No Ordinary Love

by Anita Notaro

  I had one of those truly awful moments as I realized I desperately wanted to crawl under the duvet and howl, then sleep on and off in between watching mindless TV all day, with my BlackBerry – and everything else that meant contact with the outside world – on silent. It was then I finally knew for certain that something had to give. All the months of trying to pull myself together had come to nothing. I was sick of pretending I was happy, convincing myself I was lucky while struggling just to remain upright. Something had to give, and the change had to be significant enough to get me out of this enormous black hole. I just wondered if I was up to it.

  2

  AFTER ANOTHER TWO MONTHS OF SOUL-SEARCHING, AVOIDANCE tactics and losing four kilos with worry, in the end – as often happens – making the change turned out to be not nearly as hard as thinking about doing it. And as Maddy was so fond of saying, once I set my mind to something, I don’t do half measures. I drew up a plan that involved selling my home, de-cluttering and decamping to a smaller, maintenance-free living space, getting rid of my car and opting for something that got me around faster and without stress, dumping all my black suits and, most important, finding a job where I didn’t dread waking up each workday morning. I put my apartment and my car up for sale. Selling the car was going to be a bigger deal than getting rid of my home, I realized. I lived in my car, had lunch there most days, made all my calls and did my makeup in it most mornings and had even been known to do a complete change of clothes in the back seat. Selling it would be like losing a lover. Still, it was part of the process of change, so I put it on an internet site without any further thought. One good thing about this whole process was that I made loads of cash on all my designer labels and felt much lighter as a result. So, after all the smaller things had been done, it just left the biggest, scariest change of all. But I was determined and, besides, that famous conversation with the girls had finally hit home – maybe because I’d been feeling so low at the time – so while I was, for the first time, actually taking steps to change my life, I set about updating my skills.

  I really did have a qualification in animal behaviour, as Clodagh had reminded me, and I’d managed to do a couple of refresher courses over the years, mainly as a means of getting away from the intensity of my life and to stop myself going completely bonkers with the kind of stuff I was listening to all day. So while I was ploughing through my list of major changes, I took a bit of a break and headed off to London for a course with a visiting American expert whom I’d always admired. He held a once-yearly clinic for problem pets in the British capital and combined it with a really intensive workshop where you got to see him in action and even help out. He only took people with a recognized qualification and yet the course was full by the time I had managed to extricate myself from my commitments, but it helped that I knew this guy’s work and had read all his books. I begged the organizer by email and was put in touch with Professor Harrison’s assistant. After I told him how desperate I was to change my life, he relented and put me to the top of the cancellation list, and when he emailed me to say someone had pulled out I rang Maddy and screamed with glee, then tore off to pack my bags without even asking how she was. Being plunged into that world full-time for several weeks was so uplifting that when I spoke to her on the phone from London she said she hardly recognized my voice any more and threatened to close down my practice in my absence if I didn’t finally do something. And I knew her, she was capable of breaking into my office, telling all my clients I’d no longer be seeing them, giving my books to the accountant to wind up the company and hiding all my contacts and files.

  ‘I’m serious,’ she stressed as she picked me up from the airport on my return. ‘I haven’t heard you so energized in a very long time and I’m not about to let you off the hook this time.’

  ‘I know, I feel great,’ I admitted. ‘The course was amazing. We were thrown into so many real situations with our tutor at his clinic that it rekindled my love of animals – and dogs especially. He was amazing to watch. I learned so much.’

  ‘Well?’ Maddy asked.

  ‘Well what?’

  ‘Are you going to do something finally and give us all a bit of peace?’

  ‘I think I am,’ I laughed, and she nearly crashed the car trying to give me a hug and drive at the same time.

  So, after a final bout of agonizing about whether I had the courage to go through with it, I eventually realized that it was now or never. With Maddy and Clodagh’s help – which took the form of a million ‘yes you can’ texts followed by hundreds of threatening phone calls – I decided to go the whole hog and opt for a total change of lifestyle. To kickstart the plan I simply put an ad on the back page of the Irish Times.

