Walker

Rasper stood staring at the garden with its pergolas, its ornamental pond, and beyond it to the green space that divided the two segments of the village. At this time of the year trees and shrubs were luxuriant, flowering creepers sprawling across every wall and height, brickwork hidden under a complicated leafy tapestry, so that nothing could be seen that might not have been in the depths of countryside.

If there were skyscraping towers the trees clothed in fresh green and jade and golden-green hid them. Aircraft rails that scored broken white lines across the blue sky might have been streaks of cirrus. In the garden a white lilac thrust its spires of blossom between those of late forsythia and the snowy net of a spirea. For some reason, the beauty of it added to his sudden, unexpected loneliness. His hands reached deep in the dog’s bright orange fur. His eyes were grey like glass, water in smoked glass.

He was little more than twenty years old, but already a graduate from college with a diploma on zoology. Odd major it was, that he hadn’t yet found a proper job after one month into the summer vacation. These days, instead of continuing the search in city, he decided to take a rest at his aunt’s residence, meanwhile running the work of dog walking partly as a pastime. Every afternoon he collected dogs from upper-class families in the neighborhood, taking them out for an one-hour stroll.

However, the weather today was totally unfavorable for such an outing, to Rasper’s greatest displeasure. What made it worse was that he didn’t realise it until half way through the walk. A chilly wind was blowing clouds across the blue face of the sky before it started drizzling. He kept under a tree, but the golden beagle pulled so hard that he could scarcely keep his feet. He had to set it free and the others with it. A veil of rain and low-hanging clouds half obscured the terraces, brown man-made mountains and the ranged block of flats of Robin Hood’s Wood, red and white and sixties’ grey rough-cast. The few high-rise buildings loomed out of the mist.

He scuffed his hands in his pockets, feeling the roll of tickets for a movie tonight. Water began to drip off the peak of his cap, so he turned it backward. He took pride in doing his job, but there were limits. The rain had come on more heavily and now the terraces had disappeared behind a grey-out. He began calling the dogs, some were obedient and some were not. He whistled chirpily while clipping the leash onto others. A retriever shook itself and whimpered, its loose skin rattling. There was no sign of the beagle, though the poodle suddenly appeared out of gloom, like the Hound of Baskerville. It padded up with lowered head and dripping ears, growling unpleasantly when he grabbed his collar.

Apprehension mounted as the rain showed no signs of relenting. Rasper stood without knowing which direction the beagle had headed in. One of the refreshment places maybe, to root out a bin or beg for food. Right up till this moment, he didn’t want to set the process in motion. He plodded along the path, tugged by his troop of dogs which galloped ahead of him like a husky team--if only he had a sled!

He meant to traipse all the way back to the Burdens’ house. To the north of the lake, where ducks disported on the sodden grass or bounced on the little waves, he stood and cursed. The dogs, taking advantages of a pause, shook themselves vigorously. There was a sound of scuffle and splashing, a quacking and honking, as three pink-footed geese and a white duck rose in a flurry of panic-stricken feathers from the water’s edge. A dog was behind them, joyously leaping, its paws muddied to the hocks, its appearance so changed by the total immersion that it looked thin and dark, soaked in water and flying mud. But it wasn’t the beagle.

The young man’s face was spattered with mud, his hands red and wet, his feel squelching in inundated shoes. He ran across the rest of the span. He thought of the moment when Mrs. Burden carried the dog to him. It belonged to a chrysanthemum breed, well-fed, with top-grade veterinary care, sleek and proud and indulged. Its coat of golden fronds, petal like and flopping into its eyes, resembled its owner’s blond hair. She apparently loved it with all her heart, that tender stroking and whispering. He even noticed something glittering round the beagle’s neck.

On entering the Burdens’ house, at the glance he was attracted by some golden mass lying beside the sofa Definitely not the beagle he was looking after, but very possibly its puppy, though he had much expected to find it here. Mr. Burden was a fiftyish man with an Adam’s apple like a swallowed toffee going up down in his throat. He looked constricted in his dark suit and with the dyed black hair slick and short. Sitting on the sofa, he was in the act of repelling its advances with the toe of his shoe. It was such classic tableau, the former lover now cast as villain proving his worthlessness by kicking the dog. The flicker of goodwill Rasper had felt for him was dwindling.

"Good afternoon, sir." Rasper said in his invariably polite way, for good manners cost one nothing. He was inevitably nervous now, wondering how best to start telling him about the loss of his, or rather his wife’s, golden dog. Yet he finally managed to do that.

Mr. Burden, however, replied in a monotonous manner which virtually carried no feelings. "Oh, that doesn’t matter," his thick lips only slightly open, "that bitch’s been insured. You don’t have to be worried at all, we are generous enough to not have you compensate for it. Is that all you’d like to say?"

Rasper sighed in something stronger than relief. It was disgust of a minute scale. Although he had wildly hoped to be forgiven of his losing the dog, and now the hope had come true, it took the opposite direction. Didn’t this guy, still reading the newspaper while toeing away that puppy, cared about animals at all, even the pets his wife had so fondingly taken care of for years?

At this moment Mrs. Burden stepped into the living room. Poor lady, he thought, she must had heard of this bad news the next door, for she looked distressed, unsettled, almost exasperated. "Did you say you couldn’t find Chrys, you’ve lost it?" she clutched his arm for an instant before letting it go to sit down beside her husband. "Please find it by all means, I’ll pay you for that." Both men were focusing their looks on her, one in disbelief and the other in sort of relief.

"I had tied my amulet around its neck this morning, and that has to be still with it now," her face flushed as she stole a glance at Mr. Burden. "It’s invaluable, it’s the one of the engagement gifts my husband had given to me decades back. Please find the dog, alive or dead I don’t mind, take off the amulet and return it to me."

One moment later Rasper was standing the rain again. For a dog walker, animal lover like him, it was surely a nasty day. He wished the shadow he saw in the mist was the beagle, but was sure. But surely he wouldn’t return the pitiful creature to the Burden’s even if he had found it. He’s got to take it back home, a snug home.