I stood up, stretched. “I need to go for a walk.”
“I’m going to go shower. See the crew.”
I nodded, but before I left the room I found her and wrapped her in my arms even though she was never lost, never really lost.
* * *
Animals had beenmy sanctuary from being a child. Next door to us – although it was a few hundred metres away technically – had a dog, Amelie’s dog. It was a German Shepherd called Brix and I wished long and hard as a six-year-old that he could be my dog. When I was sad or angry, I’d head across the fields and find him, throw him a ball or a stick as far as my short arms could. He’d eventually sit down next to me, tongue lolling out and tail wagging and I’d talk to him as if he understood every word. Sometimes I thought he did understand.
Eventually, when someone came to find me and took me and Brix back home, I’d feel better. Calmer. Animal therapy.
So the place I headed to when I left the riad was an animal sanctuary, a local one where we would be filming in a day or two, run by a man who had come to be a friend even though he spoke few words and gave fewer smiles unless you had four legs, feathers or scales.
It was on the outskirts of the city, a taxi ride away which made me use my French and thank Marie for bullying me into continuing it for longer than I’d wanted. I watched the hazy sunshine die, evening take control.
Laurent was outside putting the hens away when I got out of the cab. He looked at me as if he’d been expecting me to turn up four hours ago and I was late. This was his greeting.
I didn’t speak. I knew the evening routine here. The checks that needed to be carried out on the animals, the evening feeds, the last minute care.
Inside one of the outbuildings were the keep cages with animals that had been rescued or abandoned at the shelter. Each had notes next to them with what they’d been fed, any treatment they were receiving. Laurent had a decent amount of volunteers but they’d usually be there for a month at the most, so communication was key.
There were cats, small furries, birds including a parrot that had more colourful vocabulary than Marie. In another building there were small wild animals that were being cared for. I went about my business as if I’d been there that morning and it hadn’t been two years.
A bearded dragon peered at me lazily. I dropped a cricket in his cage and watched him wake up. The cricket ended, the dragon happy.
If only life were that simple.
I locked the door, leaving the creatures settled for the night. Laurent sat outside, smoking one of his sixty cigarettes a day. I’d reminded him once about the effects on his health and he’d laughed, lit up another. That had been the extent of our conversation for twenty-four hours.
His two dogs were sat at his feet, both old mutts that he had rescued years before. I crouched down and fussed them, both of them recalling who I was, tails wagging at the attention.
It was unconditional love. I had fed them, shown them affection, walked them and they remembered, their brains wired that I was a good person. They made me feel like a good person.
“How long you here for?” Laurent spoke, his voice deep and low.
“A few days. Filming that program.”
He gave a nod. “They were here this afternoon. Nice people.” That meant they’d given a decent donation. And probably fussed a few animals.
“Good.”
“Africa still suits you, boy.”
He’d told me once that I should live here, in Morocco. He had never told me why and I’d put it down to him needing a successor. Laurent was in his sixties, maybe older. One of the big charities gave him a hand and made no secret that they’d like to do more and would be there when Laurent didn’t want to carry on. But I knew, like his animals, that we’d be burying him here, somewhere under the scorched trees where the hens and the goats ran in the morning and the mules that he’d rescued over the years.
Laurent wouldn’t leave here.
“I’d stay if I could.”
“Why can’t you? Only you who sets the rules.”
“Family. And I’m not ready for here yet. Not permanently.”
He gave a shallow nod. “That I understand. But one day. Got a horse in the back that needs looking at. Abscess on its leg.”
“How recent?”
“Yesterday. Man was whipping him for not walking. I bought him off him. He’s calm now. I did what I could, but he needs a vet. You’ll save her.”
