Woman of a Certain Rage

by Georgie Hall

  (It goes without saying I lost my job, but my taste in music was revolutionised. Or at least until Joe’s generation claimed it. And I found Annie again.)

  *

  After I’ve churned up the River Avon for several minutes going nowhere, Summer comes out looking victorious, carrying a piece of damp paper aloft. I cut the engine.

  ‘Ed’s told me how the flood happened. He’s still being non-verbal apart from Mario and Metamorphosis, but we’ve been exchanging notes under the door. Look.’

  On the paper is a conversation in smiley faces, one drawn in pen, the other in red lipstick (my own from the bathroom cabinet; I keep the same shade stashed everywhere for easy reapplication, another top tip I gleaned from a well-known actress, possibly Glenda Jackson). There’s also a spider and a scream face – still strangely smiley – but I’ve no idea what the rest means. It just looks like Rorschach ink blots.

  ‘He saw a spider in the washbasin and he tried to rinse it back down the plughole,’ Summer explains, pointing at the lipstick marks, ‘but the tap came off in his hand and whoosh. See?’

  Amongst Ed’s many anxieties, spiders are top three, an arachnoid enemy he has no gameplay to defeat.

  ‘Has the spider definitely gone?’

  But Summer’s not listening. She’s pointing at the overgrown wooden jetty. ‘Oh my God, look what’s there!’

  There’s a very manky sheep watching us.

  ‘It’s a wild dog!’ She ducks behind me.

  ‘That’s a sheep,’ I dismiss. I’m not falling for that one twice.

  ‘It’s a fucking dog, Mum.’

  ‘Sheep.’

  It gives a deep-barrelled bark.

  ‘OK, so it’s a dog.’

  It looks like a stray, poor thing, its matted coat in a terrible state. It’s big – much bigger than Arty, more like a retriever or a labradoodle – and very hairy. And it’s not there for us, I realise. It’s looking down at something under the jetty, between the slats. It’s trying to reach through there with a front leg, then its head.

  And we hear a second bark, the shriller one we heard earlier.

  ‘Ohmygod, it’s got a little friend trapped under the pontoon, look!’ Summer has leaned out of the boat to watch, gripping my arm tightly.

  There is a second dog, she’s right, much smaller, that’s tangled up in some sort of netting and wire beneath the jetty. It must have come along to look at us and fallen through the broken slats. It’s struggling to free itself, but the more it writhes, the tighter it gets trapped. The bigger dog is scrabbling frantically, barking again.

  And then I notice, beneath its matted fur and mud and twigs, a row of enlarged milk teats.

  ‘That’s her puppy!’

  ‘You have to do something!’ Summer pleads, close to tears.

  ‘Me?’ I’m not certain a feral dog with its progeny in mortal danger is going to look too kindly on either of us wading across to stick an oar in.

  ‘You’re so practical and good at everything. You’re a hero, Mum. Save her baby!’

  The puppy lets out a terrified set of shrieks as the net twists tighter.

  The mother urge is a fierce one, and my empathy is burning bright. Along with my ego. I’m a hero.

  I hand Summer my watch, phone and pearls then slip off my shoes. The next moment I’m up to my waist in water as cold as an ice hole and riverbed weeds are trying to drag me every which way. The current’s surprisingly strong.

  The poor puppy is well and truly strung up. Getting close to it takes ages, my feet numb with cold, then I have to physically climb into the base of the jetty, mother dog still scrabbling overhead, flakes of wood raining down on me. As I struggle to unhook the caught-up netting, she pushes her head through the gap between the slats and I suddenly find we’re nose to nose, her white-rimmed, panicked dog eyes inches from mine. She’s close enough to bite my face.

  Instead she just watches as I fiddle and twist and unknot with these gifts of fingers and opposable thumbs, the whimpering bundle able to wriggle around more and more until he’s free and in my arms. And when he is, she licks him ecstatically, and licks my nose too.

  The puppy is probably six or seven weeks old, almost entirely dirty white with just one black ear, cherubic curls and blue eyes. Even wet and scrabbly, he is adorable, a warm armful of gratitude and need.

