The Parish

by Alice Taylor

  Then fate stepped in: one morning at breakfast, Mike asked, “Have you given up on the dog craic?” and with my usual clarity of perception I replied, “Not sure I have or I haven’t. Saw nothing that hit the spot in the dogs’ homes or the paper. I think that I’ll forget about it.”

  “Ever think of checking out Buy and Sell?” he asked.

  “Buy and Sell?” I said in amazement. “Do they do dogs?”

  “They do everything,” he told me.

  “I’ll bring one in out of the shop,” I decided and did just that. I went through it and found the dog pages, and there was an ad for two Dobermans, a year and a year-and-a-half old, with a telephone number for contact.

  Before I could get second thoughts, I rang the number and a very polite English voice answered. When I asked about the dogs, he said that the family was emigrating and wanted a good home for them. I explained that we were an all-female household and wanted manageable dogs. He replied that that was exactly what he was looking for: he would prefer a female owner and did not want his dogs to be used solely as guard dogs as they had been reared as part of the family. Also he wanted them to go as a pair because they were used to being together. I told him that I’d ring him back and then sat down and had a cup of tea. What would I do? Instead of one dog, we could finish up with two. I had another cup of tea and then I rang Gearóid and told him my story.

  “Where are they?” he asked.

  “Waterford,” I told him.

  “I’ll be down to you in ten minutes,” he said.

  I made a quick phone call to Lena, who was speechless with delight at the prospect of not one, but two, dogs. But I was not so sure.

  It was a lovely May day and it took about two hours to get to Waterford; we followed directions and arrived at a beautiful lakeside house with a shining black Porsche parked outside.

  “These dogs are going to move down the social ladder if they come home with us,” Gearóid decided.

  As we edged it open, we saw that a “Beware the dogs” sign was posted uninvitingly on the front gate. “Guard dogs on duty” was on a black door to our right that I assumed accessed the garden. Again on the front door: “Guard dogs on duty”. These dogs were certainly making their presence felt.

  I swallowed hard as we waited for the front door to open. A dapper young Englishman invited us in and led us along a wide corridor into an impressive, ornately furnished room. The Dobermans had a lot on their plate. We had a few minutes of polite conversation and then the owner decided to let in the dogs so he left the room and a few minutes later two streaks of black lightning tore in the door. They circled the room a few times and then each one leapt on to a separate leather couch and viewed us with great suspicion. They were big, beautiful and intimidating.

  We spent about two hours getting to know each other and, by the end of it, I knew that these two smart dogs sensed that we were up to no good. Their names were Kate and Lolly and they were two classy ladies—the fact that Kate’s full title was Queen Kate came as no surprise. Even though I was a bit apprehensive of the undertaking, I had a feeling that they would probably come home with us. Their owner produced their papers, and their lineage was impeccable, with blue blood flowing through every vein in their bodies. They were virginal, untouched and immaculate.

  Eventually the time came to make a move and the owner put their blanket on the back seat of our car and the two dogs jumped in on top of it. They were obviously accustomed to this procedure. He gave me a training video and a Doberman manual and a box full of medical details and papers. I slipped into the back of the car, past the smaller of the two—which was Lolly—and sat between them; then we were on our way.

  Sitting up on their haunches on either side, they towered over me like two black pillars. If they felt like a feed of Pedigree Chum, I was a sitting duck. After a few miles, Lolly decided to sit down and relax but Kate sat upright in frozen apprehension. Soon afterwards, she covered me and the seat in smelly vomit, and because we were in traffic Gearóid had to keep moving, so we were in a bit of a stinking puddle on the back seat. Further out the road, we were able to pull in and do a bit of a clean-up, always conscious of the fact that these two ladies—if given half a chance—could make a dash for freedom.

  We finally arrived home with two very nervous dogs and one very apprehensive new owner. Gearóid drove into the backyard and shut the gate before releasing them from the car. They darted around, full of nervous apprehension, and then Queen Kate shot in the back door and, in very un-regal fashion, promptly deposited a huge pooh on the cream carpet in the front room.

