A Dog Called Perth

by Peter Martin

  21

  IT IS USELESS TO COMPLAIN of all those months we spent in Virginia without Perth. Life was crammed with new experiences and the nine months flew by. Andrew and Claire grew up a good deal that year. They never forgot Perth, but America was full of excitement for them, especially at Colonial Williamsburg, the eighteenth-century outdoor museum where they saw early American history brought to life in hundreds of intriguing ways. Pottery, shoes and boots, candles, garden tools, musical instruments and much more were all made before their eyes in architecturally authentic wooden-frame houses and shops. For two children who had grown up in a cottage built just about the time Christopher Columbus was discovering “America,” these buildings did not seem that antique, but they were charmed by people dressed up in eighteenth-century clothing and the feeling of being lifted out of the twentieth century. It was like walking into a storybook.

  It was for me, too. The College of William and Mary is a venerable institution, the second oldest university in America. The Wren Building, where I taught, is the oldest academic building in the country. My office, a separate “kitchen” dating from the late seventeenth century, is the most ancient existing academic office in North America. I got a bit fed up with tourists who kept coming by, peeking in and asking me how old the building was, whether George Washington had ever walked in it, whether Thomas Jefferson had slept there. But it was all fun. I played on the faculty tennis team, gave Shakespeare lectures to schools throughout Tidewater Virginia, and even ran in several thirteen-mile half-marathons.

  Still, we pined for Perth. While all this was going on, three thousand miles away she stayed healthy and, according to Barbara, seemed even to enjoy her time at Hollow Farm Kennels. Barbara saw to it that she had plenty to eat and plenty of exercise. She was an artist with Perth, perfectly in tune with her moods and temperament. Perth loved her. They were in many ways very similar, two older ladies with strong ideas about how life should be lived, in no doubt about whom they liked and disliked and not the slightest bit reluctant to tell them so. Perth was single-minded, even there. Early on, she claimed the fifth or end run in the “dormitory” as her own. If Barbara ever happened to put a visiting dog in the fifth run while Perth was out in the yard, on her return Perth would stubbornly and quietly take up a position in front of that run and refuse to budge until the interloper was evicted. Make no mistake about it, Barbara had fallen in love with Perth.

  When we boarded the plane in May to return to England, my mind jerked back guiltily to those painful times many years earlier when leaving America meant abandoning Perth for months. But flying out of America now meant a joyful return to her after our longest separation in her long life. In a few hours we would be reunited with her in Appletree Cottage and she would be at large again, reborn in the cradle of greenness of our adopted country. She was now seventeen but surely she could pick up where she left off. Or could she? What would she be like after ten months of being pent up? Would she be her old self or had these months turned her into an old dog?

  We drove into Bury and made straight for the kennel. Barbara greeted the four of us in her dressing gown. She looked a sight. We were a little taken aback, as we had become used to everyone in Williamsburg always dressing so neatly and crisply. There was none of Bury’s rural roughness there. She was unsentimental in welcoming us but delighted for Perth’s sake. There were no massive hugs, just light kisses on the cheeks.

  “This is a golden day for your lovely beagle,” she said. “You’re not going to leave again next week, are you, or next month? I’ll strike you off my list of desirables if you do. She’s been wonderful, a real trooper. A bit stiffer in the joints, but some good running will put that right. Hang on, and I’ll get her.”

  Perth stuck her nose out of the barn door and trotted out. Andrew saw her first and rushed to her, meeting her halfway across the yard in a blur of joy. The rest of us followed. I had never seen her looking better. Her coat was shiny, her chest white, her body slim. She howled constantly. Barbara watched it all amused and immensely satisfied.

  “Barbara, she looks fantastic,” I shouted in the middle of it all. “I can’t thank you enough for caring for her—but what’s more important, for loving her. She’ll live a long time still.” Andrew and Claire both stepped up to Barbara and shook her hand.

  “Thank you, Miss Stapeley, for making Perth look so good,” Andrew said.

