we should report the incident.  So we went down to Charles Street police station and, while the paperwork was being processed, a barefoot teenage girl wandered into the station.  She had with her a black puppy that she'd "found" in the street.  The puppy was wearing a leather collar several sizes too large, but there was no address tag.  The girl just "happened" to have a dog-lead with her when she "found" it and so she'd brought it to the police station.

The duty-sergeant wasn't impressed and tried to get the girl to take it away, but she disappeared like spit from a griddle.    The puppy by now was licking my shoe and pissing on the police station floor.  "What'll happen to it?" I asked the duty sergeant.  "It'll be put down," he said without looking up from his paperwork.

It strongly resembled the puppy Sue and I had when we lived in the House Of Lost Dreams in Petra on Lesbos.  The landlord de-flead it by throwing it in the sea and then dumped it, wet and shivering, on us.  Its name was Mavros (= Blackie) and we raised it over the next six months.  But when we left Lesbos we weren't allowed to take it with us.  Because of the dog, Sue was in floods of tears on the day we left.  Mavros, not understanding why we were abandoning him, followed us along the beach path as we carried our stuff to the car

And the puppy in the police station looked exactly like Mavros.   I lifted it up in the air and saw that it was a bitch.  "Are you gonna take it?" the desk-sergeant said.   I said I would.  The sergeant whipped out some form or other for me to sign and produced a single tin of Pedigree Chum for behind his desk.  "Take that as well."  That was fourteen years ago.  Belle grew into a beautiful sleek, blue-black, super-fast, nervy mongrel; probably a cross between a whippet and a collie.

I think the quality of a dog's day must be determined by the walks it gets in that day.  Belle was certainly walked every day, more often on two or three occasions per day.  She accompanied us over the grassy meadows, ploughed fields and canal tow-paths of the county and all the neighbouring counties; through all its bluebell woods; up to the hills of the Peak District; she was with us along the coastal paths and beaches of the country; and together we explored the ancient earthworks and standing stones and mysterious places not just of the Midlands, but every historic site we visited beyond.  Over fourteen years I calculate over ten-thousand walks.

While out walking I used to consult my dog about how to progress my novels.  In the middle of the woods I'd say, "Belle, listen to this: I'm a bit stuck for an ending.  I'm thinking of getting Sam to do this."  Or, "Belle do you think it work if Cassie does that."

And the amazing thing is that Belle would always stop dead.  She would cock her head on one side and offer that quizzical expression unique to dogs and London cabbies, and she would seem to want to say to me, "How the hell would I know? I'm a canine!  But I can do this!"  And then she would run like hell and stick her head down a rabbit hole.

And she wouldn't be of any direct use to me, but then again...

I have this great memory of her, from before the time when we had kids.  It's another story involving a hare.  Sue and I were walking somewhere out in the county one late spring.  We were crossing an open, sloping field and Belle as usual was up ahead, taking her own path, sniffing out the hedgerows.  Suddenly a hare broke cover and crossed our path about fifteen yards ahead of us.  I hate the Disneyfication of animals and I don't want to make the picture comical, but even though the hare's eyes were bulging and it was blowing out its cheeks, it somehow had the air of being in rather a hurry as opposed to running for its life.  Anyway Belle came behind it out of trap number 4 at White City and chased it up the hill.  Belle being an incredibly sleek, fit animal, she soon gained ground on it but the hare made one of those astonishing right-angled turns I described in Limits Of Enchantment.  Belle tried to make the same turn but went rolling in the dust.  She lost several yards on the hare and set off again.  She got within inches of the hare and it did it again.  Belle set after it a third time, but squealing with frustration and delight, as if she knew she could never catch the animal but was not going to give up the game.  Just like with the fox, it was all structural.  If she'd have caught the hare she wouldn't have known what to do.  But it was thrilling to watch.  That day she was at the greatest height of herself.

When Ella and Joe came along she did inevitably get relegated a little bit.  In each case she sniffed the new bundle thoroughly and looked hard at me: right, it's one of those deals, is it?  But she became very protective of the children and indulgent of them too.

In the middle of an otherwise wonderful Christmas we had to take Belle to the vet, something we'd been putting off.  The vet told us there was nothing that could be done for her.  Belle was already half-blind, deaf and her back legs were very weak.  In addition she'd developed a colonic cancer.  We took her for a last walk up at Brock's Hill and even then she was in a lot of discomfort.  People who don't have dogs never understand how hard it hits you.  They quite rightly point to all the human suffering in the world.  But hit you it does and the whole family was in shreds.  When I finished digging the grave this ridiculous, single, vast sob bubbled up out of me.   And then when I carried her to the grave so we could all shovel a bit of soil on her I was sobbing and crying like a baby, and so was Sue, and so were Ella and Joe.

But whoever that junkie was, who fourteen years ago broke into my friend's car, he could never have realised what a good turn he was doing for us. It was like one of those Buddhist events of Right Place, Right Moment.  Because I would never have gone to the police station and brought Belle home; and our lives would never have become enhanced by this wonderful animal of the ten-thousand walks. 

And I miss my dog.

Graham Joyce can be contacted by emailing graham@grahamjoyce.net