Animal Control: A Tale of the Dames with Dogs
ANIMAL CONTROL:
A Tale of the Dames with Dogs
ONE
Animal Control strolled into the dog park. She had been there just once before, back in August, but her boss had said Get thee to the dog park, and so here she was again in mid December.
It paid to do what the boss said. He was small but scary.
This park to which she’d been dispatched was a large one in the suburb of Windhill, not far from the fairy gardens where the [1]big statues stood guard at the gates.
Vehicles, even those belonging to gardeners and maintenance staff, couldn’t enter the fairy gardens, because the gates were too narrow. Animal Control knew that was a deliberate move on the part of the folk who endowed and planned the gardens.
Wheelbarrows, bicycles, wheelchairs, horses and the occasional llama or fay goat could fit through. Boats on trailers couldn’t, but they sailed in from the seaward side. Possibly a motorbike would fit, but Animal Control had heard odd tales suggesting things with motors didn’t thrive in the fairy gardens. She believed them.
The Windhill Dog Park had no such rule. Indeed, it had a row of shade trees along one side where owners parked their vans and cars and bikes. Besides that, the Paws-a-While van, the mobile arm of the Paws-a-While café in Gilchrist, frequented the park. Cilla, the owner, had developed her café as a dog-friendly venue. It was an unofficial meeting place for the Dames with Dogs club, and since they also inhabited the dog park, so did Cilla’s van.
Cilla knew her customer base. She sold tea and coffee of a robust and caffeinated kind. The coffee had nifty pawprints picked out in chocolate powder on the froth. She provided take-away mugs, but she encouraged customers to bring their own. A surprising number of them did.
For her canine customers, she served stock-based puppas in wide-mouthed mugs, along with fancy biscuits she made to her own recipe. For the humans there were scones and slices and the kind of solid cake (innocent of sultanas) that could be dropped on the grass, picked up, dusted off and consumed with no harm done, and crates of apples for those wanting a healthier option.
Animal Control had brought her own mug with her to the park. It was a nice one with a Jonathan Blarney print—a lacy pattern of leaves and feathers.
It looked delicate but it was strong enough to bounce if necessary.
Bit like me, Animal Control thought as she joined the short queue for coffee.
As she came up to the van, she fished her mug out of the messenger bag she wore and held it out hopefully.
“What may I get you?” Cilla gave her professional smile.
Animal Control knew it was Cilla, because she had on an apron with the name looped diagonally down the bib.
Besides, she’d been briefed before her first visit, and this was the second time she’d fronted up to the van.
“Coffee,” Animal Control said.
She didn’t like it much, but she was hoping to get a taste for it one day.
“And for your friend?” Cilla asked, pouring coffee with one hand and gesturing downwards with the other.
“My friend?”
Animal Control glanced down. She was perplexed to see a small terrier-type sitting in good-dog position beside her.
It was mostly white, but Animal Control saw it had a harlequin marking with one brown ear and one white one, and a lightning-strike dividing its face into uneven halves. One eye was the usual toffee brown of the terrier, but the other was Wedgewood blue.
How odd.
“Would you like something?” she asked the small dog with proper courtesy.
It pawed at her leg.
Animal Control turned to Cilla. “What do small dogs usually buy?”
“A puppa and a puffin is a good choice.”
“A puffin?”
Cilla laughed. “Sometimes, we’re a bit too cute for our own good. Puffins are our take on muffins, made with dog-friendly ingredients. The carrot ones are pupular, because they’re naturally sweet.”
Pupular. Oh.
“We’ll have that then.”
Animal Control received the two drinks and one puffin and moved aside.
She bent to give her new friend her share—that she was a she was evident because she rolled over to show a pink tummy without a tuft. Submissive, or just asking for a belly rub?
Whichever it was, she jumped up and dived nose-first into the puppa, so maybe she was thirsty. After that, she disposed of the puffin, holding it neatly between her paws.
Animal Control wondered if she ought to be feeding someone else’s dog and decided she shouldn’t. Still, it was done now. As with unscrambled eggs, there was no unfeeding of a dog, unless one resorted to an emetic. Doing that to someone else’s dog was probably even more wrong than feeding it.
She sipped her coffee.
Puffin finished her treat, licked up the crumbs and sat up politely. She looked nervous, but not afraid.
Animal Control bent to stroke her, noting she had no collar, and no flattened band of fur to suggest she usually wore one.
She looked young, but not puppyish.
“Do you know who she belongs to?” Animal Control asked as she worked her way down her coffee.
Cilla looked up from whatever she was doing behind the counter. “Isn’t she yours?”
“Never seen her before.”
“I’ve only seen you once before,” Cilla responded. A crease appeared between her brows. “Why are you here, anyway? The dogs in this park are well regulated. They behave pretty well, and they’re certainly not neglected.”
“I was told to come here and check chips again,” Animal Control said. She tipped her cup upside down, so she needn’t drink the bottom-sludge, and restored it to the messenger bag before she handed Puffin’s crockery to Cilla.
“Maybe you’d better wand your little friend,” Cilla advised. “Her registration details will come up.”
Animal Control looked about. Cilla was right. The dogs in the park seemed well-cared for. Most of them belonged to Dames with Dogs, and the Dames were a formidable group of women.
