It was a cat that gave us one of our most bizarre nights of fun. It happened like this: Fella knew a house where we were certain to get a cat. He didn’t say how he knew of this house, but he swore that a cat slept on the hearthrug every night in a locked room, and that the window was left open for it to get in and out. It sounded too good to be true.
Well, we got there. There was the garden, just as he had said, there was the window and when we peered in, there was the dark little mound of the cat, curled up and fast asleep.
Without another word, Fella jumped up and dived straight in the window, for once in his life in total silence. Taken by surprise, I stood and watched through the glass. He hit the floor with a thud and raced straight over to the cat. Puss woke up at the thud of him landing and spent a vital second watching, thinking perhaps that it was a nightmare streaking across the carpet towards her. Then, like a rocket-powered furball the terrified animal leaped up, tried to climb the air, failed – and fell directly on to Fella’s head. She jumped off and in two bounds was half way up the curtains. But, ha! As puss was looking down at Fella, who was growling like a demon, I got my head in the window. Hearing the clash of my teeth, the miserable creature looked up to see my slavering, foaming jaws and wild staring eyes climbing down towards her. Luckily for puss I got stuck half in, half out of the window. By the time I’d wriggled through and fell, barking and snapping on to my mouth on the carpet, she and Fella were out of the lounge door, which was open after all, and off into the house.
I ran after them, up the stairs and into a bedroom at the front. Fella jumped up on to the bed, I followed him and the man and woman sleeping there awoke to the sound of us bursting into a terrible fit of barking. How they screamed! They both leaped to their feet and tried to clamber up the wall, screaming and shrieking. Then, in among all the racket someone said, ‘Shut up, you fool, the cat’ll get away!’ in a clear, deep voice.
I started and looked around. It was human speech – who else was in the room with us? Then the voice cried out, ‘It’s me, sweetheart. Look at me! Look at me!’
It was Fella. Suddenly he could speak! But where did he get his voice from? For a moment I was terrified, but he found the whole thing hilarious. Coughing with laughter, he fell off the bed and rolled about on the rug.
‘Ha ha ha!’ he yelled. ‘Ha hahahaha!’
‘Omigod, it’s talking, it’s talking again. Itscomebackforme! Aahhhahhhhhh!’ said the woman. ‘Keepitaway – ah! – helpmehelpmehelpme! Aahhhh!’ Fella clashed his jaws, lolled out his tongue, rolled his eyes, and winked at me.
‘Put a sock in it, you’ll wake the neighbours,’ he said, and started laughing again. ‘Lady! Baby! Let’s goooooo!’ he yelled, and galloped off out of the room. Amazed, I jumped off the bed and ran after him. He was laughing so much he fell downstairs, and lay at the bottom, shouting, ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ in his horrible new human voice. It was infectious; I was giggling myself by this time. We just about made it out of the window and fell on to the lawn where we lay for a while, laughing helplessly.
I was astonished! Fella had often tried to speak human but he’d never been even remotely successful before. Now he jumped up and ran down the street, shouting, ‘Fire! Mad Dog!’ and ‘Help me!’ at the top of his voice. You could hear people screaming as he went past.
We spent the next few hours running up and down Didsbury, shouting and barking at people. You should have seen their faces! You should have heard their screams! It was the scariest, best fun I ever had! Later, when Fella got his good old bark back, we realised that we had missed a perfect opportunity to hunt for cats – with that voice we could have called them to us for certain!
‘Maybe it was more fun hunting humans,’ said Fella, and he stopped to stare madly at me. ‘Maybe it’s their blood we want to taste,’ he hissed. He made me shiver from head to foot, but quite deliciously. You never could tell when Fella was teasing and when he wasn’t.
I asked him how it had happened with the voice, and he just shrugged and said he didn’t know. But Mitch told me later that he knew that house, and the woman in it, only too well.
‘That’s his girlfriend, from the old days. He still visits her from time to time. He’d been living with her for almost a year when Terry got him. He was only young, but he loved her. Sometimes –’ and Mitch dropped his voice – ‘Sometimes, you know, he catches a rabbit and leaves it for them on the back step. If he stayed a little longer he’d see it go into the dustbin. It’s all he can do for her. But don’t tell him I told you! He doesn’t know I know. He thinks he’s being weak.’
