Fuck me, wouldn’t that be sweet?
It was still dark when we left and Reg had to use the flashlight to guide us down the stairwell. It’s ten flights of stairs past closed doors – doors behind which I can still smell the funk of the ones who’d lived there, like they were in such a hurry to leave they’d forgotten to pack the most important things – their very beings – and then we’re out onto the street.
Bracing? Fuck me, it was brass monkeys out there. The snot froze in my snout and my hairs crackled with frost. Reg had his big coat on, trudging ahead in great clouds of steam with his flashlight swaying. What a sight, like a machine he was. It stopped me in my tracks, awestruck by the magic of him, the magic of you with all your know-how and wherewithal and what have you. Geniuses you are, the lot of you. And there’s me with just my shaggy coat and paws. I have to laugh sometimes, I really do. Pathetic.
When it was too cold to stand still any longer, I had another shake and scampered over the planks and masonry lying outside the block, and followed Reg out into the morning, still hungry, still cold, but feeling alive.
We passed the Victorian cemetery where we used to walk sometimes. It was always an old place, untended and left to grow over so the graves started bulging up under the tree roots. I used to like going there. I’d dart in and out of the broken tombs, getting good whiffs of all that old, dusty death mingling with ancient wood and dirt.
That cemetery used to look out of place next to the concrete and metal of the roads and estates around it, like an abandoned house gone to ruin on a row of proud homes. But now it’s starting to fit in. Everything goes that way; you can hear it. Deep within The Howl, down in the low notes way below the twitters of birds, the cracking of insect shells and the babble of fast-flowing water, is the sound of old wood groaning beneath tonnes of earth, and of sap rising, and greasy vines creeping into stone like a thousand claws.
Over The Rye we went, north-east this time which we never do, and then out past the old playground hanging with frayed, swingless rope, and further, further, till my eyes widen at the thrill of new scent flirting with my nostrils, further out to the fringes of everything I’m used to. I can feel it coming – not with my eyes or my ears or my paws, but with my tongue and snout. A whole new world of smells awaits me near the border.
There are no words to explain to you how it is to be a dog.
Likewise, you can’t tell me what it’s like to be a human. I’d have no chance, would I? Not with all that brilliant stuff banging around in your noggins. Amazing! So much to think about, with all those times and dates and places and appointments. Then you’ve got your telephones and football teams and what have you; your haircuts and clothes and films, and then all those objects you have to move from place to place like keys and books and cups and plates. Mind-boggling. I can sit and watch Reg for hours with no fucking clue what he’s doing. I just bask there, dumb with love, until he’s finished.
You’ve always been a busy lot, you sapiens. Climbing, foraging, skinning, sharpening. Planting, turning, carving, building. Crossing oceans. Waging wars. Looking up. Looking down. But thinking – that’s what you do the most. You gaze up and drift away and none of us can guess where you go. Fucking Einsteins, the lot of you.
Take away all that thought and replace it with smell. Yeah, that’s the nearest I can get to describing how it is to be a dog.
Smells are like ghosts of the things you once did or felt. Every emotion has its own smell – I’ve already mentioned voley fear, and that zingy metal tang of hope – and every individual has their own version of that smell. Some have feelings that others don’t, feelings that are just for them, their own personal blend with its own distinct perfume. You have to be around them for a while before you recognise what it stands for. Like my Reg, he has this one blend I’ve not smelled on anyone else. It’s a kind of desperate terror, deer flesh and urine, with a sadness, dead orchids and crushed chicken bones, but the whole thing’s kind of tempered and protected in this film of ice and thistle, like a sack of bones and photographs left to freeze on a winter moor. I don’t want to be anywhere near it when it comes because I know how it feels to him, and it makes me feel it too.
You leave ghosts everywhere you go. They trail behind you on buses and streets, in bedrooms and empty stairwells, along hospital corridors and through dense forest. And when you meet others, the ghosts of how they make you feel remain long after you’ve parted company, so that they merge and create bigger ghosts, like fights and arguments, and laughter, and tears, and fucking. You leave them and they stay there, sometimes for ever.
