PUPPY LOVE - The motorway Yak

PUPPY LOVE

Derek filled up the second tank and got back in the cabin. His hands were black with grease and the bandage on his finger showed blood where he had cut himself fixing a joint on the first tank, near the French border. The digital thermometer from Petit Chef read 34 degrees. He was soaked. The rose on his shoulder glistened in the Italian sun.

‘Those tossers. Too tight-bottomed to get the air-con repaired. Practically murder.” He fanned his face with the little Chinese paper fan he got in Calais.

He parked next to a lorry loaded with strawberries, flies hovering around the crates. The engine went quiet, and the sound of cicadas took over like a wave. In the distance, the whooshing of cars on the motorway.

Before climbing down from the cabin, he put on a clean T-shirt. It smelt of home.

He entered the motorway café and headed for the loos. He got through half a soap dispenser and after all that scrubbing his hands were as black as before. He changed the bandage and checked his fist in the mirror. ‘I look like a boxer. Cool.’

He chose a fruit salad and a bottle of sparkling water from the bar and took a copy of a football magazine called Guerin Sportivo. He was introduced to its existence in this same café years ago, by a Florentine driver called Mirko. ‘It’s for children, but I like pictures. Who cares about what they write?’ Derek read the titles under the pictures and wished he had made more of an effort to learn from his grandfather Alberto. Still, he felt the thrill of being able to ask the bar girl, in a loud voice, ‘Posso avere una macedonia? Per favore.’

He walked back out of the restaurant, clicking his tongue as he battled with a kiwi seed stuck in the back of his mouth. Cars of holiday makers double-parked all around. A boy with black hair and flushed cheeks was crying in the back seat and saying, in French, “I want a lolly”. His father was battling with an enormous suitcase. It seemed impossible that it could never fit back in the boot. Men pride themselves on their alleged ability to pack a car boot; but they crumble in such an operation under the slightest psychological pressure. The mother was changing a baby’s nappy on the bonnet, at the opposite end of the vehicle. When she finished, she shouted to ask the man if he needed a hand. He snapped, ‘I’m doing fine.’

Derek leaned onto a railing, produced a lottery card from his pocket and scratched it with a euro coin.

He hadn’t won anything. ‘Unlucky at games, lucky at love,’ his grandfather used to say when he beat Derek at card games. But most times he let Derek win. Instead of chucking the scratch card in the bin, Derek folded it neatly in two and slipped it in his shirt pocket.

‘Another one for the scrap book.’

He noticed a picnic spot in a grass area. He decided to go and sit down and read. He opened his bag and took out his travel copy of ‘The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin’. It was the tattered one he kept in the lorry, he had better one at home. He sat down and started the worn page.

“‘Look. Yak,’ said Elizabeth. They stared at the yak. The yak stared at them. Nobody spoke. There isn’t much to say about a yak.”

Derek tilted his head back, laughed and said ‘Genius.’ He was about to carry on reading when he heard a sound from under the stone table, by his feet. He bent down and peered under the table. There was a shabby cardboard box with bits of dirty blanket hanging out of it. The box was yapping. He raised the lid. A small black and white puppy emerged with its tongue out.

‘Well, I never, hello mate!’ he said. ‘Someone leave you here to your own devices, did they? Bastards.’ He picked up the puppy; it didn’t seem scared and licked his bandage. Derek's big arms lifted the tiny creature up high above his head. ‘Ah! I see we have a little gentleman here.’ He put the puppy down into his lap and stroked it.

‘Right. Let’s get you sorted.’

Derek went back into the restaurant and bought some milk and biscuits. He showed the puppy to the man at the till on his way out.

‘Yes, they do that, now and then. Bastards, hey?’ said the man. ‘You keep it?’

‘I’m not leaving him on the side of a motorway in a box, am I?’

‘What you call him?’

Derek hesitated.

‘Ehm. Oh. YAK, actually, I think!’

The man repeated the name and smiled.

‘Well done. CIAO’, he said, waving to the dog.

‘Ciao.’

The French family had packed the car and were about to set off. They saw the puppy in Derek’s arms. They all smiled and pointed. Derek smiled back. They waved and drove off.

He climbed up into the cabin and opened the glove compartment. He took his old feature-phone out and dialled.

‘Hey love. How’s my lady? Just passed Milan, on my way to Slovenia. Stock up on tea and baked beans, won’t you? Back on Thursday. And I’ve got you your birthday present.’

He chuckled. ‘A Yak. You’ll love it.’

Derek lay back in the driver's seat, the windows wound down and the puppy on his lap. The dog had fallen asleep in his arms and was gently snoring.

‘Sorted’, he smiled. And closed his eyes, too.