as Labradors do, suddenly flumped themselves down, tongues
out, panting, exhausted and happy.
Don and I looked at each other.
'What do you think?' Don said.
'I think she's beautiful.'
'Well ... ?'
'Well ... Emma likes her ... it's obvious
Still neither of us could take the decision, or rather speak the
decision that each of us had mentally made.
'Do you think Emma would really like her to play with
permanently?'
I2I
'I don't know,' said Don, stroking them both. 'What do you
think Buttons? Would you like to come and live with Emma?'
And to Emma: 'What do you think about it, Emma?'
They both panted and wagged their tails, beating them on
the grass in unison. It was as good an answer as we would ever
get from them.
I took from my bag an extra lead I had brought-almost
unconsciously, thinking: just in case.
'Come on Buttons,' I said, 'come on Emma.' We paid for
Buttons there and then. The breeder was delighted. And so
were we. All of us. Kerensa kept saying, 'Two Emmas.'
I tried to explain that there were not really two Emmas, but
it was difficult for her to get her tongue round the name
Buttons. 'Bundle,' she said valiantly, and then looked up at me
and persisted, 'Mummy, look-two Emmas.' I had to give in.
In the car going back Buttons showed that she was really well
behaved. She sat on the back scat with Emma, and with
Kerensa in between them, not at all perturbed that strangers
had come and taken her away from what had been her home
for a whole year, not at all anxious about travelling in a car.
We drove home. I was very happy. But a thought occurred
to me as we got nearer.
'I wonder what Emma will think when we all go into the
house together.'
Don kept his eyes on the road, and I was a bit surprised by
his reaction because he is the least hard-hearted of men.
'She'll have to go back,' he said, drawing up to some traffic
lights and turning to look at me as he put the hand brake on.
'She'll have to go back if Emma doesn't like it. Emma comes
first, whatever happens.'
Then we were off again and nearing the drive to the house.
But I need not have worried. We all piled out and opened
the front door, and Kerensa and the dogs all dashed in together,
leaving Don and me on the doorstep just as if that is what had
always happened.
Both Buttons and Emma rushed through the house and stood
wagging their tails in the kitchen, waiting to go through into
the garden. We let them out and that is all we saw of them until
that strange Labrador alarm clock worked. They came in,
I22
I
shaking themselves and fussing round together precisely half an
hour before feeding-time: Emma's old feeding-time that is. I
set about putting the food out for them both, and when I put
the bowls down together I knew that we had not made a mistake,
or been disloyal, or done anything that was not for the
best. There thev stood together, two chocolate-brown shapes
together, noses into the bowls. There was no jealousy from
Emma or animosity, from Buttons, and above all there was no
sense that Emma had been displaced.
After their dinner, which had involved much sliding of bowls
across the kitchen floor, Emma came into the living-room, and
jumped up on to her usual place on the settee. Buttons sat herself
on the floor and looked up longingly.
'No,' I said to her, 'that's Emma's place. I'm sorry, but
Emma does get the best place and you'll have to sit on the floor.'
So she sat there obediently, just as later, when we got a basket
for her, she would always turn round when Emma went up on
the settee and make for the kitchen and her basket.
Never once did Buttons attempt to get on the settee and never
to realize one important thing: however young and big and
vigorous Buttons was compared with Emma who was small and
getting on in years, Emma was boss. There was no question
about it. No one could cross Emma, and least of all her newfound
young friend Buttons.
There were times when Emma didn't want to play. Buttons
would bound up with a rubber bone and push it at Emma's
nose, and Emma would back off, shake herself, pretend Buttons
wasn't there and walk away. Buttons knew. She decided it was
always better not to push her point and, rather than follow
Emma, she would go off into the garden and play on her own.
In the days that followed the advent of Buttons into the house
both Don and I noticed a quite significant change in Emma,
and not the sort of change that in our wildest dreams we could
have anticipated. Emma's walks became romps, eager dashings
from tree to tree instead of sedate perambulations with frequent
stops for interesting sniffs. If Buttons and Emma were out
together and they saw another dog, they both had to run and
investigate; whereas before, Emma would have been interested
I23
but would have taken things in much slower time. Now it was
important that they both showed themselves to be vigorous,
honest, full-to-the-brim-with-living Labradors. I saw, physically
and mentally, the years drop away from Emma. It was
incredible and wonderful. Suddenly, with the company of
Buttons, it was if she had been re-born, and, not long after,
thankful as we were for that alone, we were to bless doubly the
day that we had taken a new chocolate-brown shape into our
midst.
