by Kate Spicer
Soft underbelly. It’s an expression that’s used a lot to describe a weak spot. We use it so much we’ve forgotten its literal meaning. Turn over a hedgehog, an elephant, a lurcher, a woman, a shark, a sardine and there’s the softest part of the body below the ribs. It’s where you go in to disembowel or eviscerate an animal – or a human.
It’s dangerous to show a soft spot if you’re an animal, and animals like Woofs who’ve had unpredictable lives, who’ve been hurt, they don’t lie with four legs in the air like a thin dead cow with their heads lolling to one side and their pink tummies fully exposed.
Don’t show your vulnerability.
Castor is a different story. Raised from a puppy by Keith, he is lying exactly like this on Wolfy’s bed beside me. Soft belly upward, that is how trusting Castor sleeps all the time.
‘Aren’t you up yet?’
There has been much talk about Will and his family having Wolfy and, since Keith is at Seoul Fashion Week, ‘Castor too, if you don’t mind?’
Much as I try not to anthropomorphise Wolfy, I have this idea of him as a canine cousin to my nieces and nephews.
I want them to enjoy Wolfy as if he were the human cousin I’ve never provided. A desire for him to be family has probably been apparent to all. I think the kids sort of love him, but probably also find him a bit boring. Only Charlie and I really give a damn about the dog, well – us two and Charlie’s mum, who infinitely prefers dogs, horses, sheep, feral cats and spiders to most human beings.
Our deep bond with the dog is partly made by the amount of time we spend together. It’s intimate, when you live in a small flat.
For me he will leap in the air, jump five-bar gates, do 360s – and for everyone else, not a lot: sit for a biscuit, roll over for a tummy rub perhaps. Wolfy will always go to familiar outsiders to say hello but, like a lot of dogs, his heart belongs to his owners. Compared to Mum’s gregarious Labradors and Dad’s bouncy spaniels that skid across floors like manic mops, Wolfy is a bore.
Once after taking an adorable snap for Instagram of my five-year-old niece Bay cuddled up with Wolfy on an armchair, I asked her if it was a lovely thing, like being cuddled up to a giant teddy bear. ‘Well, no, because teddy bears don’t do the stinkiest farts.’
I peel myself off the bed. It’s still impressively early, but the timekeeper is huffing and stressing. Two dogs, car, coffee. Go.
En route to Will’s in Tufnell Park I walk them up on Primrose Hill. A farmer’s market is setting up in the primary school at the back of the park; it doesn’t open for another hour but they let me in to buy apples, raw milk and yoghurt. Raw milk. Raw milk.
Dog ownership has rewired my brain.
Yomping round the edge of the park at a brisk middle-class dog-walking-lady sort of a pace, I give thanks for the absence of hangover. Castor keeps hustling Wolfy to play, but my dog is grumpy and growly. After five minutes of Castor nipping and hassling, Wolfy relents and I am rewarded with the magnificent sight of two sighthounds belting round Primrose Hill together at 25 miles an hour. Strangers stop to admire them. Damn, those dogs can run when they want to.
There is a consistent worry tugging at my mind. Is it fair to leave two dogs with my brother and his wife? What if something happens to Castor? What if Castor runs away? How will I tell Keith? I shake my whole body to try to get the thought out and sit at the top of the Hill and attempt a moment of contemplative gazing over London’s glorious muzzy skyline. I am going to meditate now, I think, and close my eyes. In less than a minute I’m back on my feet. I’ve tried to block out the anxiety but it has only risen.
Outside my brother’s house I can hear Arty stomping down the hall to answer the door. It takes him some time to navigate raising his small body high enough to undo the latch and I peer through the letter box. ‘Trick or treat?’ He screams with excitement. Once in, I crouch down, growling like an angry bear. He chuckles in that hiccupping way kids do, the other children hovering behind, smiling and waiting for their turn to greet me. I offer Arty Castor’s lead. The younger dog’s exuberance to check out the new turf has the little chap pulled this way and that, which he loves. Arty trips and runs behind Castor, chortling and screeching with glee. Dropping the lead he stands back, hands on hips, and pronounces, ‘Now that is a dog! What is this dog’s name?’ he demands.
‘That’s Castor, Arty.’
