by Kate Spicer
‘Wolfy, I am coming. Wolfy …’
Instinctively I ring my mum, I ring my dad, knowing they cannot help but desperate to dilute the pain and be soothed and calmed by a grown-up. Charlie rings his mother too. There is traffic coming into London. Cars. Trucks. Vans. Bikes. Buses … The lump of heavy wet fat in my skull pulses out its message. Please stay away from the road, Wolf.
In the list of bad things Wolfy can do, running away has never figured. It was the same gut instinct that told me he had not cocked his leg in the pet toiletries aisle of the Kilburn pet superstore. On a certain level, I had confidence in my dog very quickly. Had it been misplaced?
By the time we hit traffic on the A3 we have already created our poster on the DogLost website:
Date lost: 31 Oct.
Registered: 31 Oct.
Name: WOLFY.
Gender & breed: Male lurcher.
Age: Adult.
Colour: Blond.
Tagged: Yes.
Microchipped: Yes.
Where lost: Finsbury Park.
Lost in region: South East.
Postal code: N4.
The picture we use for the poster is of me and Wolfy on the beach at Dungeness. I am crouched down hugging the dog like a small child, my arms wrapped around him in an adoring stranglehold. It was taken the day after the anniversary party of an ex-boyfriend, who married one of my closest friends fairly swiftly after dumping me. For a while this felt like a significant event in my life, but to take umbrage at his new-found love with my old (and now not such great) mate, would have been to heartily embrace the victim role. I didn’t mind. I was glad for them. I was. I’m a big person. I really am.
It was a full-on garden party complete with marquee and a mini food court. By the evening it had turned into a carnival of middle-aged hedonism, ably helped along by a variety of psychoactive substances. Incredibly, I had remained more or less straight and I remember standing and looking at these gurning old wrinklies – pals, colleagues, enemies, frenemies, exes and old bosses – thinking these are not the behaviours I expected of 50-year-olds when I was a kid. Back then, I thought middle-age hedonism meant stiff gins and Silk Cut.
In my new spirit of avoidance, I’d turned up too late to ‘get involved’, as they say, plus with a dog and Charlie. My gift for them was two bottles of 1998 Pomerol, not Petrus or anything too special, but nice enough claret, a treat. This ex, flying high, had thrown it down and said, ‘I don’t want this shit; I only like rum.’
Some equally hammered bozo swooped in to take it, but I had the advantage of being sober. ‘That, actually, is my wine. I’m afraid I’m going to have to take it from you. So so sorry,’ I said, polite, prissy and assertive like a police officer taking keys from a drunk.
Wolfy, Charlie and I had availed ourselves heavily of the excellent and under-patronised hog roast, and even more heavily of the sheaves of crackling the others were too wasted to find interesting. Full, we headed back to our chintzy B&B and, reassuring the owner that our dog always slept on the floor, had gone straight to bed, with Wolfy snoozing up there with us. After sex, we drank the wine I had regifted back to myself. Simple pleasures. Bordeaux, man, dog. I’m alright. The next day we’d gone to blow away our faint gossamer hangovers with a walk on the beach. The others, poor bastards, their brains would be pain and fog. What a result. That is why I am holding him so tight and smiling so widely in that photograph on the pebbly beach.
But my God, I’m not smiling now.
I’m on the phone again to Will, who tells us where he is: on the street where Wolfy was last seen in Stroud Green, about a mile or so from his house. As we get closer to it on our way down Seven Sisters Road, we both peer into the dark, wondering if we might spot the dog in one of the dead ends, doorways or narrow streets next to the low-rent casino, the Islamic Centre, Poundland, £5 haircuts and KFC. ‘He loves KFC, he’ll be there, eating bones, I bet.’ I slow the car and Charlie runs out to peer into the narrow alleyway beside a betting shop and a snooker hall. I can see Wolfy’s fur glowing white, reflecting the street lights. ‘He’s there.’
‘Is it him? It can’t be. Is it?’ Charlie can see him too.
It’s all a trick of our minds. A mirage. A ghost. We are willing him to be there. It’s nothing.
