by Beth Morrey
“Milly!” he said, grabbing my hand and pumping it enthusiastically. Of course, I dropped my books, and we spent the next minute scrabbling round for them on the pavement. By the time they were back in my arms, my hair was mussed and I was breathless with effort and embarrassment.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked, indicating toward the river.
I shouldn’t appear too keen—let him think I have other engagements, interesting parties and interested parties.
“Yes, please.”
He took my books, and we walked together toward the Anchor, a favorite haunt among students. As we approached the River Cam, I was painfully, ecstatically, aware of everything in that moment—the little toe-pinch in my right shoe, the bead of sweat on the back of my neck, my books tucked under that big arm of his as he strolled along, my still-uneven breathing. I looked toward Queens’ College at the boaters carefully wielding their poles under the Mathematical Bridge. There was a myth that it was designed by Sir Isaac Newton, and originally built without any kind of connection at the joints. The story went that a group of students took the bridge apart and were unable to put it together again, thus it had to be rebuilt with the current nuts and bolts. It wasn’t true, of course, but I liked the idea anyway. I needed to build mine and Leo’s relationship with a few nuts and bolts to make it secure. And above all, he must never know just how much water was under that bridge.
That summer, with a supreme effort of self-control, I channeled my natural repression and presented myself as elusive, chaste, to be chased. When we went for a drink, I left early, telling him there was a rumor some students had towed a Spitfire into Trinity Great Court. When he invited me to see A Tale of Two Cities at the cinema, I told him I didn’t admire Dirk Bogarde. When he asked me to attend one of the renowned F. R. Leavis’s lectures with him, I went, but made sure to bump into several acquaintances en route that I absolutely had to speak to. I kept him waiting.
Why was all that obfuscation so necessary? I felt instinctively that Leo, so straightforward himself, did not admire that quality in others. He liked guile, caprice, uncertainty. He liked a slippery fish. So that’s what I was. Just before Christmas, he proposed, leaving a ring in my copy of the Odyssey, with a little note about my face launching a thousand ships, though I always felt less Helen, more Trojan horse. He lounged in the doorway watching me open the book, with a lopsided grin and a bottle of champagne. “How about it?” he said, proffering the bottle, while I worked hard not to cry. We were married on a dry, chilly day in January—I was already pregnant in the photo Tristan took of us outside King’s College chapel, although I didn’t know it. Alea iacta est.
And the problem with all of this? The flaw in my plan? Having got the ring on my finger, the baby in my belly and the little house on Jesus Green . . . when was I finally going to be able to relax, take out the bolts and see if it would hold?
Never. Having held him fast, I couldn’t let go; I had to hang on.
Chapter 13
Walking Bob to the park the next morning, I felt awkward and self-conscious, as though I were an imposter. The dog seemed incongruous, trotting at my heels, and I worried that passersby might see us and think I’d stolen her, or simply that we looked ridiculous together, like a goaty old man and his nubile girlfriend.
She was such a buoyant, unaffected presence, grinning up at me, constantly weaving off to sniff lampposts, urinate on leaves, or scratch herself at inconvenient moments. People are supposed to look like their dogs, and I imagined a dog of mine would be some sort of wolfhound—tall, gray and diffident. Not this perky, prancing thing, with her autumnal colors and sideways wink. She was the kind of dog Alicia Stewart would have had. Alicia, Leo’s sparkling, vivacious first love, who capered through life expecting everyone to make way for her.
Nevertheless, we made it to the park and dutifully began a circuit, remembering Angela’s lecture on the importance of exercise. The air was warmer now, with daffodils forcing their way through the cold dried mud of early spring. Looking up, I could see the delicate eruption of blossom—a brief but beautiful stage of the season. In Japan, the sakura—the cherry blossom—represents the transience of life, and they have festivals dedicated to watching it bloom; the bud is fragile and short-lived and thus one must come to terms with the inevitability of one’s death. How odd though to sit under a tree and actively contemplate one’s own demise.
