6. Promises and Rainbows
‘This is the weather for Genesis,’ Granny had said at last. ‘Try chapter six.’
So Ben began to read aloud the Bible story of the great Deluge of rain, the Flood, and Noah and his Ark. For, though afternoon had passed into evening, the wind still rushed at the driftway cottages, the thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, the rain fell in torrents.
Some years ago, when Mrs Fitch had still been active enough to walk to Little Barley chapel on a Sunday, she used to read daily Bible passages according to the chapel’s printed scheme of Scripture readings. Then arthritis stopped her attending chapel, and – away from it – she threw over the printed scheme and set Grandpa to read the Bible aloud to her from beginning to end, starting him again at the beginning as soon as he came to the end. But, at each time through, Granny became a little more choosy. The Gospels she always heard in their entirety; but the Epistles of Saint Paul were made shorter and shorter each time Grandpa reached them. Granny liked most of the stories of the Old Testament, but occasionally showed impatience with the leading Character: ‘That Jehovah – that Jahwa – that Jah!’ she said. ‘Could have done with a bit more Christian charity sometimes!’
On the evening of the storm, Grandpa handed over to Ben in the midst of the Psalms.
‘ “Judge me, O Lord,” ’ read Ben; ‘ “for I have walked in mine integrity –” ’
Granny sniffed. ‘These goody-goodies! Try him a bit farther on, Ben.’
‘ “I have not sat with vain persons,” ’ read Ben, ‘ “neither will I go with dissemblers. I have hated the congregation of evil doers; and will not sit with the wicked –” ’
Mrs Fitch said, ‘What a very lucky man! Most of us have to sit where we can, and be thankful to get a seat at all, and put up with it without grumbling.’
Ben found himself thinking of the squash on the Yellow Salden bus. He considered, and then said that perhaps the Psalmist hadn’t meant –
‘Don’t say it!’ Granny interrupted. ‘That’s what they used to say at chapel. If there was something that seemed foolish or downright wicked in a Bible reading, they’d say, “Oh, but of course, Sister Fitch, it doesn’t really mean that at all.” But if it was something that they fancied anyway, they’d say, “Why, but of course, Sister Fitch, it means just what it says.” I know ’em!’
Grandpa opened his mouth to defend the chapel, but shut it again. Ben said, ‘Shall I go on?’
‘No’ – for Granny was ruffled; and then she had said, ‘This is the weather for Genesis, anyway. Try chapter six.’
Grandpa composed himself with relief to this change; but Granny was still on the alert as Ben read.
‘Wait a minute, Ben! How old did you say?’
Ben repeated: ‘ “And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.” ’
‘Six hundred years old – well, I never!’ Granny said ironically. ‘But go on, Ben.’
‘ “And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean –” ’
‘I see you, Young Tilly!’ Granny said suddenly. ‘Creeping over the lino again on your filthy paws!’ A storm-gust shook the house, and at that – rather than at old Mrs Fitch’s words – Tilly fled back to shelter again. ‘Go on, Ben.’
‘ “Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls –” ’
‘Joe, are you sure you shut all the chicks in?’
‘Aye.’
‘Go on, Ben.’
‘ “– of fowls, and of everything that creepeth upon the earth, there went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah. And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. In the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life –” ’
Granny said something under her breath which sounded surprisingly like ‘Sez you!’
‘ “– in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened –” ’
‘Joe!’ cried Mrs Fitch. ‘The skylight window – you forgot it!’
‘No,’ said Grandpa. ‘I remembered.’
Ben went on with the story to the very end, to the rainbow that God set in the sky after the Deluge: ‘ “I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.” ’
‘ “Every living creature of all flesh,” ’ Granny repeated. ‘That’s to say, all beasts clean and –’ She looked thoughtfully at Tilly, ‘– unclean.’
‘She’s not an unclean beast,’ said Ben; ‘she just gets dirty sometimes. So do I.’
