This blog publishing of chapters may not be that smart!

Publishing the chapters of my NaNo novel since the start of the month has had both positive and negative results.  On the positive side, there’s no question that readers who have clicked the ‘Like’ button have really boosted my morale. On the other hand, it’s been impossible not to notice how on days when a Chapter has been published on the blog, readership levels have fallen, at times dramatically so.

So today is the start of the last six days of NaNoWriMo.  There’s no question that I shall finish the draft of the book. I’m already on the edge of 45,000 words.

However, if I publish four chapters on Learning from Dogs this week, that will bring the total up to 15.  The completed draft of the book will be around 25 chapters, possible one or two more.  To subject you dear readers to another three weeks of four chapters a week seems wrong.

So this is what I propose.

From next Monday I will revert to publishing the range of articles and essays that I have been doing since July 2009.  In other words, a new post every day of the week, just as before.  But, in addition, I will be releasing three of the forthcoming draft Chapters, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

So if you are not into reading the book, just pass those posts by.  If you are, poor soul, then read away to your heart’s content.

Any reactions or comments would be wonderful.

With that, on to the story!

oooOOOooo

Learning from Dogs

Chapter Twelve

Philip was lost for words.  No, far more than that.  He was lost for words, feelings, reactions, responses.  He was totally and utterly numbed.

Maggie had turned away from him, pulled the bedcover over her head, signalling who knows what.

Philip stood up slowly, practically in a trance, left the bedroom and climbed the stairs up to the living room one slow, deliberate step at a time.  He put his empty tea mug in the cream-coloured plastic washing-up bowl sitting empty in the kitchen sink.  He slowly crossed the living-room and stepped across to the full-length window just to the left of their wood-stove that sat in the corner of the room, the window that looked out over the grass slope that comprised much of their garden area.  Philip looked out over the grass, the birds collecting seeds or whatever they feed on with a Winter’s night rapidly approaching. He looked beyond the grass, beyond to Jimmy Fletcher’s fields, then looked over to his left to where trees ran alongside a small stream that occasional filled with water during periods of rain.  The Western sky was still largely cloud free.  It would be dark within an hour or so.  He was incapable of grasping anything, he was emotionally dead.  In fact he was so disconnected from the world around him that he was barely aware of Pharaoh slipping down from the settee, where he shouldn’t have been in any case, and quietly coming up to his left side.  Pharaoh had sat back on his haunches and touched his wet nose against Philip’s left wrist.  Philip crumbled, his chest heaving and tears flowing from his eyes.  He collapsed down to floor level, put his arms around the only creature in the world, human or canine, that cared for him, and cried his heart out.  Pharaoh gently licked the tears from his cheeks.  It was the release that Philip needed. Slowly over the next ten or fifteen minutes Pharaoh’s clear and obvious concern for Philip brought him back in touch with the world.  And he realised just how angry he was; just how incredibly angry

He was still holding his arms around Pharaoh when he heard the sound of Maggie coming up the stairs.  He turned his head and watched her go across to the kitchen and start putting Pharaoh’s evening meal together.

“Just you stop what you are doing!”, he shouted at her. “Nothing is ever going to be the same now and you don’t need to ask me why!  I’ll be feeding Pharaoh from now on.  He is not your dog, not in the slightest now.”

Maggie turned and went downstairs without a word, indeed without a look towards Philip.

Philip went across to the kitchen area and completed putting Pharaoh’s food together in his stainless-steel bowl.  It was placed on the floor in its usual spot.  He also refreshed Pharaoh’s water bowl.

Pharaoh came over to his food and, in an almost reluctant manner, started to eat.  Philip was of no doubt that the dog was affected by what was going on.  Any dog would have been and Pharaoh was no ordinary dog.  Like most big dogs and especially like other German Shepherds, Pharaoh was incredibly sensitive to the feelings and emotions of those humans in his life.

