knew that. One of the first things he tried to find out, as soon as he understood enough talk, was why Duffie hated Kathleen so. It was not easy to discover, because there were so many things connected with it that he did not quite understand. He had to find out why Basil was always jeering at Kathleen for being Irish, and what it meant to be Irish, and why Kathleen spoke in a clipped, lilting way which was different from the rest of the family.
Then, one night, Sirius heard a man talking on television in the same rapid but singing accent. Up to then, he had not realised he could learn anything from either the television or the radio. He tried to attend to both after that. The radio defeated him. It spoke in a blank, boxy voice, and it had no face or picture to show him what it was talking about, but the television proved easy to follow and much more informative. At length, he had it all sorted out.
The family was English, and they were called Duffield, but Kathleen was from a country called Ireland, where bad things were happening, and her name was Kathleen O’Brien. In some parts of Ireland, Sirius gathered, cars and buildings were sent up in flames, and people were killed by other people when they answered a knock at their front door.
Sometimes the Irish people came and did this in England, too, which accounted for some of the things Basil said. Kathleen’s mother was some kind of relation to Mr Duffield – he of the thunderous voice – but she had left Ireland when the trouble started and run away to America. And Kathleen’s father had been put in prison for taking part in the violence. So Mr Duffield had sent for Kathleen to come and live with them.
Try as he might, Sirius could not connect Kathleen with the scenes of violence he saw on television. She was the gentlest and most reliable person in the household. But it was plain that both Basil and Duffie did.
Duffie’s real name was Daphne Duffield, and she disliked Kathleen for a number of reasons. She had been very angry that Mr Duffield had not consulted her before sending for Kathleen. That started it. Then Kathleen had no money, except a very little her father had once sent her from prison. Duffie went on at great length, whenever she was cross – which was frequently – about having another mouth to feed, and the cost of clothes, and the cost of Sirius, and the cost of all the china Kathleen broke washing up, and a great many other costs. And Duffie disliked Irish people. She called them feckless. She called Kathleen lazy and stupid and sluttish.
Kathleen did all the cooking and most of the housework and dozens of odd jobs as well. But because she was not much older than Robin, she did not always do these things well. Some things she had never done before, some she was not strong enough to do, and sometimes she would start playing with Sirius and forget that she was supposed to be cleaning out the bathroom. Then Duffie came and said all these things, cold and high, making Kathleen tremble and Sirius cower.
Duffie always concluded her scolding with, “And I shall have that creature destroyed unless you mend your ways.”
Sirius learnt that he was being used to blackmail Kathleen into doing all the work and being scolded into the bargain. When Kathleen had brought him home as a tiny sopping puppy and Duffie had been so very angry, Kathleen had promised to help in the house if Duffie let her keep Sirius. Duffie held her to it. By the end of the summer, Duffie was doing nothing but make pots and scold Kathleen. And Sirius began to long to sink his teeth in Duffie. When she grew cold and shrill at Kathleen, Sirius would eye her bulging calves and yearn with a great yearning to plant a bite in one. He did not do it, because he knew it would not help Kathleen at all. Instead, he rumbled deep in his chest and shook all over with the effort of not biting Duffie.
He wished Mr Duffield would stop Duffie treating Kathleen so badly, but he soon learnt that Mr Duffield was only interested in the work that took him out of the house every day till evening and only complained if Duffie made him uncomfortable. Duffie was not usually unpleasant to Kathleen in the evenings.
Basil was unpleasant to Kathleen most of the time. Sirius soon gathered that Basil did not really dislike Kathleen. He was just imitating Duffie.
As Sirius grew larger, and larger still, Basil ceased to frighten him at all. Whenever he saw that Basil’s mindless jeering was getting on Kathleen’s nerves, Sirius stopped him. Usually it was only necessary to distract Basil by starting a game. But if Basil was being very bad tempered, Sirius found he could shut him up by staring at him. If he fixed his queer green eyes on Basil’s light blue ones and glared, Basil would round on him and jeer at him instead.
“Shamus Wolf! Sneaking filthy mongrel! Rat redears!” Sirius never minded this at all.
“I read in a book that no animal could look a human in the eyes,” Robin once remarked unwisely.
“Leo’s unusual,” said Kathleen.
Basil punched Robin’s nose. He was about to go on and punch Robin everywhere else, but Sirius rose, rumbling all over, and pushed in between them. Robin ran away and locked himself in the broom-cupboard. Basil was frightened. He saw he could easily turn Shamus Wolf into a permanent enemy, and that would be a waste, since he was far more fun that the stupid cats.
“I’ll take the Rat for his walk, if you like,” he offered. The Rat was only too ready to come. And, as Kathleen was busy trying to scrape dozens and dozens of tiny new potatoes, she agreed.
So Basil and Sirius went and raced round and round the green meadow, shouting and barking vehemently. They met four other dogs and five other boys, and all of them ran up and down in the mud at the edge of the river until they were both black and weary. When they came home, Robin was waiting, rather puffy-eyed, to fling his arms round Sirius and get licked. Sirius licked him tenderly. He was fond of Robin and knew his position was a difficult one. Robin was the only one in the family who liked Kathleen, and he adored dogs. But he was only a little boy. He was scared of Basil and he wanted to please Duffie.
Unfortunately, Sirius had forgotten how muddy he was. Mud went on Robin and got plastered on the kitchen floor as well. Duffie came in and coldly raged. Kathleen was in the middle of cooking supper, but she had to find time to get Robin clean clothes and wash the kitchen floor, while Basil jeered and Robin wavered miserably between jeering too and offering to help. It was one of many times when Sirius felt he would be doing Kathleen a kindness if he ran away.
He did not run away because, as he had told Tibbles, he knew it would make Kathleen unhappy. Besides, there were times when Duffie was safely in her shop when he had great fun. Robin, Kathleen – and Basil too, if he was in the mood – would do a romp-thing in the living-room, of which the aim seemed to be to stuff Sirius under the sofa – only they usually lost sight of the aim and ended simply rolling in a heap.
Or they would all go out to the meadow and throw sticks for Sirius to fetch out of the river. Sirius fetched the stick, but the rule was that he would not bring it to be thrown again. They had to catch him first. He was an expert at dodging. He would wait, with the fringed elbows of his forelegs almost on the ground and the stick temptingly in his mouth, until all three children were almost upon him and putting out their hands to seize the stick. Then he would bounce between them and be away to the other end of the meadow before they could move.
The very best times were when Kathleen and Sirius, not to speak of Tibbles, had gone to bed in Kathleen’s room. Nobody went to sleep for at least an hour. First Kathleen and Sirius had a silly game which went very quickly round and round Kathleen’s bed. Kathleen tried to crawl and keep her face hidden at the same time, laughing and laughing, while Sirius ploughed rapidly after her, trying to lick her face and giving out panting grunts, which were his way of laughing. They played this most nights until Tibbles had had enough and boxed Sirius’s ears. Then Kathleen would settle down with a book and talk. She liked reading aloud, so she read to Sirius. Sometimes she explained the book
