Bird Brain Page 5

  7

  Let Sleeping Humans Lie

  VICTORIA WAS VERY kind, but not pretty. She had her father’s podgy face, small brown eyes and lank hair that got greasy if she didn’t wash it frequently, which she didn’t. Tosca, Victoria’s chic miniature smooth-haired Dachshund, always thought Victoria could make more of herself if she dressed better and took a little more care, but Tosca also boasted that Victoria had a heart as warm as an Aga. Victoria once had a Collie whose back end went. She kept him in nappies for three months, changing him three times a day, nursing him right to the end. It was not the kind of thing her father would have done. Banger personally put down his dogs at the first sign of incapacity. Sunshine had watched him take her father Bomber, who was not blind but was slightly losing his sight in one eye, for a good walk to his favourite place on the river, where the water had carved a wide beach of sand and rounded pebbles. Bomber liked to stand up to his shoulders in the water and feel the current pushing against him, and Banger and Sunshine sat on the grassy bank watching him do it for the last time. Later Banger held Bomber softly against the long grass, pressed Oofy’s service revolver to the old dog’s temple and pulled the trigger. Then Banger strode back to the Hall with Sunshine. Sunshine got the distinct impression that Banger was in some way pleased with what he had done. Griffiths was sent down in the Lanny to pick up Bomber and bury him. From that moment on, Sunshine hid the slightest infirmity in case it led to a final walk to the river.

  William moved into the Hall, and housed Jam in the barred kennel in the courtyard by the back door.

  ‘Not sure what to do with Sunshine,’ William said to Cary, his fiancée, as they both looked at the old Spaniel. Sunshine tried to appear pretty and alert, but was painfully aware of how lopsided she had become with arthritis. Cary was a tall, sleek and erect metropolitan woman, with shiny black hair and a face as giving as an anvil. Her sharp voice came out of a small painted mouth.

  ‘Ghastly dog,’ she opined. ‘Have you smelt her? It stinks to high heaven. Euch. I’m not having it in the house.’

  ‘I’ll ask Victoria if she wants her.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cary, ‘they can both stink together then.’

  ‘Actually, I need to have a talk with Victoria, I can take Sunshine with me. If she doesn’t want her, I’ll dump her at the vets.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Cary. ‘What are you talking about with fat face?’

  ‘The Isuzu. She has to give it back. And getting out of that house.’

  ‘Do. I refuse to use Banger’s old Land Rover. It’s revolting. I wouldn’t drive it wearing surgical gloves and a mask. You practically have to have a bath after looking at it. How he drove it like that I do not know. And I am dying to get my hands on Victoria’s house. It will make such a pretty guest lodge …’

  William drove across the estate with Sunshine smearing the window with her muzzle as she looked out. She was possibly on her way to the gallows, and it might be the last time she’d see the green sloped fields and enticing woods. Whereas many dogs – or indeed people – would have thought of all the glorious and happy moments they had had on the estate during their life, Sunshine, being naturally humble, remembered only the times she had failed to come up to scratch. They passed the bottom of Ella Wood, where the trees stretched out their skeletal branches, and Sunshine thought of the moment she had failed to find a cock pheasant that Banger had once shot there. It had fallen into a fork in a Spanish chestnut, and was dangling above her head as she searched away in vain below. They drove down a bare hedgerow and Sunshine remembered the time she had been detained by a bar of chocolate she had found on the verge amongst the creamy flowers of cow parsley. She had heard Banger yelling his head off, but tasted the sweetness of the Cadbury Flake. Her own assessment was that she had not been a good dog. The stream pricked her over-active conscience again, with a memory of how she had dawdled one day on its beds of wild garlic, staring at the brown trout in the pools, ignoring Banger’s increasingly frustrated shouts. From that day on she had been diagnosed as ‘going deaf’, but after discovering it was not a fatal condition as far as Banger was concerned, had done nothing to disabuse the humans of this helpful notion.

  They drove along a curved track between sheep-sprinkled meadows up to a modest stone farmhouse with an unkempt cottage garden. The land rose behind to the moor, where the heather and bilberry stretched for miles under a sky dotted with puffy clouds. William drew up, crushing a show of snowdrops under his tyres, right in front of Victoria’s front door, which stood, as usual, wide open.