‘Is Castor Wolfy’s friend?’
Arty asks a good question. Are Castor and Wolfy friends? Charlie and I often wonder what Wolfy makes of the younger dog. They spend a lot of time together; and Castor is as sweet-natured and beta as our dog so there are never dominance issues. If they bump into each other on walks, cue much exuberant tail-wagging and leaping in the other’s direction for these flying chest-bumping greetings that other dogs do not get from Wolfy (he has earned the nickname Aloofy).
Castor is responsible for some major shifts in Wolfy’s vigour. When we brought him home from Thurrock Services he wasn’t flabby, but he was unfit, and he had forgotten how to play, like some poor neglected kid who had spent too long with social services. Castor forced him out of his rescue home plod. The first time we took the two dogs for a walk, Castor pestered him to play and to chase. After a few false starts and some grumpy nips, Wolfy was running at Castor’s hindquarters as if they were stitched nose to thigh. When Castor pulled away Wolfy would slow down, adjust his strategy, cut a few corners and fall back into chase. I’d watch this with delight. Regular visits from Castor had given Wolfy back his thrilling sighthound zoom. The two had fun together but when Castor left I could always sense a capacious satisfaction in the dog that he had life, sofa and us to himself again. If Wolfy had a friend, then Castor was it; most other dogs he totally ignored, after the initial bum-sniffing stage.
I give the kids some treats to feed the dogs.
‘Steph?’ She is in the kitchen. My brother is dashing out to take Bay to a violin lesson.
I sit briefly at the long table in their kitchen. It’s all there. The big fridge dispensing ice and cold filtered water; the side return with a ceiling of glass, a mix of children’s art and grown-up stuff and that optimum amount of mess that suggests you’re chilled but not complete pigs. It’s all there. The big family house dream.
If I didn’t love them all so damn much I’d be jealous as hell. On this morning, off to a wedding at a conference centre in Surrey, and a touch anxious, I’ve got the ruler of success out and am measuring up the big scrubbed vintage table that seats 14 or so with our tiny butcher’s block that, even with two, the plates tumble off like those shove-penny games in arcades.
Wolfy walks straight over to the sofa in the kitchen. Sofa. In the kitchen. Know what I mean? And parks himself next to my sister-in-law, collapsing his head against her chest but continuing to stare straight at me in what my anthropomorphising mind sees as defiance: ‘Fine. Leave. See if I care. Go on, fuck off. I like it here actually.’ We exchange a few words about food and walks. I leave a bag of raw meat, enough for both dogs, in the corner of the fridge. With a tug at my heart, which I dismiss as utterly ridiculous, I leave.
The car feels empty on the drive home.
It would be just my luck if my incredibly successful sister-in-law could not just nail a first-class degree from Oxford, roll at high levels of corporate life, write three books in her lunch hour and cause a massive oxytocin surge in my dog. The way he looked at me, snuggled against her, haunted me, I admit it.
Usually when I left Wolfy anywhere, even if I went to the loo at Coffee Plant and left him sitting outside, I always said, ‘Wolfy stay. Stay Wolfy,’ and it indicated to him that if he stayed roughly put, then I would come back. There was no ‘Stay’ this time; I was trying to be cool about the dog, not wanting to be fretful or fussy. And I was rushing. I had to be back in time to not to upset the punctuality fiend in west London. ‘Lovely, lovely, thanks all, see you tomorrow, or maybe even tonight if we can get away,’ I said. And dashed.
I ring Charlie now. ‘Imagine if we
get back and he’s switched his loyalties to them.’
‘Yeah, he’s probably curled up on their giant bed already thinking to himself how he’s lucked out, with a garden and a massive house and now he’s got rid of those jokers with the poky flat who just sing and argue all the time.’
Ha, ha, ha.
We joke on about this as we drive to the wedding, eking the humour out of a talking dog voiced by Ray Winstone, telling my sister-in-law, ‘You’re much prettier than her. Oh yes, like what you’ve done with the garden. Mind if I urinate here on this cherry tree?’
Castor’s character evolves too. He is Irish, like Keith, and talks like Dougal from Father Ted. ‘How’s that tree there, Wolfy. Sure, it’s grand here. All these children with the biscuits. I hope those other people never come back.’
