by Gerald Wixey
‘Kathy, don’t end it over the phone – please, meet me somewhere and tell me then, please.’ Sensing an unwilling change in her, ‘Somewhere public – anywhere… Please.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘Kathy – Abbey Meadows tomorrow morning, Sunday morning and it’ll be full of dog walkers and pitch and putters. Please. Tell me then and I’ll walk away and never bother you again.’
Seconds of silence, options weighed up, before she went for it, ‘Not there – outside the main gate at work. Ten, will you be up on a Sunday by then?’
‘See you at ten.’
‘I’m so sorry, try not to be angry – I can’t cope, Stu, please don’t be angry with me.’
I tried to calm down, ‘Don’t worry – I’ll see you at ten.’ I hammered the receiver down and stared hard at my old man as he came through the door.
Dad gestured behind him towards the bar. ‘I’m busy out here, got a minute.’ He frowned at me, ‘What’s up with you, you miserable bugger?’
‘Why don’t you just fuck off!’
He smiled, good man, always one to appreciate a spirited response, my old man never took it personally. ‘Bad news? Be like me and don’t answer the phone – c’mon, give me a hand.’
Chapter 11
1960
We walked up the road to school, peeled off and went into Mr Goldstone’s shop. The shop-keeper’s mood mirrored the weather, calm and bright, but somehow he managed to maintain his customary solemn, self-effacing manner. He glanced across at us from behind the scales and gave us the once-over – new uniform, long trousers, white shirt, ties and blazer.
‘Very smart,’ was the verdict.
‘Kenny isn’t going to be there, is he?’ Declan said this addressing his shoes, just an absent-minded, unconscious thought that bubbled to the surface now and again.
Mr. Goldstone’s hair was smartly parted in the centre, a nondescript face – a solicitor or an estate agent’s face – looked confused; did Declan want confirmation or sweets? He said, ‘New school – are you looking forward to it?’ Declan shook his head, I passed my thrupence over and we left.
‘Careful crossing the road, now,’ followed us out of the shop.
I scanned the vastness of a new playground. My thoughts bounced about, will the dog be all right? Then I weighed up Declan’s absent-minded question. Where was Kenny? At first all I could see was a mass of dithering first years. Apparently aimless in their movements, like small wildebeest nervously waiting for their turn to cross a wide and dangerous river. All except for Patrick, who stood imperiously in one corner, clearly not nervous, but plainly uninterested – I don’t want to be here. We wandered over and stood with him, an unspeaking and uncomfortable trio.
‘Where’s Kenny?’
‘Shut up.’ Patrick snapped at Declan.
But it didn’t take many minutes, someone was staring at me close by. A peripheral figure at the moment, a much bigger boy, I knew – here it comes.
He rammed into me, caught hold of my tie and tugged hard.
‘Why did you do that?’ A total waste of a sensible question. Kenny held on to my tie, confused by the reasonableness in my voice. He wanted to hit me, I’d turned into Poland and he’d become the massed ranks of the third Reich, looking for any excuse to attack.
My eyes found Patrick, usually imperturbable. He looked as apprehensive as I felt. Kenny caught hold of my lapels and pulled me close. ‘I’m going to fuck you – if you’re in this playground again…’ He left the threat hanging in the air. I burned within, desperate to lash out, but firmly hobbled. I studied the face and big spot on his nose, unable to take my eyes away from it. I wanted to squeeze it.
Kenny struggled for words, eventually he said ‘Your mum’s a stuck up tart.’
What?
I tried to be reasonable, ‘Why don’t you pick on someone your own age?’
That made him smile. He smelt of fried egg and instant coffee. He stared for a long time – finally, as he released me, I said the wrong thing, driven by an impulse to punch him, I settled for an impetuous insult.
‘Fuck off, spot nose.’
My calculation seemed sound, an insult and then leg it – I could outrun him – no doubt about that. But within two paces my legs were kicked out from under me, I crash landed onto my knees and momentum rolled me onto my back. His knee came down hard onto my chest. I saw a fist coming down, a roundhouse punch, the inside of the fist going to make contact somewhere between my chin and temple.
