Boxing day was a picture postcard of stark black trees and soft white snow. The air seemed denser, the sounds sharper and the world less harsh. The view from the bedroom window was so beautiful I almost forgot the cold, but when I got out of bed, bitter reality hit me again, as did David’s absence.
His side of the bed was so undisturbed I almost expected to see a glitter of frost on the pillow. The house was silent. Snow-silent. I thought I’d be greeted by stretching dogs and early morning scratching when I reached the bottom of the stairs, but there was nothing. Tinsel on the tree moved gently for no reason. Through the windows, footprints of birds in the snow led nowhere.
I opened the kitchen door and saw the desolate remains of Christmas night. Congealed cranberry sauce adhered to the once-proud sprouts, held fast in calcified bread sauce. The brilliant snow-light lit up motes of dust settling on every surface. I filled the kettle then searched for a radio, suddenly desperate for the sound of voices.
Then I saw it. Actually I almost tripped over it. It was laid out on the kitchen floor.
The dead dog.
Maybe it wasn’t dead, maybe it was just sleeping. I squatted down beside its beach towel. No obvious breathing. I poked it gently with a rolled up newspaper. Dead.
There was a dead dog on the kitchen floor.
‘He’s there so the other dogs can learn about death.’ I hadn’t heard Phyllida come in. ‘There you are, dogs! Go see! Nothing to be frightened of.’
The dogs dutifully if reluctantly wandered over to sniff the corpse. It didn’t take them long to realise that this hadn’t come out of a tin and it wasn’t covered in chocolate and so, though dead, was not food. It was remarkable how quickly they saw it was, in fact, a dead dog. And, reluctant to be reminded of their own mortality, they turned in a tide of tails and legs, stampeded to the doorway, and almost crushed the runt of the flotilla in their panic to get back to the living room.
‘Are you going to bury it?’ I tried to sound nonchalant.
Phyllida looked stern. ‘Him. Stanley still has the dignity of his sex and his name.’
From what I could see of his undercarriage, Stanley hadn’t had the dignity of sex since he was a puppy.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?,’ I asked.
‘Yes… Where’s David? We must get over to the hunt meet. Every year we think it could be the last one, but so far we’ve out-foxed the antis. Out-foxed, d’you see? Ha ha.’ She had to help me with the wordplay as I was obviously as thick as bathroom sealant. I laughed obligingly. ‘You’ll come of course.’
‘Of course,’ I answered, wondering whether to empty the mould out of the pot or just put the bags into mugs. ‘Have you just got back? Do you know where David is?’
Although she looked away, busying herself with a hundredweight bag of dog biscuits, her reply was seamless. ‘We got back hours ago. He must have slept on the sofa to save waking you.’
A few minutes later I went upstairs to put on another thermal vest and heard David singing in the bathroom. Gilbert and Sullivan. Then I saw Phyllida had left her bedroom window open again and the arctic wind was howling unimpeded into our room. I reached in to close the door and saw David’s socks on the floor by the bed.
Two limp black socks, with what looked like a regimental crest on the ankle. I’d bought them from a shop in Jermyn Street before seeing KT in a matinée of Jack and the Beanstalk. It was an all-star cast and he’d been quite exceptional as the back end of the tap-dancing cow. I must have been in shock, as all I could think of was the front end sitting on its own lap then crossing both sets of legs.
‘What are you laughing at?,’ asked David, coming out of the bathroom.
‘Oh nothing… When did you come to bed last night?’
‘You were snoring. I slept on the sofa. Came up when it got too cold.’
‘Ah. Right.’
I wasn’t sure of the etiquette when one’s husband’s socks were lying under another woman’s bed, so I didn’t say anything. As I’d said nothing when I saw Phyllida’s intimacy with his hair. I didn’t want to think about it, or the other lies that might be found under Phyllida’s bed.