Animal Control really hoped she didn’t have to tell a Dame to get her dog registered. She sighed. She’d known the park would be infested with Dames with Dogs.
TWO
Animal Control had first become aware of the Dames with Dogs a few weeks before, just before her first visit to the park.
She hadn’t been Animal Control then. She’d been a Driver for V-S.
Being a V-S Driver entailed driving a client from the pick-up point to the drop-off and refusing to answer questions or to engage in small talk along the way.
She loved the work, because the people she drove were all off on adventures, whether they knew it or not. Friends, lovers or occasionally charitable strangers paid for vouchers, nominated recipients and left it to V-S to arrange the details.
V-S vouchers could be bought for everything from a bunch of roses to a month in fairyland…so to speak.
She was desperate to keep the job, but she didn’t fit the demographic of a V-S Driver at all well. Drivers were anonymous, uninvolved, indifferent, disinterested and all sorts of other uns and ins. They were meant to merge with the scenery so efficiently that their passengers wouldn’t later be able to pick them out from a line-up.
Animal Control was tall and willowy with blonde hair that hung well past her waist. She liked to wear biker boots or Victorian button-ups, depending on her mood. She talked too much. She had an obsessive desire to tell people her life-story, and a nasty habit of referring to herself in the third person when confiding to someone what she’d told herself yesterday.
She was the antithesis of a V-S Driver, and she knew it.
Her small but scary boss knew it, too.
Nevertheless, she clung to her job with the V-S company by her toenails and somehow, shifts still came her way.
She put that down to the small but scary boss’s sweet wife, and to the good offices of the people she drove, who didn’t want to get her into trouble. Even the ones who recognised her later (and V-S Drivers were not supposed to be recognised later) did nothing but flash her a quick, complicit smile.
THREE
The Driver (aka Animal Control) first learned about the Dames with Dogs in July when a passenger ignored the back door she’d held open in her ushering way and said she wanted to go in the front instead.
“You’re not meant to see where you’re going,” the Driver explained.
The woman said, “Debussy needs to go in the back. Can you do the honours?”
The Driver, seeking a composer, or possibly a musical instrument, found a patiently waiting spaniel instead.
“Debussy, I presume.” She lifted the dog into the back seat and fastened his harness before she resumed the driver’s seat.
“You ought to be in the back with him,” she told the client. Firm and polite.
“I prefer the front seat,” the woman said, getting in. “It wouldn’t be a good look if I threw up now, would it?”
The Driver gave in. It was dark, anyway.
She started the blue van and drove off, following the route she’d committed to memory.
V-S Drivers couldn’t use a GPS because that would alert the passengers to where they were being taken. The back seats had frosted windows and shades, and there was a screen between the front and back seats.
The windscreen was necessarily clear. Even V-S didn’t expect Drivers to navigate blind.
“Lovely evening,” the passenger said.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t. And I promise I won’t ask you where I’m going.
“Have you worked for the company for long?”
“Not as long as I want to. Tell me about your dog.”
The passenger, a motherly-looking woman of indeterminate age, sighed happily. “His name’s Debussy, as you probably noted. When I went to pick him up from the pound, Debussy’s Rêverie was playing on the car radio. I couldn’t name him Rêverie because that’s my name, and I didn’t want to call him Claude, so I went with Debussy.”
“Nice name.”
“I think so. What’s yours?”
“Driver.”
“Seriously?”
“Not seriously, but that’s what it is to you.”
The Driver saw a signpost approaching and decided distraction was necessary. “Is your name really Reverie?”
“It really is. Reverie Eden. And as I’m a parson I get called the Rev Rev, which is a bit unfortunate.”
A parson.
“I see.”
The Rev Reverie chuckled. “Do you want an explanation or would you rather I pretended to be a crash test dummy?”
“An explanation might be interesting.”
The Driver was proud of that response. No one could claim she had asked for information.
“I belong to a club called Dames with Dogs. We’re all women, although I expect we’d let men in if they ever asked.”
“Men can be pantomime dames,” the Driver put in.
“Indeed. But so far, no male Dame has applied. Not that anyone ever does apply.” She paused, apparently marshalling her thoughts. Then she said, “We almost all have dogs.”
“Almost?”
“Our club artist is currently dogless, but she assures us she’ll adopt one when a suitable prospect turns up. And of course, if a member should lose her dog through misadventure or simply to the sands of time, we would never compound her misery by deDaming her. That would be needlessly unkind.”
The Driver was glad to hear it. She would hate to be deDrivered, but she knew it was always a possibility.
“How many members do you have?” she asked before she could remember to hold her tongue.
“I don’t know,” the Rev Reverie admitted. “None of us knows. There is no official members’ list, you see. We don’t pay dues, either.”
“Then how does one join?”
“That’s the eternal mystery. It seems to just happen. The progression of events is as follows.
“A woman, who is usually but not always over the age of forty, has or acquires a dog. The dog is important to her, and she is important to the dog. They benefit one another. She cares for the dog, and the dog responds with companionship and devotion.
“At some point, when she’s out walking, or possibly just sitting on a rock while the dog plays, she will cross paths with another woman who also has a dog. They will fall into conversation.
“Next, she will be introduced to other women with dogs. After a time…which might be days, or weeks, or even months, she will realise she has become a member of Dames with Dogs. It’s simple.”