  DOGGY DATES

  Is your Labrador lonely?

  Your Schnauzer sulking?

  Or maybe your Westie whines all day?

  Go on, bring him on a doggy date next Thursday

  and

  Let US can your canine concerns!

  Call 088 – 222 333 444

  Who knows? YOU might get lucky too!!

  Yes, I know it was a mass of clichés and that everyone, me included, was sick to death of all those ‘Prefer bread to broccoli?’ ‘Crave toffee rather than tofu?-type ads, but I wasn’t at all creative, so it came down to Maddy and her actor friends, who were all bonkers. Between them they decided it was a winner.

  ‘You’ll be inundated with calls, I promise.’ Clodagh laughed hysterically when she saw it and, believe it or not (and no one was more surprised than me), I was. OK, it was mostly hesitant females and overenthusiastic gay men, but hey, beggars and all that. Admittedly, a lot of the women sounded desperate. It took me a while to cop on, but when my third female caller in a row asked where they could buy a dog in time for next Thursday I began to get the picture, but I gave them all the number of our local dog sanctuary. The tag line at the end – which Maddy had only put in at the last minute as a gag – had clearly hit home. Eventually the little-known dog-rescue centre ‘Doggies ’n’ Moggies in Distress’ rang and asked me to stop giving out their number. I suspected I was distressing the volunteers bigtime.

  It was funny, but even dealing with dog owners lightened my mood. The mere possibility that I might be able to make a living by putting my talents for solving people’s problems to use with animals made me smile. And at least I’d never have to deal with another addiction case again. It had all gotten way too heavy, I realized as soon as I stopped. Time to have fun again after years of ‘proper’ behaviour and countless days spent watching my words.

  The only slight cloud on my otherwise Cif-bright horizon was that I didn’t actually own a pet myself. And wouldn’t, not after the last time. I still couldn’t think about my much-loved pet Gnasher in that old photo without feeling sad. However, as soon as I arrived at the local church car park – half an hour early, in order to get my act together – I decided this was, in fact a blessing in disguise. It was bedlam.

  I hadn’t the faintest idea what to do so I blew my whistle, the one I kept in my handbag beside the canister of pepper spray in case I was attacked on the way home some night. Chance would be a fine thing, my sister Becky always said. Mind you, it was easy for her to say that. Men were always hitting on her, mainly because she was blonde and ‘out there’ in every sense of the word. In looks and manner she was the image of my mother, or Martha, as she insisted we call her.

  To my amazement, the whistling worked. All of a sudden it seemed as if forty pairs of eyes were on me and, if you counted the dogs, they were.

  ‘Hi.’ I cleared my throat and slipped the whistle into the pocket of my pink velour tracksuit, which I’d bought in an effort to finally rid myself of the dour counsellor image.

  ‘Eh, welcome,’ I beamed, as I bent down and put on what I hoped was my pet-friendly voice.

  ‘My name is Louisa (only my mother called me that) and I’m your, er . . .’ my voice petered out. ‘Eh, let’s just say I’m your Growler Guru.’ I gave a nervou
s grin, but no one responded. ‘By the way, everyone calls me Lulu,’ I stammered, trying to get past the gaffe. Maddy and I had decided it was the most pet-friendly version of my name, and I needed all the help I could get, quite frankly.

  Actually, what Maddy had said was that Lulu reminded her of a Chihuahua. Not a compliment had been my immediate reaction.

  My face was scorch-your-hands hot by now so I went into cease and desist mode immediately. One thing I definitely did know was when I wasn’t working. It rarely happened, because I generally never lost control, but when it did it was usually trying too hard that was my undoing.

  ‘Right, well, why don’t we all introduce ourselves then?’ I was acutely aware that my face now matched my tracksuit, not a good look for anyone. I mentally shook myself and smiled at the nice thirtysomething with the white Labrador. He was cute, I decided. Shame he was wearing a pinstripe suit and a tie covered in frolicking dogs – the ones with the barrels round their necks. It was so yellow it looked like a badly done Van Gogh.

