parking was as organized as any militia, though perhaps a bit more bloodthirsty. So, you see, I don’t have a hope in hell. Now is that a fair outcome for someone with a bypass for every artery and seventy-eight years of peaceful living?
Once, I was a painter. Now I use flowers to colour my life. As far as I can pinpoint, more than ten years have passed since I retired to the privacy of my garden, alone but not lonely. A garden can have that effect. I have grown scrawny where once I was lean, bedraggled instead of fashionably bohemian. I have decided I prefer myself this way, like my flowers, just a bit out of control.
The days pass quite nicely when your mind is busy with where to plant the bachelors’ buttons and how to keep the phlox from creeping into the lilies.
I would be happy if only she weren’t closing in daily. This morning, while admiring the gentle pink of peonies in the early sun, I hear her triple-glazed patio door open and then the smart, sharp clicks of stilettos on the cedar deck that shadows my small garden. My heart rate soars in a symphony of agitation. I shrink back behind my French lilacs and hope not to be seen. Why can’t I make anyone understand what she is doing?
“Miss Ainslie,” she bellows, rather like Wellington lining up the brigade at Waterloo, “you will have to do something about that dog.”
Now what? How can my dog be a problem? In the five weeks since I brought Silent Sam home from the Humane Society, he’s been nothing but a huge, heaving bundle of gratitude. Loving and loveable. Shambling and confused. I have always placed a high value on randomness, a low value on boundaries. So Silent Sam suits me. Mrs. Sybil Sharpe doesn’t.
“I don’t have a problem.” I infuse my voice with false confidence, but I am glad to be out of reach of her two-inch fuschia nails.
“Well, I do. That dog is driving people crazy. If you have no consideration, and I am already fully aware of that, then you will find the city ordinances are firmly on my side.”
I fail to see how Silent Sam can bother anyone.
“The city ordinances can be firmly up your backside as far as I care,” I say, but the sound is muffled by the lilacs.
My doctor pats my hand. “You’ve had a bad couple of months. The key thing is not to get upset and to stick with your regimen: strength, flexibility, cardio.”
“Got it,” I say.
He does not believe my next-door neighbour is a serious health hazard. I have explained she is deadlier than a random clot, more insidious than a ticking embolism, more determined than a clump of blue cancer. I should know, I’ve held them all at bay, but only Mrs. Sybil Sharpe causes me to gasp awake every night at three, heart twisting with fear.
“She sent Social Services around. Remember? She said I wasn’t fit to live alone.”
“And are you still living alone?”
“So far.”
“My money’s on you in this contest. I figure you’re far more tenacious than any difficult neighbour. And speaking of tenacious, let’s talk about your resistance exercises. How many repetitions?”
“Twenty of each with the five-pound weights.” I take a sideways peek at him to see if he’s falling for it. Those weights would probably be a piece of cake compared to the clean-and-jerk with the bags of sheep manure I needed for my spring maintenance. It seems a fair substitute to me, but I keep the details to myself.
“Excellent. What about the flexibility regime?”
“Fifteen minutes of stretching, twice a day.” It seems prudent not to mention this takes the form of reaching to prune, deadhead and transplant. Bend, reach, bend.
“Great. And cardio?”
“Got myself a pooch from the Humane Society. Brisk walks twice a day.” This is not the highest form of truth, since I fail to mention Silent Sam is down to three legs and blind as a mole. Getting him to the nearest fire hydrant feels more like resistance work than cardio.
He chuckles and shakes his head. “Wouldn’t surprise me to see you in the 10K race one of these days.”
Once again, I’ve failed to convince him of the danger presented by Mrs. Sybil Sharpe. That’s the problem when your doctor remembers you as his childhood art teacher. He’ll go through life thinking you are inclined to colour things to suit your own purposes.
“My money’s always on you, Miss Ainslie. Always.” He is smiling. I am not, since I have lost another round. Mrs. Sybil Sharpe: 1, Miss Callista Ainslie: Zip.
He calls out as I near the clinic door, “You’ll live to a hundred.”
Not likely. And I won’t even rate an inquest, I’m sure. Pretty straightforward for the coroner. Seventy-eight-year-old woman, recovering from quadruple bypass and with a whopping melanoma in remission, pitches into the day lilies following a stroke. A kindly neighbour’s attempts to get help are unfortunately too late. Mrs. Sybil Sharpe’s broad face would blanket the City section of the paper bemoaning the slow response time of paramedics in our community. I can see it all now.
The animal control officer takes me by surprise. I am concentrating on finding just the right spot to relocate the rosemary, now that Mrs. Sybil Sharpe’s shadowy deck has stolen the sun from the west side of the garden.
“Sorry to disturb,” he says, “but we’ve had a complaint about your dog here.”
“This dog? Are you sure?”
“I think so, Ma’am.”
“What kind of complaint?”
“Excessive barking.”
I laugh merrily. “You must be mistaken.”
He wrinkles his brow. “Are you Miss Callista Ainslie?”
“Yes.”
“And would this be your dog?”
“That’s right. Meet Silent Sam.”
Silent Sam takes a shine to the animal control officer right away, and it’s hard to hear ourselves with the thumping of that tail. I fill in my side of the story, being careful to insinuate that Mrs. Sybil Sharpe is as crazy as a polecat and twice as mean. Besides the innuendo, I have a key fact on my side.
The animal control officer is impressed. “A barkless dog? Can’t say I’ve ever heard of one.”
“Feel free to check my story with the Humane Society. According to his rap sheet, Sam had debarking surgery some years ago.”
He bends over to scratch Silent Sam behind the ears. “Nice old fella. With a tail like that, who needs to bark?”
I relax a bit. “Better than any alarm system.”
The animal control officer looks around. “Nice neighbourhood.”
“Used to be,” I say.
“You have a wonderful garden.”
A close call, but I am not foolish enough