Now we’re on the road Charlie relaxes. It’ll be fun, today, and when we can’t laugh with, we’ll laugh at. I tell him a glossy magazine has rung and asked if Wolfy would like to feature in their Christmas Gift Guide dressed up in a Star Wars Death Star doggy costume. ‘Any money in it?’ he says.
‘Don’t be mad; there’s no money left to pay journalists, let alone pay dogs to wear stupid outfits.’
If the costume had been for the AT-AT Walker from Star Wars, I’d have said yes. Wolfy reminds me of a lot of fictional characters: Falkor the flying lizard dog in The Neverending Story, Alf the alien, Mr Snuffleupagus, Mrs Tiggywinkle … But more than anything, when he’s shambling along in his special super-low first gear, he reminds me of those quadruped robot tanks from Star Wars.
‘Is Wolfy doing his special AT-AT super-slow walk?’ I text to Will. He does not respond. Must already be having a great time with the dog up on the Heath.
The wedding is at a seventeenth-century manor house turned conference centre. Despite the Gothic drama of the place, the fittings are pure Homebase. Hard cheap carpet, dreary veneered repro furniture, colours that don’t show dirt. The sun blazes through the crimson and gold maple leaves. It is a glorious day, made for poetry and adjectives.
‘We could have brought the dog,’ I say, wishing he was here, imagining taking off my heels and putting on the worn-out Hunters I keep in the boot with a stash of poo bags, and taking him for a quick turn around the car park every couple of hours while I suffer the nuptials of two total strangers.
Charlie’s colleagues are waiting outside the main entrance swigging on bottles of beer. I scan the assembled humans for potential banter allies. Thin pickings. An Asian guy in a shiny mohair suit tickles me a couple of times with sarcastic comments about his hangover but he has no empathy with me, a remote colleague’s bird wearing a frumpy second-hand dress. I suspect what had looked cool on Portobello Road just looks like my mum’s clothes here.
‘Please behave yourself,’ Charlie says, almost pleading.
We go inside and sit on conference chairs covered in white stretchy shiny material tied up in a fancy ruched knot behind, like supersized chair lingerie. A bloke plays a saxophone and we are invited to clap and cheer. I clap but do not cheer. The wedding ceremony passes and I register that it has not touched me, not at all. A couple of times I make comments and Charlie shushes me.
‘Ladies and gentlemen! The bride and groom!’ Again, I clap but do not cheer.
Now there is an interminable period before the wedding breakfast. The groom, the mutterings go, has a hangover so bad he can barely speak after drinking a bottle of whisky with the best man the night before. If his mumbled part in the wedding vows were not enough, then his mute discomfort on the receiving line has confirmed it. The humdrum of a hangover on momentous days, that thing; I feel compassion for him.
The wedding warms up a bit and as the champagne inevitably becomes prosecco the day grinds on. I think about Tim for the first time in ages. ‘Throwing a bit of coke at it’ would sort this wedding out.
Everyone else is gearing up for a good Irish wedding. We don’t have to drive back to London to fetch the dogs. Usually it’s Charlie who puts up with my friends, and his work is important to him – at no point will I act bored or impatient, I think. I dive on the nibbles like a hooligan seagull. Steph sends me a photo of Wolfy and Castor in the boot of their car surrounded by the three kids. The picture is a good one. Screensaver stuff.
When you’re a stranger at a wedding, all you see is cliché. None of the love and humour touches the random plus one, not unless the best man is a professional comedian – which this one isn’t. I wonder how much the whole thing cost, and whether the bride is upset her husband has a stinking clang on her big day. Charlie is seated across from me and on form. Next to me is a colleague of his, wearing a revolting shimmering green far too loosely-cut suit. On his feet are a pair of ‘smart’ square-toed shoes; the sort with stitching and a little too much length in the narrowing toe so that they curl slightly at the ends. He’s funny in a cynical spiky sort of fashion but we are going to run out of things to say soon.
The Rugby World Cup final has just started, New Zealand versus Australia. There are some people who consider phones at the table a crime on a par with farting loudly or belching like a bullfrog. Everyone appears some degree of terrified of the bride. She has specified that her wedding breakfast will not be spoiled by anyone watching the match. Green Suit has set up his phone so he can watch; every time the bride rustles past in her meringue, he hides the screen.