My ruminations were interrupted by Bob, whining and pulling at her lead, dragging me in different directions. As we made our jagged progress around the park, we encountered another dog walker heading in the opposite direction. I didn’t like the look of him or his dogs, so discreetly gave them a wide berth. They were Boxers; not a breed I’ve ever admired (if indeed I’ve admired any), and their owner looked something of a pugilist himself—shaven-headed, with a bulbous nose, army jacket collar pulled up around his face, cigarette smoke in a cloud around him. But of course, Bob, in her contrary way, developed an unaccountable fancy for his dogs, tugging me over and cavorting, rolling over on her back in supplication. I pulled on her lead irritably. “Come on!”
“She wants off.”
“I’m sorry?” I couldn’t see his mouth move for collar and cigarette. Typical, on my first dog-walking day, to encounter some thuggish stranger and be drawn into conversation.
“She wants off. The lead.” He took the cigarette out of his mouth with black-nail-tipped sausage fingers and pointed it at Bob. “She wants to play.” He had a thick accent—Newcastle, or somewhere up there.
I looked at Bob, still capering and yapping. “She might run away.”
“She won’t.” He put the cigarette back in. “And if she does, she’ll come back.”
Reluctantly, I unhooked Bob’s lead, whereupon she immediately went into an orgy of romping with the Boxers. There was much baring of teeth, but they all seemed to be enjoying themselves, and at least she was getting some exercise.
Enjoying the spectacle, my companion sucked away on his cigarette, then turned to me.
“What’s her name?”
“Er, Bob,” I replied. It seemed we were expected to make polite small talk, in a tame mimicry of our dogs’ interaction. “Yours?”
“That there’s Badger, and that there’s Barker.” He pointed, though as with Sylvie’s dogs, I had no idea how he could tell the difference. “Bob’s a boy’s name,” he continued, tapping his ash on the lid of a nearby bin.
“It’s from Blackadder,” I hazarded, hoping there would be no need to elaborate.
He frowned for a second, then chuckled. “Aye. Good name for a dog.” I felt briefly gratified, as though it were my own achievement.
The dogs paused for breath and seizing this as my cue, I moved forward to put Bob back on her lead, saying, “Well, it’s been nice to meet you . . .” But the words died on my lips as Bob chose that moment to lift herself inelegantly onto her haunches and answer the call of nature. This was the moment I’d been dreading, and now I was going to have to deal with it with him there, watching me scrabbling in the mud.
Fumbling for the poo bags, I fished one out of my pocket, took a deep breath and bent to do the deed. The smell was asphyxiating, steaming slightly in the chill. How did one use the bag? Could I slide it along the ground and flick in the mess with a stick? Dithering, I accidentally inhaled and immediately gagged. This was horrifying. I would have to take Bob back to Angela’s; she’d have to go to the dogs home. I would go back to checking the cupboards. Maybe I could save up for the alarm system. The bag fell from my shaking hands to the ground.
“Want some help?” He crouched down beside me, picking up the flimsy sack and putting it over his hand like a plastic puppet. He leaned forward and deftly scooped up the excrement in one fluid movement, causing me to feel nauseous again. Tying a knot in the top, he presented it to me with a courtly flourish, like a little gift. I took it with the tips of my fingers, revolted and h
orribly embarrassed.
“I take it this is your first time?”
“Yes,” I replied, depositing the dreadful lump in a nearby bin. “She’s . . . not my dog. I’m looking after her for someone. Thank you . . . for . . .”
“No worries,” he said. He clicked his fingers and his dogs immediately came to his side. It was quite impressive. “I’m Denzil, by the way. I might see you around, if you need help again. It’ll get easier though.” He saluted me, still holding the cigarette, and strolled on his way, his Boxers frolicking around his legs. I watched him go for a second, fighting the urge to call him back in case Bob decided to evacuate again.
I turned to find her standing in front of me wagging her tail eagerly, as if to say “What next?”
But I’d had enough. She’d had her walk and done her disgusting business and humiliated me in the process. We could legitimately go home and lie down until later in the day when I would have to do it all over again. And again and again and again until Fix came back, or I died.
