Some of My Friends Have Tails

by Sara Henderson

  Prince seemed very happy with this decision, but his trainer was devastated. He told me many times he was convinced Prince could win American Supreme Champion if I would only let him go on one circuit of America, the circuit that was the lead-up to the biggest dog show of all, in New York. When I discovered Prince would be away from home for months, I said no. He already was champion to us and we didn’t need a cup to prove it. I didn’t like duck hunting either, it was too cruel for me, and the discomfort of sitting in a cold, watery duck blind, at dawn and for hours on end, certainly wasn’t my idea of fun. It was enough to see the look on Prince’s face when Charlie said, ‘Come on, old boy; let’s go duck hunting.’ The expression said it all.

  I told Charlie if he wanted to eat the ducks, he could swim for them himself, or shoot them over dry land, but Prince didn’t have to worry about facing this misery all winter. This was Charlie’s first duck shooting since he was a young boy; he remembered his experiences of childhood hunting as misty and exciting. Fortunately, forty full years later, the cold stark boring reality hit home with force. So even though the duck hunting group invited Charlie many times, he always had some excuse why he couldn’t make it after that first time.

  They all returned home that first day with tales of the great feats, when one look at Prince showed who had done all the work. The poor dog was exhausted; I found out he was the only dog, and was retrieving for five men. Prince’s fame spread and everyone invited Charlie to join them, and ‘bring your dog’ was the very specific request.

  When Charlie declined with an invented excuse, I knew it was because of his personal comfort; then the other hunters asked could they borrow his dog, and he said yes! We had very heated arguments about these other men expecting to take Prince whenever they pleased, and I told him to call back and say they could not have my dog, ever. He said he couldn’t go back on his word. That didn’t bother me in the least; I volunteered to go back on his word! I called the leader of the pack and told him that they could not have Prince on loan for hunting. In an extremely imperialistic tone he informed me he had already discussed this matter with my husband, and he went on to say he would pick up the dog at the arranged time. In an equally imperialistic tone, I replied, ‘Oh no you won’t; the dog is mine and I am telling you clearly you are not taking my dog hunting. Don’t bother dropping by because the dog won’t be here!’ and slammed the phone down. Prince didn’t go hunting that Sunday, or any other day.

  Didn’t that spread around the country like wildfire! I was given another talking-to regarding my behaviour as a wife. I cut the session short, saying I wasn’t about to conform with the county’s idea of how I should perform. Putting up with Charlie was about as far as I was prepared to go. And so widened the gap with my mother-in-law as her disapproval of me mounted.

  But I was forming a nice group of friends, and apart from the regulation Sunday church, family lunch afterwards, and a few afternoon teas per week, we didn’t see much of each other. During these meetings we would maintain a nice level of civil exchange of pleasantries. Although we didn’t really get along, the times I enjoyed enormously were when she told stories of the past. Mrs Henderson was the great historian of the family, and devoted a good part of her time to patiently telling everyone the family history so it could be passed on. She was so passionate about this, she was even willing to tell me, and I was very interested. I do regret not having spent a lot more time with her to listen to the history, because now I have lost Charlie, there are thousands of questions that will never be answered.

  Some of the stories about Charlie’s grandmother he told me. Mrs Henderson was strictly only interested in the serious facts, nothing but the facts. But my favourite story was one Charlie loved to tell about his grandma’s driver, Sam.

  When he drove her to town, in those days in a horse-drawn carnage, they always chatted along the way. ‘Sam, I hear you’re steppin’ out with the kitchen maid, Mary Lou.’

  ‘No um.’

  ‘Now, Sam, I hear you fixin’ to get married.’

  ‘No um, I bin married twice and single once, and there ain’t no comparison!’

  Sam must have been quite a character and Charlie’s very, very favourite story could never be told in his mother’s presence. Charlie must have told it thousands of times. Sam was returning from fishing at the end of the day with one of the other pretty maids, when one of the men called out, ‘Get any?’

