Someone to Look Up To

by Jean Gill

  After a while, I got fed up getting jerked around and wondered if I could second-guess her for more fun. So I really concentrated and the minute that I could feel a leg muscle turning, well I was turning before she was – no jerks, there. And I could feel the stop so with my muscles on red alert, there I was, a dead stop – no jerks there. And seeing as she had this obsession about being on the right, I bounded along on the left and sniffed left of her. And sniffed her, up close beside her hip, and then something wonderful happened. Her hand brushed against the side of my face and she told me what a superstar I was. I wanted more of that and tried again. Right up close, face stroked. Now this was more like it. But then there was a strong scent of fox and I just had to work on this a bit more so I stopped and braced myself firmly. Glory be! She stopped too! So it seemed she could stop with me sometimes but she liked to be the one who decided. It certainly wasn’t what I was used to but I had a straight choice; do what the Princess wanted and get compliments and caresses, or try to take the lead – in every sense! – and get unpleasant jerks spoiling my walk. Well, which would you choose? The truth is, that once I let the Princess take control on walks, I enjoyed them even more. She made all the decisions and I could relax and concentrate on pleasures of the nose.

  Sometimes the Princess would appear with the lead and take one of the others out, often Maisie, and I would hate whoever had gone in my place, filled to biting-point with envy that built up and built up in the long wait imagining someone else’s pleasure. When my rival came back in through the cage door, I swear I was poised to sink my teeth in her – or him – and enjoy it, but then the Princess would name each of us in turn, a word, a caress, and you knew that everything in the world was how it should be and you had your rightful place in that world so you didn’t need to fight about it.

  And when it was my turn, I wouldn’t even glance at the poor suckers left behind; it was my turn! I’d come to know the usual route, the tow-path by the canal, the waste-ground where the Princess lost all sense of direction and zig-zagged in different ways each time and I was so used to reading her movements that I could turn with her and listen to what she was telling me at the same time.

  ‘I suppose I ought to introduce myself,’ she said one day, as we were sniffing otter by the canal. ‘Elodie Jouve, eighteen-year old failure in mid-crisis. I know I can’t do well enough in exams to be a vet, I don’t see myself working in a dog’s home, all swilling out cages and dishing out food, with no time for giving the walks and training you really need... good boy, that’s nicely done...’ hand against cheek, warm silk against deep fur. ‘Now I’m just a volunteer I can take you out for a walk like this but if it was my proper job I wouldn’t be allowed, I’d have too many boring jobs to do. And then my parents keep trying to tell me that I should grow out of this thing about dogs...you really are a quick learner aren’t you, that’s my Izzie, well done...but it’s what I’m good at, I know I am. I suppose we’d better go back now, back to our cages. Well done, Izzie!’

  Sometimes, as I said, it wasn’t the Princess who fed us. In fact, sometimes we were hardly fed at all. Sourface gave out a tenth of the food the Princess did.

  ‘Takes it for her dogs at home,’ Prince told me. ‘Heard her telling her man about it when he came in his car to collect her and they walked around to look at us so she could show off her favourites.’

  ‘Who’s her favourites?’

  ‘Not us. Or we’d get fed.’

  ‘And Bigwoman allows it?’

  ‘Maybe she knows and maybe she doesn’t. She steals money.’ I never had seen the point of money but you can’t be around Humans very long before you work out that it’s important to them. I had cost ‘a lot of money’ to buy. I had caused ‘thousands of euros worth of damage.’ ‘A fortune’ had gone on my vet’s bills. Marc told me that he had paid ‘a high price’ for loving me but he never said how many euros. The S.P.A. people thought I was worth ‘a lot of money’ and might ‘get something back’ for them. I thought perhaps they’d lost a dog of their own and could use any profits I made them to find this other dog. There was some good in everyone, a Soum de Gaia learned at his mother’s teat. But I knew that it was not good for a leader to be stealing money.

  ‘If she’s the leader, then isn’t she stealing from herself?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s not her that people give the money to, it’s us.’

