It was the little boy’s fault. Every day after school, he stopped by the house and fed his leftover lunch to the dog. She sat on the pavement tethered by a long lead to an old man called Anarchist Bob. Bob sat all day snoozing and smoking roll ups in a faded canvas directors chair outside his pebble-dashed terrace. Occasionally he chatted with passers by, always enjoying a conversation with the little boy. Bob lent Freddie books about Marx and Kropotkin, which the boy dutifully read and returned. At some point during their conversations, Bob would head inside to find him a book, at which point Freddie would empty his lunchbox in front of the sleepy dog, who swiftly gobbled its contents, rarely chewing.
On this day, Freddie had been too queasy to eat much, after his year 7 class were subjected to a PSHE video about the wonders (and gruesome details) of childbirth. At the end of the school day, his lunchbox still contained: half an egg sandwich, 5 carrot sticks, 2 slices of cheese and a miniature own brand mars bar from Lidl. Bob was rifling around for a copy of Burmese Days by George Orwell and taking longer than usual. After munching the crudites, the dog chewed the bar with some effort. She looked at Freddie with wide and loving eyes before gulping audibly as Bob stepped outside waving a paperback.
‘Here it is! You really must read this, you know…Essential critique of colonial rule in Southeast Asia.’
‘Thank you, sir’
‘No sirs here Frederick, this is not a hierarchy! I’m surprised you haven’t read this already - what do they teach you in school these days?’ Freddie remembered the education video from earlier that day and some bile entered his mouth. ‘Well don’t look so upset. I’ll keep you right’. He straightened his beret over his bushy grey hair and looked down at the dog. ‘Rosie, are you alright my love?...Rosie? Rosa!!’ His use of her proper name alerted Freddie too late to the severity of the situation.
Rosa Luxembourg was an elderly King Charles Spaniel, a breed with long floppy ears and desperate eyes. She had lost the use of her back legs a few years previously and rather than take her to the vet, Bob had built her a makeshift wheelchair from an old skateboard sawn in two, which allowed her to wheel herself up and down the road. Her quality of life was mostly unaffected, but she enjoyed the extra sympathy she garnered as a result. Bob had no pet insurance and a troubled relationship with the vets. They always told him that Rosa was grossly overweight and suffered from halitosis, which he felt was unkind.
On this occasion they did call the animal hospital, who dispatched a car to Bob’s road. By the time it arrived, Rosa had gone into cardiac arrest and could not be resuscitated. Freddie left Bob in a shocked daze and ran home, where his mother Susan was just in from work and tackling some leftover washing up. ‘Is everything alright Fred?’ she asked, and then seeing his face pulled him into a tight hug, covering his school uniform in suds.
Susan brought a pair of old curtains from the airing cupboard and together they wrapped Rosa in a chintzy shroud before taking her through the house and into the garden. Bob’s usually ruddy face was drained of colour and silent tears fell down his pale cheeks. Freddie pulled at a loose thread on his jumper sleeve and said nothing. They buried the dog in the tiny patch of grass behind Bob’s home and marked her grave with a garden gnome, ‘Just for now, until we get hold of something more dignified’, said Susan. Susan had never seen Bob so quiet. She gave him a quick hug as they were leaving and thought he felt too small. She held Freddie’s hand the whole way home and waited in vain for him to speak. He read his new book late into the night, understanding half the words and none of the concepts. Bob wasn’t sitting in his chair when Freddie walked back from school the next day, or the next.
The Friday after the accident Susan asked Freddie if he’d like to take a slice of homemade pie round to Bob’s house. Eager to see how Bob was getting on, Freddie sprinted down his street to deliver the kitchen roll package. At the corner of Bob’s road he tripped and the pie flew from his hands onto the tarmac. Eyes and knees stinging, he stood up to walk home but only made it a few yards before turning back to look at the pie again. It lay on the pavement, pastry casing jewelled with specks of black grit. Feeling torn, he trudged back up the road with his hands in his pockets. Disappointment and shame were welling up in his throat, causing his breath to catch. He only wanted to do good, but he was always getting it wrong. When he reached his front door, he suddenly turned and sprinted back up the road, scraping the pie off the floor and picking off the grit with his fingers.
He knocked on Bob’s door, rescue pie in hand. After a long wait and two more knocks, Bob answered. ‘Oh hello Frederick…How are you?’
‘I brought you some pie!’ Freddie blurted.
‘Well…thank you very much.’ he took a long pause ‘Anything else?’
‘I read the book you lent me! It’s great! So interesting!’
‘Is it? I can’t for the life of me…What book was that?’
‘Um it's called…something’ Freddie’s face began to burn.
‘Never mind Frederick. You keep the book. Enjoy it.’
Bob’s face was a strange colour and deeply lined, his hair was wilder than usual. For the first time, Freddie could see the bald patch on the top of his head which was always hidden beneath a broad beret. His usual brightly striped jumper was usurped by a sombre blue cardigan. Freddie felt afraid. ‘Thank you so much!’ he said, unconvincingly chipper, ‘I’ll be off home then, mum’s expecting me.’ He hobbled home, the tops of his socks damp with blood from his skinned knees.
