‘Yes,’ I say, going to the door which separates the kitchen from the stairs to their apartment. ‘But Josie said you’ve got someone with you. I was just coming in for a natter,’ I say quickly. ‘It’s fine, I’ll talk to you again another time.’
‘No, no,’ chimes in Giorgio’s voice. ‘Come up, come up! She’ll know what to do, Patrick!’
I briefly wonder about not going up. Is there a dead body upstairs and Giorgio saying I’m practical merely means he thinks I’d be good at cutting up a corpse because I know my way round butchering?
But I’m nosy, so up I go.
Even the walls up the stairs are typically Patrick and Giorgio: classy, arty, beautiful. They’ve created a fantastic gallery wall with wonderful old posters of food and drink from the twenties and thirties with prints ofpeacock-feathered girls sitting on top of coupes of champagne alongside Art Deco adverts for hot chocolate. It’s bliss.
‘Keep coming,’ says Patrick and then I hear this strange noise, a squeaking.
A dying pig, I think, with anxiety.
I’m notthatpractical. They need a vet. Then Patrick appears at a door wearing his apron, his sleeves rolled up, and not looking his usual immaculate self.
‘It’s all going fine so far but we’re hardly experts, you see,’ he says.
‘OK,’ I say, wondering what exactly I have gotten myself into.
I walk into a beautifulkitchen-cum-sitting room with a marvellous dining table and exquisite club chairs in front of a genuine thirties fireplace, but in the middle of the floor is a mound of cushions, fluffy blankets and on that lies a smallish white dog of indeterminate breed who appears to be giving birth.
‘Oh,’ I say. Not what I expected.
‘Look,’ says Giorgio, turning to show me. ‘Two already.’
‘I didn’t know you had a dog,’ I said, bending over near the dog.
‘Oh, we don’t,’ Giorgio says, ‘but we found her in the back yard and we couldn’t leave her because, look, she’s so thin. You can see her ribs. I went out to feed her and whoosh, a baby started to come out. Well, I called Patrick pretty sharpish and we got her onto this,’ he indicates the blanket, ‘which was very difficult because she growled and then we carried her upstairs. Although, I think we should have brought her to the vet.’
‘I don’t know,’ says Patrick, sounding uncharacteristically anxious.
‘Farming or animal experience, anyone?’ I ask.
‘No,’ they said.
‘We had cats when I was a child,’ adds Patrick.
‘How many pups do dogs have, do you think?’ I say.
‘I don’t know,’ says Patrick. ‘Giorgio is looking it up on the internet. Some dogs have eleven.’
Giorgio looks as if he’s saying a prayer to some deity.
‘Her figure will be ruined,’ he says.
I get down on my knees and look at the dog who isn’t wagging her tail or looking particularly happy to see me. She’s concentrating on birthing another small little puplet.
‘But we should ring a vet.’
‘We did! They’re busy. Said it should be fine. It’s natural, they said. Does this look natural to you?’
‘Not if I was having eleven, no,’ I reply.
‘These ones seem OK,’ I say as I look at the two little ones lying beside her.
‘They came out with film on them, so she started licking the film off one and we got the film off the other and they are breathing. We’ve put them up close to her because that’s what it said you should do,’ says Giorgio, holding an iPad. ‘But what if there’s more and something goes wrong and, and you know we aren’t qualified for this.’
‘I’m not qualified for this,’ I say.