  When we walked into the garden of Appletree Cottage, my emotions came rushing on. Back at last! Everything was so beautiful. This was our only home. It took no time at all for us all to pick up our lives in Bury, and Perth promptly launched herself into the green world. It was late spring, the new roses were blooming, lambs and calves were luxuriating in the freshness of the season, and there was so much for her to see and do. She stretched her legs and called upon long-unused muscles to propel her once again through the acres of fragrant Sussex earth.

  Barbara was right, however. She did seem stiffer and she moved more slowly. She was still gone most mornings, but she covered less ground. Her spirit was as willing as ever, but her body was weaker. It seemed to me impossible, though, a contradiction of the elements that made up her being, that she could ever quit or stop. She would probably be running until the moment she stopped breathing. In human years, she was already the equivalent of 119, like one of those Old Testament matriarchs who at enormous ages still walked through the deserts of the Middle East looking for the Promised Land. Perth long ago had found her Promised Land and was still investing it with new meaning. She knew every building, hedge, path, lane, hill, farm and garden in it. It seemed a world without end.

  Winter came on early that year. It reminded us of Perth’s last months in quarantine. In November there were already hard frosts, as well as dustings of snow. At eighteen Perth felt it severely. She began to hobble over the frozen grass. Barbara told us it was arthritis. For the first time she had difficulty climbing up and down the four steps from the kitchen out to the garden. Nor could she jump up on our bed anymore. We took to lifting her up whenever she needed it. The alarming thing was that at odd moments she also began to twitch from her shoulders up. She looked as if she were having minor epileptic fits. “Come and get Perth,” Jenny Dover called one day from across the lane, “she’s having one of her fits in my garden.”

  Everything seemed to come upon her at once. Her eyesight began to fail. And at night she started being incontinent. We closed her in the kitchen with her basket so she could not foul up the carpets. She tried hard to control herself. If one of us was able to wake up by five in the morning to let her out, she was fine. But if we delayed until seven or so, we would come down to a puddle on the kitchen floor and often also a bowel movement. As the months passed, this became more regular. She would lie in her basket and look up at us apologetically as we opened the kitchen door in the morning and discovered the mess. We simply cleaned it up and there would be no more trouble until the next morning.

  One day Andrew overheard me say in an unguarded moment, “You know, Cindy, if this continues, will we be able to keep her?” It was at breakfast, and I had just cleaned up a particularly messy floor as Perth slumbered in her basket.

  Cindy put her hand on mine and said simply and quietly, “You know perfectly well we would do anything for Perth as long as we need to. We might as well cut off our hands or legs as part with her.” I put my hand on hers. We looked at this remarkable dog in her basket, both overwhelmed with emotion. If only she could live forever.

  Early next morning when I descended groggily to the kitchen to deal with the usual mess, there was a little note on the table from Andrew. It read: “Dear Mum and Dad. I’ll clean up Perth’s mess every morning. Don’t worry. Please don’t take her away Love, Andrew.”

  “My dear son, I love you so much,” I said to him later that day. “Perth loves you, too. You’re a dear heart to want to clean up after her. Let’s take turns, how about that? It’ll be like putting the kettle on in the morning. We won’t think anythin
g of it, we’ll just do it. We’ll never take her away, for any reason. She’ll always be here with us.” A few days later Claire wrote a similar note.

  For months after that, he dragged himself out of bed at five and cleaned up the floor, on his hands and knees with rags and a bucket of water. It was smelly and unpleasant work, but he was faithful and never missed his turn. Several mornings I found Claire on her hands and knees with him, scrubbing away silently.

  Perth’s hearing also got very bad, which made one of her last acts of heroism, if we can call it that, all the more amazing. One day Cindy and I were in our bedroom upstairs, idly chatting. Perth was on the bed with us. Suddenly, her head shot up; she looked toward the French door that overlooked the garden and fields. We had heard nothing, but she erupted into barks and howls, jumping off the bed and running to the window. Never mind her failing eyesight and hearing. There was something out there.