If I seem a little distracted by some tree, or post or corner or other, it’s not because I’m just having a sniff, it’s because I’m seeing how something played out. So don’t get angry if I don’t come back when you call – I might just be checking if someone’s all right.
That’s my world: ghosts everywhere. Ghosts that lead to other ghosts and those to others, trailing off forever in time and space. I could tell you the whole story of this city if you let me. I could describe the taste of Boudicca’s sweat as she led the revolt against the Romans, who fled and who fought when the Vikings rolled in, the first lick of flame from the Great Fire, the dying rooms of the plague, the children’s fear in the underground tunnels when Hitler’s bombs dropped. This snout of mine, it’s a time machine. A fucking time machine.
Of course, some smells are simpler than others. There are your good old-fashioned, straight down the line, smack on the nose, no questions asked, pleasant smells. Like a nice cunt. Very pleasant indeed. I think we all agree that a nice, strong cunt beats most smells on a good day – pears, seaweed, limestone and honey, lovely. And cock, equally inspiring when you get a good one, all musky and pelty like ripe bananas and cheese and pork chops, oooh, getting my snout all wet at the thought. And balls – don’t forget balls, as I’m sure my dear friend Wally would have said.
Other ones: meat, shit, piss, grass, carrots, dirt, vomit, sweat. All good.
Then there are the more confusing smells; the ones that are hard to categorise. Like fox. If I get wind of a fox I don’t know whether I want to cuddle it, fuck it or pull out its guts and eat them in front of it. It’s extremely confusing for me.
Foxes are close to wolves too, although not like us. They loped off much earlier to go and do their thing which, as far as I can tell, was to shrink and bury themselves and then skulk about looking all haunted and screaming. Can’t say I like them much, apart from the cuddling and fucking bit, obviously. It’s not like with wolves; I don’t think they’re dicks, it’s just … well, they’ve got that whole cat thing going on and, just, honestly don’t get me started.
There are quite a few foxes about now, much more than before, and they don’t just come out at night either. Whole families trot about the place in broad daylight, bold as brass, kids making a right racket with their little bright faces and fluffy tales and their little legs that you just want to … calm down, son, deep breaths, deep breaths. I’m telling you, though … foxes.
They’re fatter now too – not like before when they looked like rotten sacks of pipe cleaners. As Reg and I crossed Dulwich Park, hacking our way through the plain fields and crossing the swamp that used to be the boating lake, I could smell their ghosts. Hordes of them, sets everywhere.
Other confusing smells include spiders, flies, marmalade and toilet cleaner.
We stopped in the white wooden building that used to be the café, now stained brown and crawling with weeds. It was light by then and ghostly white beams roamed over the tables and chairs strewn with dirty plates. Reg pushed his way through to the kitchen, disturbing a few ducks that were resting there. After a quick search he came out with some bottles of water, one of which he opened and poured for me to lick at. Then he broke up some crackers he’d found and fed the bits to me, one by one.
We pushed on through the park and followed the creepered streets for a mile or two until the smell of foxes began to vanish behind us. As th
ey did, others blew in on the wind, fresh and new. These weren’t old ghosts at all, and when we turned onto a thin road with high walls near the station, my hackles rose.
Because there are the bad smells too, like Reg’s ziplocked fear-sadness, and voles, and burning hair.
And them.
I’d only seen them twice, though I’d smelled them a thousand times. And I did what I did whenever I caught that smell. I barked until my lungs burst.
Reasons to be Fearful
REGINALD HARDY’S JOURNAL
5TH DECEMBER 2021
I got Lineker when he was a pup, ten years after she left.
‘You could try a dog?’ said the therapist. ‘The company of an animal can sometimes help you move on.’
