The Plague Dogs: A Novel Page 20

  For the past two days he had been searching for Snitter, by daylight reckless of farmers or shepherds and by night of stumbling and injury in the darkness. After his flight from the men at Cockley Beck, he had picked up Snitter’s scent near the top of Hard Knott Pass and followed it upward to the steep rocks on Harter’s north face. There he had lost it, wandered till nightfall and then, as mist and rain set in, taken shelter under an overhanging crag and slept for a few hours. But he had woken with a start, trailing in his nose the wisp of a dream and believing Snitter to be nearby. Bounding down into the heather, he had found only a yow that ran bleating away in the moonlight.

  Between that night and the middle of the following day he had, nose to ground, encircled the whole of Harter, from the dreary upland of Birker Moor (that wilderness where, in December 1825, poor young Jenkinson, as his tombstone opposite Ulpha church door tells, died in the pelting of the pitiless storm) to the steep banks of Duddon gorge; and so north and round once more by the west. Once he had snapped up a rat and once had routed out and nosed through an ill-buried package of hikers’ rubbish—hard bread, fragments of meat and a mouthful or two of soggy potato crisps. Nowhere had he come upon any fresh scent of Snitter. At last, feeling that he had made as sure as he could that Snitter must still be somewhere within the circuit he had made of the mountain, he had started out to hunt him down but then, exhausted, had lain down and fallen asleep once more. When he woke it was early next morning and he set out again, running, as long as the chilly, lustreless daylight lasted, backwards and forwards across the open slopes and searching under the crags. As twilight closed in—the already-risen moon brightening in the southern sky as daylight waned—he entered the all-but-bare larch woods and began sniffing his way up and down. From time to time he stopped, threw up his head and barked loudly; but the only response was the clattering of disturbed pigeons and the echoes, “Rowf! Rowf!,” thrown back from the distant steep of Buck Crag.

  The head of Eskdale, from Harter Fell

  There stands a house on the southern edge of this forest—Grassguards, they call it—a dead place now, solitary, untenanted these many years, a shelter for the wandering sheep of Birker Moor, a roosting-place for owls and the pitiless, lamb-blinding crows that frequent the fells. Sometimes, in summer, visitors on holiday look after themselves for a week or two in the roughly furnished dwelling-house, which is reached by no road or lonnin. But the dank barns stand empty, no rooster crows or dog barks and all winter and spring the loudest sounds are the rain, the moorland wind and the wide beck—Grassguards Gill—pouring between and often over the stepping stones a few yards from the door. Hither, in the speckled moonlight, from Harter plantations to the northern bank of the beck, came Rowf; lame of a paw, muddy of coat, froth of a jaw, hoarse of a throat, taken apart, down of a heart. And here, as he lapped at the water and lay down exhausted on the crisp, thinly frosted grass, he caught suddenly the faint but unmistakable smell of a scalp wound and of medical disinfectant; and then, fresh and close by, the odour of a smooth-haired dog. At once he leapt up, barking once more, “Rowf-rowf! Rowf-rowf!”

  He was answered by a feeble yelp from the further side of the water. Setting his teeth, he crossed, jumping awkwardly from stone to wet stone. The barn had a half-door, the upper part of which was ajar. Rowf threw himself at it, scrabbled a moment, climbing, then dropped down on the earth and round cobbles of the floor within.

  Picking himself up, he made his way across to where Snitter was lying on a patch of straw beside an old heap of slack coal. He pushed at him with his head, but before he could speak Snitter said, “Oh, are you here too, after all? I’m sorry—I’d hoped somehow you’d be left out of it—”

  “Of course I’m here, you fool; and a nice jolly outing I’ve had finding you. I’m tired out and half-starved as well. What happened to you?”

  Snitter got up shiveringly, his muzzle brushing against Rowf’s shaggy flank. After a few moments he said, “It’s strange. You’d have thought we wouldn’t be hungry or thirsty any more, wouldn’t you? But I’m both.”

  “Well, so I should blasted well think, if you’ve been lying here all this time. How did you get here?”