  Sam replied, ‘Yes sir-ree indeedy, an’ fish too!’

  Accents change drastically from state to state in America; I was just getting to the stage where I could understand the eastern ‘Shore’ accent when we moved to New York to live for six months. I had to start all over again, listening carefully so as to understand, and speaking slowly so I could be understood. Whenever I needed to buy something, and asked anyone where I should go, the answer was always the same, Macy’s. I have never seen such a massive store. It was so big it had people standing throughout the store wearing badges, saying, ‘information’. I headed for one of these women and asked what floor for bath mats (pronounced with the English ar sound).

  The woman looked at me and said, ‘Warrrt der you waant?’ in a very drawn-out nasal Bronx accent.

  I tried to enunciate ‘bath’ as clearly as possible, it sounded normal to me, but a blank expression just stayed on the ebony face.

  ‘Nar-r-r, ma’am, we don’t hav ’em.’ And to emphasise this point, she pursed her lips, shook her head while uttering, ‘Uh hum’ repeatedly.

  I wasn’t giving up that easily, so I tried again: ‘Shower.’

  Immediate recognition registered on her face. ‘Yes urn.’

  I repeated and added more: ‘Shower-floor-mat, bath-mat.’

  The comprehension complete, her face lit up. ‘Oh, you wan’ a ba-a-a-a-th mat!’ The word came out like a sheep stuck on ‘baa’.

  ‘Right, I want a ba-a-a-th mat,’ copying as best as I could.

  ‘Basement, thank you,’ she said in clipped Bronx, and then turned efficiently to the next lost shopper. I walked away, hoping the shopper could speak American.

  Time passed quickly in New York and I found living there very educational. I had no desire to live there on a permanent basis, but I did enjoy our short stay. Of course, Prince came along; we all lived in a four-storey brownstone, with an attic with a skylight and, much to the children’s delight, a trampoline in the attic. Apart from worrying they would bound right through the skylight and end up on the street below, the trampoline made life easy for me.

  There was nowhere outside for them to play; the courtyard was so small you couldn’t swing a cat. Running around it a few thousand times a day didn’t even wind the girls, and the weather didn’t add to the courtyard’s attractiveness. So the girls spent most of their time in the attic. The six months stay in New York had us all decidedly fitter from walking up and down stairs all day. The children were amazing: they could go from the kitchen on the lower ground floor to the trampoline in the attic without a rest, and not be out of breath.

  They got their sun in the early morning, lying on the trampoline and sunbaking as the sun passed over the skylight. Many a time I would find the two girls with Prince between them on his back and all legs in the air, all of them sound asleep. Other times they’d be just chatting with him, and listening as if he was about to give his opinion.

  So we went back to the farm considerably healthier than when we left. Prince was very pleased to be out in the fields again, he was tiring of getting his exercise on the flights of stairs, about the only place in New York where he could extend himself. He spent the whole day rushing between me on the ground floor or the lower ground in the kitchen, and the children in the attic, with messages tucked in his collar.

  But the fact was, we were all happier back in Maryland.

  We were only home a few weeks when I received a phone call from a friend who was working as a receptionist for our vet. She wanted me to take home a dog that had been sent in to be put down. He was a sho
rt-haired English Pointer, had a pedigree a mile long and was, she said, a wonderful dog. The owners were putting the dog down because his bottom teeth were crooked! Apparently they showed dogs.

  ‘It just isn’t fair, he’s a beautiful dog, and you have all that space out there, please take him,’ she pleaded.

  Charlie wasn’t too pleased, but now we had two dogs. Prince didn’t seem to mind; he took one look at the simpering dog, decided he wasn’t any threat to his standing and accepted him on the spot. I called him ‘Difficult’ because he was just that. The dog had spent its life in a cage or in the show ring. He wouldn’t walk properly, he did the ‘show spring’ as we called it, bounding along in a carefree manner, looking in the direction of the centre of the ring to impress the judges. As a result, in the house he continually ran into walls and furniture because he was always looking sideways. The poor thing was a nervous wreck; if you said ‘no’ to him or anything above a whisper, he wet himself on the spot. When you gave him food he growled the whole time as he devoured the contents of the bowl. It was worse than training a puppy because I had to untrain all his bad habits before I could start teaching him the basics. And there were plenty of bad habits!