A freeze frame shot, or something from match of the day in slow motion. I had all this time to make calculations. Just a wild, round arm swing and he used the inside of the hand, under normal circumstances, a punch easily avoidable. Blows like that don’t even hurt like one delivered with the knuckle. He didn’t know how to fight properly; I felt sorry for him.
The imperfectly executed blow drove my head back into the unforgiving tarmac, my head spun and the pain began to spread across my head.
‘You so much as look at me again…’ Once again, a threat left hanging, but Kenny glanced around, tears flecking his cheeks. A playground full of faces stared at him. Kenny stood and walked slowly away.
Patrick and Declan never moved, Kathy stood alongside Bridget, came over and asked, ‘Are you all right?’ She touched my swollen cheekbone – No, I’m not! Concentrating on not crying, I just nodded as she said, ‘Your knee’s bleeding.’
My new trousers had a four-inch rip in them. I stared after her.
Patrick came over, pale and perplexed.
‘Tell Harry – he’ll kick the fuck out of him.’ I shook my head, running my fingers back and forwards over the impacted spot, still saying nothing. ‘Tell Harry what Kenny Catmore did – tell him!’
I stared back at Patrick as the bell went for our first assembly. I thought about finding something heavy and smashing it into the back of Kenny’s head.
He came after me during every break; he’d hit me, kick me and knee me. I tried to fight back; once I hit him with a nice hook, but this only provoked a furious response in someone much bigger than me. I became his punch bag that day. I couldn’t see, but I knew my arms and legs were covered in bruises. If my old man saw them, he’d murder Kenny. Or beat him to a pulp, at least.
My trouble was, I refused to acknowledge Kenny’s supremacy; rejected the chance to appear inferior. Antagonistic when I needed to be passive. I knew all about him, I knew everything about Kenny, his mum and my uncle, and he knew that I knew and it made him hit me all the harder.
I followed him home after school, comforted by the thought that for Kenny, going home was no sanctuary. I tracked him, safe again with my old man close by. I watched Kenny glare across the road at the bespectacled shopkeeper sweeping the pavement outside. Mr Goldstone always swept at this time, talking to the schoolchildren he knew, nodding at the others. He loved talking to us, mum always said – he’s such a sweet man.
He looked across at Kenny, ‘Hello Kenny, it’s a grand afternoon.’
Kenny said nothing, sniffed the air, smelt something offensive, exaggerated the look, what’s that smell?
Kenny’s expression was obvious and I watched the shopkeeper’s face, Mr. Goldstone just smiled, brought his beaming face around to me. ‘He’s an angry young man today.’
And we both knew why; I hoped he was going home to cry. I was going home to a sick dog. Dad had carted him off to the vet’s earlier in the day. Mum told me the news that his kidneys had packed up. The vet had shrugged and said that there was nothing he could do and suggested that they put him to sleep there and then. Dad brought the dog home to let me say goodbye and Dudley just sat in his basket; no rushing, a little gentle panting, no wagging greeting. He just lay there and stared up at me.
I asked mum, ‘When’s the vet coming?’
Mum said, ‘Soon.’ She sighed and looked at the clock, ‘Fifteen minutes or so.’
‘Can I sit in the car with Dudley?’ When the
dog heard the car, his eyes opened, his ears straightened and he stared unblinking at me.
Mum nodded, ‘It’s a lovely idea.’
‘Do you want to go in the car?’
Yes please.
He struggled to his feet, tail slowly sweeping; he followed me unsteadily, out to the black Ford Pilot, scrambling up and across the bench seat, adopting the position of the driver and as always, looking forwards.
I climbed in alongside and put my arm around Dudley, who looked up at me and stuck his tongue deep into my right ear, cleaning it thoroughly.
‘Well, this is better isn’t it?’ The dog nodded, but then, as if all this effort was too much trouble, he lay down, curling up, with one eye on me.
I wished I had asked my old man earlier; we could have gone for a drive. An extensively well-travelled dog, Dudley adored sitting between my old man and me – even if this involved forever ducking as my old man hurled abuse at traffic lights, or ducking again when a car or cyclist ventured too close and a fist waving out of the window at the offender; ‘Get out of the way you dim fuckwit!’