We were all frightfully bright and jolly as we piled into the Toyota Land Grabber, leaving the dead spaniel in the middle of the kitchen floor. My main concern was that, as the kitchen was the only warm room in the house, the thing might start going off before we got back. David and Phyllida didn’t seem to care, though, and sat in the front chatting and giggling while I winced in the back under a riot of slobbering dogs.
At the hunt meet, Phyllida and David climbed out looking like fashion plates from Horse and Hound. I fell out of the hatchback like a bewildered asylum seeker. We walked down past a variety of mud-spattered Land Rover variations to the village square. The road was icy but the locals didn’t slip; neither did David. I gripped the overgrown hedgerow as my legs parted like a turkey wishbone.
On the village green, six or seven solid-looking horses were standing and circling, ridden by solid-looking English women whose voices bayed louder than the pack of hounds. Plates of mince pies and mulled wine in plastic cups were being offered round by ruddy-faced villagers. Please take home your litter, requested a discreet sign on a rustic front gate.
Phyllida was in her element. David and I stood back while she worked the crowd with seven black labradors on a remarkable selection of leads, including a bit of old rope. She was greeted, kissed and marvelled at until the crowd parted to allow a massive grey gelding through. From it a ruddy-faced woman of about 55, with the sort of bosom the Empire was built on, greeted Phyllida as if hailing the Queen Mary in Southampton:
‘Phylly! M’dear! That pup you sent me’s a cracker. We’ve trained him up into a real champion. Bloody fine working dog that.’
‘Damn, I forgot to send you his papers. I’ll do it first thing.’
‘No hurry, Phylly, I might ride over after New Year and let you see him. This the new man in your life?’
As she shifted in her saddle to get a good look at David, I noticed the stitching on her jodhpurs had given way, allowing putty-coloured lumps of thigh to strain towards the daylight. Her jacket gaped slightly as she moved and I saw she had a considerable overlap of stomach resting on her saddle.
‘He’s my husband,’ I said.
The woman looked as surprised as if the dray horse she was sitting on had suggested she go on a diet.
‘Oh, I am sorry.’
I was completely unsure, as she’d intended me to be, whether she was sorry for her mistake or sorry he was my husband. Then she inspected me more closely, leaning down and staring at me. Finally she jabbed a leather-clad finger in my direction.
‘I know your face.’ She strained, as with a reluctant bowel movement. ‘Haven’t you been on the television?’
I mumbled yes.
‘Don’t know your name. What have you been in?’
Other people were beginning to look across at us. I shrank and shrugged.
‘Well, I didn’t like it anyway. Daytime rubbish if I recall.’
She exchanged a look with Phyllida and flicked the horse into a lumbering trot. More horses and riders eased their way into the throng. One was a young girl on what looked like a pony, or rather it looked less like a vast, badly stuffed sofa than the others. Everyone was greeted loudly and enthusiastically. Still smarting from the ‘weren’t you on the telly’ incident, I asked, ‘So have they not seen each other for ages?’
Phyllida didn’t look round as she answered, but continued to wave and smile at the new arrivals. ‘Probably all met up on Christmas Eve, everyone goes to all the parties. It’s what we do in the country.’
‘Ah.’ I nodded.
We stayed for another half an hour, until the horses, hounds and riders finally trotted off. I wondered if, with the increasing number of urban foxes, we might soon see the Inner-City Hunt, a lot of hoodies in dodgy BMWs shooting up the gardens of Tottenham and Streatham. I smiled.
David was glowing like a born-again bucolic.
‘That was terrific, Phylly. I only wish Nellie and I could move out here. I’m sick to death of London.’
‘Nowhere to get a packet of cigars and a pint of milk at three a.m. round here,’ I muttered. David and Phyllida laughed, at me or with me didn’t seem to matter any more.
Back at the house I prepared lunch, stepping over the spaniel every time I had to visit the pantry or larder. Finally, after cold turkey, baked potatoes and various pickles, Phyllida announced:
‘I think it’s time to bury Stanley.’
We observed a moment’s silence, then David said, ‘I’ll help you.’
