Tea and Dog Biscuits Page 9

  I knelt down and ever so gently stroked him. Was it my imagination or were his eyes showing a little more life since the drink of water? I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude to the young man well up inside me. I put my hand on his arm and squeezed it tightly.

  ‘On his behalf,’ I said, ‘may I thank you for what you have done for him.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘You could have left him there.’

  ‘No, I couldn’t have just left him.’

  ‘Some people would. Someone has done this to him.’

  While Dorothy cooked rice in the microwave I felt the need to be polite to this stranger, to make conversation. His slow and hesitant speech prompted me to ask if he had always lived in England. No, he was Japanese, and a student, studying in London. He had studied at language school here for two years before starting university. Dorothy congratulated him on his English.

  ‘Imagine,’ she said to me, ‘going to a foreign country to study. Not just in a foreign language – Aki has had to learn a new alphabet as well!’ Her interest in languages was showing.

  Another small cereal bowl was put down on the floor, close to the dog’s nose. His eyes moved. He took some seconds to gather his strength, then he raised his front half up and dropped his head down to the bowl. A few seconds more and the bowl was empty. He lifted his head from the bowl, turned and looked up at Dorothy. He gazed at her for a moment or two. Then he slumped back onto the floor.

  Our young friend was staring at the figure on the floor.

  ‘You know, where I live in London it’s a very respectable street. You wouldn’t expect to find this there.’

  I wondered if what he wanted to say, but didn’t, was that we were supposed to be a nation with a reputation for caring about animals. For at least one traveller from overseas, our image had been damaged for ever.

  Melissa had now taken blood samples and gone off with them somewhere, leaving Dorothy and me with the patient.

  The rice last night, and some more this morning with a little tinned food mixed in, had given him the strength, with encouragement, to slowly walk. Being left to gaze at him, to take in the state to which he had been reduced, to think about how somebody had just left him like this was depressing and draining. Dorothy tried to take my mind off sad thoughts and relieve the silence.

  ‘Whenever I see Melissa I always admire her hair,’ she said. ‘It’s really beautiful. I keep meaning to compliment her on it. But I don’t suppose you particularly notice her hair – I expect you’re concentrating on her legs!’

  I always found visits to the vet stressful. I always dreaded a doom-laden diagnosis. But the stress of my visits, it was true, was relieved somewhat by Melissa, six foot tall, blonde and leggy, wearing shorts throughout the year, including the English winter. One day, when I knew her better, I was going to say to her that I would have expected someone accustomed to Australia’s climate to have wrapped up well even in an English summer. I wouldn’t comment specifically on her wearing of shorts. She was a professional person and I was a client of the practice. Still, I was grateful that she did wear those shorts.

  Melissa and the shorts reappeared.

  ‘Right,’ she said, in a businesslike tone, ‘apart from his skin problems I’m not convinced that his weight loss is due to simple starvation. I’d like to take another blood sample and I’ll let you know if I find anything next time I see him. Meanwhile, I’m going to give you something to bathe him in and you’ll have to do it every day. And I’m going to give you some cream that you’ll have to put on his sores three times a day.’

  Dorothy and I exchanged looks. I didn’t know what she was thinking, but I was thinking, We’ve got six other orphans to look after as well – this is getting really time-consuming…

  I sat on the floor, on newspaper, in our tiny utility room. The newspaper was because Orphan Number Eight suffered with diarrhoea. He lay beside me, outstretched. I wanted to sit on the floor beside him so I could rest my hand on him. He wasn’t sleeping, he just lay there. Outside, it was dark and the summer night had turned chilly. I had put the central heating on so that the boiler in the utility room would keep him warm overnight.

  As I sat there with him, all my thoughts of expenditure of time were gone. Never in my life had I felt so sorry for any living thing.

  I could see all his ribs, and his hip bones stuck out so much I could grip them. I wanted to stroke him. As my hand slid gently along his back, the ridges in his backbone made bumps for my hand to go up and down. I gave up stroking him.