It didn’t sound simple to the Driver.
“Do you have meetings?”
“We meet up, yes, but we don’t have meetings. Not as such. There are no office holders, no elections, no minutes and no business arising. No one is in charge.”
“How often do you see one another?”
“As often as we see one another. I’m not being opaque on purpose. That’s just the way it is. Some Dames live farther away than others, so we see them only now and again. Others have husbands or children or grandchildren who take up much of their time.”
The Driver turned off the highway and into a maze of back roads.
“Do you know,” the Rev Reverie said suddenly, “I never understood before just how odd we are as a phenomenon. I know lots of Dames pretty well, but even so I don’t always know their names.”
“You must call them something.”
“Oh yes. We have Dame Names.”
The Driver waited for enlightenment.
“If I tell you, you are going to think I’m nuts.”
The Driver said she was a bit nuts herself and found it no impediment.
That wasn’t entirely true.
“Well, I’m Rev, which is simple enough. It stands for both my first name, and for my calling. Then there’s Jingles, and Florida, Caddy and Dash, Elfie and Daylight, Jellybean and Christmas—whose real name is Christabel—Pud and Pickles…”
“Just like 1920s schoolgirls,” the Driver said, enlightened.
“I suppose so. Yes. But we’re more formidable than 1920s schoolgirls. There’s an unwritten rule, you see, that Dames will work together for a common purpose. You would be surprised at what we can achieve if and when we choose. We are well-meaning but crossing us is not a good idea.”
Rev Reverie glanced at the Driver. “You’ve done very well. You’ve encouraged me to ramble on and divulged almost nothing about yourself.”
The Driver said, indignantly, “Are you a V-S plant?”
“I don’t think I’m going to answer that, but whether I am or not, you have nothing to fear from me. Are we nearly there?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
They drove on for a couple of hours, and then the Driver decanted the Rev Reverie and Debussy at a small boutique hotel which proclaimed itself dog-friendly.
She handed over the case of necessities she’d been told to provide.
V-S always provided basic needs for its clients.
“Do you know who arranged this voucher for you?” She was not supposed to enquire, but she’d bent so many rules one more couldn’t hurt.
The Reverend Reverie shook her head.
“Do you know why you’re here or what you’re going to do or—”
“None of the above.” The woman held out her hand. “I don’t know anything—except that it’s going to be fun. Are you coming back for me when whatever I’m doing here is done?”
The Driver shrugged and took the offered hand. “That depends if I’m rostered on. It might be me, or it might be someone else.”
The Rev Reverie said, “Then, I might see you again sometime.”
“Maybe…but if you do, do you think you might manage not to recognise me?”
“Not by a flicker of an eyelash shall I suggest a previous acquaintanceship,” the woman said solemnly. “Come, Debussy. Goodbye, Driver.”
FOUR
The Driver had not driven the Reverend Reverie again, but she had driven other Dames, always accompanied by their dogs, on other jobs, and she found them disconcerting. They always wanted to talk to her, and they often mentioned other Dames in passing, just as if she knew them.
The Driver began to feel as if she did know them.
It was very peculiar.
It was also very peculiar when her small but scary boss started sending her on other jobs that didn’t require her to drive anyone anywhere.
Today’s job had brought her to the dog park with its uncomfortable infestation of Dames for the second time.
FIVE
Coffee finished; Animal Control took her dog-wand out of her messenger bag.
Cilla Paws-a-While was right. She should check Puffin’s identity and restore her to her owner.
Her small but scary boss had made sure she remembered her lessons on wanding and checking databases. She knew the questions to ask, and she knew the answers not to give.
Puffin looked up at her.
“Let’s find your owner,” Animal Control said. She clicked her fingers and headed off across the park with the terrier trotting beside her.
SIX
The Rev Reverie and Debussy sat on a picnic rug with two other Dames whom Animal Control didn’t know. One of them had full skirts and a labradoodle, and another one had a crash helmet and a border collie.
A black Scottie caught her eye. He was capering about, doing barrel rolls.
Him again.
She’d had a disconcerting experience with that dog. She remembered the first time she’d seen him…
First Dog Park Visit, back in August…
Animal Control looked for an owner, half-expecting someone in a ringmaster’s outfit.
No dice. The acrobatic dog seemed to be alone.
I ought to wand him.
Animal Control turned her back.
A young woman with a sketchbook was presumably the club artist Rev Reverie had mentioned.
At least I don’t have to wand her.
The barrel-rolling Scottie flipped onto his forelegs and walked a few steps.
That ought to be impossible.
Animal Control headed for the dog but before she could raise her dog-wand, a tall woman with a tight yellow dress and a terrier strode up, clicking her fingers imperiously and commanding the Scottie to heel.
I still ought to wand him.
Tall with Terrier leashed the Scottie and the threesome vanished out the gate.
Animal Control caught the eye of a black spaniel—and a very odd-coloured eye it was for a dog—lifted the dog-wand and changed her mind.
The black spaniel did not want to be dog-wanded and its expression promised all sorts of unspecified consequences if she persisted.
Animal Control turned in search of less challenging prey.
Three labradoodles, another Scottie, a dalmatian and a Pekingese later, Animal Control spotted Tall with Terrier with the terrier but without the acrobatic Scottie.
