Emma Richler - Feed My Dear Dogs

Chris is Ben’s best friend and I am pretty sure I want to marry him although he doesn’t know that, I don’t think you can tell a person a thing like that when you are not in your prime, and especially not when you are a girl. It’s not a girl job. I am a bit worried because Chris will reach the marrying time way before me due to being a whole five years and one month older plus I am going to another country and I don’t know how to keep an eye on things from so far away. I will have to come back, that’s all, and show up at his house and maybe he’ll take a look at me and I won’t be just Ben’s little sister any more, and he’ll say I am pretty sure I want to marry you and I won’t have to say anything at all on my part. I’ll just nod sagely or something.

I think it went this way between Mum and Dad when they first clapped eyes on each other. Not many words necessary to get things going, no weighing up of matters, no decision time. When you have a big feeling for someone, nothing can stop you, like in World War I, in the case of a soldier rushing out to save a wounded friend lying out there in no man’s land, and the soldier has only this one idea of rescue in mind, nothing can stop him, not fear, not other soldiers flying in the air around him, exploded by shells and whiz-bangs from Big Berthas (Krupp 420mm) and Slim Emmas (Skoda 305mm), from howitzers and mortars, from all the great guns blazing, nothing. When you have a singlemost desire and no time to lose, fear is like an engine not a stop light, switching on at all the right moments, for all pressing engagements in trying times, for grabbing a tool in the spider shed, for marching up to Chris’s front door one day in the future, and for Nelson, yes, Nelson in the Cape of Trafalgar, facing the enemy while not in the best of health, missing bodily parts usually thought vital for a leader of men, one hand, one eye, never mind, who needs two? He has a singlemost desire.

Right now would be a good time for a boxing lesson but my dad is busy. He is probably all dressed and shaved, with maybe one little cut on his face like a war wound on an Action Man. A going-out-to-dinner wound. He will be standing around Mum right about now, drinking his drink and going, Ready, dear? Ready, dear? and driving her a little bit crazy. Five minutes, darling. Why don’t you check on the children? Yes, right now would be a good time for a boxing lesson. Oh well. Maybe that is what this time of day is for, figuring out when is a good time for things, I don’t know.

My dad does not give lessons in a lot of things, or many lessons in any one thing and when he does, they do not last very long, maybe eight minutes or so and then he’s knackered and needs a drink or a tomato on a plate because he has had enough of your company, the only person he wants for long is Mum. When he decides to give a lesson in a thing, it’s wise to be at the ready and abandon all other activity. Up in the tree, Jude’s and mine, I try to think of what else besides boxing I have ever had a lesson in from my dad. Not much. But that is because we need to learn for ourselves plus we go to school five days a week and we have Mum. And Ben. I don’t believe my dad knows how much Ben teaches us.

I’m not tired any more. I’m getting stiff up here.

Here’s a thing. Dad is a sports writer and he hardly ever plays sports with us. A football rolls up to him on the terrace when he is reading and he ignores it completely, or he says, Oh! the way he does when the telephone rings and ruins his concentration. One time he tossed a cricket ball at Jude but kept aiming at his head for some reason, with Jude stepping away neatly each time and me chasing all over the shop for the ball and trying to explain the rules of bowling to my dad all by myself, because it was just too many words for Jude who could only say, She’s right, Dad, she’s right, Dad, while Dad shifts impatiently and says, OK OK OK, to my instructions, and then goes right on pelting the ball skyward like Jude is a coconut on a stick, my dad simply unable to do two things at once, listen and bowl. It was pretty terrible all round and I do not recall which one of them walked off first, dropping bat and ball in the middle of the garden for me to stare at, both of them slamming the door on sports.

What exactly does my father do around here besides sports writing and lying on sofas and talking to Mum, sometimes twirling her about the room in an olden times dance step involving twirls and sudden dips that look a bit dangerous? Sometimes he messes about in the kitchen, OK, and mostly on Saturdays. Other times he grapples with our homework mainly to see where we are in terms of world knowledge. NOT VERY FAR, he thinks. Also, he drives Ben and Jude to school, yelling at them in a jovial manner while shaking the car keys in the air. Make tracks! Shake a leg! Did we get you out of bed, Jude? Keeping you awake, are we? Feel like walking to school? Ha ha ha! It’s kind of noisy, but my brothers do not mind, carrying on cramming their satchels in a leisurely manner, with pieces of toast clamped in their jaws and Gus peering at them with great attention and a slight frown, and Harriet raising her arms aloft and crying out What larks! We shall have larks! which is her new favourite expression from another book Mum is reading to us right now by Mr Charles Dickens, Great Expectations it is called, and this sounds to me always like the name of a house but it is not, it is the name of a feeling.

Here’s another thing. My dad is good at short cuts and he has taught me one or two. 1) How to tidy up your hair when you do not have a big thing for combs and are in a needing-to-be-neat situation. Step out of sight and make your fingers comblike, as in a garden fork, say. Keep your fingers stiff and push them through your hair from the front to the back, going slow to allow for snags. Too fast and you get a pain in the roots. You can use both hands. 2) If you are not in the mood for cutting and cutlery, here is how to have a sandwich snack quick sticks. Spread out what you want on one slice of bread, peanut butter, Cheddar, etc. Now FOLD over the bread. This way there is one less edge things can spill out of and your sandwich is ready fast, and you need a single knife only, a spreading knife. Lastly, use your palm or a napkin for a plate, or eat outside to reduce clean-up operations. 3) In an emergency, here is how to unscuff your shoes. Stand on one leg and polish the toe part on the back of your standing leg. Forget about the heels. It is too hard and people do not pay a lot of attention to heels unless they have very fine eyesight and are watching you walk away and by then, you are gone, so what. Unscuffing works best on trousers, but socks and tights will do also. Another shoe tip from Dad is handy for when you are bashing off to school in a flurry, or from indoors to outdoors when at school. Do not tie your laces too tight. That’s it. Now you can slip your feet in and out, no tying and untying necessary, just as if your lace-ups are slip-ons! Be careful NOT to do this in front of Mean Nun who hates you, or she will say, as she did one time, Weiss! Weiss! Untie those laces and tie them up at once! You are a very lazy girl! Mean Nun is a bit crazed when it comes to shoes.

So these are some useful short cuts my dad has taught me, and I certainly hope he will teach me more as we go along because I am only ten going on eleven and cannot take everything in at once and there are things I do not need to know just yet. It changes all the time, the things a person needs to know. A stranger might think a small girl does not need to know how to box, but that is an opinion among others. I have had just one boxing lesson so far and here is how it went.

‘Hey, Jem,’ my dad says. ‘It’s time for a boxing lesson. You will need to know how to box where I come from!’