32
STANLEY
I shouldn’t have run away.IknowI shouldn’t have run away. But instinct is a powerful thing.
One minute I was dreaming of chasing rabbits across a pretty meadow, and the next I was yanked awake as that terrible crashing sound filled my ears, and suddenly I was on my feet and running before I even understood what I was doing.
The noise of the tray hitting the floor, the crash of all those plates and glasses breaking around me, the screeching cries of alarm from the customers in the pub who got a fright… all of it just scrambled my brains.
And so I ran. I saw the open door and I ran. All I could think about was getting away from that noise that had frightened me so very badly.
I ran past the tables and chairs outside and headed straight for the trees and woodland beyond, and by the time I got my wits about me again, I was already running amongst the tall trees and had lost all sense of direction.
I was lost.
The panic of realising I was lost was even more terrifying than the awful noise that had woken me up in the pub and sent me fleeing in the first place.
As my brain started to take charge again, I stopped running and looked around. It was all just dense trees and shrubs as far as the eye could see. It was dark, too, because of the thick tree branches overhead blocking out the light on what was already a gloomy day. No matter which direction I looked in, I couldn’t see any sign of the gap that led back to the pub.
But I knew I had to get back there, somehow. That’s where Grace was, and Ryan and Miriam too. They were my people, Grace most of all. I didn’t want to be separated from Grace, not like this, not because of my own stupidity.
Retracing my steps through the woods didn’t help, because I had no real idea which way I’d come from. There had been a lot of zigzagging to avoid fallen branches and dips in the ground and areas where gnarly tree roots thrust up from the earth to trip me.
I stood panting and looking around for any clue that might guide me back to the pub, back to Grace, back to safety. But all I heard were the calls of the birds in the trees and the swish of leaves as they moved in the wind.
As I ran first one way and then another, darted this way and that, the panic that had sent me running from the pub was replaced with a new sort of panic, this one much grimmer and darker and as realised just how bad this might be for me.
I was a dog lost in the woods, alone and frightened.
Perhaps it was that realisation that triggered memories about how I’d come to be lost and alone the first time around, before I met Grace that day on Foxglove Street. Standing in the gloomy woodland, panting and unable to stop myself from whimpering, the details of it all came rushing back…
My owner’s name was Fred. Fred Patterson. We were together for years, ever since he took me on as a pup. A local friend of Fred’s happened to own a dog who had an unexpected litter, and Fred decided to help out and adopt me.
Fred was a special man, an older gent who was kind and generous, proper salt of the earth. He’d lived alone since his wife passed away, and in those early days after I first arrived, he told me often about how much he enjoyed my company because the house was too quiet and lonely now his wife was gone.
For eight years, we were the best of pals. Fred lived in Winchester, and we enjoyed daily strolls around the ancient cathedral and along the river and through the old streets and lanes. In summer, we spent time at Fred’s allotment and in winter, we huddled up at home in front of the cosy fire.
Those were happy times.
But then one day, while Fred was making lunch in the kitchen, he suddenly collapsed to the floor and lay there motionless. I sniffed his face and licked his mouth, but nothing I did made him move or wake up.
That’s the first time in my life I knew true panic. I barked and yelped and didn’t stop until the neighbour through the wall of our terraced house came and peered through the window into our living room and then let herself in with her spare key.
The neighbour phoned the ambulance and they took Fred away—and I never saw him again. He died in hospital following a cardiac arrest. Nothing could be done to save him.
My heart broke in two that day.
Fred had a son, Edward, who lived in Birmingham, and he arrived to sort out the house and, I suppose, to deal with me, too.Fred’s neighbour next door had looked after me for a couple of nights, but that was only temporary. My future was suddenly up in the air.
Edward explained to the neighbour that there was the funeral to arrange and that he’d have to start emptying his father’s house and that there was a long list of things to be done now, and because of all that, he didn’t have time to deal with a dog, too.
Edward wasn’t kind-hearted like his father. Actually, he wasn’t a very nice man at all. Edward rarely visited his father when he was alive, and when he did, it was only for a few short hours at a time. Fred would try to chat with his son and find out what was going on in his life, but Edward only ever had complaints and gripes to share, and never asked what his father had been up to since he’d last visited, or showed any interest in him at all.
As soon as Edward left at the end of each of these short visits, Fred would let out a long sigh and shake his head. He’d mutter about how he loved his son, because fathers had to love their sons, but that he didn’t much care for the man Edward had become, a man who was unkind and unpleasant and completely self-absorbed.
Hearing Edward say he didn’t have time to deal with me came as something of a relief. I didn’t really want to go and live with this man whose company neither Fred nor I ever enjoyed, a man who scarcely acknowledged me on those occasions when he did visit, let alone showed me any sort of affection.
Edward told the neighbour who’d been looking after me that because he was very busy with work back home in Birmingham, he planned to hire a company to clear out his father’s house for him once he’d removed any valuables or important documents. He also told the neighbour that he would send me to an animal rescue centre for rehoming and asked her if she knew where hisfather had kept any documents about me that they might need in order to accept me.
