Tea and Dog Biscuits (15 page)

Shortly afterwards, Tim was promoted and they moved away, but we were to see Pearl and Tim and Annette again. When we had been doing the rescue work for nearly a year, a group of friends who ran a dog-training club held a fun dog show, part of the proceeds of which they kindly donated to pay some of our vet and kennel fees. And Tim and Annette brought Pearl along, so we could see how she had blossomed, how happy she was, how she adored Tim and Annette and how they adored her.

It had taken only a few days for her to settle in to her new home and I telephoned Sarah Phipps, who had had to part with her beloved dog before going into hospital. The phone rang without being answered on a number of occasions but one day it was answered by a man. He said he was Sarah's cousin. I told him that she had brought Pearl to us for rehoming. He knew all about it. I was ringing now, I said, to let her know that Pearl had been rehomed and had settled in well with her new family.

‘I'm sorry to have to tell you,' the man said, ‘but Sarah died two days ago. I know how grateful she was that you had taken her dog.'

When I saw Pearl at the fun dog show and saw how well she was, and how happy, I wished that Sarah Phipps could have seen her.

‘I could kiss you,' I said.

‘Wow! Good job Dorothy's not here then,' said Melissa.

Hmm. I realised I was getting a bit carried away. But I could have jumped in the air. Thanks to Melissa, not one, but two of our orphans were homed!

I'd called in to the surgery to give her a box of chocolate toffees as a token of our gratitude.

Our vet's double strike had begun with a curious phone call.

‘Barrie,' she had said. ‘I may have found a home for one of your dogs.'

‘Really? Oh, Melissa, we need it – we've still got Claude, Wilma and Rob, Sam the Teeth, and Digby – oh, and of course Friend, but obviously he's not ready to be homed.' I was about to add our latest acquisition, Jess, to the list but thought better of it. Melissa wouldn't be very pleased if she was found guilty of conspiracy to handle stolen goods.

‘They're a lovely couple, clients of ours,' said Melissa. ‘They've recently lost their dog. I can recommend them one hundred per cent. Their names are George and Cliff. They're a gay couple. But…'

Her voice trailed off. So there was a ‘but'.

‘I'm afraid you might be put off.'

‘Because they're gay? No way.'

‘No, no, not because of that. It's more… their… their appearance.'

‘Their appearance?' I began to speculate in my thoughts as to what George and Cliff might look like.

‘Melissa,' I said. ‘I don't care if they turn up here naked – all I want to know is that they'll give a caring home to one of our orphans.'

‘You need have no concerns on that score.'

Melissa paused.

‘Oh, well, I'm sure I'm worrying about nothing,' she said. ‘You won't judge a book by its cover… '

‘Hello! Hellooo! Anybody home?'

Somebody was calling through the letter box. I put my soup spoon down and looked out of the living room window. I couldn't see who was at the front door but I could see a man standing on the drive. Never mind my soup. This might be a prospective home. Is it the clients Melissa has sent to see us? But I thought she said it was a gay couple – and the voice at the letter box sounded distinctly female. I opened the door just as a woman was about to call through the letter box again. She straightened up.

‘Oh good – you are here!'

‘Hello,' I said.

‘Hello, my dear. I hope I've got the right place. I'm so glad to see you if I have.'

She was a big woman, with ruddy cheeks, dressed all in white: a white coat, white trousers, white Wellington boots. She turned to look behind her.

‘That's my husband, Ron,' she said. ‘I had to get him to help me.'

Ron nodded and gave me a smile.

‘You are the people that take in dogs, aren't you? Don't tell me you're not – please! One of my customers said this was the place.'

The woman turned to her husband. ‘Ron, go and have a look and see if she's all right.' The man set off down the drive to a small Rover hatchback parked in the road. Now I looked at it I could see a dog on the back seat with her nose pressed up against the window.

‘I couldn't put her in the van with all the fish. I had to rush home and get the car. She was wandering on the road.'

We let the dog out of the car. She had the classic black and tan colouring of the German Shepherd, but with added grey: she had a grey muzzle and, when she walked, the stiffness of an elderly dog.

‘I'm Elaine,' said the woman. ‘I'm the fish lady. I call once a week to all the villages round here, although I don't stop here because you've got no pub car park for me to pull on to.' She turned and looked at the dog. ‘Hasn't she got such a gentle face?'

She certainly had. And big, dark, liquid eyes. But she was underweight. Her coat was dull and she was looking about her nervously. No doubt she wondered where she was and who these people were.

Elaine had spotted her on the A-road that led to the nearby town, a road with a long straight segment that encouraged drivers to speed. She had pulled over in her van and tried to get the dog to come to her, but to no avail. Even if she could have caught hold of the dog, a van full of fresh fish for human consumption and a dog don't go together. By the time Elaine returned with her car the dog had moved from the side of the road to the middle. This time she was armed with some fish off-cuts and the dog had come to her.

I fetched a lead and collar and we led her to a bowl of water that was now kept permanently in the porch.

‘I wish I could keep her,' said Elaine, ‘but I've got three dogs. I wonder what her name is, bless her.'

‘We'll find out, if she's claimed,' I said.

‘I think I've seen her, you know,' said Elaine. ‘Have you seen her before, Ron?'

Ron shook his head.

‘I think I've seen her in Tubley. I think I've seen her more than once on that grass area at The Crescent. I was going to Tubley when I saw her.' She tapped my arm. ‘I bet you that's where she comes from. I'll ask about while I'm there this afternoon. Her owners might be really worried about her.'

I took a deep breath and looked down at the dog. ‘Perhaps.'

She noticed the doubt on my face and pursed her lips. ‘But she's got no collar. Do you think they've turned her out?'

