The Puppy That Came for Christmas Page 16

  Len piped up from the corner, where he was with his little puppy, Gertie. She was just with us on a temporary basis because her puppy parent over at the Peterborough satellite was having a family emergency.

  “I have some friends who foster privately for an agency, and they reckon that the district next to ours has too many babies and not enough foster parents at the moment,” he said.

  My ears pricked up.

  “I’ll give them your telephone number,” he said.

  “You don’t want a teenager, Meg,” said Jo. “You want a baby.”

  I knew that she was right.

  Later that week, Jamie rang to tell me the news I’d been dreading: Helper Dogs had decided Freddy’s fate. He would be going to a new puppy parent, Rachel, who lived about an hour away in a big farmhouse with a Labradoodle called Gandalf. Gandalf was a little older than Freddy; it was felt that Freddy would benefit from not being the center of attention all the time. It was also a good idea to move them on, Jamie had told us, so that they didn’t become too attached to one person, as Dylan had done, and therefore be unable to bond with their final, most important, owner—the Helper Dogs partner.

  Labradoodles like Gandalf were also occasionally employed as Helper Dogs, though they could sometimes be a little harebrained. Goldendoodles tended to be calmer and were becoming more popular. The advanced trainers at Helper Dogs HQ, however, tended to favor Labradors, or Labrador mixes, as they adored food and worked very well for treats. Golden Retrievers were a bit more intuitive and sensitive, and were more likely not simply to follow orders and to think for themselves. This was both a good and bad thing: good when they used their intuition and sensitivity to do helpful things; bad when they decided they didn’t want to do something. Golden Retrievers could be very stubborn.

  I decided that to try to head off the heartache I’d felt when losing Emma—because it had really felt like a loss—I’d become more involved in Freddy’s move. I asked Jamie to give me Rachel’s details, and I gave her a ring to arrange a visit for me and Freddy, so that I’d have some idea of his new life after he left me. Talking to her gave me a lump in my throat, and even as I put the handset down I questioned my own actions: was I just stretching out the loss, instead of diminishing it?

  Too late to worry now, I thought, as I typed her postcode into the car’s GPS. Her house was deep in the countryside, but perhaps as a subconscious revolt—a sly attempt to sabotage my own good intentions and keep Freddy with me for a while longer—I hadn’t really listened to her description of where it was or how to get there. Freddy was being unhelpful too. He’d got used to traveling in Ian’s BMW and now really objected to the high, cramped seat in my car. He didn’t want to get in, and I was having real trouble persuading him because I didn’t want him to either. I wanted to lead him back into the house, lock the front door and never come out again. He could sense my tension and reluctance, and decided to be obstinate.

  “Come on, Freddy, in you get,” I said, slapping the car seat to show him what I meant, knowing that he knew exactly what I wanted him to do. Freddy stood immobile, staring up at me.

  “Come on.” I tried to keep the desperation out of my voice, but of course Freddy could hear it, and suspecting I was trying to lure him to the vet’s, the grooming parlor or somewhere as yet unknown but equally anathema to dogs, he now really didn’t want to get in the car at all.

  “Get in!” I said firmly, and, deciding to employ both carrot and stick at the same time, pulled a treat from my pocket and jiggled it in front of him. It was some sort of tripe stick, manufactured from unspeakable animal parts, and therefore one of his favorites. Reluctantly, begrudgingly, he deigned to climb in.

  “I hope you’re not tricking me,” his expression said. “I don’t like this car, I don’t like the vibes you’re giving off and I’m only doing this because you’re my mum and I trust you.” Which, of course, made me feel even worse.

  I felt like crying, and not just for Freddy, but for Emma as well. Even now, if I so wanted, I could easily torment myself by thinking about Emma, but at least she was happy and loved with Mike. And now I was going to betray Mr. Pup-Pup in exactly the same way. Yes, today we were only visiting, but it still felt like I was rehearsing a betrayal. Today wasn’t permanent, but even so I had to force myself to start the engine and roll the car off down the road.