After the brief outburst, Dudley glanced across to me; I leant over and whispered in the dog’s ear, ‘I know, he’s crazy, my old man’s crazy.’
We both laughed. Despite being very nearly all over, he looked calm enough, I asked him, ‘Had enough old fella?’
He nodded – all too much for me.
‘But just remember, everything will be all right, you’ll be chasing around up there soon.’ His eyes went skywards, ‘And I’ll have no one to moan at.’
I cried and put my head on the dog, who whimpered and soothed me. Sort yourself out, everything will be fine, listen to me, I’m all right, it’s a land of a thousand arseholes up there. A permanent life of chasing sleepy rabbits and the cats have no claws.
I must have looked unconvinced, Dudley played his ace.
But most of all, if I’m a very good boy, I get a car to sleep in instead of a basket.
A Ford Pilot for a basket? Brilliant, how brilliant is that?
Ron and Kenny went past, neither said anything, both just glared.
I snapped, ‘Fuck off.’
‘What did you say?’ Ron stopped alongside the car
‘Fuck off, rat face.’
Ron’s eyes blinked twice and his cheeks expanded like he had an air line up his arse. Eventually he said. ‘You little fucker.’ It exploded from his deflating face.
Dudley’s top lip came up and in the circumstances he delivered a convincing enough growl; Ron jumped back and walked away. His cheeks bellowed in and out like a sprinters lung.
‘Well done my boy, sent the pair of them packing – again.’
He curled up… His last act of belligerence.
I thought of Grampy’s last few days with us; mum forever talking to him, whenever she said, ‘Do you remember?’ His eyes lit up and he lived for a few seconds, before his chin settled back onto his chest and his eyes went back to sleep.
I did the same to the dog, ‘Do you remember when we were sat on the back door step?’ One eye on me and alive, ‘When we set light to Declan’s trousers with his glasses – do you remember?’
Both eyes were on me, ‘You remember when Bert leant his bike against the wall?’ I glanced down at Dudley, ‘You know where this is going, don’t you?’
His head came up, a ghost of a smile at the memory of Bert, huffing and puffing, moaning and groaning, leaning his bike against the wall and then noticing us sat in his way. Patrick spotted it at once; the bike about to topple. We even tried to tell him, but Bert just grunted something about little fuckers being in front of the door. We all affected a relaxed, apathy as the bike hovered either side of its centre of balance. Apparently unable to make its mind up, finally it toppled and fell into the road.
Followed by Bert’s cry of, ‘Fuck it.’
We called him a useless fucker for the second time that day.
‘We ran off and you stayed put and growled at him, you must remember?’
His eyebrows came up – oh yes.
Our reverie was interrupted by a knock on the car door; mum and the vet. I looked from the vet, to mum, back to the dog and begged, ‘Can we do it in here? Please, he’d like that – please, mum.’
She had turned into an anxious sparrow with sharp little glances between me and the vet. I always liked him; a tall angular man with a florid complexion. Solid and dependable and, according to my old man, a typical smug pipe smoker. The vet, all business and calm sympathy said, ‘That’s a good idea, he’s comfortable…We’ll do it here.’
Dudley’s eyebrows went up again – phew.
The Vet opened the door, to be offered a paw by the dog. This newly-formed alliance surprised me; I likened it to shaking the hand of your own personal executioner. But what upset me most was Dudley’s apparent willingness to go gently into that good night.
‘Is he your dog?’
I glanced at mum, ‘Yes.’ She said, ‘It’s his dog.’
The vet caught my eye and said, ‘It won’t hurt him.’ Trying to reassure me, ‘A small jab in his paw and that’s it no pain; he’ll just drift off to sleep.’
From nowhere, he produced a small glass vial and he efficiently drew the contents into a syringe. I sobbed gently, but silently, looking from the vet to mum, wanting to scream, No! Not yet – please, not yet. The Vet pushed the needle into the back of the dog’s paw, applying steady pressure to the syringe, pushing the fluid into Dudley. The dog had suddenly found God or something; someone who had just given him a lethal injection got a kiss, a lick on the side of the face.