  “Well, I fell, Rowf, of course. And I suppose you fell too, didn’t you?”

  “Fell? Don’t be stupid. I’ve run miles. This pad’s bleeding—smell it.”

  “Rowf, you don’t understand what’s happened, do you? You don’t know where we are?”

  “Well, suppose you tell me. Only buck up—we both need something to eat.”

  “What happened to you when I—you know—when I—when the air all blew to pieces? Oh, Rowf, I’m so very sorry! I know it’s all my fault, but I couldn’t help it—not either time. The first time was the worst, of course—my master, I mean—but this time, too—I don’t know who the poor man with the car was, but he was a sort of master—a very sad man.”

  “What master? What blew to pieces? What are you talking about?”

  “Rowf, you still don’t understand, do you? We’re dead, you and I. I killed us both. We’re here because I’ve destroyed everything—the world, for all I know. But the explosion, Rowf; you must have felt that, wherever you were. Can’t you remember?”

  “You’d better tell me what you remember.”

  “I was coming back, following you, and all the grass and stones in my head were very loud—sort of humming, like a strong wind. And then this dark man called me, and I was on a road, like—like the other time. I went to the man and got into his car, and then—then everything smashed to pieces. I smashed it. I did it; like the other time. So then I ran away before the white bell-car could come.”

  “That must have been the white bell-car that I saw, I suppose. I was looking for you.”

  “It all comes from me, Rowf. It comes out of my head. I killed the man. I believe I’ve blown the world to bits—”

  “Well, that’s wrong for a start. You haven’t. How d’you think you got here?”

  “I told you—I fell, like you. Falling into my head. I’ve been falling for two days.”

  “Well, if you’ll come outside with me, Snitter, you’ll find you’re wrong.”

  “No, I’m not going out there. It’s all stones and flying glass, like that other time. You couldn’t know, of course, but it’s all happened before.”

  “Snitter, can’t we get out of here and go and find something to eat? I’m famished.”

  “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you all about it, Rowf. Listen. A long time ago, when there were towns—when there was a real world—I used to live with my master in his house. He bought me when I was only a puppy, you know, and he looked after me so well that I can’t remember missing my mother at all. And I never really thought of my master as a man and myself as a dog—not in those days. There were just the two of us. Well, of course I knew really, but it was easy to forget, because I always used to sleep on his bed at night; and then in the morning a boy used to come and stuff a lot of folded paper through a hole in the middle of the street-door downstairs. When I heard that, I used to go down and pick the paper up in my mouth and carry it upstairs and wake my master. He used to take biscuits out of a box and give me one, and make himself a hot drink; and then we always played a kind of game with this wodge of paper. He used to open it up very wide—it was all black and white and it had a kind of sharp, rather wet smell—and spread it out in front of him while he sat up in bed, and I used to creep up the bed and poke my nose underneath. Then he used to pretend to be cross and pat it and I used to take it away and wait a bit and then poke it under somewhere else. I know it sounds silly, but I always thought how nice it was of him to get that boy to bring a fresh lot of paper every day, just so that we could play this game. But he was always so kind.

  “Then after a bit he used to go to a room where there was water and cover his face with sort of sweet-smelling, white stuff and then take it all off again. There was no sense in it, but I used to come too and sit on the floor, and he used to talk to me a
ll the time, I thought I ought to keep an eye on him. One of the best things about having a master is that half the time you’ve no idea what he’s doing or why, but you know he’s very kind and wise and you’re part of it and he values you, and that makes you feel important and happy. Well, anyway, he used to go downstairs and have something to eat and then he used to put on his old brown overcoat and his yellow scarf and put me in the car and we used to go to another house a long way off. There were houses in those days. It was before everything was spoilt. Anyway, my master used to stay there all day and there was a bell that used to ring on his table, and people used to come and talk to him and there was an awful lot of paper, but for some reason I wasn’t allowed to play with that paper. There was a fire in winter and I used to lie on the carpet. It was really very comfortable, only I didn’t like that bell on his table: I was jealous of it. I used to bark at it. I don’t know, but I think it must have been some kind of animal, because when it rang he used to talk to it instead of to me. He couldn’t have been talking to anybody else, because usually there was nobody else there at all.