Tall was another Dame, and her terrier, Shelley, was properly chipped. She explained, at length and without being asked, that the Scottie wasn’t hers, but belonged to her cousin and had now been reclaimed by her cousin and was going home.
At least, that was what Animal Control took away from the conversation.
It was unnerving.
December
On this second visit to the park, Animal Control tried to un-see the black Scottie and the black spaniel, which she perceived was resting, (sans owner) under a tree.
A white-haired Dame with a Bedlington terrier walked by, accompanied by a Dame with flyaway skirts and a baby sling.
Animal Control intercepted them. “May I check your chips?”
The Dames exchanged amused glances.
“This is Mary Mary,” the Dame with the Bedlington said. “She’s all in order.”
Animal Control used the dog-wand.
Up came the information. Mary Mary was registered to Carolyn Hildebrand of Windhill.
Carolyn Hildebrand obligingly confirmed her details.
Animal Control turned to the Dame with the sling.
“Nell Andover—and this is Pepe.” The Dame reached into the sling and brought out an elderly chihuahua in one hand and a stuffed rabbit in the other. “You won’t need to dog-wand the rabbit,” she said helpfully.
Animal Control rubbed Pepe behind the ears.
Puffin nudged her calf.
Belatedly, she said, “Ms Hildebrand…Ms Andover, do you know who this terrier belongs to?”
The women shook their heads.
“We thought she was yours,” Carolyn Hildebrand said.
“No, she just appeared.”
Nell Andover restored Pepe and the stuffed rabbit to the sling. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before.”
They went on, and Animal Control continued her rounds.
Along the way, she learned the names of a great many Dames, and she tried not to see the two free-floating black dogs.
The black spaniel bitch gave her a disapproving look and the black Scottie sneered at her.
She approached the Rev Reverie and her companion.
“Excuse me…”
The Rev Reverie smiled. “Animal Control. I guess you want to check our dogs. This is my Debussy.” She indicated the spaniel, just as if they’d never been introduced back in July.
“Paulina Greenhow,” the other woman said. “This is Spud.”
Animal Control used the dog=wand, receiving the expected results.
“Do you happen to know who owns the black spaniel, Ms Eden?” she asked the Rev Reverie.
“Pud?” Reverie raised her brows.
“That’s Gill’s dog,” the labradoodle’s owner said.
“It shouldn’t be running around loose.”
“She isn’t,” Reverie pointed out.
“Well, where is her owner?”
“She’s here somewhere. I can swear to that.”
Fair enough.
“I don’t suppose you know who this one belongs to?” She indicated Puffin.
“Isn’t she yours?” Paulina Greenhow asked.
“Why does everyone think that?”
“Because she acts as if she’s yours, I suppose,” Reverie said.
“Gorgeous little dog.” It was Tall, passing by with her terrier, but without the black Scottie. She added, indicating Puffin, “I’ve only ever seen two dogs with blue eyes before. Where did you get her?”
“She isn’t mine,” Animal Control said.
“No?”
“No. At least…”
Before she could formulate the denial, the dalmatian Dame beckoned her over. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something—you look a bit familiar. Do I know you?”
Animal Control looked her in the eye.
“How could you?”
“How could I,” agreed the Dame.
Her name was Erin Bell, and three weeks before, the Driver had taken her to a rosarian in the city to take possession of a one-of-a-kind rosebush.
Dog Control saw the club artist sketching busily.
She’d better not be drawing me.
She looked about at the dogs with Dames, and at a few dogs belonging to owners who were clearly not Dames. She dog-wanded those and issued one caution about registration.
She was glad she hadn’t had to Speak to a Dame.
SEVEN
It was time to go home.
Animal Control sighed deeply.
The black spaniel had gone, which was fortunate. So had most of the other dogs.
Even the Paws-a-While van was driving slowly out of the park.
Cilla leaned out of the window. “Did you find out who owns your little friend, love?”
Animal Control finally and with great reluctance applied the dog-wand to Puffin’s neck.
There was no response.
Sometimes, chips moved from the back of the neck.
She ran the dog-wand over Puffin’s shoulders, and on down her front legs, then over her back and under her belly.
Nothing.
Puffin was an unregistered dog, and she’d been unescorted and unidentified at the park for two hours.
Animal Control sighed.
It was her duty to take Puffin to the pound.
Cilla was waiting.
Animal Control raised her head. “Yes, I found her owner. I’m taking her home now.”
“Oh? Whose is she?”
“She belongs to a woman called Takk Engel.”
Cilla’s brows flew up.
“That’s a very odd name. Is it Finnish?”
“Could be.”
Animal Control, aka the Driver aka and actually Takk Elizabeth Engel (and actually not Finnish), replaced her dog-wand in the messenger bag, removed a collar and leash, applied it to Puffin and took her dog out of the park.
Her first thought was what her small but scary boss was going to say when she turned up for work tomorrow with a dog.
Her second thought was that maybe V-S had intended her to acquire a dog. This dog.
Her third thought, which was as scary as it was delightful, was that now she was qualified to become a Dames with Dogs. Or at least, the singular thereof.
[1] Wooden figures of Jacobi le Fay and his wife, Barbara, commissioned by their daughter, Carolyn Hildebrand.
