Breathtaken

 

I decided to walk to the end of the island. 

 

It’s funny I had never thought of doing this before. Happy with the idea of being able to see the beautiful views of Orkney through my window, or equally happy to get in the car and drive to a scenic spot, I hadn’t ever considered walking out of the front door and continuing. 

 

There is one road that goes through Burray. It curves all the way round the island and if you’re in a car shoots off to one of the two neighbouring islands in the archipelago. But if you’re on foot the road doesn’t have to curve, and it doesn’t remain a main road either. It turns into a single track and goes on straight over a very low undulating hill. 

 

I had a dog with me so I felt there was more purpose to my walk, although I’m sure if you were a seasoned rambler you wouldn’t think twice about it. Walking a dog gets me out of awkward situations, like standing aimlessly outside a person’s garden as they hang their washing on the line. I can’t help worrying that if I didn’t have a dog the residents would think, ‘What is she doing up here?’

 

The rustle of my waterproof jacket and the clink of ROLO’s nametag on her collar added rhythm to my momentum.

 

As you walk further away from the main road and the pier, the sights and sounds fall away too. You start straining to look at things in the distance. The cluster of houses on the opposite island, South Ronaldsay, look like a quaint fishing village from a time of sepia photographs. The number of telegraph poles lessen until you look up and spot a single one with four thick wires, each extending to a lone house. 

 

The old houses are bungalows. Low and squat to the ground to withstand the battering wind. There are barely any trees in Orkney, so there’s nothing to break the horizon when you take in the scenery with a sweeping gaze. Flat as a pebble. I can clearly see the hills of Orphir on the mainland as if I were looking through a telescope. Picking out details like walking trails and telephone masts – or am I making it up and my eyes are filling in the blanks of the maroon dark hills. 

 

Unused to seeing anything that far away I begin to doubt what’s real. 

 

There is nothing between sea and sky apart from us.

 

You’d think the breath-taking views are the thing that takes your breath away. It’s not. It’s the quiet. I stop walking and it’s totally quiet – so I stop breathing. A seagull glides in the air and falls back, like a film that’s dropped its decibels down to zero to add weight to its frames. 

 

When a bird chirrups it’s like a phone ringing. 

When a cow moos it’s like a dinner gong. 

Suddenly you’re aware you are breathing and it’s the loudest thing on earth. 

 

The wind stopped for a second and I was engulfed by my own sound, the rushing of blood and body heat to a degree which makes me think I am never sensationally aware of my existence. It’s shocking. I braced myself; I missed the banal buzz of beings; clung onto the sound of the city for safety, but it felt goddam sacred too.

 

I plodded on escaping from the sound of myself into the wind and up hill, hell bent on reaching the end of the island. Maybe I would see a selkie? I got up the gravel path but was impeded by a tractor parked at the end where a big man was getting out of its cab. 

 

The farmer had stopped beside a field where another man was strolling towards him. They both looked similar. Big rubber boots, heavyset bodies, sweat-browned faces, dried mud mingled with hay on their trousers. They looked weather-worn and comfortable.

 

The man who’d left his tractor sidled up to the fence where his friend now stood leaning over it with both arms. I turned and headed back catching their opening conversation, which chimed through the silence at the far edges of this island.

 

-       I’d thought you’d died. You’ve growan a beerd an’ evry’in.

 

-       Aye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Travelling to Orkney

 

The Caledonian Sleeper was cancelled. We had slogged ourselves to Euston with a full rucksack, folded up pink dog crate, and a dog. Once we arrived the big black departure boards looming over the station hall were blank, so I thought, ‘typical everything’s broken’. Then I learnt there had been flash floods and a small fire had broken out on a track and that all trains were cancelled. Dejected we trailed back home on the Northern Line and the DLR and I booked the earliest train to Aberdeen the next morning. (The ferry to Orkney leaves once every two days so, if I didn’t make this connection then my holiday would be cut short and Granny would be sad.) 

 

I took at taxi at 5:30am the following day with a sleepy puppy. I was worrying about travel, timings and toilet breaks. The first leg of the journey was King’s Cross to Edinburgh. Outside King’s Cross station I walked around the severe green squares hemmed in by tall business blocks and austere coffee shops, waiting for ROLO to relieve herself. It’s mainly construction workers in orange glow and hard hats at this time of day. The humidity of London had brought out many snails, leaving irksome trails of slime along the immaculate buffed concrete. 

