Joshua would do his dog thing. He would come padding and
panting up to me, usually when I was busy and pin me to the chair, the bed, the floor, and lick at me. He would lick my ears to be sexy, but he made them wet. He would fall in my lap. And for some reason he would sniff the back of my neck, which smelled of me, he said, he didn’t know why, but it did and he liked it. He sometimes forgot himself and sniffed my neck when we were in company, coming up behind me and taking in great lungfuls in short little sniffs. Maybe it was to do with heat. Aunty Anne used to say you had to wear a woolly hat in winter, because your body heat escaped out of your head and if that got cold you were done for. For someone who wanted to keep glamorous, Aunty Anne was full of old lady wisdom. She thought that was the best combination of qualities. I thought maybe my heat escaped out of the nape of my neck and for Josh it was perfumed, and coded with my essence.
He did his dog things. He even made dog noises. Not barking like barking mad. Odd whines when he was wanting something, queer dipthongs from low in his throat. Woofs of pleasure, sometimes. This was what drove Katy away, seeing her only natural parent revert like this. We embarrassed her. I embarrassed her by giving in to her father’s tender, dogged ministrations.
Serena thought she had housetrained my husband years before.
You have to leave spread newspaper at each door for a puppy. Josh would come in, pick it up, read it. You have to listen for them scratching at the door and telling you when they want to be out. A puppy doesn’t really want to foul his own basket, so you have to be alert to scratches. Joshua took to going out at strange hours. You have to tap a puppy on the nose sometimes to tell them no. Joshua perfected hurt, puppy eyes. And they get frisky, puppies, and try to hump your leg. They’d hump anyone’s leg, their little cocks easing out like lipstick. They’d do the conga with you if they could. Sometimes you have to brush them off, or they’ll keep you all the time. And they can’t see past the next five minutes.
Was Joshua living in doggy time?
Odd thing was, he never preferred taking me in what is embarrassingly called doggy fashion. Sometimes I like it, to feel him inside me in a different way, swivelled all the way round like that—versatile as a Kenwood chef. He liked to fuck me with my legs over his shoulders and him looking right into my face and he’d lick my ears when he knew I couldn’t do much more than twist underneath him and sometimes that would make me laugh and sometimes it wouldn’t. He had a flair for fucking, did Joshua, and came over all abashed when I told him so. But he did and it isn’t everyone. He was just right. He could be snug and pounding and gentle and slow and frantic in all the right combinations. I think he listened to my body. A retriever in the long grass with his head cocked. Let the dog see the rabbit.
I’m saying it all past tense. Tense is so cruel. I can’t believe I’ll never fuck him again. Dogs are fickle, you know.
Joshua came back the next afternoon as if nothing was strange and I said nothing about the book I had found. I slipped it back between the bed settee cushions as if I had never seen it. I would decide what to do about it after my little trip. Katy and I were going away together for a few days.
“What do you mean you forgot?”
“You told me you were going to Scotland. I forgot it was this week.” He looked affronted that we were packing when he finally showed up at home. Katy gave her father a quick peck, as she wandered from room to room with armfuls of ironed clothes. She still had a faint green tinge. Neither of us had mentioned David Moore. Katy had enough sense not to bring him up.
I didn’t know what to think about finding Timon’s book. I went on packing. Joshua sat himself in his study, beside his pickled horse’s head and read the paper, eating cherry tomatoes. He’d be there for hours.
“Look,” I said at last. “We can stay here a couple of extra days. We don’t have to meet Timon till then. We’ll stay a little longer.”
He cheered up. “I wanted to take you both out to dinner, for Katy’s birthday.” He was out of his chair and clutching me. “I thought you were leaving me alone out of revenge!”
“This has been planned for weeks, Josh.”
“I know. You know what I’m like.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll do anything. I won’t stay out anymore. I’ll even chuck away that bloody horrible horse’s head.”
“Whatever, Joshua.”
“Why are you calling me by my full name?” He stared at me. “You only do that when there’s something wrong.”
“Do I?”
“I listen to you.”
“But there is something wrong, isn’t there?”
So we went out to dinner, two nights running. Joshua pushing the boat out, delighted with our company, showing off.
“Shame your young man couldn’t be here,” Josh said to Katy, who scowled. David hadn’t been invited. Josh must have been talking to Serena, I thought.
“Tell me again,” he said brightly. “Tell me what this trip is all about. Should I be coming with you?”
We were in an old, converted, high-domed bank. Our table seemed a hundred miles from all the others. We had potted palms secluding us, dangling their lush fingers over our plates. On a platform a woman was singing
