The winter froze on and times for Rumbo and me got leaner. We still made our daily trips to the fruit-market, but our pickings in the shopping-zones had become increasingly more hazardous. The shopkeepers now knew us by sight and would chase us away as soon as we came sniffing around: the cold weather made the housewives more guarded, less friendly. I was fast losing my puppy cuteness (I suppose I was around seven or eight months old by then), and people are less inclined to stop and stroke a gangly mongrel than a plump, furry bundle, so I had become next to useless as a decoy for Rumbo. However, the hardship made us more cunning, swifter in our attacks, and more resourceful in our methods.
A wild dash through a supermarket usually proved fruitful, provided there was a clear exit. One of us would knock stacks of cans over or generally cause a disturbance while the other would sneak in and grab the nearest edible item at hand. That was always very exciting. A romp around a school playground at lunchtime would inevitably yield a sandwich or two, or perhaps an apple or some chocolate. The pandemonium was lovely. A visit to the local street-market never failed to bring us replenishment for our greedy stomachs. The threats and curses our thieving from there caused was, nevertheless, a little alarming. Moreover, we had become too adventurous, and that led to our downfall.
One day Rumbo and I had marched boldly into a backyard, encouraged by our noses which had been enticed by delicious cooking smells. An open doorway stood before us and steam billowed out from within; we were at the back of a restaurant, at the kitchen entry. Both of us were over-confident to the point of recklessness; we had been getting away with it for too long. We ambled in.
It was a high-class restaurant, although you might never have suspected it from the state of the kitchen. I knew it was a good place because of the menu, part of which I could see steaming away on a centre table: roast duckling dripping with orange sauce. It was surrounded by other dishes, but not as mouthwatering, waiting to be carried away into the dining-room (or carried away by two hungry dogs). Apart from the chef, who had his stout back turned to us while he was busy stirring a huge cauldron of simmering soup, the kitchen was empty. Rumbo gave me a quick look, then with one bound was up on the table. I rested my front paws against the table’s edge and smiled smugly. Our bellies would be full today.
Rumbo nonchalantly worked his way through the various dishes (if he had been a man, he’d have been humming) until finally he reached the duckling. He flicked out his tongue and began licking at the orange sauce. He looked back at me and I swear he rolled his eyes. My mouth was drooling by now and I was hopping from one hind foot to the other in frustration. Rumbo had a few more licks, then his jaws opened wide to grasp the entire roasted bird between them. It was at that moment the door leading to the dining-room burst open.
We stood paralysed as a waiter in a white jacket and small black bow-tie, carrying a tray full of half-empty dishes, breezed in, calling out a new order to the chef before he was even through the door. The waiter was fairly small for a man (all tall to me, you see) and wore his jet-black hair greasily slicked down. Above his greasily slicked down moustache was a long, curving nose and, above that, two over-large, bulbous eyes which grew even larger and more bulbous when he saw us. His mouth dropped open to a point where it almost matched Rumbo’s and the dishes on his tray slid down the incline he had unconsciously created, slipping over the edge in an avalanche. The terrible crash as they hit the tiled floor set the whole scene in motion again.
The chef whirled, clutching at his heart, the waiter screamed, (I think he was Italian), Rumbo grabbed the duckling, and I (what else?), wet myself.
Rumbo leapt from the table, slid on a slippery patch on the floor, lost the duckling, scrambled to retrieve it, yelped as the hot soup-ladle thrown by the chef skimmed across his back, grabbed the duckling again by the parson’s nose end, and scurried for the exit.
The waiter threw the now empty tray at Rumbo, choked back a sob, gave chase, skidded on the same slippery patch, sprawled on his back, and managed to get his legs tangled up in dog and duckling.
The chef moved his hand from his heart to his mouth, roared with furious anguish, lumbered forward, slid on the tray which covered another slippery patch left by the skidding orange-sauce-covered duckling, landed heavily (he was very stout) on the little waiter’s chest, and bellowed and kicked at dog, duckling, waiter and all.
I ran away.
Rumbo crept furtively into the yard about five minutes after I’d arrived there. He crawled through our own private entrance at the back of the yard behind a huge pile of wrecks — a one-foot high hole torn in the corrugated-iron fencing at its base – still grasping the now cold roast duckling between his jaws. The young bird looked a bit worse for wear: a piece de resistance that hadn’t resisted too well. Nevertheless, to two hungry mongrels it was still a gastronomic triumph, and after we’d sucked every bone clean (I warned Rumbo not to crunch the bones — too splintery, I told him) we had a good chortle over our success. The smirks were wiped from our faces a couple of days later, however.
A uniformed policeman arrived at the yard and asked one of the breakers if there were two black mongrel dogs on the premises. Rumbo and I edged out of sight behind a decaying Ford Anglia and looked at each other nervously. It was obvious the shopkeepers had got together and registered a complaint to the local cop-shop; perhaps the restauranteur had instigated the action. It certainly hadn’t taken the police long to track us down. We peeped from behind the old car and saw the breaker pointing nervously towards the Guvnor’s office. The young policeman strolled casually over to the hut, examining the various cars parked alongside it. The Guvnor was having one of his now regular meetings with his cronies.
The plod knocked at the door and the Guvnor appeared. We watched his smiling face as he dealt with the policeman’s inquiries, showing a disarming charm that had never been apparent to us before. His hands made gestures of surprise, alarm and concern; he nodded his head gravely, then shook it equally as gravely. Then he was back to smiling and smarming, his cigar never once leaving the corner of his mouth during the discourse. With one last smile of assurance from the Guvnor, the young policeman turned and strolled from the yard.
The Guvnor smiled benevolently at the policeman’s back until he had disappeared through the gate: then he turned his gaze towards the rest of the yard, a look of sheer thunder on those now rock-like features. He spotted our snouts protruding from the wreck and marched towards us with stiff, determined strides.
‘Run, squirt, run!’ Rumbo warned me.
I wasn’t quick enough. The Guvnor grabbed me before I had a chance to make a break for it. He began to flail at me with a closed fist, keeping a firm grip on my collar as he did so. I’d always felt the Guvnor had a contained cruelty about him (this didn’t necessarily make him a cruel man) and now it was let loose and I was its recipient. I howled in pain, and was grateful that a dog’s sensitive cells are unevenly distributed over the body otherwise some of these blows would have hurt even more.
Rumbo stood and watched from a distance, anxious for me and fearful for himself.