Tea and Dog Biscuits (7 page)

During the few days he had been with me, whenever he committed a misdemeanour – such as the incident of the vanishing sausage – to vent my feelings I had told him he was a villain. In the future Dorothy was to prove herself far better than me in assessing the character of the orphans who were to come to us, and she had showed it first with Orphan Number One.

‘He's not a villain, not a deliberate wrong-doer,' she had said. ‘He's growing up, and he's got to the stage where he's finding his feet, beginning to feel confident, beginning to feel he can throw his weight about – but he's still immature, not good at making judgements.'

Monty was gazing at me with his hazel eyes.

‘I know what you are then,' I said, and put my hand on his head to stroke him. ‘You're a teenager!'

His tail brushed back and forth across the grass again.

I rubbed the backs of my knees. ‘But I like you,' I added. And then began gently stroking his head.

The day would come when I was to find out just how much I liked Orphan Number One.

Road after road after road after road, and all looked the same. Called a ‘new town' when it was built after World War Two, it seemed never-ending to me, now a village yokel. It had taken just sixty minutes from home to this place, but I was in a different world.

As I tried to understand the map I had drawn I wished I had taken more care over it. The woman on the phone had given me detailed directions; I guessed now that she was used to doing so for anyone trying to find her house. I had drawn my ‘map' on the back of a magazine that had been lying by the phone – we really must, I now decided, if we are to do this rescue work, keep a notepad and pen by the phone at all times. I couldn't even read some of my own writing. What did ‘bapo' mean? The circles were obviously roundabouts, but how about what seemed to be a little stick person wearing a large hat? Now I was paying the price for my sloppiness: late and lost.

This was a new experience, something I hadn't contemplated when making that decision to take in and find homes for dogs, that some of those dogs would have to be collected. I had agreed to take the woman's dog and it was only then she had told me she couldn't bring it. She didn't have a car. No, she hadn't got a relative she could ask. No, she couldn't ask a friend either: they all had kids they couldn't leave. So we had had to send a chauffeur to pick up our third orphan – and I was the chauffeur.

Where was I?

I needed a helpful person to ask for directions, but considering there were all these houses I had seen remarkably few human beings. I drove slowly, looking left and right for Barnes Road South, a name on my map that was legible. A trio of young males sitting on a wall, seemingly doing nothing, gave me a challenging stare. I decided I wouldn't bother them. Another half a dozen side roads and an elderly gentleman, picking up litter that had blown into his garden, looked more promising. He took time and care with his directions. Now I understood what some of my scribbled words said and what my symbols stood for, although the little stick person with the big hat remained a mystery. I told the elderly man I was really grateful. And I was.

The initials ‘CDS' on my map turned out to be my abbreviation for cul-de-sac. The road was narrow; on either side cars were parked half on the pavement. Number 43 was in the corner. The woman on the phone had warned me not to park next door or her neighbour would come out and put a nasty note on my car – but which ‘next door' did she mean? I parked outside 43, taking great care not to protrude into the roadway on either side.

So this was where the dog lived. The grass at the front and side was about a foot high, some children's toys were scattered about here and there and a rusting tumble dryer lay on its back, dead. Banging the doorknocker instantly set off excited barking somewhere inside the house. If that was the dog I had come for then he had a loud, deep bark. I waited for what seemed to be more than enough time for somebody to answer then knocked harder, although if there was anybody at home surely that barking would have told them someone was about? I was wondering if the dog's owner had given up waiting for me and gone out when a woman appeared from round the side of the house.

‘Hello,' I said.

‘You're the dog man?' the woman said.

‘Er… I guess I am.'

‘He's in the kitchen, so I'll let you in the front.' She turned and disappeared back round the side of the house.

Another wait until the front door was opened. On entering the house an unpleasant smell immediately hit me. The woman led me into the living room, picked up a packet of cigarettes and took one out.

‘You must be Mrs Jackman,' I said.

‘Ms Jackman,' she corrected.

Two children, under-fives I would guess, appeared from the hallway. I could see the curiosity in their faces: they had come to see the caller.

‘I told you to keep out,' Ms Jackman said. ‘Get out!' The girl turned and went out, but the boy stayed where he was.

Ms Jackman turned back to me. ‘Do you want to sit down?'

I dropped down onto a low three-seater settee. I noticed the excited barking had become more excited.

Ms Jackman found a lighter on the mantel and lit her cigarette. ‘As I said on the phone, I've only had him three weeks.' She blew a big ball of smoke into the air. ‘I can't cope with him. He's too strong.'

‘Right,' I said, to show I understood her situation.

Ms Jackman went out and stood in the hallway. ‘Shut up!' she shouted. The barking stopped. She came back into the room. ‘I've got three little-uns and you can't push a pushchair and keep hold of two of them and hold him at the same time. I can't take him out.'

‘How did you get him?'

‘I was in the pub!' She said this with a tone of ‘Would you believe it?'

‘We was at a table and a bloke at the bar just turned round and said, “Anybody want a dog?” I've always liked Alsatians and I've always wanted one, although he's not a true Alsatian. He's crossed with a Husky, the bloke said. He's such a powerful dog.'

‘He must be,' I said. I assumed it was him that had resumed barking.

‘I'll let him in,' Ms Jackman said. ‘I warn you, he barks, but he's all right.'

‘What's his name?' I asked.

‘Claude. It's a stupid name.'

She went out into the hall followed by the boy. I could make out the sound of a door opening, then the sound of running paws.

The dog rushed in then, seeing me, braked suddenly. Coming to a halt in the middle of the room, he jerked his head back as if he had been taken by surprise. At the sight of me he set off barking furiously. He stood feet astride, eyes widened, staring at me.
Bark – bark – bark – bark – bark – bark!