  About forty miles in, the GPS lost its signal and all of a sudden I was on the B road to nowhere. I had the address, but all I could see were fields, and in another act of self-sabotage I’d forgotten to write Rachel’s number down. It all seemed so hopeless. I called Ian and cried down the phone while he looked up the way on his computer; but I wasn’t in a fit state to take in the directions and then Freddy began to agitate to get out of the car. I said a tearful goodbye, and Freddy and I went for a long walk up the isolated lane, far enough to see that there were no signposts in the vicinity, nor any signs of life. Even so, I felt much calmer for doing something as normal as walking my pup. Freddy fell out once again as he was trying to get back into the car, which only made everything worse, but finally, as I was ready to turn round and head for home, the GPS miraculously recovered and we were on our way again—from one crisis to the next, or so I felt.

  We arrived—me red-eyed, Freddy restive—at Rachel’s an hour late. She brushed aside my apologies with a smile and made a huge fuss of Freddy. She seemed a kind, kind lady, with lots of long blonde curly hair, wearing hippyish clothes. I thought to myself: “I really want him to be with someone who’ll love him more than anything.” I realized it didn’t bother me if he never did what anybody asked him ever again; if I had to lose him, I just wanted him to go somewhere he’d be loved.

  Gandalf was also very pleased to see Freddy and immediately took him on a tour of Rachel’s huge, orchardlike garden. They were soon jumping all over each other, barking and playing furiously, and Rachel, looking a bit worried, suggested we go for a walk in the woods to tire them both out a bit. As we did, we chatted and chatted and chatted, and I felt I’d made a new unexpected friend. Rachel, a widow who’d brought up three children on her own, was a survivor.

  Back at the house, I decided that Freddy and Gandalf, who’d been playing with each other ceaselessly since they’d met, should probably have a break.

  “Gandy never seems to get tired,” said Rachel, but I knew Freddy did, so we gave them each a chew, separated them by closing the door and opened a bottle of wine to give ourselves a break too. The two dogs were such good friends already that we had Gandalf whining and barking at the passage door and Freddy scratching at it to be let in as an accompaniment while we sipped our Prosecco. I accepted a second glass, and then another, thinking that I could get a taxi home and come to collect the car the next day. Then we opened another bottle, and by the time Ian arrived in a taxi from the station (I didn’t entirely remember making the call), I was feeling very merry, and happy that, if Freddy really had to go, he was going to Rachel’s. Freddy and Gandalf hadn’t stopped playing, and I was slightly worried that having two teenage boys together might be awfully hard work for her.

  Freddy had collapsed into sleep on the backseat as soon as we drove off, snoring and twitching every now and again as he chased Gandalf in his puppy dreams. I smiled at Ian. We loved watching our puppies sleep and imagining what they might be dreaming about.

  Back at home there was a message from Marion to say that Sugar had given birth to eleven puppies, so I gave her a call and we arranged another visit so that we could finally meet them.

  Ian drove us to Marion’s smallholding after work a few days later and she took us straight through into the warm farm-style kitchen, where the puppies were together in a large crate with soft bedding next to the Aga. They clambered all over each other, making tiny mewling sounds. Blind, eyelids closed, with tiny pink-veined ears and the softest of soft creamy-colored coats. Their paws were huge compared with their bodies. Sugar looked at us with a combination of pride and concern as we cooed over her litte
r.

  “She had eleven,” Marion said. “But only three of them are girls.”

  “They’re beautiful.” And vulnerable, so defenseless. How could anyone not want to take one home and love it? But how could anyone take a puppy away from its mum? How could Marion be prepared to let any of them go? I was sure that the pain of separating from a pup would never get any less, no matter how many times it happened.

  “Do you want to hold one?” Marion said, as she reached into the box.

