Dogsbody

  “Now, come on!” Kathleen said peremptorily and lugged him to the side door.

  “He’ll be closed for lunch,” Duffie said, limping to the kitchen for plaster.

  “I’ll wait outside till he opens,” said Kathleen, and shut the door with a slam. Sirius could still hardly believe it. His back bristled, his tail was low, and he refused to move. Kathleen backed up the passage, heaving at him. “Don’t be an idiot!” she snapped. “Come on!” A lorry passed in the road beyond. Under the noise of it, Kathleen leaned down and whispered, “Of course we’re not going to the vet, you idiot! But she wouldn’t have let us out of the house if I hadn’t said it. Now, do come on.”

  Hugely relieved, Sirius surged forward. By the time they reached the end of the street, it was he who was pulling and Kathleen who was hanging back. He look around to see why. Tears were rolling down her face.

  “I don’t know where to go, Leo,” she said. “I’ve just noticed there isn’t anywhere. If I go and tell Uncle Harry, he’ll only take us back. Then she’ll have you put down. I don’t know what to do.”

  It was certainly a problem. Sirius tugged Kathleen on again and thought about it. He owed it to Kathleen to make sure she was safe before he left her to hunt for the Zoi. She had looked after him. He must do the same for her. But where could he take her? A little doubtfully, he thought of Miss Smith. He liked Miss Smith. He was sure she would like Kathleen. But he knew that people would take in a dog far more readily than they would take in a fellow human. It was odd, but it was true. Still, he could think of nobody more likely than Miss Smith, and he found he had set off unconsciously dragging Kathleen toward Miss Smith’s house anyway. He began to drag her faster. Kathleen’s feet hurried and stumbled behind.

  “Where are we going, Leo? The Town Hall? But we can’t just go and complain to the Mayor, can we? Would he listen?”

  The idea appealed to Kathleen. Before long, she had it so firmly in her head that they were going to the Town Hall to complain to the Mayor, that Sirius had great difficulty in leading her any other way. As they got near Miss Smith’s house, he had to prod and push her at every corner.

  “Where are you going? This isn’t the way,” she kept saying.

  In the end, Sirius put his shoulders forward, braced his hind legs and heaved Kathleen bodily up the street where Miss Smith lived. He heaved her past the stack of dustbins and up the steps to Miss Smith’s front door. He put out a paw to the mark he had made knocking on it every day, and just managed to batter on it while Kathleen was pulling him down the steps again. The door opened almost at once.

  “Oh, now the lady’s coming!” Kathleen said, horribly embarrassed. “Really, Leo!”

  “Do you call him Leo?” said Miss Smith. “I call him Sirius, because of his eyes. Hallo, Sirius. So you’ve brought your mistress now, have you?”

  “I’m awfully sorry. He pulled me here,” Kathleen explained.

  Miss Smith looked up from Sirius to her stiff, tear-marked face. “Would you like to come in and perhaps have a cup of tea while you tell me what’s happened?” she suggested.

  “Well, I—” Kathleen began. Sirius heaved again and they went up the steps and in through the door in a rush.

  “That’s right,” said Miss Smith, shutting the front door behind them. “Now, tea and bones.”

  At this moment, Bruce, who, like Sirius, was not much given to barking, cautiously put his face around Miss Smith’s sitting-room door to see who was there. Sirius had forgotten Bruce would be here. He heaved Kathleen forward again to greet him. “She let you stay? I am glad to see you!”

  “You’ve got a dog just like Leo!” said Kathleen.

  Miss Smith looked a trifle guilty. “Actually, he’s not mine at all. His collar says he’s called Bruce, and he seems to come from those houses down by the river. He turned up this morning before I was up and begged me to let him stay. I suppose he has his reasons. I think he’s a friend of your Leo’s.”

  “He must be,” Kathleen agreed, watching the waving tails of both dogs.

  Before long, they were all four in Miss Smith’s sitting room, Bruce and Sirius with a bone apiece, and Kathleen with a strong sugary cup of tea.

  “Now,” said Miss Smith, “what did your Leo do? Or was it both of you?”

  Kathleen began to cry. “Both of us. I took a broom and smashed all Mrs. Duffield’s pots—”

  “Mrs. Duffield’s pots?” said Miss Smith. “You mean that awful little shop in Mead Bank? Then I congratulate you. Those are quite the most hideous things in town. There ought to be a law against them. Then what?”

