From the Book of Dogs

By Patricia Young

“Society? Bunkum, there’s no such thing; take it from the mouth of the dog who has fetched and carried, hunted, guarded and gone to war on behalf of man. Canine familiaris has had his nose up the crotch of human society since the dawn of time, there’s not a lot that escapes him.”- Deefer 1990.

‘From the Book of Dogs.’ is a darkly humorous allegory set in the years that witnessed the fall of Thatcherism and the rise of New Labour. It is a dog that reads the human mind that drives a story about the triumph of self-interest over virtue.

At fifty George Finnessey’s aspirations were beginning to look as limp as his sexual fantasies. A dairy supervisor he was and would remain, a dupe for ‘the lads’ and a mop for the management to wipe the floor with. He was looking for a bit of magic in his life. Aladdin had his lamp, what did George have? When Nora suggested they should have a dog, neither imagined one that could read the human mind. Surely they would be the toast of every circus from Paris to Moscow? Far from a cause celebre, it was a coup d’état they’d unleashed in their sitting room.

“I could do a lot for you,” offers Deefer as he chomps his way through fillet steak, “but it will cost you.” Dignity, honour and loyalty are sacrificed as George finds his way to the top to become Chairman of a worker venture, whilst Nora fulfills her ambition to win a Labour seat on the county council – both assisted by the suicide of a long standing friend, blackmail and and the timely demise of Aunty Beatrice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patricia Young Books
• Release date: Jun 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781783014163

Book preview

Epilogue

I could do a lot for you, Squire.

In the event of a win on the pools, the black limousine would glide along Copners Street bearing the news and halt outside number forty nine. George knew the scene well, having edited it repeatedly like a finicky director until the whole idea grew stale from constant re-working. The finale, in which he and Nora boarded the Q.E.II, looked equally uninspiring. Time had simply abandoned the old format, leaving Nora stranded in his fantasies looking hideous in a leopard skin coat with a blonde bouffant hairdo. He cut to the bedroom scene in the Bahamas, and a pair of lilac-coloured French knickers with a black velvet drawstring for easy access, then gave up the whole idea of winning the pools. He asked himself which was the most likely manner of exit from Copners Street, in a black limousine with a cheque in his hand or in a black limousine bearing his coffin, and just felt gloomy. Of course there had always been the possibility of promotion. Twenty years ago he’d seriously considered it, looking hopefully across the Broadway toward a new executive development. Two decades later, company cars stood where dumper trucks had scraped its foundations and the Broadway was just another frontier patrolled by the strutting confidence of younger men. At fifty George Finnessey was a supervisor for Marsh Farm Dairy and there he would remain, a dupe for the lads and a mop for the management to wipe the floor with.

So much for George Finnessey’s career prospects. What of his marriage? He did love his wife - witness all those times in the bolt holes of imagination he’d led her up the gang plank, the Q.E.II had cast off and next thing they knew they were somewhere exotic that included sun, sand and coconuts, and Nora wore a lilac-coloured bikini, for a short while. He found lilac extraordinarily sexy. He didn’t share his erotic flights of fancy with Nora, they remained pinned and fading, like the prints of out of date calendar girls. He watched her pour tea and helped himself to a lilac-coloured cupcake. The trouble was, Nora didn’t believe in marriage. That is to say she had no faith in the notion. Her mother hadn’t believed in it either, nor her mother before her. Together they formed a coven, passing on their litany about male failings - intemperate, incompetent and lecherous. Furthermore, if a woman expected anything at all from a man, other than bed and breakfast, she’d best go out and earn it for herself. It punched a jagged hole in George’s ego that remained throughout their married life.

Nora had enjoyed a steady career with Lingers Lingerie - Seamstress to Section Head to Senior Checker to Supervisor, all paralleled by a career with the Trade Union, from Works Convenor to Area Representative. Contented with her lot, it would take a holocaust to shift her from the environs of Copners Street. She was as well-rooted and nourished there as a flourishing pot plant in perfect conditions. She had friends, a substantial terraced house and captaincy of the women’s darts team. What’s more, one of these days, she felt sure the ward would return her to a labour seat on the county council. Nothing would induce her to leave and it certainly wasn’t going to be his promotion.

