‘I suppose I’ll have to. The receptionist at the vet’s offered to phone them and see if they would come and pick him up, but something came over me and I told her I’d keep him. Only, of course, once my sanity came back, I realised Mum wouldn’t let me – and anyway, I’ve got enough on my hands trying to make a living and look after Tia.’
‘You certainly have,’ I agreed, then crouched down and made soothing noises to the dog. He let me stroke him, even though he flinched every time my hand approached him. ‘But I’m sure the kennels will find him a good home. He seems a nice dog even if he is a bag of nerves.’
‘I did wonder …’ Bella said tentatively, ‘since you are living alone now and have that long back garden, if
you
might like him?’
‘Not really,’ I said frankly. ‘I’d like a dog eventually, but I was thinking of something small and easy to manage, not a big, traumatised rescue dog!’
‘Oh …’ she sounded disappointed. ‘It’s just I remembered you’d adored that spaniel you had when you were a little girl, and you’re much more of a doggy person than I am.’
The dog was by now leaning trustingly against my legs, but still holding up a front paw, alternating left and right.
‘Why does he keep doing that with his feet?’
‘The vet said he’d been injured just after the farmer bought him and while he was being treated the vetinary nurses had all made a big fuss of him, so now he thinks he might get a bit of sympathy if he holds his foot up. I don’t suppose that horrible man would have paid for that treatment if he’d known the dog would be useless with sheep. But the vet said the foot had healed fine, and he’s pretty healthy generally, just a bit neglected.’
‘He’d still cost a fortune in inoculations, insurance, micro-chipping and all the rest of it,’ I pointed out, fondling the dog’s rough, matted head. ‘Bed, bowls, food, lead, brush …’
‘He’s called Flash,’ Bella said. ‘Perhaps it’s because of the white tip to his tail.’
At the sound of his name, the dog wagged his tail and then lowered his head quickly as though he’d done something wrong.
We both contemplated him.
‘I don’t know that he
would
have a big chance of a new home,’ Bella said, after a minute. ‘People seem to want puppies or small dogs mostly, don’t they? And he looks as if he’s been living outdoors, so I’m not even sure he’s house-trained.’
‘Oh, great!’ I said gloomily.
‘Why, you’re not going to take him on, are you? I mean, as soon as I asked I could see it was just as impossible for you as it was for me, and I must have been mad to suggest it when you’re trying to start up a new business and everything.’
‘Yes, the last thing I need at the moment is to take on a neurotic, half-wild Border collie,’ I agreed, but then I really
must
have run mad because, to my utter horror, I heard my voice adding that I would give it a go and see if Flash and I could get on together.
I had to leave Bella holding the fort – and the dog – and dash out to buy all the things Flash would need. I returned an hour later with a hole in my bank account and a Mini piled high with dog bed, blanket, brush, food, dishes … you name it, I had it.
Bella must have put the ‘Back in Five Minutes’ sign on the shop door, because she was in the kitchen with the dog, who was hiding under the table, though he thumped his tail at the sight of me staggering in through the back porch under a mountain of doggy essentials.
Bella said she’d pushed him out into the garden earlier, where he’d peed desperately on the nearest pot plant (probably killing it – there’s nothing like dog pee for that) and then when a big, scary hen appeared through the privet arch at the bottom of the garden, he’d turned tail and fled past her back into the house again and hidden under the table.
‘Oh, have the hens found another way out? I’d better round them up and block up the hole before a fox gets them.’ I put down my burden and added, resignedly, ‘In fact, I’ll have to fence off the herb garden, fruit bushes and where I’m going to grow vegetables, or Flash will pee everything to death. But I suppose at least I could have the hen run reinforced at the same time.’
‘He’s not at all snappy, just scared,’ Bella said. ‘He seems to like you, though!’
She went back to the shop while I coaxed Flash out from under the table and fed him. In fact, I hand-fed him, since he seemed to have a fear of his new dinner bowl, though he lapped up the water thirstily enough while I was putting his dog bed into the corner near the stove.
