Search for Sanctuary.

 

I wrote this in 1992, after leaving England in an intemperate hurry. Work related problems. I’d been knocked about. Quite badly. It could have been worse. If I stayed put, the situation would have become even more serious. Time to move on. Seek new pastures.

I hadn’t even considered writing a novel back then. I’d written half a dozen stage plays, seen a couple performed before a paying audience – to no great acclaim, poems aplenty and even a cook book. Novels? Nah! They were for ‘proper’ writers. Looking back now at this piece, untouched, exactly as it was written nineteen years ago, I’m very pleased with the opening paragraph. The rest, not so much. A very long way from any thoughts of writing an entire novel, that much is evident.

 

We were looking for a house. We didn’t know where it was, had never even seen it, but we knew it was there. Waiting for us.

 

We were giving up, had given up, our jobs. In my case, rather abruptly following a security scare. It needed to be a house where we could live on a restricted, indeed minimal, income. It also had to be in an area where nobody knew anything about me or what I did for a living.

 

Scotland came to mind. Great scenery, but the climate would be a major consideration.  Intending to look at any likely prospects, we rented a remote cottage at the head of Loch Awe while my cuts and bruises faded. It was late October.  The mountains were awesome, the autumn colours spectacular, the weather was the pits! After a week of incessant rain, my skin turned as white and wrinkly as a prune, and the cottage reeked of wet dog. We didn’t have a dog.

We collected our ‘morning’ paper from the village shop every afternoon. It was a very small village and, like all other commodities, news arrived late. The man behind the counter, completely bald, but with an immense red beard through which strange sounds filtered was kindness personified. By the third day my soggy English ears were able to recognise some of the sounds as words. He was very sympathetic, or as sympathetic as any man with an up-side-down face could possibly hope to be.

‘Och, more than your share of rain’, he grunted. ‘Not at all usual, this. Plenty of fog, mind, but not rain like this. It’s nearly as bad as last year.’  I blanched at the thought of last year being even worse. ‘It’ll probably clear up for a wee while, before the snow sets in.’

I managed a feeble smile.

‘Last summer it hardly rained at all’, he went on. ‘Eaten alive by the midges we were’.

So, that was Scotland crossed off the list.

‘What about France?’

What about France, indeed?

Our search across the Channel search began with chocolate éclairs and a flatulent boxer. That’s a reference to a breed of dog; images of flatulent pugilists are too weird to contemplate.

We looked first at the area around Roscoff in Brittany, which resembles Cornwall with its rugged coastline, secluded villages and undulating countryside.

Our appointment was with an agent in a small market town. A charming receptionist regretted that Monsieur Mappin, the agent, had been delayed, but that his wife, who was English, would be delighted to speak to us, pending his arrival. We were ushered into a back office and introduced to the English wife, late of Bolton in Lancashire.

‘Hello, loves, park yourselves down’, she said, indicating an over-stuffed sofa, presently occupied by a fat boxer dog. ‘Don’t mind Bertie, love. He’ll shove up a bit if you give him a nudge’. I nudged, Bertie duly shoved up, and we sat down.

‘There you are, told you he’d budge up, didn’t I? He’s mummy’s special boy, aren’t you Bertie?’

I adore dogs, but ‘Mummies special boy’ was to tax my fondness to the limit. He was unmistakably a boy, but I was unable to understand what it was that made him’special’.

Bertie was repulsive. His sagging jowls oozed a particularly un-appetising slime, he was grotesquely fat, and, worst of all, he farted constantly.

‘Oh baby, don’t trump!’ shrieked his mistress as Bertie broke wind, thoughtfully turning his hindquarters in my direction. A series of long, rasping, moist farts rang out, like a tugboat steaming through dense fog.

The noise was incredible, but became insignificant, when the accompanying smell arrived a moment later.

The truism that dogs grow to resemble their owners, and vice versa, was never better illustrated than in the person of Bertie’s greatest admirer. Thirty-something, dressed in a voluminous and quite hideously patterned kaftan; she reclined against a large velvet cushion, a box of chocolate éclairs close to her right hand.  The hanging jowls and double, no, make that treble, chins formed a mirror image of the flatulent animal alongside her.

We were regaled with stories of Bertie’s fabled pedigree; a Crufts supreme champion on his mother’s side, no less, and the indignities he suffered whilst being transported in a crate from England to his new home in France.

We listened in respectful silence to the litany of Bertie’s attributes.  Unfortunately, the subject of these praises was not equally blessed with the gift of silence.  Bertie broke wind at regular intervals, punctuating the conversation with a variety of sounds, the like of which I had never imagined a dog of such relatively small stature might be capable of producing. Shrill trumpetings, rapid fire pops, reminiscent of a particularly noxious firework, deep rasping farts like very slowly torn calico and, worst of all, the long whistling hiss of expelled air, shortly by a stench which would not disgrace a sewerage farm.

Madame beamed indulgently at each assault on our senses.

‘He’s got a bit of a tummy upset, haven’t you, precious?’ she cooed, stroking his unlovely head.  Bertie shuffled closer to me and farted once again.

‘Poor love, he’s had this for a day or two now’.

I shuffled along slightly, but Bertie followed. ‘Will your husband be long?’ I enquired.

‘Oh no, I shouldn’t think so, any minute I imagine’.

I heaved a silent sigh of relief.

‘I met him at a séance, in Bolton, you know, my husband, I mean, not Bertie’.

‘Really?’ my wife ventured, cramming a wealth of meaning into a single word.

‘Oh yes, he was studying in England and he was interested in English life, so, of course, he came to one of our meetings.  I have the gift, you see’.

I didn’t really see, but nodded anyway.

‘I helped him reach his father, it was very moving’.

I nodded again.

‘Yes, I see beyond the veil, it’s a gift, but such a responsibility, you know’.

‘It must be’.

‘Oh mercy me, such a responsibility.  I see such things, it’s such a great strain on my nerves. That’s where my darling Bertie is such a comfort’.

The ‘comfort’ shifted on his cushion and broke wind once more.  She patted him gently.

‘Perhaps it’s his diet. I can’t seem to get it right. It’s difficult, what with him being so highly bred. My husband says I spoil him, but I think he is a teeny bit jealous of my little treasure’.

The pleasant receptionist came to our rescue by announcing the arrival of Monsieur Mapin who was double parked and awaiting us outside the office.  We said goodbye to his wife and her ‘little treasure’.  Bertie bade us farewell with his most virulent contribution to date, a deep rumble ending in a shrill squeal.

‘Bertie!’ his mistress shrieked. ‘That one really pongs,’ and hugged his portly body to her ample bosom.

We dashed outside, inhaling pure country air in grateful gulps, and introduced ourselves to the agent.

‘You’ve met my wife?’ he enquired and, without waiting for affirmation, added, ‘ A very stupid woman, I regret to say’.

I was tempted to agree wholeheartedly with him, but kept my counsel, contenting myself with a non-committal inclination of the head.

‘I don’t know which is worse, her or that animal’, he continued. ‘Of course she feeds it the wrong food.  Both, the dog and her, eat only chocolate and cake. Is ridiculous, yes?

‘Yes’, I said.

‘Of course, she is English and, Les Anglais and their dogs, poof!’  He snorted dismissively and strode towards his car.  ‘We go now, I think’.