He paused before pulling into the main courtyard, admiring the familiar spread, the old barns converted into kennels and the paddock filled with the big Malinois dogs that Claire raised for the military. They were bounding around the score or so of basset hounds who had cleverly developed their own game of running in between the legs of the Malinois to make them trip over. He could imagine Balzac enjoying that. As he parked, Claire came out to greet him.
‘Bonjour, Bruno,’ she said, embracing him. ‘It’s good to see you, and the puppies are enchanting. How’s the new father?’
He laughed. ‘Blissfully ignorant of his new status.’ He handed her the gifts. ‘I’m sure his pups are too young for my dog biscuits but Diane de Poitiers and the other dogs may enjoy them.’
‘They certainly scoffed down the last lot you brought,’ she said. ‘I even tried one myself and enjoyed it. Let’s go see the new family.’
She led him to the familiar converted pigsty, which he had known as the mating chamber and was now a maternity ward. Before going inside she turned, looking serious.
‘Stay back well behind me, kneel down so you don’t intimidate her and stay silent until I say it’s all right,’ she said firmly. He nodded.
‘Of course.’
‘Even then, speak very softly. Don’t touch her and please don’t move towards the puppies. In the unlikely event that one of them pulls back from the teats and crawls towards you, stay absolutely still and let them explore you a little but please don’t react and don’t stroke them. She’s very protective just now and she might reject one that has your unfamiliar smell. It was an easy birth, no complications, but still, she’s exhausted and with a pup on almost every teat she has enough to deal with without you. OK?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘May I take some photos on my phone?’
‘Not if you have automatic flash. I already took some for you when she was sleeping. I’ll take some more over the next few days and forward them to you. And if I tell you to leave, please do so quietly and without abrupt movements.’
She opened the door and Bruno saw the red light from the infra-red lamp and heater. He was surprised to see it being used in summer. A strong scent of dog and milk and something indefinable reached him, not at all unpleasant and faintly reminiscent of truffles. He rather liked it. Claire slipped in, pulled the door to and he waited for a few moments before she opened it again and gestured him in.
Bruno did as he was told, moved slowly, crouching, and staying by the door, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the red light. The scent was even stronger now. As he peered forward he saw what seemed to be a crawling, heaving mass of legs and heads and squirming bodies. It reminded him of some kind of hive, a complex but single organism. The image stayed with him until he was able to pick out the individual puppies. They seemed to be the usual mixture of black, brown and white in various individual patterns, and there were two who were pale brown and white. Even in the red light, the pads of their feet were as pink as their mother’s teats and he smiled at the memory of Balzac as a pup, the soft underflesh of his paws this same pink before they hardened and became dark. The fullness of Diane’s teats was striking and the pups were piled on top of one another to reach them. Each of the pups seemed to be affixed to a teat, except for one very small one who was nuzzling at its mother’s lowered head. He felt a touch of awe as he watched, aware that as a male he was privileged to be present at this most intimately female of moments.
One, a black, brown and white pup on the upper tier of teats, seemed to lose his grip and fall off, tumbling over its siblings below and then rolling a little on the bed of hay. The mother nuzzled the pup, using her nose to push the tiny creature back up the pile to a vacant teat. But the pup seemed curious. Bruno couldn’t even see if its eyes had opened yet but it raised its head a little and moved it from side to side, as if sniffing curiously at this new world before going back to feed.
He tried to count them in the constantly shifting pattern of fur and legs and pale pink tummies, but it was impossible. He assumed Claire had counted as each pup was born and he was impressed that she had already determined the sex of each one. To his untrained eyes and in the dim red light, there was no visible difference between them.
The mother was now trying to push the tiny brown and white one towards a teat, and the bigger puppy, who’d seemed curious just now, was crawling over her hind legs as though heading towards Claire. Gently, its mother pushed it back and helped it clamber over a row of siblings to find an empty teat on the second level. Bruno could have stayed watching for hours, deciding it was far more interesting and affecting than any television.
‘I’m thinking of giving one of them to two young children I know,’ he whispered. ‘They are twins,
