Page 45 of Take My Breath Away
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“Let’s head back,” I say to Perry, who nods his agreement.
We push ourselves up from the bench and look around. There are few trees up here but there are large patches of thick gorse and some bushes. What there isn’t, is any sign of a small brown dog that looks more like a Brillo pad.
“Jasper! Jasper!” Worry fills Perry’s face. “He can’t be far, he never goes far. He’s not that kind of dog,” he says, but a thread of concern’s running through his words.
He shouts some more for the dog and I join in but Jasper doesn’t stumble out from under a bush, or emerge from a patch of gorse. There’s nothing except our voices being whipped away by the wind and the rain that’s starting to come down hard and heavy.
“Where the hell is he?” Perry darts this way and that, calling the dog. “I shouldn’t have taken him off his leash, it’s my fault. If we don’t find him… Oh God, what will I tell Elliot?” Worry and upset crease his face.
“We’ll find him, he can’t have gone far.”
This isn’t Perry’s fault, whatever he might think. Elliot entrusted Jasper to me, so if there’s any comeback it’s mine.
We make our way across the Heath, all the time calling, trudging through the torrential rain. The light’s fading fast. I pull out my phone and flick the torch on. Up ahead, there’s a dip in the top of the hill, the edge lined with overgrown, tangled bushes beyond which is—
“Behind those bushes, there’s a pond.”
God alone knows how I’ve forgotten. It’s large, but shallow and muddy for much of the time, but it’s been raining heavily on and off for the last few days, so it would have filled up.
I look at Perry at the same time he swings his head to look at me. Our eyes meet with the same thought connecting between us.
“Oh no, you don’t think…?”
As one we run over the rough ground, stumbling and sliding on the already sodden earth that’s turning to sticky mud. We stumble to a halt on the edge of the pond, our breath ragged with panic.
“I can’t see—”
“No, look. There.” My torch picks up a small shape in the water, bobbing up and down, disappearing only to reappear a second later before the water claims it one more time. A yelp, thin, frightened, and pathetic, is torn away by the howling wind.
“Oh my God, Jasper,” Perry cries, as he lunges forward. I grab his arm and pull him back.
“No. You take the phone, aim the light on him. I’ll get Jasper.”
I don’t give Perry time to argue as I thrust the phone at him, and slip down the slope to the edge of the pond. As I wade in, icy water fills my boots, soaking my jeans first to the calves then the knees. It’s fucking freezing and I start to shiver, but I trudge forward, towards Jasper, whose frightened whining and pathetic attempts to bark spur me on. God alone knows why but Elliot loves the little sod, and I refuse to be the bearer of bad news.
Jasper’s not far out, less than ten feet I estimate, but it’s lethal underfoot. The pond’s filled with thick, strong weeds which wind around my legs, and heavy mud sucks hard on my feet, making progress slow and heavy.
“Okay, boy,” I breathe out as I edge towards the dog, keeping my voice low so as not to panic him even more than he is already. “Let’s get hold of you.”
Jasper’s splashing about, but he’s moving in an ever decreasing circle, and I know that can only be because he’s caught up in the weeds.
The light from the phone barely reaches us, its beam weak and trembling in Perry’s agitated hand. I edge myself closer towards the frightened dog. If I’m going to get him and me out, I need to free him from the knot he’s got tied up in.
I’m within a couple of feet of him, and make a grab to stop him from dipping below the water’s surface, but his fur’s soaked and mud-covered and, smooth and slippery as an eel, he slides out of my grasp. Fumbling to keep hold, my balance goes and I lurch forward into the freezing, reed-choked pond, going under into solid blackness.
Bitter, acrid, muddy water fills my mouth and for a second I can’t breathe. My feet scrabble to find a foothold on the muddy bottom and I push myself upright, spitting and gagging out the liquid mud that tastes of the earth, leaves, the dead and decayed.
The torch beam doesn’t reach this far. Everything is shades of grey and I can’t see Jasper anywhere.
“Oh fuck, oh fucking hell.” I yell, angry not at the dog but at myself for my failure both to save him, and to Elliot, who’s placed his trust in me.
My heart’s hammering hard, my breath’s rough and ragged, and my blood’s a harshwhooshas it rips through my veins, all of it against a background of the wail of the wind and the beat of the rain hard on the pond.
I tread water, settling my breathing as I strain my ears to pick up any clue as to where Jasper might be. And I hear it, a tiny whimper that trembles on the edge of extinction. It comes from behind me, and slowly I turn. Jasper’s given up the fight, as he bobs in the water just a foot or so from me.
And I grab him. One hand on a leg, the other gripping a floppy ear, I drag him to me and wrap my arms around him, hauling him into me and hugging him tight to my chest.
