SSC (2001) The Dog Catcher Read Free

it.’
    Malcolm
said, ‘Those of us with money could help in a non pushy way. During the winter
this place is often cut off for weeks. We could buy a snow plough and give it
to them. I couldn’t get into Granada last year to buy fresh memory cards for my
Sony Dreamcast.’
    Laurence
disagreed. ‘No, that’s one area where we shouldn’t mess with the balance. It’s
part of the ecology of the village that nobody can get in or out from time to
time in the cold months, it is a beneficial quarantine, the snows purify the
village.’ Which seemed to Sue a pretty whacky thing to say, yet maybe everyone
felt the same way for discussion moved on to other matters.
    Through
the rest of that week Sue, via Laurence’s sponsorship, found herself easily
worked into the fabric of the little group of foreigners. It wasn’t hard, a
group of highly intelligent urbanites such as these living amongst peasants
would naturally hunger for new stories and Sue had a whole pack of new stories,
even accounting for the forty per cent she had to hold back for what might be
termed legal reasons.
    That
weekend, as if to celebrate her arrival, it was the village fiesta. All along
the valley every weekend one village or another would have its fiesta. The saints
would be taken out of the church and paraded around. The old women would crawl
around on their knees as if auditioning to play dwarves in a panto, the men
would get drunk, there would be bands and dancing, paella for a thousand given
away free at 4 a.m. for those still standing (which was more or less
everybody), there would be a theme of some kind and always the most dangerous
possible use of fireworks. In Sue’s village the men would hold formidable
rockets in their hands, then casually light them from the cigarettes that were
draped from their bottom lips. As the flame beat on their arms they would hang
on to them looking nonchalant with an ‘Oh do I have a rocket in my hand?’
expression on their faces, then they would release the sticks letting the rockets
swoop into the howling air, where they would explode with an immense
concussion.
    A pair
of recovering Welsh bulimics had rented the house next to the plaza, the very
seismic epicentre of the fiesta. Used to France they had thought that a village
in Spain would be similarly quiet. At 5 a.m. they came out in their nightgowns
to ask Paco the Mayor if he could turn the noise down but he couldn’t hear
them. They left the next day.
    On the
Monday the few Spanish who were about walked with the shuffling steps of
chemotherapy patients, the plaza was still littered with fragments of exploded
rocket and other bits of firework.
    As Sue
was crossing the square a pack of dogs came skittering round the corner in a
happy mood. She recognised most of the canine gang, Cohn, Little Janet, Azul,
Salvador and Pablo, General Franco, Canello plus three of the effete little
yappy dogs that the peasants surprisingly favoured, with Coffee Table
unsteadily bringing up the rear. However, bounding and leaping at the centre of
the group was the most magnificent dog she had ever seen, the size of a small
cow it was, with lustrous grey black fur, and a long intelligent head set with
jet-black eyes. The Dog appeared to have been much better groomed and fed than
any of the local pack of hounds, and Sue thought it might perhaps be some sort
of a pedigree.
    Later
on that evening as Sue was sitting on the terrace of Noche Azul with Laurence,
the pack again came lolloping past. She said, ‘Laurence, whose is that big dog?
I haven’t seen it before.’ He straightened from his chair to take a look.
    ‘Nobody’s,
it’s abandoned. Been here since the second night of the fiesta,’ replied
Laurence. ‘It probably belonged to some Spaniards who are going down to the
coast for the summer and don’t want to pay for kennels, or who didn’t realise
how big it was going to grow, who knows? They often abandon their dogs on the
highway or they leave them in this village