Emma the poodle - by Jaci Stephen
We bought a chocolate brown poodle and called her
Emma, after Emma Peel in the television series The
Avengers. Emma could not have avenged a mouse, but she
had considerably more personality than Horace the goldfish, who was
already history. Emma's speciality was playing a game
called Hats Off, that I had been given for Christmas.
For a poodle, she showed incredible adeptness at
understanding the rules. The game needed four players,
each of whom had a launch pad they had to load with
small, triangular coloured plastic hats; then you took
aim and fired the hat into a central reservation of
holes. Emma loved it. She sat beside it the whole of
Christmas Day, rising only to press her paw on the
launcher and, when it spurred into action, run away in
terror.
Emma was like one of the family, and treated as
such - but not when she was menstruating. The light
green Dralon Maskreys suite and Emma's ovulation cycle
were always going to be incompatible, and during these
messy times she was locked in the kitchen with her
plastic dog called Fido and told not to move, which,
for a dog used to being allowed to enjoy the delights
of Hats Off, must have been something of a mystery.
The other reason for Emma's banishment, apart from
the non-bloodproof suite, was my grandmother. She was
a regular visitor to the house for Sunday afternoon
tea, and if a Maskreys suite and menstruating poodles
were never going to get it together, there was no way
a menstruating poodle was going to make an appearance
on the Lord's day in the presence of chocolate sponge.
Bloody poodles, even more than bloody females, were
deemed unsuitable company for a lady of my
grandmother's delicate sensibilities, and Emma's
propensity to lick herself at every opportunity during
these difficult times was a habit guaranteed to put
Grandma off her Welsh cakes.
Emma was run over on the day we moved to Bridgend.
Nigel and I were being given lunch by Dilys Dover, who
lived three doors away, and the screech of brakes that
nearly killed Emma brought us rushing out into the
road with hysterical sobs. But she lived, albeit with
a limp.
Dad never forgave himself for not cleaning out the
boiler flue that eventually killed Emma at the age of
eight. On the morning of her death, it was not, as it
usually was, my father who woke me with a cup of tea,
but my mother, and it was Saturday.
"Something's happened that I've dreaded happening
for a long time," she said. "Emma's dead." She was
crying. Emma had always been referred to as her dog. I
cried too. Dad, through his tears and a desperate,
withdrawn expression that I discovered only later was
guilt, took care of the body and laid it in a black
plastic bag outside the back door.
When I went out, I looked in the bag. Emma was
lying on her side. I touched her and quickly drew my
hand away. Despite Horace's post-death silence, God's
speciality - the waking of the dead - was still my
greatest fear. Contemplating another poke at Emma, I
reasoned that if Jesus could raise Laarus with a few
words, the chances of a small girl raising a dead
poodle with one gentle prod seemed pretty high too.
The fact that Jesus was the Son of God and I wasn't
did not enter the equation; if you were a Christian,
there was no guarantee that dead meant dead.
I did not risk touching her again, and Emma didn't
move. Her fur was still soft and her eyes were closed,
but she was dead all right. I never asked Dad what he
did with her. Maybe he buried her in the garden, in
the plot next to the fish (they never resurfaced in
the toilet bowl, so I gave Dad the benefit of the
doubt). The house where she died now has a swimming
pool where we once had blackberry bushes, chives and a
lawn. Perhaps some workman, digging the foundations,
discovered our small animal tomb, rolled away the
stone, and found nothing but the black plastic bag in
which Emma's body had been wrapped.
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