And Tara Jones was already home.
37
Then summer was done with us.
There were new school shoes waiting in the hall. Scout’s uniform was not as ridiculously big as it had been a year ago and she no longer needed my help to put it on. September had swung round again but it was different from all the other Septembers.
‘I can do it myself,’ Scout said, struggling gamely with the buttons of her yellow shirt. ‘Even the socks.’
First thing in the morning and from the window of our loft I could see the dome of St Paul’s surrounded by an untouched blue sky, but down on the street the breath of the Smithfield porters made misty clouds.
On that first day of term we had breakfast at Smiths of Smithfield as a special treat – porridge with honey for me and pancakes for Scout, grapefruit juice for both of us and the best triple espresso this side of Soho. Then we walked to school, kicking through the leaves and conkers underfoot, Scout with Stan’s lead wrapped twice around her hand, the dog’s tail erect and feathery, as flamboyant as a peacock’s feathers, his round eyes gleaming with anticipation and his fur exactly the same shade of burnished chestnut as the autumn leaves.
You could feel the time passing, and you could even taste it in the crisp morning air, but it was a good feeling.
When Stan and I said goodbye to Scout at the school gates it was a shock to realise that she was no longer the youngest or the smallest. She fell into smiling step with her friend Mia, and Stan whimpered with grief to see her go. But of course she never looked back at us.
And as we were walking home Stan caught the scent of a Labradoodle bitch on the far side of the street and without warning hurled himself into the traffic.
I pulled him out from under the wheels of a florist’s van and called the Well Animal Clinic as soon as I got home. He retreated to the sofa and watched me on the phone with mournful eyes, his head resting on his front paws in classic Cavalier style.
‘I’m sorry, Stan,’ I said, hanging up. ‘But what else can I do?’
The world was turning and nothing could stop it.
‘He’s good off lead,’ Scout told the vet on Friday night. ‘And he’s good on lead. It’s just . . .’
She shook her head, her voice trailing off, and we three humans stared at Stan on the vet’s table, the dog jumping up to lick my face, his paws against my chest, desperate to demonstrate his unconditional love, trying to ingratiate himself even at this late hour, still with total faith that I could save him from his fate.
The vet laughed and scratched Stan behind the ears and finished Scout’s sentence for her.
‘It’s just that you’re growing up, aren’t you, Stan?’
The vet, Christian, had known Stan since he was a pup. Christian had given Stan his first vaccinations, microchipped him, nursed him to health when we were worried he had kennel cough. Despite a phobia for needles, and indeed an aversion to any kind of physical discomfort, Stan always looked forward to his trips to see Christian at the Well Animal Clinic. He liked the attention, he favoured the tasty treats they kept in reception, he enjoyed encountering other dogs and meeting exotic animals like cats and hamsters.
But now we were here to talk about castration and the thought of it made me sick to my stomach.
‘Neutering is not as clear cut as people believe,’ Christian said. ‘Every dog is different. Some need it. Some don’t. Do it too soon and you will alter the nature of your dog. Do it too late and it will make absolutely no difference to his nature.’
We all looked at Stan. He wouldn’t leave me alone. You can save me from this if you want to, he seemed to say, climbing into my arms.
‘Is your dog neutered, Christian?’ Scout asked the vet.
The vet adjusted his glasses.
‘No,’ he said. ‘But you have to decide what’s right for Stan. Does he put himself in danger because he has reached sexual maturity?’
Scout and I looked at each other.
We both knew the answer to that one.
And so we made an appointment to bring him back in the morning.
We walked through the meat market’s great arch to the strip of shops on the far side of the square. The shops were closed and silent but light and music drifted out from one of the flats above.
MURPHY & SON
Domestic and Commercial Plumbing and Heating
‘Trustworthy’ and ‘Reliable’
We went up a flight of stairs to the flats. Mrs Murphy opened the door with a couple of children and a dog underfoot. Scout and Stan flew inside as if this was their second home. The Murphys’ flat was, as usual, full of family and I smiled as I heard the greetings called out to my daughter and my dog.
‘You’ll come in for a cup of tea,’ Mrs Murphy predicted. ‘The gang’s all here. Big Mikey. Little Mikey, Siobhan and the kids. You should see Baby Mikey walking about like he owns the place.’
‘I’d love to, but I have to run.’
She frowned with disapproval. ‘Work?’
‘Fred’s.’
‘Defend yourself at all times,’ Mrs Murphy advised.
It was one of those nights when I desperately needed to train. Fred saw it and he was happy to push me hard.
‘You’re so lucky to be training,’ he said, as he drove me through one of his favourite circuits. Ten three-minute rounds banging the pads with ten burpies and twenty press-ups instead of a minute’s rest in between, Fred slapping me round the ear with a cracked leather pad whenever I dropped my guard, the rounds passing until I lost count, until I was so exhausted that I was on the very edge of sickness.
‘You’ll sleep well tonight,’ Fred said.
And that would normally have been true. But when we were back at the loft and Scout was brushing her teeth as I turned down the lights, Stan watched me with his huge adoring eyes, certain that the coming weekend held nothing but fun for us, certain that I would never betray him, his love and trust so unquestioning that it filled me with shame.
I crawled into bed weak with exhaustion.
And I still couldn’t sleep.
In the morning Stan was sick.
Elaborately sick at both ends. Extravagantly sick. His cage was a mess of bodily fluid that had erupted from everywhere it could. Foul liquid stuck to his basket, his blanket and his magnificent fur. Stan laid stock still in a puddle of watery filth, staring with numb disbelief at Scout and I, unable to understand what had happened during the night.
We put him in the bath and cleaned him up. Then, when most of the mess had been washed away, and he was starting to get his natural biscuit-smell back, I called the vet’s.
‘Oh, poor old Stan,’ said the kindly receptionist at the Well Animal Clinic. ‘Probably something he ate. Best leave the surgery for another day.’
Scout was fussing over him in the bathtub. The projectile vomiting and volcanic diarrhoea had left him bewildered. He looked forlorn, and half his usual size, with his fur sopping wet. But he watched me grinning in the doorway of the bathroom and a familiar, fun-loving glint suddenly lit up those eyes like black marbles.
Hampstead Heath was waiting for us.
* * *
Even in September, they were still swimming in the mixed bathing pond.
We saw the distant bathing figures laughing at the cold as we cut across the great rolling expanse of Pryor’s Field, Stan hanging back to hunt small flying creatures in the long grass, then sprinting to catch up when Scout called his name. Then we were in the thick forest that separates the bathing ponds from the highest point on Hampstead Heath, and Scout kept Stan closer now. A young fox stalked across our path, checked us out and in an instant was gone. We pushed on, the ground always rising, and suddenly we came out of the trees and onto Parliament Hill, blue sky all around and the city spread out below us, a sight to steal your breath away, and it was as if London belonged to us.