Someone to Look Up To

by Jean Gill

  ‘I suppose that would have been too easy,’ muttered my Breeder. She came over and I wagged my tail feebly, automatically. She patted my head and my tail lifted, hopefully. Efficiently, she checked my ears, my body, my paws, either not noticing last night’s scratches or putting them down to events in the S.P.A.. ‘Could be worse. You won’t be seeing other dogs out here so we’ll forget the boosters, save some money there, but I suppose de-wormers wouldn’t hurt, once or twice, and I’d better keep your coat reasonable... I can probably manage that. I can ask around but no-one’s going to be begging me for a full-grown male with behaviour problems... and the puppies come first. Better phone around, see about finding that little bitch. All you do for them and what do you get back?’ My tail drooped of its own accord. My Breeder checked the water in the trough and left.

  It was no hardship to drowse in the shade, shifting position as the sun and shadows moved, idly opening one eye to see patterns in the clouds, or, eyes closed, listening to the worms tunneling beneath me in their busy work. I lay on the earth where Snow had been, hoarding the warmth, breathing her smell, staving off the loneliness. My Breeder had left a bucket full of food so I topped up when I felt like it, then lay down again, letting my bruised body start healing. From the distant barks of the dogs on the farm, I gathered that Snow was still missing. None of the barking was for me, not even Mother. Or perhaps, if I was to believe Snow, especially not Mother.

  As the sun dropped lower, I felt restless with twilight. I tested my boundaries – four dog lengths in any direction, into the hut if I wanted, or as far as the shelter of two small fir trees outside. I could run a maximum of ten steps before a jerk on the chain stopped me. What had seemed merely part of the game last night now chafed at my spirit more even than at my body, and already I’d fretted my neck sore, rebelling against the chain. I remembered Stratos and his collar with points and how he’d accepted it. I thought of Jack, turning his bitterness to leadership, to responsibility for his pack. I searched for their strength in myself and found the calm to walk in my designated circle. At least I could sleep in the cool breezes beneath the stars.

  When the sun was above the mountains again, my Breeder returned. Her brow was even more furrowed. Good, I thought. She filled the bucket with food. She checked the water. She didn’t pat me. She left. What’s new, I thought. There are no bars and I can see my mountains but I don’t have Jack, Prince, Maisie, Clementine and Melba to keep me sane. I shied away from my last memories of Éclair. It’s all the same. Another Sourface comes and feeds me. I make myself exercise in my too-small territory and I go slowly crazy. I know I must not go in the same direction all the time, that I must vary what I do, but how long can I keep this up and still be Sirius? Till Marc comes?

  The routines were already starting, inevitably. Morning saw me in the shade from the hut, afternoon in the shade from the fir trees. I listened to the worms and that gave me my idea. That was the difference between here and the S.P.A., where there had been nothing but concrete. I would observe the tiniest detail of the world around me for there was a story in everything; in the line of ants gathering seeds and trekking back to their nest, each one burdened with twice his weight; in the wooden sheen on the old fir cones, glowing like candles, ready to drop in the next month; in the different cloud shapes, fluffy piles like litters of puppies or long gray strata like silver limousines that flashed past on the motorway. And then I would sing the day at twilight and Storytime, tell it all to the rabbits, the insects and the stars, tell it for the pleasure of the tale, whether anyone was listening or not.

  That night when the mountains turned violet and my body surged with youth, I called my strange pack, as Jack had taught me, and I howled the story of my daily universe, shaping my existence with the telling of it. And the mountains gave me the echo, so that I was not alone.

  So began another day in exile from the world of men and dogs. You get used to anything in time, Jack had told me, and I was already naming not just my mountains but my two fir trees, the hut, the ants themselves. Then, that twilight came the other change that was to keep me sane for longer than I could have dreamed possible. I started my twilight call and was answered, not just by the mountains but by the voice I already knew so well, however short the time we’d been back together.

  ‘I hear you, my brother. I have a story to tell.’ I could tell from distance and direction that Snow was back at the farm but she still sounded buoyant.