  ‘But we can’t use it.’

  ‘I tried eating money once,’ said Jack, ‘don’t know what they smell in it.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ a labrador joined in. ‘The coins are even worse than the paper. Break your teeth on them.’

  ‘That’s beside the point. As I was saying, Bigwoman keeps two books and she writes all the money that people give her in one book, then only some of it in another book, so that she can take some for herself.’

  ‘Where does the money come from?’

  ‘When people die, they like us to wag our tails and remember them so they give money to spend on something to make us happy and wag our tails.’

  ‘Like food.’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Do you know their names?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘So how do you remember them?’

  ‘If we’re being polite, we say it before we eat. ‘Thank you all the people we’re remembering for giving us the food we eat.’ We say it in our heads of course, not out loud, otherwise the Humans would take our food away because we’re too noisy. And we never say it, even in our heads, with Sourface because if you don’t eat as quickly as possible, she takes it all away even if you’re quiet.’

  ‘Is there nobody who works here and actually likes us?’ I wondered.

  They consulted each other. ‘Beanie-hat’s not so bad. He’s just a bit sloppy when he has personal problems. And he hasn’t had time to become like the others. Bigwoman says it gets you down after a while and there’s no point to it. She says she was like the Princess once.’ We contemplated the impossible.

  ‘Like Maisie could have liked children if things had been different,’ I offered.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Maisie. ‘I didn’t like children and things aren’t different so that proves Bigwoman couldn’t have been like the Princess, not ever.’

  I didn’t like the thought either but I couldn’t help thinking. ‘And if Bigwoman was once like the Princess, then the Princess could turn into Bigwoman.’ They all looked at me, horrified.

  ‘Where do you get your ideas from, little boy!’ Jack snapped at me. ‘Anyone can see they’re different breeds; just look at their eyes and the way they stand, no to mention their size.’ He dismissed the absurdity. ‘But as for anyone who likes us... Sourface says there’s no gratitude. She says she’s found homes for dogs and then they don’t behave themselves so they get brought straight back. And she’s disgusted by the illnesses.’

  ‘That’s something else there’s no money for – vets. And least of all for preventing illnesses. You can forget the little routine trips you used to make. If they find a family for you, that pays, you might get cleaned up, but otherwise, forget it. Noticed you’re itching have you?’ I’d started to scratch while Jack was talking about illnesses and now I could feel the little tracks parting my fur, itching. When I scratched, hard enough to draw spots of red on my claws, the itch just moved somewhere else; it didn’t go.

  ‘Fleas,’ Jack told me, ‘and that’s just the beginning. Soon you’ll be wishing all your problems were fleas.’

  Chapter 9.

  As leader of the newcomer’s compound, Jack organised the twilight story-telling, our in-mates having their turn first. No-one seemed to mind the fact they were hearing the same stories over and over. If anything, it added to the resonance of the echoes.

  ‘We were happy with our family,’ barked Melba.

  ‘There was glitter and paper and ribbons,’ added Clementine.

  ‘Cuddles, walks and a soft bed specially for us in a warm corner.’

  ‘A family with
big children, who took us for walks and talked to us.’

  ‘At first.’

  ‘Then we had less cuddles, less walks, more time shut away.’

  ‘Our drinking water wasn’t changed every day, sometimes not for many days and sometimes they forgot to feed us.’

  ‘We were forgotten,’ howled Clementine.

  ‘They were forgotten,’ we echoed.

  ‘We had no master any more.’

  ‘We had dark corners and each other.’

  ‘We grew. We weren’t cute. They said so.’

  ‘They took us out in the car. We thought they loved us again. The car was full of suitcases, bags and hats. We thought we were going for a walk with our family.’

  ‘They tied us to a signpost where cars were parked, at the beginning of a huge road where cars and more cars zoomed past.’

  ‘They left us there. We thought they’d come back.’

  ‘But we got tired waiting.’

  ‘We got thirsty and when the sun moved in the sky it beat down full on us and we got dizzy. We felt sick.’

