by Isla Gordon
‘Ohmygod,’ she rasped, and had to pop him on the ground for the third time to shake out her arms, which were burning. The rain spattered in her eyes, but she could see her flat in sight at the end of the road. Bear sat next to her on the wet road, his paw still raised. ‘Well, we can’t just stay here. Come on.’ She lifted him again and staggered the final distance, collapsing onto her hallway floor and releasing Bear who slunk straight to his bed for a grumpy snooze.
Alice looked at her phone to see a missed call from Bahira. She called back, still catching her breath.
‘Hey, are you okay?’ Bahira asked down the line.
‘Is owning a puppy always this hard?’ Alice answered.
‘What did he do?’
‘Fell over and hurt a paw; I just carried him home. He’s also destroyed a book, chewed my furniture, had to be taken to the vet’s after eating a box of brownies and won’t leave me alone even for a minute, unless he’s off doing something he shouldn’t be.’
Bahira chuckled. ‘Sounds about right, I’m afraid. It will get easier, but not for a while. He’s still learning his boundaries with you, and when he’s learnt them he’ll forget them all because by then he’ll be a teenage pup.’
‘Brilliant.’
‘Look into puppy training, especially if he seems bored. I didn’t know how much I needed it with our dog until we did it. And it’s a nice thing for you both to do together, you know, out of the house . . . ’
‘Good idea,’ Alice concurred.
‘I was just calling to see how things were going. Shall I come over?’
‘No, it’s okay,’ Alice said quickly, feeling that twist of guilt again in her stomach. She breathed in, willing the fear and speculation to float away. ‘But how are you? How are you feeling?’
‘I’m coping,’ Bahira said. ‘It’s weird not seeing Jill, though. It’s just getting to the stage where it’s been longer than usual not to have seen her, you know?’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘The rest of us should meet up though, soon,’ Bahira persisted.
‘Sure.’
‘Okay, I’ll let you go, but let’s keep in touch.’
It wasn’t that Alice didn’t like Bahira, or Kemi or Theresa. She liked them a lot. But she just wasn’t ready to hang out with her friends without their heartbeat: Jill.
‘Right, I’m taking you to puppy training,’ Alice told Bear, as she nursed her wound which he’d just clamped onto with his spiky teeth. It had started with him nibbling her jumper when she’d reached to stroke him. He hadn’t let go, and got all worked up, his nibbling getting harder and more persistent until she had to untangle herself from the mess and step away. He bounced up and tried to catch her with his teeth.
She picked up her laptop and sat on the sofa, annoyance streaming through her, her patience wearing down. ‘You’re making this harder. You’re supposed to be on my side, but you’re making everything so hard.’
Bear side-eyed her from the floor, his head tilted to the side and one of her soggy socks in his mouth.
‘That’s right, we’re going to school. Both of us. You, to learn how to be a civilised member of society, and me to learn how to actually be a dog owner.’ He pushed her with his paw while he pulled on her other sock, trying to remove it from her foot. ‘I don’t know, maybe you’ve always been secretly annoying. I think you put on the butter-wouldn’t-melt face just for visitors.’
Alice typed ‘dog training classes London’ into Google, and clicked on the first link that came up, opening the vibrant yellow and purple page of the Dogs Trust. ‘“Dog School London,”’ she read aloud. ‘“Teaches owners how to give their dogs skills for happy lives.” Did you hear that Bear? Do you think they might have some skills for me to learn too?’ She continued flicking around the site, finding useful snippets about good places for dog walks, tips on recall off the lead, profiles of the trainers, all things that kept her mind occupied, if just for a little while.
‘It’s a five-week course,’ she whispered to Bear, who had settled his head down on her foot now and was drifting to sleep, his too-long legs stretched out in front of him and his nostrils twitching softly. ‘Five weeks until we’re all better.’
She knew she was talking rubbish, but as she clicked on the ‘enquire now’ button and filled in details about herself and Bear, she felt a sense of purpose. Something to aim towards, for Bear’s sake, beyond just being. Just surviving.