‘You don’t have mud hanging from the ends of your ears, regularly,’ Granny said. She mused. ‘Fancy taking all that trouble over them: unclean beasts, useless beasts, beasts that eat up the bones for good soup …’ She marvelled, without irreverence, at God’s infinite mercy to those two, dog and bitch, who had boarded the Ark so that, long afterwards, there might be Tilly and Toby and all other dogs on the earth today. So her mind came into the present. ‘And you really expected one of those on your birthday, Ben?’
‘It was only – only that I thought Grandpa had promised …’
Ben’s voice died away. Grandpa was looking at the floor between his feet; Granny was looking at Ben. She said: ‘And a promise is a promise, as a covenant is a covenant: both to be kept. But, if you’re not God Almighty, there’s times when a promise can’t be kept.’ She looked at Grandpa: ‘Times when a promise should never have been made, for that very reason.’ Now she was looking neither at Ben nor at Grandpa, as she concluded: ‘Even so, a promise that can’t be kept should never be wriggled out of. It should never be kept twistily. That was wrong.’
Granny in the wrong: that was where she had put herself. There was an appalled silence.
Ben dared not change the subject of conversation too obviously, but he said at last: ‘You know, that woolwork dog that you sent instead of the real one – I meant to ask you something about it.’ Perhaps he really had meant to do so, but he had been putting his question off from day to day, and here was the last day of his visit. Now, however, he was glad to go upstairs, get the picture from the suitcase where he had left it, and bring it down to Granny.
He handed it to his grandmother back to front, hoping that she would not find the crack in the glass. He pointed to the inscription on the back. ‘I don’t know what the foreign words mean, or at least I don’t know what the first one means.’
Granny had taken the picture into her hands, but without needing to look at it. ‘I remember,’ she said. ‘Two words. Willy said them and explained them.’ She paused, and then began, ‘Chi–’ as though she were going to say ‘chicken’. She paused again, and then said slowly and clearly: ‘Chi-ki-tee-toe.’
‘Oh,’ said Ben. ‘I see: Chi-ki-tee-toe – Chiquitito.’
‘Chi-wah-wah.’
‘Chi-wah-wah – Chihuahua,’ Ben repeated. ‘Chiquitito – Chihuahua.’
‘According to Willy,’ Granny said, ‘Chiquitito is a Spanish word – they speak Spanish in Mexico, where the picture comes from. In Spanish, Chico means small; Chiquito means very small; Chiquitito means very, very small. This is the picture of a dog that was called Chiquitito because it was so very, very small.’
Ben looked at the picture – for only the second time, really, since it had come into his possession; the first time had been on his birthday morning. You could see only one side of the dog, of course: its nose pointing to the left, its tail to the right; it was done in pinky-brown wool, with a black jet bead for an eye. But this was the represe
ntation of what had been a real, flesh-and-blood dog – a dog called Chiquitito. ‘Chiquitito,’ said Ben, as he might have said ‘Tilly’, or ‘Toby’.
‘And Chihuahua is the name of the city in Mexico where the dog lived,’ said Granny.
‘I know.’
‘Name and address,’ Grandpa said. ‘As you might say: Tilly, Little Barley; or Tilly, the Driftway.’
Granny frowned. ‘There’s more to it than that. The dog belongs to a breed that only comes from this city of Chihuahua, so the breed is called after the city.’
Now Ben remembered where he had seen the word ‘Chihuahua’! Not on any map, but in one of the dog books in the Public Library. He had been looking for borzois and other big dogs, but now he remembered having noticed something about the other extreme for size – the smallest breed of dog in the world: and the name of the breed had been Chihuahua. So this Chiquitito had been a very, very small dog of the smallest breed in the world. No wonder the hand in the picture looked so large: it looked large against a dog so very, very, very small. ‘The hand really could be a little girl’s,’ said Ben.
‘That’s what Willy thought: the hand of the little girl who owned the dog and embroidered its picture.’
Again Ben felt a pang at the thought of someone his own age, or even younger, who had owned a dog. She had lived in Mexico. He had only the roughest idea of that country as wild and mountainous, with jungly forests and erupting volcanoes. But he was sure that there was plenty of open space there, and that the city of Chihuahua would not be the size of London, or with London’s dangerous traffic. So the little girl in Mexico had had a dog, while he had not.