  ‘Let us hear the story of Snow,’ I announced to the mountains, the trees and the stars.

  She was faint but clear. ‘Through thickets whose thorns tangled my fur, across brooks whose pebbles slipped beneath my feet and over hillsides which panted in the scorching sun, I tracked my lover, following his signs. If he had come this way for me then I would be as strong, as agile, as wily, for him.

  I stopped short at the whinny of horses and cluck of chickens and hid, but my scent alerted the farm dogs, who barked an alarm loud enough to wake a bear in winter. Then I heard rushing through bushes towards me, something faster than I was, and I turned to face the danger. Two collies erupted into my little clearing, one of them my Rockie, a fraction ahead of the other. ‘Keep back,’ he barked and whisked around between me and the other dog, hackles up. ‘Mine,’ he growled, ‘she’s mine.’ The other dog opened his nostrils wide, sniffed again. ‘Prove it,’ he answered, showing his teeth. And then they leaped, clinched in a fury of noise and teeth that moved as one dog, snapping, biting and releasing too fast for even me to judge who was stronger. My head dizzied with their smell and raw masculine power, and I couldn’t move. It was as different from being taken to Tarquin as blue rabbit was from a real one and I was suddenly afraid. Was I ready for this? But in coming here at all, I had offered myself and must accept the consequences.

  As suddenly as it started, it finished. The loser yelped and turned tail, the winner helping him on his way with a last snap at the departing tail. Then he turned towards me, his eyes blazing from the fight. ‘What took you so long?’ he asked, stalking me as I backed away, playing for time. Then playing for the sheer fun of the chase. Then I decided it was time for other sport to begin. And so we played the ancient games together and I don’t regret it for one minute. It was the right dog at the right time and I don’t care one bit what our Human says about sheepdogs.

  I don’t know how long we had together but we spent nights under the stars and days looking for food and water. Rockie jumped a stable half-door and stole something to eat but we were both getting hungry by the time Rockie’ owner saw him and called him home. We both knew the game was up and I followed Rockie into the house, where we were given food and water. ‘Say goodbye, boy, you’ve work to do,’ his Master told him, ‘and I don’t think either of us is going to be popular when this one’s owner comes for her. Though I can’t say I blame you, you rascal, you.’ My lover gave that ‘busy, busy’ skip and tail-wave that all sheepdogs do, his pointed muzzle open in laughter as he barked at me, ‘Till next time! You’ll always be welcome, Princess! Stay in touch.’ And then with a whisk and another skip, barking with excitement, he was off to work and the door was shut on me. I settled to wait, shattered, and as warm inside as if I’d stolen and eaten ten meat pies from the farm kitchen.

  Our Human appeared, with the grimmest face I’ve ever seen. I thought she was going to hit me, which she’s only done once or twice and then it’s been less than a flea-bite. She controlled herself though and put on her false face, the one she uses for shows and selling puppies. ‘Oh thank you for calling me,’ she simpered. ‘I’ve been so worried – she’s very precious to me.’ You can say that again, I thought, still feeling too warm and full to be annoyed with her.

  As soon as we were out of sight, she put her grim face back on. ‘To the vet’s with you, young lady!’ she told me and we went straight to the surgery. The vet and our Human talked about cross-breeds, shows, mixed litters, future problems and it all ended up with an injection and home again.

  W
here Mother has cold-shouldered me for days, commenting to the air about the ‘cheap behaviour of some bitches’. Where our Human has put up ribbons to stop me getting out again. Well, of course, you can imagine what I thought when I saw the ribbon. I headed straight for my hole but it had been filled in. Nothing daunted, I started digging again, brushing against one ribbon very low down. When I touched the ribbon, a storm went right through my body, making me jump with shock and pain. I started digging again but the same thing happened. I can’t get past the storm ribbon. Which means I can’t come and see you again, little brother.’

  I felt the storm ribbon send a shock through me too. But I wouldn’t show it. I wouldn’t let the Sourfaces of this world win.

  ‘Only Humans need to see each other,’ I barked. ‘We have Storytime and that’s when we will listen out for each other. Sleep well, my sister.’