  She reached for the smallest of the puppies. Thinner than the others, she had a yellow spot painted on her back. The puppy mewled and squeaked in protest at being picked up. Marion gave it to me.

  “It’s one of the girls.”

  I held the tiny warm body close and the puppy nestled into me, still making a racket. A noisy girl—just what I wanted. This puppy would bark and let us know what was going on. This puppy would never stand out in the rain in silence waiting to be let in as one of the dog walkers at the river had told me his dog did.

  “Would you like to hold one too?” Marion asked Ian, and he took another of the puppies into his arms. A gentle smile of pleasure lit up his face.

  “We’re going to be calling our puppy—that little one—Traffy,” Ian told a surprised Marion, who hadn’t expected us to have a name already, for this to be such a foregone conclusion.

  “It’s short for Old Trafford,” I said.

  21

  I awoke the morning after visiting Traffy feeling guilty about Freddy. It wasn’t the first time, but it was certainly the sharpest pang yet. He hadn’t even left us and already we were thinking about the forever puppy that would be replacing him.

  “She’ll be able to wear Freddy’s Manchester United shirt when the match is on,” Ian joked, as he set off into the dawn to work. Freddy had grown much too big to fit into the special doggy football shirt Ian had bought him. Ian still considered him a Man U fan, and it was true that Freddy did still like to watch the matches; mainly, I suspected, because Ian gave him a Schmacko treat every time his team scored a goal—and Freddy was very fond of Schmackos.

  “I feel so guilty,” I said.

  “Poor Mr. Pup-Pup,” said Ian. We loved Freddy so much and were going to miss him at least as much as we’d missed Emma. Every day one or other of us would pipe up hopefully, saying maybe Helper Dogs would decide not to take him after all. Deep down, we knew it was wishful thinking: we both knew we couldn’t keep him, however much we wanted to. We’d already been down that road once, with Emma.

  “He’ll have a lovely time at Rachel’s. You know he will,” said Ian.

  I had to agree. There were woods for him to run in right next to her house, and Gandalf to play with, but I still didn’t want to let him go. Although he was now huge, he was still our little boy, and we wouldn’t be able to replace him.

  “It’s only natural not to want to give him up,” Ian tried to console me, “but you know we can’t keep him. We’re Freddy’s foster parents not his forever ones.”

  “I’m going to miss him so, so much,” I sniffed.

  “Well, maybe he won’t pass. Maybe he won’t be suitable as a Helper Dog and we’ll be asked to take him back.”

  But it felt wrong to wish that. Freddy had more of a quirky personality than Emma and wasn’t always so eager to do everything he was asked to, as Emma had been, but if you asked him in a nice voice (which I always did) then there was no stopping him.

  “Supposing we’d never had a dog,” Ian said.

  “That’d be terrible.” I didn’t want to be dogless ever again. Life just felt right with a dog in it. Not to have one would be all wrong.

  Following Len’s advice, I’d contacted his friends, Nora and John, and they’d put me in touch with Parenting Partners, a private adoption and fostering agency. Kirsty, the lady who’d answered the phone, had been really nice and chatty. She’d asked all sorts of questions and she seemed to listen carefully when I told her about our previous caring experiences. She’d e-mailed afterward to say it had been a pleasure to chat, and that she’d send us all the forms and arrange a visit.

  The next step for us was to invite Nora and John around to dinner and hear about their experiences of fostering over big warming plates of fish pie followed by apple crumble. To them it was a full-time job and hard work.

  “You get paid more by the agencies than the council . . .” John said.

  We weren’t interested in the money side of it. Never had been.

  “. . . but the kids are usually more damaged—they’re ones that the council couldn’t place with regular foster parents.”

  “We have meetings once a month and are monitored and given counseling,” Nora said.

  She saw Ian’s raised eyebrow and added, “Believe me, you need it.”