Alice didn’t even realise until later that night, while she was lying awake, that she’d just made a plan. A plan that involved leaving the house and being around other people. Well, how about that?
Chapter 13
The following Tuesday evening, Alice pulled up into the crunchy gravel car park outside the green-painted Dogs Trust buildings. She was running late because it was only as she was about to leave the house that she’d realised she should wear something other than the dog-walking clothes she’d lived in for the past month.
‘Come on then,’ she said, unclipping Bear so he could jump from the car, the hurt paw a distant memory in his chunky little head. She gathered in her arms all the things she’d been asked to bring – treats, a blanket favoured by the dog, a toy, and some food stuffed in one of the rubbery butt-plug-looking chew toys.
She took a breath, her eyes automatically doing a dynamic risk assessment of the grounds. Bear pulled at his harness, desperate to get inside, like he knew this was All About Him. ‘Stop pulling,’ she hissed. ‘You’re going to embarrass me before we’ve even started.’
He ignored her of course and got as far as the door in record speed, and pushed his nose against the glass, tail wagging.
‘Well, hello,’ said a woman in a purple Dogs Trust T-shirt who opened the door, addressing Bear. ‘You’re a big boy, you must be Bear.’
He, of course, jumped up on his hind legs and embraced the woman, showing Alice up further.
‘Oh thank you so much,’ the woman said. ‘I can see we have a very friendly one on our hands.’
Alice nodded. ‘So we need help with the jumping up and the pulling, please. He just wants to meet and be best friends with everyone.’ The opposite of me.
‘No problem, he’ll be a very polite young man by the end of these five weeks. Come in, come in. I’m Geraldine.’
Alice and Bear were led to a chair with a bowl of water next to it, set up at the end of the room. Alongside their section were four identical set-ups, each separated by a low, Dogs Trust divider.
Geraldine explained to Alice that there was plenty of time, and three other dogs and their humans would be coming along today, and each family was to take a seat in their own space and put the dog’s blanket down beside them, and try and get their pups to settle.
‘Lie down,’ Alice asked of Bear, who ignored her and tried to walk around his section on as wide a berth as his lead and harness would allow him. ‘Bear, come here, lie down.’
He stopped and looked at her. What’s in it for me?
Alice glanced at Geraldine, who was facing the other way, heading back towards the main entrance, so she pulled a treat from her pocket – one of the bacon flavour ones she knew Bear really liked – and bribed him back over to her.
He skipped back over and snaffled it from her hands, even making a move to lie down, until his head whipped around to the door.
‘INCOMING!’ someone bellowed, chuckling, and in raced an eager dog with dark fur, long white legs and big pointy ears on an extendable lead, followed by a large, jolly man. Both looked as if they could have shared a can of Red Bull on their way over here, with the dog bouncing straight over her barrier and tangling herself around a bemused Bear, and her owner pink and smiling and jogging after her.
‘Evening,’ he said. ‘This is Pearl! She never runs out of energy, but I tell you, she’s improved my fitness levels no end. I have to run to keep up with her, but I have been known to pick her up and carry her on her walks sometimes when I don’t have it in me – don’t tell my wife.’ He w
inked. ‘I’m Barry, by the way.’
‘Hello,’ Alice answered, freeing Bear who was happily bopping Pearl on the back with his paw while she kept wriggling her bum at him like a woman who knew what she wanted. ‘I’m Alice; this is Bear.’
‘He’s a big boy. That’s a proper dog. Pam, look at this proper dog,’ he called to a woman – his wife, Alice presumed – who was struggling through the door with Pearl’s full bed and a huge bag of toys and treats, as though she was moving her into the Dogs Trust centre for the next five weeks.
‘Ooh, look at him!’ Pam said. ‘Pearl, he’d make a lovely boyfriend for you, very manly.’
‘What type o’ dog is he?’ asked Barry. ‘A St Bernard?’
‘A Bernese Mountain Dog.’
‘A Burmese Mountain Dog, eh? Where’s he from, then, Burma? Must be hot for his kind over there.’
‘Actually from Bern, in Switzerland. Bernese,’ said Alice. She then felt rude for correcting him, so asked, ‘How about Pearl, what type of doggie is she?’