Bob received flowers and cards all that week. His next door neighbour Pyotr was a retired carpenter and produced a beautiful wooden cross in his workshop to replace the garden gnome. ‘For the deceased…’ he said as he handed it over. Then looking at his shoes and clasping his hands together, ‘I know how difficult it can be, but Papa Francis does tell us that she is in a better place now’, he looked into Bob’s blank face and added quietly, ‘with the angels…’
‘Rosa was a Rationalist, Pyotr’ Bob replied shortly, and then added in a softer tone, ‘But thank you for your trouble, she would have appreciated the craftsmanship’. The cross was laid at the head of her shallow grave, and the gnome was returned to Susan.
After seeing Bob’s diminished state, Freddie’s guilt grew teeth. It nibbled away at him piece by piece. Why had he fed Rosa that fun size mars bar? How could he have been so stupid? Every day that summer, he walked by Bob’s house and watched the curtains for a twitch. Every day he was disappointed.
By Autumn, his knees had healed and his grief had turned to a deep ache in his stomach. ‘Freddie, I wish you wouldn’t waste so much food - what’s going on with you?’ his mum sighed, chucking carrot sticks into the bin one evening. ‘Is anything the matter?’ Freddie grunted in response, only half hearing her over the cartoons he was watching. ‘Earth to Fred, come in Fred…Frederick!’ He whipped his head around. ‘What mum? Oh my god!’
‘Are you alright, love, is anything the matter?’
‘Yeah, you’re shouting at me when I’m trying to watch the TV’
‘Right…’ Susan sighed and finished the washing up.
Freddie was trapped by circumstance. How could he tell his mother that the lunch box reminded him of Rosa without telling her the truth? He concentrated hard on the television, avoiding the relentless mental images: her bulgy eyes, her laboured breathing. He began to cry. Quietly at first but then louder and gulping and horribly embarrassing. Susan came through to the living room and held his hand as he sobbed into the crook of his elbow, face burning. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘I…can’t…’, he stuttered between gasps.
‘It’s okay Freddie.’ She was quiet for a long time and then asked with practised neutrality, ‘Is it about Rosa?’ He composed himself a little, sat in silence for a few minutes, and then nodded. Face turned towards the now blank television, as though deeply engrossed.
‘Freddie’ she said with difficulty, ‘We know about the Mars bar’. He looked up at her in full astonishment, rubbing the back of his hand across his face to clear it of snot.
‘How?’
‘Bob told me. Freddie, don't be upset. He knew you had been feeding her and he didn’t mind. You brought her joy!’ She chuckled, and then looked down at her hands, ‘But, I should have told you that chocolate is poison for dogs.’ She took Freddies’s hands in hers, ‘It isn’t your fault’. Freddie began to cry,
‘I wish I could tell her how sorry I am…’
‘I know love.’ They sat in silence for a while, Susan patting Freddie’s hand. ‘I have an idea you know, but you might think it’s stupid.’
‘Oh no’
‘No honestly, I think it’ll help! Listen, why don’t you pretend I’m Rosa and you can tell me you’re sorry’
‘Mum…’
‘Just try it!’ He groaned and turned to face her awkwardly on the sofa.
‘Rosa. I’m sorry I gave you that mini mars bar’ Susan brought her hands to the top of her head and replied, in a growly voice,
‘Don’t be sorrrry Frederrrrick! It was rrrlovely!’ Freddie began to laugh, ‘I miss you Frreddie my old pal!’
‘Alright that’s enough, mum.’ Susan brought her hands back down to rest in her lap.
‘Better?’ Freddie nodded and she got up, ‘Tea then?’
Bob’s other retired neighbour Daisy had taken up watercolours after her husband passed. On hearing of Rosa’s death she laboured day and night on a portrait of the two of them, Bob in his chair with his hands around the long lead, Rosa snoozing at his feet. The proportions were a challenge and her first few attempts had a nightmarish quality to them, but by Winter she was able to deliver a painting to Bob’s front door. He took away the wrapping and immediately welled up, pulling Daisy into a gruff embrace, which the frail 93 year old bravely withstood. ‘Thanks Daisy’ he croaked.
‘Well you know Bob, we all loved that little dog’ She replied, putting her small bony hand on his, ‘Though lovers be lost, love shall not’ she told him.
‘That’s nice Daisy’ said Bob, patting her hand.
‘She wouldn’t want you to grieve’, she told him seriously, gripping his hand. Then she rearranged her wool coat and returned home.
The last day of school before the Christmas holidays was bitter. Freddie walked up the road, head bent against the wind and hands grasping the seams of his jacket to pull it closed. His ears were singing with cold, but he felt he would rather die than wear the knitted hat his mum had stuffed in his school bag that morning. He almost didn’t see the large figure coming towards him until Bob was only a yard or so away from him. ‘Hello Frederick!’
‘Bob! Hello, how are you?’
‘I’m very well Frederick, enjoying this bracing wind’
‘Yes, me too. Who’s this?’ Freddie pointed to a little chihuahua who was courageously walking into the wind on a pink leash, the skin of her face blown back around her watery eye sockets.
‘Ah, this is Emma.’ Freddie bent down to pat Emma’s tiny head and felt her fragile bones under the soft fur.
‘Hello Emma.’
‘Named after Emma Goldman of course’
‘Of course’ said Freddie, straightening up and looking at Bob properly. His face was pink and weather worn, but his eyes sparkled from beneath his beret. ‘Good to see you Bob’
‘You too Freddie’