  ‘I’m Ronan and I’m here for my gran. Her dog, Deputy, is becoming a bit too attached to me.’ He tried to shift the overweight mutt who was stretched out, snoring, right across his feet. ‘Last night he growled at my mother and wouldn’t let her into my house, which is rather unfortunate, because she was delivering my ironing at the time.’ The women all looked as if they’d like to mother him themselves but, personally, I couldn’t get past his stiffness. He looked so uptight he made Prince Charles seem loose.

  ‘My gran – Myrtle – is getting on a bit, so I take him for walks, that kind of thing,’ he explained. ‘But he keeps running away from home – my gran’s – and ends up scratching at my front door at all hours.’

  I gave him one of my ‘that’s enough’ smiles. This guy was way too intense and more than a tad anal for my liking.

  ‘Right, well we can certainly work on that . . . fatal attraction thing.’ I smiled encouragingly, even though I didn’t have a clue how I was going to persuade Deputy to stick to four-legged males.

  ‘Now, who’s next to come to confession?’ I said in what I hoped was a teasing voice. I’d been practising for days, ever since my sister told me yet again that I needed to loosen up.

  Next up was an elderly couple called Doreen and Arthur, sweet and neat with a front garden filled with narrow borders of white alyssum and blue lobelia in clumps – I’d bet my life on it. God, I’d have loved them for parents. They were nice and sensible. She wore flat, laced-up shoes with thick tights and a pleated skirt and had a shiny, homely complexion. He was roundy and sported a flat cap and a hand-knitted cable cardigan with leather toggle buttons. They had two lazy-looking Westies. They really should have been signing up for Unislim classes they were so fat – the dogs that is, not Doreen and Arthur. Apparently, they were called Syd and Vicious and no, their owners had never heard of the Sex Pistols. Syd had Australian ancestry, and the other one wasn’t the most sociable of creatures, according to Doreen, who explained that they had no friends left at this point.

  As they smiled at each other and held hands and told the class everything about themselves, my mind drifted to my own family and especially my mother. Martha was not what you’d call conventional. Even Maddy, who accepts everyone as she finds them, found her weird.

  ‘She likes to think of herself as bohemian, a free spirit,’ I’d told Maddy and Clodagh when they first met her years back.

  ‘Sorry, Lou’ – Clodagh made a face – ‘but to refer to your mother as bohemian is an insult to hippies everywhere.’

  ‘Now if I said that you’d take it with a pinch of salt,’ Maddy grinned. ‘But coming from Clodagh’ – she whistled – ‘well, that sums it up really. Martha is bonkers.’

  ‘Bonkers she may be, but she was bloody tough on me as a child. I spent my whole life trying to conform, to live up to her standards. Is it any wonder I’m so uptight?’

  ‘What was your father like?’ Clodagh asked. ‘Any clues there?’

  ‘I’ve no idea really.’ I didn’t easily discuss my father. He and my mother had split shortly after I was born and my mother always implied that he was a waster. Any time I misbehaved, Martha punished me and told me that if I wasn’t careful I’d end up just like him, so as a result I worked much harder than any other kid my age and always tried to make it up to her.

  ‘Well, your stepfather was OK and he probably had more of an influence on you growing up?’ Maddy smiled.

  ‘Yes, but he never got involved really. He left us girls to Martha most of the time.’ The truth was that Ron adored my mum and couldn’t believe his luck when she married him so, while he was a strong businessman, he was putty in her hands. I think he loved it that Martha just seemed to float through life expecting everyone to take her into consideration, and of course they did. I suppose the fact that they had Becky shortly after they married meant that I always felt like an intruder, even though Ron was a dote and never made me feel anything other than his daughter. But I wasn’t his and Becky was, and in my mind that was huge, especially as Mum seemed determined to keep the reins on me much more than Becky, who got away with murder, because she was the baby, I guess.

  Suddenly I realized that Doreen and Arthur had finished their introduction and I hadn’t heard a word, so I smiled at the young woman standing beside them. A bright-eyed, pretty girl of around thirty, she introduced herself as Emily, and I decided I liked her immediately. She was carrying a cat in a basket, which explained why the Westies were sitting on her boots, looking like they’d just spotted dinner.