Move on was a phrase I had been hearing rather a lot at the time, mostly from my brother on the other end of a phone line. I am sure he was only trying to help, but the thing is, sometimes moving on is the last thing you want to do. What you want to do is move back.
Still, I had always quite fancied the idea of a dog, so I took a trip to Battersea Dogs Home and spent an hour edging between the cages full of Staffies and pits hammering and yowling at me to pick them. As if I would! Needy, clawing beasts they were with desperate eyes all looking at me to save them, look after them. Protect them.
Suddenly getting a dog did not seem like such a good idea, and I had almost made up my mind to leave. But then I saw him.
He was sitting at the back of his cage, quiet as you like, while the room howled and clawed around him. We gave each other the once-over. He had a deeply familiar quality and the way he sat reminded me of something I had once heard about conflict: for every great battle, for every great war between two tribes, there is always a third one sitting up on the hill, watching and waiting to see how the dice fall.
An engaging idea that – keep your head down, stay out of trouble and wait for the world to blow itself apart. Then enjoy the peace and quiet that comes afterwards. I liked it.
Perhaps, I thought, this chap feels the same.
When we were finished sizing each other up he gave a single thump of his tail against his blanket, and if I had had a tail and a blanket, I do believe I would have done the same.
Click. That was that.
I bought some books and videos and had a go at training him. A shiny-faced American in a tight vest grinned from the screen and explained how dogs need to know their place, how they are only happy when they are working for you, how one should not coddle them but lay down clear and consistent boundaries. I had to be his master. I tried, for a bit at least, but my heart just was not in it. All I could see when I stood there pretending to be all dominant, trying to project the right energy and assume the right tone, was that chucklehead on the screen with his white teeth and muscles. And I thought to myself: You want to be the master, do you? Is that why you got a dog?
So I gave up. I managed to get him to come when I called him and sit when I told him to, sometimes. Everything else, I thought, would come naturally.
But I stood there on that foggy street with voices snapping from around the corner – some shouting orders and another one pleading, followed by a child’s wails. I stood there with Lineker barking at my heels, giving away our location, and I wished to heaven I’d done more.
‘Lineker!’ I hissed. He kept barking, legs out, fangs bared, snout pointing ahead. Oh to have a special whistle, oh to have a secret command, oh to be the master.
‘Lineker! Be quiet!’
At this point I had already resigned myself to the strong possibility that one of us might die. I knew who was round the corner and so did Lineker, but we both seemed to have very different ideas about how things would play out if we met them. He was moments from bolting off to check his theory, so I thought, it’s going to be him, not me. I was ready to run, and if he didn’t run with me then that was that.
But, to my surprise, he stopped. He stopped and sat and looked up at me, licking his chops. I stared down at him for a moment, and he gave an impatient snuffle, as if to say: All right, so what’s next?
‘Good boy,’ I said, still stunned.
The voices had stopped. I heard whimpering and the sound of boots coming towards us through the fog. I looked down at Lineker again.
‘Come,’ I ventured. And, what do you know? He did.
I led him into a side street and tried the first door I found. It was locked. The bootsteps were closer now, two sets of them marching out of time. Gunmetal clinked against their buckles as they walked.
I tried the next door – locked as well – then scurried to the third, but Lineker stayed put with his eyes on the street.
I thought the spell had broken and my brief success at masterfulness had evaporated. Any minute now he’d start barking again and the game would be up. I tried the door and it opened, and was ready to push my way in and leave him. But then – another first – he turned at the squeak of the door’s hinges and ran towards me, through my legs and inside. As the bootsteps reached the alleyway I slipped in after him and pulled the door shut as quietly as I could.
I backed away and stopped where Lineker was sitting, on a threadbare scrap of carpet at the bottom of a staircase. We both watched the small frosted window as deep voices approached. I opened a hopeful, quelling palm to Lineker.
The bright pane darkened purple as heels scuffed to a halt outside. I kept still, frozen as much by my fear of Lineker’s response as anything. But he seemed to follow my lead, dropping to the floor with his chin on his paws.
