19. Brown

Chiquitito-Brown was playing with his liver-and-white sister, Tilda, from next door. They chased and pounced and barked in the Fitches’ little front garden. Tilly, their mother, lay in the sun on the front doorstep, her forepaws crossed, watching. Whenever one of the young dogs flounced too near her, she grumbled in her throat.

‘They get on her nerves nowadays,’ said Grandpa, ‘– puppies of that size and spirit. They know she’ll stand no nonsense from them, but sometimes they overexcite each other and then they forget. Then Till gives a nip or two, to remind ’em. She’ll do much better when there’s only one to manage – when Brown’s gone.’

Ben and his grandparents had finished their dinner, and soon it would be time for Ben to take the afternoon bus back to Castleford. His grandfather was not accompanying him, but – of course – Chiquitito-Brown was. So far Ben had not spoken to his dog again, and had not even touched him. Gloomily, from the shadow of indoors, he had watched him playing in the sunlight with Tilda.

Now Grandpa called Chiquitito-Brown to him, and held him while he directed Ben to fasten the collar round the dog’s neck. This was the first time that Chiquitito-Brown had felt a collar, and he hated it.

‘You’ll have to scratch his name and address on the plate as soon as you get home,’ Grandpa said. ‘Or you could do it here and now. It wouldn’t take long for a boy with schooling to scratch “Brown –” ’

‘No,’ said Ben; ‘not here and now.’

Then Grandpa held the dog by the collar, while Ben clipped on the lead; and Chiquitito-Brown hated that too. He felt himself in captivity, and feared his captor – a stranger, whose voice and hands were without friendliness.

Ben, having said his goodbyes, set off for the bus, but Chiquitito-Brown would go with him only by being dragged in a half-sitting position at the end of the lead. Tilly watched, unmoved; Tilda, in astonishment.

Grandpa called after them: ‘Pick him up, boy, and carry him.’ Ben muttered, but picked him up. The dog was heavy to carry, and he struggled; but Ben held him firmly, grimly. So they went down the driftway.

Granny shaded her eyes, looking after them.

‘People get their heart’s desire,’ she said, ‘and then they have to begin to learn how to live with it.’

The weather had been perfect in London too: office-girls, blooming in coloured cotton dresses and white sandals, had eaten their midday sandwiches on park benches in the sun; City business men had ventured out for the whole day without umbrellas.

After her morning’s housework, Mrs Blewitt had washed all the loose covers, and pegged them out in the little back garden in the sun. Frankie and Paul had helped. Then it was dinner-time; and after that the two boys went out on to the Heath.

‘Be sure you’re back in good time for tea,’ Mrs Blewitt told them. ‘Remember, Ben will be bringing his dog; everyone will be here to see it.’ Mr Blewitt would be back for tea, and May and Charlie and Dilys were calling in.

‘We’ll be back,’ said Paul.

‘We’ll come back by the Tube station,’ said Frankie. ‘We might meet him.’

They nearly did. Ben, coming out of the Tube-station with the brown dog under his arm, saw the two of them peering into a sweet-shop window – they had been dawdling and window-gazing for nearly half an hour. He knew, as soon as he saw them, that he did not want to meet them; not with this dog.

He slipped quickly round a street corner, out of sight. Then he set the dog on the pavement, with the dry remark, ‘We can both walk now.’ But where? He did not want to go home – not with this dog.

The brown dog dragged reluctantly at the end of the lead as Ben went up the asphalted way to Parliament Hill. On the top, Ben stopped and unfastened the lead. He felt a bitter relief that he was free of the dog now. He gave it a push: ‘Go away then, you! Go!’

The brown dog, nameless because no longer named, moved away a little and then sat down. Ben tried to shoo him, but he simply moved out of reach and sat down again. Then Ben set off angrily over the Heath; the brown dog got up and followed him at a little distance. He knew by now that Ben did not want him, and so he did not really want Ben; but Ben was all he had. So the two of them went across the Heath, together but not in companionship.

Ben walked steadily, but he had neither destination nor purpose. He walked away the worst of his anger, and also what was left of the afternoon. There had been a good many people on the Heath when he first came, but now they were going home. It was late for their teas, or even time for their suppers.

