Like Kate, I dreamt of having a third child
Abig day at Pearson Towers. It’s not only the Duchess of Cambridge who’s pregnant! Sue came to the house with her portable ultrasound – much cheaper than the vet’s – and with doggy wisdom to share. The fuzzy-grey shadows on the screen told a bittersweet story. Our pet poodle, Maisie, had been carrying two puppies, but one had “reabsorbed”. It’s normal for a tiny toy poodle to have a small litter, Sue said, and equally common for a substandard pup not to make it.
I was sad about the creature we would never meet who had left a meteor trace of cells on the scan. At least we had one puppy to look forward to. Gently, Sue broke the bad news. Singleton puppies “tend to have issues”. Uh-oh.
In a typical litter, puppies have constant physical contact, Sue explained. They get socialised through the rough and tumble, by being interrupted during feeding by a sibling. Singletons have a “lack of bite inhibition” and social skills, they don’t know how to handle frustration or get out of trouble graciously. Great. Maisie was carrying a poodle Violet Elizabeth Bott. Without competition in the womb, the puppy might grow too big. Violet Elizabeth might well need to be born by C-section.
Sue suggested I should buy cuddly toys and spend a lot of time biffing the puppy gently with them, and pulling it off the teat to mimic the play of a larger litter. The due date she gave me was exactly the time my new novel is coming out. Oh, Lord, looks like I will be spending the day of publication on my knees pretending to be Violet Elizabeth’s boisterous sister.
“I’m leaving if that dog has puppies,” Himself had warned. Well, at least it wasn’t puppies now, was it? It was only one.
In the words of the title of my new novel, How
Hard Can It Be?