A Tale of the Dames with Dogs
ONE
Animal Control strolled into the dog park. She had been there just once before, back in August, but her boss had said Get thee to the dog park, and so here she was again in mid December.
It paid to do what the boss said. He was small but scary.
This park to which she’d been dispatched was a large one in the suburb of Windhill, not far from the fairy gardens where the [1]big statues stood guard at the gates.
Vehicles, even those belonging to gardeners and maintenance staff, couldn’t enter the fairy gardens, because the gates were too narrow. Animal Control knew that was a deliberate move on the part of the folk who endowed and planned the gardens.
Wheelbarrows, bicycles, wheelchairs, horses and the occasional llama or fay goat could fit through. Boats on trailers couldn’t, but they sailed in from the seaward side. Possibly a motorbike would fit, but Animal Control had heard odd tales suggesting things with motors didn’t thrive in the fairy gardens. She believed them.
The Windhill Dog Park had no such rule. Indeed, it had a row of shade trees along one side where owners parked their vans and cars and bikes. Besides that, the Paws-a-While van, the mobile arm of the Paws-a-While café in Gilchrist, frequented the park. Cilla, the owner, had developed her café as a dog-friendly venue. It was an unofficial meeting place for the Dames with Dogs club, and since they also inhabited the dog park, so did Cilla’s van.
Cilla knew her customer base. She sold tea and coffee of a robust and caffeinated kind. The coffee had nifty pawprints picked out in chocolate powder on the froth. She provided take-away mugs, but she encouraged customers to bring their own. A surprising number of them did.
For her canine customers, she served stock-based puppas in wide-mouthed mugs, along with fancy biscuits she made to her own recipe. For the humans there were scones and slices and the kind of solid cake (innocent of sultanas) that could be dropped on the grass, picked up, dusted off and consumed with no harm done, and crates of apples for those wanting a healthier option.
Animal Control had brought her own mug with her to the park. It was a nice one with a Jonathan Blarney print—a lacy pattern of leaves and feathers.
It looked delicate but it was strong enough to bounce if necessary.
Bit like me, Animal Control thought as she joined the short queue for coffee.
As she came up to the van, she fished her mug out of the messenger bag she wore and held it out hopefully.
“What may I get you?” Cilla gave her professional smile.
Animal Control knew it was Cilla, because she had on an apron with the name looped diagonally down the bib.
Besides, she’d been briefed before her first visit, and this was the second time she’d fronted up to the van.
“Coffee,” Animal Control said.
She didn’t like it much, but she was hoping to get a taste for it one day.
“And for your friend?” Cilla asked, pouring coffee with one hand and gesturing downwards with the other.
“My friend?”
Animal Control glanced down. She was perplexed to see a small terrier-type sitting in good-dog position beside her.
It was mostly white, but Animal Control saw it had a harlequin marking with one brown ear and one white one, and a lightning-strike dividing its face into uneven halves. One eye was the usual toffee brown of the terrier, but the other was Wedgewood blue.
How odd.
“Would you like something?” she asked the small dog with proper courtesy.
It pawed at her leg.
Animal Control turned to Cilla. “What do small dogs usually buy?”
“A puppa and a puffin is a good choice.”
“A puffin?”
Cilla laughed. “Sometimes, we’re a bit too cute for our own good. Puffins are our take on muffins, made with dog-friendly ingredients. The carrot ones are pupular, because they’re naturally sweet.”
Pupular. Oh.
“We’ll have that then.”
Animal Control received the two drinks and one puffin and moved aside.
She bent to give her new friend her share—that she was a she was evident because she rolled over to show a pink tummy without a tuft. Submissive, or just asking for a belly rub?
Whichever it was, she jumped up and dived nose-first into the puppa, so maybe she was thirsty. After that, she disposed of the puffin, holding it neatly between her paws.
Animal Control wondered if she ought to be feeding someone else’s dog and decided she shouldn’t. Still, it was done now. As with unscrambled eggs, there was no unfeeding of a dog, unless one resorted to an emetic. Doing that to someone else’s dog was probably even more wrong than feeding it.
She sipped her coffee.
Puffin finished her treat, licked up the crumbs and sat up politely. She looked nervous, but not afraid.
Animal Control bent to stroke her, noting she had no collar, and no flattened band of fur to suggest she usually wore one.
She looked young, but not puppyish.
“Do you know who she belongs to?” Animal Control asked as she worked her way down her coffee.
Cilla looked up from whatever she was doing behind the counter. “Isn’t she yours?”
“Never seen her before.”
“I’ve only seen you once before,” Cilla responded. A crease appeared between her brows. “Why are you here, anyway? The dogs in this park are well regulated. They behave pretty well, and they’re certainly not neglected.”
“I was told to come here and check chips again,” Animal Control said. She tipped her cup upside down, so she needn’t drink the bottom-sludge, and restored it to the messenger bag before she handed Puffin’s crockery to Cilla.
“Maybe you’d better wand your little friend,” Cilla advised. “Her registration details will come up.”
Animal Control looked about. Cilla was right. The dogs in the park seemed well-cared for. Most of them belonged to Dames with Dogs, and the Dames were a formidable group of women.
