That evening, Circe played with Geoffrey’s socks as usual, and for many subsequent evenings.
Minders
It was their unhealthy white fatness we noticed first. Their bellies preceded them into the park as they arrived with an assortment of dogs – a sprightly Alsatian; an artistically trimmed poodle, with a black pompom on each shaved leg; a fluffy Sealyham, and a docile Dobermann, whose interest in Circe – even when she wasn’t in season – was always startlingly evident. They often held hands, like young lovers, when they weren’t munching copious hamburgers.
She was small and broad. He loomed above her, his vast gut barely contained within a grubby white T-shirt. She invariably wore a tracksuit and trainers; he a black leather jacket and baggy jeans. Her hair was dank, his sleekly greased. They doted on each other and on the pets in their charge, who obeyed their every quiet command.
They were married, we learned, and had been unemployed for a long time. But now they were doing all right, walking and looking after the dogs that belonged to the rich professional people who lived in Chiswick. They loved their work and were well paid for it, in cash. We could see that the dogs liked their minders, for whom they were naturally and immediately obedient.
The couple’s favourite topic of conversation, apart from the superiority of dumb animals, was crime. In actual fact, they didn’t converse, but rather indulged in a dual monologue. They harangued us with their opinions on the causes of, and the cure for, murder and rape and burglary. We were subjected to the predictable views of a tabloid editorialist – hanging should be restored; a life sentence should mean a sentence for life, not ten or twenty years; thugs should receive a taste of their own punishment; black or Indian offenders should be deported. Theirs was a catalogue of unwavering imperatives.
(I suspect that a few of the more sedate dog owners secretly agreed with them, but would never have given their thoughts such crude or such public expression.)
Everyone felt relieved when the pair stopped coming to the park. Were they on holiday, perhaps? Had they found steady employment? There was no more talk of hanging and flogging and instant deportation. The everyday routine of inconsequential chat and harmless gossip was gradually re-established.
I came home one morning with the untired Circe and settled down to read the newspaper. I had a shock in store as I opened it. There, on the third page, was a photograph of the couple. Alongside it was a story that was all too depressingly familiar. It seemed they had a son, no more than a toddler, whom they had tortured, starved and beaten. His emaciated body was covered in cigarette burns. The boy had been taken from them, but had died in hospital.
On the morning they were due to stand trial, the husband threw himself from the roof of a multi-storey car park in Hammersmith. Death was instantaneous.
In the park the next day we talked in muted tones about the two dog minders. Someone had seen a picture of the child, and it had made her weep with pity and anger. Someone else wondered if the newly widowed wife had changed her mind on the subject of bringing criminals to justice.
The Mating Game
‘Have you ever thought of having her mated?’
The question was put to me by an amiable stallholder in Hammersmith market – the owner of a genuine collie, not a quasi-collie like mine.
‘They’d have beautiful puppies.’
I hadn’t thought of having Circe mated, but now – looking at the handsome animal spread out by the fruit-and-vegetable stall – I began to consider it a possibility.
I had weathered Circe’s first season by walking her very early in the morning and only taking her out when I was certain there were no dogs in the street. Even so, and in spite of my cautiousness, a determined sleuth picked up her scent and trailed it back to the house, where he let out a noise pitched between howling and barking, which Circe then started to accompany with anguished yelps. Sensing that the neighbours would soon be complaining, I filled a bucket with water and aimed it at the unprepossessing hound, who retreated, still giving voice to his frustration. He got the message that his attentions were not desired – by me, at any rate – when I doused him thoroughly with the third bucketful. He slunk off. I waited by the gate for ten minutes or more, but he did not return.
He reappeared in the morning, hopeful and silent. My presence signalled water to him, and he went away, for ever.
When Circe’s second season came along, I wondered if I was being rational. I remembered what it was like caring for and training a single puppy, and trembled at the prospect of rearing three, four, five or even six of them, beautiful or not. I had struck a bargain with the stallholder that I would keep one of the puppies and he could have the rest of the litter.