No Way to Say Goodbye - Anna McPartlin [1]
Mr Monkels was unimpressed. He sighed, and the sigh turned to a grunt, which was followed by the low wheezing that often made Mary wonder whether he had a form of dog asthma. Then again, as his age in dog years was the equivalent to eighty-one in humans, it was a miracle that he could breathe unaided, never mind go for a walk. Mary stroked his left ear, which, although deaf, still retained sensitivity to touch – the right, although in perfect working order, had been partly missing since a nasty fishing accident some years before.
Mary’s father had given her Mr Monkels, and he had been only two months old at the time of the accident, running around the deck of her uncle’s boat while she had concentrated on taking a black-and-white photo of a dead mackerel. Her cousin Ivan was practising casting. Accidentally and inexplicably the hook had found itself embedded in Mr Monkels’s ear. Mr Monkels yelped and Mary raised her head in time to see her puppy sail through the air like a furry missile. Ivan shouted, “Jesus on a jet-ski! Watch him go!” before the pup plummeted paws first into the water. He rose to the surface quickly, splashing and yelping. Ivan rescued him. Unfortunately, a large part of his ear had become what Ivan would later term “a casualty of the sea”.
Now she stroked his good ear, smiling at the memory of her puppy wagging his tail despite his near-death experience. She had thought back then that he either possessed Herculean bravery, or was Daffy-Duck stupid, and as it turned out, it was a little of both. She lost herself in his big brown cloudy eyes for a minute or two. His nose was dryer than she’d like. She picked up his head and moved it onto a waiting pillow. Mr Monkels moaned a little and briefly she wondered if, in promising him “tomorrow”, she’d led him up the proverbial garden path.
The cottage was old and quaint, well insulated and warm, with a homely smell of log fires and home cooking. This had been her primary reason for buying it. She liked its feel. The kitchen had been refurbished two years ago to Mary’s taste but in keeping with its old-worldliness. She liked pottery and had indulged herself with lamps, vases, plates and cups.
The walls were painted a deep purple but the colour was only partially visible under the multitude of black-framed photographs that lined them. As a teenager Mary had been consumed by photography, taking workshops after school and saving for a decent camera and darkroom equipment. Initially, she had shown a flair for black-and-white shots, injecting even the most mundane subject with mystique and beauty. In her late teens she had turned to portraits and hounded her friends for their faces and time. It had been her son who had inspired her to use colour, with his jet-black hair, pink cheeks and blue, blue eyes. A boy like Ben just didn’t belong in black-and-white.
Mary’s sitting room was like a gallery, with photos of the objects and people in her life, living and dead, on all sides. Her favourite image, for no particular reason, was of a crystal bowl in front of a window with light streaming through it, but there were others, too, of which she was fond: her father bent forward in deep concentration, his glasses on the tip of his nose and the paper in his hand; her auntie Sheila, apron on, hair pinned back, stirring a stew with a grin on her face that suggested she’d just heard a dirty joke; her cousin Ivan, tanned, lean and boyish in shorts and an old fishing cap, casting his line; her old boyfriend Robert, with his shining black hair and smiling eyes, linking arms with Ivan, who was pulling her friend Penny’s blonde hair; and Adam, Penny’s giant footballer boyfriend, laughing. Mary liked the photo of a black cart laden with freshly cut white lilies because it reminded her of the day that she and Robert, her first and perhaps only love, had gatecrashed a gypsy funeral to get drunk on generosity and free beer. These were only some of the photos she surrounded herself with.