  He won’t fit back up through the gap, so I have to take him round the long way, battling the wet undergrowth harder still with a precious bundle in my arms. As I flail around in the reeds, his mother waits on the edge of the jetty, ears pricked. Then I put the puppy by her side and I see that, deep inside the yeti coat, she’s wearing an old leather collar that’s worn a near-bald patch around her neck. An identity disk hangs from it.

  ‘Who are you then?’ I try to read it, but she picks her puppy up by the scruff of his neck and sets off purposefully.

  Breathless, and with legs like lead, I clamber out to follow her up the bank, wishing I had a machete because it’s like breaking through an untouched Amazonian rainforest as I track the dog through the thick undergrowth to a small shack hidden among the trees. It’s probably the original angler’s hut. In it are two more puppies, both female, one red and white, the other almost all black, both blinking at me shyly. I suspect I’m the first human visitor in their short lifetimes.

  The mother looks at me anxiously but lets me come close enough to touch her, just lightly on her head. She shifts a little nearer. I stroke my hand gently towards her neck where her collar’s rubbing. She cleaves to it, leaning into me, letting out a little groan, gazing up at me. It’s Arty’s eyes looking at me, that universal language dogs have when they have known human love.

  I look at the tag on her collar. It’s faded, but there’s a number, a Birmingham code. She has a home somewhere, an owner. I can’t leave her and her family here.

  ‘Wait there!’ I whisper.

  But she and her puppies follow me almost as far as the jetty, from which I wade back to the boat, calling up to Summer to fetch me the sausage rolls from my suitcase and the big hessian bag from the boatman’s cabin.

  ‘Ohmygod they’re adorable!’ she shrieks when she catches sight of the three puppies with Mum on the bank, the noise making the little one-parent family disappear into the foliage again.

  Back at the hut, mother dog and I trade sausage rolls for a fast friendship I’m not sure she’s ready for. She’s pitifully thin under the mad fur, but her puppies seem in good health, their eyes bright, their concerted attempts to make friends with me frustrated as Mum vies for every crumb.

  Bribing her all the while, I gather all three puppies into the hessian bag and call her to follow.

  She heels me, sniffs the bag, jumps up and barks a few times, bright-eyed with worry, but she lets me walk on, fighting my way free of the wooded bank. Holding the bag high, I drop back into the river and carry it across to hand up to Summer. ‘Whatever you do, don’t let go of that.’ It’s very heavy, noisy and animated.

  After hesitating briefly at the edge of the jetty, barking frantically, mother dog plunges in to swim after me. I’m appalled how thin she is when I gather her up and post her onto the stern of the boat, pulling myself up after her.

  We briefly look at each other, two fierce, wet mothers, before scrabbling apart to check our children are OK.

  And I know, in that moment, I can let myself love a dog again.

  *

  My parents got their first dog the year I went to university, so Trinculo (‘Trinkie’) was always more of a weekends and holidays family friend to me. He was a West Highland Terrier just like Tintin’s Snowy (they prefer small breeds) and he bit me more than once (‘he’s just playing, Eliza!’). I still have the scars. I don’t think poor, cantankerous Trinkie ever really viewed me as family, as his pack, and I’m ashamed to say I didn’t think much of him either. He had a permanently yellow-stained, pipe-smoker-ish beard, rubbed his anal glands along carpets like a self-stimulating Dyson, and growled whenever I h
ugged Mum, which she thought was terribly funny. I didn’t.

  Above all, he simply wasn’t my dog. I wanted my own dog.

  When we finally got Arty, I felt terribly ashamed for having not tried to love old Trinkie more, by then in his final embers of life, a steroid-pumped dodderer locked in jealous rivalry with a miniature schnauzer pretender. Because dogs thrive on love, not rivalry. Like humans. Like siblings. Like spouses. And mothers.

  *

  I go into the main berth to change into something dry while Summer finishes settling the big white dog and her puppies into a makeshift creche in the saloon, and on the way back I address the bathroom door to excitedly fill Ed in on what’s happening, promising him that we will try to release him as soon as possible to meet the new shipmates. ‘It’s just like that quote, in the stream where you least expect it, there will be fish. Except in this one there were dogs!’

  It’s greeted with silence. ‘Are you still not talking, Ed. Ed? Is everything OK? ED?’

  Hearing a faint, tinny rhythm, I realise he has his headphones on.

  But just before I turn away, a soggy piece of paper is thrust out from under the door. In lipstick he’s written, Sorry I broke the bathroom.

