The Puppy That Came for Christmas (11 page)

Finally Elvis was placed as a pet with an experienced dog-owning family with a little girl with cerebral palsy, where he soon made himself at home.

Another dog I knew, Angus, was returned by the advanced training center to his puppy parent to become a pet. He didn't make the grade for two reasons—the first being a flaky skin condition, which might have made life difficult for his potential partner and led to unmanageable vet's bills. Secondly, he was very much a farm dog. When in town, some days he would bark at children, some days at men with hats or women with brollies—but you could never tell which one it would be. He was also excellent at chasing and bringing back baby birds, rabbits and once even a pheasant. Like a good retriever should, he brought them all back alive in his soft jaws, but such “treasures,” while being OK on country walks, would be awkward or embarrassing with a disabled partner in town. His puppy parent was more than delighted to have him back.

 

Elvis's future seemed clear, even at the demonstration day, when he first inadvertently bit his parent's toes trying to remove her sock and then ran off with one of her shoes. Emma found the mobile phone quickly and placed it perfectly in my hand. She knew she'd performed well and was obviously feeling very proud of herself.

“What a good girl you are,” I said, crouching down to stroke her. It was too hard to think she might be leaving us soon.

As we exited the circle of onlookers, a lady came up to me.

“Excuse me,” she said, “my little boy's got cerebral palsy and he sometimes has fits. Would I be able to apply for a Helper Dog to help him?”

I looked around for Jamie, but he was demonstrating the “speak” command with Eddie, who immediately barked when asked. Helper Dogs were normally discouraged from barking, but in certain situations it might be important that they attract attention for their partners.

“Jamie, the boss, is busy,” I said. “Come and see Cass instead.”

I introduced the woman, whose name was Gina, to Cass, who also had cerebral palsy.

“Blue has made the world of difference to me,” she said, indicating her chocolate-brown Lab sitting patiently beside her chair. “It's not just all the useful things he can do, but he's really helped me physically. A year ago I could hardly open my left hand, but because I've been grooming and petting him it's become much stronger and more mobile. Look.” Cass showed Gina how she could spread her fingers.

I could see Gina was impressed. “But will they let him have a dog if he has fits?”

“Yes,” Cass and I said at once, and then started laughing.

“That'd be no problem at all,” Cass said. “The dogs can be trained to put someone in the recovery position if need be, pull a blanket from the back of a wheelchair and bark to call for help. Some dogs can even sense when a fit's imminent.”

Later I saw Gina speaking to Jamie. She gave me a thumbs-up sign as she left.

As the day drew to an end, I went to chat with the representatives from HQ, who had brought news of the next batch of Helper Dogs, a litter of tiny four-week-old puppies, which had been seen and assessed. A few had been selected to become Helper Dog trainees at eight weeks, once they'd been weaned and were old enough to leave their mum.

“These will be the Fs,” the trainers were saying, showing photographs to us all. I couldn't resist having a look.

“There's a little boy that's just right for you, Meg,” Jamie said.

But I didn't answer him. I didn't want to think about having another puppy. I only wanted Emma.

Helper Dogs' policy, where they could, was to take the outgoing puppy and replace it with a new puppy on the same day. Helper Dogs also tried to give the puppy parents a different-sex puppy each time, so there wouldn't be too many comparisons with the one before. Sometimes puppy parents were asked to take the puppy they'd had to HQ, where they were given a new puppy to take back home with them. Other times, their new charge was dropped off at their house. Either way, I didn't like it. The whole switcheroo business, in fact, sounded horrendous. I knew we were expected to take a new puppy when Emma left us, but I didn't want Emma to go, so I blocked out all thoughts about it.

Ian came over with two vanilla ice creams, one as a special treat for Emma. It was gone in a few large licks, and as she hopefully turned her attention toward my cone, I looked into her loving, trusting eyes and my vision clouded with tears.

Ever since we'd met, Ian and I had been very much a twosome. It had been just the two of us visiting comedy clubs before we were married, the two of us on Waikiki Beach saying our vows and just the two of us on our weekend walks and our visits to comedy clubs as man and wife, although now our family circle had widened to include Emma. I'd introduced Ian to all my old friends, but because we were so wrapped up in our new married life—and now all head over heels about Emma—somehow my connection to them had weakened and we didn't seem to have as much in common as we used to. Gradually, new friends took their place, mostly sharing our newfound passion for dogs.

Coming from a previously dog-free zone, it really surprised me how many dog-lovers there were and how much more everyone seemed to know about dogs than me. They were always full of useful advice on how to get your dog to behave or how to clean and groom it, and Florence even gave me my first dog recipe book. When Emma was sick one day, I was advised to give her plenty of water but no solids, and then give her some homemade chicken and rice in the evening. Emma loved it, and whenever she had an upset tummy, the chicken and rice seemed to fix it. Subsequently, I tried making homemade dog treats and they went down a storm, not just with Emma but with just about every other dog we met.

“Got any new dog treats?” Jamie would ask.

I was by far the least experienced dog owner, and quite often made the most basic of mistakes, but I was fast becoming the most experienced canine chef.

“Some of those look so good I'm tempted to try them myself,” Sadie said one day at Helper Dogs. It was the first time Sadie had been back to Helper Dogs since she'd given up Cherry, the black Lab puppy she'd been looking after. Sadie wasn't going to be a puppy parent again as she'd found it too traumatic giving Cherry up.