‘I wonder what she was like – she and her dog.’ For he envied her – the girl of whom all you could say was that she had had a right arm and some kind of white dress with long sleeves and ribbons at the wrist – and a dog called Chiquitito.
‘I doubt she’s gone long ago,’ Granny said. ‘And her dog. As Willy’s gone … People and creatures go, and very often their things live after ’em. But even things must go in their own good time.’ She handed the picture back to Ben. ‘They got worn out, broken, destroyed altogether.’ Ben was glad that she had not noticed the crack in the glass. ‘And then what’s left?’
There was no answer from Ben or his grandfather, but the melancholy wind round the house seemed to say, ‘Nothing … nothing …’
They went to bed early that night, because Ben was catching the first bus to Castleford station the next morning. He could not get to sleep at first, the wind so lamented, the rain so wept at his bedroom window. Then it seemed as if he had been asleep only a little while when he woke with a start. His grandmother, in her nightgown, was standing by his bed. ‘Look through the window!’ she said. It was daylight, but very early. There were clouds still in the sky, but shifting and vanishing; and the rain had almost stopped. ‘Look, and you’ll see how He keeps His promise – keeps it twice over!’ And Ben saw that the early morning sun, shining on rainclouds and rain, had made a double rainbow.
7. An End –
The morning of Ben’s going was fine, with the still – almost exhausted – serenity after a long, wild storm. Blue sky was reflected in the deep puddles along the driftway as Ben and old Mr Fitch went to catch the bus.
They nearly missed it. To begin with, Tilly, who was supposed to be going with them and who would have been put on her lead in another moment, left them. She simply turned up the driftway, towards the river, as they turned down it, towards the road. Grandpa and Ben wasted some time shouting after her. She moved fast, and kept her head and her tail down; but she would not admit by any hesitation or backward glance that she heard her name being called. She was deaf, because she was off on her own this morning.
They gave Young Tilly up, and went on. And then, just as they reached the road, Grandpa said, ‘But did you remember to take Willy’s little picture off the mantelpiece this morning?’
Ben had left it there the night before, and now he had forgotten it. He was not sure that he really wanted it, but there was no time to stand working things out in his mind. He turned and ran back to the cottage. He startled his grandmother with a second goodbye, snatched up the picture, and was running back along the driftway as the Yellow Salden bus came in sight.
They caught the bus by the skin of their teeth. Ben was carrying Uncle Willy’s picture stuffed in his pocket.
In the station at Castleford, the London train was already in, but with some time to wait before it left. Grandpa would not go before that, so Ben leaned out of the carriage window to talk to him. There seemed nothing to talk about in such a short time and at a railway station. They found themselves speaking of subjects they would have preferred to leave alone, and saying things that they had not quite intended.
‘Tilly didn’t know you were off for good this morning,’ said Grandpa. ‘She’ll look for you later today. She’ll miss you.’
‘I’ll miss her,’ Ben said.
‘Pity you can’t take her to London for a bit.’
‘She’d hate London,’ said Ben. ‘Nowhere for a dog to go near us. Even the River’s too dirty and dangerous to swim in.’
‘Ah!’ said Grandpa, and looked at the station clock: minutes still to go. ‘When you thought we should send you a dog, did you think of the spaniel kind, like her?’
‘No,’ said Ben. He also looked at the clock. ‘As a matter of fact – well, do you know borzois?’
‘What! Those tall, thin dogs with long noses and curly hair? Those?’
‘Only one. Or an Irish wolfhound.’
‘A wolfhound?’
‘Or a mastiff.’
‘A –’ Grandpa’s voice failed him; he looked dazed. ‘But they’re all such big dogs. And grand, somehow. And – and –’ He tried to elaborate his first idea: ‘And – well, you’ve got to admit it: so big.’
‘I wasn’t exactly expecting one like that. I was just thinking of it.’