  I struggled to shut out of my mind questions that left me demoralised and dispirited. How could someone have left him like this? And where are they now? Are they relaxing and enjoying a drink down the pub? Or watching the telly perhaps?

  I had to preoccupy myself with other thoughts. What shall we name him? The dog wasn’t well enough for us to have got to know him, to discover his character so we could think of something that suited him. I would have to find inspiration from elsewhere.

  Dorothy put her head round the door. ‘That young man, Aki, is on the phone.’

  He had rung, of course, for news of the dog he had found on the pavement. I reported back what we had learned so far from our vet. He asked if we had chosen a name yet. I told him I was getting desperate: a few more hours and he would have been with us a whole day and still nameless. Then I had a sudden thought. ‘What’s your dog’s name?’ I asked him.

  Tomodachi,’ was the reply. ‘It is the Japanese for friend.’

  ‘Friend?’

  I nodded to myself. And that is how it came about that a German Shepherd who lived in England came to be named after a dog who lived thousands of miles away in Japan.

  People

  ‘Barrie – blood pressure!’

  I continued to stare out of the window, despite Dorothy’s reminder.

  ‘Why don’t you do something useful while you’re waiting? You’re winding yourself up. Why don’t you make a cup of tea?’

  I stalked across the room and threw myself down in an armchair. ‘Look at the time!’ The clock on the mantle showed ten minutes past three. A Mr Bradley and his partner had arranged to bring their dog to us at two o’clock. ‘They can’t even be bothered to ring us and say they’ll be late!’

  ‘Well, perhaps they’re stuck in traffic. Or maybe they’ve broken down.’ Dorothy spoke unhurriedly and quietly.

  I sighed. While Dorothy returned to her letter-writing I sat tapping my foot on the floor.

  Half a minute later I jumped up. ‘It’s no good – I can’t sit around waiting for these people to turn up. If they don’t come soon they’ll make us late for the vet.’

  ‘Didn’t you say you had an essay to hand in for your night class?’ said Dorothy. ‘Couldn’t you be doing that while you’re waiting?’

  ‘They’re bound to turn up just as I get started,’ I said.

  ‘Or what about young Sam? Is he all right for water?’

  At four months, Sam – he of the incident with the false teeth – was being fed three times a day, but his water bowl had to be refilled six to eight times a day. It wasn’t that he drank a lot, but after a walk or play in the garden, Sam liked to wash his feet – by putting them in the water bowl and shaking them about.

  ‘Yes, I’ve given him more water,’ I replied. ‘And I’ve mopped the floor,’ I added.

  ‘Well then, why don’t you go and sit with Friend and keep him company?’

  Actually, that was a good idea. ‘Yes, I should have been doing that,’ I said, ‘instead of standing here twiddling my thumbs waiting for these people.’

  I joined Friend in his isolation unit, the utility room. We had been alarmed to learn from Melissa that Friend’s skin disease was highly contagious; it was essential to keep him away from the other dogs at all times. We had to wash our hands thoroughly with anti-bacterial handwash after coming into contact with him. We must bathe him every day with the medicated cleanser. We must appl
y the cream to his sores using gloves. None of the other dogs were to come into contact with his bedding or food bowl. All this to do and these precautions to take and the other dogs to look after. And I had a job to hold down. And so did Dorothy.

  Stretched out on his blanket, Friend lifted his head up – and there was just the slightest wag of his tail.

  ‘Hello, boy.’

  He laid his head back down. I sat down on the floor beside him.

  The shoulders with no flesh, the scrawny neck, the patches of dry, cracked skin, the claws that needed clipping, the thin legs, a claw that had been ripped and just left, where now there was a growth that had to be dealt with – I had something I wanted to say to him about all this. I picked up a paw and squeezed it gently. Then I leant over him. I did not formulate the words, they just came to me.

  ‘You’re our dog now. And we care about you. What I see is your lovely dark brown eyes. I see your gentle face. And I see this paw. What I see here is a beautiful German Shepherd dog.’