  “Duffie hit me with the broom and Leo bit her,” Kathleen said despairingly.

  “Good dog!” said Miss Smith. She bent down and patted Sirius so heartily that his ribs boomed and he all but swallowed his bone whole. “A dog’s not much good if he doesn’t look after you,” she told Kathleen.

  “Yes, but Duffie was going to have him put down,” said Kathleen. “So we had to run away.”

  “I see,” said Miss Smith. “But you’ve left an awful lot out, my dear. Neither you nor Sirius are the kind of people who break pots or bite people without good reason.”

  “No,” said Kathleen. “I mean, I’ve always wanted to break them, because I think they’re ugly too, and I’m sure Leo must have wanted to bite Duffie all his life, only—” She took a deep gulping breath and began to talk very fast. The teacup shook between her hands and tears rolled into it, until Miss Smith took it firmly away. She told Miss Smith her father had been shot, and what Duffie had said. Then she went on to all the things she had not been able even to tell Leo. “I can’t say things while they’re happening,” she confessed. “It just makes them worse.” She told Miss Smith how homesick and miserable she had been when she came to live with the Duffields, and how lonely, and how none of them liked her except Robin, and how Duffie did not want her and complained at spending money on her.

  She went too fast for Bruce. He only understood one thing, and that shocked him. “Did you really bite someone?” he asked Sirius.

  “Yes,” said Sirius, “for being horrible to Kathleen. Wouldn’t you have done? What would you do if someone started hitting your master?”

  “It would worry me awfully,” said Bruce. “But everyone likes my master, so I don’t think it would happen.”

  “Everyone ought to like Kathleen too,” said Sirius. “She’s been unlucky.”

  Miss Smith seemed to agree. She shook her head repeatedly while Kathleen told her how angry Duffie had been when she brought home the nearly drowned puppy, and how she had agreed to do all the housework if Duffie would let her keep Leo instead of a birthday present. “And she’s always hated him,” Kathleen said. “But I suppose it was fair, because dogs do make a mess. But she scolds me and scolds me. And I don’t always remember things, and then she says she’ll have Leo put down. And I dried the turkey out at Christmas, because I’d never cooked one before. Then Leo got fleas and I had to spring-clean. It was awful hard work, and when I got back to school I was so tired I couldn’t think, and of course a lot of the boys said that was because I was Irish and didn’t have a brain. And they chased me every day and called names, until Leo frightened them off. Only that was no good because they complained to the police and said Leo was a savage creature, and Duffie said I’d let him out on purpose.”

  “This doesn’t sound fair to me at all,” said Miss Smith. “Is there a Mr. Duffield? What does he think?”

  “Yes, he’s quite kind,” said Kathleen. “But he doesn’t notice unless something makes him uncomfortable.”

  “I see,” said Miss Smith.

  Kathleen was suddenly conscience-stricken. “I shouldn’t be complaining to you, Miss Smith. It’s nothing to do with you. I’m a perfect stranger.”

  “Nonsense!” said Miss Smith. “It was clever of Sirius to bring you. I wish he’d brought you before. Now, we must see what’s to be done.” She thought for a while. There was no sound except the loud ticking of the
clock that would only work on its face and the crunching as Bruce finished his bone. Kathleen took an uneasy look at Miss Smith’s stern old face. Then she picked up her cup and pretended to be drinking cold tea.

  “The real difficulty,” Miss Smith said abruptly, “is your Leo. Somebody has complained about him before, you see. Not that I blame him. Luckily, I used to teach the Mayor, and Inspector Plum, and that Superintendent Higg—naughty child, he used to be—so something might be done. But you’re a much simpler case, Kathleen. We mustn’t let you stay with the Duffields a moment longer. I’d better see about that at once, before this Mrs. Duffield starts complaining to people about her pots. You’ll stay quietly here with me for now—”

  “Oh, I can’t do that!” Kathleen said.

  “Yes, you can,” Miss Smith said fiercely. “I’ve been very lonely since my Lass died, and I’ve not felt much use to anyone since I retired. I shall be glad to have you. And what I was going to say was, if we find we get on—and we may not, because I am a highly independent and crotchety person, you’ll find, Kathleen—then perhaps you might like to stay here for good. Would you like to give it a trial?”