A realisation flushes through me as my mind’s eye helicopters up high over London; I’m hit by the massiveness of the city, of the near impossibility of the task of finding a dog. The feeling of hope leaving my body is so strong, so visceral, it is dizzying. London is not a cosy village. It is huge.
There are a billion hidden places, and eight million human beings whose interest in the dog will be either non-existent or covetous, or murderous. At what speed does a car kill a dog, at what speed does it injure it? Will that injury enable Wolfy to limp off and die under a dirty buddleia by the train tracks at Finsbury Park, or will he lie in the road? There are infinite possible worlds and in only one is he curled up on the ground beside a snooker club on Seven Sisters Road, eating discarded fried chicken.
‘Oh my God. Wolfy. Where are you?’ The keening returns. This is hell.
We park up by the last place Wolfy has been sighted, Regina Road in Stroud Green, a terrace of bay-window-fronted three-storey Victorian houses surrounded by streets of the same – it’s the sort of place a young college professor might live, or us if we were less into the idea of Notting Hill and more into the idea of having a front door.
Will is already here. We three stand on the street in the dark. He has printed off some makeshift ‘Have You Seen This Dog’ flyers.
‘When did he run off?’
‘Around two or three, I think.’
‘You think? You rang me around four.’
‘It’s been a pretty hectic afternoon.’
‘How did he get out?’
‘Bay opened the door. I told the kids, “Do not open the door.”’ His voice switches from stern to loving, compassionate, defensive. ‘She’s only small, she was excited about Halloween.’
As we talk, herds of little kids dressed as ghosts, witches and other monsters pass by, trick or treating and herded by a responsible adult at the rear. A lone kid in a spacesuit trots by followed by mum and a small mutt dressed as a pumpkin.
I know Will. He presents, always, a calm front. The stress isn’t immediately obvious, it’s subcutaneous, just below the surface. Will has met several people over the last two hours who have seen the dog since he left the main road he bolted down, and we are able to patch together his movements up until 6 p.m. Florence Road, Marquis Road, Hanley Road, Hornsey Road, Regina Road … this is where we are now, this is where the trail ends. ‘I’ve been out here and the trail’s blown hot and cold. Those sightings were all sound, totally plausible ones. I was on the right track but I’ve got to be honest, as time’s gone on the scent has grown weaker. Fewer people have seen him. I thought about bringing Castor out when I came back to search, I thought he might sniff him out.’
‘Hmmn, I don’t know about that.’
‘I couldn’t, far too terrified of losing a second dog.’
Will, Charlie and I decide to all search alone. ‘Let’s split up.’ Despite my utter despair, I add flatly, ‘Scooby Doo style.’
As we all set off in different directions Charlie and I walk together for a block. ‘Will seems to be taking it in a casual kind of stride,’ he says.
‘I know he feels awful.’ The desire to deflect any shade from my brother is fierce. I ask, without any sarcasm, more curiosity, ‘Would it be better if he was screaming and panicking?’
‘OK.’
I think of the exchange in the kitchen back in the summer. All the ‘It’ll be fines’. Have I cocked up here or what?
At the top of Regina Road, Charlie goes left and I go right. Before long I have found a woman who tried to catch him on Hornsey Road. She describes his lurking mien, sticking close to the wall, that turned into an unpredictable dance as she got closer: ‘I stopped trying in the end because I k
new I would drive him into the road.’
Where was he headed?
Towards Finsbury Park.
I head straight to Hornsey Road, stop by the steps of a large house on a walk-up like the ones in Notting Hill, but menace radiates from every window. Back home, in the right frame of mind, everyone feels like a friend I haven’t had a drink with yet. Here, the people feel foreign and different, even when they’re friendly; it’s like they’re aliens. Despite the street lights and windows glowing with domestication, lamps, kitchen strip lights, big tellies, the darkness presses in on me. I might as well be in Glasgow or Frankfurt. This isn’t my London.
