It’s a cold winter night, and my wife and I are alone in the house, binge-watching some new series. I was transfixed by episode one, and gripped by episode two, but midway through episode three I have started to look at my phone, and as a consequence I’ve lost track of the plot. I have an idea what’s going on, but it’s not the right idea.
“So hang on,” my wife says. “Was that just the dead guy? Meaning he’s not dead?”
“Um, sure, yeah,” I say.
“You’re not even watching,” she says.
“He’s the dead guy,” I say, “now back alive for some reason.”
“On your phone, as usual,” she says, “looking yourself up.”
“I’m not looking myself up,” I say. “I’m actually responding to an urgent text from last week.”
The dog walks into the room, sits down in front of my wife and stares up at her with a baleful, pleading expression.
“But you’re missing all the important bits,” my wife says.
“I don’t care what happens any more,” I say. “I just need to know how it ends.”
The dog reaches out and places a paw on my wife’s knee. My wife looks down to find the dog’s eyes locked on hers.
“What do you want?” she says. The dog stares.
“Do you need to go out?” my wife says.
“I let her out, like, 15 minutes ago,” I say. The dog lifts its paw from my wife’s knee and, a few seconds later, replaces it, this time more insistently.
“I don’t know what you want,” my wife says. “You’ve been out, you’ve been fed.”
“I think she’s trying to tell you it’s bedtime,” I say. My wife looks down at the dog.
“So go to bed,” she says.
“No,” I say. “She’s telling you it’s your bedtime.” The dog stares.
“It’s not my bedtime,” my wife says, pointing at the telly. “I’m watching this.” The dog yawns theatrically. The paw remains in place.
“I think you’ve already lost this one,” I say.
“No I haven’t,” my wife says, removing the dog’s paw from her knee. “A dog doesn’t get to tell me when to go to bed.”
“This is what comes of going to dog school,” I say. The week before the dog received a certificate marking the satisfactory completion of Being a Good Dog 101, but as a result of the training she has developed a deep fixation with my wife’s every move.
“This has nothing to do with anything we learned in dog school,” my wife says, prodding the dog with her toe. “If you’re tired, you can go to bed without me.”
“I don’t think that is going to happen,” I say, as the dog moves its paw to my wife’s other knee.
“You take her to bed, then,” my wife says.
“It’s not my bedtime,” I say.
“It’s not my bedtime!” she says.
“Anyway, I’ve got to watch the rest of this,” I say.
“There are three more episodes!” my wife says. “You can’t watch it without me!”
The dog turns to look at me.
“She gets like this when she’s tired,” I say.
“I’m not going to bed!” my wife says, standing up. She leaves the room, and the dog follows. A minute later, my wife leans back in through the door.
“I’m going to bed,” she says.
I try to watch the rest of the episode alone, but I can’t follow it. When it finishes I’m as bewildered as if I had never watched any of it.
As I’m turning off the downstairs lights I consider the newly intense bond between the dog and my wife, and whether I feel left out of the equation. On the one hand, I sometimes struggle to get the dog to obey my commands. On the other hand, I am not subject to constant scrutiny, or any kind of curfew. I go to bed when I want. I decide that, on balance, I’m glad I never set foot in dog school.
I go upstairs, where my wife is asleep under the glow of her bedside lamp, book in hand. On my side of the bed, the dog is lying stretched out under the duvet, with its head on my pillow.
“What are you doing?” I whisper. “You can’t be there.” The dog opens its eyes, staring straight ahead.
“Look at me,” I say. The dog looks past me for another moment, before closing its eyes again.