 

I managed to stop off for two hours in one my favourite cities in the world: Edinburgh. It was a hot day with clear skies and bright sunshine. Even with a bag strapped to my back and both hands full, I enjoyed walking along Princes Street gardens and gazing up at the hill with a giant castle on top. Edinburgh Fringe memories came flooding back; the excitement of live shows, the familiarity of long walks flyering poor passers-by, being fun drunk, feeling insatiable, stupid youth. 

 

Hopped back on the train at Edinburgh Waverley to Aberdeen, which is a two and a half hour ride. On board, a Dundee granny surrounded by her six or seven granddaughters fed ROLO some boiled sweets. ‘Nan! You can’t do that! Ask first.’ She looked over at me with wide eyes and a gummy grin and I couldn’t tell her off – I’m not that brave. She said, ‘These lot are all my grandchildren.’ I said, ‘wow’. ‘We bin t’Edinburgh to do sm’shoppin.’ With that the rest of the ride was filled with squabbles, shouting, mock tears, laughter, the nan trying to find her mask while being berated by a gaggle of girls who were sweet and screechy and all too much.

 

I made it to the ferry in Aberdeen one hour before departure time! I met a Shetlander along the way who was going home for one day to ‘sort out some business’, very vague and I couldn’t understand every third word he said to me. On board – this was the stage I was most worried about – ROLO had to be put in kennels. I didn’t want to part with her immediately, but dogs aren’t allowed in the interior parts of the ferry, so I sat outside with her on deck. 

 

The sun was out and the crossing was smooth. I found a sheltered spot where it wasn’t too windy and made friends with a man who was born in Stromness and left the islands when he was seventeen. He was returning for a holiday after having sailed the Atlantic in his catamaran with his partner. He had deep characteristic wrinkles and bright eyes, reminding me of a Richard Branson type. Sometimes, I wished I could be an old man with tall tales, rather than drifting into middle-aged womanhood worrying about her wrinkles. 

 

An hour into the journey I had to put ROLO into kennels. I was guided below deck by a uniformed crew member. He unlocked many doors and finally swung open a heavy door into a room of metal cages. One husky was sat upright looking harrowed. The sound of the ship’s engines whirred aggressively in the background. ‘Christ, I didn’t want to leave her in here.’ I put a water bowl in the cage for her, but she scrabbled to get out. I bolted the door and then I was led out. The crew switched off the lights, so it was pitch black in there and the heavy door was locked shut. I wasn’t allowed to see her again until 9pm.

 

Upstairs in the dining room I felt awful while I ate a good macaroni and cheese. Usually, the ferry is bustling with big oil tanker lads drinking beers, parents with prams and kids running around reckless. This time everything was sombre, the bar was only going to be open between the hours of 7-9pm. You could only sit on every other table because of social distancing. No wandering about the boat with drinks. Announcements being made about having to wear masks at all times because we are in Scotland – alluding to Sturgeon’s independent and safer concerns on how to curb Covid-19.

 

We arrived at Kirkwall at 11pm. Dad picked me up wearing yellow trousers, looking happy. ROLO had made it! She was scruffy and wet from her spilled water bowl, but still with a wagging tail and bright eyes. I collected my bag off the trolley and Dad drove us home. ROLO passed out on my trouser leg. I looked through the windows at the islands swathed in mist, or low clouds, parting for us like ghosts.  

Dog walkers

When you leave through the front door with an eager dog at the end of your leash, the whole world opens up like a fair ground. There are things to smell at every street curb, scraps to grab and be yanked away from, chicken bones collected in corners that need to be pulled out from between gnashers. All hell breaks loose out there on the street. 

My dog ROLO is extremely friendly and naïve. She’ll see a dog about a mile away and sit down patiently wagging her tail waiting to be greeted, while the dog and walker go out of view without noticing us. She bounds towards cats thinking they are funny dogs, and even though one time she was scratched by an arching hissing cat, she still excitedly yelps and runs towards them.

She’ll want to play with barking unfriendly dogs who want to eat her face, but she’ll fall back and go in for more expecting a different welcome each time. Even the owners of scary dogs are bemused at her trusting nature. 

That’s something I hadn’t expected from dog ownership – the amount of small talk you exchange with other dog walkers.

Frazzled Bishon Frise

‘Watch out for ‘at small ginger one up’der. Bit my dog and he’s never been the same again.’

‘Oh really? Where do they live?’

‘Two ‘ouses up that way.’

Stalwart salivating Rottweiler

‘My dog’s blind… You’ll have to get closer if you want her to know you’re there.’

