Unbearable Lightness of Scones

31. Selling a Pup (or Six)

It took some time to get a leash on six puppies. As he busied himself with one, another would bite playfully at his fingers, covering them with canine saliva, while another would worry away at his shoe-laces. Then, when the biter and its sibling were safely clipped onto the end of their leashes, the worrier would roll over on his stomach in an attempt to elude capture, and so on until, after ten minutes of effort, there would be six small bundles of leashed fur, all tugging in different directions, all barking or growling in anticipation of their walk in the Drummond Place Gardens.

There was still a good deal of light in the sky when Angus emerged from his stairway door and crossed the street to the gardens. The puppies, sensing adventure, yelped with excitement, one of them executing a complete somersault, such was his enthusiasm. Angus had to smile; Cyril’s offspring were lively dogs, which was not surprising, as their father was a dog of noted character and had many friends in the human world.

He closed the gate behind him and bent down to release the puppies. They dashed off, falling over themselves in their eagerness. “Don’t go far, boys,” said Angus, but he was largely ignored: they had layer upon layer of smells to investigate and were setting to the task with relish, filing away the odours which make a dog’s world a riot of impressionist olfactory exuberance.

Angus stood on the pathway and watched them, with mixed feelings. In the past, surplus dogs – and surely these puppies were surplus – would be bundled into a sack and tossed into the canal. There was little sentiment for animal suffering in those days, and the few moments of spluttering terror under the water would not be thought about. Such things simply were, they happened. Now, of course, the circle of our moral concern had widened – and happily so. Animal suffering was not tolerated, even if we still had abbatoirs where bovine – and other – lives were brought to a sudden end. There was terror there, of course, in those last moments, and surely that meant suffering, but people did not think about that very much. We did not stroke cattle and sheep, or give them names and hug them; we did not encourage them to sleep at the foot of our bed; that was what seemed to count.

He looked up at the evening sky, a sky which, in this final hour before darkness, was drained of colour. A vapour trail, bisecting it, had begun to transform itself into a wispy sweep of cloud, the tracks, he thought, of a group of people heading westward, each with business of his own, unaware that five miles below them all these little dramas were being enacted. I, a man with seven dogs, he muttered, stand here/Looking up at the line of your journey/Indifferent each to each other/But recognisably in the same metaphorical boat/Even with five miles of air between us…

He stopped himself. Fragments of poetry came to him with some regularity but were not always written down or remembered. And now, turning his head slightly, he became aware that a man had come up behind him and was standing watching the puppies at play.

“How many?” asked the man.

“Six, I’m afraid,” said Angus, sighing. “Six spirited, enthusiastic, hungry, incontinent, hybrid and utterly lovable dogs.”

The man laughed. “They are very beautiful, aren’t they?”

Angus raised an eyebrow. “They are hardly likely to win at Crufts,” he said. “Their mother was an extremely odd-looking dog. Very common. My own dog, their father, is by contrast a fairly handsome fellow. He’s got a gold tooth, you see, and a rather raffish grin. Great dog.”

“Tasty little things, though,” said the man. And then, after a few moments of hesitation, he went on to ask, “Have you got a home for them yet?”

Again Angus sighed. “That’s proving somewhat difficult,” he said. “I’ve been asking around my friends, but nobody seems interested. Precious little support in that quarter when the chips are down.”

The man shook his head in sympathy. “That must be very worrying for you. One or two puppies would be bad enough, but having six must be something of a nightmare!”

“You can say that again,” said Angus. “In fact, I have already had several bad dreams about these little chaps. I dreamed a few nights ago that I was in the Scottish Arts Club with them and they were all over the other members. It was extremely embarrassing.”

The man looked at Angus, who noticed now his eyes, which were bright with enthusiasm.

“I like dogs,” said the man. “I might be able to help you out.”

Angus caught his breath. “You mean you’d take one off my hands?”

“I’ll take all six,” said the man. “If you’re happy to part with them.”

Angus felt a sudden, overwhelming euphoria wash over him. “Well, that’s very generous of you,” he began. “All six…”

“Certainly,” said the man. “I can take care of them for you. Willingly.”

Angus paused. The prospect was thrilling, of course, but he was a responsible dog-owner and one could hardly just hand six puppies over to a complete stranger. “I’m sorry to raise this,” he said, “but I’ve only just met you. I don’t really know anything about you.”

“Of course,” said the man, stretching out to shake Angus’s hand. “Of course. Well let me introduce myself.”

They shook hands, and Angus felt, quite unmistakably, the pressure on his knuckle. A Mason! Well that was all right. If one could not entrust a puppy – or even six puppies – to a member of a Masonic lodge, then to whom could one entrust him, or indeed them?

“Here’s my card,” said the man. “It has all my details on it.”

Angus took the card and slipped it into his pocket. For the first time since the puppies had arrived in his flat he felt a free man again. I am no longer the owner of seven dogs, he said to himself; I am the owner of one, which is just about right.

“Would you like to take them now?” he asked. “Or perhaps tomorrow morning?”

“Well, no time like the present,” said the man. “If you help me get them on the leash, I’ll take them off your hands.”

He and Angus began to marshal the puppies together. As they did so, Angus noticed that the man seemed to lift each one up as he put the leash on, as if to weigh it. How caring, thought Angus; a concern with birth weight and development.