  I looked out just in time to see a teenage boy stealing away from our little summer chalet in the garden, heading toward the hedge at the back. He was carrying something. I ran downstairs and out of the kitchen door, and caught him halfway to the hedge. He was carrying some camera equipment we stored in the bungalow. While I kept him pinned to the ground, Cindy quickly called the police officer in the next village.

  Perth came up to us on the grass. She did not growl at the boy or bare her teeth. She just looked at him sternly. I could have left him in her safekeeping, so determined was she not to let him escape.

  I began to lecture the boy, who was no more than sixteen. “You have my dog to thank for my catching you. This could be your lucky day. If you learn your lesson, my dog’s vigilance today may keep you out of prison in the future. Where do you live?”

  “Arundel,” he answered.

  “Well, your parents won’t be very happy with you.”

  “Could you take your elbow off my face?” was all he said. He looked sourly at Perth.

  Finally, Police Constable Apps arrived, thanked me and Perth, and took the boy away. Later, we learned that PC Apps had inspected the boy’s room in Arundel and discovered a hoard of costly high-tech equipment, stolen mostly in Bury. It was all returned to its owners, a couple of whom were our delighted friends. When the word got around that Perth had been instrumental in catching the thief, for a while she became the village heroine.

  That was an encouraging interlude. But Perth continued to get weaker as spring approached. She even stopped her morning expeditions. She hobbled everywhere. Her eyes were looking more haggard, her coat grayer.

  Then the unimaginable happened. The children were appalled when I told them. So was Barbara.

  “Barbara,” I started in, trembling, “you’ll think I’m insane, and I probably am, but I’ve been asked to write a book about Virginia history and I need to go back there for another nine months.” I was standing in her farmyard, defenseless. She just stared at me. “I must do this, Barbara, and I can’t leave Cindy and the kids here. Cindy and I have never been parted from one another for more than three weeks.”

  “But it’s all right to be parted from Perth, is it? At her age and in her condition? If you leave her again, it’ll kill her. I’m sure of it. She’s eighteen, for heaven’s sake.”

  Cindy and I were weighed down with a sense of wrong-doing as we tried to convince ourselves that we must go to Virginia. Everything beautiful and stable at home taunted us, accusing us of being unfaithful, not just to Perth but also to our family life in Appletree Cottage and the village. To abandon Perth again seemed like leaving one’s aged mother in a nursing home while one went off to have a great time in a foreign land. But how often did someone invite me to write a book? I was not going to Virginia for fun. And it was going to be hard work. Our village friends envied our journey, but could anyone seriously think that we relished leaving our corner of England for the New World again?

  After weeks of indecision, we decided we had to go. But what would happen to Perth? To put her in Barbara’s kennel now, in her state, would surely kill her, as well as bring her much suffering. The dismal fact was that she seemed not to have much longer to live anyway. It would be so cruel. And if she did survive the year, in what condition would she be when we returned home? How long would she last after that? Probably not very long. With questions like these, we inched closer every day to the inescapable, anguished conclusion that we would have to have the vet put her to sleep. The night we decided on that, I crept up to my study-garret and cried.

  I could not bear to have the children know about this as it was happening, though. Or was it that I was a coward and lacked the backbone to see to it myself? Whatever the real reason, we took the problem to Barbara. I explained to her how we felt and asked her if she would take Perth to the vet once we were gone.

  “No, Peter, I couldn’t do it. I can see, of course, why you think it would be a kindness to Perth to have her put down, but this is something you have to do.” I repeated that it was because of the kids that we wanted it done after they were far away. Gradually and very reluctantly, she resigned herself to the idea. “This is not something I would do for anyone else, but I know Perth so well that I will do it. I’ll clean and groom her, and then take her to the vet.”