  I look round for a pencil, write I love you more than every bathroom in the world and push it back under, ignoring a twinge as the mug of black tea I had earlier reminds my bladder it’s coming through soon.

  The paper is posted back out with a smiley face and That is a ridiculously abstract concept.

  Love or that many bathrooms, I wonder, sending back a smiley face and a love heart. (As a twelve-year-old boy, I remind myself, both usually are alien, no matter where they sit on the spectrum.)

  22

  Rag Time

  I’m standing on the roof of The Tempest trying to get a bar of reception so that I can call the number on the dog’s collar. If I can get a signal, I may also be forced to call somebody to come and help get us moving again. Nobody has been past in either direction for almost an hour. The world could have come to an end for all we know.

  Mum and pups have settled straight into their makeshift corner, walled in with bench cushions and lined with every blanket we could find in the cupboards. They have fresh water and an old rope toy of Arty’s I unearthed in the boatman’s cabin. Mum’s polished off all my food supplies that don’t contain dog-damaging ingredients, her litter sharing as well as suckling before all taking a nap.

  Summer carries two mugs of weak black tea up on deck. ‘That’s the last of the water in the kettle. They are so cute. Can we keep them?’ She puts the mugs down on the roof to jump up beside them, watching me wave my phone around.

  ‘We need to find out if she has an owner first.’ I step over my clothes that are drying in the sun. The only thing I could find to change into – apart from kinky basques – is an oil-stained blue overall of Paddy’s. It’s huge and far too hot and I’m just wearing crotchless panties underneath (it was that or nothing; I’ve added a strategically folded piece of kitchen towel). But I have my pearls, so I’m fine. I still want to cry a bit, but I’m fine. I’m una donna fantastica, so I’m fine.

  ‘Why doesn’t this bloody thing WORK!’ I shake the phone and scream ‘Bloody, bloody, bloody thing! I’m not trying to fucking stream a fucking movie. I just NEED TO MAKE A CALL!’

  ‘Is this your hormones again?’

  ‘No it’s fucking technology!’ And my hormones.

  ‘Humanity can’t be trusted with tech, I agree,’ Summer says, launching into one of her TED lectures. ‘We supersize it but we’re too animal to control it. We’ll always bring it back to survival and sex because we can’t help ourselves. Face it, we’re only on this beautiful big blue sphere to reproduce, period. That’s why men have a gotta-fight-it, gotta-fuck-it urge. It’s hardwired. Use it wisely and you have heroes. Digitise it and you have Twitter trolls and porn. Social media’s turned us into gender propagandists.’

  ‘What a comfort your mobile is still in your locker at school.’ I’m standing on tiptoes beside her, and I have one miraculous bar! Argh, it’s gone.

  ‘My phone’s not at school.’

  ‘But your map avatar was still there when we picked you up.’

  ‘Mum, I love it how Ned Ludd you are. The location tracker just records the point where I switched off my data. It’s right here.’ She reaches up under her skirt. ‘Lace garter iPhone holder. All the rage this year, according to the bridal shop.’ She holds up her whizzy mobile, tapping the screen. ‘I didn’t want to look in case Kwasi hasn’t mess— oop! He has. He is SO mad at me.’ She presses it to her chest and closes her eyes. ‘Can I stay on this boat longer? Like all week?’ She’s bright red.

  ‘You have a PHONE with a PHONE signal?’

  ‘4G on my network.’ She looks at it again, finger flicking the screen superfast now. ‘Do you want to borrow it? Can you wait until I’ve read all these DMs?’

  Be a calm mother, I remind myself. Be strong.

  ‘Yes and no and I pay the bill.’ I snatch it up and call the number from the collar tag.

  ‘Don’t answer if Kwasi calls!’ she pleads as a woman answers the call with a Black Country Yuss?

  When I explain about the dog and her puppies, trying not to reveal how choked I am at the tearful jubilation to come, the phone is muffled instead and I hear the shout, ‘Colin, I think somebody’s found your nan’s dog!’

  Tearful jubilation is briefly delayed until Colin comes on the line wheezing emphysemically, ‘Big white poodle, yeah?’

  I suppose it’s possible. ‘She’s been living as a stray a while. She has puppies!’

