by Isla Gordon
Bahira laughed and eventually got the door open. Once all three of them were inside, with the door shut, Alice put Bear down. He stood for a moment on his little fat legs, before skittering through into her living room.
And now, here in her flat as he tottered from room to room, stuffing his nose into everything he could find, giving her belongings exploratory chews and peering under bits of furniture, Alice hoped with everything in her that he was finding it an adventure.
Bahira and she took turns going back and forth to the car and keeping the puppy in the house. They carted in a large, flat dog bed as big as a single mattress (way too big for this dog, surely?), food and water bowls plus one and a half big bags of food, mountains of practical things like towels and poop bags and pills prescribed by the vet, bagfuls of toys in crunchy, squeaky, ropey vibrancy, two harnesses, three leads, a metal crate (‘though I think he refused to ever set even one paw in there’ Jill’s mum had said).
Once everything was inside, Bear nosed through it all, sticking his whole head into open bags and pulling things out onto the carpet.
‘Shall I stay for a while and help you unpack?’ asked Bahira.
‘No, you head home to your family, we’ll be fine.’
Alice bid Bahira goodbye, but in actual fact, she didn’t know where to start. When she’d left this flat she’d had no idea she’d be bringing a dog back to live with her.
When she’d left this flat, Jill had still been alive. She hadn’t been back here since before heading to the concert. Her make-up was still scattered on the mantelpiece under the mirror, the electric blue liquid liner she’d felt so Coachella wearing was just lying there, waiting for her to come home. And she could have so easily never come home.
If she’d never come home, would this make-up still be sitting here? Or would someone have cleared her flat by now, avoiding paying an extra month’s rent, which in London wasn’t cheap? And would each item she owned be carefully considered, or would things like this blue eyeliner, which had no meaning for anybody – it didn’t even hold a place in Alice’s heart – just be swept into the bin?
Alice picked up the eyeliner and dropped it into the bin.
Was Jill’s house empty? Probably not – she had owned her house; there would be no rush.
Alice wondered if she should have offered to go over and help clear the house, but even thinking it caused a pain so deep in her heart that she couldn’t imagine ever being able to find the strength to do that.
How horrible a friend she was to put her own pain over that of Jill’s family, who also didn’t want to clear their daughter’s, their sister’s, home where everything – everything – would remind them of her.
‘I’m tired,’ Alice said to Bear, looking at the mess in the living room. She was running on empty, and she couldn’t, she just couldn’t, face the pile of things quite yet. ‘I just need an hour or two, okay?’
She pushed his bed up against the wall in the living room, threw a couple of toys on the floor, and filled a big bowl of water which she left in the kitchen. Then she went to her room, Bear sticking close behind her.
The clothes she’d left strewn on her bed – discarded shorts from the morning of the concert, a top she’d nearly worn that day before changing her mind at the last minute, a couple of potential handbags that hadn’t made the cut – had been folded neatly and placed on a chair, the bed cover neatened and the water glass from her nightstand washed and dried and put back upside down. Her dad had come into the city a few days after it happened to pack a rucksack full of her things. He’d packed a few clothes, pulled a book off her bookshelf – it was one she’d already read but it was a sweet thought – a tub of night cream, a hairbrush, a lip balm and a cuddly rabbit. He must have straightened it out for her.
‘Bear, you’re going to like my dad. He’s kind.’
She climbed onto her bed and Bear trotted around the edge of it, looking for a way up. She watched him, assuming he’d just lie on the floor in a moment, but when he stretched his front paws up onto her mattress, wriggled his legs to try and haul himself up and whined at her, she helped him up.
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘You can come here with me. I promise I’ll look after you now.’
