Of dogs and mermaids and bravery and following your (actual) dreams

The emojis in this case are a dog, a mermaid, an artist, an eye, an adoring person, and a red chili

This is Flora’s story (Happy Christmas, Flora) but truth be told, it was slightly taken over by Gruff, a dog of uncertain parentage and certain views, who grabbed said story by the scruff of its neck when it wasn’t looking, gave it a good shake and ran off with it in the direction it needed to go, which turned out to be via a mermaid with aspirations to being a French intellectual, a brooding artist with a hole in his soul and ashes in his belly, an all seeing eye, which saw everything and understood nothing, an adoring fan (the less said about him the better) and most importantly, a lot of fiery red chili peppers.

§

Stories, as everyone knows, never begin at the beginning (well, the realistic ones at any rate) and it is for this reason that we are going to start in the middle: the middle of the story, middle of the day, and the middle of a lake which happened to be in the middle of the park (Regent’s) which happened to be in the middle of town (London). In the middle of the lake (OK that’s enough middles now) was an island, usually home to a great many ducks, but also just at the moment, home to the mermaid, who was on a sabbatical.

She had overdone things at work and a kindly colleague had told her that freshwater and mud were extremely restorative, and kinder to the skin than salt water and sand. (Her colleague was an octopus and as everyone knows, octopi have huge brains and are experts on literally everything.)

The sabbatical was going very well: she was enjoying her salt free skincare routine and the company of the ducks, who, she felt, had better manners than the seagulls she was used to - altogether a better class of bird. She had also exchanged her customary trilby, raincoat and cigarettes required for work, for a beret, black polar-neck and cigarettes in order to discuss philosophy with the heron who lived by the pedalos. His name was Mervyn, was a keen fan of Nietzsche and inclined to be gloomy, but somehow the mermaid still liked him.

On this particular morning, Mervyn was fretting about Nietzsche and the dangers of Wagner. The mermaid (who shall remain nameless because that’s how she prefers it) was staring at her reflection in the lake and wondering whether her new style of eyeliner was sufficiently Left Bank. Just then, a moorhen swam by and whispered something into her ear. The mermaid raised an eyebrow.

‘Hmmm,’ she observed, and lit a cigarette.

I’m afraid it’s true to say at this point she stopped considering what Mervyn was saying and considered something else instead.

Once she had considered sufficiently, ‘Interesting,’ she said.

She blew a smoke ring and watched as it floated up into the air, gracefully transforming as it went. (Native Americans aren’t the only people to know about advanced forms of messaging.) Then she sighed, knowing that her sabbatical had come to an end and it was time to change out of her beret, black polar neck and Left Bank style eyeliner, and back into her trilby and raincoat.

‘Mervyn,’ she said to the heron, who she could see was working himself into quite a state over Nietzsche and Wagner (and frankly who wouldn’t?), ‘I suggest you read Democritus, who is really much jollier, and listen to DJ Rudi.’ With those cheering words, she handed him some Airpods to help him on his way and dived off the pedalo into the lake.

Mervyn felt he wasn’t being taken seriously and went off gloomily to eat ice cream.

§

At about the same time, Gruff was taking Flora for her walk. He was feeling quite pleased with her this morning: she had stayed nicely to heel and had worked out about throwing the ball to order. There had only been one rather embarrassing moment when she had forgotten herself sufficiently to buy coffee from the coffee shop at the bottom of the Broadwalk, but Gruff was in a good mood and decided to let that little slip pass without making too much of a fuss. He looked up at the sky, feeling that life on the whole was pretty good.

Friends, it was at that moment he saw something floating, well, blinking actually, above the trees. He looked at the dots and dashes and his fur stood utterly on end. He knew right at this moment, he, not Flora, was being tested, and he, Gruff, must rise to the challenge or possibly lose everything he held most dear i.e. Flora.

He knew she really wasn’t all that good at understanding what he said to her, but this time it really, really, mattered. He trotted over to her, put a calming paw on her knee and explained that he had to go away for a little while, but it was all going to be All Right in the end. She wasn’t to worry. Then he took to his paws and rushed at top speed to the lake to be briefed by the mermaid and the moorhen, or ‘M’ as they were both known in their respective places of work.

§

At about the same time, not so very far away, an artist stabbed crossly at a canvas with a paintbrush. The artist had been commissioned to paint a series of pictures of ducks, so that his patron could have ducks flying tastefully up the stairs of his house. (The house was something to be seen.)