He topped a rise and saw the landmark of the flagstaff by the pond. It was flying the Union Jack, and he remembered what the keeper had said: that the Union Jack was flown only to celebrate special days. Perhaps this was a royal birthday; but, seeing the flag, Ben was reminded that this was to have been a day of celebration for him. This was the wonderful day when he got his dog. As he gazed, the flag of joy began to descend. A keeper was lowering it: he detached it altogether, furled it, and carried it off; and that was that. Ben turned abruptly back over the Heath.

The flag on Hampstead Heath – Union Jack or LCC house-flag – is run down at sunset. The people who had not been drawn home to teas and suppers were now leaving the Heath because of chilliness and the fall of evening. Only Ben wandered farther and farther over the Heath; and the brown dog still followed him, but at a greater distance now, more laggingly.

There was solitude, stillness of evening, dusk that was turning the distant trees from green to black … Ben slowed his pace; he sat down on a slope commanding a wide expanse. He was alone on the Heath now, except for the brown dog. The dog had sat down in the middle distance and was gazing at Ben.

Ben knew that, if he called the dog by the name he was used to, he would surely come; but Ben did not call him. And if he never called him, in time the dog would get up and wander away. He would be lost on Hampstead Heath – a nameless, ownerless, brown puppy dog for some policeman to take in charge at last.

Did Ben care? He remembered his shame on the bus, when the brown dog sat trembling on his knee and the conductress had said, ‘He needs a bit of cuddling; he’s scared to death.’ He remembered taking the dog into the guard’s van of the train at Castleford: he had been about to put on the muzzle, according to regulations, when the guard had said, ‘Don’t you bother with that. The animal looks more afraid of being bitten than likely to bite.’ Ben had been humiliated; for the whole journey he sat at a distance, on a crate of chickens, his face turned away from the dog. Their arrival at Liverpool Street Station, the escalators, the Tube train – all of London that this dog first encountered terrified him. Ben had had to carry that heavy, trembling weight everywhere. He did so without tenderness or pity. He felt a disappointment that was cruel to him and made him cruel.

No Chiquitito … Ben let his head fall forward upon his knees and wept for that minute, intrepid, fawn-coloured dog that he could not have. Other people had the dogs they wanted: the Codling boy and the Russian huntsmen and people he had seen on the Heath this very afternoon – and, long ago, in Mexico, the little girl in the white dress with long, white, ribboned sleeves.

But Ben – no Chiquitito …

He shut his eyes tight, but he could see no invisible dog nowadays. He opened his eyes, and for a moment he could see no visible dog either. So the brown dog had gone at last. Then, as Ben’s eyes accustomed themselves to the failing light, he could pick him out after all, by his movement: the dog had got up; he was moving away; he was slipping out of sight.

Then, suddenly, when Ben could hardly see, he saw clearly. He saw clearly that you couldn’t have impossible things, however much you wanted them. He saw that if you didn’t have the possible things, then you had nothing. At the same time Ben remembered other things about the brown dog besides its un-Chiquitito-like size and colour and timidity. He remembered the warmth of the dog’s body against his own, as he had carried him; and the movement of his body as he breathed; and the tickle of his curly hair; and the way the dog had pressed up to him for protection and had followed him even in hopelessness.

The brown dog had gone farther off now, losing himself in dusk. Ben could not see him any longer. He stood up; he peered over the Heath. No …

Suddenly knowing what he had lost – whom he had lost, Ben shouted, ‘Brown!’

He heard the dog’s answering barks, even before he could see him. The dog was galloping towards him out of the dusk, but Ben went on calling: ‘BrownBrownBrownBrown!’

Brown dashed up to him, barking so shrilly that Ben had to crouch down and, with the dog’s tongue slapping all over his face, put his arms round him and said steadyingly, ‘It’s all right, Brown! Quiet, quiet! I’m here!’

Then Ben stood up again, and Brown remained by his side, leaning against his leg, panting, loving him; and lovingly Ben said, ‘It’s late, Brown. Let’s go home.’