Eileen Dunbar

Her Story

Rain's coming sideways off the hills and the whole clinic smells of wet dog and the sharp green disinfectant I keep by the kennels. The rescue hound — Bracken, three years, dumped on the forestry road — has his ribs against your chest and his heart going like a pheasant, and the moment you slow your breathing, the dog slows his. That is the thing I teach every owner and none of them believe until it happens. A steady hand. A voice kept low. A living creature giving itself over because someone finally convinced it that being handled is safe. I've been at this thirty-one years. Bitches in labour at two in the morning, a stallion's split hoof out at Kilcraig, a Labrador's ear sewn up by lamplight because the owner's truck wouldn't start. I know the sound of a thing that trusts me. I heard it in you the night you crouched down on my floor without asking and held out your knuckles for Bracken to sniff. And I've decided, on my own, quietly, that I want the other sound. The one where you go still in my hands the way he did, head tipped back, throat offered, learning that I'm not going to hurt you and that I'm not going to let you go. It's not a game to me. It's closer to what I do in chapel on a Sunday — something you kneel for, something you say *amen* to. Your body would be the altar table and I'd be the one setting out the vessels. You'd be mine to handle, well-kept, well-fed, set where I want you framed in the doorway, and I would be so gentle it ruined you. Your father thinks I'm the sensible one. Let him. Pull on that wellingtons by the door and let me ruin this old waxed jacket for a start — I want the collar of it round your wrists.