Louis de Bernières - The Dust That Falls From Dreams

‘Thanks, mister,’ said the little boy. ‘I was only throwing sticks. She loves fetching sticks, doesn’t she, Mum?’

By now Rosie and Daniel were kneeling at the dog’s side. It was very old, perhaps fourteen, and its muzzle was entirely silvered over. It was breathing jerkily and its eyes were glazing over.

‘I’m very sorry,’ said Daniel, ‘but she’s obviously dying. I really don’t think there’s anything we can do.’

‘I’m sure she’s had a heart attack or a stroke,’ said Rosie. ‘They often happen at the same time. It might be both.’ She stood up and addressed the distraught woman. ‘I think you should just take the opportunity to say goodbye. While you still can.’

‘What can I do? What can I do? I can’t leave her here, can I? I can’t just leave a dead dog at the Tarn, can I?’

The little boy knelt by the dog, and put his arms around its neck, saying, ‘Don’t die, girl, don’t die, please don’t die.’

‘Do you live nearby,’ asked Daniel, ‘and do you have a garden?’

‘We’ve got a tiny one, and we’re in Chapel Farm Road.’

‘That’s very near,’ said Rosie.

‘Look,’ said Daniel, ‘I’ll go back to The Grampians. You wait here and see Sheba off. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’ With this sat down on the grass and put his shoes and socks back on.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Rosie.

‘I’m going to run back because that’s the only way I’m ever going to get warm again, and I’m coming back with the AC.’ He put his shirt on over his wet vest, rose up, still shivering, and sprinted away.

‘Gracious me,’ said the woman. ‘That’s … I mean … what can you say? … What a wonderful man, wouldn’t you think?’

‘Oh, he is wonderful,’ said Rosie. ‘He’d do anything for anyone. Let’s see what we can do for poor old Sheba.’ She took Daniel’s abandoned jacket and placed it gently over the sick animal. ‘She must be very cold.’

Twenty minutes later they heard the sound of the AC outside the Court Road gate, and Daniel reappeared, in dry clothes, carrying a rug. ‘Wretched AC!’ he exclaimed. ‘Thought it would never start. Practically wrenched my shoulders off. How is Sheba?’

‘Almost gone,’ said Rosie.

‘So she is. Poor old thing. Let’s get her into the car. What if I put her on the back seat? Rosie can go in the back along with her, and you, madam, could perhaps sit in the front with your little boy on your knee?’

‘I want to go in the back with Sheba,’ protested the little boy.

‘Then you shall,’ said Rosie. ‘We’ll just have to squeeze.’

Daniel knelt down and scooped the retriever up in his arms, saying, ‘Rosie, my dear, could you go ahead and put the rug on the back seat? I’ll lay her down on it, and we’ll wrap her up.’

Rosie sat in the back with the dog’s head on her lap, and the little boy perched on the edge of the seat. By the time they had travelled the few hundred yards to the house, Sheba was dead.

The woman stoked up the fire and made them tea, which they drank together in her small shabby drawing room. The whole house smelled of old, damp dog, and there was a ragged blanket in front of the fireplace where Sheba used to sleep.

‘I’m not house-proud,’ said the woman suddenly. ‘I sort of don’t see the point now that it’s just me and my Bertie. I lost heart.’

‘He was killed, was he, your husband?’ asked Rosie, nodding towards a photograph on the mantelpiece of a smiling man in sailor’s uniform.

‘Jutland.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘And now the dog’s dead.’

‘Bertie’s the point, isn’t he?’ said Rosie gently. ‘He seems a very sweet little boy.’

‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. All the same, it’s hard to carry on sometimes. He’s just like his father, you know.’ Then she added, ‘He’s only seven, the poor little mite.’

‘I wanted her to live forever and ever,’ said the little boy.

‘Would you like me to help you bury her?’ asked Daniel. ‘Do you have a spade?’

Out in a derelict rose bed overgrown with clumps of grass, Daniel dug a pit four feet deep, soon striking heavy yellow clay that came out in lumps like bricks. He went back to the house and fetched Sheba from where he had laid her on the doormat of the garden door. He called into the house.

The others stood as Daniel lowered the dog into the grave with the rug, and then let it remain there with the body.

‘Don’t you want your rug back?’ asked the woman.

‘I’m certain we can spare it,’ said Rosie.

Daniel spoke to the little boy, whose lips were working, his eyes welling with tears. ‘Say goodbye to Sheba, Bertie. Would you like to be the first one to throw some soil on her? It’s what you do when you bury someone you love, so I think you ought to go first.’ He bent down and handed Bertie a lump of the yellow clay.

Bertie solemnly let the clod fall into the grave, and then Daniel began to backfill it as the others watched. Rosie found herself crying in sympathy with Bertie and his mother, even though this was the first time she had ever met the dog.

Whilst Daniel was washing his hands in the kitchen, the woman said to Rosie, ‘I can’t thank you enough, I really can’t. Would you and your husband like to come round and have tea sometime? In a week perhaps? I can make some scones.’

‘We’re not married yet,’ said Rosie. ‘But we’d love to come round for tea, and see how you and Bertie are getting along.’

Before they left, Daniel bent down to talk to Bertie face-to-face. ‘Listen, little fellow,’ he said, ‘don’t be too sad. Sheba had a lovely life. When you get another dog, and I expect you will one day, just remember that dogs don’t live as long as we do, so you really have to make the most of every minute. Do you agree?’

Bertie nodded, and Daniel held out his hand for him to shake. ‘Brave boy, Bertie,’ he said.

On the way home in the AC Rosie wondered at herself. She had actually said ‘We’re not married yet.’ What was this ‘yet’? It was as if she had made a decision without consulting herself.

THEY SAT SIDE by side on the same bench, well wrapped up in heavy coats, looking out over the water. ‘They say the Tarn has no bottom,’ said Christabel.

‘Like love,’ said Gaskell gloomily.

‘It has no top either,’ replied Christabel sensibly. ‘If you think about it, love isn’t a three-dimensional thing, is it? Space words can’t apply to it.’

‘Oh my gosh,’ said Gaskell, ‘you’re immune to the power of metaphor.’

‘What’s the matter, darling?’

Gaskell shrugged. ‘I can’t help thinking about us.’

‘And?’

‘I can’t help thinking that, no matter how wonderful it is, one day you’re going to leave.’

‘And so might you.’

‘And so might I. But it’s more likely that you will.’

‘Really? Why?’

‘Because you’re not entirely like me.’

‘Aren’t I?’

‘One day you’ll start wanting to have children, and you’ll meet a nice man, and then you’ll be off.’

‘Don’t you want children?’

‘Of course I do. But I’m not going to have any, am I? It’s not in my nature … to be able to bring it about. I absolutely couldn’t bear it, in fact. And I think that you could.’

‘I don’t want to think about it, darling. We have such fun, don’t we? And we’re such a success. We’re filling the galleries already! We’re kindred spirits. I don’t want it to end, ever.’

Gaskell tucked her arm through Christabel’s. ‘I don’t like to talk much about the past. I like there to be a clean canvas … but I’ve been in love twice before.’