The Puppy That Came for Christmas Read online

  I stumbled out of the treatment room wishing that he had filmed our brief, painful chat, so he could watch it later and feel ashamed—and then hopefully improve on how he talked to patients.

  I had been unsure whether to tell Ian about my visit to the doctor, but a whirlwind of events that afternoon overtook my indecision and saw to it that he never knew.

  My brother Jack phoned: “Carmel’s had the baby.”

  “Oh! Oh, good. Is she OK? What did she have?” My heart was filling with joy for them, but, with the day I’d had, it was having difficulty transmitting itself through my brain and into my voice. I struggled to rouse myself.

  “A little girl. We’re going to call her Maisie,” said Jack.

  “Maisie’s a lovely—”

  “She’s in the premature baby unit,” Jack interrupted. “The birth was awful. She shouldn’t have been born yet, but they said they had to take her out of Carmel or she might have died. At one time I thought both the baby and Carmel were going to die. She wouldn’t stop bleeding.”

  His voice cracked.

  “They . . . they don’t know if the baby’s going to have brain damage. She didn’t breathe for a long, long time. But she’s alive and I didn’t think she was going to be . . . Can you come?”

  I dropped Emma at Jo’s and caught the train to London, got on another train into Kent, then caught a taxi to the hospital. Carmel had been given a room of her own and was being closely monitored.

  “How are you?”

  She smiled weakly. “Sore and swollen. The midwife said I was bleeding too much, so I had to have a blood transfusion,” she said, prostrate on her pillows. “It happens more often with black women—we’re more at risk—but we’ve got a baby . . .” A tear slipped down her face. “She’s so beautiful. Go and see her.”

  Jack took me to the premature baby unit. There were six see-through incubators with round hand holes in one side. In one corner another mother sat gazing into the incubator at her baby.

  “Here’s Maisie,” Jack said, stopping beside a cot. Inside was a tiny, tiny shriveled little girl with a shock of black hair. “You can touch her.”

  We washed our hands with the sanitizer and I put my hand through the hole. I stroked her miniature leg gently and she moved a touch.

  “The nurse said it has to be a more definite stroke,” Jack said. “Don’t know why, but she said they get irritated by flickery strokes; maybe it’s like being tickled.”

  I tried a firmer stroke and Maisie opened her eyes and seemed to look at me.

  “Hello, Maisie. Welcome to the world.”

  I sat with Jack and Carmel for the afternoon until it was time for me to go back to London and meet Ian to get the train home.

  “So, how have you been?” Jack asked as I was gathering my bags together.

  “Oh, fine. Fine. You know, just the usual sort of stuff.” I hugged him. “She’s lovely—whether she has brain damage or whether she’s fine, which I think she will be, Maisie’s a lovely, lovely little girl.”

  12

  The night before Emma was to leave us we hardly slept. She lay on our bed, unsure of where this privilege had come from, or why, and I stroked her as I lay awake.

  Ian was up at dawn to go to work as usual, but not before he served up the last puppy breakfast, complete with a final rendition of his “Puppy Breakfast-time” song. He also managed a quick play in the paddling pool with her, carefully shielding his suit from any splashes as he threw her ball and plastic duck into the water for her to retrieve. She loved the paddling pool and had even been introducing her friends to it, such as Eddie, who’d jumped straight in when he’d come around to play. Liz had been amazed; Eddie didn’t usually even like getting his feet wet and would hold each paw up for Liz to dry when he came in from the muddy garden or a rainy walk. As we stood there, watching the dogs play, we reminisced about the times they’d shared and how we’d watched them grow up together. We were both upset and apprehensive about letting our puppies go, and took comfort in talking about all the good times we’d had.

  One recollection sparked another and another, and I thought that we shouldn’t have been surprised at anything the two of them did. Once, when they were both young puppies, they’d managed to tip a tin of white paint over in the garden and then had made rows of little white paw prints across the patio before we could stop them. Fortunately, Ian had been able to get the white paint off with a high-pressure hose. “I’m going to miss her so much,” I said.