I did not know what to do. Where was the woman?

This was aggressive barking. I felt queasy in my tummy. I took a deep swallow. Looking straight back at the dog could be taken as a challenge, but I dare not take my eyes off him in case he suddenly came forward. He was just three or four feet away from where I sat on the low settee.

He was black and tan but mostly black with a dark face. Opening his jaws to bark showed off all his white teeth, level with my face.

With ferocious barking just feet away, the natural reaction is to back off: I pushed myself deeper into the settee. The movement caused the dog to spring forward. He curled his lips and snapped his jaws. He was so close I could touch him. He projected his head forward – I slipped further down in the seat. This made him more excited, more agitated. His head was above mine, inches from my face.

I felt sick.

‘STOP IT!'

I was so tense that the sudden shout made me jump. But I still dared not take my eyes off the dog. Ms Jackman came into my line of sight, raised her hand and whacked him across the rump.

To no avail. She stepped forward, grabbed his collar and dragged him away. He was still barking and looking at me as he was dragged across the room.

‘Now sit down! Stop it!' Ms Jackman shouted.

He didn't sit, but he did stop barking. She was standing in front of him and he moved his head so he could see round her and keep an eye on me. Still clutching his collar, Ms Jackman sat down and stubbed out her cigarette. The dog set off barking again but this time not with such force, more a reminder, I felt, to let me know he was still there. This was the guarding breed in him, the German Shepherd in him.

With her free hand Ms Jackman slapped him sharply on the nose. He shut his eyes and jerked his head back. It made me wince. During the fourteen years we had our German Shepherd, Elsa, never had I hit her. At the training class I had taken Elsa to as a youngster the experienced trainer had told me, ‘Never smack your dog across the nose.' And his compelling reasoning had stayed in my memory. ‘Your hand should be a source of comfort to your dog, not used to hit him. Otherwise, when he sees your hand coming, how is he to know whether it is to stroke him or to strike him?'

Claude gave one more bark, a soft one. It was as if he couldn't resist it. A cuff across the head this time. I looked away.

‘I've left me ciggies in the kitchen,' Ms Jackman said. She got up and, leaning over to keep hold of the dog's collar, she walked him out of the room.

I stared at the carpet. This dog had frightened me, really frightened me. Could I take him?

Then again, could I leave him?

I stood outside the back door looking down our long garden. Beyond the hedge at the bottom of the garden was what, before we moved in, had been the vegetable garden. Now it was a wilderness of weeds. Beyond that was formerly a paddock: now a jungle of grass and wild growth up to the chest. And beyond that was the old barn with its new occupant. Not that I could see either the ex-vegetable garden or the ex-paddock in the dark. Nor the old barn, my destination.

The church clock struck eleven. I stood in the darkness, thinking. In one hand I held a dog bowl, in the other a small torch.

Ms Jackman had telephoned three times in the past week asking me to take Claude. During the final phone call she had introduced a threat: ‘I don't want to but if no one will take him off me I'll have to take him to the vet.'

An empty threat? How was I to know?

With two orphans already living in the house with us, Monty and Pearl, it had been obvious to Dorothy and me that if we were to take a third we would need somewhere to keep him.

We had needed a quick – and cheap – solution. Dorothy came up with the idea of making use of a corner of the old barn. Some wood and some wire would make a temporary pen, although it never entered our heads that I should do the work. We had learned many years previously that it was not sensible for me to attempt carpentry. I had spent four hours one Saturday putting up a shelf which had later, in the middle of the night, crashed to the floor, taking a vase and flowers with it. Somebody in the village knew somebody who could do the work in the barn for us.

I had been surprised when he knocked at the door to say he'd finished already, but then, on inspection, it wasn't as sturdy as I had hoped for. I certainly had doubts about the wire. When I had said ‘wire' I had had something stronger in mind than chicken wire to hold a German Shepherd/Husky.

As I stood at the back door, gazing down the garden towards the old barn in the blackness beyond, scenes from earlier that day came back to me: the dog rushing into the room at the woman's house, barking at me with excited ferocity; and barking in my face, four or five inches away; the nerve-wracking journey home. I hadn't yet learned that for a rescue dog's safety he or she needed to be secured in the car with a lead. There is plenty of room in the back of a Volvo estate, but it's dangerous for a dog and a distraction for the driver for the dog to be leaping about. Then when you get home and lift the tailgate, somehow you've got to stop the dog jumping out and running off. Thank goodness, when I got home Dorothy, the problem-solver, was waiting. She let Claude out of the passenger door, where it was easier to catch hold of him.

‘I knew I should have come with you,' she had said, when I recounted my stomach-tightening meeting with the dog. But I wouldn't let her. She had not been home from hospital long and was supposed to be convalescing, regaining her strength, not doing anything that could put at risk the forty stitches. Her consultant had taken me aside to warn me, ‘You must avoid situations that are stressful for Dorothy.'

That was why I would not let her come down with me now to the old barn.

Could I do this? I stared down the garden at the blackness beyond the few feet of light thrown out from the kitchen window.

The moon and stars were hidden by dark clouds that night. I had to go down to the old barn into that blackness armed only with a little torch – why hadn't I thought to buy a big, powerful lantern-type thing?

As I stood there, I realised we had taken the decision to go into rescue work too lightly. We had been drawn into it with thoughts of helping dogs that needed us, of putting our spare time to good purpose, of putting something back for all the pleasure and benefit we'd had from the fourteen years with our Elsa. And for me there had been some element of ‘doing good deeds' and the need to become a ‘better person'.