It had been a bad day. George bit into the lilac cupcake as if to wreak vengeance on the very thing that had enticed his fantasy in the first place.

So?..... She had been scrutinizing the expression on his face.

There was a mouse in the bottle capper this morning.

So?

So, I’m just saying there was a mouse in the capper.

There’s always a mouse in the capper on Fridays, she pointed out, as if it was as natural an event as the sun rising. But she was right. It was possible to tell the day of the week by what gummed up the works – Fred’s cap in the drive belt on Tuesday, a spanner in the gantry on Wednesdays.

The capper went on red alert. Two hours it took to strip it down and sterilize it. He recalled the regiment of filled bottles backing up from one side of the dairy to the other and felt an appalling inertia as the lads sang, with gusto, ‘I’m a union man.’ I wonder where they find the mice, he mused. Once Fred fishes them out the capper they’re as flat as pancakes. He dries them out and hangs them up in the rest room like bleeding hunting trophies.

Worker alienation, Nora pointed out in the censorious tone of those who know better. His fault entirely that he hadn’t taken greater heed of the writings of Karl Marx. They didn’t suffer from worker alienation at Linger Lingerie, largely because Nora had negotiated down to the finest detail every possible benefit for the work force.

It was twenty years since promotion to Dairy Supervisor had required his resignation from the union. Twenty years since he’d been excommunicated from the workers rest room. Twenty years had passed with him eating his sandwiches alone in the Supervisor’s glass office above the gantry, feeling like a fish in a bowl. It’s a mouse! squealed the Works Convener that morning and leapt, grinning, onto a chair just below his office.

I could do with a bit of magic in my life. He told Nora. Aladdin had his brass lamp to rub. What’s George Finnessey got?

I’m glad you mentioned that because I’m going to have a ... She had taken a bite of cupcake and what it was she was going to have got stifled.

You’re not, you can’t, not at fifty, he spluttered.

I can and I will, she immediately took up her negotiating stance. After all I’ve earned it. Thirty four years with Lingers, Seamstress, Section Head, Senior Checker, Supervisor. Plus Works Convener and Area Representative for the Corset and Hosiery Makers Union. I’ve earned my early retirement package if anybody has. I’m going to give more time to my political interests and I’m telling you now, George that I’m going to have... she took another bite, a dog.

A dog!? He was both relieved and surprised. Just for a moment he couldn’t tear his thoughts away from the image of a dog in a babygrow. What sort of dog? he asked.

Not one of those yappy little lap dogs for a start. I want something medium to big so you can tell it’s a dog. Whilst George didn’t dislike dogs, he didn’t happily embrace the idea of early morning walks and pooper scooping.

Do you think it’s a good idea? he re-asserted himself on the bit of negotiating territory left to him. I mean, who’s going to see to it?

I will. After all, George I’ve earned it. George held up his hand to stave off the barrage of rights which had accrued after thirty four years with Linger Lingerie. He silently contemplated an at-home Nora. It was like visualising Boadicea in a pinny. He put a lilac feather duster in her hand, lifted her skirt and added a pair of French knickers.

George didn’t give much more thought to owning a dog. It would be Nora’s dog anyway. Even so, in his dreams that night he encountered a toy chest out of which leapt a woolly companion with doting brown eyes, one ear up and one ear down. At breakfast the following morning he said cheerfully, Well. I’ve slept on it and I think it would be a good idea.

I should think you would, and so the motion was carried.

What sort of breed? he asked.

I rather fancy an Old English Sheepdog. For some years Nora had been entertaining a highly satisfying image of herself as Councillor Nora Finnessey, escorted to the council chamber by a handsome, high stepping dog that did exactly as it was told. It matched her political aspirations perfectly. Perhaps it would wear a red leather collar and lead, certainly not blue.