  Oh my God, I thought, what am I after letting myself in for?

  “Don’t mind that; it’s just nerves,” Gearóid assured me, and then, to my horror, added: “I hope that she’s not marking her spot.”

  My misgivings about this new enterprise were growing by the minute. But when Lena came home an hour later, she had no such reservations and greeted them with whoops of joy, to which Lolly responded with open-hearted abandon, while Queen Kate stood apart in an attitude of regal disdain. She was going to be a harder nut to crack, despite her queenly deposit on my cream carpet. When, in conversation on the phone with the now ex-owner, I told him that Kate was not settling in as well as Lolly, he assured me, “It will take Kate a while to settle. She’s a one-owner dog whereas Lolly loves everyone. When Kate has sized everything up, she’ll then decide to whom she will give allegiance.”

  So we would have to await queenly approval from Kate and see on whom she would confer her royal patronage!

  We decided that they could lie on the rug-covered couch in the kitchen but would not have access to the couch and armchairs in the front room. So, after dinner, when we moved into that room, I draped myself along the couch and Lena and Ellen took over the two chairs; the dogs looked at us in disbelief and patrolled the room. These ladies were accustomed to royal treatment. Then it dawned on me that maybe they sat only on blankets and, when I laid one on the floor, they promptly took up residence. However, when Ellen leaned forward on her chair to explain something to Lena, Lolly immediately shot into the empty space behind her. But by the end of the evening, they had got the message.

  That night, they slept on the couch in the kitchen and I got up during the small hours to check that all was in order. It was like being back on baby night-feeds. Their previous owner had instructed us that in the morning they were to be put on the lead and taken to a specific place in the garden and told “Toilet”. But either I did not have the right accent or they were just challenging my new role; so, when after half an hour nothing had happened, I decided that there had to be an easier way and left them off. They hit the garden like a hurricane and, having done a few laps of the lawn and knocked down a little stone man, they tore up into the grove and decided that this was the place for their private ceremony. That was the big issue decided, but the water outlet proved to have a more long-term effect because within weeks my lawn took on the appearance of Joseph’s Technicolor coat.

  Gradually they settled in and a routine developed. At night, they slept on the kitchen couch with the door open, so they had the run of the hallways, and one night when Lena forgot her key she found out that they were not very hospitable to strangers in the night. During the day, they had the run of the yard and garden but were tied up while deliveries were coming through the yard to the shop. Customers passing the open gate viewed them with surprise and felt happier that they were at a safe distance.

  Kate and Lolly had a huge curiosity about their new surroundings and soon discovered that the big store to the back of our shop had a flat roof which then led them on to the flat roof of the pub next door. Part of the pub roof was glass, and they loved to go up there and watch the action below. One evening, an inebriated customer looked up to see two Dobermans looking down at him and promptly decided that he was not as sober as he had thought. After that, we had to bar them from pub visitations.

  The neighbours called to see the “two girls”—as
they were christened—and, once over the initial surprise at their size, everyone thought they were beautiful. Kate had decided that I was worthy of her patronage, or else she was smart enough to know that I was the source of the food, but in any case she followed me around like a shadow

  All was going well until sex came into the picture. These were two well-bred bitches with royal connections, whose mothers and grandmothers had blue blood, and the fathers’ contributions were also impeccable. They were not of the same litter but both had papers to impress. I had no interest in breeding or rearing litters of royal pups. I planned to get them neutered or spayed or fixed, though I did not even know the correct terminology. Gearóid, however, vehemently opposed this plan. We had head-on arguments with no solution. During these arguments, the word Nazi even came into play; I have been described as many things, but this was the first time that Hitler was invoked. So I decided to go underhand and booked them in with the vet without telling Gearóid, praying that he would not call during the recovery days. What he did not know would not bother him. Or so I thought.

