First asked to stifle the mutt, then begged, then severely admonished by neighbours leaning out of the windows of the adjoining flats, he soon said the same to them.
Considered as an exile, it might have been possible to see something representative in Spikedog’s abject misery. Had he merely whimpered, I might have pitied him, felt some fellow creaturely feeling. But he had no restraint, no consideration for the feelings of others, sunk in his howling canine narcissism. I could do that too, I recognised in him a shadow self, mon semblable, mon doggy frère. But I am not a brute, I howl not, though I’ve been known to whimper.
From my first-floor window I had a perfect view of the scene. By the end of the week the garden would be replete with piles of dog shit, until at the weekend a resentful crop-headed teenager – a gristly leftover on the plate of divorce – would appear with a handful of plastic bags to clean up the mess. The first time he was required to do this, he vomited copiously, and was ordered to clean that up as well, which is less easy. He didn’t do that again.
There is no use arguing with such a dog, or such an owner – both more anxious to bite than to placate. No, to influence the behaviour of such animals, you have to attack before they do, get in the first blow. But I am a pacific fellow by nature, most distinctly unmartial. When I was ten, the class bully punched me on the nose, I daresay not very powerfully, but I recurrently find myself feeling it to make sure it isn’t bent out of shape.
But what I lack in courage I more than make up for in cunning. If the dratted hound would not shut up, I needed him to develop a fear of the garden, to associate it so thoroughly with pain that he would refuse – whatever the punishment – ever to go there again.
In my next Waitrose order I included three bottles of tabasco sauce, and a pound of Aberdeen Angus aged fillet steak, an extravagance I justified on the grounds that its tenderness might make it sop up more of its lethal marinade. On its arrival, I cut a piece an inch and a half square (saving the rest for a celebratory dinner), pierced it with a knife and hollowed out the centre, which I filled with half of the bottle of sauce. The tabasco had a pungent aroma that teased the nostrils, and would have brought tears to the eye if I’d got too close. But I never cry. I do not approve of it. Once you start, it would be impossible to know when, or how, to finish. I have observed this in infants and women. There is nothing agreeable about the process, which is largely used to wound or to manipulate.
That evening I waited until Spikedog ascended to his highest pitch of declamatory desolation, so that he would associate that noisome activity with the punishment to come, and tossed the meat into the garden next door, hoping he wouldn’t be put off by the smell. The dog saw it land, not so many feet away from him – I was rather proud of my aim, it’s not that easy from a half-opened window – and sniffed it expectantly. As I had hoped, he ate the piece in one slobbery bite, leaving no trace of my malign intervention in his life.
A few moments of blessed quiet followed, as he stood stock still and interrogated the new sensation burning his mouth. He whined a little, but exhibited no signs of the extreme distress I had anticipated. The tabasco did quieten him for a few moments, during which he paced the garden, returned to the patch where the steak had landed, and sniffed it with what seemed – could this be possible? – a sort of longing.
He wanted more. When I repeated the trick the next day, he couldn’t eat the meat fast enough, and the following day I could swear that his howling was directed not at his copulating owner, but at my window, demanding some hot stuff of his own.
I’d made a friend.
We oldies are almost without exception narcissists and bores, until the blessed lapse into silence in the corner armchair in the old folks’ home, unvisited by relatives and ignored by staff. If you asked the elderly what they really want to talk about – after all of the stuff about the weather, what’s been on telly, how rotten the food is, and by the way how are the grandchildren? – what were their names? – most pressingly what the old want to talk about is the state of their bowels. Dutiful daughters will listen sympathetically, but not for long; their husbands will find a reason, screaming silently and metaphorically plugging their ears, to get a coffee, talk on the mobile, or even visit the WC, which is a bit hostile really.
The sad irony is that, if a human (like a Spikedog) is a machine for producing shit, it is not a reliable long-term mechanism for expelling it. I’ve gone three days without a visit this week, which is my normal pattern. Eaten the statutory fruits and vegetables, ingested my revolting mixed seeds, like a parakeet, for my breakfast. Indulged my favourite ritual, more delicious than efficacious: the making of the morning coffee.
One of my little treats, a few years back, was the purchase (almost £5,000, I didn’t let Suzy know) of a restaurant quality – and size – Gaggia espresso-maker. And, also essential if I was going to get the best out of my new machine, a Super Caimano burr grinder. Coffee beans arrive once a month, made to my own recipe (two thirds dark roast Ethiopian and one third Blue Mountain beans) by Higgins and Co. of Mayfair, labelled Special Dark Blend, which rather tickles me, though they always forget to add the final ‘e’ to my name.
Suzy did not begrudge me the foolish indulgence, and grew used to the diminished space, but what she couldn’t tolerate was the fuss. The grinding of the beans, just so, the full but delicate pressure as you put the coffee in the professional filter holder, the heating and frothing (by hand) of the milk – press the plunger one hundred and twenty times at a steady and regular pressure – the gentle stirring of the resulting liquid with a spoon, the slow and even pouring onto the one-third full cup of crema-rich espresso. The unhurried process is soothing, though the resulting coffee is anything but.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Suzy would say, ‘it’s like a religious ritual.’
‘Better. If Jesus had blood like this, I’d go to church.’
In the mornings Suzy drank hot water with a slice of lemon. I was so in love with her, I forgave her the sheer insipidity of this, for she was distinctly sipid in many other ways. During the day she would drink some herbal tea or other – boysenberry with extra digitalis – the kind of tasteless stuff imbibed by vegetarians, Buddhists, neurasthenics, homeopaths, organic food faddists, faith healers and members of the Green Party. Stupid tea for stupid people.
And this is the worst part: her bowels were as reliable as a clock. Hot water with lemon, piece of sourdough toast with her home-made Seville orange marmalade, off to the loo. And I would drink my double-shot flat white (the only great invention to issue from the southern hemisphere), eat my seeds, and continue to swell inwardly, discomforted and discomfited, morose.
The poor old body can hardly keep running. Sooner or later there will be a Tube strike: the tunnels get blocked and the trains can hardly get through. And when they do, they’re more and more likely to have suicide bombers within: tumours, viruses, bacterial infections of every sort, so intent on mayhem that they willingly kill themselves too.
It’s not just the bowel that is a reluctant worker. Arteries fur up, the large intestine grows polyps and muddy protuberances, the throat will not disgorge, the nose ceases to release its blockages. Even my penis, such a reliable ejaculator for so many decades – I once got sperm in my eye – can hardly be bothered to release its pitiful discharge. Having indulged myself with a very occasional wank – Think! Reminisce! Fantasise! Pray for Rain! – I am aware of having come, however mildly, only to notice that the tip of my penis bears no sign of the release of the (previously) essential body fluid. If I give it a post-orgasmic squeeze, upwards and firm, sure enough a little trickle of semen will appear at the tip, hardly enough to wipe off with my finger.
I can accept that. It’s in the natural course of things. Ejaculations are for the young and pious. But I can’t even piss any more. Unless I constantly top myself up with water, making