‘She’s got such a good nature.’

‘That’s right she’s always wanted puppies of her own. The light-touch maternal type.’ 

Nonchalant German Shepherd

‘Yeah she’s good with puppies – not small yappy dogs. She’ll take it in her stride and let them jump all over her.’

‘Sorry my dog is so in her face.’

‘Nah it’s fine that’s the way little puppies say hello. I heard it’s because of somethink like regurgitation of mother dogs. Like they’re used to licking their mum’s mouth for getting’ food, or somethink.’

We moved house during lockdown and by the time we come out of lockdown (again), ROLO has made more friends in the neighbourhood than us. And I know the names of all these dogs but not their owners, that would go against all dog-walker etiquette. You ask the breed and name of the dog, then perhaps its age and comment about the dog’s appearance or positive behaviour. Then you try and remember that dog’s name for next time when you meet them in the street and you can say very friendly and confidently, ‘Hello ROLO!’ so their tail starts wagging and they jump up to say hello. 

You steer clear of dogs with muzzles and owners who pass you by giving you a wide berth. Usually, the people keeping their dogs under control are standing still on a bank or side of the road, because they know that mid-movement it’s harder to hold a big dog back. They don’t make eye contact but look admonishingly at your dog, waiting for you to pass without any altercations. 

Highly strung English Terrier

‘Dogs are expensive these days they’re going for silly money!’

‘Yeah.’

‘How much did yours cost? Mine was £1,500 and I had to drive 200 miles to go get him. My sat-nav thought I’d gone wrong. When I got there – you couldn’t believe the conditions he was being bred in. My missus wanted to use the toilet and she came back looking upset. She said the floor was completely sticky with mess. The breeder right? had about twenty – thirty dogs in there, and to feed them right? he just placed this big bowl of food in the middle of the floor and they all went for it. Now can you believe that? He’s making good money from each of those dogs and keeping them living in filth. When I first got him home, he wouldn’t eat! He shit blood. I had to pay for medicines and everything. Glad he’s alright now, he’s a good dog. Good breed.’

Dopey loping Labrador

‘You’re training her off-leash are you?’

‘Sort of, we haven’t got re-call working fully yet.’

‘Mine’s a rescue you see, so she’s a little bit jittery. There was a time she was being walked by our old dog walker, Lucie, lovely girl very good, but you see she was walking a few dogs off-leash and there was a loud BANG and that set her off and she went off like a shot. No catching her or calling her back. She ran, do you know the church at Millfield? No? Well she ran up there and did a right at the sports field, carried on northwards to the army base that’s got property guardians in it now, do you know it? Turned left along one of the A-roads and went through a hole in a fence of a school yard and I tell you, if there hadn’t been a barrier up, she would have reached the M1! That poor girl Lucie crying down the phone to me and I said to her that there was nothing that she could have done to call the old girl back. It was good luck that people had seen her running across roads and reported it, otherwise we might never have found her at the rate she was going.’

And I don’t mind standing and chatting with them, hearing their ten-minute routine about their pet because we all have something in common, which is we dearly love our dogs. 

Mad sad happy

I rode the train to to see my two friends in a park and that was liberating. If you curtail a person’s freedom, then the smallest acts take on the weight of something meaningful. Of course, it’s illegal to travel unnecessarily, but I needed to see my friends to discuss mainly death, otherwise I would have gone mad.

A friend calls my mobile phone and I let it ring out. Then I pick up a pen and paper and write her a letter. Postage First Class, so she’ll get it in the next couple days. It’s better than a wearisome week-old unanswered message. 

Tap tap tap; delete delete.

Screen time and online communication is a chore. I have to do it every day for work and speak every night with my mother. I give over so many waking hours to the Internet. I wish longingly for the dial-up modem tones of the past to fill the silence of my future. 

I check in the fridge. Scraps of lettuce and olives with pits. I have more time these days, so I can deal with pits in my fruit. 

I make egg mayonnaise for a party of ten – to discover no body likes egg mayonnaise and I labour through it over three consecutive days. I made egg mayo to use up the watercress I’m suddenly growing on my windowsill. I planted it on one of those days where I had endless time to kill, never expecting them to sprout with such gusto, I wish they’d calm down.

My entire world is my dog, my kitchen, my bathtub. I roll between the three, happy as Larry, until it gets too much. Then I cry. Then I finish and pick up where I left off. 

*

Today the sun shone on my face and I felt its warmth bloom in my body. 

