The Little Girl in the Radiator: Mum Alzheimer's & Me (5 page)

THREE OR FOUR MONTHS earlier, I had joined
an internet dating site. It gave me something to do in the evening, and offered
the chance to talk to some ‘normal’ women now and then. I’d been out on a few
dates, and on the whole they had gone well. One night, one of the ladies had
even come to dinner.

‘What’s the weather like in Germany, Anna?’ mum had asked suddenly as we ate.

Anna and I looked at each other, both
slightly perplexed by the question, though I had briefed her before she came
into the house.

‘I don’t know, Rose,’ said Anna.

‘Well, how long have you been over here?’
asked mum.

‘Erm… I
live
here,’ said Anna. ‘I
mean, I only live a few miles away.’

‘You’ve picked up the language really
quickly,’ observed mum, ‘and you seem to have lost your accent.’

‘Anna’s not German, mum,’ I explained.
‘She’s from Rugby.’

‘A German parachutist came down in Dublin once,’ said mum, oblivious. ‘During the war. He landed in Bath Avenue. It was all
over the papers. Did you know him?’

‘Anna’s too young to have been in the war,’ I
said. ‘And she isn’t German, anyway.’

Mum pondered this for a bit. ‘I’d have
thought you would have been a bit more blonde,’ she said, eventually.

I won’t recite the rest of the dinner
conversation here; suffice it to say that there was no shifting from mum’s head
the idea that my dinner date was German. I never saw Anna again.

I had made quite a few friends on the site,
and one of them – Marianne – was having to leave her home and move into a flat.
She didn’t go into too much detail, but I got the impression that money was
scarce and she was desperate. She seemed nice enough, and when she told me how
she was going to have to have her dog put down, as the new landlord had
specified there were to be no pets under any circumstances, my heart went out
to her. I asked her why she didn’t give the dog to the RSPCA; she said that
‘Bruno’ was not good with strangers, and had frightened the people at the local
shelter. She assured me that he was the kindest, most loving dog anyone could
ever hope to have, and, in a moment of foolish weakness, I agreed to take him
in for a few weeks until Marianne got herself back on her feet. Bruno was in a
kennel about a hundred miles south of where I lived, and I arranged with the
kennel owner to drive down on the Saturday morning and take him home with me.

I’ve always loved animals, and they have
always seemed to like me, too. So I didn’t really think twice about giving
Bruno a home for a short while. I thought it might give mum an interest, and
perhaps take her mind off her fantasies for a while. He would also give her
some responsibility during the day while I was at work, and would deter anyone
from trying to force their way into the house. From a lot of angles, it seemed
like having a dog to stay for a while was a very good idea.

I told mum about Bruno and she seemed
thrilled. She’d had a little poodle called Sandy years ago, and had cried when
he had eventually died of old age.

‘It will be great to have a dog about the
house again,’ she declared.

So when Saturday morning came around, I
kissed mum, locked her into the house, said I wouldn’t be long, and set off to
fetch Bruno.

It took me around two hours to get to the
village. The drive down was pleasant, winding through countryside, the sight of
green fields and hedgerows enlivening my spirits. The kennel was situated next
to a farm; I found it, pulled through the gate and stopped. It was a
dilapidated old place, with rusty sheets of corrugated iron thrown here and
there against walls and chickens wandering about. An old lady’s head wrapped in
a red scarf emerged from around an open door. She seemed to be struggling with
something heavy inside the red brick outbuilding.

‘I’ve come for Bruno,’ I announced cheerily.

‘And you can bloody well have ’im!’ she
shouted back, and her head disappeared inside again.

She reappeared momentarily, heaving herself
through the door and dragging one leg behind her as she walked. At first, I
wondered if she was disabled; but then I saw that she had to walk like that
because a medium-sized brown dog was attached to her right leg. It was
clutching her waist with its forelegs and pumping its rear at her thigh,
growling fiercely and showing a row of snow-white, sharp teeth the whole time.
As the old woman moved down the path, the dog was hopping on its back legs to
keep up with her.

