For the Love of a Dog by Amanda Brookfield

Author:Amanda Brookfield [Brookfield, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788542913
Publisher: Head of Zeus

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It was E. M. Forster who lured me into literature. I was sixteen and, though relatively well read, had never fallen in love with a story until I opened Howards End. He had me at the opening line. One may as well begin with Helen’s letters to her sister. So laid-back. So in control. So beguiling. Never before had I encountered a book that managed to combine page-turning entertainment with such tender, wise and wryly funny observations on the world. By the end I felt I understood myself better, as well as everyone around me.

Howards End is, among many other things, a book about a house. A house that draws people together and pulls them apart. A house with a spirit, an essence. A house that demands its rightful inheritor and somehow gets her, against all odds. There is one particular scene which I have always loved, when after months of estrangement the two sisters, Helen and Margaret, are reunited by finding themselves inside Howards End and surrounded by (thanks to a series of unplanned, fortuitous crossed wires) all the possessions of their childhood. The two women have been at such a distance for so long and yet, conversing among these familiar, beloved objects – the jigsaw of their shared past – all their differences gradually dissolve.

And so it is with the four of us on this winter day. We hug our hellos, we roll up our sleeves, we make a start. Room by room. Cupboard by cupboard. Trinket by trinket. We move together, a pack of four, the same pack who learned to be each other’s best friends on far-flung postings round the world. We fill bags and boxes. We laugh and we shed tears. Chip by chip we chisel at our huge task. It will take more visits, but we know this first matters most, that it sets the tone. We are methodical, fair, and, at times, absurdly generous to one another. ‘No, you have that because I know how much it means to you.’ That sort of thing. It is sublime. It is the best of all of us, coming together, combining forces just as our parents had always taught us we should.

We break for lunch, a makeshift meal, cobbled together with what we have each managed to pull out of our own fridges. Chicken, ham, bread, salad. Someone fetches some sprigs of fresh mint and basil from the bed by the back door. We catch up on other matters as we eat. Children. Jobs. My Diarrhoea Date. It is wonderful to make them all laugh again, especially about so potentially a delicate subject as a possible new suitor. I realize that my meltdown is fast becoming a mere memory to them, just as I hope it will one day be for me. They do not need to hear how it rises up sometimes, a demon in the dark. I am managing. Bearing instead of buckling. Fixing my colours to the mast of Mabel. Looking ahead.

We don’t stop again until the darkening afternoon signals that it is time to walk the dogs, three all told.

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