  ‘Victoria!’ he shouted, without getting out. ‘Do you want Banger’s old bitch? If you don’t, I’m having her put down.’

  Victoria appeared around the side of the house followed by an early born orphan lamb, her most recently adopted animal.

  ‘Sunshine?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, me,’ said Sunshine.

  ‘Of course we’ll have her. The more the merrier.’ She opened the boot of the car and Sunshine stood quivering, looking at the jump. ‘Let me give you a hand,’ said Victoria, placing a feeding bottle on the wall and cupping Sunshine with her arms. ‘There you go,’ she said. When Sunshine was safely on the ground she limped hammily to the front door and lay down, giving thanks for Victoria.

  Victoria did things that other humans didn’t. She gave Christmas and birthday presents to her animals, and let Tosca, and Spot – her tan-and-white, wire-haired Jack Russell terrier – sleep in her bed, though Tosca said it wasn’t so nice when Victoria briefly got a boyfriend and they had to watch her shagging all night long. Humans were usually horrified by the sight of their pet dogs mating, and it was exactly the same the other way round, not that any humans seemed to believe it. What had really sent Tosca sprinting from the bedroom was the moment Victoria’s boyfriend had said, ‘Now let’s do doggy.’

  ‘Did you get Mr Hudson’s letter about Dinbren Cottage?’ William asked.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you about that,’ Victoria said. ‘You see, I don’t think it’s going to be possible. I mean, there is not enough room there for all of us. I don’t think Daddy would really have wanted Tom in Dinbren.’

  ‘Nonsense. He hated waste. There’s only you and Tom, surely?’

  ‘And the girls and boys: Tosca, Spot, Bouncy here,’ she indicated the lamb, ‘and Sunshine now.’

  ‘You can put them in the barn. Dogs do actually prefer to live chained-up in kennels.’

  ‘Bollocks!’ Spot shouted from the house.

  ‘The good thing about Dinbren Cottage,’ William said, ‘is that you won’t have so many rooms to worry about keeping clean. I can see you’ve got your work cut out here. We are going to give this place a complete facelift.’

  ‘Well, I suppose we must leave then …’ Victoria said.

  ‘I am very glad you are taking it so well,’ he said. ‘Thank you for being helpful.’

  ‘I haven’t got much choice,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll be very cosy in Dinbren, you’ll see. Well, I must go.’ He turned to leave, and then said, ‘Oh, I nearly forgot, do you have the keys to the Trooper?’

  ‘But it’s the only car I have,’ said Victoria.

  ‘I’m afraid it does belong to me now, and as I say it is rather needed …’

  Victoria went inside, took the keys out of a bowl, removed her door key, and gave them to William.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘You know that money you have invested for me?’ Victoria said. ‘The money from my house in London?’

  ‘Oh, I was going to talk to you about that,’ said William.

  ‘I think I’ll take some of that and get a new car,’ Victoria said.

  ‘I’m afraid that might be a problem, values have dropped, as you will have heard in the news. I’m afraid your portfolio was particularly hard hit.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Victoria asked.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s had a negative increment.’

  ‘What is negative increment?’
<
br />   ‘It means it has grown by a minus factor.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Victoria, ‘you mean you’ve lost it. You can’t have lost all of it, surely? I gave you nearly five hundred thousand pounds?’

  ‘Goodness no,’ said William, ‘not all of it. There’s a valuation going on right now, and you’ll be informed of the state of play in due course. It’s a sign of the vicissitudes of the present market, I’m afraid. Look, I’ll tell you what, why don’t you have your father’s old Land Rover in the meantime? Nobody’s using it, and I’m sure we can spare that.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Victoria.

  ‘I’ll send Griffiths down with it; he can drive the Isuzu back. Well, I must be on my way. Very nice to see you.’

  ‘Bye bye,’ said Victoria. She went into the sitting room, followed by Sunshine and the lamb, her eyes brimming with tears.

  ‘I suppose you heard that,’ she said to Tosca, Spot and the seventeen-year-old red-haired boy who lounged on the sofa in front of the television.

  ‘Yes,’ Tosca said, ‘the bastard.’

  ‘He’s a twat,’ said Tom.