‘Switzerland!’ piped up Pam. ‘Lovely, we went there for our honeymoon. Lots of mountains, there.’
‘Beautiful place. Pearl’s a bit of Collie, bit of Pointer, lot of pain in the backside,’ said Barry affectionately.
The thing Alice was learning about dog owners was that their worlds often revolved around their beloved hounds. Not necessarily all the time, but when they met other dog owners their pooches were a constant source of conversation, knowledge-swapping and anecdotes. Nobody asked personal questions. Nobody was talking about the state of the world. Nobody discussed trauma and inner demons. It was all about the dogs, and Alice liked it.
As the room filled with more puppies and people, and the dogs went berserk trying to be best friends with everyone in the room, Alice settled into her corner and relished the anonymity.
Geraldine in her purple T-shirt positioned herself at the front of the room and talked them all through the format of the next five weeks. Pearl, in the section next to hers, was paying no attention to Geraldine and staring at Barry pleadingly, piercing woofs escaping as she tried to make him throw an imaginary tennis ball. Bear sat beside Alice, craning his neck to watch her.
‘Does anyone ever feel close to tears?’ Geraldine asked, and Alice snapped back to attention. ‘Does anyone ever let those tears flow?’
Barry and Pam chuckled next door.
‘That’s quite normal. Dogs can be bloomin’ annoying. But the thing to remember is, they aren’t trying to be annoying, they just don’t understand our world. Imagine if one of your friends came over and wanted a cup of tea, but wouldn’t tell you in English, wouldn’t point it out, wouldn’t give you any hints apart from playing an elaborate game of ‘hot or cold’. That’s what it’s like for puppies. They’ll learn words and learn to associate them with certain things, but they don’t know what they mean just because you say them louder and louder. It takes patience and repetition, and a lot more patience. Don’t you wish sometimes people had more patience with you?’
Alice reached down and stroked the top of Bear’s head with her fingertips, and he tipped his nose right to the ceiling, his eyes sparkling. Thanks for being patient with me, she told him, silently.
It was beginning to get dark by the time Alice and Bear left their first training session that evening. ‘Autumn is really here, puppy,’ she told him as she led them both to the car.
She’d never been afraid of the dark, and on the outskirts of London it wasn’t ever really going to be dark, but an urgency to get back home into her bright nook of a flat washed over her.
With Bear in the back seat, lying down and sleepy, she sat for a moment trying to shake away the nasty feelings that were creeping into her consciousness. ‘Go away,’ she whispered. ‘Go away, I’ve had a nice evening.’
Alice plugged in her phone and found a playlist of soft late night moods, and for the first time since the concert she allowed music to flood her ears, providing an intoxicating distraction that meant before she knew it she was pulling out of the car park and making her way home.
She focused on the road and on the beat of the music reverberating around the car. She was coping. It wasn’t easy but she was out, and she was driving, and it was dark, and she was so lonely but then Bear’s nose poked through the gap between the seats and rested on her shoulder.
Maybe she wasn’t completely alone. She leant her cheek on him.
Chapter 14
From then on the weekly training sessions became the linchpin of Alice and Bear’s routine. She settled into a life of being only with him, and was glad to be left alone. She didn’t go back into the Funny Pack office, and instead they bought all her drawings, perhaps out of pity.
When she took Bear for his twice-daily walks, she saw increasingly familiar faces, but she continued to wear her earphones without any sound, and they seemed to accept that this quiet girl with the big puppy didn’t want to talk.
She spoke to her mum and dad on the phone regularly enough, but mainly about Bear and what he’d been doing that week. She avoided questions about herself.
She slept a lot but never felt rested, and ate a lot but never felt satisfied. Her time with Bear was the only thing that made her feel happy, like when he was practising his growls or chasing his own tail around her living room, or had climbed onto the sofa and snuggled his furry back into her, and they fell asleep, spooning. In bed he would keep her warm by lying right up against her, calming her night tears, and he was very nearly able to scrabble up onto the mattress himself, rather than place his front paws up and wait for her to come and lift his bottom.