Having agreed on the principle of having a dog, the rest of the weekend was spent in dispute over what it should be called. George bowled the names at the wicket and she batted them back – Woolly, Chappie, Scamp and Bounce were hit for six and well over the boundary. By Sunday night, tired and dreading his return to work on Monday morning, George threw up his hands and groaned. How about Deefer?

Deefer!?

D for bleeding dog."

* * * * *

Most lunch times at the dairy nobody spoke to George with the exception of the handyman, although speech in Jack Jowitt’s case would have been optimistic. He clicked and clucked his meanings through the funnel of a cleft palate as if articulating the thoughts of a Kalahari bushman. I’m thinking of getting a dog, George told him. Jack’s spiked and well-greased coxcomb quivered as he considered the information with beady eyed attention. Something with a touch of Old English Sheepdog.

There was something distinctly avian about the Handyman, causing George to imagine that Jack never went home at nights but waited for the plant to empty before flying up to the steel rafters in the loading bay to roost amongst the starlings. He would remain until morning, head under his wing, dwelling on his terrible secret. He was not a Handyman at all but the result of a bungled reincarnation, leaving him suspended between bird and man. It wasn’t a cleft palate that ailed him but an emergent beak. Nature had not been kind in the modelling of Jack Jowitt. She had left him with a number of physical challenges, not least an irreversible speech defect, then given the knife a twist by bestowing on him a zest for communication. In fact communication and intelligence was Jack’s strongest point. There was little he didn’t know in advance of everybody else. Was it not Jack who’d clucked the fatal arrival of the new bottle capper? Was it not he who had cawed the dismissal of the Chief Accountant and his Secretary on the grounds of industrial misconduct? Yes, everybody relied on Jack Jowitt to deliver intelligence with the regularity of the morning post. ‘The day Jack hands in his notice then I’m off too, because I’d know the company’s on the blink for sure.’

It didn’t take long for the trivial seed of information about Nora’s desire for a dog to germinate and the following Saturday the Works Convener presented himself at Copners Street. Sydney hadn’t sent a civil word in George’s direction for years. Yet there he was on his doorstep in motor bike leathers, one hand holding something behind his back. Not an unconditional pardon from the Union of Retail, Distributive and Allied Food Trades, surely? ‘Dear George, on a unanimous show of hands the lads have decided you’ve suffered enough.’

And what can I do for you, Sydney? He asked in a tone suggesting there couldn’t possibly be anything that Sydney Turner could do for him that could be deemed trustworthy.

It’s what I can do for you, George. You were looking for a dog. Right?

Right, George agreed suspiciously.

Something with a touch of the Old English Sheepdog about it. Right?

Right, George agreed tentatively.

Right, then, what are we waiting for? It was a spare crash helmet that Sydney had been holding behind his back. Thus George found himself speeding off on the back of a Honda in scarf and crash helmet through the chilly football league hours of an autumn Saturday afternoon.

Grinning, Sydney rapped his personal signature on a red door in Hounds Tooth Lane but it wasn’t Reginald who answered. It was a handsome hour glass lady who presented herself and asked sharply. What do you want? She was tall and frowned like a sphinx.

Sydney blushed. Reginald there? His question was answered by the sounds of Millwall missing a penalty. A door burst open and Reginald shot into the hall his fists screwed like an infant with colic.

Rubbish. Bloody rubbish!

What’s the score? Sydney had to stand on tip toe to fire his enquiries over the shoulder of the woman guarding the threshold.

Sweet sod all. Reginald dived back into the sitting room before Millwall missed another penalty and he got the blame for it.

So? Reginald’s wife enquired.

This gentleman’s interested in buying a dog.

So? she frowned, dignified and immovable on the plinth of her polished doorstep. Sydney remembered his manners.

Gloria this is George, George, this is Gloria. She beamed unexpectedly and took George’s hand. Clearly manners unlocked doors in her domain. She stepped to one side and allowed the two men to pass, judiciously wiping their feet on the mat. They heard air sucked through clenched teeth followed by a low groan behind the living room door.