  ‘He’s going to throw us out,’ Victoria said, and burst into tears. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Oh Victoria, you poor love,’ said Tosca. ‘Come and sit down here …’ Tosca and Spot made a space on the sofa. Victoria sat down heavily on it. ‘The thing is,’ she said, staring at the television, her fingers stroking Tosca’s silky coat, ‘I just don’t see how we are going to manage. Until I can get my money. William wants rent for that horrible Dinbren Cottage.’

  ‘There there,’ said Tosca.

  ‘We’ll be all right,’ said Spot.

  ‘Why is my life such pants?’ said Tom. ‘I’m going to write a book, Mum, called All the Times You Messed Up.’

  ‘That’s really helpful,’ Tosca said. ‘That’s just what she needs to hear.’

  Victoria sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Tom.’

  ‘We’ll all have to eat less,’ said Sunshine.

  Victoria’s hand went again to Tosca’s satin-soft tummy. ‘Thank God for all of you,’ she said. ‘What would we do without you?’

  ‘And what would we do without you?’ said Spot.

  ‘Hear hear,’ said Sunshine.

  ‘Why did Grandpa leave you nothing in his will?’ Tom asked his mother.

  Victoria sighed. ‘Grandpa loved you, Tom, and I think he may have loved me; he just had real difficulty showing it.’

  ‘More like he enjoyed not showing it,’ said Tosca.

  ‘He definitely told me that he had left the house to you,’ Tom said.

  ‘I know,’ said Victoria,

  ‘Well, he didn’t,’ said Tosca.

  ‘He said that one day you would probably leave it to me, if you didn’t give it all away to a useless man, or a cats’ home first,’ Tom said.

  ‘He said that?’ said Victoria.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well what went wrong?’ asked Tosca.

  ‘I think he was probably planning to do it, but never got round to it,’ Victoria said.

  ‘Is there nothing we can do?’ asked Tosca.

  It had been a long journey from death row at Battersea Dogs Home for Tosca, and she had always thought it was going to end in the grandeur and luxury of the well-appointed rooms of Llanrisant Hall. Many dogs didn’t appreciate human comforts: they found carpets cloying, central heating stuffy, draught-proof casements claustrophobic and human cleanliness too clinical – but not Tosca, who loved a silk rug and a high ambient temperature, and could sleep quite happily under a duck-down duvet in a pristine Egyptian cotton cover.

  Battersea was not a bad London address, unless you were a dog. Tosca, with a birth defect on her spine, had been dumped by her owners and had sat shivering in a concrete cell only hours from death when Victoria’s kind face appeared at her cage, paused, and smiled. There was a lot of talk at Battersea about how to get picked by owners, how to look lovable when you were a one-eyed, mangy, staffy-lurcher cross. Tosca was more concerned about being picked by an ugly owner, as canine wisdom teaches that pet dogs grow to resemble their keepers. But Victoria’s generosity shone through her face. Although relieved, the walk to Victoria’s Volvo was embarrassing for Tosca, who didn’t want to be seen leaving the dogs’ home. Back at Shakespeare Road, in Brixton, Victoria and Tom had nursed her back to health and the three of them had lived happily together as a family. As Tom grew, Tosca became aware that Victoria had a father whom they never saw who lived in a big house on a big farm in the country – a place called Wales.

  Walks on the leash to and from school, up and down the same pavement, and running around the same moth-eaten park dodging ancient turds began to pall, when compared with the idea of unlimited exercise in a private park of their own. The first time Tosca met Banger was when he had come to tea in Brixton. He had worn a thick tweed suit that smelt thrillingly of heather, dead pheasant, gunpowder, tobacco and alcohol, a heady combination for a Dachshund who had never left central London. Shortly after, Banger had suggested to Tom and Victoria that they come and live in the country in a house on his estate. Victoria put 56 Shakespeare Road on the market, and at the end of the school year they had moved to Ty Brith, a pretty farmhouse on the side of a sunny hill, about a mile away from the Hall. ‘A good mile,’ Victoria had described it. Relations had been cordial and warming. Tosca and Spot had got to know Sunshine and Jam, and Banger had got to know Tom. It had all been going so well. Tosca had picked up the rudiments of inheritance law and looked forward to the day, not necessarily, but hopefully in her own lifetime, when Victoria and Tom would live in the Hall.