The kitchen is the place where I make things happen and consume. Consumption used to be something I did on the fly, like on the way to work reading an advert, or at a theatre watching a show. I used to enjoy trying new things, like going to a different food stall for lunch on a Friday; or an altered walk cutting through Covent Garden to Leicester Square. Meeting friends for a drink in a place I’d walked past a dozen times but hadn’t been into. Chance encounters with ex-colleagues in a scrabbly pub in Soho. Beer gardens on the canal-side with a pale ale in a chunky glass. The kitchen is where I foster new experiences now, over a saucepan, or watching a fish grill in the oven. Cutting into a freshly baked loaf with a sharp knife and being excited to see air-bubbles small and consistent, or disappointed to find them deflated and flabby.

The bath tub is where I do my lounging. Luxuriating. Stopping thinking time. I sit there in the near dark with my wrinkly fingers, absorbed in the warmth and the not-doing-anything of it all. The bath is indifferent to the timetables of outside, even when life was at its most hectic, I stewed in bath tubs. All through my younger years until here I am again, gaining solace from being closed off from the world, truly private. Re-charging like a monster in the depths of her cave.

The dog gives me delight and spontaneity. The kind of thing that might happen when you’re closing down for work and a mate messages you to see if you wanna come to a gig because they’ve got a spare ticket. You scoff a Sainsbury's meal deal and get to the venue, queue, buy expensive beers in plastic cups and listen to a warm-up band and shout over them to chat to your friends. The small dog barks up at the sky when she sees an aeroplane. She farts when I’m trying to concentrate on an excel spreadsheet. She licks my face when I’m clouded in gloom and makes me laugh.

ROLO's secret

ROLO yet again met another one of my gorgeous girlfriends in a park. If any creature has lucked out from these lockdowns then they are pets, up and down the country, who get to spend more time with their human counterparts. ROLO also thinks the only social activity we humans get up to is strolling in parks, whatever the weather. From her point of view humans are overly cautious, staying away from each other, unless their dogs get tangled up in one another’s leashes; animals are allowed to socialise, touch and climb on top of one another, licking noses and paws. Humans are wary and suspicious of their kind. 

I am proud to say that ROLO is now 80% house-trained. The remaining 15% is when she pees herself out of sheer excitement, like during a very involved game of chasing the flat-mouse toy; and 5% when the temperature outside is below freezing and she refuses to leave the warmth of our house. So now when she wants to “go” she sits straight-backed at the door and barks. I hurry over and let her out and she scurries out. If it’s night-time she trots back and forth over the length of the patio, waiting for one of her protectors to come outside to keep guard as she poops. I guess it is a time when you feel most vulnerable.

‘I think I’ve found ROLO’s hobby.’ A tells me as I’m drinking my morning coffee.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come with me,’ I follow A into our garden, and he directs me to a blueish tinged bush in the flower beds. ‘She’s been digging.’

I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. So, I climb into the flower bed and pull the bushy blue leaves aside to discover a deep hole. A pit. Dark porous earth is piled up on all sides and I think I can see next door’s concrete patio. I’m quite astonished that ROLO’s been hiding this from us.

‘She is a terrier, it’s in their nature.’ I say sounding calm. ROLO is with us the whole time pretending to be interested in blades of grass, playing it cool, but she senses she’s been sussed out.

Later, while scooping up little ROLO’s turds I come back to the bush and look at the hole again. Something has to be done. I use the poop scoop as a shovel and push the built-up mounds of earth into the hole, filling it in. ROLO is beside me and she begins to rage. I shovel more dirt into the hole and pack it down with my foot. ROLO runs about the flower bed ripping up innocent stems and scrabbling at roots. I pick up a disused brick and place it on top of the earth, sealing up the hole. ROLO is incandescent and attacks the pink poop-scoop and bites it and chucks it off the ledge where it hangs. I go back inside and wash my hands. 

After finding out ROLO’s secret, a lot makes sense. Like why she would try to run into the garden with scraps of food she’d grabbed, probably wanting to bury it for later. Some nights I’d be stroking her head and find flecks of dirt all over her snout and ears. I know terriers like to dig, I also read in a dog manual that owners should make digging pits for them, where they can dig to their heart’s content. You should hide things in there too apparently for the dog to find, like treats and toys. 

I know that when you uncover a secret hiding place, another one will pop up because you can’t get rid of the need. I’m wondering where ROLO will next decide to dig. And I’m wondering where my secret hiding place is, and whether I’ve covered my tracks well enough for it to not be discovered.  