  Prince wasn’t any help in the training. At first, if Difficult stepped out of line, Prince growled a warning; this would cause Difficult to immediately wet on the floor, and then collapse in a heap into the puddle. He had lots of baths the first few months. I gradually taught him to walk slowly, and when he realised he got a good amount of food daily the growling over his bowl stopped; he watched and copied Prince’s dignified eating habits. After he settled down and knew he was on a good wicket, every time he was in doubt he just watched Prince. So before long he started to act more like a normal dog. He was a long way from perfect, but we had the eating and the wetting under control, and as winter was approaching both Difficult and I were pleased about that. He still couldn’t run without falling over his feet and ending up in a heap. If he got too excited he couldn’t control himself and would knock the children over, so he still had a long way to go.

  When the children went exploring in the little red wagon, Difficult tagged along and regularly got lost. A search party wouldn’t take long to find him. If you stood still you could hear this terrible mournful howl; by following the howl you would find Difficult under a tree rolled in a tight ball, terrified and shivering.

  I am sure animals know if they don’t fit in with certain people. We took care of Difficult and gave him food and shelter, but he wasn’t our kind of dog. This became very clear to me when the new Shore farmer arrived at the front door, introduced himself, and said he would be ploughing the fields on Rigby’s Marsh that year, so we would be seeing him from time to time during the season. I invited him in and we were sitting talking and drinking a cup of tea, when the children, Prince and Difficult exploded in the kitchen door. The farmer’s eyes landed on Difficult picking himself up off the floor where he had landed in a heap after colliding with Alan’s chair.

  One look at Difficult finally standing in all his glory and it was love at first sight, ‘What a beautiful dog!’

  Prince, used to compliments, drew himself to his full height waiting to be patted, and all our eyes were on Prince, including Difficult’s, confirming this statement, when Alan’s hand went out and patted Difficult. Difficult got such a fright, he yelped, jumped backwards, almost knocking himself out on the fridge and once again ended up in a heap on the floor. Painfully he rose to his feet as Alan helped him, Difficult all the time looking up with a quizzical expression. He liked Difficult! I couldn’t believe my eyes, and watched delightedly as he spoke soothing words and the heap on the floor materialised into a dog again.

  ‘Would you like him?’ I asked anxiously.

  Alan said he would love to have him, but a dog like Difficult was worth a thousand dollars and he couldn’t afford money like that. He ran his hand lovingly over Difficult again, and this time the dog seemed to transform under Alan’s touch.

  ‘I would venture to say, this dog would have some of the best breeding blood in the country. He would have to be one of the best short-haired English Pointers I have seen. I love this type of dog, have studied them for years.’ Difficult could obviously feel the love coming through the hand gently stroking him, because he was looking lovingly into Alan’s eyes.

  ‘He’s yours,’ I said triumphantly, happy I had stumbled on the perfect match of man and dog. ‘We didn’t pay for him, only saved him from being put down. If you look after him and give him a good home, he’s yours.’

  The change in that dog over the next few months was miraculous. He gained confidence, became the very best in the county at bird hunting, on land, that is—the mind boggles to think of Difficult in the water. Alan and Difficult wandered the woods, blissfully happy; it was a partnership made in heaven. Alan asked me rather nervously a few months later if I’d mind very much if he changed the dog’s name. He had trouble explaining it at his gun club, where Difficult was becoming the talk of all the members. I told him of course he could name him; Difficult now belonged to him and I would put it in writing if he wished. He went away a very happy man with an extra-happy newly named hound at his side. So Difficult was renamed, but he was always Difficult to me, although I never called him by that name again.