  Part of the reason I wanted to be a foster parent was that we might be able to give a better life to a little boy just like Ian had been. A little boy in need of some kindness and consistency and love to thrive. We could give that. There was a framed photo of Ian on the mantelpiece at his aunt Mabel’s house, a school photograph in which he looked so unhappy and vulnerable, in a little shirt and a scruffy school jumper, that when I first saw it all I wanted to do was hug the little Ian.

  “You look so sad,” I’d said, picking it up for a closer look.

  “Probably went to school without any breakfast or any lunch money again, or any dinner the night before,” Aunt Mabel had commented wryly. I’d thought at first she was joking, but I caught a look between her and Ian and realized she wasn’t. I’d never asked her anything more about his childhood, as I didn’t want to have secrets from Ian and trusted that he’d tell me what he wanted to or what was necessary, but there were huge gaps in his past that he simply wouldn’t—or couldn’t—fill in.

  “We’d like to do some nice things while the child’s with us,” said Ian to John, munching on some salad. “Take them on trips, holidays to the seaside . . .”

  We’d loved seeing Emma and Freddy play in the sea and the sand, although Freddy found it almost impossible, despite repeated tellings-off, not to drink the salty sea water.

  The professional foster parents’ eyes widened in horror at Ian’s holiday idea.

  “They’ll be worse than ever if you take them on holiday,” said John. “They need to have a regular routine to feel safe and secure.”

  “Breaking the routine will only lead to tears and tantrums,” added Nora.

  I could see what they meant. The puppies liked to have a routine so they knew what was going to happen when, and on which day, but they didn’t get all disruptive if the routine was temporarily changed.

  “They’re not little innocent Snow Whites, you know,” Nora said. “They have all sorts of emotional and physical scars that you’ll never get to the bottom of, or heal completely, and it comes out as lying, cheating and stealing. They try to break you down.”

  When it was time for them to leave, we saw them to the door.

  “Len said you were helping to raise puppies for Helper Dogs,” John said.

  “We are,” I smiled.

  “Don’t leave the foster kid alone with the puppy—ever,” Nora said.

  “But . . .” I’d thought a child would love having a puppy.

  “One of the foster kids from the agency got hold of some matches, and fur . . . well, it burns, and a little puppy . . .”

  I felt sick as I washed the pans and loaded the dishwasher. A little puppy was so vulnerable. How could anyone, however badly they’d been treated themselves, knowingly hurt one?

  It had been a disappointing dinner with Nora and John. They’d seemed very negative to us, but perhaps after a while that was how you became. We’d thought we could become short-stay foster parents, looking after a child for a week or so if their parents had to leave home for some reason. We’d thought we’d be able to make their forced break from home a special experience, leaving happy memories. It sounded as if we were wrong.

  Nevertheless, I was
still looking forward to meeting Kirsty from Parenting Partners. As soon as I saw her beaming smile I thought, At last! Finally I’d met someone in the fostering and adoption world who was a little more upbeat. She even liked dogs.

  We chatted all afternoon, talking about our experiences and what our hopes were. Kirsty told us that the agency usually dealt with children who were difficult to place, but if we were willing to take a child with special needs then she’d love to add us to their books. Then she turned to Ian and said she understood that he’d been taken into foster care himself when he was a baby.

  “Yes, twice,” he said. “Once when I was a baby and at least once when I was older.”

  “So that’s more than twice, was it?” said Kirsty, a little puzzled. “What was it for?”

  “I’m . . . I don’t know . . . I can’t really say. I don’t remember very much.”

  Ian had shut down, and although Kirsty gently pressed him for details, she quickly hit a barrier.

  Freddy padded in, and Ian took the opportunity to supervise Freddy outside while he did his business in the garden.

  Kirsty whispered to me: “Meg, I’m worried about Ian. Children don’t get removed from their homes without a very good reason and he’s blanking it all out. He’s such a lovely, gentle, kind man, but it worries me.”