54

April 28th.

I must swallow my words today, for Sylvie and I are taking the b & w dog to the vet. We are stroking her while he seeps an excessive amount of a type of morphine into her forepaw. She had, he diagnosed, a liver tumour and extreme anaemia. She had lived 19 years without illness, irritating us all with her yapping but endearing us to her benign and gentle nature. It is Sylvie’s decision. Her death costs her and Bernard, who refused to take her up in his old Renault, 93 euros. They are a little taken aback, shocked even, but I’d be happy to pay that for a peaceful death!

On the drive back down the curling hills we see the vultures again, a pair, very high and circling, there undersides sparkling in the sharp, early evening sunlight. Sylvie becomes animated, convinced again that they are after her hens. I try to tell her that they are particularly interested in carrion but she says that they are eagles and eat anything living or dead that they can carry away. We leave it at that; after all she had just watched her old dog fall asleep for the very last time. Now I feel a bit of loss and a bit of guilt and go and sit by my fire, staring into the flames.