  When I visited the vet, I found a big shock waiting in the wings. She inspected the fasting dogs, and then told me that Kate was in heat. So I left Lolly, and an unhappy Kate came home and ran around the yard crying for Lolly. But she had more to cry about than missing Lolly. The previous week, there had been an incident that at the time had been of little consequence but in the light of Kate’s condition could be nothing short of a canine disaster.

  Around our village rambles a geriatric mongrel, Jack the Lad, himself the product of a long line of one-night stands. He could be a cross between a greyhound, a terrier, a sheepdog and a Labrador; his bloodline would confuse any DNA test. Over the years, when he ambled around the village, eyeing the local talent, it was a case of lock up your bitches. Now he could hardly walk but the big question was, how geriatric was Jack the Lad? Because the previous week, while the gate was open for deliveries, he had come into our yard and had gone up into the garden and hidden in the bushes until the gate was locked and the girls were let loose. An hour later, I had glanced out the window and there, to my horror, between my two beautiful girls was Jack the Lad. I nearly fainted! I shot out the back door and booted Jack the Lad out the gate with every intention of damaging his artillery. Now the burning question was, had he or had he not? I rang my sister Ellen, who had returned to Canada.

  “Ah, Alice,” she assured me, “Jack the Lad is too old; he couldn’t rise to any occasion.”

  But how old was too old? I rang my friend Mary and explained my dilemma, adding, “But he wasn’t in the yard very long.”

  “Long enough for Jack the Lad,” she informed me.

  I rang Paddy who, as a farmer, could be expected to know everything about sex in animals.

  “Oh, there’s a morning-after pill for cows now,” he assured me cheerfully.

  “Paddy, this morning after was five mornings ago,” I told him apprehensively.

  “Oh, Alice, you don’t need a morning-after pill,” he told me regretfully. “You need a miracle.”

  To add to my troubles, Gearóid called unexpectedly and, when I heard his voice out in the yard asking Kate where Lolly was, I felt like running for cover. But I had to face the music, and a raging son went in to the vet to collect Lolly, who arrived home in a prone state, much to Kate’s consternation. But her consternation was nothing compared to mine. When I looked at my beautiful Kate and thought of the geriatric mongrel who could have polluted her well-bred elegance, I came out in a cold sweat.

  The following day, after a veterinary consultation, I was told to bring Kate in the following Monday and he would do the needful. The days passed slowly and I watched Kate for signs of morning sickness but she was in fine fettle. Maybe dogs don’t have morning sickness. I was so relieved when the day came and she went into the veterinary clinic; later that day, the vet informed me that all was well and that Jack the Lad could no longer pose a problem. But I wanted the answer to one question: had Jack the Lad invaded virgin territory or had he not? The answer was, he had.

  That evening, I waited at my front door with murder in my heart and watched Jack the Lad drag himself down the street. He was fifteen years old, which in human terms is one hundred and five. Slowly easing forward his front right leg, he gradually pulled that half of his body along and then, gradually pushing forward his left leg, he painfully dragged his second half along. Very slowly he came down the street. He had to stop every few seconds to draw a laboured breath, and I could hear his lungs rattling from ten feet away. As I viewed him, I found it difficult to believe that there was life in that old dog yet. He certainly had to be the oldest swinger in town.

  CHAPTER 21

  A Challenge

  “Great God!” Steve exclaimed in horror—which was a bit rich coming from this man who does not believe in divine existence. I was tempted to come out with Gabriel’s response in similar circumstances. If Gabriel had given you a shock by suddenly coming unexpectedly around a corner and you reacted by gasping, “Oh, God!” Gabriel would smile and say, “No, I’m Gabriel.” It was a family joke with which Steve would probably not have been impressed. Now I watched his reaction to my once-beautiful garden.

