| LOST AND FOUND
by Alison Stickings
For the last time Emily called to Timmy. He came bounding in, all teeth
and fur, jumping up at her, his tail beating joyous time. She shushed
and calmed him, tenderly stroking the rough fur around his chocolate drop
eyes. And for the last time, she fastened his lead onto his collar.
Tears rose in her throat and came into her eyes. She blinked them away.
None of that. Timmy was extra excited this morning. He chased round and
round her, yapping and nearly pulling her over. She didn’t want
to give him the customary sharp smack on the behind that told him he was
in disgrace. Not today.
Emily put on her cardigan and checked her reflection in the hall mirror
while Timmy chased up and down. She sighed at the middle-aged woman staring
back at her, her once vivid green eyes faded and sad, wrinkles set in
around her lipsticked mouth. As she turned away she caught the ghost of
her girlish reflection, the face Alan had fallen almost instantly in love
with.
For the last time she clicked her tongue at Timmy and called, “Walkies,
Tim-Tims!”
Her neighbour was in the front garden, wielding his secateurs at perfect
roses. Her own were forgotten and overgrown, blackened stumps of neglect.
It was Alan who had been good with roses.
‘Morning, Emily.’ Her neighbour called. ‘Looking forward
to your holiday?’
‘Yes, thank you, Jim. Is it still alright to bring Timmy round about
three?’
‘No problem. It’ll be nice to have a dog about the place again.
Val will spoil him rotten.’
‘Thank you so much for this.’ Emily smiled and waved, yielding
to Timmy’s excited pull. ‘See you later.’
Jim and Val had lost their dog, an elderly spaniel called Princess, about
a year ago. Cancer had eaten away her face. When they came back from having
her put down,
Val had collapsed in tears on Emily, shivering and sobbing. At the time
she hadn’t felt much sympathy. You should try losing a husband,
she had thought angrily while she made her a cup of tea.
Not that she had let any of those feelings show. She never did. Everyone
thought she was doing fine since Alan’s death. There was not a falter
in her step, or a disturbance in her routine. A week after Alan’s
funeral she was back at church, serving the tea as always and smiling,
good old Emily. Nobody knew that she wished they’d all choke on
their digestives.
It was three years now since his death. No one ever mentioned his name.
She thought that they had all forgotten that he was even here, that she
was not always
just Emily.
She went into the park and, for the last time, let Timmy off the lead
to have a run. It was a soft late summer day, the air trailing scents
of lilac and buddleia. Longing stirred her tired heart but she pushed
it away, standing up sternly and pursing her mouth. None of that.
She was not going on holiday, of course. She just needed a reason for
Jim and Val to take Timmy. She couldn’t have him shut up in the
house getting distressed, for however long it took for someone to notice
that she hadn’t drawn her curtains or taken her milk in. It might
be days. She had thought long and hard over how to do it.
Some methods were messy and grim for whoever found her. Wrist slashing,
for instance, was definitely out. She had never been one for histrionics.
Hanging struck her as too technical and liable to fail; didn’t one
have to calculate weight ratios? She had Alan’s old gun still locked
in the cabinet, but no bullets or knowledge of how to load it. She could
imagine accidentally shooting next door’s mangy old cat. But since
it kept her awake half the night with its quarrels and love-making, perhaps
there was something to be said for this method after all.
It would have to be pills, then. She’d had no trouble getting repeat
prescriptions for sleeping pills (she didn’t even have to go in
to see her doctor) and had been carefully
accumulating them. She had quite a stash now – enough to make certain
of the job. The last thing she wanted was to wake up in hospital with
her stomach pumped and
sympathetic faces staring at her. She could just imagine all the church
bods, bringing her copies of the parish magazine and asking her what the
food was like. She shuddered at the thought.
Feeling suddenly tired, she sat down on a bench. If only Alan hadn’t
gone and died. She was still reeling from that swift and sudden body blow:
a heart attack at work and
that was that. No warning. No final words. No chance to say goodbye. She
railed against the unfairness of it, shouted at God, thought over and
over of her last moments
with him at breakfast, fading ghosts of memory. If she’d known he
was going to die, she would have paid more attention.
He was only fifty-one.