I’m afraid I have to tell you that the artist was a disappointed man. He had in fact never really wanted to be an artist but a chef. Unfortunately, he was allergic to eggs and milk and flour and rage, so he had never really made it in the world of professional kitchens. His mother had tearfully suggested that being an artist was therefore the next best thing. (His mother wasn’t tearful on account of her son failing to realise his dream, but because she enjoyed being tearful, probably on account of the fact that she was a tragic actress. She, you see, had realised her dream.) It should be mentioned that she had named her son Laurence after Laurence Olivier, whom she loved, and her son loathed, above all things. He avoided using it whenever he could.

The artist – I shan’t call him Laurence because he hates it so much – had recently found a bunch of stuff online about how to make yourself feel better about life and had come to the conclusion that the only way out of his disappointment and misery was to join Isis and blow up Hackney. In order to clarify these thoughts, he had gone to the park to feed the ducks, where he often went for inspiration for painting, to talk the thing through. A passing moorhen had been a very helpful listener.

The artist looked out of the window just then and found himself staring out at an eye. An enormous eye, that winked at him. An eye made of cigarette smoke. Yes really. (Please try to remember what I said about realistic stories.) The eye for its part, looked in through the window, observed and floated away to report back to the boss.

§

I can’t really tell you much about the eye, simply that it had no brain attached to it, so its powers of interpretation were limited. The mermaid should have perhaps thought about this when she blew the smoke ring, but she didn’t, so there we are. Neither did it have a mouth, so its powers of forming words were also limited. So there we are again.

§

Luckily, this is where Gruff came into his own. Dogs you see, have remarkable powers of intuition and was 100% able to negotiate these pitfalls. He knew, in the way that only a smart dog could, exactly what the problem was, and indeed what to do about it, and he made his way forthwith to the artist’s garret in Soho, where the artist was gnashing his teeth and tinkering with high explosives.

He pressed his paw to the buzzer and kept it there until the artist, now not just gnashing, but enervatedly gnashing because he hated the sound of the buzzer, answered.

‘Hello,’ said Gruff.

‘Not today thank you,’ said the artist. ‘I’m busy.’

Gruff ignored this and trotted inside and up the stairs. The artist sighed. The fact was, no one listened to him, not even a dog. His opinion was irrelevant. This burst of fury and frustration jolted something in his brain and he realised what sort of trigger mechanism it was that he needed to set off the bomb. He dashed up the stairs after Gruff.

Gruff jumped up onto the kitchen table and fixed the artist with a stern look.

‘What?’ said the artist, because he knew that look. It was a look that said, “I’m not cross, I’m just very disappointed.”

Gruff didn’t say anything, because sometimes that’s important too.

‘OK, then, what else do you suggest?’ asked the artist in the reasonable tones of a determined Isis bomber.

Gruff put on his best life-coach face and stared meaningfully at him. And stared and stared and stared. The artist looked and looked and looked. And very slowly and gradually, inch by inch realisation dawned.

The artist realised exactly what it was he had to do! In great excitement he grabbed Gruff’s paws and danced him round the room. ‘That’s it!’ he shouted, ‘How did I never see that that’s what it was?! Oh happy day!’

Gruff felt he had done a good job. He stayed for long enough to watch the artist pack a bag and set off on the path for his new life. Then he peed on the explosive device just to make sure, went to fill M & M in on how things had gone, and trotted back to Flora, who was waiting for him in Regents Park, armed with cuddles and treats and general lovely flora-y-ness, Gruff’s favourite.

§

‘So what happened in the end?’ asked Mervyn, gloomily.

‘Oh, it all ended rather well,’ said the mermaid. ‘The artist moved to Glasgow, bought a pink Cadillac, started a chilli farm and changed his name to José. His mother is furious.’

Mervyn started to laugh. And he laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed until the mermaid bought him another ice cream and he shut up.

§

Now, you thought I’d forgotten all about the adoring fan – but I haven’t.

‘Oh, you guys! That was just so gorgeous what a great ending I just wanted to cry didn’t you and I just love you all and OMG squeeze up just want to take a selfie pout pout gorgeous OMG you are just the best so good like totally [insert a few squeaks] . . .’

Actually, he went on like that for about an hour and a half so I think we’ll just leave him there, shall we?

Camera pans out.

And cut, and music.