As he withdrew the needle, the Vet said, ‘We’ll leave you alone; in about thirty seconds he’ll be asleep.’
I heard them crunch away and held the dog’s paw. Dudley’s eyes were on me.
Thanks for letting me be done here, then his broad head dropped and his eyes glazed over.
‘No Dudley, not yet – please.’
Dudley’s eyes had clamped shut and I cried again, lowering my head onto the dog, stroking his back. Ten minutes later the vet returned, with my old man this time, hesitation imprinted across his face. I lifted my head, allowing the vet to check the dog for a non-existent pulse.
I sniffed a question at the vet, ‘What was wrong?’
‘I would think that he’d eaten something nasty.’ The vet’s eyebrows arched a touch, ‘I would have said it was atypically symptomatic of rat poisoning. Sudden kidney failure; that’s unusual in a fit dog. Do you want us to get rid of him?’ He directed this question to dad.
I snapped an imploring ‘No!’
Dad seemed relieved that I had said something; he shook his head and said, ‘No – we’ll bury him by the apple tree.’ He turned to me, ‘Unless you can think of a better spot?’
I shook my head – the tree, what could be more perfect? After all, he had lifted his leg many thousands of times against it. On hot days he lay in the shade with me, watching cats walking along the high wall that ran along the front of Crooks Terrace, waiting for the command. ‘Go on, Dudley.’
He always flew towards the cat, if he timed his jump perfectly the cat sometimes fell. On perfect days the cat fell on Dudley’s side of the wall and he’d howl and shriek and bark – heaven… And now?
We curled him into the basket and lowered him into his shady spot, a bar of chocolate alongside for his journey. I had a tight chest, a never-ending aching and a short temper, I talked to him occasionally and thought of him constantly. Later, when the cat wandered in, smart arse tail up and gloating. I shouted, ‘Go on, Dudley.’
The cat’s ears went back and eyes went from side to side, a Pavlovian response to my hissed instructions that the cat remembered, a giveaway warning whistle before an over-the-top dawn raid from the hellhound.
But I consoled myself with the thought that Dudley’s boundless spirit caused the cat to lose its smugness, panic, arch its back and then turn and run out of the open
door. The old boy and an attack from beyond and it cheered me up. Especially when he growled. I’m not having that cat in here!
I sat next to the dog’s grave, staring down, not lifting my head as two familiar shadows walked across my eyeline.
The first shadow said, ‘Are you coming?’
I shook my head and reluctantly brought my gaze up to my two friends.
Patrick said, ‘Have you told Harry?’
I shook my head again.
‘Ron and Kenny are walking across the fields.’ Declan said this like he was parting with a state secret.
I looked at Declan. ‘The dog’s dead.’
Declan’s mouth swung open, he lined his glasses up and stared on. His tongue was sticking out between his crooked teeth, a jam sandwich in his left hand, the index finger of his right hand was about to twist its reluctant way up his nose.
‘What happened? Did he get run over?’
‘Something like that.’
Silence hovered over us until Declan said, ‘Patrick’s got his catapult and we’re following them, coming?’
I wanted to say no, feeling that an appropriate period of mourning was in order here. But the raging resentment was overwhelmed by the chance to use the best catapult in the world.
I said something purely based on my need for instant revenge, ‘Ron poisoned the dog.’
Both of their mouths gaped open. I stood and with the tacit understanding between us that reprisal was the best grieving process on offer, we scampered through the allotments. We saw Ron and Kenny disappear behind the willow trees, out of sight but not out of my head. Kenny, and the thrashing he’d meted out to me. Ron, poisoning the dog. I had to believe this; I’d convinced myself of this. I scampered along in front, silently weeping. Dudley had gone; that fact refused to register to begin with. But it edged relentlessly my way; realisation arrived and at the same time my breathing tightened and I wept, tearless and silently.
We climbed up a stumpy willow tree, ten foot up. Nestled comfortably enough with the evening sun hot on our bare shoulders, we waited for inspiration. Declan’s voluble and excitable nature needed conversation, or noise at the very least. Instead there was just our breathing and this put him on edge. Say something, someone – please.