the plum fairy cometh Th e Fr o m e Fo s s i l
O
ur puppy had the chop a couple of weeks ago. Genital, that is, not mortal. To stop him chewing at the wound, the vet produced what she called ‘an Elizabethan collar’. It was not a fashion accessory Sir Walter Raleigh would have recognised, being plastic, sweaty and bigger than your head. It drove Ted crazy. He spent hours screwing himself into a ball in a frantic attempt to reach his nether parts, whirling round with shrieks of frustration, swollen scrotum forever out of reach. In the end, we caved in and took the collar off. But this only made things worse. Now there was nothing in the way and he had to face the terrible truth. The cupboard was bare. As the full horror sank in, he gave another, louder, howl. Then he stared desolately into space, his agony not just physical, but spiritual. The wailing ghost of his goolies seemed to hover about him. Where oh where had they gone? I went out to dig up some early spuds for Sunday lunch. Ted followed leadenly and slumped by the hedge, his nose under the gate, staring reproachfully at me. The mystery of his loss was so intense that life was hardly worth living. He might as well give up. Even though the sun was shining and a mistle thrush grated away in an oak tree and bumble bees buzzed. Even though pea pods dangled plumply. Even though the earlies hit the colander with a satisfying clunk. Abruptly from the kitchen came first a scream, then my wife. “There’s a bird in here!” she yelled. “A pigeon!” But it wasn’t a pigeon. When I tracked it to the window and moved jars and candles and flowerpots, I came face to face with a pair of tracer-shell eyes and a small hooked beak. A sparrowhawk. I opened the window, and the bird walked imperiously over the ceanothus before rocketing off for the far trees.
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THE LIST FROME
Fo s s i l o n F r o m e
And he must have carried with him the last spectral vestiges of Ted’s testicles. Like some avian tooth fairy, the hawk had borne away the old and left in its place small gifts - a sense of peace plus a couple of tail feathers. For Ted was immediately a changed dog. He stood up, shook himself, wagged his tail, thought “Who needs bollocks after all?” and trotted off happily into the rest of his existence.
