A Bunch of Fives - Stories by James Roderick Burns (49)

Stealing Wignal

STEALING WIGNAL

RIGHT FROM THE start I knew which mallet would do the job, didn’t I, boy?  That’s right – you wag your tail.  I know you can’t answer, at least not in words.  Getting on a bit, like me, aren’t you, but we understand each other.

I remember that morning like a picture in a prayer-book.

She was a lovely looking young lady, and very nice I’m sure.  But she had you, and I didn’t, and that wasn’t right.  Stepping out of the van for a quick recce, I knew right away there was a Wignal-shaped hole in my life that needed filling.  It hadn’t been long since I was planning for Barbara to – uh, leave – and work wasn’t really keeping my mind occupied, my hands properly busy.  Oh there was plenty of it – those two sharpies in the shop could batter me to my knees with jobs – but it didn’t quite cut the mustard.  Then along you came: bouncing past like a pug-shaped bullet of love.  Moist snout, bulgy eyes, tail wound up tight as a corkscrew.

Back in the van, I looked over my schedule for the week and saw it wouldn’t be much trouble to be here at the same time every day, parked up with sausage roll and Thermos, perhaps a copy of the Daily Mirror stuck in the front window.  Thinking done, I cast an eye over my tools.

They’re funny things, mallets.  Ask an upholsterer.  People think they’re just dumb bits of wood, and because they’re heavy, that they don’t have an intelligence all their own.  But in choosing the right one for the job there’s a certain calculation, and if you don’t do it right – believe me – you can be sure it’ll come back to bite you in the arse.

Take this job, for instance.  For a moment I thought about a wooden mallet, but quickly realised achieving the right sort of blow (good for a few minutes’ sleep, but not really incapacitating) wasn’t at all like smacking dowels into the end of a plank, so I moved along.  Dead-blow hammer?  Clearly not!  A carving mallet?  I didn’t intend leaving marks, so that was out, too.  Finally my eye reached the end of the rack and things slid sweetly into place.  A rubber mallet – of course!  Heavy enough to deliver the old knock-out-drops, but cushioned, not so hard on the bonce.  I promoted it from the tool rack onto the front seat, covered it up with the paper.

You didn’t know anything at all about it, did you, fella?  Come here – that’s a good lad.  In my lap, you daft old bugger!  You were just a pup twelve years ago, back when the world was a different place.  By the brick-paved lane that fed all the students into high school was a line of tall hedges.  Behind them, a row of flats.  No one ever seemed to come out of the flats, at least while I was around.  The school kids kept to their side of the road, swinging their bags and swearing and punching each other like they do.

That first morning, when you and the young lady came strolling along, I thought the pair of you looked like the king and queen of the walk.  She had a long red coat, you your navy-blue harness.  The two of you trotted by perky as you like, turning the corner by the flats.  I folded my paper and started up the van, but left the mallet where it lay.

I do miss Barbara, every now and then.  She was good with you at first, I’ll give her that.  Heated your kibbles up with warm water (warm mind, never hot); stirred in leftover fish-skins and whatnot to liven things up a bit.  You were like a little space-heater in her lap.  I never liked that, though.  A man’s dog should have some independence, a spot of dignity.  Cartoon bones all over your blanket!  I saw how you reacted, scrunching it up under your backside so you didn’t have to sit there like some pound shop Mickey Mouse.  It’s a blessing, really.  What a mess.

Not like your young lady in red, now.  Everything fell right into place, and you were as good as gold, almost as though we’d rehearsed it.  She rounded the corner at the far end of the brick walk, and I was getting out of the van.  Wearing my old apron with the deep pocket in the front, I opened the side door, hunched down on my knees and rooted in the gutter as though I’d dropped something.  When you trotted by I stood up and played the old duffer, asking would she be so kind as to stop a minute and help an old feller find his favourite tape measure, the one his wife’d bought him for Christmas, years ago.   She draped the leash on a bollard and bent over the drain.  One measured tap with the rubber mallet and she was fainting into my arms.  I laid her down between two evergreens, tucked her handbag under her arm, and popped the clasp on your collar.

‘Come on, Wignal,’ I said.  You gave me an odd look, then a grin.  I gave you a bum-bump through the side door and we were away, nice as pie.  We shared a bacon roll on the way home.

Strange – doesn’t seem like a dozen years ago.  I sometimes wonder what happened to her, and who’s jingling along at the end of that leash now.  But not very often.  You’re getting heavy yourself.  Come on, let’s get you up on the work-bench.  That back leg’s not just weak, you know; it’s gammy.  And I’m fed up swabbing the crust out of your eyes.

There you are.  Sit still while I have a think about mallets.  That’s a good boy, Wignal.  Keep still, now.

Have a Bonio.

First published in Button Eye Review (Spring 2021) and subsequently collected in To Say Nothing of the Dog: Flash Fiction (Cyberwit, 2023)

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