by Isabel Wolff
‘Oh,’ said Lily slowly. ‘Right.’ I glanced at the mantelpiece, which was white with invitations.
‘Do you leave her on her own in the evenings—when you go to parties, for example?’
‘No, she always comes along.’
‘I see.’ She got down an invitation and handed it to me. It was for a reception at the French Embassy. In the top left-hand corner, it read, ‘Miss Lily Jago and Miss Jennifer Aniston.’
‘Jennifer’s extremely popular,’ said Lily proudly. ‘We go everywhere together. They even let her in at The Ivy, which is more than can be said for Geri Halliwell’s shih-tzu.’
‘So she’s never really been left alone at all before now, day or night?’
‘No. Never,’ Lily replied.
‘In that case,’ I said, ‘I have another suggestion. You could, if you were to follow my advice, gradually get Jennifer more used to being on her own, but given the over-attachment problem that she has—that you both have actually—I think it would take a long time. So a better solution, in my view, would be to get a puppy, to keep her company.’
Lily stared at me as though I were mad. ‘A puppy?’ she echoed. ‘You mean, another dog?’ I nodded. ‘Another Jennifer?’ I nodded again. She suddenly beamed. ‘What a brilliant idea! Would you like that, darling?’ she said, lifting the dog onto her lap. She adjusted the diamanté barrette in Jennifer’s floor-length blonde hair. ‘Would you like a sweet little puppy to play with?’ Jennifer grunted. ‘A little fwendy-wendy? You would? She says yes!’ she informed me happily. ‘Well, Mummy’s going to find you one. That’s a superb idea,’ she said. ‘Quite brilliant. I’d never have thought of that. You’re a genius, Miranda. In fact, you’re such a genius I’m going to do a feature on you in Moi!’
‘Oh!’
‘I am,’ she said. ‘I’m going to send my best feature writer, India Carr, to interview you—have I got your card?—yes, here it is—and I’ll hire a top photographer to take some really nice pics. What shall I call it? “Barking Mad”—no—“Miss Behaviour”! Yes!! “Miss Behaviour”! How about that?’
I knew that Lily wouldn’t really do an interview with me—she was just being effusive—but when I got back I found that the Camden New Journal had phoned to say that yes, they would like to run a piece. I was pleased—some local publicity would be good.
‘How long will the article be?’ I asked the reporter, Tim, the following morning, as he got his notebook out of his bag. He looked about eighteen but was probably twenty-five.
‘About a thousand words—that’s nearly a page—I write them up in quite a light-hearted way. The peg is the opening of your practice—“Pet Shrink Comes to Primrose Hill”—and I’ll plug Animal Crackers as well.’
‘Would you also mention my puppy parties?’
He laughed. ‘Sure—but what are they? I don’t have a dog.’
‘They’re a kind of canine kindergarten,’ I explained. ‘They’re very important for socializing young dogs so that they don’t have behavioural problems in later life.’
‘Cool,’ he said, as he took the top off his pen. ‘Puppy…parties,’ he muttered as he scribbled in his pad. ‘Are they by invitation only?’ he asked with a straight face.
‘Sort of. I mean, their mums and dads have to book.’
‘So it’s RSVP then. And is it Bring a Bottle?’
‘No,’ I said with a smile.
‘Dress code?’
‘Casual. But collars will be worn.’
‘Time and venue?’
‘Seven p.m., every Wednesday, here. Fifteen pounds p.p.’
‘That’s per puppy?’
‘Correct. Carriages at nine. They start next week and I’ve still got a few empty spaces.’
His pen flew across the page in a longhand/shorthand hybrid. ‘Few…empty…spaces. That’s great.’ Then he asked me for some personal background. So I told him, briefly, about growing up in Brighton, then mentioned my five years at Bristol and explained why I’d given up being a vet.
‘But it wasn’t simply the stress,’ I went on. ‘Being a vet means that you’re usually mending just one bit of the animal—you’re prescribing, or doing surgery, or setting bones. But as a behaviourist you’re working with the whole animal, which I find more interesting, because it means trying to fathom their minds.’
‘And are you Jungian or Freudian?’ he asked with a smirk.
I laughed. ‘Neither.’
‘Seriously though,’ he said, ‘do animals really need psychiatrists? Isn’t it just a bit of a fad for indulgent pet-owners? Like having aromatherapy for your Persian cat, for example, or having your dog’s kennel feng-shuied?’
