by Louise Allen
12
A Dog’s Life
We always had dogs and cats. Barbara was keen on particular breeds of dog, such as Poodles, Shih Tzus and Tibetan Terriers, although she often got crossbreeds as well as pedigrees. She liked driving around the countryside to find puppies, and sometimes chickens. She scoured the papers for special offers and sometimes we went to see breeders and farms, as she was very particular about what she bought. Barbara always liked babies, puppies and kittens, as well as chicks. Just like her weird doll collection, which she adored, she liked things that were small and helpless but hated them the minute they got a bit bigger and had a mind of their own.
During my early years we had many dogs, but they never seemed to live very long. There was Rover, Topsy, Spot, Milo, Misty, Scruff, Kizzy and so on. She often had high-maintenance dogs with topknots and ponytails or special coats. She would buy expensive brushes and shampoos, little coats and leads. She probably spent more on the dogs than she ever spent on me. She would take them for training, and then lose interest halfway through. Typically she was keen for a while, when they were tiny, and would carry them around like babies, put them on her lap and dote on them all the time. Then suddenly she would lose interest. Something would trigger her off. After that she would be very rough and tough with them. She would pull them this way and that on their choker leads till they bled, like poor old Topsy, or she would smack and kick them, and even starve them, just like me. They were always being punished for something. And then they were gone and the doggie cycle would start all over again.
When I was about ten, going on eleven, she had Spot – a white Jack Russell with a black spot over one eye – who came after Topsy, who had died very suddenly. He was still only a puppy and keen on biting shoes and slippers, like all puppies do. I thought he was really cute, if a bit yappy. He had nice brown eyes, sticky-up ears and white fur. I liked stroking him and he wagged his tail with a lot of energy and affection.
Barbara nearly always got into a really black mood on Sundays. Everyone kept out of the way and Ian hid in the garage, as usual. She was angry and resentful about cooking and let everyone know it. As I got older I offered to help but she wanted to keep me out. ‘You’ll only mess things up,’ she said.
This particular Sunday she was in a blinding rage. I had no idea what was the matter with her. We were all treading round her like she was a hand grenade. She was in the middle of preparing the food when, all of a sudden, things started flying out into the garden, like they often did. I could hear her saying, ‘I’m bloody well fed up with all this,’ and, ‘I hate my life,’ as I heard chopping sounds.
Then I saw a saucepan fly out the back, followed by a cauliflower, then a plate and some cutlery. It might have been funny if she hadn’t been so scary. I was by the chickens and kept a low profile, as I didn’t want to be in the firing line. The gun might come out next, as she kept it in a kitchen cupboard. I never knew what she might do: she was completely out of control. However, this morning things were flying everywhere and I could hear ‘bugger this, bugger that’ coming from the kitchen.
All of a sudden I saw something white fly at speed in an arc out of the kitchen and land with a loud crack on the path. Was it another cauliflower or pan? Loud yelping followed. I was hovering by the chickens, watching the drama unfold, when I realised that the last missile had been Spot the puppy. Oh no! I ran over as fast as I could and he was lying on his side at a funny angle, his tongue lolling out. He was still breathing but he was winded, sort of panting and whining very badly. He couldn’t seem to move.
Barbara came beetling out of the kitchen. ‘What’s wrong with the bloody dog?’ she spat. She didn’t realise I’d seen her throw him. I looked at her wide-eyed and the dog was still moaning and whimpering. I scooped him up carefully, and by now Ian had appeared and was watching the scene from a safe distance.
‘Stupid dog’s sick,’ said Barbara, storming past Ian and into the kitchen through the back door. Ian stood looking like he had no idea what to do. Barbara then appeared with her handbag and anorak and the puppy was wrapped in a towel and taken to the local vet.
Once they’d gone I went to sit with Sean to avoid being in the house alone with Kevin. I poured out what had happened. Sean sat smoking calmly and shook his head sadly, stroking Frida all the while. I cried and cried, thinking, She could throw me out the door just like poor Spot. How could she do that? The poor little pup.
