Tạm Biệt Mực - Goodbye Mick

I take his lead. It’s dirty and smelly and still covered in fur. I don’t put it around his neck or lengthen it. It's folded in four, nestled in my hand. There isn’t any urgency to get out, no clattering of excited feet, no grumbles or whines, no flurrying fur, nor licks and wiggles.

I’m walking light, nothing pulling me along. 

This is where he always did his morning business, on the trunk of this orange tree, the weeds enticing. Fair game for neighbourhood dogs. 

I splutter, choke, tighten my lips and hold it in. It’s pushed in deep, suffocating. I curve over, hands on my knees, dizzy. I’ve no energy, have hardly eaten and I’m shrinking. It’s consumed me. Heavy short breaths, bubble up like a shaken can of fizzy drink. The seal snaps, releasing loss in spurts, I try to contain it, swallow it. 

An old man waiting for something, next to the coffee shop stares at me and fiddles in his pocket and takes out some coins. I look down. I’m burrowed in layers of dirty comfy clothes which I’ve worn for days. Greasy hair is stuck to my head, splayed lifeless beneath the lopsided, half off, woolly hat and my face looks punched in. 

A tramp, an abused woman, a druggie?  I pull the hat on properly, right down, over my ears, my forehead. You can hardly see me. 

A dog barks in the distance. The caught tears come. Streaming. Swollen eyes balloon again. I can’t open them properly. My face warps into ugly distortion and crumples, tears glistening in the creases and folds. I’m rolling further inward, hunching. I fall against the trunk of the orange tree. 

It’s been a week. My gorgeous old dog, my rescue from Vietnam. I fondle his lead in both hands. It’s black, like his name, Mực, aka Mick. Ink in Vietnamese. 

I managed to save him a few times.

Before he was mine, I fixed his broken leg. Our neighbours, ignorant hard hearted owners, were negligent. Back and forth I went to the vets, in the days when they were unqualified. Fighting against their inept procedures, their malpractice, their inhuman methods until finally we healed it in the safety of my home. 

Ever persistent, and with skilful manipulation I managed to save him a second time, permanently, from those neighbours and call him mine. They obliged. They were more interested in their finances than caring for him, believers of a superstition that a dog in their house would make them rich. Luckily, Mick had served his purpose. 

We relaxed into life and then came the third save. The stolen save. The dog meat trade. This was harrowing. The panicked dash around the dodgy alleys and hems of Saigon, of sinister phone calls with kidnappers, terrifying insights into unspoken cruelty and secret rackets revealed. Nasty ladies in cone hats and big smiles masquerading as lottery ticket sellers.  The steep ransom settled and cash exchanged, he arrived on the front of a motorbike, writhing, whimpering, with an old jute bag over his head. I promised God I wouldn’t ask for anything else ever again.

The fourth save. Incomprehensible for animal lovers, but even so. Vowing never to abandon him. It’s more like a half save. I flew him, despite his old age, halfway across the world saving him from living his twilight years without me.   

Four saves, but I couldn’t save him from old age.

I push away from the tree trunk and walk our way. I repeat, “He was just a dog.” How unkind I am. Just a dog. It’s not true. 'Just' is not for him. 'No more than.' That isn’t him.

Halfway there I see a friend. I fling myself into a doorway, hiding like a criminal and turn my back from the street and sink into the wall. My skin tingles as she gets closer but she passes without ado. 

We came to this park every day. I see dogs and their owners. People I know by a commonality. I’m trespassing. I’m not in the club anymore. 

Unfolding with his lead, I do the collar up and let it drop. The metal fastener clinks on the ground, metallic, cold. It hangs next to me, on my right, as I drag it along the pavement, scraping. We step onto the grass. 

"There’s a good boy."

The lead and I pause often. Mick took his time, sniffed obsessively, excited, finding hidden traces of dogs before him. He would find the best bit and circle round and round ready to do something more pressing. 

The lady with a Golden waves and I wave back. I don’t think she can see me clearly. I’m behind a low wall so she can only see the top of the lead.  The wave, the familiar interaction, the social pleasantry breaks my solitude. I suddenly feel embarrassed, silly. I fold the lead. 

I turn around. But now I’m stuck. A sudden pain pierces my abdomen. I keel. Daggers. I wait. It subsides. There’s a bench to my right cocooned by wild bushes full of tiny purple flowers. Mick loved it. He would reappear after a good rummage, adorned with the delicate flowers on his back, behind his ears, hanging daintily off his bushy tail. 

I’ve never sat here before, we were always walking. 

Lead on my lap, I close my sore eyes. It’s good to be out, the apartment is lifeless. I’m shutting down and start to nod off when I hear a shuffle. The Golden wiggles up to me and puts his soft wet nose between my knees and sniffs Mick’s lead. I lean down and give him a gentle pat. He’s a sweetie. His owner isn’t far behind. We’ve never really talked. I’m not ready but I can’t get off the bench. 

I can’t speak of it. Of grief. I’m not wise to it. I’m flailing. Questioning what? My mind fills with nonsense. I’m naive, no answers, nothing to comprehend. 

The Golden has settled down by my feet keeping them warm. His owner holds my hand. She says nothing. She doesn’t ask. She doesn’t give answers. She understands. 

After a while, I wipe my wet face and start to talk. I talk of my saves. She listens, nods, smiles. She’s had three dogs, the Golden is her third, all of them rescues.

"Only way to have a dog," she says. 

I’m exploring all things existential but she’s more philosophical. What does ‘to save’ even mean? Saved from what? Our sins, ourselves? That calls on the religious and sod that. Saved from poverty, difficulty? There are many things to be saved from, but saved from heartache, grief, pain? Unlikely.

She ventures I made a fifth save, saved him from suffering at the end. 

The memory of him dozing off in my arms, on my lap, falling to sleep forever imbues me. 

We are in complete agreement. How silly to question the inevitable. Why are we always so distraught when it happens? And after death? I leave that one to vanish into the unknown, to rustle in the purple bushes. 

Suddenly I’m hungry. I ask her if she’d like to go for dinner. She has errands to do and suggests we meet up later. We leave the park together and then she asks if I’d take Bruce for an hour, and holds out his lead. She’d be quicker without him. I readjust my hat and squeeze Mick’s lead in my hand.

"Ok, but I need to go home first," I say

"Take him with you, he’s easy." We arrange to meet in an hour. 

Bruce’s paws clip clop on the wooden floor. I’m thumped in the chest. Hard. A resurrection. His steps are heavier than Mick’s, a different tone, different rhythm. He wags his tail and whizzes in and out of rooms, skids back and gulps the water from the bowl which I haven’t moved. I take a shower and leave Bruce with a treat. 

Cleaned up, I open the doors onto the terrace, a light breeze blows up dust. Bruce and I sit and watch the sunset. Mick’s fur is disturbed. It whispers up from the corners of the living room and under furniture. Light as smoke, grey and black, it sighs and swirls as it rolls across the floor out into the sky. Bruce licks my cheek. The cheek so often licked by Mick. 

I fasten Bruce’s lead, tuck a doggy bag in my pocket and crouch beside him before we leave,

"Good boy Bruce. You just made a save."

There was something about it being made by a dog that shone with the essence of a freed spirit, a loving ghost.

"Thank you Mick," I said.