Free Black Dogs by Ian McEwan Page B

an hour after take-off, we ordered champagne from the drinks trolley and toasted ‘freedom’. Then Bernard returned to the matter of the common touch.
    ‘Now June had it. She could get along with anybody. She would have taken on that taxi driver. Surprising in someone who ended up a recluse. She was a far better communist than I was, really.’
    These days, a mention of June sent a little charge of guilt through me. Since her death in July 1987 I had done nothing with the memoir I was supposed to be writing beyond sorting the notes into order and putting them away in a box file. My work (I run a small publishing company specialising in text books), family life, a house-move lastyear – the usual kind of excuses did not make me feel easier. Perhaps my trip to France, the bergerie and its associations, would set me going again. And there were still things I wanted to know from Bernard.
    ‘I don’t think June would think that was much of a compliment.’
    Bernard held up his perspex goblet to allow the sunlight flooding the cabin to be refracted by the champagne. ‘These days who would? But there was a year or two when she was a real tigress for the cause.’
    ‘Until the Gorge de Vis.’
    He knew when I was pumping him. He leaned back and smiled without looking at me. ‘Is this the life and times we’re on now?’
    ‘It’s time I did something about it.’
    ‘Did she ever tell you about the row we had? In Provence, on our way home from Italy, at least a week or so before we reached the Gorge.’
    ‘I don’t think she mentioned it.’
    ‘It was on a railway platform near a little town whose name I don’t remember now. We were waiting for a local train to take us into Arles. It was an uncovered station, barely more than a stop really, and terribly smashed up. The waiting room had been burned down. It was hot, there was no shade, and there was nowhere to sit down. We were tired and the train was late. We also had the place to ourselves. Perfect conditions for our first matrimonial set-to.
    ‘At one point I left June standing with our luggage and wandered the length of the platform – you know how one does when time drags – right along to where it ended. The place was a mess. I think a barrel of tar or paint had been spilled. The paving stones had been dislodged and weeds had pushed up and dried out in theheat. At the back, away from the tracks, was a clump of arbutus which had managed somehow to flourish rather well. I was admiring it when I saw a movement on a leaf. I went closer and there it was, a dragonfly, a ruddy darter, Sympetrum sanguineum, a male, you know, brilliant red. They’re not exactly rare but it was unusually large, a beauty.
    ‘Amazingly, I trapped it in my cupped hands, then I ran back along the platform to where June was and got her to take it in her hands while I dug into my bag for my travelling kit. I opened it and took out the killing bottle and asked June to bring the creature over to me. She still had her hands cupped, like this, but she was looking at me with an odd expression, a kind of horror. She said, “What are you going to do?” And I said, “I want to take it home.” She didn’t come closer. She said, “You mean you’re going to kill it.” “Of course I am,” I said. “It’s a beauty.” She went cold and logical at this point. “It’s beautiful therefore you want to kill it.” Now June, as you know, grew up near the countryside and never showed much compunction about killing mice, rats, cockroaches, wasps – anything that got in her way really. It was jolly hot and this was not the moment to start an ethical discussion about the rights of insects. So I said, “June, do just bring it over here.” Perhaps I spoke too roughly. She took half a step away from me, and I could see she was on the point of setting it free. I said, “June, you know how much it means to me. If you let it go I’ll never forgive you.” She was struggling with herself. I repeated