And you know what? So did I! I had no thoughts at all about the people I once knew, whoever they were. I didn’t even want to know. When I asked Fella if that had been his old girlfriend, he admitted it but he swore she meant nothing to him any more, now that he had me. We went back twice to see if he could get the voice again, but the windows were all locked forever after.
seven
How long did I run with the pack? As you forget yourself, the past falls away behind you like a cliff crumbling at your heels. Each day I was more and more a dog, more and more myself. Before long I never even bothered to remember what I had been doing yesterday. Mitch’s stubborn hanging about outside his old human home seemed like an illness, or some sort of affectation. I could have run forever if we’d changed our hunting grounds, but one day I saw someone sitting on the pavement, and my heart moved inside me. I had no idea if it was going up or down.
‘Who’s that?’
‘I told you he’d come back,’ growled Mitch. Fella started fawning and running up and down, trying to entice me away but it was already too late. I was walking forward, my nose in the air, sniffing, testing, recognising. Then I knew. It was Terry! Terry, Terry, my Terry, who fed me and slept with me and got sausages for me! With a joyful bark I bounded forward, hardly hearing the groan of disappointment from Fella behind me. Terry saw me and lifted his hands to take me back.
‘Lady! You’re still here! Oh, you good girl! Oh, you lovely good girl, have you been waiting all this time for me? Good girl, Lady!’ I crouched and wagged and licked his hands and sniffed in his pocket for a sausage, overcome with happiness.
Terry got a piece of string out of his pocket and tied it around my neck, all the time with his eyes sideways, like a frightened horse, watching every move Fella and Mitch made. Fella just stood there with his lips curled up around his gums, but he didn’t do anything. Terry stood up, glanced up and down, and led me away up the road. Fella and Mitch stood and watched, left behind on the pavement. After we had gone a few steps Mitch barked, and when I looked back he was standing there, looking intently at me and wagging his tail. Fella just stood by his side as if he couldn’t believe what was happening. I whined, looked up at Terry and pulled briefly back. But Terry tugged the lead.
‘Leave, Lady, leave! Come on, girl!’ I wagged my tail and followed. He led me round the corner, and as soon as we were out of sight of the dogs, he fell to his knees and patted my sides and my head and stroked my muzzle until I thought I’d faint with pleasure. We went for a walk into the park and round the streets, and when we came back to Copson Street, I barely noticed that Fella and Mitch had gone.
Terry tied me up and went into Somerfield’s. I stood staring in through the door the whole time, trying to catch a glimpse of him to make sure he really was in there, he really was going to come out and bring sausages with him. When he caught sight of me down the aisles, he gave me the thumbs-up and winked. Oh, sausages! Sure enough, when he came out his pockets were bulging and he smelled like heaven. I was jumping up and pawing him and licking my lips. Sausages! How could I have forgotten sausages! We went to the bench and he fed them to me, one after the other. They slid down my throat, and my whole body filled up with fat and ground meat and joy. When they were all gone, I sighed like a puppy, and lay down at his feet. It was bliss. All I wanted to do was lie there and listen to his sweet voice murmur away, as my stomach digested my meal.
; Terry grinned at me as he downed his beer. ‘Well, what do you think, girl?’ he said. ‘Do I look better for my stay in Her Majesty’s? And I don’t mean the theatre. They feed you but they don’t let you drink.’ He lifted his can of Special Brew and waved it in the air, wrinkling his nose. ‘I can hardly get the stuff down my neck, but that’ll change with a bit of practice.’ He winked and laughed and took a swig. ‘I suppose the break was good for me,’ he went on. ‘Ten days in the slammer. Questions. Endless questions! What were you doing, when did you last do this, when did you last do that? The girl, the girl, the girl.’ He looked curiously at me and said, ‘And which girl was that, Lady? Sandra? Remember her?’ I lifted my eyebrows and gazed apathetically at him. It was just one more name in the long list of human beings who no longer meant anything to me. Terry laughed and rubbed my head. He seemed to be feeling very perky. ‘It seems there’s been a disappearance round here. Nice girl, good home – a bit wild, but … Mum didn’t approve of her friends. Part of growing up. A phase she was going through!’ He laughed again, crossed his legs, put his arm back on the bench. He was happy. People were glancing at him as they went past – the poor drunk, so young and so hopeless already, talking to his dog as she dozed on the pavement.