‘Animal behaviourism is a new area, that’s true,’ I replied. ‘But it isn’t a passing fashion—it’s here to stay; because we now know that developing greater insight into animal psychology means having well-balanced pets. They don’t “misbehave” or behave “inappropriately”, because they’re happy—and they’re happy because they’re understood.’ I then told him the story of how I’d got Herman. ‘Did you know that in the West the biggest cause of death in young dogs isn’t accidents or illness,’ I went on; ‘it’s euthanasia due to behavioural problems. I find that incredibly sad. Because the fact is that so many of these behavioural problems would be completely preventable if only people knew what made their pets tick.’
‘What are the most common problems you see?’
‘Aggression, separation distress, fears and phobias, obsessive behaviour, attention-seeking…’
‘And what about the animals?’
I laughed. ‘Actually you’re not that far off, because all too often it isn’t the animal’s behaviour which has to change, it’s the human’s, though people don’t usually like hearing that.’
‘And have you always been “animal crackers”?’ he smiled.
I shrugged. ‘Well, yes… I suppose I have.’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Well, I don’t really know. I mean, lots of people adore animals, don’t they, and find them interesting, so I guess I’m simply one of them.’ Tim’s mobile phone suddenly rang, and as he stepped outside to take the call I realized that what I’d said wasn’t the whole truth. I think the real reason why I became so interested in animals was because it used to distract me from my parents’ rows. They argued a lot, so I gradually built up my own little menagerie to take my mind off the stress. I had a stray tortoiseshell called Misty, two rabbits, Ping and Pong, and Pandora, a guinea pig. I had a hamster and then two gerbils which kept having babies which, to my horror, they would sometimes eat. I also had about thirty stick insects, which I used to feed the neighbours’ privet to, and a number of baby birds which I’d nudged back to life. I once worked out that, including the humans, there were 207 legs in our house.
Mum and Dad thought I was obsessed, but they let me get on with it. Sometimes they’d try to recruit me to their cause. ‘Your mum…’ my father would mutter sadly, shaking his head. ‘Your father…’ my mum would fume. But I didn’t want to know. At night I’d lie in my bed, stiff as a plank, eyes wide open, listening to them griping downstairs. It was always about one subject—golf—a sport which Dad loved with a burning passion and which Mum loathed—she still does. Dad had taken it up not long after they’d married and, within three years, had become exceptionally good. He was even encouraged to turn professional, but Mum didn’t want to know. She said he should stick with accountancy—but he wasn’t having it. Eventually, they split up. Then, within a year of their divorce, she met and married Hugh, a landscape architect, and, pretty quickly, had three more kids.
I think that’s why I became ‘tricky’—because I had a lot of instability then. I didn’t smoke or take drugs, like some kids I knew; I didn’t pierce my eyebrows or dye my hair. Instead, I became fixated on animal issues. I went vegetarian, almost vegan—it drove Mum mad—and I joined every welfare organization there was. I played truant to go on live-export protests, and I went on anti-hunt demos too. T
hat’s how I met Jimmy. I was standing by a fence one freezing December Saturday with a few other protesters as the hunt went by. I didn’t like to throw anything, as that’s not nice, and you might hurt a horse; so I just stood there, holding up a poster saying ‘Ban Hunting Now!!’ when this handsome man suddenly turned up. He looked like the Angel Gabriel with his thick, curly blond hair and pale beard. And he began chanting, very quietly, ‘It’s a bloody liberty, not a civil liberty! It’s a bloody liberty, not a civil liberty!’ And his voice got a little louder, and then he motioned to us all to join in. And so we did.
‘It’s a bloody liberty! Not a civil liberty! It’s a bloody liberty! Not a civil liberty!’ And now he was waving his arms at us, as though he was conducting Beethoven’s Ninth.
‘IT’S A BLOODY LIBERTY! NOT A CIVIL LIBERTY!! IT’S A BLOODY LIBERTY! NOT A CIVIL LIBERTY!!!’
I was sixteen then, and Jimmy was twenty-one. It had taken five minutes for me to fall under his spell…
Tim reappeared, and snapped his phone shut.
‘I’m sorry about that. It was my editor. Where were we? Oh yes…’ he stared at his notes. ‘And are you single or married?’ he asked.
