My
intention for this blog was not what follows. I was going to write about the
difficulty I am having writing love scenes in the first person, as compared to
writing them from the third person’s viewpoint. She kissed him; her blood pounded through her veins. I think the
problem lies in the fact that I am too old to be imagining myself getting hot
under the collar. I saw him look at my
mouth; I wanted to kiss him, too.
Anyway,
I will come back to that. Another day. That is banal to what follows. Because I
witnessed a scene yesterday afternoon which greatly distressed me. But let me
start at the beginning.
My
daughter fosters kittens. (You can go here to read more.)
 |
| Our dog with two foster kittens. I think they were called Neptune and Titan. |
She’s been doing this
for over a year, and she has my fullest admiration. Not only is she devoting
time and money to these little creatures, but she goes through the trauma of
having to say goodbye to them when they are strong and old enough to be offered
up for adoption. I think she’s lost count of how many kittens she’s been a good
mum to, but it must be over 20 by now.
Yesterday
afternoon I gave her a lift to the vet (who works from home) to pick up her
latest charge after a routine de-sexing.
I waited in the car. As she went to lift the latch on the gate it was
obvious someone was coming through from the other side, so she stood back. First
a man came through. He was probably in his fifties, with long, greying hair
untidily pushed behind his ears. Then, after some hesitation, a dog appeared. It looked like a Labrador, but it was moving slowly and it was hard to
tell whether it was moving slowly because it was old or because it was in such
pain. And then behind the dog was a woman. As a writer I’m supposed to be
observant, but I can’t remember much about her because once I saw the dog
everything else went out of my mind.
A big chunk of the dog's fur and skin, probably six inches by
eight inches, was missing from the upper thigh of its back leg, so that all the
flesh was exposed and I could actually see the pink leg muscle working as it
shuffled forward. Then there was another big and raw rectangular area of flesh missing
from its back, above its tail. Around
its neck were puncture marks as if something had had it by the throat.
The
trio made its way to the 4x4 that was parked in front of me, and the man opened
the boot and spread out a blanket. He looked at the dog and the dog looked up
at him, and then with considerable care he lifted the dog into the boot. With
effort, the dog lay down on its good side and put its head on its paws. The man
closed the boot. The woman got into the front seat. Nobody said anything. They
drove away.
It
was the expression in the dog’s eyes that made me draw breath and brought a
lump to my throat. The pain in the eyes, but also – in the midst of what the
dog must have been feeling – subservience. And trust. Trust.
Before
they drove away I wondered if I should get out and say something. How can you do this? What are you thinking? But
the Loved One is always telling me not to get involved, and the other thing was
I didn’t want to embarrass my daughter.
When
she came out, carrying her still-very-groggy little kitten, she told me a bit
more. The dog had apparently been in an accident. The vet didn’t say, but my daughter
said it looked like it involved machinery rather than a car crash. She also
told me that the vet was very distressed; he said he’d never seen anything like
it in all his 40 years of practice. He’d told the owners that the dog ought to
be euthanized but they’d refused. And he told my daughter there was nothing he
could do. He couldn’t force them to do the right thing.
And
then I regretted not getting out of the car. And not saying something. Anything.
I
was ashamed of myself.
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