Art
Art
“Sit!” said Art. Maggie stared up at him with rheumy eyes, unmoving. He could have sworn that she raised one of her whiskery eyebrows at him. Then, very slowly, Maggie did a full circuit of his kitchen table, as if to say, I’ll do this in my own time, thank you very much , then returned to face him and—finally—sat.
“Bravo!” said Art, giving her another piece of sausage. He was quite certain that Maggie knew all the basic commands; she was just trying to work out how much sausage she could snaffle before confessing to the fact. At this rate, she’d be morbidly obese before they even got as far as the audition stage. Still, you had to admire the canny bitch.
“Right, M,” he said. “We need to go to the shops.”
Art had tried to call his new pet—and future acting partner— “Maggie,” as instructed by Lydia, but her surname lurked in the ensuing pause like toxic waste. Art was a proud socialist. He’d marched with the miners, had refused to pay the poll tax, and had cheered when Thatcher had finally been stabbed in the back by her own party. He could not have her namesake actually living in his house. So Art had decided to call his dog “M” for short. Like Judi Dench in the James Bond movies. They were both old women, but cool and not to be messed with.
Life was more of an adventure with M, he’d discovered. Even a quick trip to the newsagent. She found everything so fascinating . They had to stop every two minutes for a good sniff and a wee. She shoved her nose up other dogs’ backsides with merry abandon and ate whatever she felt like off the pavement. This joie de vivre and devil-may-care attitude to the world, hygiene, and personal space was inspirational, frankly. And it was catching. Art found himself viewing his familiar surroundings with at least a modicum of renewed interest, and smiling at strangers as they stopped to pat Maggie on the head.
“What breed is she?” asked one woman as they passed by.
“A Jack Russell,” he replied. Art was pretty certain this wasn’t actually the case, but he’d always thought of himself as a Jack Russell kind of guy. Wily, tenacious, and with a cheeky charm.
···
Even with her back turned, Art could tell it was Lydia outside the tube station. She usually had an apologetic posture, slightly hunched in on herself, as if she were trying to occupy less space in the world. She leaned forward and gave the man she was with a peck on the cheek, an incidental comma nestling up to a bold exclamation mark.
He was not what Art had expected Lydia’s husband to look like. He was as self-congratulatory as Lydia was self-effacing, all fancy suit, heavy wristwatch, and polished brogues.
“Don’t forget we’re going to the Johnsons’ for dinner tonight,” Art heard the man say, in a voice that was entirely instruction at the expense of affection. “So please can you make a bit of an effort to look presentable? It reflects on me as well, you know.”
Art paused for a second, willing Lydia to say something equally insulting back. That’s rich coming from you, you arrogant, overweight, pompous prick would do the trick nicely, in his opinion .
“Of course, darling,” she responded, making herself even smaller.
Art hid in the bus shelter, so Lydia wouldn’t know he’d overheard. A young girl nearby gave him a nervous sideways glance. Did she think he was a flasher? You had to be careful wearing a mac at his age.
As soon as he was sure Lydia had gone, he crossed the road to the newsagent. Art tied Maggie’s lead to the lamppost outside the shop, on account of the No Dogs sign in the window. Although she was hardly a magnet for dognappers, Art made sure he didn’t lose sight of her.
“Nice day, isn’t it?” said Art to the man behind the counter, who flicked Art a cursory glance, muttered an “uh-huh,” and looked back at the phone in his hand.
Art was used to this behavior. He wasn’t sure exactly when he’d become irrelevant, or invisible, even—it had crept up on him gradually over the years. He often felt like a ghost. He occupied the same world as ordinary mortals, but most of them appeared to see straight through him. It used to make him angry, but then he’d discovered that invisibility had its advantages.
Art looked down at the brightly colored array of confectionery in front of him, reached out a hand, and picked up a packet of Fruit Gums, which he slipped into the pocket of his voluminous coat.
Art didn’t even like Fruit Gums. His teeth hadn’t been up to that kind of a challenge for decades.
“Bye!” he called to the shopkeeper. Who didn’t reply, obviously.
