A Dog Called Perth

by Peter Martin

  Father, mother, son and Perth were waiting in the drafty, cold house. What had looked like a lakeside paradise in the lovely autumn now seemed a lonely, dark spot at the end of the earth. There was a feeling of melancholy about the place. Alice went in while the Peters waited outside for everyone to come out. When they did, followed by Perth, there was a great commotion. Perth was all over them in an instant.

  Standing in the driveway, they got down to business. Robert held Perth, dejectedly, and said nothing. Mr. Desmond told them everything that had happened: how Perth had arrived, how they had fallen in love with her and her spirited ways, how she was almost put to sleep by the blustery owner of the camp, how they found the poster, and how he and his son did not want to let her go. Cindy’s father gave him a check for $100 and thanked him profusely for saving Perth. He told them about us, where Perth had run away from, how we had looked for her for three weeks in August, and that it had been for us like losing a child. I think it must have made the lonely father and son feel better about giving her up. Then Alice pulled a surprise out of her car, a little six-month-old abandoned beagle puppy. She handed the puppy to Robert, who cradled her in his arms.

  “Robert,” she said to him, “this isn’t Perth, but it’s a beagle and it looks like her. You must take good care of her the way you did Perth and love her for many years to come.” The boy was overjoyed. He took the puppy into the house, then came out and gave Perth a huge hug. His father was sadder and took a longer time saying goodbye to Perth. It was obvious that Perth loved him very much. But when Cindy’s mother opened the door, Perth hopped in straightaway and sat there on the big rear leather seat, waiting with quiet dignity, as if she knew exactly where she was going. Alice, the heroine of this struggle, hugged the Peters and then they were off.

  They drove nonstop through the snowy landscape straight to downtown Boston, into the parking garage below their towering apartment block in the Prudential Center. From there they warily took Perth in the elevator up to their apartment on the twentieth floor—nervously, because dogs were absolutely prohibited anywhere in the building. Perth was quietly confident the whole way. In the space of a few short hours she had been lifted out of an obscure camp in the backwoods of Vermont into the heart of one of the most cosmopolitan, affluent, modern city environments in the world.

  As she walked through the door of the apartment, instead of the bare wooden floor planks of Emile Desmond’s house, which she had grown to love, she stepped onto plush wall-to-wall carpeting that spread itself across the rooms like a smooth lawn. She trod upon it curiously, in and out of rooms, fascinated as she might have been by a magic carpet. It seemed to never end. Instead of rough plywood walls with murky window panes looking out on fluttering birch leaves and mighty conifers, all around her were immaculate white plastered walls with huge plate glass windows through which, by jumping up on a chair, she gazed out on the cityscape of Boston, with its tall skyscrapers and canyon streets far below. In the distance was Massachusetts Bay. On the other side of the apartment still more panoramic windows let in views of the distant landscape outside the city, in the direction of Vermont. Instead of rickety chairs with torn fabric and white stuffing popping out, she sat like the Queen of Sheba’s honorary palace pet on broad armchairs with plumped-up, immaculate cushions, smelling of strange, fine fabric. The beds were like football fields. She could climb under the covers of one of them and never come into contact with anyone else in there. Had she awakened from a dream or fallen into one?

  The next day, while Cindy’s father bustled about arranging for her to be flown to Florida in a portable kennel, Perth stayed in the apartment and waited. They ventured out only twice, risking discovery in the elevator as they descended for walks on the teeming sidewalks below. By nightfall, everything was prepared for her return, and early the next morning before dawn they took the elevator to the parking garage in the basement. Then into the car for the drive to the airport. In the cargo department, the Peters hugged her and she walked unhesitatingly into her cage, without a flicker of protest. Nobody can doubt that she knew who would be at the other end of the flight. The Peters watched from the departure lounge as the plane with its treasured cargo rose gracefully into the sky.

  11

  PERTH HAD MADE HER BREAK for freedom in Vermont and survived. It was time for us to make our break from Florida, but when and to where remained to be seen. Reunited with her after months of painful separation, we knew only that a new beginning was in the air.

  Florida’s ocean still thrilled the three of us and we made good use of it. It continued to amaze us that so many Floridians, including people who had recently taken up residence in the state, turned their noses up at the tourists from the north. They called them “snow birds” because they fled from the snow down to the sun and ocean. Smugly, the thin-blooded residents avoided the ocean, thinking it beneath them to do such a “touristy” thing as swim in it. It was much too cold, they said, too rough. You must be crazy, they told us, to swim in it in December. But we thought the madness was theirs and we swam with undiminishing pleasure. Existence in Florida never seemed richer than when the three of us cavorted on the beach, Perth disappearing into the bush while Cindy and I rode the waves in the frothy surf. We could do it for hours.

  Even with the ocean and sunshine, however, there seemed little reason for us to stay on in Florida. It was dull. After her misadventures in the mysterious Vermont hinterland, Perth also thought it was stale. Except for her hunting sessions through the palmetto scrub and secret gardens of the idle rich, she had nothing to do. Life seemed to be passing us by. An ocean of events during the turbulent late sixties had come and gone, but down in the land of milk and honey we had felt scarcely a ripple. Before us spread an enervating world of lotus blossoms, a land of forgetfulness and stagnation. We all had to get out.

