Feed My Dear Dogs. Emma Richler

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 up and lost control of things. Julius had no time out between commanding legionaries and ruling a whole empire and he got that lost feeling when it was just not timely.

      When Caesar was a soldier and at his best, his men were devoted, as Mum would say, meaning they would do anything for him, go anywhere, no matter what, no questions asked, no Who started this war? or What are we doing here? or Maybe we should just go home. No doubts. There was fear of the sensible kind but no cowardice in Caesar’s army because of trust and devotion on the part of the men, and because Caesar had great expectations. On the eve of a battle, he exaggerates the might of the enemy, that is Caesar’s trick, and suddenly his men have twice the might, out of pride and so on, and they smite the enemy in half the time, a breeze for them since they expected to be smitten themselves by an enemy so much greater, Caesar had said, in numbers and in might. It’s a good trick.

      Smite. This is a little bit like wot, having two meanings to bear in mind, usually very easy to tell apart. Smite is largely an olden times battle term so when Mum says I was smitten! there ought to be no confusion. She does not mean she was assaulted by battleaxe, halberd, poisoned arrow, javelin, sabre, scimitar, crossbow or mace in a field of battle, of course not, she means she had a very nice feeling due to something a person said or did in her presence. I hope she will be smitten by me one day, for something fine I do or say, because she is so happy when she says it, I was smitten! like she is about ready for song and dance.

      My dad and Caesar are the same in some ways, not all. Dad may exaggerate the might of the enemy but he is in his prime as ruler, with no lost feelings, quite unlike Caesar who kept looking back in a wistful manner during his days as ruler, days that came upon him too quickly, and spent musing on the good trick he played on his men and on his prowess in commanding soldiers who were smitten by him and his leadership of soldiers. He wants his old job back. He can’t have it.

      The Caesar method of facing the enemy is not uncommon. My swimming master has the same idea. In his opinion, the enemy here is fear of water, a fear he supposes to be lurking in every girl. This belief is the main influence on his teaching method. It could be worse. My friend Lucy White told me something very interesting one day on the way to swimming lessons and I summon up this thing she said when I am in the middle of a swimming lesson and am suffering horribly from the Caesar method. I am not sure I had fear of water before, but I think it’s coming.

      It strikes me swimming baths would make a very good setting for a horror film, what with the non-stop scary echoes and shrieks giving me a pain in the ears, and shards of light bouncing off the water and ceiling and walls, hurting my eyes, sharp as needles. Swimming master prances up and down, always laughing and yelling out instructions, no pausing, and I wonder if he is like that at home, yelling and laughing and giving his kids a headache because he thinks maybe if he falls quiet no one will know what to do any more, or how to do it, his family now a gaggle of lost souls wandering the house in a state of perplexity, sometimes stopping in front of him to gaze his way in a pleading manner, just waiting for him to start yelling and laughing instructions.

      ‘HOLD ON!’ he shouts. ‘LINE UP! KICK! KICK! KICK! PUT SOME LIFE INTO IT!’

      This means it is time to swarm against one edge of the pool and hold on to the edge and kick up a storm of water. This is quite a horrible experience. Clearly, life for swimming master = a great deal of frantic activity and noise. Jude lying on his back and staring at the ceiling in deep thought, for instance $ life. Now swimming master strolls up and down the deck doing his favourite thing, filling a bathing cap full of water and dashing it over our heads from a great height. Filling and emptying, filling and emptying. Why? He wants us to overcome our fear of water by all-out exposure and heavy attack by water. Soon we will all be cured of water fear.

      ‘WATER IS SAFE AS HOUSES!’

      I have a different feeling though, involving a desire never to be in a swimming baths again while I walk this earth.

      In the next part of the lesson we have to about face and let go. ‘LET GO!’

      Off we go into the open, grappling on to a white polystyrene slab and kicking like crazy. The slab is a life raft but this is only an afterthought, the main thought is how it is meant to lead you into real swimming so that before you know it, you simply cast off your slab and there you are, swimming, like in a miracle involving crutches then no-crutches. Yay! There is probably something wrong with me because this never works and I am still very far from the miracle stage. My polystyrene slab flips up in the air in a grotesque manner and bops me on the head on the way down, falling out of reach so I have five or six near-death situations a lesson, with swimming master hauling me out of the water each time, by one arm only, laughing and yelling and nearly wrenching my limb out of its socket.

      ‘TRY AGAIN! THERE’S A GIRL! DON’T GIVE UP!’

      Why not? I can’t wait to get home. I can’t wait for the whistle signifying the end of the lesson and friendly cuffs and slaps on the back from our teacher who is so pleased to be battling fear of water on our behalf. He must be proud of Harriet. I am. Harriet swims like a fish. I see her in all the commotion, floating and flipping around happily, no struggling, just about ready to pass up on the polystyrene, an amphibian perhaps, a duck-billed platypus, I have learned about those, equally happy on land and water, amphibian. My sister swims like a fish.

      I do not. I just don’t see it, this business of floating and so on, of larking about in water like it is a proper home for a human, water see-through as air but SAFE AS HOUSES! Maybe the Caesar method is a problem for me, simple as that. It could be worse though, it’s what I tell myself ever since the day Lucy White informed me how some kids learn to swim, a day we were