In the beginning, shoplifting had given Art a real buzz. He’d only started doing it after he turned sixty-five, and it had delivered an adrenaline rush and a thrill of danger that he’d not felt in a long time, and discovered he’d missed. He’d become hyperaware of his surroundings, his heart pumping faster, shot through with energy. It made him feel alive again.
Generally, he only stole from large corporations. He particularly enjoyed ripping off the ones who didn’t pay a fair amount of UK tax. He had a whole cupboard full of stuff pilfered from Starbucks, for example, who kept an array of small items in front of the till, right at pocket height. He only ever indulged himself in independent shops when he was badly treated or ignored, or if he knew the owner to be a racist or a misogynist.
Art knew that William had been accused of stealing by the local greengrocer once, just because he was Black. William had, of course, been entirely innocent, but Art had been stealing fruit from that shop every week for years as a form of compensation for the insult. He’d worked his way up from a small handful of cherries to entire pineapples and melons. The shopkeeper never paid him any attention, because he was old, and white.
William was completely unaware of the campaign of retribution Art was waging on his behalf. Art had shared every single secret with William over the years, starting in year two with his secret crush on Belinda, the reigning hopscotch champion with the long blond plaits. But not this one. Art carried the burden of his habitual criminality alone.
The problem with Art’s clandestine hobby, however, was that the thrill it gave him was becoming less and less acute, while the hollow, empty feeling which followed that thrill arrived increasingly quickly. The void that grew and grew, swallowing up everything around it like a ravenous black hole, until his next shopping trip.
Art was trying to stop, honestly he was. But it was like building a wall of sand to hold back the tide. However hard he dug to shore up the defenses, the urge would eventually overwhelm him.
Art bent down to untie Maggie from the lamppost. She stared up at him with a look that said, I know what you did, and I’m disappointed in you .
“Enough with the judgment, M,” said Art. “I didn’t say anything when you stole that little boy’s sandwich in the park yesterday, did I? You and I are not so very dissimilar.”
He knew he was going to have to confront the issue, but he had no idea how. For the time being, he found that keeping busy and just not thinking about it was the best way to deal with the problem. Which was why he was determined that the new Senior Citizens’ Social Club could not be disbanded. Denial, in his view, was much underrated.
Art and Maggie walked past Mandel Community Center just as the children were being dropped off at the nursery. Within seconds, Maggie was surrounded by small children. She stood patiently while they patted her, pulled her tail, and played with her ears.
Only one boy held back. He stood against the wall, looking at his feet, but Art could see him sneaking sideways glances at the dog. Art had always been drawn to outsiders. It was how he and William had originally become friends.
“Excuse me, kids,” he said, easing his way into the crush to rescue Maggie. “M wants to meet someone.” He picked Maggie up and placed her gently at the feet of the little boy.
“What’s your name?” he asked the boy. He didn’t reply or look up.
“He doesn’t speak,” said the well-rounded lady with dark hair in a swingy ponytail, who was holding the boy’s hand. She had a wonderfully warm smile; a credit to modern-day orthodontics. He was sure people hadn’t had teeth like that when he was a boy. “The psychotherapists call it ‘elective mutism,’?” she continued. “He’s a foster child. His upbringing was a little…complicated. His name is Lucky. At least, that’s what we call him. I’m Janine. I run the nursery.”
“Well, Lucky, this is M, and I’m Art,” he said. Lucky leaned over and touched Maggie’s head with a tiny, chewed index finger. He waited a few moments, then stroked her with a flat palm. He smiled, and immediately appeared younger, as if his previous pinched expression had been too old for his years.
“Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile like that before,” said Janine. “Usually he doesn’t react to anything around him.”
“Does she do tricks?” said another little boy.
If only , thought Art.
“Let’s try, shall we?” he said, rising to the challenge. “Sit!”
Maggie sat.
“Lie down!” said Art, more out of hope than expectation.
Maggie lay down.
“Stay!” he said, backing away with his hand out, while Maggie lay patiently watching him.
“Come!” he said, after a few more seconds, and she stood up and walked toward him, wagging her tail.
It turned out that Maggie was very much like him. All she needed was an appreciative audience.
“Anyone fancy a Fruit Gum?” said Art.