Then I got the brush and untangled his long black and white coat, cutting out the worst of the snarls. He suffered my ministrations patiently enough, though quivering with nerves throughout, so it was probably just as well it was a bit too cold for baths, even if I could have managed to get him into one. I gave him a good going over with some big aloe vera doggy wipes I’d spotted in the supermarket where I’d bought his equipment and that seemed to clean him up almost as well.
Bella said he looked like a changed dog when she shut the shop up and came to see how we were getting on.
‘He’s very handsome, now he’s black and white instead of black and mud,’ I agreed. ‘I like the stripe down the middle of his nose and the white tip to his tail, but he seems petrified of everything – even his new dinner bowl!’
‘I expect he’ll soon get over that,’ she said optimistically.
After she’d gone home, I found the fugitive hens in the knot garden and lured them back into their run with food, then blocked the latest escape hole. The hens were all big white fluffy ones, which only Aunt Nan had been able to tell apart. But she always said it was Josephine who found the escape routes and Jocasta, Jasmine and the rest followed. Cedric, being henpecked and timid, was usually last out.
When they were secured I went back and put the new collar and lead on Flash and persuaded him to follow me down the garden path, past the scary hens and my Mini, which was pulled in behind the plum tree.
My intention was to walk him up the little lane at the back, and round the streets to the green, but since I had to coax him past every new thing, from wheelie bins to a flapping bit of branch overhanging a wall, we didn’t get more than a few yards from the back gate.
He had this really smart way of stopping me pulling him forward: he braced three legs and then clamped the lead to his chest with one front paw! I’d never seen a dog do that before, and although it was annoying I thought it was pretty clever. Then he’d just look at me, afraid and defiant all at once.
‘You daft dog!’ I said. ‘This is supposed to be a walk, not a drag.’
The only sign of interest he showed was when the vicar walked past the end of the lane with his own small white dog, though they didn’t notice us and, as soon as they had gone, Flash turned tail and towed me back to the safety of the garden.
Of course, after Mother had her first stroke I had to leave off the dressmaking, because I was needed at home, and then during the war we all had to do our bit, in one way or another. I’d had rheumatic fever as a child and my heart was supposed to be not very strong, so I wasn’t sent to work in the factories or anything like that – and yet you see I’ve outlived both my sisters and almost all my contemporaries!
Middlemoss Living Archive
Recordings: Nancy Bright.
I went downstairs in my bare feet next morning, which was a big mistake, since I discovered
way
too late that Flash had had the Galloping Gourmets all over the quarry-tiled kitchen floor. The feel of it coldly squishing up between my toes was grim, to say the least.
Flash was in his new basket curled into the smallest possible space, a cowed, shivering and petrified jelly of a dog, but there was no point in being cross with him, since I was sure he hadn’t been able to help it. I just hoped he didn’t make a habit of it, because there wasn’t going to be a lot of time in the near future for house-training.
I made reassuring noises while tossing newspaper down over the mess, then broke out the disposable vinyl gloves and disinfectant wipes and gave my feet a good going-over, after which I encouraged Flash out into the garden.
He stayed just outside the door while the mopping up was going on and stared anxiously at me through the glazed lower pane with his slightly mad amber eyes throughout this proceeding. Then he followed me down the garden when I went to let the hens out: it was getting late, and for the last half-hour Cedric the cockerel had been emitting a steady volley of high-pitched crows like a cheap travel alarm clock.
He shut up abruptly as I opened the pop-door to the run and then was unceremoniously jostled to the back of the queue by his wives, as usual.
Flash had hung back a bit, but once he’d grasped that the hens were staying inside their pen (I’d blocked up where I thought yesterday’s escapee had got out) he got quite cocky, sniffing at them through the wire mesh – until one of the matrons gave him a hard stare and he put his ears down and slunk off behind the plum tree.
Bella had arrived and let herself in when we went back to the house. She was very apologetic about the dog’s lapse, which I told her she might well be, seeing she’d foisted Flash on to me!
‘I feel even guiltier now,’ she said contritely.
‘Well, it wasn’t the best start to the day,
or
to our relationship, but I’m sure he couldn’t help it,’ I assured her. ‘He’s certainly not going to be an easy dog, though, because he seems terrified of everything.’
