Home life
Lost cause
Alice Thomas Ellis
Along time ago when I was too young to know better I went beagling on a snowy day and got stuck with a girl whose name, as far as I remember, was Mary Bedsteads and a perfectly stupid hound called Venus; Venus had to be lifted over fences and carried across ditches. Lord knows where , the hare and everyone else got to, but ' don't recall ever seeing any of them ever again. In the course of time I and Miss Bedstead and Venus staggered back 10 base, frozen, exhausted and deeply fed uP with each other. Serve us right. I've never had all that much faith. ill canine sagacity and now two of the silly brutes have got themselves lost up the mountain behind the house. (We're 10 Wales, not Camden Town.) Some chap took them hunting for foxes and they Pt separated. The hounds are howling and the., chap is bellowing all over the valley and came here for a spot of peace and quiet' The little girls are distressed at the thought of the poor little lost dogs (what about the poor little harassed foxes?) and have gone out to look for them. If I have to turn out and look for two little lost girls as a Consequence of this I shall head straight back to London and the riots. There's a heavy frost outside and a fairly heavy one inside, come to think of it. It could be another world. Only yesterday, it seems, I was running round Camden Town in san- dals and no socks and now I'm huddled over a big fire as close as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. I'm not com- plaining. I made a New Year resolution to stop swearing and complaining, because I Was beginning to find myself tedious, and people had started avoiding me. Its an awful old vale of tears but one must grit the teeth and solider on, I suppose. I wonder what happened to the guest who set off yesterday to come and stay with us. One of her friends just telephoned and told us that's what she'd done, but she isn't here. I've looked. Sometimes there are so many people around that one more could Pass unnoticed, but not at the moment. Only four of us and all unmistakable, especially Janet who looks like an Abomin- able Something in about 14 layers and moon boots. The guest was bringing two Pekineses with her as well and they would certainly not have gone unnoticed — un- less they'd whipped up the mountain to look for foxes with the other dopy hounds. 4.erything is so worrying. Perhaps, I think, dementedly, the guest went up the Mountain looking for foxes. It would be °tit of character, but then life is full of surprises. Night is beginning to fall and the stars to flitter. The hounds have stopped howling. ,,s this, I ask myself, because they've eaten the guest? Oh no, surely not. The hunts- Man has assured the little girls that they are gentle as lambs, affectionate and totally harmless — except, of course, to foxes and that if they turn up at the house we Tanya feel no fear. And their names are I anya and Sprocket. As if I cared. The °,ftlY fear I feel at the moment is that of little to go out in ten below looking for girls (and the guest) who are looking for hounds who are looking for foxes. I really don't want to have to do that. I'd ‘ther sit by t fire and see pictures in its mountains that's nohe good. All I an see is 1.110.untains and foxes and missing guests. This is a great start to the new year. Is „nere any point in having hysterics when there's no one to watch? Janet has taken 'au, other departing guest to the station altMg the icy roads. Will I ever see Janet guest, Will she inadvertently run over the rest, whom I now picture rushing sudden- out of the hedgerow flapping her arms, vengeful by a pack of hounds and some vengeful foxes9 I think I'll spend 1987 in a rest home. • The little girls, at least, have just re- forned, so I'll go and beat them to a pulp ve frightening me, and then I'll have a stiff csdka, and probably swear a bit.
't ts, for New Year resolutions. I ame the foxes.
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