  ‘Then a woman got out of a car. She said, ‘You poor things. I wish I could keep you all.’ She gave us water in a plastic cup and put us in her car. She brought us here. She said, ‘They’ll look after you.’ We get food. We get water.’

  ‘We want a family,’ howled Melba.

  ‘We want to stay together.’

  ‘They want a family. They want to stay together,’ we told the indifferent moon. The sisters lay down side by side, licked each other’s muzzles and waited for the whippet, Éclair, to tell her tale.

  ‘I was a champion,’ she barked. ‘Chased the rabbit for my master, round the ring with men shouting my name and yelling numbers. My master called me a goldmine.’

  ‘She was a goldmine,’ we celebrated.

  ‘Then I got slower. My master called me old and useless. He took the big carving knife, the one he used to jab into a loaf of bread to eat at lunchtime and he held my head down on the kitchen table. I thought he was going to give me tablets or special food to make me run faster. He always held my head still when he gave me tablets. He cut my ear off, the ear with the tattoo on it. He threw my ear in the bin with the potato peelings. He swore at the blood on the table and kicked me. Then he drove me into the woods and left me. I tried to go home to my master, to tell him that I wouldn’t displease him any more, that I would try and run faster.’

  ‘She tried to go home to her master,’ we howled.

  ‘But I couldn’t find the way. I held my head on one side because my ear burned. My ear dripped iron-smell on the fallen leaves. I went round the woods. I grew hungry. I chewed on trees. I ate the grass. I drank the streams and puddles. But I couldn’t find my way home. I stayed alive but I felt weak. I forgot how a dog behaves. I copied the birds and the squirrels but I missed my master. I was too hungry to sleep, My belly was eating me, burning all the time, as if the pain in my ear had moved into my stomach instead. Then a man came. I thought it was my master and I wagged my tail. He stroked me, He said, ‘What bastard did this to you?’ He was angry and I wet myself but then he was gentle again so I wagged my tail, hoping he wouldn’t get angry any more. ‘You must’ve been here months, old girl. You’ve worn your teeth away, eating bark.’ He looked after me till I was better but he said he couldn’t be my master. He brought me here. He will find a family for me.’

  ‘He will find a family,’ we insisted, and Éclair joined us in one last howl, sitting, throwing her head back so that the ragged edge to her left ear was silhouetted against the moonlight.

  Then Prince stood. ‘From puppyhood to dog, I grew up with the two babies in my family. I made them smile by licking their feet when they were tiny and my master and mistress stopped them pulling my ears or poking my eyes when they were old enough to experiment on objects. My masters loved me, looked after me, walked me and the children together. We were one family. First Linda, then little Alice started school and every day my mistress and I would walk to meet them. I loved the sound of the children coming from the playground. And the sound of my master coming home from work. And the daytime with my mistress. She sang while she cleaned the house, cooked some food. She took me shopping with her or to visit friends. I can keep myself warm through the winter on my memories of my family. I am lucky.’

  ‘He is lucky,’ we howled.

  ‘They died. They went out in the car and they didn’t take me. They said, ‘Bye, Prince, see you soon.’ And they didn’t come back. There was an accident. The police said so when they came to my house where I was waiting for my family to come home. One said, ‘He’s a bit old.’ The other said, ‘No, he’s not old at all and he’s sweet. Give him a chance. He’d make a lovely family pet.’ And they brought me here. I will always love my family.’

  ‘He will always love his family,’ we echoed.

  ‘I can love another family too. My heart is big enough.’

  ‘He can love another family too.’

  ‘My new family will come.’

  ‘His new family will come.’ As Prince lay down, Maisie was standing up and I could swear she licked his face as she moved past him but as the clouds drifted past the moon, it could just have been a trick of the light. There was no trace of softness in her deep wrinkles as she gave voice.

  ‘My family was three; my master, my mistress and me. They often carried me places. I looked down on the world and saw that it was good. I gave my approval to those beneath me. They sat me on their laps in cafés, on the train one time. Life was comfortable. Except for one very bad problem.’