  “If only we could have kept them for a year,” said Liz, “like some other charities do.”

  “I don’t know how I’m going to love the new puppy.”

  “Me neither,” Liz agreed. “I feel like I need a break before the next one arrives.”

  But Helper Dogs was always short of volunteers and needed to keep the ones it had occupied. I could see how a small break might easily turn into a longer one, but it didn’t make it any easier for me. Loving a puppy and then losing it, a conveyor belt of lost love. I just wasn’t sure.

  After Ian had left for work, I toured the house looking at all of Emma’s things while she lazed on the patio in the June sun. Bowls, brushes, blankets, a basket; leads, food, towels, treats and more than a hundred toys. There was so much—physical evidence of the giant space she’d come to occupy in our hearts and lives. I couldn’t imagine what we’d done before she’d been here, and I didn’t want to think about how our little house would seem when she’d gone. Soon, I was just wandering around empty rooms in order to avoid looking at the pile of stuff in the hall. There was nothing I could do to delay any longer. I packed the boot, Emma jumped into the car, onto her pink princess car seat, and I drove us the fifteen minutes or so to the Helper Dogs center.

  I was determined not to cry on the way. I didn’t want to cause an accident, and my crying might have been distressing and confusing for my pup, which didn’t seem fair. I had almost cried in the car once before, after a hospital appointment, but somehow I’d managed not to until I’d pulled up in the Helper Dogs car park. Jamie had innocently asked how I was and then I couldn’t stop. Loud, nose-sniffing sobs: Emma had been very worried.

  “It’s all right, it’s all right,” I tried to soothe her, but as we walked down the quiet country lane adjacent to the Helper Dogs center she wouldn’t take her eyes off me. Emma knew something was up. No matter what happened, though, I wasn’t going to cry, not until she was gone. I wanted Emma to remember me as happy and smiling—the way I usually was. I didn’t want her to think even for one millisecond that I was leaving her with Jamie because she’d done something wrong.

  “I’d better go,” I said, when I’d unloaded all of Emma’s toys.

  “I bet Head Office has never met a dog who has this many toys before!” Jamie said.

  I stroked Emma. “She’ll be OK, won’t she?”

  “Yes, you know she will. And we’ll get reports on how she’s getting on every now and again. We’ll keep you in touch with her.”

  I hesitated, unwilling to say anything or move a muscle.

  “It’s OK,” Jamie said. “Look, it’s best if you go quickly—it’s easier for you and her. I’ll give you a call as soon as I have your new puppy.”

  I nodded and then turned away and walked to the car, conscious of every step I was taking away from her, knowing that Emma was watching me all the way. I watched her watching me in the rearview mirror as I started the engine.

  I couldn’t hear what Jamie was saying, but it looked something like: “Come on, Emma, this way.” She went with him and disappeared into the center.

  By the time I got back it was almost one o’clock and Ian, who’d only worked a half day, was already home. He opened the door and held me close in his arms as I finally let the tears come. I couldn’t let myself cry for long, but for now I couldn’t help it. Jamie had another little puppy for us, a new dog to love while the shock of losing Emma was still red raw.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to love him,” I confesse
d to Ian. “I don’t even know if I’m going to be able to like him.”

  “You will, of course you will,” Ian soothed, still holding me tight.

  I was sure that I would never ever be able to love this new puppy as much as I’d loved Emma. Deep down, I felt like he was trying to take Emma’s place; maybe, if the new puppy hadn’t been ready and waiting to come to us—he was nearly eight weeks old—then Emma wouldn’t have needed to leave quite so quickly. She could have stayed for a few more weeks. Even a few more days, a single day, and I would have had a little more time with her.

  She’d be almost at Head Office by now and would be worried about me, wondering where I was. I wrote the last part of her diary newspaper column: This morning Meg made me a special breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon and then she took me for a walk by the river and had a bit of a cry while I played in the long grass. When we got home she packed up all my toys and my bed and my food and my treats.