Alice lay down on top of the covers, and Bear sank down right next to her, shuffling his back into her and going straight to sleep. She looked down at his tufty head, the colour of Bourneville chocolate but with flecks of burgundy, and a splash of white on the back of his neck. Above his eyes were two thumbprint sized ‘eyebrows’ in a rich amber colour that twitched when he opened an eye to see her peeping at him. His snout was white and freckled with dark brown and ginger dots, and still somewhat squashed in like an accordion. He stretched his legs, which also marbled from chocolate to caramel to the cream on his too-big paws, and his chest was a puff of pearly white fur.
She reached her fingers across and stroked his little head oh so gently, and he closed his eyes. ‘You sleep now, puppy, I’m going to keep you safe.’
Chapter 10
It was strange having an extra thing in the house, something living and moving, that didn’t stay where she left it like her familiar furniture or her art supplies. Later that afternoon, Alice kept getting a jolt in her heart when she was walking through her home, her muscle memory moving her around her belongings, before remembering to keep watch for where the puppy might be hanging out. His favourite activity seemed to be following her from room to room, so at least most of the time he was behind her feet, rather than in front of them.
As the summer darkness finally fell on London, Alice found the street noises deafening in a way she hadn’t before. The sounds of cars, chatter, heels on pavements, distant lorry horns, all drifted through the cracks of her windows.
‘It’s so noisy here,’ she muttered to Bear, who sat awkwardly, back legs splayed about, ropey tail strewn to the side and tongue lolling from his mouth. He tilted his head at her and belched, holding eye contact.
‘Same to you!’
Well, it was probably time to try and sleep. Alice gathered her phone, her book that she still probably wouldn’t read, a glass of water, some headache pills, and took them into her bedroom.
Bear followed close behind.
‘No,’ she said, ushering him back into the kitchen. ‘You sleep in the kitchen, that’s where you used to sleep.’ She showed him the tiled floor, the water bowl, the soft rabbit toy she’d left out for him that Jill had bought. ‘You like the cold floor. My bedroom has carpet.’
Bear popped his nose in and out of the water bowl and then walked past her and back towards her bedroom, stopping in the doorway to look around for her.
‘Bear, you come back here. You’re sleeping in the kitchen.’
There was a stand-off occurring, and Alice didn’t quite know how to take this. ‘Hey, I’m the boss here, come back and sleep in the kitchen.’
With that, the puppy broke eye contact with Alice and wandered off into her room.
Tears prickled her eyes and she blinked them back immediately. How ridiculous to feel emotional about such a thing when there are bigger problems in the world. She took a deep breath and followed the dog into the bedroom, picked him up, and carried him to the kitchen, where she put a chair on its side across the doorframe to block him in. He whinnied a little bit.
‘I’m sorry, but you have to sleep in here. That’s the rule.’ Although, she wasn’t sure whose rule she was quoting. Jill’s perhaps? Would this furry little thing ever feel truly like he was hers?
Alice made her way back to her bedroom, loneliness and fear sensing an opportunity to come visiting. She ignored Bear’s whines as she changed into her pyjamas.
She stopped brushing her teeth halfway through to shout, ‘It’sh okay, Bear,’ through a mouthful of foam, when he let out the first yelp.
She tried to ignore as the yelping got louder, lying in bed, staring at her ceiling.
It was when he woofed, a tiny cry of help from something thinking he w
as making a much braver sound than he was, that she jumped up and ran to him. He was fine, of course he was, he was just sat on the other side of the sideways chair, waiting for her. He stood when he saw her, and that stringy, ropey tail started flicking back and forth.
Alice knelt down. ‘Are you lonely?’
Bear stared up at her.
‘Do you miss her?’
He rested his chin on top of the chair frame.
‘I miss her too,’ Alice said, stroking the white patch on the top of his head. ‘I’m going to try my hardest to give you a really nice life, just like she wanted. I’m going to take care of you, and make sure you’re safe and happy. You’re the top priority, now.’
Bear’s eyes closed, his chin still resting on the chair, comforted by her voice and strokes. ‘We have to help each other out a little, though – I’m new to this. Having you in my house is a huge learning curve, even after all the hours that Jill used to babble on to me about you. To start with, tell me why I should let you sleep in my room? I don’t let men I don’t know well sleep in my room.’