The figures turned this way and that, exchanging words and making slow ripples in the distorted glass. Then one leaned on the door.
It creaked and bulged under his weight, and for a second I thought I might have neglected to close it properly. But it held. Lineker flinched and I dropped to my knees, putting a hand on his head. A lighter chinked and struck. Soon I smelled cigarette smoke. As the first inhaled, he threw back his head and it hit the glass. Another flinch from Lineker. Then he growled.
It was only quiet, but it was enough to make the two men spin on their heels. They stood back from the door and I prepared myself for their entrance, trying to decide whether I should bolt for the front door. But we’d come in through the back; the front led out onto the street where we’d heard the voices. We were trapped on either side. So it was up the stairs and hide, or face them.
I had no real reason to be afraid of them; I had never been picked out for swabbing, like I say. But there was still something about them, something unpredictable that made me want to stay as far away from them as possible. So my preference was for the stairs. I was about to make a dash for it when I heard an engine start in the distance, and through the window I saw the two purple-capped heads turn and disappear.
When I was sure they were gone I stood up, released the breath I had been holding, and looked around. The place was London housing stock, part of a terrace of two-up, two-downs like most other streets. It was quiet and dusty, carpets pulled back, papers on the stairs and a bin bag with clothes falling out of it halfway down. I walked through to the front, treading carefully in case the old boards creaked.
The sitting room was full of old furniture and newspapers. Dust drifted in a shaft of light squeezing between the closed, maroon curtains. I got down on my knees and crawled to the window, peering over the ledge. Lineker followed close to my hip.
Through the gap in the curtains I could see a flatbed truck with a small crane at the back. Its flanks were adorned with familiar rippling flags. The engine was running, black smoke chugging from the exhaust, and five Purples stood around the back with guns across their waists. A sixth gripped the hair of a man on his knees with wild, rolling eyes. It was difficult to tell from the state of his swollen face and bloodied beard but he looked as if he was – or had been – a fairly average chap. White skin, fair hair, nothing that would have marked him as an undesirable.
A few feet away stood a woman and a child, restrained by a guard. The woman was dusty
-skinned – Middle-Eastern perhaps. She was crying, the girl holding out her hand to her father with her face crumpled in a frown. The man’s eyes found hers, and he tried to smile in reassurance.
The Purple was shouting down at him.
‘What? What did you say?’
The man shook his head.
‘No, no, please, I don’t …’
‘What?’
The Purple looked back at the others in mock confusion.
‘Can’t fucking understand you!’ he said, and spat on his face. To laughter, he then yanked a swabbing device from his belt and thrust the probe into the man’s mouth. Looking at his watch in mock boredom, he waited for the result.
Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. Chirp, green light, all clear.
Released, the man sprawled on the ground as the Purple shepherded his family towards the truck. The man reached out for them.
‘Don’t take my family, please!’
The Purple stopped, twisting his face as if he was talking to an idiot.
‘Does Daddy want to come too?’
He turned to one of his boys, jabbing a thumb at the truck.
‘Get him up.’
Two of the other Purples dragged him by the armpits towards the truck, upon which his wife and daughter now sat. I sensed relief. The man nodded his head, saying, ‘Thank you, thank you,’ and held his arm up to his wife. She smiled through her tears and reached down to him.
Wherever they were taking this man and his family, I suspected that it was not going to be good for them. But it was hard not to feel hope for them as I looked out on that quiet street bathed in mist and milky light. I thought perhaps things might turn out all right.
I saw a wavering smile on the man’s face as he took his wife’s hand. His daughter reached out to help. Perhaps they felt the same hope I did.
We were wrong to. Hope was elsewhere that morning.
Before anyone knew what was happening, the two guards had slapped something around the man’s torso. He stammered and cried as they pulled buckles and braces tight.
The Last Dog on Earth Page 5