Philip’s mind was now churning over and over, raising question after question.  How long had Maggie been seeing whoever this bastard was? When did she become pregnant? Was she pregnant when they had gone on holiday to Turkey? That last thought made him sick to his stomach.  The dirty, rotten, two-timing cow! To think that he had been making love to his wife, rediscovering what he believed was their genuinely loving relationship and all the time she had had …… he couldn’t even finish the thought!

He opened the ‘fridge door and took out a beer.  Not even bothering to find a glass, he carried the can across to the settee, pulled the ring-top, took a long mouthful and tried to marshal his thoughts, the one most dominating his mind was the sleeping arrangements for the coming night-time.  The answer came almost immediately for he heard Maggie down in the hallway.  She came up the stairs to the point where she could face him.

“I’ve rung my parents and I’m going across to their place now.  Can’t imagine you want me staying here!”

“Probably best under the circumstances,” came Philip’s gruff response. “Call me in the morning because, believe me, you have got some questions to answer.”

There was no reply from Maggie as she let herself out of the front door.  Philip noticed Pharaoh looking out of the front window, looking intently at her as she started her car and drove down the driveway, pausing only to open the gate, manoeuvre the car to the cul-de-sac, come back and close the gate, and disappear from sight.

He sipped at his beer, deep in thought, trying to re-adjust his whole life.  He looked at the clock, their grand old long-case clock that Philip had spent hundreds of hours bringing back to working order.  In what already seemed like a previous life, he recalled shouting out a ludicrously silly price at a morning auction at the sale rooms in Totnes, back some three or four years ago now.  The item in question had been the oak case of this English clock utterly bereft of any working parts, not even a dial face. Upon querying if there were parts, an auction assistant had simply pointed to a large cardboard box placed by the clock case.  Philip had looked inside the box and seen an incredible jumble of clock bits and pieces, almost as if someone had taken the clock mechanism completely apart and gone on to something else in their life.  Frankly, he hadn’t a clue as to whether everything was there but, hey, worth a punt.

Indeed, it had been very much worth the punt because the auctioneer had opened the bidding with, “So who will give me a hundred pounds for this long-case clock, believed to be early eighteenth century?”  No interest from the fifty or so people clustered around. “What about fifty?  Who will start me there?”  Again, no interest.

Philip had raised his arm, attracted the eye of the auctioneer, and called out, “I’ll bid twenty-five.”

“I’m bid twenty-five pounds for this genuine oak-case English grandfather clock with an eight-day movement.  Anyone raise that to thirty pounds?”

Twenty seconds later the auctioneer’s gavel struck his block, “Sold to the gentleman down to my left for twenty-five pounds!”

It took Philip more than three months to fathom out how to reconstruct the intricate parts of the clock’s movement, aided by many visits to Totnes Museum that was beautifully situated within an authentic Elizabethan Merchant’s House that included a number of working long-case clocks.  In fact, Philip had gone there so regularly that, under supervision, he was allowed to open a couple of the clock cases to better understand how the clock movements functioned.

Philip reluctantly dragged himself back from pleasant memories of earlier times to the reality of this evening of December 20^th. His eyes focused on the time; it was a little after five P.M.  Completely on the spur of the moment he realised that over in California it would be something after nine in the morning.  Philip picked up the phone and dialled Danny’s mobile phone number.

Within a couple of rings the call was answered, “Hey, this is Dan.”

Philip quickly established that Danny was out walking in the desert with his dog Wendy.

“So how goes it Philip?”

“Danny, just got an early Christmas present from Maggie.”  Philip went on to explain what had happened just a few hours ago.

Danny’s response was clear and direct, “Hey man, ain’t that the works.  Hell, I’m so sorry to hear that. Man, life can be such a bitch at times.”

Philip heard Danny calling Wendy back from something it sounded she was chasing.  He then continued, “Hey, just been thinking.  You get your arse out to California now, you just come on over.”

“Danny, I would so love to do that.  But, hey dear friend, just not possible right now as I’m facing a pile of shit a mile high.  But, trust me, just as soon as I’m clear I’ll be there. No doubt at all.”

1,420 words. Copyright © 2013 Paul Handover

• Art
• Dogs
• People
• Writing