It’ll get easier, he said. Things do, don’t they. Most things, anyway.
Chapter 14
So began a strange and largely unwelcome kind of routine for Bobby and me. I heard “Bob is a boy’s name” too often, and unfamiliar with her namesake, felt unqualified to explain the reasoning. Bobby sounded rather more feminine, and she didn’t seem to mind. Angela had given me a book on canine behavior from the library, and in one chapter the author suggested that dogs responded better to two-syllabled monikers. Renaming her, however marginally, established a little more authority and ownership, though I was the most reluctant of owners. More of a caretaker, perhaps.
We muddled through our two walks a day, “mud” being the operative part of the word, as she always seemed to be coated in it on our return. I’d gritted my teeth, held my nose and managed to pick up all the “left-behinds,” as Sylvie put it. I still couldn’t do it without gagging, but was getting quicker and more dexterous, which limited the damage to my gullet. We saw Denzil most mornings, and he saluted me as his dogs (Bodger? Barker?) enjoyed a brief frolicky greeting with Bobby. I’d met a number of other dog walkers who were friendly and full of advice, wildly contradicting one another as they offered their words of wisdom. A crowd of them assembled at a particular picnic table near the tennis courts at the same time every day and I’d been too shy to join them, but one morning we bumped into Sylvie with Decca and Nancy, and she’d strolled over so insouciantly that I felt bound to follow.
As Sylvie sauntered among them, addressing both dogs and humans by name, I struggled to keep up, nodding and smiling as everyone nattered away, blithely unaware of their charges as they romped and ran amok. The main thing I’d observed about dog owners was that they weren’t nearly sorry enough. Their dogs barged in front of joggers and cyclists, knocked children over, defecated in front of walkers, raised their legs on bicycle wheels, stole sandwiches and God knows what other misdemeanors, and their owners seemed either oblivious or only tepidly remorseful. Whereas I felt like going round with a sign that proclaimed a profuse and catch-all apology. Mea culpa, or rather, canis culpa. I mentioned this to Angela one day when she came to visit and she scoffed at me.
“The dogs have as much right to be in the park as anyone!” she said, ruffling Bobby’s mane. “You worry too much.” Whereas the only thing that seemed to concern Bobby was whether I fed her, at exactly eight A.M. and eight P.M., and walked her, at exactly nine A.M. and four P.M. She had an extraordinary internal clock and would present herself at precisely the appointed hour, sitting bolt upright and looking at me sideways, then uttering a yelping little bark until I capitulated to her demands. How reassuring to have such simple priorities and be able to express them so effectively.
Now, for example, it was three P.M., and I had only an hour of Angela and Otis’s company before Bobby would force me out of the house. Otis was watching a cartoon on my new computer, which had arrived that morning, ordered by Alistair from his office in Sydney. He’d been horrified by the burglary and insisted on replacing my laptop immediately. He’d even promised to send a “memory stick” with lots of photos of Arthur to replace the ones I’d lost. You just plugged it in, apparently. If only memories were that easy to access and contain.
Angela was drinking tea and pontificating as usual, while I made some biscuits for Otis. They were cooling on a rack, with Bobby sitting below, drooling. Although I never fed her from the table, or anywhere but her bowl for that matter, this did not stop her begging and scrounging at every opportunity—Sylvie said she must have some Labrador in her, such was her appetite. She’d wolfed down a chicken bone by a bin on our walk that morning—vile creature. The sofa throw I’d sacrificed as a dog bed was coated in its own blanket of hairs and smelled like a sour old sock.
“And they claim they’d spend it on the National Health Service, but we all know that’s bullshit!” huffed Angela as I tipped the biscuits onto a plate and put them down on the table. Eyes glued to the cartoon, Otis reached out a hand. Angela took one and opened her mouth to continue, but was interrupted by a knock at the door. Bobby immediately started barking like an idiot.
“Be quiet, for goodness’ sake!”
