(set on't Yorkshire Moors, with a hint of Royston Vasey)
Eight years being the time since my partner, Geoffrey, vanished,
I’ve decided to have him declared dead. I’m told you can do it, as nobody’s
heard from him for more than seven years.
Three weeks after his vanishing, I’d been to police and
reported him missing, because I were worried. I weren’t actually much worried
about Geoffrey. I were more concerned for the dogs, all three being a bit under
the weather after something they’d eaten up on the moor and I weren’t sure how
much the vet’s bill would be.
Me and Geoffrey had chosen the three dogs for their wild looks.
Mackeson's a brownish border collier crossed with god knows what, he's powerful
jaws for a collie. Spitz is a big boy, looking like a huge, grey, shaggy bear
with great long legs and a curling tail. Geoffrey said he could be a shih tzu
great Dane cross, but I think he were joking. I always reckoned that would be physically impossible,
Spitz must be something like a wolfhound and mountain dog cross. The third dog,
Delilah, has massive black curls and fetches half the moorland home tangled in them.
She's possibly a giant cockapoo, if you look at her through squinting eyes.
They were all rescues, of course, Spitz being the oldest. The
vet reckons he’s now about eleven, which he says is a good age for such a large
dog. The others were half-grown pups when we got them a year or so before
Geoffrey's disappearance. We’d agreed Spitz needed company especially as we were
both out working, he’d been a bit destructive, demolishing shoes, doors, two sofas
and a stray cat, we’d found that half eaten in the front garden. Of course
Geoffrey were soft on dogs, he insisted on blaming foxes. Some people might
have believed him, but I knew who’d come in with cat’s tail in his mouth.
Geoffrey loved to walk with all three dogs on his free days.
Summer or winter, they’d all ramble for miles on the moors and if we were
lucky, Geoffrey would come home with a few rabbits or game birds in his kitbag. Once he arrived
with a lamb in the bag, he said Spitz had only spooked it and made
it run, he wasn’t deliberately hunting it. Geoffrey was in denial.
Our stone house had been built for senior workers in near-by quarry. It were typical for Yorkshire, with a useful, high-ceilinged cellar and huge stone table in the centre for butchering meat. Geoffrey would often, when he drove back across moor, find carcases struck down by careless motorists. Hares, rabbits and pheasants were quite common, deer were a good find and obviously sheep killed by a truck were no value to the farmer.
Geoffrey would skin them, slice the carcass into useable chunks
and fill the big chest freezer in the corner. He’d worked in tannery before he moved here for his new job as quarry manager, so he knew what to do with hides. We had some nice sheepskin rugs about the house, it was lovely to sink
my toes into soft fleece when I got out of bed on a cold winter morning. I’d
also made several winter hats with rabbit skin, very cosy and I had
deerskin mittens. We were lucky that new quarry manager didn’t want the house
so we were allowed to stay, just me and the dogs. I’d never be able to
get that freezer out.
When Geoffrey fell down cellar steps he broke his neck and
smashed his face in on the stone floor. I didn’t know what to do for the best.
Ambulances never come up here, quarry accident victims got picked up by air
ambulance and I didn’t want that. All the noise would really get the dogs riled
up. I went up and down the steps a few times to look at him, being careful
not to fall, although I would have landed on Geoffrey, he'd have
made for a soft landing. Geoffrey were a big lad, maybe twenty-five or thirty stone of him, so he fell so hard. I patted his head, he didn’t move but he made a gurgling
noise, that were revolting. I left him until next morning.
That were when I discovered I’d also left cellar door
open. Spitz were down there, chewing on Geoffrey's face. I told him he were a bad
boy and shut him outside, but he gave me an idea. Geoffrey were too heavy for
me to move, but he'd showed me how to butcher a carcase. I filled the freezer
and burnt the less good bits, and his clothes except for shoes, made good dog chews.
I suppose I kept him too long, but I was careful, varied their diet so it took the dogs a good while to get through all that fatty meat. It didn’t feel wrong, Geoffrey had loved his dogs so I knew he’d be happy for them. But meat frozen for eight years obviously didn’t agree with their elderly doggie stomachs, specially poor old Spitz.
I never actually tried any, I like lamb.
*
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