  ‘Eh, do you have a dog with you, as well?’ I asked hopefully. That cat was not going to last long around here.

  ‘No, I hate dogs,’ she responded cheerfully. ‘Actually, Rover here belongs to my mum.’ She grinned.

  Rover? Everyone stared but no one asked. They all looked at me expectantly. Go on, you’re in charge, their eyes seemed to challenge.

  ‘My mum thinks he’s a dog, you see,’ Emily apologized. ‘Reincarnated, of course.’

  ‘Naturally.’ I tried to look like I was used to this type of story.

  Emily continued, ‘My father was killed by an Organic Farm Produce truck while out walking the original Rover – who was definitely a dog, trust me, I spent my life keeping out of his way – but he legged it and hasn’t been seen since. This Rover appeared in our back garden that night crying to be let in. My mother is convinced that he’s Rover – the original dog now a cat – sent by my father to keep her company.’ Emily looked constipated with angst by that stage and one of the Westies started snoring, which was where I was headed myself.

  To their credit, not one of the class laughed.

  ‘But why wouldn’t your father have just sent another dog, if he did send, eh, Rover?’ a very camp voice asked. Gay Godfrey (the nickname I gave him, Maddy had said it would help me relax if I could give them all a pet name) wanted to know. What is it about gay men and the need for detail?

  ‘Because my mother was actually afraid of dogs, but she loves cats, you see.’ I could feel a migraine coming on. ‘And now she’s certain that this is Rover brought back, so she’s happy. The only thing is she’s been trying to teach him to fetch the ball and he won’t budge, which is why I’m here. Sorry.’ She seemed to know just by looking that we all thought she had a screw loose.

  ‘No, no, don’t apologize, it’s . . . fascinating, I think,’ I said in what I hoped was an encouraging manner. ‘Let me get back to you.’ I looked around quickly for a bit of normality.

  ‘Hello.’ A very uncomfortable-looking man half thrust his hand in my general direction then changed his mind. ‘Sorry we were a bit late.’ He grinned. ‘The truth is, Louis had to drag me out.’ He pointed to an absolutely stunning guy – outdoor type, I immediately thought, until I noticed his nails were clean and his loafers way too expensive.

  ‘Hi.’ Louis smiled, revealing teeth that really should have worn shades. ‘I hope we haven’t missed any juicy stuff.’ He poked his mate and grin
ned in a coy way. ‘As Mike said he was . . . somewhat reluctant.’

  Why, oh why do all the gorgeous ones have to be bent as Turkey Twizzlers? I thought, trying not to look as if I’d just lost interest.

  ‘We’re flatmates,’ Mike continued, without being asked. Everyone had assumed they were a couple as soon as they realized Louis was gay. Now they were working up to asking what ‘flatmate’ meant exactly, I reckoned.

  ‘My partner, Emerson, died recently,’ luscious Louis chipped in. ‘He was in the hospice for months. Pedro’ – he pointed to the Collie, who had the saddest eyes I’d ever seen – ‘was the hospital dog, and when Em died he pined like mad.’ Louis bit his lip. ‘I had no choice but to take him home with me. He was whining continuously and unsettling the patients, who have enough problems of their own, quite frankly. So I advertised for a flatmate, because I don’t do walkies. Makes me hot and sweaty,’ he explained. ‘And bores me silly. I’d much rather be in the gym chatting up scantily dressed instructors by the water cooler.’ And not the females ones, unfortunately for us girls. This guy really was gorgeous.

  ‘Anyway, Mike had just returned from London and he needed to find a place quickly, and so far it’s working out.’ He grinned at everyone. ‘And Pedro’s happy; he gets his constitutional every day.’

  ‘And by the way, these classes were not my idea.’ Mike looked like he’d rather be at the dentist. ‘I’m here under extreme duress.’

  ‘Well, we’ll try and make the experience as painless as possible then, and if all else fails I can prescribe painkillers.’ I grinned at him. He had possibilities, I decided, cheering up.