lead – I’m meant to encourage him back to me, aren’t I?
I fish out one of my homemade treats and call his name; he shoots over, gobbles up the treat, then he’s straight back to the business of lead-straining. This happens three more times. The homemade treats have turned to mush in the sandwich bag; I can feel the residue of mincey egginess under my fingernails.
Defeated, I strike out again and powerwalk around the perimeter of the field. Every so often I try out an optimistic ‘heel’ or haul Hank back to my side, but I am largely, if we’re honest, getting taken for a walk by this dog.
Ironically, given Jackson’s ‘big wellies to fill’ comment, I am actually wearing Grandma’s wellies right now – I don’t have a pair of my own, and me and Grandma have the same size feet. The wellies have been rubbing my heels ever since I stepped out of Clearwater Cottage, and now there’s an enormous stone in the toe of one, too. I make an ineffectual attempt at getting Hank to stop, and then bend down to remove the offending boot.
I am definitely holding the lead. Of course I am. You wouldn’t loosen your hold on the lead with a dog like Hank. Except … somehow, in the confusion of hopping on one leg and my welly falling over, and trying not to step my socked foot in the mud, I seem to let go of it.
Hank’s gone like a bullet. He’s running full pelt, back and front legs almost crossing in the middle, bolting with single-minded focus for the fields beyond.
‘Fuck! Fuck!’ I’m already sprinting, but I’ve only got one welly on, and running with one welly is very tricky – a bit like doing a three-legged race on your own – and it only takes a few paces for me to stumble and fall again. Hank is streaking away from me. I scrabble to my feet, panicked and breathless, oh God, oh God, he’s out of sight now – he’s – he’s – where is he?
I dash back for the welly, yank it on, and run. I have never run harder in my whole entire life. After a few minutes of entirely random sprinting, my crisis-control impulse kicks in and I realise I’d be better off running in at least a slightly methodical pattern, so I work my way in a zigzag across the fields, gasping for breath. At some point I start to cry, which does not make it easier to run at speed, and eventually, when almost an hour has passed, I collapse underneath a tree and sob.
I’ve lost Jackson’s dog. Filling in for my grandma was supposed to be easy, and restful, and something I could not suck at. But this is awful. God knows what could happen to Hank out there. What if he reaches a main road? What if – what if something eats him? Does anything in the Yorkshire Dales eat puppies? Oh, God, why the hell am I crying so much?
I get up again after a few moments, because sitting still is even worse than running. I yell his name over and over, but it’s so windy I can barely even hear myself. One week ago, I was standing in a boardroom delivering a sixteen-point plan for ensuring stakeholder buy-in when facilitating a corporate change initiative. Now, I am weeping in a field and screaming the word Hank over and over into the wind with my feet rubbed raw and my hair – no doubt an absolutely fecking bird’s nest by now – hitting me repeatedly in the face. I can’t help thinking that I am coping with this extraordinarily badly. I’m normally good in an emergency, aren’t I? I’m sure Rebecca said that in my last appraisal?
I cling to this thought. I breathe as steadily as I can. There’s nothing else for it: I have to go back to Hamleigh. I don’t have Jackson’s number (huge oversight – what was I thinking?), and he needs to know what’s happened.
I feel sick. He’s going to hate me. Obviously. I hate me right now. Oh, poor Hank, out there in the fields – he probably hasn’t a clue what to do with himself now he’s realised he’s lost me. I’m really sobbing – it’s quite hard to breathe. I need to get a grip on myself. Come on. Come on, what’s the matter with me?
I thought the walk through Hamleigh was bad on the way