‘He won’t mind . . . Da won’t mind . . . not once he sees them. Once he sees them, he’ll love them . . . I’ll keep one for me, one for Tom – and Joe wants one . . .’
Rocket sat panting. She’d grown hungrier, sat more readily now, was more affectionate.
When the light ebbed and Stanley could no longer see, he stopped work. He’d go in and make himself a honey sandwich, then he’d do his homework.
As he approached the cottage, Stanley lowered a protective hand to Rocket’s head. Da was in his chair, the back of his head to the window. Apprehensive, Stanley pulled a soft minky ear to and fro between his fingers, then his heart somersaulted – Da had a card in his hand. Was it from Tom? Why was Da not moving? What had happened? Was Tom all right? Stanley flung the door open.
‘Da—’
Without rising or turning, Da grunted something incomprehensible. He tossed the card on to the table. Stanley vaulted forward and took it. ‘Souvenir from France’ was embroidered on it in yellow beneath a bower of flags. Stanley read:
Stanley stared at the thick cream card, blinking fiercely. Tom wasn’t coming home. He was all right, but he wasn’t coming. Stanley breathed slowly in and out; he must be brave or Da would lash out.
When Stanley looked up, he saw that Rocket had slipped in too when he’d come in. She sat at Da’s feet, and he was glaring at her sturdy belly, her dull coat. Rocket’s nose was tilted upward towards Da. Though Da no longer fed her, though he’d turned from her, still she followed his every movement, still he was the sun around which her earth moved.
‘Come the time, the tinkers’ dogs’ll go where they belong. Aye, the tinkers’ll take ’em.’ Da had risen and was standing by the opened door, his face to the night, Rocket at his side, immediate as a shadow, tail quivering. ‘No one else’ll have them, not with the Dog Tax set to rise again – from seven shillings and six to ten shillings it’s due to rise, and who’ll be paying that for bastard half-breeds?’
Da clamped the door shut behind him, grazing Rocket’s nose. He always used to walk her at this time before putting her in the kennel for the night. Now he’d ignore her and wander out alone. Stanley looked at Rocket, hovering, nose to the crack of the door, keeping vigil for her master’s return, and he blinked back the tears that rose. He knelt by Rocket, holding her, but his eyes strayed to the photograph on the mantel – Tom in his uniform, earning his own wage, free and far from here.
‘Lucky Tom,’ he whispered to Rocket, smiling sadly and tousling her ears. ‘If it weren’t for you –’ he laid his head against her long neck – ‘if it weren’t for you and your puppies, I’d go away too . . .’
10 July 1917
Lancashire
The days were still long and lovely, but after dark there was no escape from Da. He’d grown stiller and somehow more combustible. As Stanley did his homework at the table, Da sat with his back to his son, that hunched form radiating scorn.
Stanley finished his equations. He twirled his pencil, thinking. There’d been eight knots in the twine yesterday, the increases bigger now and Rocket restless, her eyes strange and dilated. Today she’d refused her food.
Later, Stanley lay on his bed. There was a good haul of moths around the ceiling light above him. July was a rich month for moths and it was a good, warm night. There were two heart-and-darts up there, plus a mottled rustic and a brown house moth. Lacanobia thalassina. He tongued its Latin name as he watched the house moth. He had a good head for Latin names, liked they way they sounded.
Stanley sighed and rolled over to face the magazine cuttings on his wall of Egyptian tomb carvings of greyhounds. The dogs were described in stone with a clarity and precision and economy that Stanley loved. Rocket was like that, as noble and ancient and perfect as the Egyptian tomb carvings. She’d once been, he thought guiltily, the perfect specimen, the perfect greyhound, descended in a pure line through three thousand years of history from the dogs of Pharaohs.
To the right was a postcard Tom had sent earlier in the year, of an ambulance dog. It was a rough-haired collie dog with white-tipped tail feathers and smart saddlebags with a large cross on them. She stood in profile to the camera. Tom always found special things to send. Without taking it down, Stanley could picture the neat hand squidged in right to the edges, below ‘ON ACTIVE SERVICE’, the military Field Post Office number and the one-shilling stamp. Looking at the collie, he mouthed the words he knew by heart:
‘I will always be thankful that you were too young to fight.’ Did Tom not think that Da could be dangerous too? A knot tightened in Stanley’s belly. Too young to go to war but not too young to be left alone with Da.
There was a rap on the door. Stanley started and sat bolt upright, heart racing. Da never came into his room.
‘She’ll be about ready now.’ The words were mumbled. ‘The log shed’ll happen be warm and dry.’
Stanley catapulted himself out of bed and flew down the stairs, then turned and ran up again. Da was excited about the puppies, he would love them. He, like Stanley, must have been watching and waiting. From under the bed Stanley grabbed a small tin box, and as an afterthought, the jersey strewn across his chair. He hurled himself down the stairs, then turned and ran up again to snatch the towel hanging under the washbasin. Cotton, iodine, towel – did he have everything? He lost his footing on the narrow treads, saving himself with a clutch at the banister, stubbing a bare toe on the iron boot-pull.
He hobbled round to the shed and edged the door ajar. A lozenge of moonlight slipped through and rested on Rocket who lay panting on a straw litter.
Stanley squatted on his heels, his bare feet on the stone floor, the lantern above him casting a warm glow. No light shone from the Hall or the cottage. Only the log shed was warm and light and alive. An occasional shiver rippled along Rocket’s flank. Shreds of mist curled in, hugging the stone and dissolving in the cosy fug of the shed. Da had prepared this moonlit bed for Rocket. He’d known the right time, known where she’d want to be; Stanley, for all his book, thermometer and twine, hadn’t.
Tremors shuddered through Rocket, one after another in quick succession. Violent quaking overtook her. Her hindquarters convulsed. There was something there beneath the rigid tail, sheathed in a white cocoon – the crown of a tiny head. ‘Anterior presentation’, the library book had called it, the right way for a puppy to come out. Rocket’s body juddered again – it was out, its eyes and ears sealed shut, all perfect rosy paws and folded limbs. Rocket put herself to a vigorous, workmanlike licking. The tiny thing yelped and yelped again and it was breathing on its own. Rocket chewed its cord and nuzzled the pink-nosed, pink-bodied pup towards her. It squirmed closer on its belly and then it was suckling.
Rocket tensed again, her body in spasm, legs rigid. One more cocoon emerged – it was all happening so quickly. Rocket was licking and chewing and there it was, wriggling, sightless, towards a teat. Two minutes passed, then Rocket convulsed again and there was one more. Three healthy pups. Were any still to come? Rocket’s tapering head, more slender even than her neck, rose and she looked at Stanley, bright and intent, her open jaws now tensing, now panting.