‘He does this sometimes,’ she shouted at me
breathlessly, as she laboured down the path towards me. The dog was still
pumping away and growling the whole time. ‘It’s best to leave him to it. He’ll
be finished in a minute.’

Sure enough, at that the dog stopped
growling and let go, dropping down to all fours and looking quizzically up at
me. He was out of breath, and started to pant; his tongue was hanging out of
his mouth, and a long line of saliva dribbled its way down to the ground. The
old woman picked up the loose end of a rope which had been trailing along the
floor. The other end was knotted around the dog’s neck.

‘Told you he wouldn’t be long,’ she said.

Bruno was the strangest looking dog I have
ever seen. There was definitely some Alsatian in him, especially the coat and
tail, and a bit of terrier, but the rest of the breeds mixed into him were
unfathomable. His snout was long and thin like a Doberman’s, and he had huge
feet like a Great Dane’s. His ears stuck out horizontally, like Yoda’s.

‘What sort is he?’ I asked.

‘Fuck knows!’ she gasped. ‘Here, take him.’

The old woman handed Bruno over to me, and
immediately he began to snarl and show me his fine, long, white teeth.

‘Careful!’ warned the old woman, retreating
back into the barn. ‘He bites.’

I took one end of the old rope very
carefully; Bruno pulled away from me on the other, snarling all the time.

‘Hello, Bruno!’ I said, in as cheery and
friendly a way as I could. I remembered that everyone says a dog can tell when you’re
scared. ‘Who’s a good boy, then!’

Immediately, he charged forwards and leapt
into the air, his front paws smacking me squarely in the middle of the chest;
then, in one smooth movement, he pushed himself off me and then hit the ground
running. Clearly, he thought he was making a bolt for it.

‘Jesus!’ I shouted. I hadn’t expected that,
and my heart started to thump madly in my chest. Somehow I managed to keep hold
of the rope.

After gaining some measure of composure, I
decided to take Bruno for a walk so we might get to know one another. Maybe
familiarity with me might calm him down a bit.

‘Come on, Bruno,’ I said, and we set off
down the farm track, back to the road.

He began to walk on the rope fairly well,
but every second or two he would give me a suspicious glance, and I knew he was
as wary of me as I was of him. We headed down the track, along the road for a
bit and then back into the farm by a second rutted driveway. By the time we
were back where we’d started, after a few hundred yards or so, the dog seemed
to be lightening up a bit.

‘Good boy, Bruno,’ I said, and we stopped.

He looked at me, and I looked at him. I
didn’t really know what to do next. I decided to talk to him. I knelt down in
front of him, so I wouldn’t be towering over him, and might not look quite so
intimidating.

‘Are we going to be friends?’ I said.

Bruno bared his teeth, but didn’t growl. I
had brought with me some dog chews, and I brought one out of my pocket, and
waved it gingerly in front of his face.

‘Do you want this?’ I asked.

Bruno licked his lips.

‘Are you going to be a good boy?’ I asked.

He licked his lips again. Very slowly and
carefully, I reached forwards with the chew, and Bruno took it gently from me.
When it was in his mouth I seized the opportunity to stroke him. It would have
been hard for him to bite me with a great big dog chew already in his jaws.

‘Good boy, Bruno,’ I said, stroking his
head. ‘Let’s go round again!’

We set off down the track once more. This
time he didn’t pull on the rope, and didn’t seem to glance so suspiciously at
me as we went. When we completed the second circuit, I gave him another chew.

‘Once more round, I think,’ I said, and we
set off again.

This time Bruno walked beside me, and didn’t
warn me when I petted him. He seemed to understand that I meant him no harm; I
hoped he was started to feel similarly benign towards me. And when we completed
the third circuit of the farm, Bruno seemed a much happier dog.

‘Time to get into the car, and take you
home, mate,’ I said.

