A Place of Hiding

Billy laughed. “He got hit. Stupid dog got hit. First a car then a lorry and he just kept on going. Ended up barking like a wild hyena on the side of the road and waiting for someone to come along an’ shoot him.”


Ol Fielder snapped, “That’s enough, Bill. Get out to the pub or wherever you’re going.”

Billy said, “I don’t aim to—”

Mave Fielder cried, “You’ll mind your dad this instant!” in a shriek that was so out of character in Paul’s mild-mannered mother that her firstborn child gaped at her like a feeding fish before he shuffled to the door, where he picked up his denim jacket.

“Dumb shit,” he said to Paul. “Can’t even take care of nothing, can you? Not even a stupid dog.” He pushed out into the night and slammed the door behind him. Paul could hear him laugh foully and say, “Sod all of you losers.”

But nothing Billy said or did could touch him. He stumbled into the lounge but saw nothing in front of him except the vision of Taboo. Taboo racing behind the police car. Taboo on the side of the road, fatally injured but barking and snarling frantically so that no one would come near for fear of his teeth. It was all his fault for not shouting out for the police to stop long enough for his dog to leap into the car. Or at least long enough for him to take the mongrel back home and tie him up. He felt his knees against the worn old sofa and he sank onto it with his vision gone blurry. Someone hurried across the room to join him there, and he felt an arm go round his shoulders. It was meant to be a comfort to him, but it felt like a band of hot metal. He cried out and tried to jerk away.

“I know you’re cut up about this, son,” his father’s voice said, into his ear so he couldn’t miss the words. “They got the poor thing down the vet’s. They phoned right up. Got your mum at work because someone down there knew whose dog it was and—”

It. His dad was calling Taboo it. Paul couldn’t bear the sound of such a nothing word to refer to his friend, the only person who knew him through and through. Because he was a person, that mangy dog. He was no more an it than Paul was himself.

“. . . so we’ll go right over. They’re waiting,” his father finished. Paul looked up at him, confused, frightened. What had he said?

Mave Fielder seemed to know what Paul was thinking. She said,

“They haven’t put him down yet, love. I told them no. I said to wait. I said Our Paulie’s got to be there to say goodbye so you do what you can to make that poor dog comfortable and you stop right there till Paul’s by his side. Dad’ll take you now. Kids and I...” She gestured back towards the kitchen, where doubtless Paul’s brothers and sister were having tea, a special treat with their mother home to cook it for once. “We’ll wait here for you, dear.” And as Paul and his father rose, she added, “I’m that sorry, Paul,” as he passed her.

Outside, Paul’s dad said nothing more. They shambled over to his old van with Fielder’s Butchery, The Meat Market still visible in faded red on the side. They clambered inside in silence and Ol Fielder started up the engine.

It took far too long to get there from the Bouet, for the twenty-fourhour surgery was all the way over on Route Isabelle and there was no direct way to it. So they had to negotiate the journey to and through St. Peter Port at the worst time of day, and all along Paul was in the clutch of an illness that turned his stomach liquid. His palms became wet and his face became icy. He could see the dog but he could see nothing else: just the image of him running along and barking barking behind that police car because the only person he loved in the world was being taken from him. They’d never been parted, Paul and Taboo. Even when Paul was at school, the dog was there, patient as a nun and never far away.

“Here, lad. Come inside, all right?”

His dad’s voice was gentle, and Paul allowed himself to be led to the door of the surgery. Everything was a blur. He could smell the mix of animals and medicines. He could hear the voices of his dad and the veterinary assistant. But he couldn’t really see and it wasn’t until he’d been drawn to the back, to the quiet dim corner spot where an electric heater kept a shrouded form warm and a drip sent something soothing into that small form’s veins.

“He’s got no pain,” Paul’s father murmured into his ear just before Paul reached out to the dog. “We told ’em that, son. Keep him comfortable. Don’t put him out ’cause we want him to know his Paulie’s with him. That’s just what they’ve done.”

Another voice joined them. “This is the owner? You’re Paul?”

“This is him,” Ol Fielder said.