  Steve, who is the editor at Brandon, had seen the garden for the first time twenty years earlier when he had come to take a photograph before my first book, To School Through the Fields was published. He had wandered around our overgrown, dog-friendly garden and was heard to mutter to himself, “Is there any corner here that resembles a garden?” In later years, when I caught the gardening bug, he had to eat his words, and one day he acidly informed me: “When I came here first, it was all about writing and no gardening, and now it’s all gardening and no writing.”

  Now he stood at my garden gate and surveyed in disbelief what lay in front of him.

  “What happened here?” he demanded, and the answer took just one word.

  “Dogs,” I said.

  “Good God!” he declared in his best Anglo-Irish accent. Born into a posh Dublin background and educated in England, he came in later life to live and work in Dingle where, over the years, he turned into a lapsed Anglo-Irishman whose BBC accent succumbed to the soft blás of the Kerry mountains. His accent became that of an Anglo-Irish Kerryman, but on certain occasions, when under emotional stress, he reverted like some of my garden shrubs to the original of the species.

  “What are you going to do now?” he asked with searching precision, and again it took just one word.

  “Redesign,” I told him.

  All my adult life, one of my gardening neighbours had constantly assured me that dogs and gardening did not a successful marriage make. Now was the time to prove her wrong; to try to effect a compromise acceptable to all parties. There were three of us in this marriage bed: the dogs, the garden and me. The dogs were the dominant party, the garden the sleeping partner and I was the liaison officer trying to make the whole thing work. A divorce had to be avoided at all costs. I knew that I had a big job on my hands but the stakes were high. I loved my garden and had grown to love my dogs, and I wanted all to live in peace.

  Peace is not a word that two exuberant Dobermans bring to mind. In their lineage are greyhound genes, and they proved it by turning my garden into Shelbourne Park. In front of the gate was a wide lawn with a sweeping curve around an old apple tree, and Kate and Lolly would round this turn at breakneck speed. As I watched them, a Grand National radio commentary from my childhood would come to mind and I would recall the voice of Peter O’Sullivan: “And now they are coming up to the canal turn.” When this was taking place, tufts of grass would scatter in their wake and then they would slam on the brakes, leaving skid marks across the lawn.

  After a while, my lawn became a thing of the past. This did not happen overnight: the dogs came in May, which was a good month because the lawns were dry and firm and most of the shrubs were in their full health, but during the summer Kate and Lolly tested the well-being of the shrubs. Anything t
oo fragile for their exuberance died underfoot. It was good that the garden was mature: most of the shrubs were able to contend with the constant assault; but as the fine weather faded, so did my lawn. Bitch urine and the Grand National on a daily basis proved more than any lawn could endure. A great Irishman once said, “Victory is won not by those who can inflict the most, but by those who can endure the most.” My lawns could endure no more; it was time for a major rethink.

  Gardens talk to you, so I walked around my garden and listened to it; we had long debates about possibilities and impossibilities. The list of the latter was slightly longer than the list of the former, but there was no future in negative thinking. As I walked around, I constantly reminded myself that Uncle Jacky had gardened here with two dogs, three cats and about twenty hens. So what had I to complain about? I began gradually to work out a feasible plan. Then there came a sense of excitement at the concept of a whole new garden and a whole new challenge. This was going to test all my ingenuity and my limited gardening skills.

  As I walked around, devising my plans, the two culprits accompanied me and when, in a fit of exuberance, they raised themselves on their hind legs and danced together on top of flowers or tore around the apple tree turn to test which of them might win the Gold Cup, they kept me aware of the necessity for basic solid structure. Neighbours who dropped in raised their eyes to heaven and one friend told me, “You’re actually gardening for two dogs.” He was right.

  With a vague plan in mind, I strode around the garden in long strides to get measurements. Uncle Jacky had never used a measuring tape but had gauged the length of his stride and measured accordingly. It was a handy gardening ploy. That night I put the design on paper. It looked good, but then everything can look good on paper. On my showing it to a gardening neighbour, she gasped: “No lawn!” But no lawn was better than a yellow brick road or a winter sea of mud.