  The girls settled back into the local school. Marlee stomped in the door one day and told me she wanted to punch out a boy. I said to just calm down and tell me why. This boy sat behind her in the school bus and yanked at her plaits; she had asked him to stop but he just kept doing it.

  ‘Can I punch him out, please, Mum?’ I told her to warn him to stop and say if he didn’t he would be in trouble. She bounded off to school the next day, hoping to get her plaits pulled.

  She burst through the door in the afternoon. ‘He did it again, Mum, he did it; can I punch him out?’

  I told her to give him one more warning.

  ‘One more! Can’t I punch him out tomorrow?’

  I told her no, if he pulled her plaits again that was the very last time.

  ‘Then can I punch him out?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, boy!’ She came home next day actually glad he had pulled her plaits.

  The following day she came into the house with a look of sheer bliss on her face. It was very obvious she had punched him out! I asked her could she truthfully say she didn’t provoke this plait-pulling. ‘No way,’ was her reply. He started pulling Bonnie’s plaits and so Marlee stepped in to protect her little sister and he started pulling her plaits. So I felt satisfied the boy deserved getting ‘punched out’, but I didn’t realise just how hard my little eight-year-old could punch.

  I received a phone call not long after Marlee arrived home from school. One very irate mother was screaming down the phone line about what my son Murray had done to her son. What a vicious unprovoked attack my son had made on her son. Her son had done nothing to my son and my son had punched her son in the teeth and his two front teeth were loose and bleeding. She was going to sue me, she was going to send me the orthodontist’s bill. What wasn’t she going to do! She didn’t draw breath for at least five minutes. When she finally finished, she asked me what I had to say about all that.

  I replied, ‘Well I suppose the first thing I would have to say is my son is a girl.’

  ‘What?’ was screamed at me.

  I was about to continue, to say her son had been pulling my daughter’s plaits for weeks and had been warned he would be punched if he didn’t stop, but she slammed the phone down in my ear.

  I could almost feel the boy on the other end of the phone, shrinking away as she screamed, ‘A girl!’ and smashed the phone into its holder. I almost felt sorry for him.

  Many problems were surfacing, in our lives in America and were becoming more and more difficult to handle. So when a letter arrived from Australia telling Charlie there was a cattle recession in the north of Australia and not to expect any more money from cattle sales, because there w
asn’t even enough money to run the station, we had to make a few decisions. Charlie’s affairs which had brought our marriage close to break-up, along with other problems, were the reasons why we packed up and went back to the Outback. As much as I dreaded going back to the station, I wanted to leave America, and yet I didn’t. I wanted to leave, I think, because Charlie had too much opportunity to meet too many women with too much time on their hands. But I would have liked to stay for my lifestyle. However, I really didn’t have to make a decision between America and the station. With no more money coming from the station, and Charlie doing a lot in Washington, or so he said, but for no wages, we had no choice but to go back.

  The really sad part of the whole complicated mess was, we had to leave Prince. I wrestled with this for a long time. It required one year’s quarantine time, via England, to bring an animal into Australia. I couldn’t bear to put Prince through that. I had to convince myself of this. I dearly wanted to take him to Australia, but after his life as so much a part of the family, I knew twelve months locked up away from us would break his heart. There had been several cases of robbery in the district, and Mrs Henderson, in her late seventies, lived alone in that big house with a cook the same age. So we gave Prince to her as a guard dog.

  I had Charlie take him over to Lloyds Landing, after we said our goodbyes at Rigby’s Marsh. When I gave him his final hug, and told him to be a good boy and do a good job guarding Mrs Henderson, there were tears in his eyes. He sat on the front seat of the car next to Charlie and watched us as long as he could. At the bottom of the lawn, the road turned left and I saw Prince make that familiar movement I loved so much, for that last time. Whenever you drove around a corner too fast, he would lift up his left paw, brace himself by putting it on the door just behind the window handle, and hold it there until the car was around the corner; then he would put his foot back on the seat and give you a glancing look that clearly said, ‘Too fast!’