‘Have you seen a dog like this?’ I say, showing a woman some photos on my phone. ‘Oh. Now.’ She thinks, but I’m not sure what about. You’ve either seen it or you haven’t. ‘No, no, I haven’t.’ I’m about to politely extract myself when she starts giving me a blow-by-blow account of this one time she lost her cat.
At what point do you just cut them off and walk away? ‘I must get on, sorry.’ I back away with my hands up while she is mid-flow.
The cute mini-wizards have gone home swapped for unchaperoned teenagers, more threatening doorstepping crews with fireworks and bangers in their pockets and playing shit RnB on their phone speakers.
The last woman I speak to is on Hornsey Road. Yes, she saw the dog. Strolling around, cool as a cucumber. She tried to catch him. ‘I went towards him really gently but I had my own dog with me and to catch your dog, I’d have had to let go of mine. Your dog got spooked, crossed the road’ – those words, crossed the road – ‘He went down Marlborough Road.’
The kids had been so excited about Halloween, Wolfy’s disappearance has majorly harshed that mellow. I feel bad that other people feel bad. And I feel bad that I feel bad … there is just no escaping this situation. Drinking or taking drugs or having a self-pitying wail that it’s someone else’s fault will not fix it. Once again, my powerless sensation overwhelms me. Come on, think. Use your brain.
I pull up all those streets on a map. Almost a straight line through Stroud Green from the borders of Tufnell Park. But which came first? Is he heading back towards us or away from the area, towards Finsbury Park? Have we been chasing away from where he is? The London that is so familiar and friendly is gone. Confusions overwhelm me. Where, even, am I?
‘Charlie, can we look together? I’m unravelling a bit here. Where are you?’
Charlie and I meet on what I think is the other side of Stroud Green, more towards Finsbury Park, which seems to be where the dog headed. Here the suburban Victorian streets have made way for a more urban and grubby landscape. I am still in my wedding guest dress and the coyote coat. My wellies hammer back and forth against my shins and calves.
While no one is ever really out of place anywhere in London, unless they are wearing a burqa at a titty bar or fur in Stella McCartney, I do not feel dressed right for Finsbury Park on a Saturday night.
Here, in a scrappy residential square patches of sulphurous smoke hang in the night air: fireworks; their bangs, whizzes and whines are layered with the flirtatious kiss-chase shrieks of teenage girls, and the barks of London yoot: ‘bro’, ‘bruv’ and ‘bumberclart’. I imagine the dog coming upon this and running more, deeper into an area I don’t know at all, further and further from home.
With me crouched on the kerb, crying and panicking again, Charlie cannot find any words to reassure me.
We drop back into Will’s on the way home. Castor comes to greet me at the door. I want to have the love he wants. I stroke him and receive him but not with the ‘Cas-TOR!’ he is used to. I had forgotten about Castor.
My focus is on being cheerful. Brightly, I ask, ‘Has Castor been fed?’
No. Steph shudders at the sight of the portions of turkey carcass I had got both dogs for their supper as I carry it outside and feed him with his bowl on the grass. I take a few emboldening sucks at the air and go inside. We count off the dog wardens we have rung, and read the advice on the DogLost website. We have all heard from some source or another that posters are key to finding lost dogs. If I bring more posters tomorrow perhaps you can take some out and about? ‘Of course, of course,’ says Will. We share our experiences out hunting this afternoon. Will also had someone who wanted to tell him all about their lost cat.
I reckon I’ve got 30 minutes before Charlie is screaming to get out of there. He will want to be at home. This isn’t his family. It’s mine. We both know that his mother would never have lost the dog. But to say it would be asinine. I am thankful he doesn’t.
‘I need to know what happened, Will, I need more information’.
Three of us sit at the kitchen table. Steph hovers.
‘Could I have a drink?’ I am given a glass of white wine in a Duralex tumbler. I feel like drinking it down like water.
‘The dog wasn’t happy. I was aware of that. When we took them for a walk on the Heath Castor was pulling at the front while Wolfy was a nightmare, dragging along slowly like we were leading him to his death.’
Were they OK off the lead?
‘Castor was dragging Sam so hard he fell in the pond. He was good though, ran around and played with the kids. There was no way we were taking Wolfy off the lead.