  “My master hadn’t got a mate. I don’t think he wanted one, but there was a woman with grey hair and a red-striped apron who used to come into our house from another house across the street and clean all round. She used to get out a sort of humming, whirring thing on little wheels and push it about. It had a sort of long, black rope coming out of the back that used to go all across the floor, and one day when it was moving I grabbed it and began to gnaw it, just for fun, and she made an awful fuss. She was kind as a rule, and as far as I remember that was the only time she ever got cross with me. She bustled me out of the room and after that she never used to allow me into any room where she was pushing this humming thing. I think actually that was a sort of animal too, because it used to eat up scraps of paper and any other little, tiny things there were on the carpets. I wouldn’t have liked to eat them, but then just look what birds eat, come to that. Or hedgehogs. It didn’t really smell much like an animal, though.

  “Often in the middle of the day, and always in the evenings, when my master had finished at this other house, we used to go for a walk. Sometimes it was just across the park, but other times we’d go into the woods or along the river, a long walk, chasing about after water-rats or grey squirrels, and my master used to throw sticks for me to fetch. Some days, every so often, he didn’t go to the paper house at all, and unless he wanted to dig in the garden we’d go out walking for hours. And then sometimes at night, when we were in by the fire—he had a sort of flickering box he used to look at—that was another thing I never really understood, but it must have been all right if he liked it—we used to hear the cats yowling, out in the garden, and I’d cock my ears and sit up, and he used to laugh and click his tongue; and then he’d get up and open the back door and out I’d go like a bang-whappy-teasel, wuff! wuff! and over the wall they’d go flying! O Snit’s a good dog! Ho ho!

  “We were always jolly and I don’t know whatever my master would have done without me to carry up that paper in the mornings and fetch the sticks he threw and bark when people came to the door and chase the cats away. And I tell you, I wasn’t like that miserable tyke next door, who used to scratch up the garden and overeat himself and refuse to come when he was called or do anything he was told. I’ve never been snobbish, but I wouldn’t smell him down a ten-foot rat-hole. We managed things properly in our house. I used to be fed every evening when we got home for the night, and that was that, except for the morning biscuit and perhaps just a sort of favour-mouthful before we went anywhere in the car. I used to get brushed regularly and sometimes I had stuff put in my ears; and twice my master took me to be looked at by a whitecoat—a proper, decent whitecoat. In those days I never knew there was any other sort. I was never allowed to sit on chairs—only the bed, and that had a nice, rough, brown blanket across the bottom—my blanket, no one else’s. I had my own chair. It was an old one, you know, but I made it a whole lot older. I fairly tore the seat out of it! I loved it. It smelt of me! I always used to come when I was called and do what I was told. That was because my master knew what he was doing—he sort of made you want to do what he wanted, somehow. You were glad to—you trusted him. If he thought a thing was all right, then it was. I remember once I hurt my paw—I couldn’t put it to the ground, it was so painful, and all swollen up, too—and he put me up on the table and kept talking to me all the time—just quietly and kindly, you know—and he took hold of it and I was growling and curling my lip and he just kept on talking gently and then suddenly I—I—nipped him—I couldn’t help it. But he took absolutely no notice at all—just kept on talking away, the same as before, and looking at my paw. I felt so ashamed of myself—fancy biting him!—and then he pulled a huge great thorn out of my pad and put some stuff on it—that was the first time I ever smelt that smell. I wasn’t afraid of it in those days.

  “I’m not sure, but I think some of the other men, and the women too—you know, the ones my master used to talk to; his friends, and the people who used to come to the paper house—I think they used to tease him a bit, sometimes, about not having a mate and about living by himself with just me and the grey-haired woman to look after him. Of course you can never really understand what they say to each other, but I’ve seen them pointing at me and laughing, and it was just an idea I got. My master didn’t seem to mind. He used to scratch my ears and pat me and say I was a good dog and so on. When he picked up his stick and the lead I always knew we were going for a walk and I used to dance and jump all round the street-door and fairly bark the place down.