  Another summer rolled up soon enough. We had rented a stone cottage up on the rocky Maine coast and were aching to get there. This would be the summer of all summers, with no travel, no pressing research, no bed and breakfasts, no anxiety of separation. Just wild seagulls screaming over the North Atlantic, the waves crashing against the rocks, the brightest sunshine in the clearest air imaginable, red lobster beckoning to be eaten on the rocks with melted butter, lots of swimming, delicious cool evenings by the surf, saltwater taffy to eat—it was a northern paradise. We would watch the passing of the hours and days without stress or worry. It would be Perth’s new frontier. She would explore unfettered. Catching the excitement of our talk and preparations, she was impatient to be off, breathing hard, restless, her eyes wider open than usual. This was more like it. We might all get lost up there and never find our way back to Florida.

  We aimed the car north and shot up along the east coast, churning up the terrain along the shortest and fastest route I could find. We wanted to enter that cottage and stay there. Nothing would distract us. We stopped in Boston only long enough to pick up Cindy’s parents, who were spending the first week with us. They had a long love affair with Maine and, having rescued Perth from Vermont and forged their bond with her, they wanted to spend some time with her too.

  When we arrived, Perth immediately disappeared into the coastal landscape and for the first few days we scarcely saw her. The cottage was perfect rusticity and picturesqueness. We all relaxed. Nobody told anyone else what to do or not to do. This was how it went for about a week, then suddenly I had to drive south to Boston to see somebody. I stayed overnight in Cindy’s parents’ apartment.

  I was brushing my teeth the next morning when the phone rang. It was an English voice from a college in England. I had met the man the previous summer.

  “Dr. Martin, are you still interested in teaching here?” he asked. “We have a sudden vacancy in our department that we’d like to ask you to fill.” I took the toothbrush out of my mouth and tried to compose myself and say something coherent. “The only thing is, we need to decide on your appointment very quickly,” he added.

  “Yes, I am
definitely still interested,” I replied, trying to sound as matter-of-fact as I could. “How did you ever find my number here?”

  “We had it in our files. We tried your number in Florida first. Is it, then, an offer you’d like to accept?”

  “Must I answer that at this precise moment? Could I ring you back in a couple of hours? My wife is in Maine and of course I need to discuss it with her first.” I almost added that I needed to consult my dog as well. Images of Perth racing across England’s green and pleasant land pleasingly flickered in my mind.

  “Call me in a couple of days,” he answered.

  He hung up and I immediately called Maine and spoke to Cindy.

  “You’d better sit down to hear this,” I began. “I just got a call from southern England, Sussex to be exact. They offered me a job, to begin this October. What do you think?”

  For a few seconds there was silence. Then she caught her breath and shouted, “Yippee.” In the twinkling of an eye we decided to accept. I phoned England back, and in a few seconds I had secured a teaching position in my father’s native land, the country that, through its literature, I knew best. I lived in America, but for years my imagination had dwelled in England. Now my body as well as my soul would live there. By the time I put down the phone, I was already transported out of my corporeal American existence into a land of dreams. The world around me suddenly changed, imbued with a glow of hope and anticipation. Everything seemed better, lighter, charged with promise.

  Was this offer of an English lectureship going to launch an expatriate chapter in our lives? It could well be, I thought. But there was lots to do. We had to rent our house, but we could not afford to drive back to Florida to arrange it. That would have to be done by post and phone. We could also get by in England with what we had packed for a summer. As for my job in Florida, a quick call to the university and I had secured a leave of absence for two years.

  The main problem was Perth. After the initial euphoria, it hit us that sending her across the Atlantic was not that straightforward. The paperwork, shots, airline arrangements and transport cage were trouble enough, but where would we send her? And on that point our naiveté came painfully face to face with harsh reality.

  “You can’t fly with your dog on the same flight,” the British consulate in New York told us on the phone. “In fact, you won’t be permitted to pick her up at London airport. You won’t even be allowed to see her.”

  “I beg your pardon,” I replied limply. “Why not?”

  “Haven’t you heard of British quarantine laws?”

  Embarrassed, I admitted I had not. “What are they?”

  “No dog—and I mean no dog, not even the Queen’s, if she had a foreign dog—is allowed into Britain just like that. Any dog brought in from another country has to spend six months quarantined in an approved kennel on British soil, a kennel designated for that purpose. And you have to pay for it, I’m afraid.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “That’s the law. The reason for it is to keep rabies out of the United Kingdom. The UK is the only part of Europe without rabies, and the government wants to keep it that way There are absolutely no exceptions. I can help you make the arrangements, if you like, to place your dog in a kennel near where you’ll be living. All quarantine kennels more or less cost the same. But in light of this information, you may just want to leave your dog in America, give her to friends or family. We advise it, in fact. It’s better for the dog.”

  I felt like clubbing him. “But why six months, for heaven’s sake? I can’t put my dog in a kennel for six months!”

