Читать книгу Stray Dog - Gareth O'Callaghan - Страница 4

We sat together on the double armchair that night. It was something we hadn’t done for years. The fire crackled with damp wood and coals. The soft lamp in the corner gave off just enough light for both of us to look at photos. I was glad we had taken the shots on the few holidays we had gone on together over the years. I wished at that moment we had gone on more, that we had travelled the world together.

Instead we had become like most middle-aged couples. We assumed things, took each other for granted and lost sight of what it meant to be best friends. We felt uneasy sitting so close together. Even though I knew our time together was limited to weeks now, the touch of his body so near to me made me uneasy. I longed for closeness to this man, but we had become settled, on our own in our own little worlds. I wanted to be in his arms and to feel loved. I knew he loved me. And I hoped he knew how much I loved him. But it had become easier just to assume he knew.

“Let’s go somewhere,” I said nervously. It meant nothing to me. It felt like an unexpected cough that had interrupted a cosy silence.

“Like … where?” John sighed. “When?”

He was telling me there wasn’t enough time.

“Remember how you always wanted to visit the Great Barrier Reef? And Times Square? We could go to New York for a long weekend.”

What a stupid line of talk, I remember thinking. But it was better than the silence and the old photos, token gestures of holidays we had gone on because we had become bored with each other at home. None of that mattered any more.

“I’d love a dog,” he said softly. Then he smiled.

His words caught me completely off-side. I remembered him telling me that his dog had been killed when he was fourteen. He said it was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. It took him years to get over it.

I hated pets. I had a phobia about cats and another about horses. My first thought was what would I do with the dog when John was gone. “Where will we get a dog?” I asked.

“The local pound, I suppose. You can give it back later … if you don’t like it.”

I wasn’t even listening to what he was saying. I was nodding and nodding again harder. “Yes, yes, of course,” I insisted lovingly. “First thing in the morning, we’ll go. And you can pick …” I started to cry. It felt like I was talking to a child. I was trying to cheer him up in the light of something neither of us could explain properly or handle as well as we might have thought we could.