Bear was growing and Alice found herself daily telling him, with complete honesty and awe, how big he was getting. The tufty black streamers on his ears were beginning to flow, his nose was longer and stronger, like a concertina that had popped out, and it now proudly displayed all of his black and orange freckles. His tail had popped like a firework and had changed from a white-tipped rope to a plush, cloudy plume. The sharp pins of his teeth were falling out and making room for great white gnashers. He was leaning more, and had become interested in feet and the backs of knees. He was changing quickly, and filling up what little space there was in the flat.
And every week their outing came around, and Alice would pack up his ‘school’ bag, he would be on his best behaviour for an hour, and then they would drive home to music in companionable silence.
‘He’s definitely improving and being a bit more structured, but he can still be naughty and restless when it’s just him and me,’ Alice said to her mum after four sessions. ‘It feels good to be doing something towards making him better and happier and more settled.’
Alice’s mum ‘mm-hmm’ed down the line. ‘And have you thought any more about maybe seeing someone yourself?’
‘What, about Bear?’
‘No, like a doctor or a therapist, perhaps.’
‘I don’t need to see anyone, Mum, I just need to get this dog more settled and then everything will be fine.’
‘Mm-hmmmmmm . . . ’
Alice steered the conversation back to Bear’s training. ‘We just need to keep practising, that’s all. We have homework to do. And everyone there loves him.’ Even when he was being a pain, Alice felt pride with how instantly Bear could make people fall in love with him, and he always reciprocated. He was just like Jill in some ways.
‘So just one more week left?’ her mum asked.
‘Yep, one more session and then he’ll be perfect,’ Alice joked.
‘Maybe it would be nice to plan in something else for once it finishes, you know, to keep you motivated to leave the house.’
‘Mum . . . ’
‘Liz,’ Alice heard her dad say in the background.
‘I just think it’s been good for you having a bit of routine back. How about trying to go into the office again, just once a week?’
‘I can’t leave him on his own. I don’t need to go into the office, I can’t, I’m not . . . ’ A
lice ran out of words. She wasn’t ready yet. She wished she was, she wished she felt better, but she also wished Jill wasn’t dead, and she wished she could go back in time, and she really wished she wasn’t having this conversation.
‘I didn’t want to upset you, it was just an idea.’ Liz wavered, and then her dad came on the line.
‘Your mum’s not trying to upset you, love,’ he said.
‘I know, I’m just not ready.’
‘That’s okay, there’s no rush, she just . . . ’ he paused, as if waiting for her mum to leave the room. When he spoke again he was quieter. ‘She just wants you to be okay. She thinks all the time about how she could have lost her little girl, we both do. But we don’t mean to put any pressure on you. We’ll wait.’
Alice was watching Bear, and thinking, did he always take up that much space on her sofa? He was luxuriating on the cushions, his ears dangling over the edge, and when he caught her watching him his mouth opened in a big, tongue-lolling smile. Despite everything, Bear certainly brought a little laughter back into her life.
The doorbell rang and Bear rolled off the sofa.
‘Who’s this?’ she murmured to him, assuming it would be the postman, and he pushed through to go to the door with her, causing her to bump and edge her way around him.
‘Oh! Hi!’ Alice stood at her door and faced Bahira, Theresa and Kemi. Bear appeared, her tone of voice arousing the curiosity in him, and he nudged and bumped into her calves from behind, desperate to see who it was. ‘What are you guys doing here?’
‘We’re here to visit you,’ said Bahira, with her usual practicality. ‘Like it or not.’
‘Oh. Well, come in?’ Alice opened the door wider, excruciatingly aware of her dog-walking clothes (which really were now just her ‘clothes’), her messy hair, her lack of make-up.
‘Holy mackerel!’ Theresa exclaimed on entering the corridor. ‘Alice, put the light on, this puppy can’t be as big as I think he is.’
‘Sorry, it is a little dark in here.’ Alice shuffled past them to flick on the hall light, then led them into the living room and threw some empty crisp packets in the nearest bin. She gathered up a few used mugs and glasses.
