Free Kiss Her Goodbye by Allan Guthrie Page B

financial opportunities beckoned. She'd always assumed Bob, whoops, Joe was rich. Nice car, nice clothes. Most of the time, when he wasn't drunk, he smelled expensive. And he chucked money around like he had his own printing press. She wasn't looking to blackmail the poor bastard, but if the opportunity came up to her and tapped her on the shoulder she wasn't going to pretend it wasn't there. Tina hadn't been sentimental since she was six years old.
    She could pinpoint the exact time.
    1990. Couple of weeks before Christmas. After a month of solid nagging, her mum finally gave in and took her to a cat and dog rescue home. An assistant led them to a sprawl of kennels. Hand in hand, Tina and her mum strolled along the row of cages. Dozens of puppies scrambled over each other to jump at the wire mesh and bark and squeal and yelp and howl at the young girl and her mother. Dozens in each cage. Seven cages later they came to the end of the row. Another three rows awaited them.
    Her mum said, "I didn't know it would be like this. I think we've seen enough."
    Tina's excitement was curbed by her knowledge that the pups nobody wanted would be put down, and, although she didn't know precisely what it entailed, she knew that being put down was a very bad thing. She was crying when her mum said she could only take one puppy home and that she had to choose now. She cried harder. Still crying, she retraced her steps. Stopped halfway along. Backtracked to the previous cage. Pointed.
    "A terrier," her mum said, close behind her. "Good choice. I like his beard."
    The assistant pranced towards them without unfolding her arms. "That one's a bitch."
    Tina put her hand over her mouth. She waited for her mum to thump the assistant for her bad word and was glad when nothing happened.
    They left the kennels and went to an office where her mum had to fill in some forms before the man in charge of the home would hand over the puppy. By the time she'd finished, Tina had stopped crying and was looking forward to seeing her puppy outside its cage. She was trying to think of a name for it.
    "Fraser," she said, and started bobbing up and down.
    "It's a girl puppy." Her mum passed the completed form to the assistant. "Fraser's a boy's name."
    As the assistant read the form, a frown creased her brow. She said, "I'm afraid we can't give you the dog."
    "I don't understand," Tina's mum said. "What's the problem?"
    "Your income."
    "I don't have one."
    "That's the point. It's standard policy." She looked at Tina. Tina looked at her mum. The assistant said, "I'm really sorry."
    "What are you saying?" her mum said.
    "You live with your boyfriend?"
    "Davie," Tina said. "He's in the Salvation Army."
    The girl ignored Tina. "And neither of you are in employment?"
    "At the moment?" her mum said. "You mean right now?" She shook her head.
    "We can't release a dog to a home that doesn't have a stable income."
    "Can we not have Fraser, Mum? What's going to happen to her if we can't have her? What if nobody else wants her? Mum?"
    "Shut it, Tina." Her mum was wearing her angry face. And she was starting to use bad words that she'd have to wash out of her mouth when she got home. "This bitch would rather let the poor beast die than give it to dogshite like us."
    Tina wet the bed that night. When she told her mum, her mum ordered her back to bed. Tina didn't do what she was told. She slept on the settee. In the morning Davie spanked her for being a dirty little girl. Then he made her change her bedclothes and fling the soiled sheets in the washing machine. After that, he made her lie face down on her freshly made bed while he rubbed cream into her burning bottom.
    "That's better," he said. "Isn't it?"
    Her mum didn't hear him, didn't see what he was doing. She was sleeping off a hangover. Something she did most mornings.
    Davie hung around for a couple of years, which presented plenty further opportunities for smacking Tina. And for easing the pain afterwards. Then one day he