A while later I heard the kitchen door open – Barbara and Ian were back. I ran through the orchard and went to the house, looking for Spot. He was gone. Ian whispered he’d had to be put down. I ran upstairs and got into bed, grabbed Tony, my broken panda, and sobbed my heart out for the defenceless little pup. I heard later that the story Barbara told the vet was the puppy had had ‘an accident’. I overheard Ian telling Kevin on the landing that she’d told the vet Spot had run into the road, in front of a passing car. How could she do that? What a lie! It was all wrong. It was sick. Not only was she lying but I had seen her throw poor Spot like a doggie rugby ball. I had actually heard something snap. It was awful.
Afterwards I kept replaying it in my head. Then I remembered that years before I’d seen her swilling water around in her famous metal bucket by the outdoor tap, and when I looked in there was a whole load of drowned tabby kittens. Their dead bodies ended up in the dustbin like vegetable peelings.
I was inconsolable about Spot. He wasn’t my dog but the way he’d died had upset me deeply. I felt I should have been able to save him. The following week I was sitting in uncomfortable silence in the car with Barbara as we were going to pick up Kevin from his Saturday job. He was now sixteen, whereas I was eleven going on twelve, and he had a job in a builder’s yard. I didn’t want to go on this trip, but Barbara never liked leaving me in the house alone. She told me to my face that she didn’t trust me not to steal something. She still referred to the ring episode, as if I had actually stolen it. She never forgave and she never forgot, whether it was a true incident or not. Whatever happened I was always in the wrong.
This day I just looked out the window and counted: sheep, cows, hedges, trees, clouds – anything to pass the time on the journey. I loved looking at nature; I found it soothing. And being with Barbara in the car was such a hell-ride, as she always drove too fast along the country lanes, swearing at everybody, that I would spend the time pressing my thumbs and fingers together, counting nice things out of the window and hoping we would get there alive.
When we got to the builder’s yard, we went into a white Portakabin to fetch Kevin. He was still finishing up, so Barbara spoke to the friendly woman behind the desk. The company was run by a friend of Ian’s from work, which was how Kevin had got the Saturday job. Kevin was still at school and becoming bigger and more difficult for me to deal with by the day. I avoided him at all cost. He was still kicking and punching me, trying to touch my breasts or look at my private parts, teasing and bullying me, so I wasn’t keen to be picking him up after work. I hated being anywhere near him; he was such a brute.
By now his lorry driver father, Sid, had moved in with another woman in a neighbouring village. Kevin had been furious and refused to see his dad or accept the situation. She had children of her own and he refused to visit. Kevin seemed to take out all his anger on me, with Barbara’s permission. I hated being with them when they were together.
Luckily, in the corner of the Portakabin, there was a big wicker dog basket, and in it a lovely black Labrador spread out on old blankets, suckling a litter of six pups. I went and sat next to the dog and stroked her fine head. She was like Sean’s lovely Frida. The warm, friendly woman in the office, Joan, came over and talked to me.
‘They’re eight weeks old,’ she said to me. I loved looking at their furry bodies, all round and cute, with their tiny paws and soft eyes, as they piled up on each other, fighting for a nipple. Just then one little one came bowling over and sniffed my hand.
‘Looks like you’ve found a friend,’ Joan said
kindly.
I picked up the little ball of warm fluff and she sat in my hand, sniffling and snuffling. Barbara came over to see what was going on.
‘Your girl looks like she’s found a new friend,’ Joan said to Barbara, who said nothing. ‘She can have her if she wants,’ she added, with a big smile. My heart leapt but I said nothing. I didn’t dare.
However, somehow, by the time we left, a deal was done and I was to take the puppy home. Maybe Barbara saw it as a cheap replacement for Spot. I had been so upset all week, and she had shouted at me to ‘get over it’ the whole time. Perhaps she was trying to shut me up. Anyway, the little ball of black fluff was to be my own puppy. Not Barbara’s – mine. I couldn’t believe it. It was true we had no dog at the moment, after Spot’s terrible end. And it was also true that I usually did a lot of dog care. I was used to feeding them or taking them for walks, grooming them or giving them their Choc Drops. I decided to call the pup ‘Blue’, as her lovely black hair had a bluish sheen, rather like my own.