Animal Control really hoped she didn’t have to tell a Dame to get her dog registered. She sighed. She’d known the park would be infested with Dames with Dogs.
TWO
Animal Control had first become aware of the Dames with Dogs a few weeks before, just before her first visit to the park.
She hadn’t been Animal Control then. She’d been a Driver for V-S.
Being a V-S Driver entailed driving a client from the pick-up point to the drop-off and refusing to answer questions or to engage in small talk along the way.
She loved the work, because the people she drove were all off on adventures, whether they knew it or not. Friends, lovers or occasionally charitable strangers paid for vouchers, nominated recipients and left it to V-S to arrange the details.
V-S vouchers could be bought for everything from a bunch of roses to a month in fairyland…so to speak.
She was desperate to keep the job, but she didn’t fit the demographic of a V-S Driver at all well. Drivers were anonymous, uninvolved, indifferent, disinterested and all sorts of other uns and ins. They were meant to merge with the scenery so efficiently that their passengers wouldn’t later be able to pick them out from a line-up.
Animal Control was tall and willowy with blonde hair that hung well past her waist. She liked to wear biker boots or Victorian button-ups, depending on her mood. She talked too much. She had an obsessive desire to tell people her life-story, and a nasty habit of referring to herself in the third person when confiding to someone what she’d told herself yesterday.
She was the antithesis of a V-S Driver, and she knew it.
Her small but scary boss knew it, too.
Nevertheless, she clung to her job with the V-S company by her toenails and somehow, shifts still came her way.
She put that down to the small but scary boss’s sweet wife, and to the good offices of the people she drove, who didn’t want to get her into trouble. Even the ones who recognised her later (and V-S Drivers were not supposed to be recognised later) did nothing but flash her a quick, complicit smile.
THREE
The Driver (aka Animal Control) first learned about the Dames with Dogs in July when a passenger ignored the back door she’d held open in her ushering way and said she wanted to go in the front instead.
“You’re not meant to see where you’re going,” the Driver explained.
The woman said, “Debussy needs to go in the back. Can you do the honours?”
The Driver, seeking a composer, or possibly a musical instrument, found a patiently waiting spaniel instead.
“Debussy, I presume.” She lifted the dog into the back seat and fastened his harness before she resumed the driver’s seat.
“You ought to be in the back with him,” she told the client. Firm and polite.
“I prefer the front seat,” the woman said, getting in. “It wouldn’t be a good look if I threw up now, would it?”
The Driver gave in. It was dark, anyway.
She started the blue van and drove off, following the route she’d committed to memory.
V-S Drivers couldn’t use a GPS because that would alert the passengers to where they were being taken. The back seats had frosted windows and shades, and there was a screen between the front and back seats.
The windscreen was necessarily clear. Even V-S didn’t expect Drivers to navigate blind.
“Lovely evening,” the passenger said.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t. And I promise I won’t ask you where I’m going.
“Have you worked for the company for long?”
“Not as long as I want to. Tell me about your dog.”
The passenger, a motherly-looking woman of indeterminate age, sighed happily. “His name’s Debussy, as you probably noted. When I went to pick him up from the pound, Debussy’s Rêverie was playing on the car radio. I couldn’t name him Rêverie because that’s my name, and I didn’t want to call him Claude, so I went with Debussy.”
“Nice name.”
“I think so. What’s yours?”
“Driver.”
“Seriously?”
“Not seriously, but that’s what it is to you.”
The Driver saw a signpost approaching and decided distraction was necessary. “Is your name really Reverie?”
“It really is. Reverie Eden. And as I’m a parson I get called the Rev Rev, which is a bit unfortunate.”
A parson.
“I see.”
The Rev Reverie chuckled. “Do you want an explanation or would you rather I pretended to be a crash test dummy?”
“An explanation might be interesting.”
The Driver was proud of that response. No one could claim she had asked for information.
“I belong to a club called Dames with Dogs. We’re all women, although I expect we’d let men in if they ever asked.”
“Men can be pantomime dames,” the Driver put in.
“Indeed. But so far, no male Dame has applied. Not that anyone ever does apply.” She paused, apparently marshalling her thoughts. Then she said, “We almost all have dogs.”
“Almost?”
“Our club artist is currently dogless, but she assures us she’ll adopt one when a suitable prospect turns up. And of course, if a member should lose her dog through misadventure or simply to the sands of time, we would never compound her misery by deDaming her. That would be needlessly unkind.”
The Driver was glad to hear it. She would hate to be deDrivered, but she knew it was always a possibility.
“How many members do you have?” she asked before she could remember to hold her tongue.
“I don’t know,” the Rev Reverie admitted. “None of us knows. There is no official members’ list, you see. We don’t pay dues, either.”
“Then how does one join?”
“That’s the eternal mystery. It seems to just happen. The progression of events is as follows.
“A woman, who is usually but not always over the age of forty, has or acquires a dog. The dog is important to her, and she is important to the dog. They benefit one another. She cares for the dog, and the dog responds with companionship and devotion.
“At some point, when she’s out walking, or possibly just sitting on a rock while the dog plays, she will cross paths with another woman who also has a dog. They will fall into conversation.
“Next, she will be introduced to other women with dogs. After a time…which might be days, or weeks, or even months, she will realise she has become a member of Dames with Dogs. It’s simple.”
