I had a novel to finish and, in the immediate period after David’s death, I wrote the closing fifty pages of Gabriel’s Lament in a kind of haze, with Circe often curled about my feet.
The gently courteous Arab, the brisk registrar of births and deaths, the histrionic funeral director will continue to be vivid presences in my life. Each of them was distinctly thoughtful, distinctly solicitous.
‘Your late companion was fortunate in his friends,’ said my soulmate when I went to collect the ashes. ‘A most impressive turnout. He must have been a popular chap.’
‘He was.’
‘Unlike some I could tell you about.’
He told me about a rich old man who had written ‘reams and reams of dire epic verse’. The ‘poet’ had arranged that his service should run for an hour and a half – the time it took the funeral director to read his masterpiece aloud: ‘An appalling piece of doggerel, Mr Bailey. I performed it for what it was worth, which – alas – wasn’t much.’
The chapel at Mortlake was filled to capacity with the old man’s relatives, who listened to the endless doggerel with feigned interest. Some gave up the effort, and fell asleep. ‘There was a woman in the front row snoring.’ They were there in anticipation of the versifier’s will, which was read the same day.
‘Theirs was a wasted journey, Mr Bailey. Not a sausage did he leave them. Not a single solitary sausage. Everything was left to charity.’ He laughed. ‘Let’s toast the Keats that never was with another sherry.’
Tour de Powys
Circe and I spent the long Easter weekend after David’s death on my agent’s farm in Powys, near the Welsh border. The dog was at her happiest as she scampered across the fields at daybreak. I strolled behind her. The ball was forgotten. There were too many interesting smells to sniff out, and so much unknown territory to explore. She often turned and glanced at me impatiently, as if to accuse her sluggish master of being unadventurous. I had the impending funeral on my mind, and the question of what food I should prepare for the mourners. Grief, for the moment, was almost of secondary importance.
Circe chose to imagine that I and my closest friends could be rounded up like sheep. Human ankles were for nipping at. On that first excursion into the countryside, there were real sheep on the horizon, bleating at the approach of a stranger and his dog. To my relief, Circe went nowhere near them. She hurried on, indifferent to their presence and their noise. They were no concern of hers.
On one of those Easter mornings, I saw a man with a shotgun in the immediate distance. He was staring at Circe with keen interest. I realized that he was wondering if she was a fox, so I began to run, yelling her name. He, in turn, must have comprehended that I wasn’t some eccentric with a feral pet and greeted me with an abrupt time of day.
A year later, we stayed with Deborah, her husband Michael and their infant daughter, Jessica, again. On a fine spring afternoon three of us were sitting in front of the farmhouse, enjoying a drink, when Circe suddenly became agitated, her ears cocked, her tail wagging frantically. Within seconds, she darted off down the track that leads to the farm and was soon on the main road. We now caught sight of what she had seen – a team of cyclists, professionals to judge by their high-speed bicycles and the outfits they were wearing, who were facing the challenge of the steep hill ahead. Circe joined them in that endeavour.
Fearing for her safety, Michael and I gave chase in the car. The cyclists had no intention of stopping, and neither had Circe. She ran alongside them, matching their speed. They were breathless when they attained the peak of the hill, getting off their bikes and collapsing in a smiling heap on the grass verge. And Circe, an honoured addition to the team, fell at their feet, gasping like them and in a similar state of exhaustion.
‘That’s some animal you’ve got there,’ one of the cyclists managed to say.
‘Yes,’ I answered politely, though I was seething with fury about the silly and dangerous game they had allowed her to play.
They stroked and patted her upturned belly and told her what a clever girl she was.
She became less boisterous as she got older. She was fifteen when, to my horror and amazement, she reverted to the worrying habit of her giddy youth. We were coming to the end of the morning run in Ravenscourt Park. I saw a cyclist in nearby Paddenswick Road, and so did she. Off she sped, old as she was, as she’d sped long ago, and my heart beat faster at the thought of her being run over. But she and I were lucky, for another dog owner – a woman of few words – was standing at the pedestrian crossing with her two charges. She grabbed hold of Circe with her free left hand and chided her for her bad behaviour. I thanked the woman and apologized for my dog’s recklessness.