‘Spending too much time out, hanging about on street corners, not doing her homework. And boys! Too many boys. We know the sort, don’t we, Lady?’ Hearing my name, I barked and wagged my tail. ‘Bit of an old slapper. Eh, girl? Bit of a bloody old slapper.’ And he laughed again and scratched my ears, and he was just as pleased as anything.
‘Did you have a good time running around with the dogs?’ he said. ‘Some things never change, do they? You liked running off and hanging around on the street then, and you like it now.’ He sighed. ‘I ought to give you a whipping for leaving me like that – but those ol’ hormones, eh, Sandra? You can’t beat ’em. Unless you drink enough, of course.’ He finished his can and went to buy another. I was puzzled. Why was he calling me Sandra? But Terry often rambled when he was drunk. I didn’t care. I’d been away a long time and I was pleased to be back.
After a while we set off out of Withington and made our way along the Wilmslow Road towards the Universities to beg. As we walked, Terry had me practising my words – ‘Sausages,’ ‘Cheers, mate!’ and so on. We’d got as far as the outskirts of Rusholme when he stopped in front of a lamppost and started to chuckle to himself.
‘Look at this! Have you seen this? But you’re so low to the ground, you poor four-legged beastie. Look!’ He was pointing to a piece of paper at the height of a human’s head on the lamppost.
‘Who’s that, then?’ he said in a teasing voice. Then, stooping down, he picked me up bodily and held me so I could see.
It was a picture of a girl. She had long, dark brown hair, and a pretty, plump face. She was amused by something. Her eyes were sideways and she was smiling like she’d just been caught doing something she shouldn’t have. As I stared my heart began to sink like a marble in a pool of syrup, I had no idea why. Suddenly I was terrified. Who was this girl, what was she to me that she could collapse my heart like this? Underneath the photo was writing.
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?
The police are concerned to discover the whereabouts of Sandra Francy who was last seen in the company of an unknown man in Copson Street M14, at about four o’clock in the afternoon on 6th April. She was wearing a brown hooded fleece-type coat and velvet trousers. If you have seen Sandra, or have any knowledge of her whereabouts, please contact the missing persons’ helpline at this number immediately.
Terry put me down on the floor, took up my lead and walked on as if nothing had happened. I tried to follow, but my legs had turned to slush. I was devastated. I felt as if he had whipped me, I was so full of shame and pain. But why? I didn’t even know who that girl was! In my mind’s eye there flashed a stream of other people, all of them connected in some way to each other – people I knew and yet didn’t know; a woman called Mum, a man called Dad. What did it all mean?
And then, then, oh, Lord, the memories began to crowd back in on me. One after the other, the people I knew and loved and had forgotten so utterly fell back into place in my mind and heart – my poor mum! How long had I been gone? Julie, Adam – I remembered the tears in their eyes that time I’d hidden behind the wall and spied on them. Simon! Why had I hurt him so badly – why had I hurt us both so badly? Why did I have to hurt everyone who ever came near me?
The memories crowded in. I rolled helplessly over on to my back, exposing myself, and began to howl. Terry bent down over me, glancing nervously up and down the street, as if passers-by would think he’d hurt the poor dog.
‘Come on, girl, you’re attracting attention. Stand up, will you? Lady, please!’
… School, my teachers, my friends, Annie – all those people and places that had meant so much to me – gone, from my life, from my mind! I’d lost the value of everything and here I was on the end of a piece of string in the hands of the man who had done it to me! How could I be so stupid? How could I be so selfish?
