Phone calls about the dog

I am writing this in between short intervals of vacuuming. Short because the vacuum cleaner cannot cope with the dog hair carpet. It sucks valiantly for a few minutes, stops and then, when it’s got its breath back, starts again. Any second now and it will splutter into life, the dog will flee halfway upstairs and gaze at me disdainfully and I will commence the battle with the dog debris that litters my carpets and my life.

The cleaner has given up on the front room. She hardly ever turns up now and, when she does, she calls me to tell me she can’t enter the front room as the dog is barking and won’t let her in. I don’t think the dog likes the cleaner but then, the cleaner does not like the dog.

I also receive frequent phone calls about the dog from the dog walker. I am in the office three days a week and, invariably, most afternoons, my mobile will flash ‘pauldogwalk.’

Pauldogwalk never has good news. This week he told me to research buying a collar that squirts lemon at the dog in an attempt to stop him disrupting pauldogwalk’s dog walks by dashing off and terrorising other dogs in the park.

‘He just wants to play,’ I protest. ‘He is a very friendly dog.’

‘He does just want to play,’ Pauldogwalk agrees. ‘But if another dog doesn’t want to play he winds them up.’

I sigh because I know what Pauldogwalk is talking about. The dog will circle the un-playful dog, growling and barking. One day he will circle the wrong un-playful dog and end up in a whole lot of trouble.

‘Today,’ Pauldogwalk tells me, ‘he chased a terrified Daschund for half an hour around the park.’

‘Oh,’ I say, taking a sip of my Pret-a-Manger white Americano. My boss, who I sit next to, is laughing. My boss thinks pauldogwalk is wet and, if he can’t cope with an unruly dog, shouldn’t be a dog walker.

Pauldogwalk hasn’t finished though. Now he’s in his stride he’s going to run slipshod through all my domestic affairs.

‘I don’t know how you cope with getting home to that sofa either,’ he says. I cope by picking up the yellow foam that is scattered across the floor every evening when I return from work, as if the moon has exploded in my front room, shoving it in to what remains of the sofa cushion covers, putting them back in place and then covering the whole sorry lumpy mess with a grey Ikea blanket. I cope by telling myself that one day, soon, when I have the money, I will buy myself a leather sofa that the dog will not see fit to destroy.

‘And your garden,’ Pauldogwalk says, really hitting his stride now. ‘Your garden is like a commune.’

He has a point here. I live in not the most salubrious part of south-east London, my flat one of five in an ex-local authority block with a communal garden. Some students moved into one of the flats below last summer and the age of aquarius has dawned. The garden is scattered with bongo drums, dream weavers made of twigs and large cushions covered in batik prints. Sometimes a tent is pitched to add to the Glastonbury vibe. Oh and there are chickens – three chickens who spend their nights in a home-built coop and their days pecking around the threadbare grass – the outdoor flooring equivalent of my carpets.

Most of the time I don’t mind the commune/garden as I like the students. And, basically, I’m just too lazy to mind. But, when someone else minds, I mind.

‘The students are having a festival in the garden,’ I tell Pauldogwalk now. ‘They are having a festival called the Sunset Festival in our garden and there will be stalls and workshops and an acoustic band playing on the decking.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Pauldogwalk laughs. Then he laughs some more. He is tickled.

Now that we are in good humour I ask: ‘Do you like the dog? I know he’s a pain in the arse, but do you like him? Do you think he’s a good dog?’

‘Yes,’ Paul says. ‘I like the dog. He’s one of my favourites.’

And I end the conversation smiling.