James Herbert - Fluke

‘Arnold! Your dinner’s ready,’ she called out. No reply. With an annoyed grunt and a determined look on her face Bella marched into the front room.

The dinner on the table beckoned to me.

It was unfortunate really that the chair previously occupied by Bella was still projecting out from the kitchen table. I clambered on to it, falling back down once but renewing my efforts with desperate eagerness, then rested my paws on the table-top. Bella could only have been out of the room for no more than a few seconds, but that’s all it took for two slices of bacon and one and a half sausages to be devoured. I was saving the eggs till last.

My shriek of alarm joined Bella’s shriek of dismay and the weasel’s shriek of rage in a reverberating cacophony. I leapt from the chair just as the son lunged past his mother, claws outstretched to throttle me. Fortunately Bella used her massive frame to block his path and he sprawled forward over her fleshy hip, tumbling on to the floor in a loose bundle as only drunks can.

But even Bella was cross with me. I could see those muscled forearms were going to deal out some heavy punishment, so I did my best to keep the kitchen table between us. She stepped round her floundering son and advanced on me. I waited till she was half-way round the table, my front legs down, chin almost touching the floor, haunches high and quivering, then I shot beneath the table, heading for the open doorway — and straight into the arms of the weasel.

He picked me up by the neck, using two hands and squeezed as he did so, and raised himself from the floor, his demonic face only inches away from mine. My squirming body made him even more unsteady on his feet and he fell forward against the table. What was left of his dinner went flying as my back legs scrabbled for support, and his buttered bread, tomato sauce and God-knows-what-else followed suit.

‘I’ll kill ‘im!’ was all I heard before I sank my teeth into his skinny nose. (I’ll bet he’s still got those two rows of indents on either side of his snout today.)

‘Get ‘ib boff,’ he cried out to his mother, and I felt huge banana hands engulf me. Bella ripped me away from him and I had the pleasure of seeing red skid-marks down the length of his nose.

He clutched at it with both hands and howled, skipping on the spot in a sort of dance.

‘Jesus, Jesus,’ moaned Bella. ‘You’ll have to go now. I can’t keep you now.’

She swept me out of the kitchen, shielding me with her body from her hopping son, lest he forget his pain for a moment and make a grab for me. I don’t think I wanted to stay any more, so I hardly protested when the front door opened and I was dumped outside. A heavy hand descended upon me and gave me one long last stroke. ‘Off you go now, go on, get away,’ Bella said, not unkindly, and the door closed, leaving me alone again.

Even then, I lingered for a moment looking mournfully up at the door, but when it flew open and the weasel appeared, his nose a bloody protuberance and his body shaking with fury, I knew it wouldn’t be healthy to stay any longer. So I scooted, and he scooted after me.

As an ally to speed, I think terror has it over rage; I soon left him far behind, anyway.

Blurred images again: cars, people, buildings, none of them focused, none of them very real. Only the overpowering scent from a lamp-post halted my flight. I skidded to a stop, my back legs overtaking my front legs, and executed a clumsy turnabout. I trotted back to this ambrosial column, senses keen, nose twitching inquisitively. Of all the smells that had recently come to me, this was by far the most interesting. It was dog, you see, dog in the plural. There were six or seven different personalities wafting from the base of that concrete structure — not to mention a couple of human smells — and I drank them in giddily. I had sniffed trees and lamp-posts before, but now it seemed my senses were wakening afresh, or perhaps they were just heightening. I could almost see the dogs that had visited this towering urinal, almost speak to them; it was as if they’d left a recorded message for me. I could even detect the female of the species, and that, I think, has a lot to do with the dogs’ interest in each other’s pee: the sexual instinct, the search for a mate. The girls and the boys had left their calling cards as if to say: I’ve been here, this is my route; if you’re interested, I may pass this way again. I was too young to be disturbed by any sexual connotation at that time, the rank yet spicy odours interesting me on a different level. They were company.

When my nose had been satiated I began to sniff my way along the pavement, oblivious to the passers-by, lost in the pursuit of intriguing trails. It was not long before sounds even more intriguing reached my ears. They were just a babble at first, like the clacking of excited geese, but as I drew nearer to their source, they took on a distinctly human quality. I quickened my pace, elation beginning to rise in me, the sounds sending out attracting waves of excitement.

Reaching a broad river of road I hesitated before dashing across and, fortunately, no dragons bore down on me. The sounds were now clamorous in my ears and, turning a corner, I fell upon their origin: an enormous expanse of running, jumping, shouting, screaming, giggling, crying; playing children. I had found a school. My tail launched into its self-motorised wagging and I sprang forward, thrusting my narrow head between the railings surrounding the playground.

A group of small girls spotted me and gleefully ran over, their hands reaching through the iron bars to pat my back. They screamed in delight as I tried to nip any fingers that tried to stroke my head; my intention wasn’t to bite them, but to taste their soft flesh, to savour them. Soon, a large group of both boys and girls had formed a semicircle around my protruding head, the bigger boys pushing themselves forward through the crowd. Toffees were thrust into my eager mouth and fingers hastily withdrawn when it seemed I would swallow them too. A tiny girl with sunshine hair pushed her face close to mine and my tongue made her nose and cheek glistening wet. She didn’t pull away, though, she hugged my neck.

And then fickle memories returned to taunt me. I had owned one of these! I almost thought this one was mine, she was the child who had belonged to me, but different features swam into vision. The hair was the same, a bright halo around an urchin face, but my daughter’s eyes had been blue and the eyes that now smiled into mine were brown. A cry of hopefulness escaped me and the girl mistook it for one of fear. She tried to soothe me over the clamour of the other children, pleading with me not to be afraid, but my mind was paralysed with one thought. I was a man! Why was I living as a dog?

Then the paralysis wore off as the realisation slipped back into its hidden crevice and once again, in essence, I was a dog. (Although the disturbing fact that I was really a man never left me in those early months, because of the conflict of also being a dog, my humanness played a very varying degree of importance.)

My tail began its flag-waving again and I gratefully accepted more sweets. The kids fussed over me and tried to discover my name by calling out possibilities and waiting to see if I reacted to any. For the life of me I couldn’t remember what I’d been called before, and the boys found nothing inscribed on my collar. Rover, King, Rex, Turdface (Turdface! What little horror threw that one in?) — I beamed at them all. Names meant nothing to me, nor do they to any dog — they recognise particular sounds. I was just happy to be among friends.

A sharp whistle shrilled through my ears and a loud moan went up from the children. Reluctantly, and only after a few sharper blasts from the whistle, they turned away and left me, my shoulders pressed hard up against the railings in an effort to follow. Sunshine Hair stayed till last and gave my neck a long, hard squeeze before departing. I woofed at them not to go, but they stood in rows with their backs to me, occasionally sneaking a look round, their shoulders jerking in suppressed giggles. Then, row by row, they filed into a miserable grey building and the door was closed behind the last one.