When there was no more that the vet could do for Stan, and time would heal him or it would not, I carried him back to the loft and made a kind of nest for him in every room of our home out of old, familiar blankets and some favourite well-gnawed toys.
He had one nest in the main area of the loft, and another in the bedroom, and another in the kitchen. A water bowl was placed near every nest, but they remained untouched. Edie and I tried to tempt him with morsels of cheese and chicken but Stan – a true foodie among dogs – was not interested.
He watched me from his bedroom basket as I called Scout for her goodnight poem. I had been putting it off for ages, but tonight I read her ‘The Power of the Dog’ by Rudyard Kipling.
‘There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.’
Silence on the other end of the phone.
‘What do you think old Kipling’s saying there, Scout?’
‘Old Kipling?’
‘Yes.’
She thought about it.
‘Don’t get a dog.’ A pause. ‘Don’t ever get a dog because it hurts too much when …’
She swallowed hard and left the rest of it unsaid.
Stan stared at me from his nest in a corner of the bedroom, bright eyes gleaming in the darkness. He was unmoving, unchanging and he was so unlike the dog we had known and lived with and loved for so long.
‘I think he’s saying the opposite,’ I said. ‘Old Kipling. I think he is saying that the way we feel now – when Stan is sick, when any dog is really sick – is the price we have to pay for all those good times we had with our beautiful boy. And Kipling is wondering if it’s worth it – all the pain you feel – as the price for all the laughs and fun and walks in all kinds of weather. And you know what, Scout? I think that Kipling thinks it is worth it.’
My daughter inhaled, then let it go. It was not quite a sigh. And I could see her face in my mind. A thoughtful, serious little girl, already too familiar with loss.
‘I have to brush my teeth,’ she said, and my heart ached for her. I wanted to put my arms around her and protect her, or to at least tell her that I understood how she felt tonight, but Scout was out of reach now, living in another family, not the one we shared, and living in another home, not my own.
‘Don’t forget the back,’ I said.
‘OK. Here’s Mummy.’
And then there was the customary pause while her mother took the phone but did not speak as she waited for Scout to make her way upstairs. When she came on the line, Anne’s voice was choked with emotion.
‘Did you read my email?’ she said.
‘What email?’
‘This is not a good time, Max. Since Oliver lost his job, it’s been so hard for me. I’ve done my best, I really have. You know I have. Nobody knows how hard it has been for me …’
I found my laptop.
There was an unopened email.
Dear Max,
I am sorry …
It went on for ages. Reams of all the stuff Anne was sorry about. Unbroken paragraphs of regret. She was sorry about everything. Sorry that her husband had lost his job. Sorry that this was a difficult time for Scout to come and live with her. And sorry for herself. That most of all.
I slammed the laptop and the email was gone. I did not need to read every word of it. I got the gist. And I didn’t care about her husband or his job or her.
All I cared about was my daughter.
‘Don’t cry, Anne,’ I said. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’
As I hung up the phone, Edie came into the bedroom wrapped in a towel and still damp from the shower. I pulled her to the bed. The towel slipped to the floor. I placed a kiss on her wet shoulders.
‘What’s happening?’ she said.
‘Scout’s coming home,’ I said.
We wrapped Stan in a blanket and carried him down to Smiths of Smithfield. A kindly Australian waitress put down a plate for him. He did not even sniff it. He sat on Edie’s lap, swathed in his blankets, and all he wanted to do was sleep.
Edie’s hair was still wet from the shower. Her hair was the burnished red that looks as though it has a touch of fire in it but the dampness made it darker. She pushed it back from her high forehead.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘You mean your ex-wife has decided she can’t look after Scout?’
‘Anne – my ex-wife – has problems at home,’ I said. ‘Problems with her husband. Problems that have come up after he lost his job. And I was wrong – I thought that nothing bad ever happened on the kind of street where they live. But I guess they can happen anywhere.’
‘And what about us, Max? I’ve always been Scout’s friend. But I’m never going to be her mother, am I? What will we be? You, Scout and me?’
I felt the endorphins kicking in.
‘We’ll be a family,’ I said.
A family once more, I thought.
Is that really what we would be?
Yes, that is exactly what we would be. Perhaps not the kind of family that any of us was expecting. Perhaps not the kind of family you see in commercials. But a family all the same.
‘I almost forgot,’ I said. ‘I have something for you.’
Edie was looking wary. This was all moving very fast.
I reached into my pocket and took out a set of keys. Two Yale and one Chubb, all of them brand new and gleaming.
I talked her through them.
‘This one is for the front door on Charterhouse Street. These two are for the loft.’
She took the keys and held them in the palm of her hand, the lights of the soft summer evening catching the freshly cut metal.
‘Who else has keys to the loft?’
‘Me. Mrs Murphy. Jackson still has a set. And Scout, although she is too small to reach the lock. I give her another year.’
‘That’s exalted company.’
‘It just makes things easier, Edie. Coming and going. No big deal.’
‘I guess you must like me a little bit.’
‘You’re all right.’
‘Thanks.’
Finally we smiled at each other. She exhaled.
‘I might take Stan for a walk before we put him down for the night,’ she said.
‘But Edie – he can’t walk.’
‘Then I’ll carry him.’
She looked out of the big windows of Smiths of Smithfield at the meat market stirring into life.
‘You told me once that dogs live in a world of scent. So maybe all the smells of the neighbourhood will do him some good. And if it doesn’t make him better, then maybe it will make him happy. Isn’t it worth a try if it makes Stan feel happier?’
‘Yes,’ I smiled. ‘It’s worth it.’
So Edie took Stan in her arms and she held him close as she carried him off in the direction of West Smithfield, where Charles Dickens’ description of our neighbourhood is carved into the stone chairs.
I watched them until they disappeared and then I walked through the market’s great arch, past the line of old red telephone boxes and the plaque marking the spot where William ‘Braveheart’ Wallace was executed, and I kept walking until I came to the small strip of shops on the far side of Smithfield.
Music was drifting from the flat above the one I was heading to. I stopped to listen to it. An old country hit, heartfelt and ironic all at the same time. ‘Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue’ by Crystal Gayle. I looked at the shop but it was closed for the night.
MURPHY & SON
Domestic and Commercial Plumbing and Heating
‘Trustworthy’ and ‘Reliable’
I went round to the back of the shops and up a flight of stairs.
Mrs Murphy answered the door.
‘Guess what?’ I said and she stared at me for a moment before throwing her arms around me, and both of us were laughing, and Crystal Gayle was singing in the background.
‘My Scout’s coming home,’ Mrs Murphy said.
I stood outside our front door, scanning the street for a slightly built redhead carrying a small red Cavalier King Charles Spaniel in her arms.
I wanted to be home safe and sound with the pair of them.
But there was no sign of Edie and Stan.
Perhaps they had already come back. And now of course Edie had her own set of keys.
I had had a cup of tea with Mrs Murphy – ‘You will have a cup of tea,’ she had told me, as always making her invitation sound like a prophecy – and it was quite possible that Edie had given up on reviving Stan with the world of scent and the ten-kilo dog had started to feel heavy in her arms.
They’re already home, I thought, slipping my key into the lock.
I stepped inside, the building cool and dark after the summer night street.
The figure moved quickly from the shadows of the stairwell.
He raised the stubby yellow Taser and aimed it at my face.
And then he shot me.