My brother, a big, tough, rugby-playing, judo-grappling, incorruptible police sergeant, was whimpering down the phone. His back had gone again, he said, this time completely. He was lying on his side on his bedroom floor, he said, the only place and position which afforded him the slightest relief. ‘Ah! Oh! Ee!’ he said. I’d never heard my brother whimper like that. Sounds bad, I said. When he could speak coherently again, he said it was cramp in the leg that had rendered him speechless that time, not his bad back. He’d been lying in that position since last night, he said. (It was now nine o’clock in the morning.) He was passing the time by making a minute study of one of the brass handles on the chest of drawers.
What could I do for him, I said? Walk his dogs, for instance? My brother breeds Border terriers. He has four: three bitches and a dog, handsome devils, all of them. He enters them in Kennel Club-sponsored shows. Now that I mentioned it, he said, he’d entered Taz and Roxy in a show to take place that very day. He’d prepaid the entrance fees, too, so it would be a shame if the money went to waste.
Which is how, one hour later, I turned up at ring number six at the dog show, breathless and hot, with five minutes to spare, with two Border terriers straining at their leads in the one hand, and a portable, collapsible dog cage in the other, and a toolbox containing dog-show paraphernalia tucked under my arm. The other competitors watched my spectacular last-minute entrance as though the only thing missing from it was a colourful little toy car whose doors fell off when it backfired, and tipsy trombone music.
‘Is this the terrier ring?’ I gasped to this tweedy, equestrian-type woman. ‘Your dog,’ she said imperiously, ‘is doing a poo.’ I looked down. Indeed he was. Either that or it was the start of a new transatlantic cable from ring six to New York. ‘You haven’t got a bag, have you?’ she stated. ‘No,’ I said, abjectly. With a flourish, she produced a clear plastic bag from her sleeve like a magician producing a silk handkerchief, presented me with it, and I fell on my knees before her. Wearing the bag like a glove, I got most of it up off the floor and into my palm. The bag she gave me felt gossamer thin on my hand; the stool incredibly warm. ‘You’ve missed some,’ she said, handing me down a second bag.
Taz’s junior class were already assembling in the show ring. To erect and fasten the clips of the collapsible dog cage required the kind of patience and intricate skill necessary for separating those little metal puzzles that I used to be given at Christmas; neither of which I had carried with me into middle age. The little metal clip with which I was supposed to fasten to my person the white card with my entry number on it utterly defeated me.
‘More haste, less speed,’ barked the tweedy woman, watching my fumbling with genuine fascination. And then her heart must have melted a little at the sight of incompetence on that kind of a scale because she said, ‘Look here. This class is about to start. Give me the dog. I’ll show him for you. Watch what I do. What’s the dog’s name?’ Assuming she referred to the fancy name registered with the Kennel Club — Super Boy of Submarine Telecommunications, or whatever — I said, ‘Sorry. No idea.’ ‘You don’t know the dog’s name?’ she said, widening her eyes at her mates. ‘They call him Taz at home,’ I said, lamely. ‘That’ll do. And you,’ she said, partly addressing her mates. ‘Do you know what your name is?’
She led Taz into the ring just in time to join the preliminary jog round in front of the judge’s critical gaze. I did as I was told. I watched carefully. I saw the way she kept Taz’s attention by continually talking to him, and how she seduced him with the promise of a reward in the shape of the dog treat that she kept in her fist. I nearly fell over when finally the judge called Taz out and awarded him the red rosette for first place.
I dialled my brother straight away with the good news. He answered from a hospital bed, still in exquisite pain, and he reacted to the good news with a combination of agony and delight. ‘Oh! Ah! Oh! That’s fantastic!’ he said. The call was interrupted by the ring steward tugging diffidently at my elbow. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Your dog’s done a poo.’ I looked down and saw the demolished factory chimney in miniature that Roxy had done. ‘Got to go, Jim,’ I said. ‘I need to borrow a plastic bag.’
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