  Kathleen put down the cold tea and seemed about to cry again. “Oh, I can’t really? And Leo?”

  “And Leo, of course,” said Miss Smith.

  14

  Instead of resting that afternoon, Miss Smith wrote letters, while Kathleen took a nap on Miss Smith’s spare bed. It seemed to Sirius, staring at Miss Smith’s racing pen and the growing pile of envelopes, that Miss Smith had at one time taught everyone of importance in the town, from the Member of Parliament to the man in charge of the R.S.P.C.A. Sirius thought she was rather enjoying herself. When Kathleen came downstairs, she was much more cheerful. She enjoyed herself washing Miss Smith’s kitchen floor, and then got tea, with scones, in Miss Smith’s gold-edged tea set.

  “I didn’t ask you here to do my housework!” Miss Smith kept snapping crossly as she wrote.

  “But I like to, because you’re such a dear,” Kathleen called back.

  Sirius and Bruce left large pawprints on the wet floor going out through the dog-door into the garden. They settled that they would leave as soon as Miss Smith and Kathleen went to bed. Then, somehow, they found themselves romping like puppies, up and down the grass and over the tangled flowerbeds, struggling furiously for possession of a ribbed stocking that must have belonged to Miss Smith. When the stocking came to pieces, they went indoors and ate buttered scones. After that they lay snoozing, while Miss Smith finished her letters and Kathleen curled up with one of Miss Smith’s many books.

  When Miss Smith had posted her letters, and only then, she telephoned the Duffields. Sirius bristled. He could hear Duffie at the other end. “Kathleen and her dog are with me,” Miss Smith said. “My name is Smith.” Then, after a pause filled with cold, strident talk from the telephone, she said, “My good woman, complain to whom you please. I don’t intend to listen to a word of it.” She slammed the receiver down and came back to her chair, looking militant.

  “You didn’t say your address,” Kathleen said.

  Miss Smith chuckled. “That’s the best of being called Smith. It will take them some days to find out which Smith. I don’t want the woman bothering us until we’ve got something settled.”

  Nevertheless, halfway through the most peaceful evening Sirius had ever spent, the telephone jangled. When Miss Smith answered it, Sirius found his ears pricking up at the high voice inside it. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” said Miss Smith. “Who is Shamus?” The high voice corrected itself. “Or Leo,” said Miss Smith. “A dog? Goodness me, I’m not a pet shop!” She put the receiver down. “One of your Duffields seems to be trying to find you,” she said to Kathleen. “He sounded very young.”

  “Robin!” Kathleen exclaimed. “Oh dear, I hadn’t thought! Robin must be missing us terribly.”

  “He’s welcome to visit you as soon as we’ve sorted things out,” said Miss Smith.

  After all those letters, Miss Smith was tired, She went to bed early, telling Kathleen to remember to lock the door and switch the lights out when she had finished her book. Kathleen had seemed to be absorbed in her book. But, as soon as Miss Smith was upstairs, she laid it quietly aside and sat staring in front of her. After a while, tears began to trickle down her face.

  “And I shouldn’t have broken Duffie’s pots,” she told Sirius, out of her misery. “That was because my daddy was shot. It wasn’t what Duffie said at all. I told you what a muddle being sad is.”

  Sirius came and sat on her feet, leaning against her to comfort her. Kathleen twisted her fingers in his collar gratefully, but she went on crying. After an hour, Sirius became anxious. It was not long now to moonrise. He had found Kathleen a home and a friend. But she plainly still needed him too. He wondered if he would be able to leave at all.

  Bruce became frankly impatient. He got up and wandered around the room. He nosed the door open and looked meaningly at Sirius.

  “You go,” Sirius said. “I’ll meet you by our elder trees if I can get away.”

  “Really?” said Bruce. “I don’t want to miss that hunt, but—”

  “Go on,” said Sirius. “You can do me a favor, if I don’t come. When the hunt’s over, ask the Master of it for a thing called a Zoi. If he gives it you, bring it to me.”

  “A Zoi,” said Bruce. “All right I’ll see you.”

