A Dog's Life Read Online Free PDF

on them before flushing them away.
    The final humiliation came in the form of a letter, banged out on an ancient typewriter with a superannuated ribbon, from a Dublin solicitor. I read it out to him. It transpired that an uncle had opened a trust fund for David and Arthur, the money to be paid to them when Adza was restored to the faith. Now that she was gone to rest it was safe to assume that she was with her Catholic forebears. A cheque for £3,500 was enclosed.
    ‘Tear it up,’ David shrieked.
    I reminded him, calmly, that he owed a couple of thousand pounds in income tax. I advised him to sign the back of the cheque, making it payable to the Inland Revenue. He did so, and never heard from Dublin again.
    Elsa, David’s dance teacher, lived with her sister Lila in a house in Bayswater that had been built specifically for one of Queen Victoria’s more favoured servants. They spent most of every day in the kitchen, where Lila toiled contentedly at the stove, surrounded by a succession of mangy cats. The sisters disapproved of vets and doctors, believing that nature knew best and that medical assistance was necessary only in extreme circumstances. The flea-ridden creatures would slink in from the wild, overgrown garden in absolute confidence that food was there for the miaowing. They would leap on to the table on which Lila was rolling pastry or stuffing a chicken and be certain of a tasty titbit. ‘Is
angelita
hungry?’ The question had only one answer, as the cats demonstrated each time it was asked. If two or more were present, it was left to Elsa to separate them, sometimes with a broom handle, as they pounced on the scraps Lila tossed in their direction.
    Lila had a serene, even temper, which perfectly complemented Elsa’s tendency to overdramatize the mildest upset. Lila cared nothing for appearances, especially her own. She made no effort to get rid of facial hair, and a tooth that suddenly fell out was never replaced. Elsa wore elaborate jewellery – vast hoops of earrings – and applied mascara, powder and vivid scarlet lipstick in a manner that became ever more slapdash as she got older.
    Lila was a brilliant and eccentric cook. She had hundreds of recipes at her command. The various liqueurs that relatives sent or brought back from Argentina were seldom drunk – ‘This will give the dish a kick’ – but rather used as exotic flavourings for the cakes and biscuits she was always baking. I watched her closely one December afternoon as she made a chocolate gâteau. Into the large bowl she flung flour, butter, caster sugar. An
angelita
appeared beside her. She stroked it tenderly, and then put her hand back into the bowl. She picked up a brown bottle and poured its entire contents into the mixture. ‘For the kick,’ she explained. I was to remember the floury hand on the cat’s arched back when my sister requested a second slice of the chocolate cake on Christmas morning, declaring it the most delicious she had ever eaten.
    We were gathered in the state apartments, as the sisters described the dining room, that Christmas. The dining table could accommodate twenty people. A heavy iron chandelier dominated the room. The furniture was of dark, solid wood. It might have been the setting for a play by Lorca – except that these two sisters had satisfied desires the wretched daughters of Bernarda Alba were forbidden to experience. Elsa had mixed the drinks in anticipation of the guests’ arrival – gins and tonic; whiskies and soda. In her anxiety to discover if she had got the measure right, she had taken a sip from every glass, each one of which bore a sizeable trace of her scarlet lipstick. My fastidious mother could not conceal the disgust she felt when Elsa handed her a gin. In common with everyone else, she drank from the unstained side of the glass, though at a moment when Elsa was out of sight she dipped into her handbag and produced a tissue with which she wiped the rim.
    Elsa and Lila were frequent