It didn’t sound simple to the Driver.
“Do you have meetings?”
“We meet up, yes, but we don’t have meetings. Not as such. There are no office holders, no elections, no minutes and no business arising. No one is in charge.”
“How often do you see one another?”
“As often as we see one another. I’m not being opaque on purpose. That’s just the way it is. Some Dames live farther away than others, so we see them only now and again. Others have husbands or children or grandchildren who take up much of their time.”
The Driver turned off the highway and into a maze of back roads.
“Do you know,” the Rev Reverie said suddenly, “I never understood before just how odd we are as a phenomenon. I know lots of Dames pretty well, but even so I don’t always know their names.”
“You must call them something.”
“Oh yes. We have Dame Names.”
The Driver waited for enlightenment.
“If I tell you, you are going to think I’m nuts.”
The Driver said she was a bit nuts herself and found it no impediment.
That wasn’t entirely true.
“Well, I’m Rev, which is simple enough. It stands for both my first name, and for my calling. Then there’s Jingles, and Florida, Caddy and Dash, Elfie and Daylight, Jellybean and Christmas—whose real name is Christabel—Pud and Pickles…”
“Just like 1920s schoolgirls,” the Driver said, enlightened.
“I suppose so. Yes. But we’re more formidable than 1920s schoolgirls. There’s an unwritten rule, you see, that Dames will work together for a common purpose. You would be surprised at what we can achieve if and when we choose. We are well-meaning but crossing us is not a good idea.”
Rev Reverie glanced at the Driver. “You’ve done very well. You’ve encouraged me to ramble on and divulged almost nothing about yourself.”
The Driver said, indignantly, “Are you a V-S plant?”
“I don’t think I’m going to answer that, but whether I am or not, you have nothing to fear from me. Are we nearly there?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
They drove on for a couple of hours, and then the Driver decanted the Rev Reverie and Debussy at a small boutique hotel which proclaimed itself dog-friendly.
She handed over the case of necessities she’d been told to provide.
V-S always provided basic needs for its clients.
“Do you know who arranged this voucher for you?” She was not supposed to enquire, but she’d bent so many rules one more couldn’t hurt.
The Reverend Reverie shook her head.
“Do you know why you’re here or what you’re going to do or—”
“None of the above.” The woman held out her hand. “I don’t know anything—except that it’s going to be fun. Are you coming back for me when whatever I’m doing here is done?”
The Driver shrugged and took the offered hand. “That depends if I’m rostered on. It might be me, or it might be someone else.”
The Rev Reverie said, “Then, I might see you again sometime.”
“Maybe…but if you do, do you think you might manage not to recognise me?”
“Not by a flicker of an eyelash shall I suggest a previous acquaintanceship,” the woman said solemnly. “Come, Debussy. Goodbye, Driver.”
FOUR
The Driver had not driven the Reverend Reverie again, but she had driven other Dames, always accompanied by their dogs, on other jobs, and she found them disconcerting. They always wanted to talk to her, and they often mentioned other Dames in passing, just as if she knew them.
The Driver began to feel as if she did know them.
It was very peculiar.
It was also very peculiar when her small but scary boss started sending her on other jobs that didn’t require her to drive anyone anywhere.
Today’s job had brought her to the dog park with its uncomfortable infestation of Dames for the second time.
FIVE
Coffee finished; Animal Control took her dog-wand out of her messenger bag.
Cilla Paws-a-While was right. She should check Puffin’s identity and restore her to her owner.
Her small but scary boss had made sure she remembered her lessons on wanding and checking databases. She knew the questions to ask, and she knew the answers not to give.
Puffin looked up at her.
“Let’s find your owner,” Animal Control said. She clicked her fingers and headed off across the park with the terrier trotting beside her.
SIX
The Rev Reverie and Debussy sat on a picnic rug with two other Dames whom Animal Control didn’t know. One of them had full skirts and a labradoodle, and another one had a crash helmet and a border collie.
A black Scottie caught her eye. He was capering about, doing barrel rolls.
Him again.
She’d had a disconcerting experience with that dog. She remembered the first time she’d seen him…
First Dog Park Visit, back in August…
Animal Control looked for an owner, half-expecting someone in a ringmaster’s outfit.
No dice. The acrobatic dog seemed to be alone.
I ought to wand him.
Animal Control turned her back.
A young woman with a sketchbook was presumably the club artist Rev Reverie had mentioned.
At least I don’t have to wand her.
The barrel-rolling Scottie flipped onto his forelegs and walked a few steps.
That ought to be impossible.
Animal Control headed for the dog but before she could raise her dog-wand, a tall woman with a tight yellow dress and a terrier strode up, clicking her fingers imperiously and commanding the Scottie to heel.
I still ought to wand him.
Tall with Terrier leashed the Scottie and the threesome vanished out the gate.
Animal Control caught the eye of a black spaniel—and a very odd-coloured eye it was for a dog—lifted the dog-wand and changed her mind.
The black spaniel did not want to be dog-wanded and its expression promised all sorts of unspecified consequences if she persisted.
Animal Control turned in search of less challenging prey.
Three labradoodles, another Scottie, a dalmatian and a Pekingese later, Animal Control spotted Tall with Terrier with the terrier but without the acrobatic Scottie.