  She gave me lots of strokes and a hug when she said goodbye. She told me I’m a big puppy girl now and ready for the next stage of my training. She said I’ll be the best Helper Dog ever, but if there’s ever a time when I can’t be a Helper Dog I could come back and live with her and Ian and that would make them the happiest people in the world.

  I e-mailed the column to the newspaper along with a photo of her wearing her Helper-Dog-in-training coat, staring into the camera with trusting brown eyes.

  I sniffed back my tears. Before the new puppy arrived I had yet another hospital appointment.

  At the hospital I sat for ages in the Obstetrics waiting room, where every second woman seemed to be very heavily pregnant. When I was finally seen, my doctor announced that she wouldn’t be around for my next appointment as she was going on maternity leave. I looked down at her belly area. I didn’t know why I’d never noticed before, but she had a distinct bump.

  “This is the best I’ve seen so far,” she said, as she scanned me to see if the follicle was growing inside me. “Make the most of it.”

  She gave me a meaningful look. She didn’t know my heart was breaking from losing one puppy and worried about gaining another. Sex was the last thing on my mind.

  “You’ll be seen once every three months from now on,” she said. Despite the good things going on inside me, I didn’t think this sounded too promising—maybe they were cutting down on my appointments because there was no point in me coming more often. Time had been against me from the start, and now it seemed as if they were letting it pass without effort.

  “But I could . . . I could still get pregnant, couldn’t I?” I said.

  “Oh, yes,” she replied. “All you need is that extra bit of luck.”

  I sighed. Luck was in such short supply.

  As I left the hospital I wondered how Emma was getting on. I hoped she wasn’t confused and sad. I hoped the dog trainers at advanced training would be kind to her. Then I started to feel sorry for the new puppy, guilty that I wasn’t almost bursting with excitement as I had been at the thought of Emma’s arrival. Poor little thing: he was going to be leaving his mum and his brothers and sisters for the first time today. He’d be feeling frightened and confused too. I decided to go to the pet superstore and buy him something nice to play with. We’d almost completely exhausted their selection of toys with Emma—she’d had the ones she liked and spurned the remainder—and the prospect of buying more new treats to make a new puppy happy almost gladdened my heart.

  There, in the giant pet store, I found Liz wandering the aisles, eyes red-rimmed from crying. She’d had to give up Eddie today too, and as soon as she saw me, she started to cry again.

  We gave each other a big hug and then consoled ourselves over a coffee at the next-door café.

  “He was such a good little boy,” she said. “It’s so hard to let him go.”

  “How have your children been taking it?” I asked. Liz had three boys aged seven, ten and eleven.

  “Not as badly as me,” Liz said. “I did lots of explaining when he first came to us about how although he was staying with us for a while he wasn’t really ours and would have to go away after a few months. I think it helped that I used to work for a dog-sitting service, so they’ve seen dogs come and go in the past—although none like Eddie, of course. This morning there were a few tears, but mainly hugs, and then my youngest, Tony, asked me when the next puppy would be arriving even before Eddie was out of the door. Kids!”

  She sniffled and smiled at the same time.

  “I haven’t stopped crying since he left, but I’ve managed to be ‘sensible’ Mum in front of the kids. I’ve got to get myself together for when they get home from school.”

  I left the pet store with Liz, having bought my new puppy a soft furry blanket to sit on, a snake toy (because it had been one of Emma’s favorites) and a very soft blue-and-white stuffed dog.

  When I got home, Jamie’s van was outside our house. Either he’d brought Emma back, which was highly unlikely, or the new puppy was already here.

  13

  “Meet Mr. Pup-Pup,” said Ian as he opened the front door, plonking something completely unrecognizable into my outstretched arms. A bright almost-white wriggling little furry fluffball, more like a miniature polar bear than a puppy, as different from Emma as could be.

  “Hello,” I said. “Hello, little puppy.”