‘I’m…single.’ I prayed that he wouldn’t mention Alexander, but there was no reason for him to know.
‘And how old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?’
‘I don’t mind at all. I’m thirty-two.’
‘And finally, a funny question, which I always ask everyone. What’s your deepest, darkest secret?’
‘My deepest, darkest secret?’
‘Yes. Don’t look so shocked. It’s not serious.’
‘Oh.’ He’d thrown me right off balance for a moment. ‘Well…’ He’d be horrified if I told him the truth. ‘I’ve…got a bit of a soft spot for Barry Manilow,’ I managed to say.
‘Barry… Manilow,’ he muttered. ‘That’s great.’ Then he said he thought he’d got enough material, and if he could just take a quick photo, he’d be off.
‘When’s the piece going in?’ I asked, as he opened his rucksack and pulled out a small camera.
‘Tomorrow.’
‘That’s quick.’
‘We had an extra page to fill at the last minute as some advertising was pulled, so I’ve got to turn this around by two. All our photographers are busy today, so I’m going to take a quick digital snap. If you could just stand by the door, holding the dog, with the plaque just behind you.’ We stepped outside. I picked Herman up and smiled at Tim, squinting slightly.
Suddenly he lowered the camera. ‘I hope you don’t mind my saying this, but you’ve got a bit of a bruise below your left eye—’
‘Have I?’ I felt myself stiffen. ‘Oh yes.’
‘Sorry to mention it, but I just thought you might not want it to show in the picture.’
‘Erm, no. No, I don’t. My make-up must have come off in the heat,’ I added. I went inside and looked in my small hand-mirror. He was right. It was a liverish yellow with a pale mauve outline, as if a black felt-tip had bled on my face. That was careless of me—I must have absent-mindedly rubbed off my concealer. I dabbed on some more Cover-Stick, then pressed on some powder.
‘Yes,’ he said appraisingly. ‘That’s fine. Did you have an accident?’ he asked.
My heart did a swallow dive. ‘No…it was…just one of those…things. I…walked into a lamp post…in the dark. They never look where they’re going, do they?’
He laughed. ‘Okay, then, hold it. Say cheese! Well, that was my last interview for the Camden New Journal,’ he announced as he put his camera away. ‘I’m going on to pastures new.’
‘Really? Where are you off to?’
‘The Independent on Sunday.’
‘That’s good. Which bit?’
‘The diary. It’s a start. But what I really want to get into is political reporting.’
‘Well, congratulations—I hope it goes well.’
‘Anyway, it was nice to meet you. Here.’ He handed me a card. ‘You never know, our paths might cross again. Keep in touch—especially if you happen to hear any interesting gossip.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I will.’
Within two hours of the interview appearing in the paper I had every reason to be grateful to Tim. Not only was it accurate and witty, but I’d already had six enquiries about the puppy parties and three new bookings—a chinchilla, a parakeet, and Joy the osteopath’s Bengal cat—which kept me busy for the rest of the week. I phoned Daisy a couple of times but she was busy with clients. But on Friday night she called back.
‘Sorry I haven’t rung you before, but I’ve been frantic. So tell me how it’s all going?’
‘Well, I’m actually quite busy—it’s picking up.’ I told her about the article in the Camden New Journal.
‘That sounds good. And what did you think of Lily Jago?’
I giggled at the memory. ‘As you said, a complete drama queen.’
‘And what about Caroline Mulholland? Did she ring you?’
‘Yes, she did. I went out to the house. She was nice.’
‘She’s as rich as Croesus, apparently—and married to this rather handsome MP.’
‘Ye-es,’ I said, ‘that’s right. I met him…briefly. In fact I’m going back there tomorrow—to judge their dog show.’
‘Really? How did that come about?’
I explained.
‘Oh you’ll do it much better than Trinny and Susannah,’ she snorted. ‘Can you imagine how rude they’d be! “What does that Border collie think it’s got on?” she said, imitating Trinny. “Makes it look like a scrubber! And that Old English sheepdog looks naff in those pink leggings, doesn’t it, Susannah?” “Oh yes, Trinny, a complete dog’s dinner, and that springer’s arse is far too big for that skirt.” You’ll be much more tactful,’ Daisy giggled.
‘I’ll try. But I’ve never done anything like this before.’
