Walking the Dog

I can't keep a diary. Maybe it's the thoughts that don't want to be written down. Over one year on since I last properly wrote something down on the right day without looking back to find pieces of paper scribbled on.I get married this year to Annie, 21st June, Summer Solstice, the year's longest day. Off The Beat suspended operation this month - no money to keep it going at the moment. I'm Director of the Lancaster Literature Festival and Editor of the national Star Trek Monthly, working freelance for Titan Books. Finally, I'm working with Titan after all this time. I was offered a job back in 1982, then it disappeared shortly before I moved to London - and I ended up working for Marvel UK. Four months into my employment, I was editing Doctor Who Magazine. Titan offered me the job of promotions officer again later and Robert Sutherland put my salary up dramatically to stay at Marvel - shortly before he left.I'm happy, writing a bit more, still distracted by computer games and very much in love with my fiancé, Annie and her two dogs Danny and Beccy are absolutely fantastic.

10.15am, Thursday 1 October 1998
We're on the park near the art college now. I slip Beccy's lead, and she stops dead, again, looking at me in a pitiful way. I recall the times she's run across this place, just as she did a couple of weeks ago after I took her to the vets before and they told me about her tumour.No miracle.

8.30pm, Wednesday 31 September
Annie tells me about Beccy in the park, that this dog, our companion, is telling her it's over and that she knows it. Slowly, we reach the same awful conclusion; that we have to have our dog, this member of our family, put down. She is not going to get better and is clearly suffering. Despite the course of steroids and bronchial dilators, her condition has definitely worsened.That night, sleep comes fitfully. In the morning Annie goes to work, saying her goodbye to Beccy, not looking back as she walks up the road. I call the vets and tell them our decision. I fax work and tell them I won't be in.

4 November 1997
Beccy and Danny come with Mum, Becky, Mark and Daniel on a trip to Eynsford. It's a wonderful day out, the sort of day you treasure.

December 1987
Beccy is born. Annie told me she was taken from her mother too early, so small. Somewhere in boxes never unpacked from our last move are pictures somewhere of her puppy hood. I unpack one.

10.25am, Thursday 1 October 1998
We walk into the vets and Beccy just stands there, no interest in the two puppies in the waiting room, one of them whining. Usually she jumps on my lap and is a right pain the posterior. No longer.I start to cry. The nurse comes over, has a look at Beccy, tells me I won't have long to wait. They deal with this regularly, but you can see it still touches them.

The last four and a bit years
Countless walks, hundreds of happy moments, innumerable silly times as Beccy has cheered us when we're down (as has Danny). The things that sometimes annoyed us come to mind: socks all over the floor when we came home from being out without her; scratches on the front windows where she's tried to leap through it (though impossible), to protect the house from some passing stranger. What sticks most in my mind are those bright eyes, so full of trust in the both of us, whatever mood we were in.

10.30am, Thursday 1 October 1998
Beccy's usually bright eyes are dulled as I explain to the vet how we've come to this point. I lift her as gently as I can onto the examination table, tears running down my face. The nurse is there too now, holding Beccy as the vet brings other the syringe, soothing words all the time. Beccy isn't even looking, at any of us. It's almost as if she's looking at something beyond us, like she used to look at things in the corner of the room that we couldn't see, or the way she'd look at her own reflection in the downstairs mirror, as if it was something beyond our senses.She is already gone and then she is, the overdose of anaesthetic taking her in seconds, a last breath drawn and then the dark."You don't need to be here any more," says the vet, quietly. They ask about cremation but we have already decided to dispense with such things. Annie will plant something in the garden for her next spring. A holly bush, perhaps. In a strangled voice, trying to reclaim my emotions, I thank the staff for everything they tried to do as I leave, her lead and collar clutched in my hand as I walk out into the daylight.

It's over. I decide to go to meet Annie from work.

I get a taxi. I don't walk.