Keropee

I went up to the attic and brought down a stuffed toy from when I was a baby. It is Kero-Kero-Keropee, a lime green frog with bulging white eyes and a red thread mouth. I thought it would be appropriate for my puppy to play with because I remembered Keropee’s material being plush and silky, like the outer lining of my sleeping bag, which ROLO loves. 

Kero-Kero-Keropee was an instant hit. ROLO ran off with him clenched firmly in her jaws. Even though the toy is about the same size as her, her strong neck muscles and little legs can carry it over stacked up cushions and small mountains. 

A said, ‘Are you prepared for it to be destroyed?’

‘Yeah.’ She had already ripped apart the fabric of the eye.

‘Soon that fluff’s going to be everywhere and you’re going to have to pick it all up.’ The stuffing from the toy had been pulled out in cloudbursts, and I was trailing behind ROLO picking them up quickly before she swallowed any of it. It was a fun game.

When ROLO had calmed down and was licking herself on her (cardboard) dais, I got my sewing kit out and stitched back together Keropee’s erupted eyeball. So now the frog only has one eye and looks like a monster, but a happy one as the asymmetry really brings out his smile.

Some friends told me I was lucky to have a partner who’d allow me to keep hold of my soft toys from childhood. I agree. My mum carried these soft toys all the way from Japan when we emigrated to England, probably hundreds of them were boxed up and sent via shipping freight. By the time they reached the UK, I am not even sure I played with them anymore. But still she kept hold of them, through house moves and divorce, through my university days and as I started work. Now I have a house to call my own and what’s rightfully mine is bestowed upon me. My bagfuls of soft toys.

I gave away two full bin liners to local families on the app OLIO. I crammed a dozen of my favourites into an oversized blue leather bag, which looks like a magician’s prop. I still couldn’t part with another dozen more, so I wrapped them in plastic and put them all up in the loft. In the hidden area of the house, where I wouldn’t be able to see them or play with them, acting as a safety net in case I ever regress and need them again. 

Thank god for this puppy. I can breathe life back into these old toys and see them out there – being torn up and loved anew. Finally, being played with after decades of being forgotten. 

ROLO

Lying next to me is a very small dog. Her hind legs remind me of chicken wings, her paws are like those of teddy bears; made up of three lines of brown thread. Her ears are folded over her furry face like Toblerone triangles and when she sleeps her face looks like a seal pup. 

‘She looks just like a seal with her whiskers and wet nose.’ I say as I hold the tiny sleeping thing on my knees.

‘Are whale babies called pups as well?’

‘No. Whale calves. I guess they do look more like baby cows.’ I watch over her as she twitches and fidgets through her very active REM cycle. Suddenly she’s scrabbling like she’s chasing a scent over faraway fields. She was bred for hunting vermin and came from working dog stock from the Lake District. Her breed temperament is fearless, tenacious and stubborn; unlike normal dogs she was bred to work alone, so is quite happy left to her own devices. But as a puppy she clings to warmth and comfort, and cries if you go out of her line of sight for too long. Just like a baby.

In one week she has gained a third of her body weight. This is good news because she is filling out to be more like a terrier and less like a teddy bear. For the first week when there were rainstorms and sleet, she shivered at my feet in the garden as I forced her to go for a whizz. Now she associates the outdoors with something cold and terrible, when really it is her natural habitat. At first, she was too small to climb the wooden step up to the lawn, so A helpfully placed a brick for her to use as a step. The next day I found a cat had shat directly on top of the brick, so I had to hose it down and move it back to where it was less conspicuous. Today ROLO can bounce and clear the jump up to the lawn without the help of us or anything. To witness such an increase in ability is incredible.

I also think her eyesight, or could it be her spatial awareness – was pretty poor when she arrived at our house. She was likely afraid and felt less confident to roam (not like now one week on when she’s sniffing out every corner and boldly marching up to the front door) and so, her world was much smaller then, comprised of a crate, food bowl, and the treacherous outdoor toilet. 

As her world has expanded there is a door at the end of the kitchen leading into the utility room which has remained shut. Primarily because it contained mops and buckets and bleach and washing up liquids. But from behind that door comes the growls and gurgling of washers and toilet flushes, and the strange smell of paints and solvents, a bag of fresh compost and her all-time favourite toy: dustpan and brush. The tiny dog waits at the end of the kitchen, with her head cocked to one side contemplating the secret room. Wondering what mysteries are in there and what the monster is that spins and shudders all night long.