The bride has also, deliberately or not, specified that the white wine be really bad because (I’ve learned from the speeches) she is famous for ordering the cheapest white on the list. Cheap wine doesn’t cause hangovers, apparently. Jesus Christ suffered, but no one forced him to drink bottom-shelf Sauvignon Blanc. Charlie and I exchange a sequence of looks and nods.
We’ll be not be staying too late here.
On the table are party favours, and a green heart for us to write a message to the bride and groom. I rack my brains to think of something and my mind goes blank and then turns puerile, the way it does when people present me with the comments section of a visitors’ book. I want to write ‘FUCK OFF’ like I did that time when I was 20 at the Chicklade Little Chef on the A303. Instead I write, ‘May your Irish eyes always be smiling.’
The wedding breakfast finally appears. First, a stack of salmon with frizzy pubic lettuce; second, a plate of lukewarm lamb cutlets. Wideboy and I are running low on chat so we take the piss out of Charlie. Mmm, don’t do that, I think, don’t be a bitch, be supportive.
We fall silent and I glance at my phone. My brother’s name is on the muted screen. I swipe and grasp the phone to my ear. ‘What’s wrong,’ I say, quickly, anticipating the worst but praying in that heartbeat between now and then that it is something small, nothing, an amusing anecdote, a question …
‘Kate. Your dog. He’s gone. He ran away.’
Handing the phone to Charlie, I walk out of the room, my eyes fixed like rocks in my head. As if operated by remote control I walk to a six-foot-high trolley the waiting staff are clearing the plates away to. It stands at a 45-degree angle to the window, creating a corner for me to slot myself in. I press in there like a small child behind a tree. With the kitchen doors flapping open and closed as service continues behind me, I stand facing the dirty plates and the aromas of cold lamb fat and gravy. Most plates are barely touched, very few mopped clean. Despite the curveball of shock, I’m still disgusted by food waste, by the human arrogance, ignorance and decadence that cause it.
All those uneaten dead baby sheep, those carrots ripped from the earth and returning to it, untasted. It’s all more evidence, as if any more were needed, that humans are spoilt egomaniacal scum. My God, the dog has left me.
My mouth is open but no sound comes out; my breathing has all but stopped, but every cell in my body screams.
‘Coat.’ I exhale the words.
Charlie fetches the old coyote fur and stands beside me. He is not losing it like I am but he looks scared. Scared for the dog, and scared of me, or for me. I don’t know. I feel his sweetness and vulnera
bility beside me. I am grateful for him.
Still gulping and gasping silently, I do not cry, but my mouth is agape, wet with strings of saliva. It’s now that somewhere in my mind the phrase ‘He’s just a dog’ starts to appear like a stupid flashing sign in an ancient landscape of love and pain. ‘Just a dog.’ Is it an attempt to make the pain subside, a desperate relativising mantra that also succeeds in humiliating my uncontrollable terrible fear and grief? ‘Just a dog.’ I can hear the gravel on the drive crunching underfoot as we walk to the car. ‘I didn’t say goodbye,’ says Charlie. They’ll understand. He has his arm around me. ‘Can you drive?’ he asks. The bride’s preference for cheap wine didn’t put him off drinking it.
I kick off my wedding shoes, pushing my feet sockless into a pair of cold wellies. As I climb into the car I imagine that we’d brought him with us and his little sleeping form is coiled in the back, inside the old pink and white wool blanket, one brow cocked in greeting as we return to the car. Swift pee and poo circuit of the car park and then we can drive home. As I start the engine and drive back the way we came just a few hours earlier I start to cry, big open-jawed, slobbery, salivary bawling. Flashes of women in hijabs keening over the corpses of children murdered by dictators jab at my consciousness. ‘Just a dog.’ This is the most acutely terrifying thing that has ever happened to me. I drive hunched over the wheel, calling both verbally and telepathically to my hound: ‘Wolfy. Wolfy. Please be OK.’ Meanwhile the bitch chorus has a persistent descant refrain: losing a dog is the worst thing that ever happened to you, you’re pathetic. Pathetic.