‘Will you get up?’ groaned Terry. He grabbed my neck and tried to pull me up but I just lay there. There were tears in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Lady, but we’re in it together, don’t you see?’ he murmured. I thought, In it together? Together? With the man who had robbed me of everything? And in that second I was full of rage. I twisted from under his hand, leaped to my feet and sprang at him. I fully intended to tear out his throat. Terry’s hands flew up to protect himself, he fell back with a cry and I was over him, my legs around him, my teeth worrying at his face and at the clothes around his neck. I seized one of his hands and bit; the blood ran. I heard cries around me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw people running. I paused for one last savage mauling at the soft flesh above his wrists, and then I was off, with a speed no human could ever match. But had they been able to see, those people shouting at the savage animal, they would have seen that I was no ordinary dog, for tears were running from my eyes and blinding me as I ran.
I cried all the way home, but when I got there I had no idea what to do. Run up to my mum and sniff her bum? Lick her hands? I was a dog, I didn’t even have lips that could kiss. But at last I had something that I never had before: tears. Maybe they were a sign that at last, I was ready to change back and become myself again.
I rushed down Yew Tree Road, skidded to a halt outside the front garden and sniffed the air outside the house. It was weird, because I knew every scent there but it was all suddenly so alien. All the familiar scents of Mum, Julie, Adam and our household things were just the same, but my dog’s nose magnified them a thousand times. I was so disorientated that I staggered up and down in front of the wall, trying not to fall over. It was like seeing familiar people blown up, with huge wobbly heads or giant features swollen out of proportion.
I put my paws on the low wall in front of our house and looked over at that familiar view I’d so nearly forgotten. The front door was slightly open, as if the house was inviting me back. My heart broke. My heart was always breaking these days. How could it ever be fitted together again? I thought, What happens to you when your heart breaks too often, do you go mad? But I must already be mad for this to happen to me. Perhaps all this was a dream and I was asleep all the time, lying in a ward in a mental hospital with my parents hanging over my bed, asking the doctors if there was any improvement, still loving me even though I was barking mad.
I sat back down and wiped the tears out of my eyes with the sides of my paws. My tears comforted me. My misery was human, if nothing else. I had recovered my memory. I was still a human being inside.
In the space of just one hour, my life had been turned upside down all over again. How was it possible that I had forgotten everything? Perhaps it was because I was still turning more and more into a dog – perhaps it was a defence mechanism to make the horror of what had happened more bearable. But now that I’d remembered again who I was and what I’d lost, the life I had been enjoying so
much seemed revolting to me. It was pathetic! Living out of dustbins, hanging around on the street, shagging on the road and chasing cats as if I was worth nothing. And the joy I’d felt when I found Terry again – what for? So I could sit around on the end of a piece of string, begging to keep him in drink? Wagging my tail like a slut for a few free sausages? Why did I treat myself like that? I had to go home. I had to put myself at the mercy of my family. Somehow, I had to make them understand that however hairy I was on the outside, inside I was still their loving daughter. In the past, when I’d caused them so much worry with my wild ways, they were always ready to forgive me and take me back on any terms. Love is the strongest thing on this earth – I truly believe that to be so. Love can see through to our hearts. I still shared that with my mum and dad, and with Adam and Julie!
I jumped over the wall and ran up to the door.
I knew where everyone was. My nose told me. Mum was in the kitchen. Adam and Julie weren’t there, but someone else was. It took me a moment to recognise it, because my new senses made everything as if I was looking into a twisted mirror. My dad! He must have come home, all the way from America. Just for a second my heart sank. Why had he come back to live at home as soon as I’d gone? Had he hated me so much he couldn’t bear to live with me?
But then I shook my head. Of course not, he’d come back out of love – he loved me and wanted me home. Well, I was home. I told myself to stop telling me lies, nosed the door aside and ran quickly upstairs to my room. It was closed, but I managed to open it by grabbing the handle with my jaws, pulling down and pushing with my hind legs on the floor. Once inside, I pushed it shut and drew the bolt to with my teeth. That was hard, it made my mouth bleed. But I was home – back in my own room. With a whimper of relief, I flung myself on to my bed and wept, and wept and wept until the fur on my face was sodden.
But I didn’t have much time to spare for tears. Pretty soon I heard my dad coming up the stairs to use the toilet. On the way back he paused outside my room and I held my breath – it was too soon, I wasn’t ready! But he sighed and walked past. Sooner or later someone would discover that my door was locked – from the inside. If only they knew how much their missing daughter wanted them to come in, but of course I couldn’t allow that to happen – not yet.
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