‘Stupid bloody name,’ snarled Barbara, but I stuck to my decision. Blue it would be. Blue very quickly became my new best friend, my companion, the centre of my life. I looked after her with love and devotion. Barbara told me that as I was so useless I would have to do more housework to cover the cost of Blue’s injections and food. I had to clip hedges in the garden, cut the lawn, clean out the dustbins, strip and make the beds with crisp hospital corners, do even more dusting and vacuuming than usual. This was to ‘pay’ for Blue’s upkeep. I didn’t care. Blue was my own little puppy, and I was going to treat her right.
One day I was stripping Kevin’s bed and I noticed a big dark stain the middle of the sheet. I opened the window to let in fresh air and then I went back to the stain and looked at it. Was he wetting his bed? At sixteen? Barbara came in and found me staring at the patch. She leant over the bed, touched the stain with two fingers, brought them to her nose and sniffed.
‘Wet dream,’ she said, and laughed oddly. I had no idea what she meant. ‘He was probably thinking about you,’ she laughed again – a real menacing laugh. I still didn’t get what she meant. Why would thinking about me make the bed wet? But an icy feeling shot through my veins. I felt very unsafe and scared as Barbara was looking at me with a strange eagle-eyed look. I just pulled the disgusting sheet off the bed, pretended to not hear and carried on working.
I had seen Barbara sniff things very strangely before. She’d had some female neighbours round one time, and when they left she did the most peculiar thing. There were little sponge seats on the kitchen chairs that were covered with material and tied to the back of the chair. Barbara bent over and sniffed the seats and then stood up and said, ‘Wee. These seats smell of pee.’ She pulled the sponge seats off the chairs and stripped off the material covers and threw them in the washing machine.
‘Dirty bitches,’ she snapped. ‘Smelling of wee. They don’t wipe themselves properly.’
She often had all sorts of strange things to say about bodily functions, and was constantly commenting on the state of people’s underpants and ability to wipe themselves. I felt embarrassed that she was saying such a thing about the neighbours. I was glad they came, as it meant there was a fresh supply of biscuits I could try and filch when the coast was clear. It was also ironic that she restricted my washing myself, which, as I was growing, was becoming more and more urgent. Did she want me to smell?
Kevin was allowed to wash as much as he liked but he still stank disgustingly, despite using oceans of Right Guard on his stinking armpits. Barbara was often hinting to me that Kevin would find me attractive and this was becoming a pressing problem, as he stole into my room or followed me round the garden and tried to touch my body as often as he could. I had to fight him off on more than one occasion. It was a constant battle to keep myself away from his nasty grabbing hands.
Once Blue was big enough, I started taking her for walks every day. I loved doing it: it meant some freedom from the house and I could walk along the lanes, look at the sky and trees, see some cows, sheep or other dogs and smile at people as they passed. I had a game at the time of packing a small red child’s suitcase that I’d had in my room since babyhood. I’d walk around my room and the landing, pretending I was leaving home. When I took beautiful Blue for a walk I began to get a sense that there was a whole world out there beyond the confines of our horrible house, my prison.
I would glimpse into people’s living rooms or peek inside doorways to see what real family life was like. I would see TVs on and a family sitting on a sofa, smiling. Or people just talking to each other, laughing and eating. There were people out in gardens together, cutting hedges or snipping the roses and cooperating nicely with each other.
People strolled past holding hands or even kissing each other in public. There were young girls whizzing past on roller-skates and small boys on bicycles with training wheels. There were older boys with jeans on, being cool on skateboards. I began to see that people went out and did nice things together, and I began to smell some kind of possible freedom in the future. I wanted what they all seemed to have: a normal life.