‘When we got back from lunch Steph and I went to bed to read the papers. The kids were excited about Halloween, but they had strict instructions not to open the door because Wolfy had taken up residence there as soon as we got back.
‘I hear the doorbell and in a split second the door being cracked. I’m down the stairs: “Nooooooo! Who the fuck’s opened the door?” Arty is standing there looking frightened. The other two Castor and Wolfy, have gone. I run outside and find the kids holding the dogs in the middle of the road.’
The hissing sound of air escaping through gritted teeth comes from Steph, who is busying herself doing nothing around the kitchen sink. Charlie says ‘Fuck’ softly under his breath.
‘I yell to the kids, “Get inside now!”’ Will continues. ‘Sam, Bay and Castor run in. Wolfy stands there. I run to get him and he moves away.
‘I’m just in trackie bums. I run out onto the street where he is about 100 yards down the road. He’s not doing anything, just kind of skulking, hunched up and looking in my direction. And then I make a massive mistake, I start going for the dog, heading towards him and I don’t know, knowing me, I would have said “Wolfy!” in a cross way, you know, like the guy on YouTube with the Labrador chasing the deer.
‘Now Wolfy starts to run, and I mean really run. He crosses the road. He’s not looking left and right, no Green Cross code – that was a new level of stressful. A dog running across the road like that, it’s a shocking visual. You do a weird thing, instead of running to catch them you sort of slow down in the panic, there’s a strange moment where time changes. The dog could be dead in a second. Now he’s bolting down the left-hand side of the road with the flow of the traffic and I’m running after him. No top, no shoes.
‘A guy in a blue Transit van pulls up, he’s heading east towards the dog, and he’s shouting at me, “Get in the van, get in the van, I’ll help you.” Van starts moving before I’ve even shut the door.
‘Wolfy’s gone full greyhound now, people are shouting at him. He’s a big dog in bolt mode. You’re going to register that. He must have sensed other people’s focus on him. He goes faster.’
Charlie asks, ‘How close were you to him?’
‘Listen, there was no hot pursuit. The dog’s outrunning the traffic once we get to the junction with Holloway Road. We’re way behind him. We had an idea he had gone left, north, towards Archway. But perhaps he’d gone right. We’re shouting to the traffic on the southbound side, asking if they’ve seen a dog running in the road. He’s obviously crossed the road as people are pointing towards the residential streets on the Finsbury Park side. There’s six lanes on that road.’
Charlie and I flinch, like someone has raised their hand to us.
‘The guy in the blue Tra
nsit van said, “I can’t help you any more. You’re better off on foot.” I didn’t have any shoes on but he was right. I do a semicircle crossing over the road and down some back streets. There were lots of people at that point who had seen the dog. Some are pointing me in the way of Iceland and Seven Sisters, some keep pointing me north to Archway.
‘That’s when I went home and called you.’
I’m confused now. My brain isn’t great at logistical things at the best of times, and I start tapping the map on my cracked and battered phone. ‘Riiight, so if he was here, here and here, the next place we should look is …’
I don’t know.
‘I guess just go back where we were today?’ says Will. It’s a question.
I’m trying to formulate a plan in my head but it’s numb as a rock.
Back at home the air is suffocating without a tail whipping it, without 16 claws ticking back and forth over the floorboards. The dog took up very little space in cubic centimetres, and half of that was legs. But the way he raised the energy and brought love, humour and fur into every room was vast. His absence is present, the empty spot by the wall in the hall where he comes to watch us cook, the indent on his favourite spot on the sofa, the spot on the bathroom floor with his twin bliss of cool tiles and dirty washing. There’s a grey cast to everything.
Please be OK, Wolfy, go somewhere safe. I’m coming for you.
Charlie is teetering on the edge of calm, fury and defeat. These are three very different states and I am half alert to the change in his mood and half can’t be bothered. I know he is as desperate as I am and we hold each other in the kitchen, knowing that only us two could imagine how devastating and frightening this is. A part of me can’t believe the weight of emotion invested in one dog.