‘You’ll probably pick up some new clients,’ she said. ‘It’s worth going just for that.’
‘That’s the main reason why I’m doing it,’ I lied. ‘Plus the fact that it’s in a good cause. So what treats are in store for you this weekend?’
‘Well, I’ve got a blissful day tomorrow. In the morning I’m going Tyrolean traversing.’
‘You’re going where?’
‘Tyrolean traversing. It’s a method mountain climbers use for crossing crevasses, but a small group of us are just going to do it above an old stone quarry in Kent.’
‘From what height?’
‘Oh, only about a hundred feet or so.’
‘You’re mad.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You are—you’re crazy, Daisy. I’ve often said it.’
‘But apparently it’s really good fun. Basically, you suspend cables across the gap, with a sort of pulley thing, then you take a running jump off the edge—’
‘You do what?’
‘But then your harness takes the strain and instead of plummeting to the ground you find yourself bouncing along the wire like a puppet on a string. It’ll be fabulous.’
‘Just thinking about it makes me feel sick.’
‘And it’s supposed to be much more fun than abseiling because it gives you that lovely feeling of falling into empty space.’
‘Uhhhh.’
‘Then on Saturday night, Nigel’s taking me out, but—’ there was a theatrical pause, ‘—he won’t tell me where. He says it’s going to be a “very special evening”. Very special,’ she added happily. ‘That’s what he said.’
‘Hmmm,’ I said. ‘Do you think it might…mean something?’
‘Well, yes, I really think that it might. Anyway, enjoy your fete,’ she said cheerfully.
‘I shall do my best,’ I replied.
The next morning I awoke feeling awful, having slept very badly. I’d had this really weird dream. In it, I was in a theatre somewhere—I don’t know which one, but it seemed to be quite big—and the curtain had just gone up. And I seemed to be
playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz for some reason, with Herman as Toto, and Daisy as the good witch Glinda, and my mother as Auntie Em. And Alexander was in it too. He was the Lion.
‘My goodness, what a fuss you’re making. Why you’re nothing but a great big coward!’
‘You’re right. I am a coward. I haven’t any courage at all. I even scare myself.’
And then Nigel appeared as the Tin Man.
‘Don’t you think that the Wizard could help him too?’
‘I don’t see why not. Why don’t you come with us? We’re on our way to see the Wizard of Oz to get him a heart, and him a brain, and I’m sure he could give you some courage.’
So we did go to see the Wizard, who, to my amazement, was played by my dad. And then I suddenly realized that it wasn’t Alexander playing the Lion any more, it was Jimmy, which confused me. And I was wondering, in the dream, where Alexander had gone, and whether he minded being replaced by Jimmy, because the Lion’s a really good part; and I was hoping that the audience wouldn’t notice, and I was beginning to feel quite stressed about it all—and that’s when I woke up. With my head full of Jimmy. The thought of speaking to him at the fete made me feel sick. To distract myself I spent the morning answering e-mails—I’m constantly amazed at the things people ask.
‘I’m wondering if my cat is obsessive-compulsive as it constantly washes itself,’ said the first. No it’s not—that’s what cats do. ‘How can I get my tarantula to be more friendly?’ asked another. I’m afraid that’s just tarantula behaviour—you can’t. ‘My African Grey parrot keeps telling me to “Fuck off!” Do you think it really means it?’ No.
Sometimes people like to tell me the ‘funny’ thing their animals do. ‘My donkey brays backwards—it goes Haw-Hee.’ ‘My horse can count up to ten.’ ‘My Persian cat plays the piano—it runs up and down the keyboard.’ ‘My mynah bird can sing “Heartbreak Hotel”.’ Suddenly another e-mail arrived—from my dad. It contained the usual stuff about the weather in Palm Springs (great), the celebrities he’d seen playing golf (lots), and the Hollywood gossip he’d overheard (scandalous). He said he hoped that my new practice had got off to a good start. Then I got to the final sentence and gasped. ‘I also want to tell you that a few days ago I made a decision which will no doubt come as quite a surprise to you—to return to the UK. I’ve been offered a very challenging job in East Sussex—’ East Sussex!! ‘—running a brand new golf club which, as luck, or Fate, would have it, is located very near Alfriston.’ Alfriston? Mum would go mad. ‘So I’d be grateful if you could break this tragic news to your mother as gently as possible, Miranda.’