I just had to be careful what I did right now. I somehow knew that getting to school was important. So far my education had been patchy at best. I’d had so much time off that I was always way behind and unable to catch up. Art was the only subject I shone in and, deep inside, the idea had already formed after the Tate trip that this was going to be my future. Somehow. I just had no idea what the stepping stones towards it would be. But I knew I would find them one day. I also know I’d have a fight on my hands every inch of the way.
Meanwhile I appeased Barbara and tried to be a ‘good girl’ as much as I could. Keeping the peace, staying quiet, taking my punishments and being as secretive as I could be about scavenging things was my way of life. Dutifully I got up at six every day to take Blue down the back lane by the school. I loved these early-morning walks. She did too. I would get to University Parks, a big area, and let her off the lead. She would gallop off happily and I would throw sticks for her to catch. She’d bring them back, panting, pleased with herself, all drooly, wagging her tail and I’d say, ‘There’s a good girl,’ and pat her and give her loads of hugs and cuddles. We were both good girls. After school, if I managed to get there, I would take her out again. If I didn’t get to school because Barbara kept me home, I would be told to go for the walk before school was out.
I knew she didn’t want me to be seen by anybody from school. We never spoke about it, she never spelled it out, but I knew this was the case. Blue wasn’t allowed up in my bedroom, although I would have loved her to sleep with me at night. But I often crept down during the night (I could undo the bed strap now, and also Barbara often left it off, as I was bigger), and I would stroke Blue, lift up her silky ear and talk to her. I’d tell her I loved her. I would give her a kiss on the head and squeeze her lovely soft paw. She was a beauty; she was my world. I knew she loved me and I loved her with all my heart.
One afternoon I was walking Blue along my usual route, down the back lane to the University Parks. I often daydreamed on my walks to the park. The dreams were an extension of my walking around my room with my little case packed. I was still only twelve, but I was beginning to imagine a future life when I would be free. I fantasised as often as possible. I would have a nice place to live, with Blue, of course. I would be painting and drawing all day, with a fridge full of lovely food and drink that I could have whenever I wanted.
Suddenly a man was upon me. I was in a back lane, and there was a tall man with glasses, in jeans and jacket, with wild greasy hair and staring eyes, who had me by the shoulders. He dug his fingers in and pushed me hard and I fell back on the brambles. He was grabbing at my chest and my trousers, trying to lift my T-shirt. I was speechless and terrified. The man had one hand on my chest, pressing me down, and was pulling at my clothes with the other. After the initial shock I started wriggling and kicking. I’d had plenty of experience with Kevin and h
is horrible friend Mark, who had pulled my clothes off several times now.
I started making a loud noise and suddenly Blue jumped into action. She grabbed the man’s wrist with her mouth and bit hard. He yelped, ‘Ow, ow, you fucking whore, you bitch,’ and tried to swipe at Blue. When he let go of me, I wriggled out from under him. Blue was growling and tugging at his wrist now and the man was clearly in pain. He tugged and pulled his arm out, and I could see it was bleeding, and he turned and ran away as fast as he could.
My wonderful Blue! She was barking after him, but stayed with me. I sat on the floor for a few minutes, my heart racing, totally dishevelled. Blue licked my face and wagged her tail. My trousers were halfway down, my top round my armpits. I straightened myself out, as Blue nuzzled me and leant her body against me. I then hugged her and we sat together by the side of the path for some time, as I tried to make myself calm. Counting, counting, counting. I hoped no one had seen this happen to me as it was so embarrassing. Eventually we walked home very quietly, with me shaking like a leaf. Blue stuck to my side the whole way. I felt like I was in a dream.
When I got back Barbara was taking the washing in. By now the tears had started, and shock had given way to me feeling really shaky. I walked slowly into the garden with Blue and didn’t know what to say to Barbara.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ she asked snippily. ‘You look a fright.’
I wanted to tell her, wanted her to put her arm around me, and to listen for once. I wanted her to reassure me, to phone the police, to make a fuss. I began to tell her what had happened. I felt really shy and confused but, bit by bit, I managed to get the words out. It was horrible to say what he had done to me. Barbara stared at me with her beady, hawk-like eyes.
