Collared

At least so far, nobody had been as cruel or as impolite to say it to her face, but quite a few of her friends and neighbours thought that Maggie, or Mrs Thompson, depending on how well you knew her or how much you stood on ceremony, was overdoing it a bit. Over-reacting. Making too much of a song and dance or a mountain out of a molehill, or whatever their idiom of choice was.

     After all, it wasn’t even as if she had lost her dog. They could have seen the point of that. Even people who weren’t dog-lovers agreed that Stan, her rough-haired terrier, was absolutely adorable. “You only need to see that funny little face of his to cheer up,” Liz from the convenience store said. “And the most sweet-natured dog you could imagine,” her friend Lynda, who had popped in for a bottle of milk and a natter, but mainly the latter agreed, “But with just that touch of mischief about him.”

     Stan was a friendly little chap, and loved being petted, but when it came down to it, he was a one-woman dog, and that woman was Maggie Thompson. 

     The funny thing was, at first she hadn’t thought she wanted a dog, and that her well-meaning daughter and son-in-law were deluding themselves if they thought he could help her come to terms with losing her husband. But Stan had other ideas, and now they were absolutely inseparable.

     But Stan hadn’t gone missing. Stan was still trotting along at her side, and to her credit, though she was in such a state, she never missed taking him for a walk, and throwing his favourite battered tennis ball for him.

     It was only his collar. True, it was a very pretty collar, a nice bright red, pillar-box red people used to call it, and studded with – of course they weren’t diamonds, but at a distance they looked a bit like them. Still, it had probably cost her a bit. And that was odd, if you thought about it. Maggie doted on Stan, but she was also of the very sensible opinion that dogs, wiser than humans, had no interest in designer labels and no time for them, and a comfortable well-worn basket was just as good, if not better, than one from some fancy online pet store. 

     “He’s not even a fancy collar type of dog,” Liz said, and Lynda nodded, sagely, knowing what she meant. And it was meant as a compliment. Of course, well, probably, no dog was really bothered about the appearance or cost of their collar, but there were some who made you think they were, and Stan wasn’t one of them.

     Naturally, Liz hadn’t refused when Maggie put one of the little cards on the board they kept for what she called “this and that” in the shop window. This and that covered everything from plumber’s services to “as new” toys to offers or requests of lifts. They’d carried missing pet notices before – the most recent one, for Carol the junior school teacher’s cat Clancy had ended happily with a touching reunion. But so far as Liz could remember, they’d never carried one for a missing collar. 

     It didn’t stop at that. Maggie, who was ploddingly just about competent rather than expert and enthusiastic when it came to computers, made and printed out notices bearing a picture of the collar – indeed, two, one with Stan wearing it and one just of the collar – and laminated them at the library, and attached them to trees and lamp posts. True, she didn’t stop her social activities or the normal rhythms of her life, but increasingly, people in the village began to get the impression that the only reason she still went to choir practice at church or to her WI meetings was to make extra inquiries about the collar.

     A rumour did the rounds that she had even been seen looking in people’s litter bins to see if it could have ended up there by accident. There was no concrete evidence of this, but it wasn’t the utterly bizarre idea it might once have been.

     Ironically, it was the very cause (if indirectly) of her anguish – and though she wasn’t a demonstrative woman, it was very clear that whether you thought it was justified or not, anguish was what she felt – that meant she didn’t fall into self-neglect. She had to keep body and soul together for Stan’s sake, though Liz did notice that she was buying more instant noodles and packet soups and such other things as she would previously have scorned, though Liz herself had no such scruples.

     Still, bemusement and a degree of irritation were turning to genuine worry. In her quiet way, Maggie Thompson was well-liked and she definitely seemed to be getting – well, a bit odd. And it was widely known that little things could tip people over, perhaps especially the quiet ones. 

     One of her fellow-choir members, Katie Henderson, found a pretext to stay behind after choir practice to have a word with the vicar, the Reverend Brenda McIntyre, who was also in the choir. Brenda was very well liked and respected, even by those who had initially raised eyebrows about a “lady vicar”. She was devoted to her parishioners, whether they were churchgoers or not, and managed to combine tolerance with remaining true to her own beliefs. And as one of Carol’s little pupils had once said, after she’d been at the school’s Harvest Festival, “Reverend Brenda has the most twinkly eyes I’ve ever seen in my life!”

     But those kind grey eyes were full of concern now as the two women sat side by side on one of the front pews. “I’m worried about her, too,” Brenda admitted. “Funny things, collars – I’m so proud to be entitled to wear one and yet only do when ceremony demands!” She chuckled as she indicated her very un-vicar like stripy sweater. She also had the knack for introducing an element of humour into things without in any way belittling them. “Technically I shouldn’t have let her put one of her posters on the church noticeboard, it’s only meant for parish affairs. But I didn’t have the heart to refuse. The trouble is that – while I agree with you it does seem – an over-reaction – you can’t really say she’s doing anything worryingly irrational and it’s not as if she’s shutting herself in the cottage or starving herself.”

