Tinker was excited when I took him for a walk: ran down the passage and through the open door; I ran too, and the door slammed shut on my fingers — the second finger on my right hand was squashed and flat and hurt; the nail went blue and then purple and then black — it fell off; I saw a new one coming underneath. He got excited when I chased him up the path beside the plant that bloomed every seven years; I slipped on the gravel, and the stones were flecked with geranium petals that were blood — there was a zigzag pain, the smell of disinfectant, and my grandmother’s fingers turned cruel. Afterwards they said I should have had stitches.

Tinker was my dog; I loved him dearly. I wrapped a shawl about him to a tight cocoon and sat in the gutter; held him in my arms: he was little Hiawatha, my black papoose — I told him he was better than any pink pig of a human baby. I pinned his ears to the top of his head with my fingers and he looked like Carmen Miranda. I dressed him in socks and a frock; carried him about with his paws upon my shoulders. I took him for walks on the end of a plaited leash; we sat on the seat at the tram stop and waited for my mother. I ate, and he watched with pitiful eyes until I could eat no more; I ate, and gave him the apple cores he loved — that he crunched to a milky pap. I put him in the cupboard in the bedroom and shut the door; I heard him whimpering inside and felt the same joy as when I tormented Reece; I opened the door and I was Tinker’s Saviour — delivered him from the darkness, held him close.

Tinker was my dog, he was my brother. He snored in a nest of blankets, curled upon my toes all night; in the morning I found him still asleep, but draped in my petticoat, fallen to the floor. He fitted under my arm when it was dark and lit my way up the passage; shone with my mother’s matches down the path at night. He was at my side when I wandered the wet garden with no shoes in winter; his satin paws and my feet turned to pumice on the same cruel stones. He comforted me when I cried, licked the tears away with his tongue; sometimes he shared my sorrow and cried too. He was particular about his food: Nan bought boneless mutton from the butcher, cooked it till it was tender on the stove.

In summer my dog’s coat became matted, his ears were stuck with burrs. I took the scissors and clipped till he was cool and a little black sheep. I cut carefully round the scallops of his diminished ears until suddenly he yelped: there was blood on my fingers, and also on one sooty ear.