  The spring and summer passed sadly. There was a heaviness in our hearts. It began to feel like the end, the Indian summer of our lifetime with Perth. We had never seen such a beautiful English summer. The rain fell at night and the sun shone brightly by day. Everything was lush and fertile, and the long evenings were tinged with that unmatchable glowing pink twilight that one sees commonly in Britain. Cindy and I took long, slow walks with Perth in the evenings, along the river, up in the hills, along the barley and wheat fields. I carried her much of the way.

  The day arrived when we had to depart. The fields had recently been harvested, leaving bare stubble, much of which would be burned by the farmers to enhance the fields’ fertility. The dark barrenness where waving yellow grain used to be matched the brooding emptiness of our spirits. Nature seemed to us to be shriveling and closing up.

  At the very last moment, as we were driving out of the village, we stopped at the Hollow Farm Kennel. Andrew and Claire hugged Perth tearfully. I could hardly take her from them. I had told Andrew about Barbara putting Perth to sleep, so his feelings came from deep within him. Claire knew none of this, and in her innocence lamented the loss of Perth for just a while. As for Cindy, she wept openly. Claire could not understand why she broke down so completely. I quickly took Perth and carried her through the gate into Barbara’s farmyard. I smelled her groggy-doggie smell for the last time. I felt her smooth ears and soft coat. I rubbed her shoulders as for eighteen years she had loved me to do. I placed my nose on her muzzle and looked deep into her eyes.

  “Bye, old girl. You’re the most glorious dog the world has ever seen. Thanks, dear dogge, for the life you’ve given us. I love you so much, dear Perth. Can you forgive me for the nasty things I’ve done to you? You deserved a much better master.”

  She looked at me intensely, longingly. The love in her eyes reached deep down inside of me. I wet her with my tears. She licked my hand and face a couple of times. I hugged her hard and long. Then I knocked loudly on the door. Barbara appeared and I placed Perth gently in her arms. Barbara could see I was an emotional wreck and knew enough not to say anything. We just looked at each other. Perth looked at me, too. I kissed her soft brown head once more, turned quickly and walked away. There was no sound behind me from Perth as I left.

  22

  IASK THE READER to travel to Virginia with us, to picture us again in that distant world, to think of Perth as we did from three thousand miles away. There was heavy snow that year, so that we felt further removed than ever from our green Sussex. Cindy and I often looked at each other with the knowledge that for all but one of the twenty years of our marriage we had lived with Perth. We could not imagine the next twenty years without her. We had lived half our lives with Perth.

  Christmas came and passed
and the Virginia spring soon assaulted us with a spectacular display of dogwood, redbud, magnolia, apple and cherry tree blossoms. It was lovely but I was not seduced. I had done my research and was eager to return home in June. We were all aching to get back. We had had eight months to get used to the idea of Perth’s death and had even told Claire about it. I sent Barbara a large, illustrated coffee-table book about dogs for Christmas. But she had not written back. She had felt the dreariness and gloom of Perth’s fate and to write to us with the details was probably the last thing she wanted to do. One day in April a letter finally arrived from her. I still have the letter, so I can let Barbara speak for herself:

  Dear Peter and Cindy.

  My Christmas letter to you came back yesterday from the States, I suppose because I sent it to the wrong street. It was a long explanatory letter about Perth, also a letter of very many thanks for that lovely book you sent me. You must have thought it was extraordinary that I did not ac-knowledge it! The book is greatly prized.

  Now, about Perth. When you went and left me to get the job done, each night I thought I would phone for the vet the next morning. Then one night I came to a decision, and that was that if she became ill I would call the vet—not to have her treated but to have her put to sleep—and in the meantime I would keep her free of charge for you. Since then she has never had a day’s illness! And with the weather getting better she will be able to sit in the sun more.

  When do you return? I feel that she will still be with us! Is that against your wish? If it is I feel that you will have to do something yourself. I just can’t bring myself to do it when she is quite well. She has a heat lamp at night if ever the weather is cold; otherwise there is nothing unusual about her!

  I hope that you are all well and enjoying life. Again very many thanks for the book.