Dog Days by Jeanette Winterson. Part 1.
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Go to Part 2
THERE ARE SOME DAYS when the sun is so bright that when you look away everything turns black. I had a dog like that; a sun-black dog with the light in him so bright that the rest of life went into shadow when he was killed.
Now you know the end of the story but not the beginning, and the end of a story is, well, only the end, and much happens on the way there, like people who set out at dawn and sleep at nightfall, and the sun makes his journey with them.
So I will tell you how I came to find the sun running beside me, and how that brief and lit-up time has changed the way I think about things – not just the big things but the small things too, because, you will notice, the sun lights up everything – old socks, discarded magazines, dust, cobwebs, as well as the handsome house and the beautiful view. The sun will dazzle off a piece of broken glass as easily as off a church window at midday.
The sun is a democrat. Rich and poor alike stand in his rays. Dogs are democrats too, and don’t discriminate between Gucci and worn-out. That is not to say that they have no discrimination – they do, but dogs are on the side of love.
They love life and they love you, and they will valiantly do their best to love life, however inadequate that life may be, and they will valiantly do their best to love you, however inadequate you may be. Dogs are love on four legs. ‘Yes,’ they say, ‘I will, and yes, and yes.”
I discovered that life could be yes instead of no. I discovered that life could be love and not its lack.
That’s a big thing. Along with it I discovered that an old shoe is better than a diamond bracelet, and that a ball is the round world in little. When I threw him his blue ball he chased it as though it were the globe itself he was chasing through the wide heavens, eager to land the one place where life could be found. He brought it back to me, delicate, between his jaws, and dropped it at my feet, the world in little. Trust. Happiness. Throw it again, and again, and again, make the world new, every day, and to him it was new every day, the sun rising on a planet still damp from its making, the clean, early air of a fresh start.
I had need of a fresh start.
What I mean to say is that sometimes something quite unexpected enters your life – something you did not plan for, were not even-if-at-all thinking about. I never wanted a dog. Dog was not on my wish-list or even my tick-list. I didn’t notice dogs in the street in the way that boys notice cars or men notice blondes. I like animals but my life was not dog-shaped. My partner wanted a dog, and I said yes because that was easier than a baby. The dog was a kind of Jungle Book baby, no schools or night feeds, nothing that couldn’t be managed with a ball and a lead. Simple, easy, yes.
Yes, I said, I will, and yes, and yes …
So the dog came home.
Home. Home is so familiar that it needs no looking at, no explanation. Come through the door and home is just there.
The pictures, the books, the kitchen table, the leaky tap, the sitting room painted the not quite right shade, and if there are things to do, well, they don’t have to be done now. Sit down, have a drink, eat some supper, put the washing in the basket …
The dog took the washing out of the basket and ran with it like he’d found the meaning of life. Give those trousers to me! No! Give them to me! No! Come on drop, good doggie … No! Holy Law of the Jaw: Don’t let go …
He was called Maximilian on his pedigree. A King of Bohemia or some far-flung shore where miracles happen. I could have changed his name to Rex or Sam, but he walked like a Max; part-swagger part-comedy turn, and something of where the wild things are.
It was the wild thing in myself that he tamed.
Go to Part 2