  He tick-tacked quietly away through the hall and the kitchen. The dog-door thumped. Kathleen took no notice. She just sat there with her hand twisted in Sirius’s collar and cried. Another worry came to Sirius. His Companion must be looking for him. The later it grew, the more certain it was that she had found out he was not at the Duffields’. She would search the town, and he would be forced to go on his own to the cleared space while she searched. She could easily find him, and Earth might not be able to help him this time.

  Bruce had been gone nearly an hour, when Miss Smith’s doorbell rang.

  Kathleen jumped. “Oh, Leo, suppose it’s Duffie! Should I answer it?”

  Sirius got up and went quietly to the front door. He sniffed cautiously at the crack beneath. It was not Duffie. He pawed at the front door and whined, to show Kathleen she should open it.

  “Well, if you think so—” Kathleen opened it dubiously, just an inch or so.

  Robin burst the door the whole way open and threw himself on both of them, shivering and tearful and glad all at once. “I knew you’d be here! She was the only Smith who didn’t say I’d got the wrong number. Kathleen, please can I stay with you! I want to be with you and Shamus. It’s horrible at home with only Basil.”

  “Hush!” said Kathleen. “Miss Smith’s asleep. Come in the warm. You’re frozen.”

  She took Robin into the sitting room. He threw himself into the chair which was a better fit for dogs and burst into tears. “It’s been awful!” he said. “They’re so angry. And Basil and I had to cook supper in the end, only we burned every thing. And that made Basil have a terrible row with Mum and go storming off to look for Remains. And when he didn’t come back—”

  “Didn’t come back?” said Kathleen.

  “No,” sobbed Robin. “He told them he was going to stay away for good. I think it was really because Mum’s going to have the Ra—er, Shamus—put down, only they both pretended it was about the supper. So then Dad and Mum had another row and Dad phoned the police again, and so I had to wait for ages before I could get away. Please let me stay here, Kathleen.”

  “You can stay till you’re warm,” said Kathleen. “And then I’ll take you back. I’ll have to,” she said, as Robin wailed. “They’ll be mad with worry if you go missing too. But it’s me they’re angry about. I’ll explain to Uncle Harry for you, and I’ll stay if you want me to. I knew it was too good to be true, staying with Miss Smith.”

  Sirius sighed as he listened to Kathleen comforting Robin. That was Kathleen all over. She would spoil all Miss Smith’s plans and his own, and go
back to be miserable with the Duffields, just because Robin was upset. But at least she was so taken up with Robin that she did not seem to be needing Sirius any more. He thought he could go. He had already got up to leave, when the doorbell rang again, an angry, jabbing trill.

  Robin seized Kathleen’s arm. “Is it Dad?”

  “I’ll see.” Kathleen braced her shoulders and marched to the door. Sirius followed her. If it was Duffie, he supposed he might have to bite her again.

  But it was Basil. He stood on the steps staring rather accusingly at Kathleen. “I saw Robin and trailed him,” he said aggressively. “What did you want to go and let him bite Mum for?” Before Sirius could wonder who had bitten whom, Basil pounced past Kathleen and proved he had been talking about Sirius by hugging him crushingly. “Beastly old Rat!” he said, burying his face in Sirius’s coat. “She won’t let you in the house again now.”

  Robin arrived in the hall. “How did he get here?” he demanded unwelcomingly.

  “Quiet!” said Kathleen, shutting the front door and glancing anxiously at the stairs. “Poor Miss Smith was so tired. Come in the sitting room, all of you.”

  Sirius realized he was not likely to get away at all that night. Basil kept tight hold of him and flopped into the chair Robin had just left, with Sirius pinned between his knees. And Sirius found he was not displeased to see Basil again. His tail wagged itself energetically, “I thought I saw you, Rat,” said Basil. “Near the river, where they’ve knocked a lot of houses down. There was this dog, barking at a man and a woman. They were ever such peculiar types, sort of lit up round the edges, one blue and the other sort of white. I only went near them because I thought it was you barking. And they ran off when I came, and then I saw it wasn’t you, it was a dog just like you.”

  “That must have been Bruce,” said Kathleen. Sirius thought so too. It was clear New-Sirius and his Companion had made the same mistake as Basil. Sirius hoped Bruce was safe. “But, Basil,” said Kathleen, “what did you think you were doing, going off like that?”