Tall was another Dame, and her terrier, Shelley, was properly chipped. She explained, at length and without being asked, that the Scottie wasn’t hers, but belonged to her cousin and had now been reclaimed by her cousin and was going home.
At least, that was what Animal Control took away from the conversation.
It was unnerving.
December
On this second visit to the park, Animal Control tried to un-see the black Scottie and the black spaniel, which she perceived was resting, (sans owner) under a tree.
A white-haired Dame with a Bedlington terrier walked by, accompanied by a Dame with flyaway skirts and a baby sling.
Animal Control intercepted them. “May I check your chips?”
The Dames exchanged amused glances.
“This is Mary Mary,” the Dame with the Bedlington said. “She’s all in order.”
Animal Control used the dog-wand.
Up came the information. Mary Mary was registered to Carolyn Hildebrand of Windhill.
Carolyn Hildebrand obligingly confirmed her details.
Animal Control turned to the Dame with the sling.
“Nell Andover—and this is Pepe.” The Dame reached into the sling and brought out an elderly chihuahua in one hand and a stuffed rabbit in the other. “You won’t need to dog-wand the rabbit,” she said helpfully.
Animal Control rubbed Pepe behind the ears.
Puffin nudged her calf.
Belatedly, she said, “Ms Hildebrand…Ms Andover, do you know who this terrier belongs to?”
The women shook their heads.
“We thought she was yours,” Carolyn Hildebrand said.
“No, she just appeared.”
Nell Andover restored Pepe and the stuffed rabbit to the sling. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before.”
They went on, and Animal Control continued her rounds.
Along the way, she learned the names of a great many Dames, and she tried not to see the two free-floating black dogs.
The black spaniel bitch gave her a disapproving look and the black Scottie sneered at her.
She approached the Rev Reverie and her companion.
“Excuse me…”
The Rev Reverie smiled. “Animal Control. I guess you want to check our dogs. This is my Debussy.” She indicated the spaniel, just as if they’d never been introduced back in July.
“Paulina Greenhow,” the other woman said. “This is Spud.”
Animal Control used the dog=wand, receiving the expected results.
“Do you happen to know who owns the black spaniel, Ms Eden?” she asked the Rev Reverie.
“Pud?” Reverie raised her brows.
“That’s Gill’s dog,” the labradoodle’s owner said.
“It shouldn’t be running around loose.”
“She isn’t,” Reverie pointed out.
“Well, where is her owner?”
“She’s here somewhere. I can swear to that.”
Fair enough.
“I don’t suppose you know who this one belongs to?” She indicated Puffin.
“Isn’t she yours?” Paulina Greenhow asked.
“Why does everyone think that?”
“Because she acts as if she’s yours, I suppose,” Reverie said.
“Gorgeous little dog.” It was Tall, passing by with her terrier, but without the black Scottie. She added, indicating Puffin, “I’ve only ever seen two dogs with blue eyes before. Where did you get her?”
“She isn’t mine,” Animal Control said.
“No?”
“No. At least…”
Before she could formulate the denial, the dalmatian Dame beckoned her over. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something—you look a bit familiar. Do I know you?”
Animal Control looked her in the eye.
“How could you?”
“How could I,” agreed the Dame.
Her name was Erin Bell, and three weeks before, the Driver had taken her to a rosarian in the city to take possession of a one-of-a-kind rosebush.
Dog Control saw the club artist sketching busily.
She’d better not be drawing me.
She looked about at the dogs with Dames, and at a few dogs belonging to owners who were clearly not Dames. She dog-wanded those and issued one caution about registration.
She was glad she hadn’t had to Speak to a Dame.
SEVEN
It was time to go home.
Animal Control sighed deeply.
The black spaniel had gone, which was fortunate. So had most of the other dogs.
Even the Paws-a-While van was driving slowly out of the park.
Cilla leaned out of the window. “Did you find out who owns your little friend, love?”
Animal Control finally and with great reluctance applied the dog-wand to Puffin’s neck.
There was no response.
Sometimes, chips moved from the back of the neck.
She ran the dog-wand over Puffin’s shoulders, and on down her front legs, then over her back and under her belly.
Nothing.
Puffin was an unregistered dog, and she’d been unescorted and unidentified at the park for two hours.
Animal Control sighed.
It was her duty to take Puffin to the pound.
Cilla was waiting.
Animal Control raised her head. “Yes, I found her owner. I’m taking her home now.”
“Oh? Whose is she?”
“She belongs to a woman called Takk Engel.”
Cilla’s brows flew up.
“That’s a very odd name. Is it Finnish?”
“Could be.”
Animal Control, aka the Driver aka and actually Takk Elizabeth Engel (and actually not Finnish), replaced her dog-wand in the messenger bag, removed a collar and leash, applied it to Puffin and took her dog out of the park.
Her first thought was what her small but scary boss was going to say when she turned up for work tomorrow with a dog.
Her second thought was that maybe V-S had intended her to acquire a dog. This dog.
Her third thought, which was as scary as it was delightful, was that now she was qualified to become a Dames with Dogs. Or at least, the singular thereof.
[1] Wooden figures of Jacobi le Fay and his wife, Barbara, commissioned by their daughter, Carolyn Hildebrand.