  ‘Marc will come,’ she answered and my own belly filled with the warmth of ten

  meat pies stolen from the farmhouse kitchen.

  And so the new way of life established itself. My Breeder visited me not every day but regularly, ensuring I had food, water, and was brushed every now and then, efficiently. I could not stop my tail moving hopefully when I saw her, or responding with half-shut eyes to the pleasure of a brush on my fur, but we understood each other. This was a business arrangement. She had done her duty and protected the good name of Soum de Gaia, so that everyone would know she was a responsible Breeder and she would gain twice on her reputation; once from a bad dog like me being safely out of the public eye and once for her generosity in looking after me.

  ‘What rumours?’ I asked Snow one evening. ‘You said Savoie-Fer had suffered from the rumours. What’s wrong with being a Soum de Gaia?’

  ‘He’s not suffering now,’ she answered, ‘not now that he’s Vice-Champion of France and Spain. I’ll tell you what’s wrong with the name of Soum de Gaia – pink noses and white dogs and you know what that means.’

  I wasn’t that ignorant. ‘Lack of pigmentation, genetic link with deafness so lots of deaf dogs. But our Human,’ the word ‘our’ felt like slime on my tongue but that was how Snow knew her, so I carried on, ‘knows all that. She said at the Choosing how good our pigmentation is, how important it is not to breed for all white...’

  ‘Now she says it, now she even does it, but I’ve heard the talk, especially from the people who have to find homes for them and support their owners. There are too many deaf Soum de Gaia round France for her not to have bred them knowingly.’

  ‘But why would she want to breed deaf dogs?’

  ‘The same reason Tarquin’s Human breeds dogs with dislocated knees. Because they’re just the rejects, the percentage you dispose of to get the beauty queens, to get us, dear brother. And all-white patous were easier to sell, more likely to win the shows, made it worth the rubbish that had to be sneaked out the back way, once it showed signs of handicap.’

  ‘So is it in us, are we carrying all these genetic problems for our puppies?’

  ‘All dogs carries genetic problems for their puppies, Sirius, even the most mixed mongrel you’ve ever met in the S.P.A.. Just as we all inherit them from our parents. It’s the condition of life itself, to accept the inheritance, good and bad. From the moment I thought about motherhood, I accepted that. But if Humans choose for us, they have a responsibility to choose well.’

  ‘She couldn’t be so callous... could she? I mean, she loses puppies – and the reputation of Soum de Gaia – and money.’

  ‘The faults don’t show up till the puppies are old enough to be with their new owners – that’s why she’s keen to get rid of them so quickly, won’t keep them a day over the eight weeks. And as long as we’re champions, there’s always new Choosers who’ll come to her and be sold a pup. So every time I win a show, I make her more likely to risk my puppies’ health.’

  ‘Why don’t you throw the shows then? Bite the judge or something?’

  ‘Believe me, I’ve thought about it, but you were right when you said we’re a good litter. Oh Mother’s got the bad blood from the old days but meeting Father really was the best thing that could happen to her. It was an outside marriage that seems to have created something special in all of us, beautiful and healthy. I’ve talked to Savoie-Fer about it when we meet at shows and we’ve been over it again and again, what we should do for the best. And his Human is exceptional. He’s rescuing the best of Soum de Gaia by keeping Savoie-Fer as THE male for his own beautiful girls – I just know the puppies will be wonderful. So I’d be hurting him and his pups if I threw the titles...

  But I’m not going to let her fix me up with a Tarquin. Now she’s seen what I can do, she might think twice who she leaves me alone with. And as long as I keep my ears open at the shows, I know who to avoid. I can give her a hint about who I might accept, and then we’ll see. If I don’t put ideas into her mind about a suitable dog, she’ll go back to the plan of artificial insemination and I can’t fight a vet. But she won’t rush into that – she knows it’s expensive, difficult and less successful than the natural way. She’s ruthless but not stupid.’

  I hesitated but she hadn’t held anything back from me. ‘And Rockie? Do you think you might have his puppies?’

