The puppy still has no name when we take it to the vet for its injections.
“Have you chosen one yet?” says the receptionist. “Or do you want me to leave it as Puppy for now?”
My wife and I look down at the terrified dog in my arms, and then at one another. I nod.
“It’s Jean,” my wife says.
“Jean,” says the receptionist. “OK.”
Back at home, I look for evidence that the cat has been on the premises in our absence. Since the new dog’s arrival, the cat has lived in some ivy growing over the plastic corrugated roof that spans the side return.
For a cat, it’s an easy leap from there to the open window of an upper-storey bedroom. I’ve left some food in there for him, but he doesn’t seem to have eaten any of it while we’ve been out.
“The cat will be fine,” my wife says. But the cat has spent so little time indoors in the past three days that I’m not even sure it knows the thing it’s hiding from is a dog.
Texts suggesting puppy names are still coming in on the family WhatsApp. One, from the oldest, says “Elaine?”
“They don’t know,” I say to my wife.
She pulls out her phone and types with both thumbs.
“It’s Jean,” she writes.
At night we put the puppy in its cage at the foot of our bed. In the morning – 5 o’clock in the morning – I wake up with it chewing the hair off the back of my head.
“Ow!” I say.
“Jean!” my wife says. The dog disregards her and keeps on chewing.
I retreat to a different bedroom to try to snatch a bit more sleep. At some point I wake to find the cat standing on my chest wearing a look of deep reproach.
“It’s just a puppy,” I say.
“Just a puppy,” says the cat, sarcastically. It’s possible I dreamed this.
Later that morning the middle one arrives to play with the new dog. The new dog, surrounded by a circle of new dog toys, is playing with its favourite thing: a garden trowel.
“Hey,” says the middle one.
“Hey,” I say. “Have you seen the cat at all?”
“Jeannie!” my wife says.
“No,” says the middle one.
“Jeannie Jean!” my wife says. The dog ignores her.
“I have no real proof that he’s been in the house in the past 48 hours,” I say.
“The cat will be fine,” my wife says.
“Did you look in the ivy?” the middle one says.
“Yeah,” I say. “But you can’t really tell if it’s in there or not.”
“She hardly cried in her cage last night,” my wife says. “Did you, Jean?”
“That’s because she wasn’t in the cage,” I say. “She was in the bed, chewing my hair off.”
“Only for an hour,” my wife says.
“I can feel the breeze on the bald patch at the back,” I say, touching my head.
“Maybe leave some cat food on that little roof,” says the middle one.
“Good idea,” I say.
“Jean Jeannie Jean!” my wife says.
After lunch I return to my office shed to work. Occasionally I look up from the screen and along the top of the garden wall, to see if the cat might be sitting there. But it isn’t.
A steady rain begins to fall. I think about the bowl of cat food sitting on the corrugated roof, and the cat in the ivy. After about half an hour, I fall asleep.
I am woken by the bright ring of metal on brick. I turn around in my chair to see the little dog coming down the path, dragging its trowel. It stops in front of my office door, and looks in.
“Hi,” I say. “It’s Jean, isn’t it?”
The dog drops the trowel and looks up at me.
“I was just about to go to the shops,” I say. “Do you need anything?”
That night we go through a now familiar ritual: taking the puppy outside, carrying the cage upstairs, draping the top with a blanket and locking the dog inside with its trowel. This time there is no whimpering.
I wake at 4am to find a strange weight on my chest. When I turn my head to the left I discover that the puppy is asleep with its head resting on my ribcage.
When I turn my head to the right I see the cat sitting on the floor at my bedside, preparing to leap up on to me. Before I can mouth the word “no” the cat is in the air, so I just close my eyes, clench my teeth and wait.
