She had much to say to herself, of an earnest nature, to judge by the sharpness of her tone and the furrows on her forehead. I often wondered if she had two voices at her command – her own, and that of an unseen partner or contestant. Was this person on the other side of the net, perhaps, or playing alongside her in doubles? Here was a game that seemed to be in perpetual progress, with no foreseeable ending. Or so I fancied, imagining that a real match on a real court had been halted, and could only be resumed, again and again, in her mind. Her outfit might be the equivalent of Miss Havisham’s wedding dress, and her tennis match that famously cancelled marriage ceremony, with its uneaten cake, its absent groom.
It was with the arrival of Circe that I came to realize that the woman, when kitted out for tennis, saw nothing beyond her immediate vision of the interrupted game. She was oblivious to the dog’s bark of welcome, and strode on, racquet at the ready, muttering darkly in one of her voices. Circe never failed to acknowledge her, and the woman never stopped to stroke, or talk to, the animal whose approval she had gained. How had she gained it? That was another mystery, and not open to supposition, like the aborted singles or doubles. Circe wanted to be her friend, as she didn’t want be be the friend of other men and women whose shows of affection she either ignored or rebuffed. And then, one day, the mystery was instantly solved. It wasn’t the woman’s friendship Circe craved, it was the tantalizing tennis balls in the string bag. I had been a blind fool, not to have seen what was obvious.
In the last year or so of Circe’s life, I had to change my mind. The woman wore different whites now – white skirt, white blouse, white stockings, white raincoat. It could be that the match had been won in her head, or finally abandoned, for she no longer carried the racquet and the string bag. She was still engaged in frantic conversation with herself, however, and still heedless of Circe’s genial overtures. The dog still wished to be friends.
Circe had no trouble attracting Mick’s attention. ‘She’s a pretty thing,’ he would say. Mick, like the one-time tennis fan, is Irish, and like her he has been institutionalized. In common with many Irish people in the district, he had been born and raised on a farm, and was used to the company of sheepdogs. He grinned at the eager Circe and patted her gently.
Mick was once prone to violent fits, and was often taken away and placed in protective care for months at a stretch. That was years ago. For the last decade he has been a model of amiability, because he is happy in his chosen work. He is not paid for it, though courteous passers-by stop and thank him for picking up the litter the unsociable have discarded. Mick can be seen every day of the year at the corner of the road by Starch Green, placing empty packets, tissues, cigarette ends, leaves – and even dog turds, which he wraps in paper – in the bins the sane inhabitants of Hammersmith have overlooked. Mick performs this task with a zeal that deserves to be called missionary, for there is a light in his eyes as he goes up and down, to and fro, keeping his half-mile clean. He usually has a word to say about the weather, and if he talks to himself it is to chide the men and women – and children, mostly – for whom he is tidying up. The shopkeepers and the fellow residents of the council estate where he lives regard him fondly, as indeed they should. He is providing them with a service, after all, in his smiling fashion.
Geoffrey’s Socks
Circe was as much in need of exercise at home as she was within the relatively wide open spaces of the park. Throwing a ball for her was neither sensible nor feasible because there were too many objects in the house that could be easily broken. What else was there to hurl down the stairwell? Socks, old socks, was the answer.
The discarded socks were David’s and mine. They were made of cotton or light wool, and therefore not resistant to Circe’s strong teeth. Her saliva soon rendered them offensive to the touch. Jane Grigson was sitting with me in the kitchen on a fine summer evening a few weeks after David’s death, watching me throw a rolled-up sock over the banister for the ever-scuttling dog. Circe, retrieving it, dropped the soggy toy at Jane’s feet with an abrupt bark that indicated it was her, Jane’s, turn. Jane picked it up, pulled a face registering mild disgust, and said, ‘Next time I come, I’ll bring you some socks that won’t end up like this.’ She slung the sock away from her, and it was quickly brought back, in an even soggier state.
Jane kept her promise. She arrived bearing gifts, as was her generous custom – Yarg, a delicious new cheese from Cornwall; green figs, just about to ripen; a bottle of balsamic vinegar. And then she produced the treat for Circe, who was smiling at her, tail wagging. From out of her bag came two pairs of her husband’s socks, one red, one blue. They were sturdy, countryman’s socks, of the kind that go with stout shoes or boots. They had been lovingly darned, I saw. It would take an excess of salivating to make them limp.