She remembered the day they met: her brother’s friend from the Army,
a tall, quiet man minding his manners, looking at her shyly from across
the sitting room. His hair and eyes were as black as soot. He didn’t
know how to handle the tea cup her mother gave him and stumbled over his
reply to her polite questions. She was amused at his lack of social skills
and intrigued at the spark in those dark eyes as she smiled at him.
She plucked up courage to speak to him on his second visit and then they
talked, long into the evening, until the last radiant traces of the day
sank below the horizon and they could hardly see one another’s faces.
He told stories about the many deprivations of his Lancashire childhood
without a trace of self-pity, laughing at himself. He was good natured
but complex, shy but vigorous. His energy surrounded her, made her safe.
She remembered their wedding day, Alan handsome in his dress uniform and
her in eighties frills like Lady Di, being rained on. In the early days
of their marriage, after
he came out of the army, they were plunged into immediate poverty. The
hours at the factory were gruelling for both of them. But at night she
felt safe, her head on his chest, listening to the fury of the passing
trains that made the walls of their little house shudder.
She missed him. The very bones, flesh and breath of him. His large, quiet
presence, his warm laugh. The certainty of his touch.
It wasn’t only him she had lost, but her purpose in living. No sense
thinking about that now. May as well get on with it.
For the last time she stood up and called Timmy, clicking with her tongue.
He didn’t come.
‘Tim-Tims! Home!’
There was still no sign of him. She began to walk across the park, feeling
the acid panic rise in her throat.
‘Timmy! Come here now!’ Her voice returned to her, sounding
ridiculous.
Two teenaged girls walked towards her, midriffs out, giggling.
‘Have you seen a dog?’ she asked them. ‘A little terrier?’
One girl ignored her and started texting. The other said, ‘We ent
seen no dog.’ and walked off. A group of boys were sat on the grass,
smoking.
‘Have you seen a dog?’
Most ignored her but one vaguely shook his head.
She gave up and walked away, hearing a shout behind her, ‘What,
a dog like you?’ What a horrible world. She was glad to be leaving
it.
She sat on a bench and closed her eyes, sealing herself into darkness.
She saw his face. The memory she had shut out all these years. James.
She saw his tiny gaping mouth, struggling for breath, his tightly shut
eyes, his clenched fists. They had so wanted a baby. James had lived a
day and a half.
She remembered Alan sobbing over his son’s puny body. And the nights
sitting up, her body craving her baby, her breasts leaking milk. Though
their marriage remained good, they never spoke about James. His name lay
between them like an open grave.
She started to cry, tired, ancient tears that limped down her cheeks.
‘Are you O.K?’
A girl of about eleven stood in front of her, staring. Emily looked away,
embarrassed, fumbling for a tissue.
‘I’ve lost my dog.’
‘I’ll help you look,’ said the girl, flicking back limp,
mousy hair. A rash of spots around her mouth and on her forehead gave
her a greasy look.
‘That’s very kind,’ said Emily. ‘Perhaps you should
let your mum know first.’
The girl shrugged. ‘Mum’s at work,’ she said. ‘I
was here with my friends but they ran off
‘How about your dad?’
‘I dunno where he is. Mum says he’s a waster.’
They walked around the park, shouting Timmy’s name.
‘Why did your friends run off?’
‘I dunno. They’re always doing it. They said I was too much
of a minger to be in with them.’
Emily assumed a ‘minger’ must be a bad thing. In a second
she glimpsed the abandonment and rejection of this girl’s life,
all accepted with a shrug of the shoulders.
‘Your friends are wrong,’ Emily said. ‘I think you’re
great. You’ve been very kind to me, helping me look for Timmy.’
The girl smiled. Seconds later, Timmy came bounding up to them, jumping
up at Emily and yelping.
She fussed him extravagantly.
‘Can I come and visit you?’ the girl asked. Emily hesitated.
‘Visit me?’
‘Yeah. You say nice things.’
Emily smiled at her, breathing in the soft air and blinking away tears.
‘Of course,’ she said.
Emily walked home slowly. Timmy, tired out by his adventures, slowed his
pace to hers.
She called in at her neighbour’s.
‘Hi, Emily,’ said Jim. ‘Still bringing Timmy round later?’
Emily smiled. ‘No. I’m not going on my holiday now.’
‘Oh… anything wrong?’
‘No, no.’ Her fingers closed around the scrap of paper on
which she’d written the girl’s number. ‘I’ve just
got things to do here.’
|