  At eight weeks old he was a lot more boisterous than Emma had been when she first arrived. He twisted and turned from back to front, nibbled at my long hair and then licked my face.

  “His Helper Dogs name is Freddy,” said Jamie, giving Ian a look.

  “Mr. Pup-Pup,” Ian mouthed at me and I tried hard not to grin.

  Jamie and Ian had been entertaining Mr. Pup-Pup for the past hour.

  “Why didn’t you call me and let me know he was here?” I asked.

  “Because we thought you’d be back at any minute.”

  “I went to buy him some toys from the pet shop and I met Liz there.”

  “How was she?” Jamie asked.

  “Tearful.”

  I might have been tearful too, but it was hard to laugh and cry at the same time, and Freddy, wriggling in my arms and yapping his tiny puppy-dog yap, was winning the battle.

  I put him on the floor and he scampered around and then ran back to me.

  “Has he come far?” He didn’t seem at all tired from his journey.

  “No, Summer Road,” Jamie said. That explained his energy. Summer Road was only just over a mile away. “It’s the breeder’s first litter, and she got in touch to ask if we might be interested in taking one or two of them. There were two boys we thought looked promising for us, but this one was better at retrieving—although neither of them were all that enthusiastic. Little terrors, weren’t you?”

  Jamie’s attention had been drawn back to the furball; it was difficult to keep your eyes off him—he was just too bouncy and cute. Jamie wriggled the toy rattler in front of Freddy, and Freddy pounced on it as if he was a kitten and shook it with delight.

  “No good at doing what you were supposed to when I wanted you to,” he said to the dog, who was now growling and playing tug-of-war with the subdued snake. “But then that’s puppies for you. Anyway, he’s yours,” said Jamie, standing up decisively, dusting himself down and taking his leave.

  I shut the front door as he retreated, while restraining the pup and making a mental note to ask Ian to get the stair guard out of the loft. Then I gave Freddy (or Mr. Pup-Pup, as Ian insisted on calling him) some of the food the breeder had been giving him along with a small amount of Helper Dogs’ puppy food. He scoffed it all up, and I took him outside to use the toilet area, but it was all too far and too much for him, and he’d weed on the lawn before he’d reached it.

  After that, we went back inside, and fed, watered and tired out, he fell fast asleep on the rug.

  “He looks so sweet,” I said. “And he seems so confident for such a young puppy.”

  Half an hour later Freddy was awake, re
charged and ready for more fun and games, with the boundless energy that puppies have. Then a quick sleep, then more games, but when it came to bedtime he didn’t want to go into his crate, which we’d placed on the floor of our bedroom. He barked, whined and bit at the bars with his tiny teeth and scratched at the floor in distress, and I simply couldn’t stand it. With so much heartbreak already in the day, I didn’t want to see him sad on his first night with us. He was such a little boy and he’d only just left his family; it was his first night away from home and all he’d previously known.

  “He’ll calm down,” Ian said. “He’ll tire himself out and fall asleep.”

  But ten minutes later Freddy still hadn’t calmed down—if anything, he’d got worse.

  “I can’t bear it,” I said. “Let him out of the crate. He can sleep on the floor for tonight.”

  It was totally against what Helper Dogs advised, but I opened the wire door anyway. Freddy was delighted, his tiny tail wagging wildly.

  Ian made him a little bed on the floor.

  “That’s it, night night, Mr. Pup-Pup. You sleep there.”

  But Freddy didn’t want to sleep on the floor. He started yapping and crying and trying to scramble on the bed. It was almost midnight and Ian rolled over grumpily. He had to be up at five for the long journey to London and work.

  I climbed out of bed and carried Freddy downstairs to the garden. Once there he raced around and did a wee, ran back inside and nosed around, then had a long drink of water.

  Above us I could hear the sound of Ian sleeping, fortifying himself for another commute and a long day at work. He worked so hard to support us and he really needed his rest. I pulled out an old blanket from the cupboard.