A. Kennedy - All the Rage

The sections of shoreline to either side of this had notices which said their bits of sea weren’t safe. Simon didn’t swim anywhere in case he got lost, or swept to the dangerous parts. The current was strong. He could see it fighting the man, stealing his direction and making the bald top of his head mark time, or drift, while his arms tried to be powerful in changeable directions.

Simon hoped the man wouldn’t start drowning. There were lifebelts back at the path, but the drawings that showed how to use them were confusing.

He looked down at his dog.

She did need a name.

Simon understood that when you’re born, you’re not called anything and then people study you and think of what would suit — how you are will tell them what to pick. There would have been a time when something about him said Simon and his parents noticed. That’s what must have happened, because he wasn’t named after somebody else — not a relative, or that — he was Simon, and Simon was him. Otherwise he couldn’t feel right when he answered to it.

He wanted his dog to feel right when she answered to her name. For now, she would run to him if he whistled or clapped. He was careful not to say any words when he wanted her, in case she got confused about them and thought they were hers.

Whatever was chosen would have to be like her and what she was like was needle teeth and smooth pads to her paws — pink — and new in the world. The first time they’d walked outside, she’d been shaking, she’d wound in tight beside him and made him stumble. But she’d got excited, too, and tugged her leash and dashed at spaces in the air, or sniffed and yipped, which was almost the largest noise that she could make so far, and on the trip back they’d met a Labrador which was enormous, but slow, and his dog had flattened all the way down so the stranger dog couldn’t touch her, or sniff her, or anything, but she’d been yipping up at it the whole while, so you were sure that she wasn’t allowing herself to be bullied. She was brave. Simon had frowned and kept quiet and eventually the Labrador’s owner had stopped smiling and talking and had gone, yanking the Labrador along behind.

Simon had picked up his dog when they were fine and alone again and had said happy things to her and smiled into the fur over her shoulders where it was loose and crumply.

Springer spaniel.

That’s what she was.

Better than a Labrador. Neater.

And braver.

Much braver.

At the moment she was just happy, folded up neat and dozing inside the well of his crossed legs.

If she was touching Simon then she was happy. Simon also. That was how they were.

And if they were together and both awake, he would bend forward and slap his knees and she would barrel in against him and lift her paws on to his shins, which was supposed to be not allowed. She shouldn’t jump up. That had been mentioned. He was choosing to allow it, though, because sometimes he wanted her to stretch her length against him, all there on tiptoe and with her tail wild about how excellent it was and her eyes finding his — looking, finding. She was very obedient normally and beginning to be trained. People should appreciate that.

The stones underneath him were draining his heat. His mother said if he was outside he ought to keep moving and warm and not in a dream. She worried when he was without her and warned him about not getting into cars, or talking to men or women he didn’t know, about everything he wouldn’t do anyway, because he wasn’t an idiot.

He wasn’t that kind of idiot.

Never mind.

Quite close by, a gull wandered and pecked into shadows, stepping as badly and stupidly as everything else. It limped on, swaying when the wind cuffed it, clinging the grubby pink webs of its feet round the stones. No one was lovely here, or fast and easy — no one but his dog.

With a dog he would be protected.

They both would.

That was obvious.

She needed a rest currently because she was a puppy and that was all right and they could keep being like they should and having a play about for another hour. Then his dad would have finished talking to his mother and would want to tell Simon goodbye and go home and be with Pauline. After last time, Sandra hadn’t come along. She’d only made not-good banana rolls for the trip and kissed his hair, which she hadn’t done before and so she was useless at it and banged his head with her chin. She’d waved them goodbye. Simon had been in the passenger seat, although he’d wanted to sit in the back beside the dog’s cage, because for his dog the cage meant a change was happening and that was mostly going to see the vet and so she’d be upset. Earlier in the morning, Simon had tried to explain that she wouldn’t be meeting the vet, she’d be meeting a different house with the sea near it. The words wouldn’t work, though — he hadn’t expected they would — and when he tried again in the car he’d been loud because of the distance and speaking above the engine, and loud wasn’t calm, it was shouting.

He’d been hoping that if he was calm and sounded it, then she would be the same. They were often the same. Except that she was too upset to hear him. She’d howled for the whole of the journey, which was her very loudest noise, her shouting, and fair enough when she believed that he ought to come and save her. Fair enough. She wasn’t being bad. It had seemed like her own voice was causing her harm, like she was tearing. You could laugh about her, because she was being a baby, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t awful when you had to hear how scared she was. His dad yelled so that she would stop, but after that the howl got worse and really horrible.

They’d all been a bit odd when they’d arrived.

His mother was odd back at them and then turned round fast and headed for the kitchen. There was a silence that trailed from where she’d been standing, very thick and obvious, leading into the hall. Simon carried the cage and felt the strangeness of how it shifted when his dog moved inside. When he was close, his dog had gone quiet and he’d spoken to her gently about her being welcome home.

Simon spent holidays and some weekends with his father, but lived mainly in his mother’s flat, which he told his dog was a house.

Really, both his parents lived in half-houses, which made sense, because when they didn’t hate each other because of sex, they had lived in one whole house. Simon didn’t like that everything was smaller since the separation — which was what came before a divorce — and his dad had no garden and at his mother’s they had to share with the lady upstairs who owned all the flowers, which wasn’t sharing — it was putting up with someone being greedy.

And his dad had Sandra in his halved house — up the stairs with the worn-out carpet and this is your room for when you come: wardrobe with a creaky door and sheets that smelled funny. Sandra made his dad scared. He would try and hide it, but that just meant that Simon would look and have to pretend he didn’t see when his dad’s face got frightened and sad. It was to do with kissing. After kissing. Or during. Not at first, but always it would happen. Like the fat man getting undressed and then being no use in the water, disappointing himself.

He was finished with trying to swim — the fat man — and creeping up to his towel, most of him red with the cold and his legs perhaps not exactly doing what he expected, due to being tired.

Simon watched.

The man didn’t like being watched.

Simon watched more.

His dog snuggled and pushed, then smoothed back to stillness.

She could be perfectly, amazingly still. The moment before he bent to lift her she would drop into this peace, would be only waiting for him and peace. It tingled his fingers.