‘Come ‘ere, you!’ the Guvnor bellowed, but Rumbo wasn’t having any. He darted even further away. ‘You wait ‘till I get ‘old of you,’ my assailant shouted. Rumbo skipped from the yard.
The Guvnor’s anger had been flushed now, but his meanness still remained. He dragged me to the back of the yard, collecting a length of rope on the way, then tied me to a wreck wedged beneath a pile of other wrecks.
‘Right,’ he snarled as he looped the rope around the empty window-frame of the car. ‘Right!’ He gave me one last wallop before he marched off, muttering something about the last thing he needed was the law snooping round. ‘Right,’ I heard him say as he slammed the hut door shut.
A few minutes later the door opened again and the Guvnor’s cronies filed out, climbed into their various cars and drove off. After they’d gone the Guvnor appeared, roared for Rumbo and, when nothing happened went back inside. I had the feeling we wouldn’t see old Rumbo for some time.
I tugged and pulled the rope, calling for the Guvnor to come back and let me loose; it was no use, he wouldn’t listen. I was frightened to pull on the rope too hard because the cars towering above me looked precariously balanced; I could never figure out how the piles of cars in the yard never toppled. My calls turned into angry shouts, then piteous whining, then sorrowful whimpers and finally, much later on when the yard was deserted, sullen silence.
It was dark when my companion decided to return. I was shivering with the cold and miserable with the loneliness.
‘I told you to run,’ he said, coming out of the night.
I sniffed.
‘He’s got a terrible temper,’ Rumbo went on, sniffing round me.
‘Last time he tied me up, he left me for three days without any food.’
I looked at him reproachfully.
‘Still, I can always bring you bits and pieces,’ he added consolingly. Suddenly he looked up. ‘Oh-oh. It’s beginning to rain.’
A raindrop splattered against my nose.
‘Not much cover here for you, is there?’ he commented. ‘Pity the car door’s shut — you could’ve climbed in.’
I studied him quietly for a few moments, then looked away.
‘Hungry?’ he asked. ‘I don’t think I could find you anything this time of night.’
My head became dotted with rain-spots.
‘Pity we ate that bird all in one go. We should have saved some of that.’ He shook his head wistfully.
I peered under the car I was tied to and saw there wasn’t enough room to squeeze beneath it. I was becoming wetter.
‘Well, squirt,’ Rumbo said with false jocularity, ‘no sense in both of us getting wet. Think I’ll get out of the rain.’ He looked at me apologetically. I regarded him disdainfully, then turned my head away again.
‘ ‘Er… I’ll see you in the morning then,’ he mumbled.
I watched him shuffle away. ‘Rumbo,’ I said.
He looked back at me, his eyebrows raised. ‘Yes?’
‘Do me a favour?’
‘Yes?’
‘Get neutered,’ I said mildly.
‘Good-night,’ he replied, and trotted off to our nice warm bed.
The rain began to beat a rhythmic pattern on my body now and I curled up as small as I could, hunching my neck into my shoulders. It was going to be a long night.
Eleven
It was not only a long night but a disturbing one too. It wasn’t just the discomfort of being drenched, for my fur held the moisture and formed a snug coating, keeping the worst of the chill away; but my sleep was nagged by memories.
Something had triggered the thoughts off and I didn’t know what; it hid away somewhere in my mind’s periphery. I saw a town — a village? I saw a house. Faces swam before me: I saw my wife, I saw my daughter. I was in a car; the human hands on the steering-wheel before me were my own. I drove through the town. I saw the angry face of a man I knew; he was also in a car and driving away from me. For some reason I followed. It was dark. Trees, hedges, flashed by, flat and eerie in the headlights. The car in front of me pulled in, turned into a narrow lane. I followed. It stopped; I stopped. The man I knew left his car and walked towards me. In the harsh glare from my headlights I saw his hand was outstretched — he was holding something? I opened my door as the hand pointed towards me. Then everything became a crystal of brilliant, glittering light. And the light became dark; and I knew nothing more.
Rumbo dropped a half-eaten roll in front of me. I sniffed at it and pulled out the thin slice of ham squashed between its crusty covers with my teeth. I gulped the meat down, then licked the butter from the bread. Then I ate the bread.
‘You were yelping in your sleep last night,’ Rumbo told me.
I tried to remember my dreams and after a while the fragments became whole pieces.
‘Rumbo, I haven’t always been a dog,’ I said.
Rumbo thought before he spoke, then he said, ‘Don’t be silly.’
‘No, listen to me, Rumbo. Please. We’re not the same, you and I, not like other dogs. You’re aware of that. Don’t you know why?’
Rumbo shrugged. ‘We’re just smarter.’
‘It’s more than that. We still have the feelings, the thoughts of men. It’s not just that we’re more clever than other dogs — we remember how we were!’
‘I remember being a dog always.’
‘Do you, Rumbo? Don’t you ever remember walking upright. Don’t you remember having hands, having fingers that you could use? Don’t you remember speaking?’
‘We’re doing that now.’
‘No, we’re not — not in men’s language anyway. We’re thinking now, Rumbo, we’re making sounds, but our words are more thoughts than those sounds. Don’t you see that?’
He shrugged again and I could see the subject bothered him. ‘What difference does it make? I understand you, you understand me.’
‘Think, Rumbo! Use your brain! Try to remember how it was before.’
‘What’s the point?’
This stopped me for a moment. Then I said, ‘Don’t you want to know why? How?’
‘No,’ he replied.
‘But Rumbo, there has to be a reason. There must be some purpose to this.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know why.’ There was frustration in my voice now. ‘But I want to find out!’
‘Listen, squirt. We’re dogs. We live like dogs, we’re treated like dogs. We think like dogs.…" I shook my head at this, but he continued: "… and we eat like dogs. We’re a little more intelligent than others, but we keep that to ourselves….’
‘Why don’t we show them we’re not like the rest?’ I burst out.
‘We are like the rest, squirt. We differ only in small ways.’
‘That’s not true!’
‘It is true; you’ll find out. We could show men how clever we are — lots of animals do. They usually end up in the circus.’
‘It’s not the same thing! That’s only animals learning tricks.’
‘Did you know they’re teaching a chimpanzee to talk? Is that a trick?’
‘How did you know that?’
Rumbo looked flustered.
‘It was something you knew in the past, wasn’t it, Rumbo? Not as a dog, but as a man. You read about it.’
‘Read? What’s read?’
‘Words. Words on paper.’
‘That’s ridiculous, paper can’t talk!’
‘Nor can dogs.’
‘We’re talking.’
‘Not in the same way as men.’
‘Of course not. We’re not men.’
‘What are we?’
‘Dogs.’
‘Freaks.’
‘Freaks?’
‘Yes. I think we were men, then something happened and we became dogs.’