Squeaky Ball

Norbert

Chapter 39

Squeaky Ball

I enter the house after our evening walk and hang Weggie’s lead on the hatstand, which no longer contains hats. We’re not stupid. Weggie trots straight into the kitchen to see what’s for supper. There is always a little treat waiting for him.

Nunky is watching a football match on the telly. ‘I’ve made you some cocoa, mi babby.’

‘Thank you.’ I lift the cold milk from the coffee table and drink. ‘Who’s winning?’

‘The team what has scored the most goals.’

A shot skims the post and the ball flies into the crowd, which erupts at the valiant attempt on goal. Weggie hurtles into the room, crashes into the television and pukes a mouthful of partly digested burger onto the screen. It sticks like a snowball on a wall.

‘That is gross,’ says Nunky. ‘Clean it off, mi babby.’

‘He’s your dog, you clean it off.’

The goalkeeper retrieves the ball and bounces it several times. Weggie lunges at the screen again, trying to snap it out of his hands.

‘This isn’t flyball,’ I chastise, as the TV rocks back into place.

Weggie, his view of the match impeded, barks in frustration. As neither of us shows any inclination to move, he takes matters into his own hands and licks away the stodgy mess, smearing it all over the screen, leaving me with no choice but to fetch the dish cloth.

Vision restored, Weggie settles down to watch the game, but in less than a minute his stomach reminds him he is half way through supper. He glances over his shoulder, calculating if he has time to nip into the kitchen and grab a few more mouthfuls. But then he sees the ball in tantalizing close-up and has to attack the screen. This goes on for the rest of the game, him getting up, walking to the door, changing his mind, coming back, laying down, whining in frustration and occasionally battering the berdollox out of the telly. Thank God for the final whistle.

‘How long has this being going on?’

‘I assume the roar of the crowd at flyball started it. That’s what attracts him. He doesn’t care whether it’s football, rugby, volleyball, basketball or even snooker. He’ll happily watch the balls roll into the pockets for hours on end, but it’s the crowd that fires him up.’

‘Why couldn’t ours be a normal dog, one that humps a cushion and then goes to sleep?’

‘I know how to cure it, mi babby. We just need some Davids.’

‘Who is David?’

Nunky and Weggie look at one another with heads tilted as though in telepathic communication.

‘Weggie says take out the bowels.’

‘What bowels?’

‘David’s bowels.’

‘Weggie wants me to eviscerate someone called David?’

It takes another five minutes to realise that removing the “a” and “i” from David leaves DVD.

This is what it’s like living with someone who’s special on days when the light is off, someone who sees abbreviations as words.

‘That’s right. We buy him some football Davids so he can watch them on the telly box in his bedroom without disturbing us and spitting his supper on the screen.’

‘That would be quite a good idea, Nunky, if Weggie actually had a TV in his…’ I catch the look and groan.

‘It’s his little treat for winning the flyball. I was telling Mr Singh-Song next door about it and it was his suggestion. He even arranged it all for me, including delivery and installation.’

‘That was very kind of him,’ I say, gruffly, ‘but where did the money come from?’ (Mr Singh-Song, who once owned a local taxi firm, now run by his two sons, spends much of his retirement reading on his sun terrace. Weggie spends much of his time reared up on his hind legs, staring longingly over the garden fence at Mr Singh-Song’s turban. It’s easy to see why he would so readily volunteer to help keep Weggie indoors more often.) ‘Did Weggie contribute using his ill-gotten gains?’

‘What ill-gotten gains?’

‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Nunky, but Weggie has gone back to his old ways and you have, unwittingly, been helping him.’

‘How?’

‘Leaving him unattended in a public house where he is known and feared is bad enough, but I also believe you’ve been letting him out on his own, haven’t you?’

‘I wouldn’t do such a thing.’

‘On the day I went to purchase his licence, I came out of the post office to discover that Weggie had stolen a charity box belonging to Guide Dogs for the Intoxicated…’

‘The same people what sponsor the flyball?’

‘Yes, and he refused to give it up. I took it from his room and dropped it off at their headquarters during my lunch hour. I told them I’d found it in a skip. They thanked me for my honesty and said I had made a lot of drunks very happy. Since then there must have been more thefts, because all the money boxes have been withdrawn from the streets.’