‘You couldn’t keep such a big dog – not in London,’ Grandpa said.
‘I couldn’t keep even a small dog.’
‘Perhaps, now,’ Grandpa said, ‘a really small dog –’
The porters were slamming the doors at last; the train was whistling; the guard had taken his green flag from under his arm.
‘Not the smallest,’ said Ben; and hoped that his grandfather would accept that as final.
‘But surely, boy –’
‘Not even the smallest dog of the smallest breed.’
‘No?’
‘Not even a dog so small – so small –’ Ben was frowning, screwing up his eyes, trying to think how he could convince an obstinately hopeful old man. The train was beginning to move. Grandpa was beginning to trot beside it, waiting for Ben to finish his sentence, as though it would be of some help.
‘Not even a dog so small you can only see it with your eyes shut,’ Ben said.
‘What?’ shouted Grandpa; but it was now too late to talk even in shouts. Ben’s absurd remark, the unpremeditated expression of his own despair, went unheard except by Ben himself. The thought, like a letter unposted – unpostable – remained with him.
Ben waved a last goodbye from the window, and then sat down. Something in his pocket knocked against the armrest, and he remembered that this must be the picture. He looked up at his suitcase on the rack. It had been difficult enough to get it up there; it would be a nuisance to get it down, just to put the picture inside. Even so, he might have done that, except for the other two people in the compartment: the young man with the illustrated magazines would probably not mind; but there was a much older man reading a sheaf of papers he had brought out of his briefcase. He looked as if he would be against any disturbance, any interruption.
Because he had been thinking of it, Ben quietly took out Uncle Willy’s picture and, shielding it with one hand, looked at it. This was the third time he had looked at it.
Still looking at the dog, Chiquitito, he recalled his recent conversation. He could not ha
ve the smallest dog of the smallest breed in the world. Not even a dog so small that – if you could imagine such a thing – you could only see it with your eyes shut. No dog.
The feeling of his birthday morning – an absolute misery of disappointed longing – swept over him again. He put the little picture down on the seat beside him, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes, overwhelmed.
He had been staring at the woolwork dog, and now, with his eyes shut, he still saw it, as if it were standing on the carriage-seat opposite. Such visions often appear against shut eyelids, when the open-eyed vision has been particularly intent. Such visions quickly fade; but this did not. The image of the dog remained, exactly as in the picture: a pinky-fawn dog with pointed ears, and pop-eyed.
Only – only, the pinky-fawn was not done in wool, and the eye was not a jet bead. This dog was real. First of all, it just stood. Then it stretched itself – first, its forelegs together; then, each hind leg with a separate stretch and shake. Then the dog turned its head to look at Ben, so that Ben saw its other eye and the whole of the other side of its face, which the picture had never shown. But this was not the picture of a dog; it was a real dog – a particular dog.
‘Chiquitito,’ Ben said; and the dog cocked its head. Ben had spoken aloud. At the sound of his own voice, he opened his eyes in a fright. Where the dog had been standing, the young man sat looking at him in surprise; the elderly businessman was also looking – and frowning. Ben felt himself blush. He forgot everything but the need not to seem odd, not to be noticed, questioned.
He turned to look out of the window. He kept his eyes wide open and blinked as briefly and infrequently as possible. He felt two gazes upon him.
After a while the young man spoke to him, offering to lend him one of his magazines. Ben devoted himself deeply to this, until the train was drawing into London.
Now, of course, Ben had to get his suitcase down. The young man, gathering his own things together, helped him. There was some confusion, and the young man’s magazines and several other objects fell to the floor. He picked up all his possessions hurriedly, in order to be ready to leave the train as it slowed up to the platform at Liverpool Street. And Ben, looking through the carriage window, caught sight of his mother on the platform – and there was Frankie too – and Paul! He began to feel the impatience and excitement of homecoming; his mind suddenly filled with it; other thoughts, even the most important, were pushed into the waiting rooms of his brain. As the young man sprang to the platform, Ben was at his heels. He heaved his suitcase out, and ran.
A Dog So Small Page 4