He even had to be encouraged to eat his breakfast, because he had such Acute Fear of Dinner Bowl syndrome that I’d started to wonder if there was anything that he
wasn’t
afraid of!
Not surprisingly, I’d forgotten to check for any eggs when I let the hens out, so Bella popped down to do that while I made us some coffee before we flung ourselves into the final day of getting ready for the sale.
I also intended going out later to buy paint, brushes, filler and a hundred and one other things we’d need for redecorating, plus a certain kind of spotlight fitting for the window, which Joe had suggested.
Bella brought back two speckled brown eggs and the news that a red vintage Jaguar had gone past our gate and pulled into the parking space at the end of the garden next door, closely followed by yet another removal van, albeit a small one this time. ‘But it’s still blocking the lane, so no one further up can get out.’
‘Sounds like the owner’s moving in at last, then.’
‘He must be, but I couldn’t see him without going up to stare through the trellis when he got out, which might have been a bit rude, so I don’t know what he looks like.’
‘You’d probably have had a long wait anyway, because I expect the poor old thing is as vintage as his car,’ I told her. ‘Come on, it’s ten – we’d better get going.’
We’d shut today in order to make the final preparations without interruption – but as we filled the small window with odds and ends of shoes, boots and slippers with the practically pre-war prices clearly displayed, quite a lot of people gathered to peer in.
It was a relief to retire back into the shop itself, where we crammed as much as we could of the remaining stock onto the stands, along the shelves and even in rows along the floor in front of the wall, three deep. Handbags were hung in clusters on the ceiling hooks behind the counter, and I put all the purses and wallets in a big wicker basket just in front of it.
There were still stacks of boxes in the back room, but we pulled them near to the door, ready to replenish the stock in the shop as it vanished. I so hoped that the shop and stockroom would be nearly empty by the following evening, ready for a Cinderella’s Slippers magical transformation!
As I laid out a stack of the unexciting gusseted brown paper bags with pinked tops that Aunt Nan had always used, I suddenly exclaimed, ‘Carrier bags! Of course, we need some really classy ones with the Cinderella’s Shoes logo. Why on earth didn’t I think of it before?’
‘Or me,’ Bella said. ‘You’ll need them in various sizes too, and perhaps you ought to get a stack of tissue paper, to wrap smaller items in.’
‘Just as well I’ve already worked out the logo for the shop sign,’ I said, and went off to surf the internet for suppliers, then place an express order for reams of white tissue paper and ivory glazed paper bags with ribbon handles and the name of the shop, enclosed inside the outline of a high-heeled shoe, all done in a rich gold. At least, I
hoped
it was a rich gold, because I wanted to create a subtle and slightly sumptuous ambience, rather than an opulent and slightly tacky one.
When I went back to the shop, Bella said one or two brass-faced women had already knocked on the door wanting to buy items in the window, but she’d said no, tomorrow was first come, first served, and to get there early.
‘Quite right too: it wouldn’t be fair otherwise.’
‘I didn’t recognise them as local people, so they must have seen the advert in the paper or one of the flyers, and come to look.’
‘I expect they’ll be back tomorrow – and it does seem as if we might have a bit of a rush first thing, doesn’t it? I hope we clear a lot of the stock!’
Bella made us a late sandwich lunch and kept an eye on Flash while I popped out for my paint supplies. When she’d helped me carry everything in, we were just about ready. I made sure there was a good float in the till, then, as an afterthought, made some little signs to dot about, saying that we only took cash, not credit cards, but that there was a cash machine in the Spar by the green. A card facility was something I was urgently looking into. It would be vital for Cinderella’s Slippers. So would a proper till rather than the old-fashioned wooden drawer sort we had now. It would make life so much easier if I got one that not only calculated the cost and printed a receipt for the customer, but kept a record of every purchase for the accounts.
By then we were both feeling pretty exhausted and it was time for Bella to collect Tia from the birthday party she’d gone to straight from school. I saw to the hens, then gave Flash a little run up the lane, though actually, to be truthful, it was more of a drag again than a walk: I dragged him up the lane to the turning place at the end, and then he dragged me back again.