  ‘Not my problem. I know it sounds harsh, bab, but Nan’s in care now and she can’t cope with Lady no more. We gave her to a fella with a narrowboat over Smethwick way who said he needed the company. Call him, not us.’ The line goes dead.

  ‘They don’t want her back.’ I return the phone to Summer, still in shock. ‘She’s a poodle called Lady.’

  ‘That’s suits you so perfectly, Mum!’ She beams up, ironic eyebrow on overdrive. ‘She’s a Privileged White Dog!’

  *

  Paddy hated the name Artemis. He wanted to rename her Slinky after the Toy Story dog, which I vetoed on the grounds that Slinky was a) male, b) a dachshund and c) it’s unlucky to change a dog’s name. (Another one! From which we can deduce that it’s unlucky to change any name except Reg Dwight, Marathon bars and Bombay.) We had a brief power battle through the first few weeks when I referred to her as Arty and he called her Slinky, but I won, control freak that I am.

  ‘Lady’ is a tough one. It doesn’t really reduce – Lad? Dee? Ay? – and much as I loved the Disney movie, it’s not a name I would ever give a dog. But she’s been rescued by a boat whose name was once Lady Love, so maybe fate’s trying to tell me something. If asked to list my top fifty dog breeds, poodle would not have featured.

  Today is changing me.

  I am already fighting for this poodle.

  *

  I stay on the roof, looking out for boats, stepping over both my clothes and a sunbathing Summer who has reclaimed her phone to read messages from Kwasi in forensic detail. It has now been an hour and ten minutes since we got grounded. The world has definitely ended. We’ll all go savage again – which is handy, because the second mug of black tea is pressing down on the first and I may have to wee over-board soon.

  ‘I could phone Dad?’ Summer reads my mind.

  ‘Not just yet. I need to think this through.’

  ‘Like me with Kwasi,’ she sighs.

  ‘I’d hardly compare the two.’

  ‘Yeah, Dad probably hasn’t even got his phone with him.’

  Flicking through her phone history, Summer has returned to her tech debate to lecture me on my generation’s misappropriation of smartphones. ‘You still see them as something to make calls on, like a digitised Filofax, which is totally antediluvian. They are personal space, a gallery of self, an ego-pod that we have the agency to curate.’


  I try to tune her out while she’s in TED-Talk mode. The river is serenely quiet along this stretch, deep in a channel of rush and canopy, slow as a trance. Except that now I can hear animated voices. Is somebody approaching? Maybe they can help us?

  No, it’s coming from Summer’s phone. I pick up a few passing phrases: Narrator of the Year… tell that to Vanity bloody Fair.

  ‘What is that?’ I look down.

  ‘Eight thousand views! They love you, Mum.’ She holds it up.

  I hear my own voice shouting from it, ‘I’ll wear double denim and drink Malibu for breakfast!’

  I can rise above this, be firm, motherly, unembarrassed. ‘Delete it.’

  ‘Never!’ She holds it to her chest.

  ‘Hey! You all right, ladies?’ shouts a cheery voice from the river. ‘Need a hand?’

  Salvation is paddling towards us in the shape of a kayak coming downstream, in it the sort of man who deserves music cued: ‘Holding Out For A Hero’. His shoulders are Herculean, his chest a ship’s prow tapering to the sort of lean midriff a woman just knows has every gym-honed muscle-pack add-on beneath that flotation vest. His tattoos are tribal, his smile could light a tunnel. Eyes as blue as the sky. All that and a plastic safety helmet with chin harness.

  ‘We’ve run aground!’ Summer sits up, tossing her hair.

  He’s on board in seconds. ‘Let’s get you moving again shall we, girls?’

  I clamber down from the roof to explain the problem. ‘Ran her too close to the bank in the shallow water, something round the prop, can’t get the weed hatch open to clear it or push off the bank to get enough clear water to power it off.’

  He tuts for a long time. Tuts. I hate tutting. ‘Bet you’re glad I’m here, eh girls?’

  Directing his attention exclusively on Summer, who has dropped down beside me to admire his tattoos at closer range, he explains that narrowboat engines are very straightforward. ‘A mate has one and we see this all the time, especially with novices like you out on day hires. I’ll need to take a look at your prop, sugar lips. That’s a propeller. It’ll be in a hatch just down here. We call it the weed hatch.’