I sank to the cold stone floor and tried to let my muddled brain catch up with my still dancing nerves. I must have lain there, a boneless heap, for at least an hour or more, too exhausted to move, too fuddled to think, the previous elation dissipated with dispersed energy, when the sound of heavy footsteps made me jerk my head up, my ears twitching for more information. I hadn’t realised until then how acute my hearing had become, and it took long, long seconds for the owner of the footsteps to come into view. An immense figure blocked out most of the light infiltrating the dark stairwell, and in silhouette I saw the round shape of an enormous woman. To say her bulk filled the whole of my vision, periphery and all, may sound an exaggeration, but that’s how it seemed to me in my shrunken body. It was as though her grossness were about to envelop me, to roll over me so that I would come up again, flattened to her side, just another added layer to the multitude of other layers. I cringed and I grovelled, no defiant pride in me, no sense of manhood available to hinder my cowardice for I was no longer a man. But her words halted my rising fear.
‘Hello, boy, what you doing there, then?’ The voice was as expansive as her body, booming and raspy, but the words were full of goodness and delighted surprise. She lowered her crammed shopping-bags to the floor with a grunt, then bent her vast upper structure towards me.
‘Now, where’ve you come from, eh? Lost are you?’
Her gravelly tones suggested London, probably East or South. I backed away from the approaching hand even though my fear had been subdued by the quality of her voice; I knew once within the grip of those big, sausage-fingered hands, no amount of struggling would free me. But the lady was patient and undemanding. And the delicious aroma from those puffy fingers was overwhelming.
I sniffed small, tentative sniffs, nose-twitching sniffs, then inhaled deep lungfuls, the juices beginning to flow in my mouth. I flicked out my tongue and almost rolled my eyes in ecstasy. What this woman must have eaten! I could taste bacon, beans, tangy meat I couldn’t identify, cheese, bread, butter — oh, butter — marmalade (not so nice), onions, tomatoes, another kind of meat (beef, I think) — and more, more, more. A taste of earthiness tainted everything, almost as if she had collected potatoes fresh from the ground, but it failed to sicken me as it should; instead, it heightened the deliciousness of it all. Here was a person who believed in food, who worshipped it with her hands as well as her palate; no stainless steel instruments would delay the journey from plate to munching jaws when the trip could be accomplished faster and with a heavier load by using her own living flesh to transport the goods. I could feel my devotion growing with every lick.
Only when the fat hand had been completely licked free of all its flavours did I turn my attention fully to the rest of the woman.
Dark blue eyes grinned down at me from a wide, rusty face. Rusty? Oh yes, you’d be surprised at the colours in faces if you could only see them as I did then. Red and blue veins coursed through plump, flushed cheeks, just beneath the skin. Other colours glowed from her — yellows and oranges mostly — changing hues constantly as her blood circulated beneath the surface. Brown and grey hairs stood out from her chin like tiny porcupine quills; and over the whole countenance ran deep grooves, starting at the corners of each eye and spreading down and around the cheeks, up and over the forehead, twisting and merging, cross-hatching and fading to a gradual end. It was a wonderful face!
I saw all this in the gloom of the stairwell, remember, and with the light behind her. That’s how powerful my new vision was and would have remained had not time organised and dulled it.
She clucked her tongue and gave a little laugh. ‘You’re a hungry little thing, aren’t you? You know me, though, don’t you? You know I’m a friend.’
I allowed her hand to ruffle the fur at the back of my neck. It was soothing. I sniffed fresh food from the shopping-bags and edged towards them, my nose twitching inquisitively.
‘Oh, smell food, do you?’
I nodded. I was starving.
‘Well, let’s just see if there’s anyone about that might have lost you.’
She straightened up and lumbered back towards the entrance and I trotted after her. We both stuck our heads out into the courtyard and looked around. It was deserted.
‘Come on then, let’s see what we can find.’
The old woman turned back into the gloom, hoisted her shopping-bags with a loud grunt and carried them down the short hallway behind the stairwell, calling encouragingly to me as she went. I padded after her and muscle movement in my rump told me my tail was wagging.
Placing the bags on the floor next to a badly worn green door, she produced a purse from her coat and rummaged through it until she found a key, cursing her failing eyesight. She opened the door with a hard shove and a practised twist of the key, reached again for her bags, and disappeared inside. I ambled cautiously up to the door and poked my nose round it. The musty smell that hit me was neither pleasant nor unpleasant; it told of old-age neglect.
‘Come on, boy,’ the woman called out, ‘nothing to be frightened of. You’re all right with Bella.’
Still I did not enter the room. My nervousness had not yet completely disappeared. She patted her knee in enticement, not an easy thing to do for one of her proportions, and without further thought I skipped towards her, my tail now causing the whole of my rump to vibrate.
‘There’s a good boy,’ she rasped, and now I could understand words and not just feel them, I knew I really was a very good boy.
I forgot myself and tried to speak to her then; I think I wanted to tell her how kind she was and ask her if she knew why I was a dog. But of course I only barked.
‘What’s that, then? You hungry? Course you are! Let’s see what we can find then.’
She went through a door and soon I heard the clatter of cupboards opening and closing. The deep, scratchy sound of her voice puzzled me for a few seconds, then I realised Bella was singing, an occasional word interrupting a series of monotone ‘mmms’ and ‘laaas’.
The crackle of frying fat took my attention and the glorious smell of sausages beginning to cook sucked me into the kitchen like dust into a vacuum cleaner. I jumped up at her, resting my front paws against a broad leg, my feverishly wagging tail threatening to unbalance me. She smiled down at my excited whimpers and placed a huge hand over my head.
‘Poor old thing. Won’t be a minute now. I suppose you’d like them raw, wouldn’t you? Well you just wait a couple of minutes and we’ll share them between us. Now get down and be patient.’ She gently pushed me away but the savoury smell was too much. I jumped up at the cooker and tried to see into the frying-pan.
‘You’ll burn yourself!’ she scolded. ‘Come on, let’s put you out of harm’s way until it’s ready.’ She scooped me up and lumbered over to the kitchen door where she dropped me with a soft grunt. I tried to squeeze through the narrowing gap as the door closed on me but had to withdraw when my nose was in jeopardy. I’m ashamed to say I whined and groaned and scratched at the kitchen door, my thoughts concerned only with filling my belly with those mouth-watering sausages. Questions of my bizarre existence were thrust aside, easily overwhelmed by the stronger, physical desire for food.