A Dog's Life(4)

Jeremy Round is the author of a solitary work. The Independent Cook is typically quirky and idiosyncratic, containing recipes from Turkey, the American South and North Africa, as well as France, Italy and Britain. He would have gone on to write even better books.


Some months after Jeremy’s death, Jeremy Trevathan and I decided to live together. It was a sensible decision, and ten years of shared happiness and domestic contentment ensued. Jeremy exercised Circe at weekends, and the dog was pleased to have two masters.

Jeremy’s calmness and common sense are qualities he has earned and worked at over many years. His parents divorced when he was six, and his childhood was spent in London, in Athens, in Puerto Rico and, partly, in his native America. People are startled to learn that he is American, because his voice – with its oddly appropriate Cornish burr – couldn’t be less transatlantic.

Jeremy’s stability is the more remarkable when one considers his itinerant upbringing. Yet I know of men and women who were raised in loving settled families who lack his steely strength of character in a crisis.

He basked in the light of Jeremy Round’s brilliance. As so often happens, only a handful of Round’s friends kept in touch with him. Today he is a respected publisher, casting his own light for others to bask in.

We live apart now – in the flesh, at any rate. Our love has changed its course, but has not been diminished.





Siren



On a blustery morning in March 1985, I went to the market to buy a new sieve for the kitchen. But before I could fulfil this perfectly ordinary domestic task I became a changed man, almost in an instant. I should have walked past the pet shop, gone to the hardware store and returned home. I didn’t, though. The sight of a solitary puppy compelled me to stop. I reminded myself that I was not, and never had been, a dog lover. Yet I continued to look at the pretty little honey-coloured collie in the window. I realized I was in danger of succumbing to its beauty.

I walked on. I bought the sieve. I enjoyed my favourite daily spectacle in Shepherd’s Bush market – that of a group of Arab women, draped in black from head to toe, with only their eyes visible, buying countless pairs of knee-length underwear, of the kind that were once called ‘passion killers’. These particular ‘passion killers’ were in garish, even violent, colours – red, blue, green – and made of a material that crackled to the touch. I imagined rather esoteric orgies taking place at the embassy, as the women piled into the waiting, chauffeur-driven Bentley with their neon-lit knickers. ‘Those girls keep me in business,’ remarked the stallholder with a wink. ‘Ours not to reason, mate.’

I stopped once more outside the pet shop. I admired the puppy for the last time. It would soon have an owner, I





reasoned. Others would find it irresistible. I left it to its happy – I hoped – fate.

Two hours later, I entered the market, praying that the pet shop window would be empty. The puppy was asleep on its bed of straw and torn-up newspaper. I knew, now, that I was lost. I knew that I was irretrievably lost when I heard myself asking the price of the collie.

‘She’s not a thoroughbred,’ the old Irishman who ran the shop told me. ‘You can have her for forty pounds.’

I got out my cheque book.

‘I prefer cash. It’s safer.’

I explained that I had to go to the bank and would be gone for a while.

‘She’s yours. Don’t worry. She’ll be here for you.’

As I set off for the bank, I considered the possibility of not returning to the shop, of being released from the madness I was experiencing, of coming to my senses. I had neither the time nor the energy to care for a dog. I was in the middle of writing a long novel, Gabriel’s Lament, and I was living with a partner who was in poor health. I had the means of escape. I was in thrall to a bundle of fur with bright brown eyes. I was behaving like a besotted fool. I listed all the reasons why I shouldn’t part with forty pounds.

I heeded none of them. I handed over the money. I took the dog in my arms and soon she was licking my face, my ears, my neck. I was drenched in her pee as I carried her home, wondering what reception I might expect when I told David the obvious truth that I had fallen in love with a puppy.

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a dog.’

‘I can see it’s a dog. What are you doing with it?’

‘I bought her.’

‘Take her back.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I can’t bear to.’

‘You have a book to write, you idiot.’

He was silent and morose for hours. He glowered at the dog as she peed and shat on the newspapers I had put down for her.