  I must have sat with Friend for nearly an hour before Dorothy called through the door, ‘They’re here.’

  A huge four-wheel drive had pulled up outside our front door, but the couple within seemed in no hurry to get out. Dorothy and I could hear raised voices. We hesitated to go out and greet them.

  The man got out after some minutes and slammed his door.

  ‘Mr Bradley?’ I said, trying hard to put on a friendly tone.

  ‘Yes!’ We shook hands. He didn’t offer his hand to Dorothy.

  ‘We’d been expecting you at two,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, something came up,’ said Mr Bradley.

  The woman accompanying him joined us: one glamorous female. Lots of make-up, lots of big jewellery and a heavy leather coat that creaked as she walked. And those high heels were really high. I guessed we wouldn’t be taking the dog for a walk across the fields before they left her.

  Mr Bradley looked at his watch. It was a very big watch. He was a big man and he had a watch and a car to match.

  He gave a forced laugh. ‘This is going to sound terrible – we’ve only just got here – but we’ll have to shoot off pretty soon.’

  Dorothy opened her mouth to speak – I put my hand on her arm. ‘We’ll run through what we need to know as quickly as we can,’ I said.

  He opened the tailgate of his big four-wheel drive. The darkened windows had kept the dog inside a mystery up to now. But there she was: a long-coat Shepherd. Oh, how I’d always wanted a long-coat for myself. She stood up, wagged her tail and came forward.

  I turned to Dorothy. ‘She’s gorgeous!’

  Her colouring was more black and gold than the traditional black and tan. I cannot think of any other breed of pedigree dog that has so many variations in colour and appearance. Black and tan, all-black, white, cream, the rare blue Shepherd, the even scarcer palomino Shepherd, the short-coat, the medium-coat, the heavy-coat and the long-coat. Sabrina was a true long-coat. She jumped down and Dorothy clipped a lead on and walked her along the drive. Her coat fluttered in the breeze and she had feathered legs that mud would adhere to later when we walked her in the fields, but for now Mr Bradley had two glamorous females in his life.

  And yet it seemed her potential to dazzle admirers had not been fulfilled. Her coat was matted and lacked the sheen I would have expected. She struck me as lethargic, her eyes were dull and she was panting.

  ‘Let’s take her in and give her some water,’ Dorothy said.

  In the kitchen I made notes while Mr Bradley told us what a fantastic pedigree she had, how everybody admired her, that as a pup she had cost him £750, and how that did not include the inoculations, for which the breeder had charged him another £45. No, he hadn’t brought her bedding or any of her food with him, he’d forgotten. He was sorry about that, he had meant to after I had asked him.

  The woman who accompanied him spoke only two or three times, one of the occasions being to chip in that the dog had American breeding in her ancestors. And that the dog was good around horses: she had five horses. One of the reasons they’d got the dog was to guard the stables – but it turned out she ‘would lick any burglar to death’.

  While we received all this information Sabrina had found a spot to lie down where the sun that came in through the kitchen window had warmed the floor tiles. Dorothy had taken up residence beside her on the floor. I smiled at them both.

  ‘We’ve got ourselves a nice, cosy, sunny spot here, haven’t we, Sabrina?’ she said.

  Mr Bradley raised his arm up and looked at his watch.

  ‘Don’t let us keep you,’ said Dorothy.

  Mr Bradley and his female companion went out into the hall and Sabrina got up to follow them.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Dorothy pointing to the floor where she had lain. A pool of fluid glinted in the sun.

  Mr Bradley turned round. He took a deep breath and frowned. ‘That’s a problem she’s got.’ He looked at his female companion. ‘I asked you to remind me about that.’

  ‘Don’t blame me,’ was the reply.

  Mr Bradley looked at me. ‘It’s something she’s been doing,’ he said.

  ‘She’s leaking urine?’ said Dorothy. Her face had become set. ‘How long has that been going on?’

