Or, I reasoned as Oliver climbed in next to me, that was complete bullshit and I was being a coward. After all, what was the worst that could happen? I’d tell him the situation and he’d be supportive and insightful, and I’d have to…deal with my feelings and stuff. And I didn’t want to do that because it was very, very important to me that working at CRAPP sucked and I hated it. If that turned out to be less than entirely true, I honestly wasn’t sure I’d psychologically recover.
At least Spud had calmed down. Maybe me spending the night in the pen had helped him understand that we’d always be here for him, even after we’d left the room. Maybe Oliver, and all his dog books, had been wrong.
“Oliver,” I said. “I’ve got somet—”
“Arrooooooou,” said Spud, from below. For a little dog, he had a set of lungs on him. “Arrooooooou.”
“Fuck.”
Oliver nestled his bookmark neatly intoThe Man Who Died Twice. “Were you about to tell me something?”
(“Arrooooooou.”)
“No.” I buried my head under the pillow.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “Because normally when you’ve something important to say, you put it off all day and then hint vaguely at it once we’re in bed.”
“That’s…” I flailed for a devastating put-down, briefly considered calling himbum-face, and then settled on, “very insightful. And annoying.”
(“Arrooooooou.”)
“Yes”—somehow, even through the pillow, I could tell when Oliver was smiling—“I realise caring about your feelings is one of my worst traits.”
“It really is.”
“I’ll try to do better in future. But, for now, what’s wrong?”
“Arr-arrr-aroooooooooooou!!”
This kind of conversation was hard enough when there wasn’t a sad puppy downstairs. Which meant it wasn’t technically a lie when my mouth, with the tacit consent of my brain, said, “It’s Spud.”
“I did actually think about that.”
Reaching into his pyjama pocket—apparently I was in a long-term relationship with the kind of man who wore the kind of pyjamas that had pockets—Oliver produced a little plastic drug bag.And, for a moment, I thought he’d gone for the extremely unbarristerly solution of getting stoned off our tits.
To be honest, I’d have been up for it.
“Happy second day of having a dog,” said Oliver, dropping a set of blue rubber earplugs into my hand.
I appreciated the thought, but… “You know it’s not the noise that’s the problem, right?”
“I do, but it’ll be easier if you can’t hear him.”
“Arr-arrr-aroooooooooooou.”
“I’m not sure,” I tried, “I want to make it easier to ignore my crying dog.”
Oliver sighed. “And that’s very kindhearted of you. But ignoring your crying dog is the best way to stop your dog from crying.”
“Okay, but—” I was floundering. Not having read all or indeed any of the dog books was putting me kind of on the back foot here. “Isn’t that, like, teaching him toxic dogsculinity? Aren’t we just training him to repress his feelings?”
Any thought I’d had that Oliver was being heartless evaporated when I saw the look in his eyes, all compassion and sorrow. “Lucien,” he said, running his fingertips along the line of my jaw, “I am so pleased we took this step together. But this is supposed to be our space. Our time. If it’s going to become the place where we worry about Spud, I don’t think that’s going to work for me. Not long term.”
“Arrooooooou.”
When he put it like that, it wasn’t going to work for me either. I made a semi-committalI supposekind of noise and tried the earplugs. On a very literal level they worked. I couldn’t hear Spud or much of anything else. But all that meant was that I went from listening to my dog arooooouing his heart out, to imagining my dog arooooouing his heart out. Which, if anything, was worse.
Oliver leaned over to kiss me good night. Then, despite having just given me earplugs, he said something.