Nunky looks down and sighs. ‘Yes, I know.’

‘Yes you know they’ve been withdrawn or yes you know Weggie is responsible?’

Nunky stands up. ‘I’m afraid this demands more cocoa.’

He brings the milk in, sits next to me on the sofa and takes hold of my hand. ‘You are fairly distinctive looking, as is Weggie. Put you together and you’re pretty unique. The police had no trouble in identifying the thieves…’

I stiffen. ‘Tickle our Lord! The police have been here?’

‘The Guide Dog people told the police you had returned the money box. Inside they counted six times more money than any box ever. It was the Guide Dog people came to see me, not the police.’

‘What did they say?’

‘The lady took one look at Weggie and cried. Even though we keep him clean and feed him proper and make him eat most of his vegetables, to her experienced eye she could see what Weggie has been through. And that made me cry, too, mi babby.’

Nunky cries again. I gently take his cocoa, place it on the coffee table and hold him tight. Weggie sits on his other side and nuzzles him with his tattered snout. Nunky strokes his head.

‘We postumulated that Weggie had probably lived with an alkyholic man who may have been cruel to him or simply ignored him, because he was drunk all the time in The Fisherman’s Friend and probably not getting the help he so desperately needed, because he was really a nice man for whom things had turned bad, probably because he was married to a woman like Auntie. And when Weggie saw people walking past the plastic guide dogs day after day and ignoring them and not putting any money in their boxes he decided to collect the money himself and he was going to wait until he’d got enough to buy a proper guide dog and then tell us…’

Nunky swoons and slips to the carpet. Weggie licks his face and brings him round. Between us, we get him back on the sofa and I make him drink some cocoa.

Nunky licks his lips and continues. ‘The lady said she wanted to ask me something cheeky, so I put my fingers in my ears, but it wasn’t something rude cheeky. She asked if Weggie would mind helping them to raise funds by sitting with a box in the city centre once a week and Weggie said yes as long as he can choose the location.’

‘Which is?’

‘Outside Grease-to-Go, that burger joint on the High Street.’

‘Good choice.’

‘He earns so much money they no longer need the pretend dogs, and he gets a free dinner.’

‘This has already started? Without my knowledge?’

‘How do you think Guide Dogs for the Intoxicated could afford to sponsor the flyball championships? Having their star fund raiser competing raised the profile of the event. Previous to this year, the biggest crowd was seventy, and most of those were giddy women and cricketers there for that beautiful man you work with. Weggie brought in over four hundred paying customers. They more than tripled their investment.’

‘I didn’t do too badly out of it myself, thanks to him, though his beauty is only skin deep. Underneath he’s just plain nasty.’ I drink some cocoa to remove the taste of GT from my mouth. ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this?’

Nunky pats the back of my hand. ‘You wouldn’t have understood, mi babby. There are just some things what have to be left to grown-ups.’

‘Come here you big soft rascal,’ I say to Weggie, and open my arms in invitation.

Instead of leaping up to lick me, Weggie rams a slightly deflated football into my groin. He is clearly more discerning about who he kisses than Isabel. Having seen what damage he can do with a beer mat, I am prepared, and manage to get my hands in the way just in time. I throw the ball across the room. Weggie leaps up and crushes it between his powerful jaws, expelling air through some sort of internal device that makes a loud squeaking noise.

‘Squeaky ball, Weggie, squeaky ball,’ Nunky yells, fidgeting in excitement.

Weggie thrashes his tail in ecstasy and clamps his powerful jaws shut again.

‘Squeaky ball,’ Nunky shouts, as Weggie bundles it into my lap again.

I squeeze the ball with all my might, but am too puny to make it squeak.

Weggie cocks his one and a half ears at me in disgust.

Nunky leaps off the sofa and runs round the lounge, dodging around the furniture. I notice from the sound that he is wearing his brand new leather shoes rather than his slippers.

‘Squeaky shoes, Weggie, squeaky shoes,’ he yells, flashing behind the sofa, Weggie in hot pursuit, snapping playfully at his feet.

We never had fun like this in Brundy.