A Dog's Life(6)

Mongrel Goddess



‘What’s his name?’

The question was asked first when she was an energetic puppy, propelling me along the street in her desperate need to reach the park. His name was still being enquired after in her lively old age. People assume that all dogs are male, until informed otherwise.

‘Her name is Circe.’

‘Susie? That’s nice.’

Some, children mostly, heard me correctly.

‘Sir-sea. Sir-sea. Who’s she?’

She was a Greek goddess – some say a witch – who lured Odysseus, the great hero at the siege of Troy, on to her island. She turned at least half of his sailors into swine.

‘Pigs,’ I translated.

‘Why did she do that?’

‘Only she could tell you. It was in her nature, I suppose.’

‘Can she turn me into a pig?’ the ten-year-old wondered.

‘You’re that already,’ his older sister responded.

The impatient Circe wanted an end to this tiresome conversation, and pulled vigorously on her lead.

‘We have to go. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye, Sir-sea,’ the boy and girl chanted, and then giggled. They were to become, as they got older, two of her most devoted admirers. They told their mother, who was greatly amused, that they knew a dog – she looked like Lassie – who could turn men into pigs.

‘Was it just sailors, Mister?’ The boy needed clarification. ‘Or was it anybody?’

‘In the story it’s just sailors.’

‘That’s a relief,’ said their mother, giving a mock sigh. ‘Your dad’s safe, then. I was ever so frightened for him, in case he should bump into – what’s her name?’

‘It’s Sir-sea,’ the daughter was quick to tell her.

‘She really does look like Lassie. Come on, you two, you’ll be late for school.’

Circe reacted with disdain or incomprehension when addressed as Lassie. She was aware of the name she had been given, and duly answered to it. (The original Lassie, in Lassie Come Home and other movies, was a dog. His genitals were trussed up and his hindquarters cosmeticized, Hollywood fashion.) She allowed herself to be patted and stroked, always, by those who called her Lassie, without bothering to find out if she was known by something else.

‘She’s not Lassie,’ I would say, when I could be bothered to. ‘Lassie was a thoroughbred. She isn’t.’

A snooty woman had reminded me of her mongrel’s status when Circe was about nine months old and not growing to be quite as tall as the average border collie.

‘I think you should know,’ she boomed, striding across the grass to where I was throwing the ball for Circe to retrieve, ‘that your bitch is neither a sheltie nor a collie. Did you part with money for her?’

‘I did.’

‘You were swindled.’

‘It wasn’t very much.’

‘I should hope not,’ she snorted, walking off with her pedigree Labrador.

Swindled? For forty pounds? Here was the canine class system at its deadly work. My beautiful hybrid, my intelligent bitch, hadn’t been interbred to the point of idiocy. She was her own mistress, and I was – at certain gullible times – her willing Odysseus, ready to have myself tied to the mast on her silent instructions.

‘She’s a mongrel,’ the woman remarked contemptuously, slamming the gate behind her.

‘So are you,’ I shouted. ‘So are we all.’

I was to listen to this animal fascism – purity of the breed stuff and nonsense – very rarely in the sixteen years of Circe’s life. David had been astute to detect a Circean quality in her, for not all domestic animals, in common with all human beings, have the power to enchant.

‘Your dog’s smiling,’ was a frequent observation.

And it was true. She was baring her teeth without menace, without anger. She was displaying them, benevolently, to whomever was delighting in her charm.





Mercurial



David spent almost a year in Circe’s exuberant company. Whenever he felt well enough, he would come to the park and watch as she evaded capture with all the quick-witted brilliance and energy at her command.

Between May 1985 and January 1986 he re-created the miracle of Lazarus (without Christ’s assistance, but rather with the dedicated skills of the men and women in the Intensive Care Unit at Westminster Hospital) no fewer than four times. He was not prepared to make a fifth attempt at surviving, and died towards the end of March. Another return from the beyond was not even to be contemplated.

We were introduced to each other in the summer of 1964, and by the end of the year we were sharing a flat on the top floor of a Victorian house in Paddington, previously owned by the notorious pimp and shady property developer Peter Rachman. David was working in the wardrobe at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and I was at Harrods, no longer resting between acting engagements. My theatrical career, such as it was, was over.