Bear got onto all fours, turned and ran to the stuffed rabbit and brought it back to her in his mouth, its ears dangling on the floor.
She couldn’t help but smile. ‘Is that for me? Is this a bribe?’ She stood and reached her hand out and Bear backed away, bumping into the kitchen island, tail going wild. Take it from me! he seemed to be saying. But you can’t actually have it!
‘It’s not playtime, it’s bedtime.’ But even as she said it Alice was moving the chair, putting it back upright. Bear bounced towards her, rabbit flailing, and pushed it into her shin, right on her wound. She winced and Bear dropped the rabbit, staring closely at her leg, sniffing her scabbed-over cut. He gave it a tentative lick, and then turned around, and sat his furry bum down on her foot, like a little bodyguard.
Alice thought in that moment that she might already love him a little bit. But just a very little bit. He was still proving to be a handful.
And that’s how she found herself not only letting him follow her back to her bedroom, but also lifting him up onto her bed, where he wadged about for a while, walking up and down, pulling at the duvet cover with his tiny spikes of teeth, rolling on his back to see how his paws felt floating about in the air of her home. A few times he stepped on her, a heavy paw holding up eighteen kilograms, but she didn’t mind.
‘Shall we try and sleep, then?’ she asked him.
He looked at her, then carried on shuffling about in circles, restless.
‘Do you want to get down? Is the duvet too warm for you?’ I told you so. ‘I’m not turning the light off, if that’s what the problem is. I sleep with the light on at the moment. I know it’s very unreasonable but you’re just going to have to put up with me being a bit weird for a bit, I think.’
He was watching her, like she had a little more explaining to do.
‘Just give me time.’
Bear wandered up to her face, peered at her closely, exhaled at her through his nostrils, and climbed onto her pillow, curling himself around her head like a huge furry hat.
‘You’re sleeping there?’ It was unconventional, and she prayed she didn’t get kicked in the face, but she didn’t exactly dislike it.
He sighed, a long, sleepy sigh. Alice kept firmly still, not wanting to disturb this funny visitor. He was finally settled, like he had all the time in the world for her.
It must have been morning. Alice was awake, her head foggy, the duvet pulled right over her, but through the fabric she could see the light in her room had changed from the stark orange of her bedside light, which had stayed on all night, to a more muted yellow, suggesting the sun was trying to break through the curtains.
She traced her finger up and down the wound on her leg, and a deep sadness settled over her as if the duvet itself was the weight of her sorrow. It had been a long first night alone, with tangled dreams of oppressive London skylines and her dry, thirsty throat closing to the point where she could no longer breathe. In her waking hours her first thought was always the guilt, her mind whispering at her again and again that she had caused this and that she’d live with it for ever.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent so long indoors, so long in bed. Just three weeks ago today she would have been up at dawn, running around, probably dreaming up cartoons that made light of a world she viewed through rose-tinted glasses. What had she even been working towards, trying to save the world when at any moment, any heartbeat could be someone’s last?
The duvet shuffled near her feet, and then lifted an inch. A little black nose appeared, nostrils flaring, sniffing at Alice’s toes. With a snort it disappeared again.
A moment later the nose reappeared, pushing a tennis ball in under the duvet, which rolled against Alice’s feet, warm and gooey with dog dribble. The nose waited patiently, and Alice watched it follow the scent of the ball as she nudged it with her toes.
With a sigh, she gave in. There was one reason then, for her to still get up in the morning.
Even in the capital city the streets can be quiet on a Sunday morning if you leave early enough. Quiet was what Alice hoped for as she stepped out of her front door. She held Bear’s lead tightly, her baseball cap pulled low, wearing a bulky hoodie that wasn’t really necessary in weather that still lingered with the threat of the heat that had come before it. Quiet and hidden and cold, that’s all she wanted.
