“See that woman... she talks to dogs”

MY sister, who is two glasses of Pinot down, has just introduced me as someone who ‘lives in the back arse of nowhere’ to an acquaintance of hers at a party in London, just before whisking off to get herself a refill.

I explain to my sister’s acquaintance that I live in West Cork, Ireland.

“I’ve never been to Ireland,” she says, “where’s West Cork?”

“Down the bottom… on the south- western tip,” I say.

“Oh,” she says, looking blank.

“Think Cornwall,” I say, “without the people.”

“Wow,” she says, “that remote?”

“More,” I say, “not so many roads or shops...”

She looks appalled.

“So do you live in a town?”

“No,” I say, “I live about five miles outside a small town, in a farmhouse.”

“Oh,” she says, “in the countryside.” After a tiny pause she says, “what do you do?”

“I write,” I say, “freelance, at home.”

There’s a pin-drop silence. “Wow,” she says, looking aghast, “that’s kind of… solitary.”

Chance would be a fine thing, I think.

Unfortunately, the business of writing doesn’t look like much — particularly if you write at home on a sofa looking warm and comfortable. In this case, people can mistake the business of writing for doing nothing. I know this because sometimes my children come into the room and stare me down in the hope I’ll stop writing and cave into their request to ‘get off your computer because dad’s live streaming football on the other one and I need to go on Facebook now’. This is when I wonder whether writing might look like more of a job if I did it at my desk.

Writing can also be confused with on-tap availability. I know this because when my husband races to the car for work in the morning, he’ll often shout things over his shoulder such as “can you get the bald tyre changed at the garage, explain to the men with the JCB exactly what they need to do with the septic tank, drop into the bank and clip the dog?”

Even the dog gets it wrong. And I know this because if I write downstairs, she stares at my back with a walkies look and barks to be let out, then in, then out, then in on a loop till tea time.

I have to admit there are fleeting moments in which I consider my lot and fantasise about shutting my front door behind me in the morning, racing to the car and heading off to do important stuff somewhere else.

I wonder now if my sister’s acquaintance does important stuff. “What do you do?” I say.

“I’m a prison officer,” she says, “women’s prison… Holloway… just down the road from here.” Of course there are other moments when I think about my job and feel quite content, all things considered.

At this point, my sister re-joins us with a third glass of Pinot. “See that woman coming towards us now, no, don’t look, she talks to dogs.”

“As in, she’s a bit mad and chats to her own?” I say. “No,” my sister says, “as in, it’s her job. She does it for a living. She’s a dog psychologist. She goes to kennels and goes inside the kennels and talks to difficult dogs.”

“Difficult how?” I say.

“Biters,” she says.

“She gets inside kennels and chats to biting dogs?” I say. “Yes,” my sister says.

“But how does she fit inside a kennel?” I say.

“Oh for god’s sake,” she says, “how drunk are you? They’re not the small wooden kennels, they’re the big concrete things, the ones you leave your dogs in when you go on holiday.”

At least that, I think.

“Does she wear protective clothing?” I say, “I mean are there special face-guards or gloves at least, so that…”

“Don’t think so,” my sister says.

“Does she sit on a chair to do it?” I say.

“No,” says my sister, “on the floor but she says sometimes it’s really cold because the floors are concrete and the kennel people normally try to make sure that the floor is clean but sometimes the dogs shit just when…”

‘A concrete floor,’ I think, ‘no chair, no massive club, biting dogs and faeces.’

Every now and then there comes a moment where I consider someone else’s lot and feel what you’d call ‘totally, utterly and completely thrilled’ with mine.