Corduroy Mansions Page 0,31
and there seemed to be no point in saying much more. Manfred’s interventions, he thought, had all the characteristics of radio jamming, designed to stop anybody else talking.
“It’s been remarkably successful,” the columnist went on. “We used straightforward behavioural techniques. Pavlov would have understood. We gave him rewards when he remained calm even in the presence of a stimulus that would normally have provoked an aggressive response. So you’ll notice something very interesting about him now.”
“Oh yes?”
Manfred James looked at William with the air of one about to announce a major scientific breakthrough. “Freddie de la Hay,” he proclaimed, “likes cats.”
William’s eyes narrowed. “Really?”
“Yes,” said Manfred James. “And now I think that we should agree on the details of the sharing. I suggest that you take him right now and be his carer for, what, a couple of months? Then we’ll take him back for a few weeks—depending on whether I’m around—and then you take him back for another stay. Agreed? Good.”
The columnist rose to his feet and gestured to the door. “I suggest we go and see Freddie,” he said. “Then I’ll call a cab, if you like. You’ll need to take his bed and a supply of carrot sticks—I can tell you where to get more of those. And his certificates.”
“Certificates?”
“From the canine lifestyle course,” said Manfred. “The paperwork.”
William nodded.
They left the study and made their way into the kitchen at the back of the house. There was Freddie de la Hay, sitting obediently in the middle of the floor—like a sentry, thought William.
“Freddie,” said Manfred. “This is Mr. French. He’s your new carer. Say hello, Freddie.”
Freddie de la Hay looked at William with his dark, mournful eyes, eyes so liquid that they might conceal the presence of tears, might break the very heart.
23. Nice Dog
WILLIAM FRENCH, MW (Failed), climbed into the cab called by the celebrated columnist Manfred James. He was accompanied by Freddie de la Hay, a Pimlico terrier, a “new dog,” whose small canine life was now beginning an important and challenging phase. Not much happens to dogs; they lead their lives around our feet, in the interstices of more complex doings, from which perspective they look up at the busier human world, eager to participate, eager to understand, but for ever limited by biology and the vagaries of evolution to being small-part players in the drama. Every so often a particular dog might rise above this limited destiny, might perform some act of loyalty that attracts human recognition and praise. But for most dogs such saliences are rare, their lives being punctuated by nothing more significant than the discovery of an intriguing smell or the sight of a rabbit or a rat—usually frustratingly inaccessible—or by some minor territorial challenge that requires a bark. Nothing much, really, but for dogs, their lot, their allocation.
“Pimlico,” said William to the taxi driver, and gave the address of Corduroy Mansions.
The driver nodded. “Nice dog,” he said. “Got one myself. A bit like that but smaller. What make is he, guv?”
“He’s a Pimlico terrier,” William replied.
They were moving off now, and he waved to Manfred James, standing at his gate. There was a look of relief on the columnist’s face, which irritated William. One does not wave goodbye to one’s dog with a broad smile on one’s face.
“Pimlico terrier?” repeated the taxi driver, craning his neck to look into the mirror. “Bit big for a terrier, if you ask me. Are you sure?”
Freddie de la Hay was sitting at William’s feet, looking up at his new carer (as Manfred James had described the relationship). The dog seemed anxious. Understandable, perhaps, in the circumstances: being passed from one carer to another is a traumatic experience for any dog, even the strongest and most secure. To them, we are God incarnate, and to have one god exchanged for another is as stressful as any change of religion can be in the human world.
“Never heard of a Pimlico terrier,” continued the taxi driver. “You get it by mixing something up? Crossing one breed with another?”
William found his irritation increasing in the face of this close examination by the driver. While he was as prepared as anybody to enter into conversation with a taxi driver, he felt that there were circumstances in which a driver should be able to detect reticence on the part of a fare. It should be part of the famous knowledge that taxi drivers went on about. It was all very well knowing the quickest way from an obscure