When his team loses, it rumbles round this house like a dose of bleeding indigestion, said Gloria. I’ve got the pups in the shed, she waved them through the kitchen door into a neat courtyard garden.

As soon as Gloria opened the shed door and three puppies tumbled blinking into the autumn sunlight George knew which was the dog for him. There at his feet wagging its tail vigorously, one brindled ear up and a black one down, was the archetypal British mongrel. That’s Patch she said. Of course, that was exactly what he would have named the woolly companion of his dreams. George put out his hand and tickled behind its ears, receiving in return mutual grooming from a little velvet tongue. Sydney did not look overly impressed. Patch’s sister was a tall and elegant Setter. She lapped at a water bowl and tossed her long red tress of an ear. That’s Judy, but she’s not for sale. That one’s called Rex. She pointed to a Boxer with an oversize head which pursued a scent around the water bowl. Having completed one circuit it would begin another in the opposite direction. That’s your low hassle, no aggro dog. Take him to the park and he’d go round nose to the ground for hours. Next to Patch he would have been George’s second choice.

Your bitch has been putting herself about a bit, Setter, Boxer.. Clearly what Sydney really meant was that he wished Gloria would put herself about a bit as well. Had she a cane, Reginald’s elegant wife would have wrapped it over his knuckles and brought his wandering attention to heel.

It’s quite common, she told him, for a litter to be sired by more than one dog - it’s nature’s way of making sure. There was something about Gloria’s stance that made a man feel about as noble as a rapist in a powder room.

Sydney looked momentarily abashed but quickly reasserted his grip on the situation. Reg said you had an Old English Sheepdog cross.

Dulux!? Gloria’s eyebrows shot up. George was about to ask whether it was still available when a wolf-like howl came from the sitting room. Reginald’s face appeared briefly at the window, crimson and distorted. He shot upward and landed with his hands outstretched in supplication.

Magic, bleeding magic! he mouthed.

Millwall have been good again, said Gloria then addressed herself to George, so you want to see Dulux?

That’s what we came for, Sydney butted in on George’s behalf.

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they ask at what point a disaster could have been avoided. In years to come George often returned to that autumn afternoon and three endearing pups playing on a terrace in Hounds Tooth Lane. Are you sure? Gloria asked him as if he were about to embark on a mission from which he was unlikely to return. He shrugged his shoulders.

I might as well have a look whilst I’m here. He still had his eye on Patch and wondered how he might present the option to Nora.

On your head be it, said Gloria and disappeared into the Bramley smelling interior of the garden shed. After a mysterious scuffling sound she leapt out again. You nasty little sod! You do that again and I’ll have you put down. Sucking on her finger she marched to the kitchen and returned with a broom. Holding it like a lancer she charged at the foe within the garden shed. Right. If that’s the way you want it. George’s heart sank. Whatever creature emerged conquered by a broom, he didn’t want to take it home. He watched Sydney rubbing his hands together cheerfully. What exactly was he up to? No doubt, whatever lay behind his flimsy comradeship it would be rolled out in the course of the coming weeks at Marsh Farm Dairy. His heart sank even further as he watched Gloria make several casts with the broom. On the third try she swept the creature onto the patio.

In spite of the undignified entrance, he was a remarkably handsome animal. Taller and broader by far than the rest of the litter, he swaggered arrogantly, every now and then turning to snarl at the broom which Gloria was pushing at his arse for good measure. Patch, on seeing his brother, wisely slunk to the safety of George’s shadow. Judy, red tresses whirling like helicopter blades, leapt and landed on Gloria’s feet. Rex continued to follow his own scent around the water bowl, ignorant of the approaching menace. Deefer, as he was now dubbed in George’s mind, lowered his head and gave his brother an almighty shove. Unbalanced by his own over-sized head, Rex keeled over and landed, legs splayed, in the water bowl. He gathered himself together and returned ignominiously to the safety of the shed. What happened next utterly dismayed George. Deefer, assuring himself of everybody’s attention, raised a paw and placed it deliberately in the centre of the water bowl in the manner of a general conquering a strategic position, then growled. Just briefly, perhaps it was his imagination, George felt the animal’s yellow eyes fix malevolently on his own.