  Her voice was a million years old. ‘No, Sirius, she saw to that with the visit to the vet. Mother approves, of course. But I think I already knew that it was just a girlish dream. At least I had that much. Life goes on. And I’m going to save her cherished name,’ I wondered if she meant her Human or Mother, ‘along with Savoie-Fer, I’m going to make a line of puppies that are break-your-heart beautiful and so sturdy you could throw them in the air and they’d run round when they landed. You wait and see.’

  So young and so much responsibility.

  ‘You know what I can’t forgive her, Sirius? You remember when we were puppies. She fed us, she socialised us, she did everything she was supposed to do, right?’

  Mother or Human? ‘Right,’ I responded cautiously.

  ‘But she didn’t love us, did she.’

  I reflected. ‘No,’ I howled to my sister in the night. ‘They didn’t love us.’

  Chapter 17.

  Even you Humans know that real Time is not measured by clocks. You can make it speed up by being busy or slow it down by doing nothing. Enjoyment also speeds up your time just as boredom or pain slow it down. If you go on holiday and do dozens of different enjoyable activities each day, the holiday will whizz by but in your memory afterwards, it will seem to have lasted and lasted because you will have so many different stories to tell yourself about what you did and where you went. The reverse is true if you lie on the beach every day, sit talking each night; the holiday will seem to last and last but in your memory it will be only two moments.

  Every puppy knows that the day is long when you are alone waiting for your Master to come home from work, however big a chew toy he left for you. And that you do not think of time passing when you are chasing your Master into the sea, splashing and yelping together. And any dog who has been staked out alone on a hillside has to discover new ways of passing time and new perceptions of time passing. I was no longer a puppy to hang my heart on the appearance of the only Human in my life, not when she mostly ignored me. No, I mostly ignored her in return. And as basic provisions were always there, the appearance of food was equally a non-event. No, I turned my attention to my domain. My body might be chained but my hearing and sight were free to roam.

  Nothing was too close or too small for my attention, nothing too distant. I was a patou surveying my domain as patous had done for hundreds of years. Every day brought new encounters. A skinny little viper whipped through the grass on a mission. I held the liquid brown-eyed gaze of a chamois that leaped into my clearing then froze when she saw me. A nod, a flick of a bob tail, then she bounded out of sight again. A rabbit screamed, a fox gave its high sharp bark. Marmots chittered to each other and scampered for cover. A shadow of wings crossed over me and a beige vulture glided ove
rhead, silent carrion-picker. I heard the slow snuffle of a badger tracking through the night and thought of my identity card, which declared me ‘blanc/blaireau’, white/badger; the identity card that said I belonged to Marc. And there it was at the heart of everything. I wasn’t bored, I was waiting. I had company, good company, but I was lonely for my Human, the one who would come.

  Leaf-fall was coming to an end and the farm noises were getting closer. My Breeder was extending pens out towards my hillside. I heard the soft whinny of horses and the bray of their companion and soon their whuffle-huffle breath was my company under the trees. I gathered from Snow that the shock-ribbons formed horse-pens and my territory was now in the middle of one such. Then the chickens moved in, roosting in trees and in my shed, when they weren’t clucking, pecking or fighting, in a flurry of spurs and stiffened wings. Where the chickens were, there rats followed; and where there were rats, were the farm cats, stalking rodents or tall grass – you never could tell with cats. I didn’t speak any of their languages but, from observation, I began to understand the breathy friendship of the horses, the busy egg-laying cluck of hens, the purr and rough tongue of a tabby cat. I would lie quietly until a fellow creature lay beside me for the warmth, and then we would just be, no more than that, just two beings in the now of the great universe. These were good moments and something better was coming.

  The tabby cat had been acting strangely, gathering leaves, tree bark and feathers, and secreting herself somewhere in amongst the trees. When I heard multiple mewing, I understood. A very thin tabbycat rubbed against me, wowled and rushed off for a short spell hunting. I guessed the wowl meant ‘Look after them for me,’ as if I wouldn’t have! No wolves would come near my growing flock of cats, kittens, chickens and horses. Perhaps two hundred years of Soum de Gaia blood did count for something after all.