  Mr Bradley shook his head. ‘Two or three weeks?’

  ‘What does the vet say about it?’

  Mr Bradley made no reply. Up to then he had struck me as a very confident man but now for a moment he seemed uncomfortable. He didn’t look at either Dorothy or me.

  ‘We have been meaning to take her to the vet,’ said the woman. We were going to take her last weekend, but we had arranged to go away on the boat.’

  Dorothy stared at the couple, a hostile stare. I had not seen her look at someone like that before.

  Mr Bradley took a deep breath and drew himself up. ‘If you don’t want her, just say so and we’ll take her away again.’

  Dorothy’s eyes widened. Before she had the chance to speak I held my hand up.

  When we decided to start doing dog rescue work, my wife and I had talked about what each of us was best at and who should do what. My dog-handling skills made it obvious that Dorothy should be the one that did most of the work with the dogs when she fully recovered her health. I pointed out – tactfully, I felt – that she did tend to speak her mind rather more than I did.

  ‘Well, dear, then you deal with any awkward situations with people and I’ll deal with the dogs – that’ll suit me fine,’ she had said.

  Whatever our opinion of these people and of how they had neglected their dog, this German Shepherd shouldn’t stay with them. We didn’t want the people getting in a huff and walking out with her.

  I turned my back on the couple and fixed Dorothy with a look to indicate restraint and remind her of the agreement about our respective roles, then turned back to the couple.

  ‘It’s probably only an infection, something not difficult for us to clear up,’ I said, trying to sound as casual about it as I could. ‘We’ve got to go to the vet’s today anyway with another dog so we’ll take her with us then. Please don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Well… if you’re sure,’ said Mr Bradley. ‘We don’t mind taking her back.’

  I wanted to say, No need to put on an act. But I couldn’t.

  Mr Bradley, his female companion and I went out to the car, leaving Sabrina with Dorothy. I noticed his gleaming black four-wheel drive boasted the latest registration plate. My looking at the car may have prompted him to pause as he was getting in.

  ‘You obviously do good work. I wouldn’t like to think you were out of pocket over this – send us the vet’s bill and I’ll put a cheque in the post by return.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  I did send the bill for the three visits to the vet but his cheque got lost in the post.

  Death Row

  I was beginning to suffer regularly with stomach ache. It was visiting the vet that was the cause of the pain: the size
of my bills.

  I was grateful that Melissa did what she could to keep the bills down but in reality there was little that could be done other than the occasional suggestion for a cheaper alternative drug or to see two dogs together and put it down as one consultation.

  We’d recently decided that as the rehoming work was more time-consuming than we’d expected, one of us – it turned out it had to be me – should go half-time at their job if that could be arranged. So as the money going out went up, money coming in went down.

  The number of items on Friend’s bill made it look like the week’s till receipt from the supermarket. As I wrote the cheque I hoped they wouldn’t pay it in that day.

  Dorothy read my thoughts. She whispered in my ear, ‘Saturday afternoon – too late to pay in.’

  Friend’s weekend visit to the vet was visit number five. It had been a mixture of good news and not-so-good news. The improvement in his skin problem was there to be seen, the discharge from his eyes had ceased, his tormented scratching reduced now to what Melissa thought was probably habit. But the reading on the scales still flickered around 20 kilos: we had to get to 35. I felt I had to say to Melissa, ‘He’s had a week now on that special veterinary food that costs us about four times the normal stuff – and he hasn’t put on an ounce.’

  ‘Truth is, we’ve done all the tests we can do here and there is nothing showing up that would cause the weight loss.’

  There was silence for several moments in the consulting room. ‘So what do we do now?’ I asked.

  ‘I’d like to send away some blood samples to a laboratory. I do have a suspicion about what’s going on but it doesn’t always show up in the tests we can do here.’

  She must have read the alarm that registered on my face. She smiled broadly and put her hand on my arm. ‘It’s all right, Barrie, it isn’t something that’s fatal.’