     “Still waters can run very deep, vicar,” Katie said, her unusual use of the title indicating the seriousness of her concerns.

     “You’re right, of course. Well, I’ll have a word with her, but I can’t make any promises and she may well just tell me to mind my own business – though I doubt that, no matter how upset Maggie is, I can’t envisage her being impolite.”

     As Brenda would have been the first to acknowledge, there are few things more difficult or, indeed, more obvious, than instigating a “casual” conversation with someone. Though she wouldn’t have blamed anyone for being cynical about it, vicar or not, it was genuinely coincidence when both women were in the convenience store at the same time. And they shared at least part of their walk home, so it was natural enough for them to walk together. “How are you keeping, Maggie?” Brenda asked.

     “Well enough, thank you, Brenda,” she said. Then their eyes met and Maggie’s suddenly brimmed over with tears. “The church – please,” she muttered.

     Without saying another word but with her arm round Maggie’s shoulders, Brenda steered her towards the church and to the same pew where she had had her conversation with Katie. Stan came with them, his big eyes turned non-stop on Maggie, and no way was Brenda going to say he had to stay outside. “It – can be easier to talk here,” Maggie said. “Though – I don’t always find it easy to talk at all.”

     “Talk when you’re ready,” Brenda said, quietly, “And don’t if you’re not.”

     “I know everyone thinks I’m making a bit palaver out of this collar business. And I don’t blame you! I’d think just the same. But – the thing is –“ she broke off. “I don’t know how you’ll feel about this as a vicar, Brenda, you might say it’s not – not very theologically correct …..”

     “Nor is celebrating Christmas on the 25^th of December,” Brenda said, “But I don’t imagine I’ll stop doing that any time soon.” She was relieved to hear Maggie give a shaky laugh, though she went on, “I – even before Doug died – I knew he was – on the way out, he did himself – found out in my magazine about the way they can make some of a person’s ashes into jewellery. Make them look like a diamond. I liked the idea, and asked them at the crematorium and they said they’d done it before, and it would be fine. But when I got Stan – well, I didn’t want them to be in jewellery for me. I wanted them to be for him because I don’t know how I’d have got through it all without him. I know it sounds silly – and, and I know that most of him is in the churchyard….”she broke off. “I should never have done it!”

     “I’m – not going to try to find any glib or easy words, Maggie,” Brenda said. “I respect you far too much for that. I could say that Doug would tell you not to be so upset and I’m actually sure that’s true. I will say it was a lovely idea to put the jewel in Stan’s collar. Of course you’re upset about it. You wouldn’t be human if you weren’t. And what I’m telling you now isn’t really my own advice at all, but it’s stuck in my mind. It must be – fifteen years ago now, after I was first ordained, one of my parishioners lost her brother. It was unexpected, an industrial accident.”

     “Oh, the poor woman!” Maggie exclaimed. Her own distress hadn’t taken away her compassion for others.

     “Indeed. Anyway, though he was quite young he had made a will, and he left her a couple of paintings he’d done of their childhood home – he was a very talented amateur artist. One day she accidentally spilt water over one of them. It wasn’t entirely ruined, but as she said, you’d always be able to tell. She was very upset about it. Then one day I went to visit her and realised that she was far calmer, more happy. And she told me, “Brenda, I’ve started feeling better since what I thought about more wasn’t the picture not being as perfect as it was, but the memory of seeing my brother paint. He was so absorbed, so content.” She never entirely stopped fretting about the picture being damaged, but that still seemed to put things in perspective for her.”

     “I’ll have a think about that,” Maggie promised. Her first instinct was that Brenda was very kind, and what the other lady had said made sense, but it hardly applied to her, and anyway, Doug had been no artist. Or had he? He’d had quite a passion for buying old metal toys, many, though not all of them, toy cars, and restoring them, making them look once more like the things that had gladdened children’s hearts on Christmas and Birthday mornings. Most he gave to his grandchildren and great nephews and nieces, or to the charity shop, but he kept a few favourites back for himself. He had never been one of those men who felt the need for a “man-cave” as a retreat, but did like to work in his little shed where his paints and sprays and tools and spare parts were. Maggie supposed she ought to clear it out, ought to – she shuddered at the expression – re-purpose  it. At least she hadn’t either made it into a shrine or begun to dread entering it; she’d managed to keep quite a sane attitude. But she still pushed it to the back of her mind. “And you might well look guilty,” she said, as Stan, not for the first time, appeared to read her mind. A few weeks ago, in one of his fits of mischief, he had decided that the shed made a nice little obstacle course and had scampered around before he finally came when Maggie called him.

     But maybe Stan – and that lady Brenda had been talking about – had the right idea. It needed some life and some normality. And she needed to stop getting herself into a state about the collar, and think about Doug doing something he’d loved and that made him happy. She pushed the door open, and Stan, hardly believing his luck at having his new playground back, swirled round in joyful tail-chasing circles beside her. With the air of a pirate finding the buried treasure, he eagerly pawed the stone floor of the shed – where the red jewelled collar was lying!