What a player. What a character! applauded Sydney.

You think so? said Gloria grimly.

If history were informed by experience or even common sense, whether it is the history of how one man came to acquire a dog or a nation came to acquire a dictator, then humanity would rant and rave and shout ‘no, no, no.’ But out of the corner of his eye George saw the Works Convener take up a negotiation on his behalf. Did I hear you say forty pounds?

Give over, said Gloria.

Okay, Fifty pounds and that’s got to be top whack for a cross breed.

You’ve got to be joking!

Fifty eight pounds and that’s our last offer. The plucked-brow sphinx regarded Sydney as if she saw more into his soul than his own mother. She turned her back on him and addressed George instead.

If you want the dog, He’s yours. George was about to reach for his wallet when she added, for nothing. He’s your responsibility now, thank God. But take a tip from me, and I know what I’m talking about when it comes to dogs. That pup’s a rum lot. Start disciplining him right from the word go. The first time he raises his lip at you, even if it’s just a fraction of an inch, then you pick him up and shake the living daylights out of him. Because, if you don’t, you’ll have a dictator in your sitting room and your limbs are going to have more stitches than the Bayeux tapestry.

The autumn afternoon had drawn in with the smell of leaf mould and bonfires. The pale sunlight on the patio had gone, leaving Patch to shiver under a bright yellow chrysanthemum. Judy, vividly red in the waning light lay at her mistress’s feet. Deefer posed by the water bowl like the subject of an oil painting, the grey and the white of him the expert artistry of a palette knife, his eyes the gift of genius. George looked from the woman who smiled like Mona Lisa to the man who called himself the Works Convener. It was as if he had been regarding a timeless classic. A mistress, a master and their dogs painted on the canvas of an October afternoon. He could have averted his eyes, disengaged from the masterpiece and returned to Copners Street empty handed, yet continued to regard it as if it was all too late. He’s all yours, George, said Sydney.

Gloria fetched a cardboard box lined with Deefer’s share of a chewed carpet. She threw in a stick and a mangled hide bone with the explanation that items with his smell on them would help him to settle in quickly. George stooped and scooped up the recalcitrant animal and added him to the cardboard box, surprised that he hadn’t offered more resistance. He fell asleep instantly and the lid was closed without protest. Gloria said goodbye as if she really didn’t expect to ever see him again and the red door in Hounds Tooth Lane banged behind her.

Deefer didn’t stir at all on the back of Sydney’s Honda until they picked up speed, when the lid of the box burst open and his mop head emerged to regard the passing landscape, his hair ruffled. Catching sight of him in the wing mirror, Sydney’s imagination sketched in goggles and a leather flying jacket. Looks just like Biggles, he said as they halted at the lights in the Broadway.

George! A bedroom window was flung open and Nora leaned out like a prima donna over a balcony to hail the entrance of Deefer into Number Forty Nine Copners Street. George stepped over the threshold to see her descend the stairs two at a time, flinging her arms wide , not to embrace him, but to grasp the pup and hold it to her bosom. Aren’t you boofuls, she crooned. George opened his mouth and shut it promptly. Not once, in her career as a mother, had Nora Finnessey expressed anything resembling maternal affection. The children’s malleable brains had been tempered to steely intellect, and their straying curiosity focussed toward becoming the first children in Copners Street to enter Oxford University. They had subsequently emigrated to California.

* * * * *

The Dairy Supervisor’s office had been built in the middle of a catwalk which ran the length of the plant. Beneath, a rattling gantry delivered crates to the loading bay where fractious starlings conducted their war of attrition amongst the metal rafters. Frequently the ratio of perch space to starlings demanded a reduction in their numbers and one would