With a huge sigh the dog groans and another little bundle comes out of her wrapped in a milky film.
‘Oh wow,’ I say. ‘This is amazing.’
Despite the fact that I have never done this before, I reach down, take the tiny little puplet up and place it in front of the mother.
‘She’ll know what to do,’ I say with some strange instinct and sure enough, the mother licks away the film from the pup’s mouth and then the tiny creature begins to make a little mewing noise. I realise the other two are mewing too.
‘Food, they need food. Women put babies on the breast as soon as they are born and that helps with the afterbirth,’ I said suddenly.
‘Ugh,’ Giorgio shudders.
‘It’s natural,’ I hiss.
Patrick and I are on the floor, the world’s two strangest midwives who really know nothing about this, but with Giorgio on the iPad as well, we begin to think we are in control.
‘Do you think she needs a drink?’ says Giorgio.
‘I need a drink,’ says Patrick. ‘But Freya, what do you think? Does she need water?’
He looks at me. I, as a female, am apparently the expert in all matters of childbirth, including dog birth.
‘Let them feed first.’
I remember that puppies are born blind, so I take each tiny creature and put its miniature little face close to a teat. In an incredible act of magic, the little mouths open, close on the teats and they suck.
‘Youdoknow what to do,’ says Patrick as if he had expected nothing else.
One more tiny little creature is born, this one smaller, a littleall-black puppy, and the dog is tired, too tired to lick the membrane away, so I remove the film from the puppy. It feels still and I hold it close, smelling an indescribable smell of tiny new little creation just born into the world. I don’t think it’s breathing and without thinking, I gently open its tiny mouth and blow in. Then I rub the little back, trying to get the lungs working. I blow again. I have no idea if this is right or wrong but it feels right and then suddenly, this tiny little thing begins to mew. I cuddle it close, wet fur and all. ‘You’re mine,’ I say, and check to see if my family are getting a girl or a boy.
‘Magic, Princess Magic,’ I announce, and put my little darling beside her brothers and sisters where she begins to drink energetically.
Patrick finds some ham in the fridge and brings it to the dog, along with a bowl of water. She drinks but doesn’t eat for a moment, waiting to see if she’s safe. We retreat to give her space and she finally wolfs down the ham.
We all sit there, lost in admiration.
‘Oh.’ Giorgio looks at them and I can tell he’s crying. ‘They’re beautiful, let’s keep her, let’s keep them all,’ he says. ‘Except for your one, Freya.’
‘We don’t have the space,’ says Patrick running his dirty hands through his normally immaculate hair. ‘But we can,’ and he looks into Giorgio’s eyes and the two of them melt.
*
I swear that as soon as Lorraine hears my steps outside our office, she’s got the machine on to make a cappucino.
‘Hey boss lady,’ she says, ‘how’s it going with the taking over the world and taking no crap from anybody?’
I really like her, said Mildred.She takes no prisoners, you should be more like her, why are you not more like her?
Because I’m not, I say. Deal with it.
Fine.
‘Something bad’s happened?’ I ask, as I take the coffee and drink.
‘The cappucino was a giveaway, right?’
‘Yeah. What gives?’
‘Nina has been on the phone and because she thinks I’m some sort of answering machine so she doesn’t have to keep anything secret from me, she wants you to know when – what was the word she used? Oh yes – ‘when the bloody hell you were going to have something fun to say about your newseries-slash-book-slash-any bloody thing.’
