The Things I Know(15)

Buddy barked loudly, clearly keen to come and greet their guest. The man flinched.

‘That’s just Buddy, my dog.’ She saw him exhale and swallow, as if afraid. ‘You’re a bit early.’ Placing Daphne carefully back in the run, she wiped her hands on her thighs, as if this might be enough to remove any residue of chicken. The man grimaced a little, appearing somewhat unnerved, possibly at the thought of spores from feathers and bird dander floating in his direction. It made her smile.

Townie . . .

‘What time is early?’ He looked at her, as if unaware that there was a wrong or right time to arrive.

‘Well . . .’ She paused and placed her hands on her hips. ‘Usually we say any time after three to give us a chance to get the room turned around from the previous guest, but no matter.’

The man twisted his upper body and looked back towards the path that ran around the side of the house. ‘I could go for a walk, if you like, and come back later.’

‘No! No, that’s fine. I’ll just fetch Buddy and get you settled.’ She marched down the paddock and again saw him stiffen. ‘Do you not like dogs?’ she called over her shoulder.

‘No.’

Hitch stopped walking and turned to face him.

‘You don’t like dogs?’ She tried and failed to hide her note of disbelief, unable to imagine anything nicer than greeting her beloved each morning and burying her face in his coat. The thought of being without her beautiful boy was almost more than she could stand.

‘The thing is’ – he swallowed – ‘I never know how you can tell if they’re the friendly or snarling variety, and so they frighten me. I can only speak from experience and say that I’ve never met a dog that I do like.’

She stared at him, trying to figure him out.

‘And have you met many dogs?’ Her tone was a little softer now, as she remembered this man was, after all, their guest.

‘About seven.’

Hitch laughed loudly. This time he didn’t turn red but laughed too, seemingly gladdened that he could elicit this reaction but not having any clue as to why she might be laughing.

‘Seven?’

‘About seven,’ he corrected, and having placed his bag on the ground, he used his fingers to count while looking up towards the heavens.

‘Mr Riley’s mongrel, Mrs O’Hanlon’s boxer, Michael the postman’s Staffie, Auntie Joan’s poodle, the Rottweiler on the ground floor, the Westie in the newsagent’s and Reggie’s old girlfriend’s chihuahua . . . Yes. Seven. But I say “about seven” in case I’ve forgotten any.’

‘Okay then.’

She continued her walk towards the house, watching him step gingerly over the clods of earth in his smooth-soled, lace-up shoes that she was in no doubt were more accustomed to pounding pavements than walking over soil and grass.

‘I love dogs,’ she confessed, ‘and I can’t imagine feeling any other way – Buddy’s my best friend. Why don’t you like them?’ she asked over her shoulder.

‘They shit everywhere,’ he said. ‘On the stairs of the flats where I live. The pavements where I walk. I even found a shit in the lift once – my Auntie Eva said it might have been a human shit, because she saw it too, but I don’t know. It’s hard to tell with big dogs: their shits look a bit like human ones. She thought it might have been one of the junkies who lived on the top floor. But I thought it was a dog’s.’

‘So . . .’ She smiled at him, trying to sift the facts from the torrent of information that came at her so quickly: he lived in a block of flats where junkies lived on the top floor; he had an Auntie Eva as well as Auntie Joan with the poodle . . . ‘Just to get this straight, it’s not the dogs you don’t like, so much as their shit.’

Mr Grayson-Potts paused to consider this. ‘Yes, that might be right. Not the actual dogs, but their shit.’

Hitch opened the back door and out bounded the tail-wagging Buddy, who scampered around the visitor with a daft look on his face that looked a lot to her like smiling.

‘This is Buddy. My dog. He’s definitely the friendly variety.’

Mr Grayson-Potts nodded, but kept his arms close to his body and his eye on Buddy, with a look of mistrust.

‘Can I tell you a little secret?’ She turned to face him.

‘Sure.’ He leaned in and her heart raced a little. She liked the scent of him. It was peppery and reminded her of the amber-coloured soap they used to have in the bathrooms at school. ‘There isn’t a person alive who likes dog shit, not one – even dog lovers, like me. So, who knows, you might be a dog lover after all and just not know it.’

The man watched Buddy running his excited laps around the yard and, if anything, seemed a little perplexed, as if this were something he hadn’t considered. ‘Maybe.’

‘Right, let’s go and get you settled.’ Hitch made a clicking sound with her tongue and Buddy ran over, trotting to heel. They all three then proceeded round to the front of the house and the man followed her up the path, the scrape of his soles making a scratchy noise on the stone pathway. She was conscious in a new way of her one foot that stood on tiptoe and the way that leg dragged a little. She felt unusually bothered and wondered if he was staring at it, wishing, for reasons she could not quite fathom, that she could present perfection to him as she pushed on the heavy oak front door to reveal the dark, panelled hallway.