I24
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SOON AFTER BUTTONs had arrived on the scene-bounced
would be a better word-I was due to go to the United States
in connection with the publication of Emma and I over there.
This had been worrying me for a variety of reasons. In the first
place, the publishers had obviously hoped I would be able to
take Emma with me and she would then have added to her
prestige on the other side of the Atlantic personally. The trouble
with that idea was, lovely as it would have been for Emma to
take Broadway and Fifth Avenue by storm, we could not have
got her back into this country without a six-month sentence in
quarantine kennels. In other words, it was unthinkable that she
should go to America.
But that, in turn, brought another problem: for twelve years
Emma and I had never been separated, apart from the short
intervals when I had gone into hospital for my eye operation
and when Kerensa was born. But going to the United States
without her was different again. I felt terrible at the thought.
It seemed like abandoning her. Quite apart from that, since
Emma was such a dominant attraction of the book, I didn't see
why the publishers wanted to bother with just me going. Emma
and I were such a team, and this seemed like going to play an
away fixture with more than half the team on the injured list.
I really didn't want to go at all, but eventually I agreed with
the greatest reluctance. My mother would come in to look after
Kerensa. This may seem heartless but I had, strangely, less
anxiety about leaving her than Emma. Kerensa was used to
my mother and got on with her, as did Emma; but whereas I
knew Kerensa would not lose sleep over me not being there,
I was so afraid Emma might think it strange and might pine
when she realized I had gone for more than twenty-four
hours.
But as the day for our departure approached, I began to
I25
realize that Emma would not necessarily lie on the hearth-rug
moping. There she was, day after day, roriiping about with
Buttons-and, far from being a staid old lady, behaving like a
puppy herself. My misgivings and concern on her behalf
evaporated. I knew Emrra would be well occupied, and
certainly distracted from wondering and worrying over where
I had gone. If for no other reason, I was so glad we had taken
the decision that had led to Buttons joining the family, and I
blessed my habit of looking at the small ads in the Vottingham
Evening Post.
There was, however, one remaining anxiety that was looming
ever larger. I had never flown before, and the nearer the day for
departure came, the more I did not waiit to change this blissful
state of ignorance. I was, in truth, quite scared of the idea.
There seemed no reason to me why aeroplanes should be able to
defy gravity. Whenever I saw them, I always thought of the
conjurer who announced, 'My next trick is impossible.' It
didn't stand to reason-not my reason anyway-that aeroplanes
should be able to move through the air without somehow being
controlled by wires from the ground.
Perhaps one reason for my fear of flying was that when I was
blind I was never able to visualize aeroplanes. I knew they were
there because I could hear them, but I had no idea whatsoever
what they looked like. I had no idea what birds looked like
either. I knew, again, they were there because I could hear their
lovely songs-quite unlike the terrible whining and roaring of
aircraft-but I had simply no mental image of what they might
be like. The difference was (and this may well be related to the
difference of noise, and the difference between natural and
unnatural things) that I quite liked the i'dea of birds but was
rather disturbed by the idea of aircraft.
When I had got my sight back I saw aircraft and birds; and
whereas before it had seemed beyond reason that anything
could fly in the air, now seeing was believing. I remember
calling Don out one day to show him a bird in a tree. He had
wondered what I was on about. But it had seemed magical to
me to see it in the branches of a tree where I had never imagined
anything, and then to see it fly off. In the same way I was quite
surprised when I actually saw an aeroplane, but it had not
I26
lessened my instinctive distrust of them. And it had not helped
one night when we were coming back from doing an appearance
for the book in Oxfordshire and I had seen great flashing lights
in the sky getting nearer the road we were driving on. I had
read about U.F.O.s, and thought this is it! I made Don stop the
car and ,ve parked by the road and watched, with a great
golden moon niaking the scene even more strange. 'Don,' I
said, 'is that a U.F.O.?' He had burst out laughing. 'No,' he
said, 'it's an aircraft coming in with its landing lights on!' I felt
rather silly, but it did not help to endear me to aircraft.
When the day came to go, my fears had transmitted themselves
to Don, who, as always, tried to put my mind at rest. So
did Don's partner in the practice, John Goodliffe, who had
agreed to come along with us to see to and smooth out all the
bits of organization which would be needed from day to day
in America.
