Feed My Dear Dogs. Emma Richler

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СКАЧАТЬ again, and a fire going in the log cabin. There is no box to show him doing all this, feeling his way around the cabin and so on, so Bob must be the one who poured the drink, lit up a fire and wrapped the Mountie’s snow-blind eyes. There is no one else. Stories in comics are not always very realistic. Never mind.

      It is possible I need to learn boxing because of criminals wandering around with bad intentions in concealing snowstorms, though I doubt it, I think this is just another cowboy lesson from my dad, another sign of his anxiety regarding me and my convent life and the weakening effect it may be having upon me. Don’t worry, Dad.

      Here is where my first boxing lesson takes place: in the kitchen at the end of my dad’s day of sports writing. Here is why. When he gets fed up, and tired of teaching, he can turn around and, lo! there is Mum making dinner, Mum, his all-out favourite relief from everything, sports writing, giving lessons, talking to kids. Here is what else he needs after a lesson. A drink. I notice he already has one poured and waiting, right there on the kitchen table.

      My dad stops me as I amble across the room.

      ‘Hey, Jem. It’s time for your first boxing lesson. You will need to know how to box where I come from!’ Then he goes, Ha ha ha! but I take it pretty seriously, that’s how it is with me.

      ‘OK, Dad.’

      I put my book on the white oak table, far far from his Scotch glass, so as to allow for spill situations which are quite regular with him. And that is the moment I realise the lesson will not last long and I might as well take a chance on my dad as teacher and not ask too many questions. Spotting the glass and making this time calculation is a sleuthing activity, something you can do about people the more you stick with them and get to know things. It is possible to sleuth strangers also, and it is good practice, though you cannot always be sure where clues lead. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes are very good and they are written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was first a doctor and then a writer and then a man who died of heart failure. I wonder did he see it coming, with his medical insight, and was that better or worse, to see it coming? Sherlock Holmes is a top unofficial sleuth and sleuthing is his chief preoccupation, whereas Tintin, another unofficial sleuth, also has a dog, and later on he meets a sea captain, and for the companionship of le Capitaine and Milou, I believe, Tintin has gentler manners and a less edgy temperament. OK.

      ‘Right. Now. Take a stance!’ says Dad, jumping around in front of me.

      I stare at my dad. What is he talking about? He is going to have to do better than this. Teaching is not his big thing, I can see that.

      ‘What do you mean, Dad? Where?’ I look around for what he might mean, I look around for a stance.

      ‘Get into position, Jem! Stay loose, drop your shoulder, bend your knees, so you’re a moving target, not so easy to hit, get it?’

      ‘Oh. OK.’ I bend my knees and hold up my fists just like Daniel Mendoza the Jewish boxer on my Questions Notebook. I feel a bit silly, my knees pointing in opposite directions and my chin in the air.

      My dad is laughing at me, he laughs at my stance, ha ha ha! ‘Jem, remember Cassius Clay? We saw him on TV, remember?’

      ‘Yup,’ I say.

      ‘He dances around the ring! He does the rope-a-dope. Right? Right!’

      ‘Oh, Dad, that’s so ridiculous, rope-a-dope, what does it mean?’

      ‘Just do it, Jem! Dance around, stay loose, come on!’

      My dad is getting a bit testy. His drink is waiting and my time will be up, cut the questions, Jem. then!’ I say. I dance around.

      ‘Now. Very important. Always, always hold one hand in front of your face. Make a fist and hold it there. To protect your face. Most fights end with head injuries. Use the hand you don’t write with. Go on! I’m a southpaw, I hold up my right. Got that?’

      ‘Southpaw?’ I can’t help it, I have to ask. If he is going to use technical terms, I will need to understand them, that’s how it works in teaching.

      ‘Leftie, I’m a leftie!’

      ‘So I’m a northpaw then, am I? Um, whatever’s your best hand is what you are? Or, does everyone have a north and south? Is it for sports only? Or what?’

      ‘No no no! It’s a word for the left-handed, all right? And only if you are left-handed,’ says my dad scraping both hands through his hair and breathing in and out noisily.

      ‘That doesn’t seem right, Dad. Are you sure?’

      I think about Horatio, Lord Nelson, probably born right-handed and suddenly with no choice in the matter and I wonder if it counts, if he is never really a true southpaw because in his head he is always reaching for things with a hand not there, his right, and always looking to one side for a man he can never have again, a right-hand man.

      ‘Jem! Come on, I’m teaching you, goddammit! Stop standing there like a goof!’

      ‘OK, sorry.’

      I hold my left hand up, my southpaw not a southpaw because I am right-handed, making it just a regular paw, I guess, I hold it right there in a fist shape in front of my face. I dance around, doing the rope-a-dope, bloody, I do it all for my dad who is looking happy now.

      ‘Great! Let’s go. Try and protect yourself, remember? Now – BOX!’

      Then my dad pushes my left hand, which is protecting my face from head injury, right into my face.

      ‘Hey!’ I shout. ‘You can’t do that! Unfair! And that hurt!’

      ‘Ha ha ha! You were holding it too loose! It didn’t really hurt, did it?’ he says, ruffling my hair. ‘I said hold your fist up but don’t forget about it, or that’ll happen every time. I didn’t need to punch you! You knocked yourself out! End of lesson!’ he adds, turning away to collect his drink, walking close to Mum and standing next to her with his back against the kitchen counter and his legs crossed at the ankles, reminding me of one of the dark-haired boys in Lisa’s photograph, leaning up against sunny white walls, and feeling jaunty. My dad tricked me and he feels jaunty and he has gone right back into boyhood, I think so.

      ‘Not fair, Dad,’ I tell him, settling in at the table with my Tintin book. I’m not mad though.

      ‘That’s right, Jem! Not fair!’ he says, real pleased. ‘Tough bananas!’

      ‘Thems the breaks?’ I ask.

      ‘RIGHT!’ he says, sliding an arm around my mother and squeezing her tight.

      I’m not mad at my dad, though I have changed my mind about this being a good time for another boxing lesson. I’m not in the mood. And my dad knows I am not going to join the boxing profession, he is just training me in cowboy toughness, he trains us in games and by other methods, by way of documentaries and little speeches. When he mentions the Holocaust for instance, he gets a grave look which is a warning to us, that’s all, a reminder to keep on our toes and hold that non-writing hand up in front of the face, don’t let it go loose and limp, keep it in a fist shape, just in case.

      My dad reminds me of another commander. He reminds me of Julius Caesar in some ways. In his prime, Caesar was a soldier and then he became the first emperor of the Roman Empire whereupon he messed СКАЧАТЬ