  ‘Life was comfortable,’ we shared with the clouds obscuring the moon.

  ‘Each morning my mistress went to work and I was left in the garden. I watched through the gate, learning about the world, sharing my views with passers-by. The same people went past every day in a hurry, then it would go quiet and I would lie in the garden, watching the butterflies and the bees. I was happy.’

  ‘She was happy,’ we howled.

  ‘There were three big children who went past me early every day, with heavy bags on their backs. At first we just barked at each other and they flapped their arms. They shouted and made fun of me and I barked louder. Then one of them brought stones and hurled them through the gate. I was hit and it hurt. The next day one of them climbed onto the gate and threw bigger stones down at me. The gate was too high for me to reach the child and bite his legs that dangled over my territory but I tried, jumping and barking a warning. This excited more shouting and stone-throwing. The garden was small and I had nowhere to run away. Every day, I was hit by more stones as their aim got better. I loved Sunday.’

  ‘She loved Sunday’.

  ‘I loved Sunday anyway because my master and mistress didn’t go to work. But also the children didn’t go past.

  My mistress had been getting very fat and smelling different for a long long time. She told me she was having a baby. The house changed. She went away and came back with a baby. He frightened me with his crying and sick-milk smells and the master and mistress told me how frightening he was. They said, ‘There, there Maisie, there’s nothing to be afraid of,’ which is what they said in thunderstorms or when the sky filled with a red billowing ball that hissed and carried people in a basket. That’s how I knew the baby was a menace.

  People came round to see us. To see the baby. Some of them remembered me and stroked me too. I liked that. One of the people was one of the stone-throwing children. I saw his legs dangling over the edge of the sofa, swinging backwards and forwards. He stuck his tongue out at me when no-one else was looking. He wasn’t high on a gate out of my reach. I sank my teeth in his leg and he screamed. I did the bulldog grip and bits of his leg came off in my teeth when they finally made me let go.

  ‘She’s not safe with the baby,’ my master said. My mistress cried. My master cried. They brought me here. And I don’t regret biting children. They ask for it.’

  ‘She doesn’t regret biting children. They deserve it,
’ we howled. Maisie stayed, defying the night sky, long after Jack had taken up position. The listening silence deepened. The other dogs knew what they were going to hear and I could sense their mental preparation.

  ‘Imagine,’ boomed Jack, ‘imagine a Human with no love. A Human who has been given no love and who only knows how to give hurt to others. A man who gets pleasure only from giving hurt. This man was my master when I was a puppy.’

  There was no echo.

  ‘Shut your eyes, my brothers and sisters, know your own body, the connection between claws, feet and pads, the leg joints, ribs, skin, muscle... move your tail, feel how it sways, how good it feels.’ His voice mesmerised us. I could sense every tiny part of my body as he described it, separately and as part of the living entity that was me. ‘Every part of you that you sense can feel.... can feel pain!’ His voice snapped my eyes open as if I’d been whipped.

  ‘I was a little puppy of twelve weeks old and I was tortured,’ howled Jack, ‘by Human hands, Human feet and whatever objects a twisted Human mind could imagine using. Someone suspected. Someone told the Animal Protection Agency. They came to get me. They said that I was lucky, that there was nothing wrong physically that wouldn’t mend, that I’d only have a few scars.’

  Not one voice howled that he was lucky.

  ‘They said my Master might even go to prison. They brought me here. Humans can’t be trusted.’

  ‘Humans can’t be trusted,’ we wailed softly.

  ‘I will not let anyone Choose me. I will not place faith in a Human ever again. I will accept the caress of the Princess and her kind but trust in Humans is dead.’

  ‘Trust is dead,’ we whimpered.

  ‘I am with my family here. You are my family and I will never leave here. I will speak for the newcomers, I will speak for the old, I will fight against corruption so the food gets shared and we minimise disease. I will even help those who want families and I will not bite your Choosers but no-one, no-one will be allowed to Choose me. I will lead the storytelling until my story is over. You are my family and I will stay here.’