Because I was busy with my new life, I hadn't had time to wonder how my old friends were getting on, when out of the blue I had a phone call.

“Meg, it's Gemma.”

“Gemma!” I squawked, as you do when taken by surprise by a familiar voice on the end of the phone.

We'd known each other since we were students and had lived in the same halls of residence and then the same shared house. Gemma had had an abortion just before she started university and had found it very hard to come to terms with it. We used to sit up talking all night and we became very close.

“Sometimes I dream I can hear a baby crying and I know it's my baby,” she'd say. “They say it's just cells, don't they? It couldn't feel anything, but I can still hear it. I wake up thinking it's in the room with me. But there's nothing there.”

The abortion had changed Gemma's thoughts about motherhood.

“I never want to have a baby,” she said. “It'd just remind me of what happened.”

When she was in her early thirties, she'd married and moved to Devon, and we weren't as in touch as we'd once been.

We exchanged pleasantries and news for a few minutes while I wondered what had occasioned the unexpected call.

“You're never going to believe it . . .” said Gemma finally.

I had a sinking feeling that I might.

“I'm pregnant.”

Before I could say anything a torrent of glad tidings poured out of her.

“I know, can you believe it, me of all people? The one who said she never ever wanted children. I didn't even know if I would be able to have them because I'd left it so late. I didn't tell you before because, you know, they say it's bad luck before it's definite. Need to be three months gone at least.”

“So how pregnant are you?” I asked. I was trying to keep my tone light, as if I were asking about the weather. I felt slightly spaced out. In the room and on the phone, but not in the room and not on the phone at the same time.

“Seven months—it could be born at any time! It's so exciting and a bit scary. Alan is over the moon. Well, you know he always wanted children even though I didn't.”

Ian spoke into the speakerphone.

“That's great news, Gemma,” he said.

“Yes, congratulations,” I said.

“Thanks. You'll have to come and visit when the baby's born.”

“Yes, yes, of course! It'd be lovely to see you.” My voice was bright and shiny but brittle, and I felt it could snap and break into a thousand pieces at any time. Some part of me, the part that had known and loved Gemma and Alan for years, was so, so pleased for her, but another part of me, the part that was living in the here and now, and was stuck in cycles of Clomid that were seemingly doing more harm than good, was devastated at the news. The first part of me wanted to go and visit them straightaway, but the second part didn't know if I'd be able. I simply wished it could have been as easy for us.

I said goodbye and put the phone down.

Ian hugged me to him and Emma brought Spiky over. I smiled and played tug with her.

“I'll make the dinner,” Ian said.

I carried on playing with Emma.

The phone rang again. It was Jamie. “They're thinking of taking Emma and her brother into advanced training in three weeks,” he said. “But there'll be another puppy ready for you. That is OK, isn't it?”

There was a long silence as I let the news sink in. Three weeks. No time at all.

I put the phone down once again, feeling like maybe I should throw the handset—if not the source, then definitely the conduit, of so much troubling news in so short a space of time—through the window and into the garden.

Ian was looking at me.

“I don't know how I'm going to bear letting her go,” I said. “I feel like my heart is being ripped out.”

And how was Emma supposed to understand why she was being sent away?

“She'll think she's done something wrong and that we don't want her any more,” I said as the tears started streaming down my face. “That she wasn't good enough.” Once I'd started crying I couldn't stop. Huge sobs at the thought of our little puppy girl not understanding why she couldn't stay with us, the people who loved her.

“She tries so hard to be good and do everything we ask of her. How is she supposed to know that if we could keep her we would? We'd do anything to keep her but we . . .”

I dissolved into sobs, for Emma, for Gemma, for Ian and for me.

“We could try to buy her off them,” said Ian, “if you're really definitely sure you want to.”

“Of course I want to. Don't you want to keep her too?”

“I do. She's our little girl.”

Then I remembered why we had her. “W-what about the disabled person who needs her? What about them?”

“We could give them enough money so they could buy two puppies or even three or four.”

“They couldn't refuse, could they?”

“Charities always need money.”

“They couldn't refuse ten thousand pounds.”

“Ten thousand pounds?” Ian said.

“Yes, the money Mum and Dad gave us that we were going to use for the IVF—we'll use that.”

Ian looked concerned. “Are you sure? That money . . .”

“Yes, yes, yes, I'm sure. How many new puppies will ten thousand pounds buy?”

“Each puppy is roughly five hundred pounds, so maybe twenty.”

Twenty new puppies in exchange for one Emma. That seemed a good deal to me. She was worth more than twenty puppies to me, but she couldn't be worth more than that to them.

“I don't see how they could resist,” Ian said. “But I don't want you to regret—”

“I won't regret it!” I shouted. “How could I when it means we'll get to keep Emma?”

Emma had by now fallen asleep on the sofa.

“And Helper Dogs will be OK,” I said. “They'll have twenty new puppies. And Emma hasn't even gone for her advanced training yet. She might not even be suitable as a Helper Dog. Even if we gave her up she might not make it.”

We both knew that that was a lie. Emma would make a great Helper Dog for someone, but I couldn't, I just couldn't, bear the thought of letting her go.

“The IVF clinic . . .” Ian started to say. But I didn't want to talk about that.

“Shall we phone Jamie?”