Phyllida’s eyes filled with tears. She put her hand over his. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’
It was an emotional moment and one that I did not feel equal to, so I washed up while David tenderly lifted the body which, now rigor mortis had worn off, was floppy and remarkably heavy. I could see the difficulty he was having with it and how much easier it would be to pick it up like a sack of coal instead of a sleeping child. David finally gathered it up and Phyllida laid her hand gently on the dog’s thin fur. For some reason, this quiet intimacy hurt more than the socks.
‘We should think about going before it gets dark, David,’ I said. ‘The roads are wet and if they freeze again they’ll be lethal.’
Like the look David gave me.
‘After all, you’ve got to get packed up for South America, find your passport, oh, and you promised to fix the fence where the ivy has pulled it over before you go.’
I sounded desperate, pathetic and unattractive, but there was nothing I could do about it.
‘I’ll put our stuff in the car while you bury Stanley and, if it’s all right with you Phyllida, I’ll collect my husband’s socks from under your bed.’
My voice was shrill. They turned to look at me. I faced them, defiant, brave and unafraid. Phyllida didn’t even have the grace to look guilty. I wanted to hit her.
‘Well?,’ I said. ‘Is that all right?’
‘Fine,’ said Phyllida, ‘I was going to wash them first. Stanley, unfortunately, purged himself at the end, all over me. David gave me his socks as I had to take mine off. And my shoes. Unfortunately it’s made a bit of a mess of your car too. I was going to give it a clean out but if you’re in a hurry to go…’ She trailed off, then gathered herself: ‘Don’t worry about Stanley if you have to go, David. I’d hate Nora to be put out.’
David didn’t even look at me, he just carried the dog outside. Phyllida followed. My face was burning. I had to keep moving, to try to get away from myself. David couldn’t despise me as much as I despised myself, but I knew the contempt he felt. He hated my jealousy but I couldn’t help it.
I snatched up anything that was ours, shoving everything into boxes and bags. From the kitchen to the sitting room to collect our presents.
I stopped dead in the doorway.
On the sofa was a rumpled blanket and an indented cushion. On the floor, open, the book David was reading about mitochondrial DNA.
Through the long windows I saw David digging, with Phyllida by his side, like Lowry figures against the snow. I knew David would be apologising for me, explaining my irrational behaviour. Telling Phyllida about all the things I’d imagined over the years, all the women that in my mind he had trailed through our bed.
I turned away from the window and cleared up, folding the blanket, collecting our things. I didn’t hear David open the door.
‘How could you? Eh? How the hell could you? You’ve ruined Christmas. Phyllida’s desperately upset. And me…? Well, I’ve had enough of you and your fantasies. I’m just glad I’m going away. I’ve decided to go a couple of days early. Can’t stand the idea of being around you, frankly. And listen, Nora,’ – Nora? – ‘you’ve got this month to think about your behaviour, because I’m telling you, one more, just one more demonstration of this ridiculous jealousy and we’re finished. Understand?’
I nodded dumbly, unable to say anything in my defence.
‘Right. I’m going to clean out the car. Phyllida’s not going to see us off, she’s too upset, she’s going to stay down there with the dogs till we’ve gone.’
‘But I’d like to apologise.’ I sounded as I had when I’d accused Susan Williams of stealing my sweetie money then found it in my school coat pocket.
‘I don’t think that would be appropriate at the moment, I really don’t.’
He turned and left the room – and me, empty. I wanted some living thing to reassure me, to understand why I was so frightened of losing David. I saw the old spaniel’s face. I was projecting Buddha-like understanding onto a dead dog and my self-esteem was zero. I needed help but had no idea where to find it. I resolved to try therapy after the holiday. I resolved to be a better wife. I resolved to lose a stone and look like Julia Roberts. But when I got out to the car, I simply resolved to keep my mouth shut until we got home and even then not say anything until David gave me permission. Had I had some sackcloth I would have run up a nice little frock, filled it with ashes and cleaned David’s shoes with my prostrate body.