She’d taken Bear out yesterday afternoon, doing two circles of her block, walking close to the walls, her head down. She’d done the same in the evening, before it got dark, knowing he’d probably need a pre-night-time wee. But he needed a proper walk, and like it or not, she was the one who’d agreed to take him.
It was the same every time they left the house. Bear would get as far as the pavement and stop, looking up at her with big confused eyes and pulling back when she tried to coax him on. His little whine broke her heart over and over again because he just wanted them to wait for Jill. It was as if he remembered that he never used to walk without her, but couldn’t remember that she didn’t live here with them.
Then after a few minutes he would give in, and his slow walk would turn into a trot, and before long he was ahead of her, sniffing and snaffling against the ground.
This morning her heart thumped and she looked especially carefully before crossing the road. On the other side of her street, she stopped and looked back at the safety of her flat. Bear stood by her side, fidgeting, and that’s when she saw the TRAVEL EUROPE THIS SUMMER advert on the side of the bus stop.
Their trip was off; of course it was. And at some point she’d have to actually make all the cancellations. From under her cap she stared at the poster, all those hopes and memories and experiences that were paintings that would never come to life now because Jill had left her. In that moment an unexpected fizz of anger at Jill bubbled through the numbness.
Bear tugged on the lead.
‘Just give me a minute,’ Alice said to him. ‘Please.’
So he sat on her foot and waited.
A lorry crept around the corner at the end of the street, and Alice didn’t want the driver to see her. She moved her foot out from its warm cover and off they went, not stopping again until they’d entered the park, and there she remembered to breathe again.
The park was too big, too public, too open. Where would she hide with Bear if anything happened here? London wasn’t the same city to her any more – it felt dangerous and overcrowded.
Feeling faint at thoughts of the park filling with people, she sat down on a bench and held her face in her hands, but Bear was having none of it. He stuck his nose between her hands and licked her cheeks.
‘Let me guess, you had peanut butter for breakfast?’ a voice said.
Alice’s eyes flew open. She pushed her hands into Bear’s fur, pulling him closer to her and looked up. In front of her stood a kind-looking woman with a dachshund, who was straining on his lead to get a sniff of Bear.
&
nbsp; ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to make you jump, but this one is obsessed with peanut butter and he literally won’t leave my face alone after I’ve eaten it. Bloody dogs!’ The woman laughed and patted Bear with affection. ‘What type of dog is this?’
Alice scrambled to find her words. ‘Um, a Bernese Mountain Dog.’
‘Oh, he’s lovely, he looks like a little bear cub. How old?’
‘Um, three months. Well, nearly four months.’
‘Sweet. Come on then, Rufus, let’s get you home. See you around.’ And with that the woman smiled and walked away.
‘Bye,’ Alice called, embarrassed at her lack of sociability. ‘Bye, Rufus,’ she added to the dachshund.
Bear watched them go, sniffing at the air, curious to explore the smells of this new park. ‘Let’s walk then,’ Alice said, pulling her cap back down a little lower.
‘Wow, that’s a cool dog,’ a little boy said, stopping in his tracks in front of Alice and Bear. Alice stood stock still but managed a smile, and the boy’s mum ushered him around them.
As they looped the park everybody wanted to say hi, or comment on Bear’s markings, or say how cute he was, or ask to stroke him, or ask if he was a St Bernard. Alice was picking up speed, praying with each new person – was the park always this busy? – that they would leave her alone. How could people be walking around so carefree, talking about dogs and chatting to strangers, when only three weeks ago there was this tragedy in the city? When their friends or colleagues or commuter buddies had died? Why didn’t they care? All she wanted to ask anybody who stopped her was, had they been there too?
Her senses on hyper vigilance, Alice sensed the man before she saw him.
Maybe she heard his running shoes on the grass, maybe she heard the faint music emitting from his headphones, but she gasped and stumbled to the side pulling Bear with her. She squeezed her eyes shut, and covered her head with her free arm.