Unknown to them, however, I had that morning done something
which helped to comfort me even more than all their
kind words. Coming downstairs (avoiding Don who was rushing
about with suitcases and little bits of paper with instructions
for my mother), I had seen Emma's lead on the hall stand. A
sudden inexplicable impulse had made me touch it. Then I had
thought: Why not? Why not take it with me? This is Emma's
special lead, but there are others if she and Buttons are taken
for a walk while we're away. I lifted it quietly off the hook-so
quietly that Emma's cars would not detect the usually promising
clink of the metal clip-and put it in my handbag. I felt so
relieved in a curious way. I felt that now I had something that
physically bound me to Emma and it gave me confidence and a
quite extraordinary sense that some of her marvellous presence
would be with me.
So things were a little easier as we drove ofF at last. Kerensa
was waving from my mother's arms on the front doorstep and
Emma, having tried to get in the back of the car as usual,
resignedly went off with Buttons. My final backward glance
at her was not reciprocated: by then she was quite happily
rolling on the lawn beyond the rose bushes with her young
friend.
As we got nearer to London-we were making for Heathrow
I27
Airport-I suddenly felt very thirsty. Whether this was another
sign of apprehension I am not sure, but I said, 'Why don't
stop for a drink?'
John sounded dubious. 'I think we ought to get on,* he said.
But Don agreed with me so we stopped at the next pub, which
had a lovely garden, and sat outside in the late summer sunshine.
I would cheerfully have sat there all afternoon and missed
the plane, because as I sipped my tomato juice I kept thinking
of the flight ahead and, when not dwelling on that prospect, I
would be thinking of Kerensa, or, opening my bag for a
cigarette, would see the lead and wonder what Emma was doing.
What made things worse was that no sooner had we sat at the
table than a big, handsome yellow Labradoi. dashed out of the
pub and lolloped straight across to us. He kvas full of bright-eyed
greetings, and tail waggings, and made me feel traitorous and
terrible all over again.
But a thousand more anxieties later, including passport
control and being searched for bombs, we were at last waiting
to get on the aircraft. It was a jumbo, and never in my life had I
seen anything so big. We got to the steps. Don went first, then
John. 'These are not steps into an aircraft,' I told myself. 'You
are just going up into a room.' I closed my mind to the fact that
the steps, which shook uncertainly as we went up them, led
into an aeroplane. There was perspiration on my palms and I
could feel my heart thumping. Once on board I sat sort of
transfixed, in the middle scat between Don and johii, and
watched everyone else stowing hand baggage and air hostesses
endlessly smiling toothpaste smiles, and, with a sinking feeling,
heard th
e thump of the doors being closed and felt already
removed from the world I knew. I wanted so much to put my
hand down by the scat and feel an affectionate cold nose. But
there was none, and I hoped telepathy did not work over the
hundred-odd miles back to Emma in Nottingham, transmitting
my fear to her.
The take-off was a rumbling, thumping, bumping impression,
and there were strange whining sounds but the noise was not as
deafening as I had imagined it would be. Then I was suddenly
tilted back in my seat, as in some terrible fairground contraption,
and we were airborne. The thumping and bumping had
I28
stopped. All was smooth, and suddenly all my fears left me.
Why I don't know, but once into the sky I was just not afraid
an), more. In fact I insisted that Don changed places ~vith me.
'Quick,' I said, undoing my harness, 'I svant to look out of
the window before we get too far away.'
'I thought you didn't want to look out of the window.'
'Well, I do now. Quick, let's have a look.'
Don undid his seat-belt and wriggled over, and I got into his
place. The ground was receding underneath. It was quite
fantastic. There began to be a pattern of fields of all shades of
green and roads and little objects that were houses, and then,
quickly and disappointingly, we were into cloud and all the
ground had vanished. From one extreme of being afraid I went
to another and became annoyed that the cloud prevented me
from seeing anything. I wished I could take off all over again
and experience a second time its new, incredible visual
experience.
But the rest of the flight was rather boring, and landing at
Kennedy Airport was even more of a disappointment: it looked
just like Heathrow. I have no idea what I expected, never
having been abroad before-green Martians probably-but
Kennedy certainly did not fulfil my expectations. I found that
this became a familiar reaction during the following few days.
I think I had expected America to be utterly different, but
what struck me most were the great number of similarities with
the scene back home and I was constantly being surprised by
this fact.
The differences that did strike me particularly were the airconditioning