When I’d agreed to take her, this was exactly what I’d hoped for, but she’d turned out to be less of a guard dog and more of a very loud doorbell, howling in a frenzy whenever she heard someone outside, but retreating under the table when anyone actually entered the house. Still, I supposed the noise might put off an intruder. Or the smell.
As I got up, Angela said through a mouthful of biscuit, “That’s Sylvie.”
Sylvie greeted me on my doorstep by handing me a large bin bag. “For you,” she said as she swept past me and halted in the hallway. “Oh my,” she murmured. “Oh my.”
I turned, my arms full of black plastic, to find her gazing up at my chandelier and the sweep of the staircase. “Angela was right,” she observed. “This is a treasure trove. Oh, I’m going to enjoy this.”
Sylvie was a successful interior designer and also taught design at Chelsea College of Arts. A couple of times she’d mentioned in the park that she might come round and give me a few pointers, but I’d mostly dismissed the idea, as now I knew she did it for a living, it seemed an effrontery to expect her to do it for me for free. But, as Angela lounged in the doorway to the kitchen, her mouth still full of biscuit, Sylvie turned to her and exclaimed, “My dear, you were entirely right. This is wonderful. What I could do with this space!”
“Told you so,” drawled Angela. “What’s in the bag?”
“Oh, it’s a present for Missy—for Bobby really.” Sylvie ran a finger down the banister. “From the dog walkers. They had a collection for you.”
Opening up the bag, I looked inside. At first it looked like an enormous pillow, soft and luxuriously fleecy, but as it fell to the floor I saw it was a dog bed.
“Cool,” said Otis, pushing past his mother to join us.
“That’s nice,” said Angela. Not wanting to miss out, Bobby scampered over and started to sniff the bed. She circled it once or twice, then clambered on and settled herself with a huff.
“The dog walkers got me this?” I said croakily. “Why?”
“Well, they heard you didn’t have anything, and that you were looking after Bobby as a favor to Angela and her friend, and they thought you’d like it. One of them gets a discount at some posh pet shop in Highgate.” Sylvie sounded completely unconcerned, as if strangers bought one another expensive gifts every day. To hide my confusion, I shifted Bobby off and took it through to the living room. Picking up the stinky throw, I stuffed it in the empty bin bag and put the new bed down in its place. Bobby immediately lay down in it again, uttering a huge sigh. Within seconds she was snoring with one eye open.
“She likes it,” said Angela.
I stared at Bobby and the bed. “Will you . . . tell them thank you from me?” I asked
Sylvie gruffly. “It’s lovely.”
“You can tell them yourself,” returned Sylvie, now wandering round the living room. “Good Lord, this is amazing.”
“Needs brightening up,” said Angela. “It’s a bit of a mausoleum.”
Still overwhelmed, I found myself saying: “There are some things. Up in the attic.” All three of them turned to me expectantly. I started to regret it, but they’d bought me a present and were eating my biscuits and filling my empty home, so . . . “There are quite a lot of things up in the attic,” I said again. “They might be useful. I could show you.”
“Cool,” said Otis again. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 15
Leo and I did intend to do the place up a little, make it our own. But by the time the sale went through and we’d moved in, I was so heavily pregnant that beyond shifting our furniture around and repainting a room in time for Alistair’s arrival, Miss Crawshay’s house stayed the same. Leo had his new job at University College London, and I had children to look after and a household to run—that was what one did in those days. Everything else fell by the wayside.
We bought the house in 1964 with the proceeds from the sale of our Cambridge cottage off Jesus Green, and the money my mother left me. The year before, Henry, my brother, had died very suddenly—a heart attack, like Fa-Fa. We were both hit very hard by it, but a light faded in Mama. And then she wrote me a letter: Darling, there’s no easy way to tell you this, but I rather think I have cancer. Always very sure of her own opinions, she didn’t bother with an official diagnosis, and I don’t think she even minded that much. When Henry died, all the fight went out of her. She was so far along by the time she told me that she was already very ill indeed, and didn’t want me to see her, but I went anyway, and Aunt Sibby and I fussed over her as her light went out.