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘She's getting on a bit, isn't she,' said Elaine. ‘If they have turned her out, you wouldn't want to give her back, would you? And she's got skinny ribs. She might be better off with someone new. You've got a visitor.'

She nodded in the direction of the gate at the end of our drive. A man stood looking about him, presumably trying to spot the house number I kept meaning to put up.

Elaine lent across to me and lowered her voice. ‘You don't suppose this is the man looking for his dog, do you?'

The man put a hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the early autumn sun while he looked up the road.

‘I don't like the look of him,' said Elaine.

Ron turned to me. ‘You don't owe anybody any money, do you?' he said. ‘He looks as if he's come to collect a debt.'

The man pushed open the gate and strode down the drive. All three of us eyed him. He was over six feet tall, wearing shiny leather boots, oily jeans and a leather jacket, with uncombed hair to halfway down his back. He had on earrings, a stud in his nose that glinted in the sun, a T-shirt depicting a wolf, tattoos on his hands, a thick gold-coloured chain around his neck and a loop of chrome chain dangling from his belt. I could hear the chain jangling with the movement of his walking.

As he approached he looked at me and then at Ron. ‘Are one of you gentlemen Mr Hawkins?'

I nodded. I thought Ron looked relieved.

The man held up his arm and jerked his thumb in the direction of the village pond. ‘My partner's with the bike, just up the village. We've had a job to find you.'

A large gleaming motorbike with sidecar glided into view at the end of the drive. The appearance of the man on the bike was a mirror image of the man before me now, except for the addition of a long, straggly beard and dark glasses.

Melissa's ‘don't judge a book by its cover' comment suddenly made sense.

That evening I was standing in the hall looking up a number in the phone directory when the letter-box flap was suddenly lifted up. A pair of eyes looked from left to right and then upwards to rest upon me.

‘Oh, you're here,' I heard from the other side of the door. I recognised Elaine's voice.

It transpired that the fish lady had for much of the afternoon forsaken the retailing of wet fish for the role of amateur sleuth.

‘This is the lovely old girl's dad,' she said, turning to a young man waiting on the drive. ‘This is Mr Hawkins,' she called to him. ‘It's him you've got to thank.'

The young man half-raised an arm in acknowledgement, but stayed where he was. He sported a strikingly long ponytail, almost down to his trousers.

Elaine was bursting to tell me how she had asked at the village pub, then at the village shop and then, getting nowhere, had knocked at doors in The Crescent. A retired couple had known where the dog came from.

The nights had already started to turn chilly and Dorothy had lit the coal fire in the living room. Over a cup of tea the young man, Jamie, told us how he'd only had Roxy, as she was called, a few weeks. Someone he knew had given her to him.

‘Did they say why they didn't want her?' Dorothy asked.

Jamie shook his head.

Dorothy and I looked at each other, the same thought in our heads. A nine year-old dog might soon be racking up vet bills.

Just after he'd got her, Jamie told us, one of his neighbours in The Crescent offered him a Rottweiler, a two-year-old male. ‘Yes, they get on fine,' he said when Dorothy asked him. ‘In fact she's the boss,' Jamie added. Dorothy and I looked at each other again. That had the ring of truth to it.

Elaine wanted to stay and chat with Dorothy while I took Jamie down to the barn to collect his dog. Curled up in the run in the barn, she was probably glad of the chance to rest. Her away day had turned into a frightening experience for her.

On spotting her in the run Jamie clapped his hands and called out. He was clearly pleased to see her, I thought. He kneeled down at the wire and Roxy rose slowly, creakily, and sniffed his fingers and wagged her tail. I opened the door to the run and Roxy padded out. Jamie scooped her up in his arms.

‘Gosh, I couldn't do that,' I said.

‘Oh, she doesn't weigh a lot. And I do weights. I've got the time while I'm not working.'

He dropped her back onto the floor. ‘Mr Hawkins,' he said, ‘I didn't want to say too much in front of the others – but I feel really guilty about this.'

He knelt down and gave the dog a playful push. ‘Come on then – grrrr!' But presumably Roxy didn't want to play because she dropped down onto all fours.

Her young owner looked up at me. ‘She got out the side gate. It's my fault – I know she goes off if she gets the chance and I should have made sure it was shut.'

‘Runs off, does she?' I said.

Jamie stood up. ‘Yes, she likes to go walkabout. She's gone for half a day sometimes.'

‘That's very unusual for a German Shepherd,' I said. ‘It's a shepherding breed. Their every instinct is to stay with their flock.'

Jamie took out a cigarette case and opened it. ‘Do you mind?' he asked.

‘No. I'm envious. I used to smoke twenty a day until Dorothy made me give it up.'

‘That's why you've put on weight.' He lit his cigarette. ‘I'd be really grateful, Mr Hawkins for—'

‘Call me Barrie.'

‘Barrie, I'd be really grateful for some tips on how to stop this running off she does. Actually, I've never had a dog before and now I've got two and I'd be really glad to learn some tips on dog-handling generally.'

‘I'll be pleased to give you what help I can,' I said, ‘but better still there's a terrific dog-training class I can recommend. When we go up to the house I'll write down the name and phone number of the club leader.'

‘That'd be great if you would.'

‘Did you bring her collar and lead with you?'

Jamie screwed up his face and shook his head.

‘Never mind. She can have the collar we've put on her and I've a matching lead for it somewhere.'

Jamie put his hand in the pocket of his jeans. ‘You must let me pay you for them.'

I placed my hand on his dog and she looked up at me. ‘No,' I said. ‘She can have them to remember us by.'

The whole afternoon had been taken up with bikers George and Cliff who had fallen in love with brother and sister Wilma and Rob, and with Claude also.