  But she had been denied this, by Banger.

  ‘We’ll be all right in Dinbren Cottage,’ said Victoria, drying her eyes.

  ‘I doubt I will,’ said Tosca, ‘you can smell the damp from the garden.’

  ‘And I can get a job,’ Victoria continued. ‘Money and big houses aren’t everything, are they?’ She forced a smile. ‘We must still give thanks for our health and the beautiful world we live in!’

  Tom, in the manner of seventeen-year-old boys, grunted, and not necessarily in wholehearted agreement.

  ‘Someone killed Banger,’ said Sunshine, ‘Buck said so. A person tampered with his gun. Jam smelt them as they did it.’

  ‘What can we do about that?’ said Tosca, resting her head on Victoria’s soft tummy, and listening to its spiral rumblings.

  ‘Yes. It doesn’t do to dwell on it,’ Sunshine said.

  ‘Let sleeping humans lie,’ said Spot.

  ‘And anyway, Jam couldn’t remember who it was.’

  It was the fate of dogs to watch and make comment on the human world, not to search, question or try to change it. Their task was to help, to give solace, to console, to serve and to love. It was never to interfere. With these calming thoughts in their minds, they snuggled into Victoria and dozed in front of the warmth of the fire.

  8

  The Optimum Number

  WILLIAM GUTTED LLANRISANT Hall in a lavish refurbishment. It had grown gloomy, old-fashioned and threadbare in Banger’s hands, and it was time for a comprehensive remodel. An efficient heating system was installed, and downstairs a snooker room, sauna and cinema. Walls were smashed, fireplaces levered out of their settings, and ceilings raised or lowered so that the ratio of bedrooms to bathrooms went from an Edwardian six to one to a New Labour one to one. Ceilings were studded with recessed tungsten halogen spotlights. In the oldest, medieval part of the building, which had been undisturbed for hundreds of years, the rooms were straightened, the walls made perpendicular and the floors relaid flat. It was like racking an old-age pensioner. Had the house been able to it would have moaned in pain. Staircases were wrenched out of one part and rebuilt in another. Then cool beige sisal carpets were laid over the floors, suede sofas were wheeled in and the windows dressed with cream curtains. Walls were uniform white and hung with contemporary art, which Cary was an expert in. Occasionally Victoria’s dogs, who Victo
ria allowed to wander freely around the estate, came by to check up on progress, review the design and nab a sandwich off the builders. They were hanging around the day the art was delivered by a self-important team from Momart. Tosca carefully watched each piece being unwrapped, and approved of the Hirsts, and the Collishaws, though was doubtful about one canvas by Frank Stella, which she contended was below standard. ‘Bought for the name, and not the work,’ she informed Sunshine who stood dumbfounded in front of it. ‘The Gormley in the drawing room is nothing short of magnificent,’ Tosca continued. When the builders made fun of the six-foot bronze statue, Tosca scoffed at them. ‘Philistines,’ she said. ‘Most humans are incapable of appreciating beauty; dogs, well Dachschunds, understand.’

  ‘I liked Banger’s pictures,’ said Sunshine, remembering Banger’s sentimental Edwardian Scottish landscapes of romantic hills and mysterious dark lochs.

  ‘Only a Spaniel, or a builder, would like that stuff,’ said Tosca.

  Outside, the old gardens were dug up and planted with sharp, trimmed, fashionable plants, and a Marc Quinn sculpture of three huge silvered glass balls, of which Tosca also approved, and which Cary kept telling everyone cost fifty thousand pounds, was carefully placed to maximum effect. A tennis court was cut out of the hill, and a swimming pool dug inside a renovated barn, on the other side of which was the helipad. The place looked like a boutique hotel, which was precisely the effect William and Cary were after.

  Tosca approved of the changes to the house. She liked Cary’s style, though was suspicious of her character.

  ‘Banger was a Welsh English cross,’ she had explained to Spot. ‘A slow but loyal and predictable breed. William and Cary are metropolitan. The male is usually flash but flighty, though easy to train, given time, and likely to follow the pack. The bitch is a different animal.’

  William and Cary had appeared by helicopter from time to time, sometimes for only an hour, to pace around, review the progress and invariably fire somebody. On one occasion William had summoned Idris to the new office which now hummed with computers.