I opened the rear car door and Bruno jumped
straight in. He was obviously used to travelling in a car. He sat in the rear
passenger seat, like a person might, and I started the engine and drove down
the farm track to the road.

We hadn’t been going for more than a couple
of minutes when it started. Bruno leaned forwards and, with his mouth about an
inch and a half from my left ear, started to growl. I was in traffic by this
time, and couldn’t pull over. I began to sweat: I really thought he was going
to bite me in the back of my head.

‘There’s a good boy!’ I shouted as we sped
along. ‘Who’s a good boy, then?’

Bruno continued to growl deep and low, the
sort of growl that comes from deep in a dog’s chest. He growled continuously as
we went along. It was the most unnerving experience of my life. The more I
tried to reassure him, the deeper and louder he growled, and the whole time his
mouth was never more than two inches away from my left ear. He was so close to
my head that I could feel his warm breath on the side of my neck the entire way
home.

Two and a half hours later I pulled into
mum’s drive with a blinding headache, and Bruno still growling in my left ear.

I opened my door and got out. My shirt was
wringing wet with sweat all down my back. I opened the rear door, took hold of his
rope and pulled gently.

‘Come on boy,’ I said. ‘Let’s go inside.’

He refused to budge. I pulled harder on his
rope, but he wouldn’t move off the back seat. Finally, in an effort to show him
that he was going to have to behave I shouted at him. ‘Bruno!’ I bawled. ‘Get
out of the fucking car!’

He jumped out. I wondered what his home life
had been like before. I opened the front door and led Bruno into the house. In
case he was unfriendly with mum, I decided not to let go of his rope until he
and she had become acquainted.

‘Mum,’ I called as we came into the kitchen,
‘this is Bruno.’

Bruno ran around mum’s legs, sniffing her.

Mum handed Bruno a cheese sandwich which he
took from her straight away.

‘Hello, Barney,’ she said. ‘I made you some
supper.’

Bruno sat in the kitchen with the cheese
sandwich in his mouth, looking at mum. When mum moved into the front room,
Bruno followed her. When she sat in the armchair, Bruno climbed up beside her
on the seat, the cheese sandwich still in his mouth.

‘Get down,’ said mum, and Bruno got down.

Mum took the cheese sandwich from Bruno, he
chewed what was left in his mouth, and mum reached over, opened his mouth and
popped in a whole tomato.

‘Good boy, Boris,’ she said.

I had never seen a dog register true
surprise on its face before, but when Bruno felt the whole tomato on his tongue
it must have been a new sensation for him. He looked both surprised and
bewildered. His eyes opened wide and he looked at me.

That was the beginning of an extraordinary
friendship between my mother and this strange dog. Bruno ate what we ate. I
came home from work one day to see him eating beans on toast, followed by
chocolate biscuits. He had a wonderful way of dealing with baked beans on
toast. Somehow, he would manage to lift the slice of toast still intact, very
carefully out of his bowl, with the beans dripping off the end of it; then when
he had raised the slice high enough into the air, he would shake his head as
violently from side to side as he possibly could. I used to really hate the
sound of the beans splattering up the front of the fridge, up mum’s legs, up
the wallpaper, and up my clothes from hem to hat.

He often had cheese sandwiches, and he
seemed to like the odd battered fish. A full English breakfast was always his
favourite, though: bacon, sausage, fried egg, beans, hash brown, mushrooms,
tomatoes, black pudding and toast. He had a cup of tea with the band in the
afternoon, said mum, and on Fridays they all had cream cakes: mum, the Irish
band, the little girl in the radiator, and Bruno. Cold custard slices and jam
doughnuts were his favourites, she said.

I knew nothing about Bruno’s history, but I
got the impression he had not been that well treated. As I watched them
cuddling together in the armchair one evening, it struck me that they were both
lost souls in what could be a very confusing and often painful world, and for
the short time Bruno was with us each had found a soul mate, a companion to
cling to when the world became mysterious and unpredictable.