my head at an angle to stop his snapping jaw reaching me. From upstairs I heard Mrs De Witt calling down: ‘Dean Martin? Is that him?’
It took everything I had to hold him. I ran up the last flight of stairs, desperate to hand him over.
‘Got him!’ I gasped. Mrs De Witt stepped forward, her arms outstretched. She had a lead ready and she reached out and snapped it onto his collar, just as I lowered him to the ground. At which point, with a speed wholly incommensurate with his size and shape, he whipped round and sank his teeth into my left hand.
If there had been anyone left in the building who hadn’t already been woken by the barking, my scream would probably have done it. It was at least loud enough to shock Dean Martin into letting go. I bent double over my hand and swore, the blood already blistering on the wound. ‘Your dog bit me! He bloody bit me!’
Mrs De Witt took a breath and stood a little straighter. ‘Well, of course he did, with you holding him that tightly. He was probably desperately uncomfortable!’ She shooed the little dog inside, where he continued to growl at me, teeth bared. ‘There, see?’ she said, gesturing towards him. ‘Your shouting and screaming frightened him. He’s terribly agitated now. You have to learn about dogs if you’re going to handle them correctly.’
I couldn’t speak. My jaw had dropped, cartoon-style. It was at this moment that Mr Gopnik, in tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, threw open his front door.
‘What on earth is this racket?’ he said, striding out into the corridor. I was startled by the ferocity of his voice. He took in the scene before him, me in my T-shirt and knickers, clutching my bleeding hand, and the old woman in her dressing-gown, the dog snapping at her feet. Behind Mr Gopnik I could just make out Nathan in his uniform, a towel raised to his face. ‘What the hell is going on?’
‘Oh, ask the wretched girl. She started it.’ Mrs De Witt scooped Dean Martin up in her thin arms again, then wagged a finger at Mr Gopnik. ‘And don’t you dare lecture me on noise in this building, young man! Your apartment is a veritable Vegas casino with the amount of to-ings and fro-ings. I’m amazed nobody has complained to Mr Ovitz.’ With her head high, she turned and shut the door.
Mr Gopnik blinked twice, looked at me, then back at the closed door. There was a short silence. And then, unexpectedly, he began to laugh. ‘ “Young man”! Well,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘it’s a long time since anyone called me that.’ He turned to Nathan behind him. ‘You must be doing something right.’
From somewhere inside the apartment a muffled voice lifted in response:
‘Don’t flatter yourself, Gopnik!’
Mr Gopnik sent me in the car with Garry to get a tetanus shot from his personal physician. I sat in a waiting room that resembled the lounge of a luxury hotel, and was seen by a middle-aged Iranian doctor, who was possibly the most solicitous person I had ever met. When I glanced at the bill, to be paid by Mr Gopnik’s secretary, I forgot the bite and thought I might pass out instead.
Agnes had already heard the story by the time I got back. I was apparently the talk of the building. ‘You must sue!’ she said cheerfully. ‘She is awful, troublemaking old woman. And that dog is plainly dangerous. I am not sure is safe for us to live in same building. Do you need time off? If you need time off maybe I can sue her for lost services.’
I said nothing, nursing my dark feelings towards Mrs De Witt and Dean Martin. ‘No good deed goes unpunished, eh?’ Nathan said, when I bumped into him in the kitchen. He held up my hand, checking out the bandage. ‘Jeez. That little dog is ropeable.’
But even as I felt quietly furious with her, I kept remembering what Mrs De Witt had said when she had first come to my door. He’s all I have.
Although Tabitha moved back into her apartment that week, the mood in the building remained fractious, muted, and marked with occasional explosions. Mr Gopnik continued to spend long hours at work while Agnes filled much of our time together on the phone to her mother in Polish. I got the feeling there was some kind of family crisis going on. Ilaria burnt one