  “Exactly. I recommend leaving her here. You can get a nice dog in England and, believe me, your dog will be much happier here than in a kennel. And think of the money you’ll save. It’ll cost you about forty pounds (about sixty dollars) per month to quarantine her, not to mention the cost of shipping her over.”

  I hung up. Since leaving Perth behind was out of the question, we had some hard thinking to do. Should we take this job, after all? On top of everything else, an expense like this would play havoc with our finances. My salary in England was going to be less than in Florida anyway. In our more pessimistic moments, this is what the picture looked like: we would be leaving a nice home in subtropical Florida with all modern conveniences, a good salary and a life in which Perth played a major part, in order to take a job at a lower salary and live in rented accommodation in a cold and wet environment where we would be forcefully separated from our beloved dog, paying dearly for the privilege besides. Not only that, she would have to live in a cold prison, surrounded by cement and wire. Cruel, selfish, and foolish, surely that is what we would be if we went ahead.

  That was the bleak view. We had to think ahead. We could probably survive the expense of quarantine, and then what would we have? After six months of hell, Perth would be free to run in England. She would have before her the pastoral green fields, meadows, hills and gardens of bucolic Sussex instead of the sterile and constricted mansion gardens along the Florida beach. There would be endless wildlife she could track, chase and howl at. We would certainly have a garden with a lovely, soft lawn on which she could lie. We would all be together at last, permanently, with no need to be separated in the summer, for it seemed impossible that we would ever return to hot America during the vacation. And Cindy and I would lap it all up as much as Perth would, walking on the picturesque South Downs, taking tea in the garden, appreciating the greenness of the landscape throughout the year and enjoying a culture that was more congenial. All around us would be the world that I studied, taught and wrote about. Surely six months of hardship were worth it.

  I remember on one of those windy last days in Maine, alone with Perth on the rocky coast with the roar of waves beating angrily around us, asking her what we should do. We had our ways of communicating. I told her gravely, in a falling, confidential voice that it meant six months of imprisonment for her. She shook the specter off. She looked beautiful. Her eyes and briskness of movement spoke of adventure, going forward, taking risks, not looking back. The briny water sparkled on her brown head, which she held high into the wind. I knew we had to go.

  12

  SINCE AT THIS POINT CINDY had even fewer doubts about moving to England than I did, we set about robustly making arrangements. The main thing was the kennel to which Perth was to be sent. The closest one to the small market town of Arundel where I would be teaching was in Alton, Hampshire, a drive of about ninety minutes. Quarantine kennels were few and far between. One or two that were closer were all booked up.

  “What does it matter how far the kennel is from where you live?” I remember the nasty man from the consulate saying to me. “You’ll probably rarely see her anyway. Dog owners like you come in here all the time moaning about how cruel the system is, how they must have their dogs with them in Britain, how they’ll visit their dogs every week in quarantine, and so on. And then they end up seldom making the effort to see them. The dogs are the real sufferers.” Maybe he was right in general, I thought, but he could not speak for us.

  Once her place in the kennel was arranged, we booked her on a flight in August. The consulate man was right, we quickly discovered. We could not fly on the same plane as her. So one Monday morning we drove her to Logan airport in Boston and assigned her to the cargo department, far away from the main passenger terminals. Perth looked chipper and ready to get into her cage, trusting us. We were not as happy as she was, though, because we knew she was headed for another cage in England. Nor were we sure when we would see her again. Our flight was the following week. We hugged her, rubbed our heads against hers, smelled her clean beagle smell again, and walked away. She made no sound as we left.

  Her flight was straight to Heathrow airport, London, where she was kept in her cage until picked up later in the day by an employee from the kennel in Alton. He slid the cage with her in it into the rear of his white van, having seen to the considerable official paperwork. Perth did not set foot on Engl
ish soil until she was released from that cage into her larger cage at the kennel. But there was no soil even there, of course. Just a cement floor. She saw no trees and smelled no flowers. She was handled like a convicted criminal who is taken directly from the courtroom to prison. And the kennel shared a feature with a prison in that it was completely surrounded by eight-foot concrete walls.

  Her confusion must have been profound. Instead of being greeted by us at the airport and taken to a comfortable home where she could begin her new life of discovery in England’s soft greenness, she found herself lying quietly on a cold cement floor in a cage next to many other cages containing howling, yapping, snarling, defiant dogs of all descriptions. It was bedlam. She had never known anything like it. Where were her master and mistress? It would only be a matter of time before we came to deliver her from this hell, she must have thought. But night came, and then the morning after, and there was no sign of us.

  We were still in Boston, waiting for our flight in a few days, unaware of her caged hardship. When we thought of a long-term kennel in England, we pictured a type of dog hotel, not a high-security animal prison. So except for the dismal thought that Perth would be in the kennel for six months, we did not imagine or brood over how she would be treated. The irony did occur to me, though, that a year earlier we had been stuck in England miserable over Perth’s disappearance in the Vermont hinterland; now we were stuck in Boston and she was incarcerated in England, heaven only knew where. Every imagined paradise has its disfigured underbelly, and Perth had found one of England’s in a matter of an hour.