  “There was only one person I didn’t like and that was my master’s sister. I knew she must be his sister, because she looked so much like him and she sort of smelt a bit like him too. Sometimes she used to come and stay at our house and when she did, oh liver and lights, didn’t we catch it! You could tell from a sort of gritty softness in her voice—like—like charcoal biscuits strained through a doormat—that she thought everything was all wrong. And I could never find my things—my ball or my bone or my old woolly rug under the stairs—because she used to tidy them all away. Once she pushed me hard-banged me, really—with a broom, when I was asleep on the floor, and my master jumped up out of his chair and told her not to do that. But mostly he seemed almost afraid to say a word. I’m only guessing, again, but I believe she was cross with him for not having a mate and he sort of felt perhaps he ought to, but he didn’t want to. If that’s right, of course it would explain why she didn’t like me. She hated me, Rowf. She used to try to pretend she didn’t, but I could smell it all right and I used to act up and cower away from her so that other people must have thought she ill-treated me. Well, she did, really: and in the end—in the end—

  “Do you know, it’s a funny thing; I knew my own name, of course, but I never knew my master’s name. Perhaps he hadn’t got one, any more than the tod; but I knew her name all right, because my master always used it so much. I’d smell her coming through the gate and then my master would look out of the window and he always used to laugh and say the same thing—’Heercums Annie Mossity.’ Sometimes I used to growl, but he didn’t like that. He wouldn’t let me treat her disrespectfully, even when she wasn’t there. You had to behave properly to humans—all humans—in our house. But I always used to think that that name was too long and grand altogether for the likes of her, and to myself I always left out the ‘Heercums’ and thought of her as ‘Annie Mossity’—or just plain ‘Mossity.’ My master spoke sharply to me once for dancing about and wagging my tail when she was leaving and he was carrying her bag down to the door. I couldn’t help it—I knew she was going and it couldn’t be too soon for me. And when she’d gone there always used to be something extra nice that she wouldn’t have allowed—the leavings of a cream trifle, or something like that.

  “Now one day—one day—” Snitter paused, whining, and rubbed his maimed head against the straw. A gust of wind stirred an old sack hanging from a nail abov
e their heads, so that it flapped slowly, like the wings of some great bird of prey. “One evening—it was very late last summer, almost autumn—we’d got back from the paper house. My master had taken his eye off me and I’d slipped out into the garden and gone to sleep in the sun, all among the rhododendron bushes by the gate. In summer they have great, pink flowers, you know, Rowf, half as big as your head, and the bees go buzzing in and out of them. This was a special place I had of my own—a sort of secret lair. I always felt very safe and happy there. It was sunset, I’d woken up and I was thinking about supper and feeling rather alert and active—the way you do when you’re hungry, you know. And then, between the leaves, coming down the path, I heard footsteps and caught a glimpse of my master’s yellow scarf. Sure enough, there he was going towards the gate, with a bit of paper in his hand. I knew what he was up to—the big red bin game. I’ve told you how men are always playing about with bits of paper. You said they even used to do it while they were watching you in that tank. It’s the same for them as sniffing things is for us. And the arrangements in the street are the same for them as they are for us—lamp-posts for dogs and bigger, round, red bins for the humans’ paper. I’ve never been able to understand why some masters—not mine, thank goodness—didn’t seem to like their dogs having a pee and a sniff round the dog-posts, when they do just the same themselves with the red bins. We’re all creatures, after all, and they’re only laying claim to territory and asserting themselves, same as we do. When a man goes out for a bit of a walk—in the evening, usually—he often takes a bit of paper with him—it’s got his smell on it, you see—and pushes it into one of the big, red bins; and if he meets another man or woman doing the same, he generally talks to them for a bit and sort of sniffs about, just the same as we do.