Vale Macy Noodle, the little terrier that brought joy to everything – even goodbyes
It’s a sunny Saturday one September and we’re heading back to London from Surrey. For once I’ve been tasked with driving because David wants to hold the eight-week-old wire-haired fox terrier puppy that we have just picked up. This is her first moment away from her mother but she seems oblivious and soon finds a spot to curl up on his lap.
David has bagsied the naming rights and from now on she will be known as Macy. Apparently shouting out my moniker of choice, Noodle, would make him sound like he was flogging ramen from a food truck. While hollering my alternative suggestion of Puddle would, I am told rather sternly, ensure that he became the laughingstock of the local park and spread unnecessary alarm among the elderly.
But a longer journey started that summer’s day, one where a funny, feisty hound would take two men and make them into a semblance of a family. One where love would flourish and where a little dog would transform every mundane moment into something entertaining, joyful. A glorious, rambunctious journey that came to an end yesterday (as, thankfully, does saying to everyone who stopped to admire her that, “It’s actually Macy, not Maisie,” and, no, we didn’t name her after the department store).
Look, when you get a dog you know the deal: they will not live forever. They will be like parentheses, marking out a span of your life. Yet this knowledge doesn’t make it any easier. Some 18 months ago we discovered that Macy had two cancers and, while the brutal operation to remove part of her shoulder and her spleen was an incredible success, they always warned us that it would return one day. It did, this time in her lungs. While we coped with her sounding like she smoked 20 Marlboros a day and spent all night carousing in the local inns, in the end she had had enough.
Macy, we are going to miss you. Your insistence on sleeping under the duvet in winter or lolling over my recumbent body as though I were a well-upholstered chaise longue. I’ll miss you stealing a sock when I get undressed as you try to instigate a game of chase. Your total refusal to ever play fetch. The sigh of contentment you make as you settle next to us on a sofa. The way you jump up and down on the spot like a rabbit when you need to play. The kisses you deliver when we get home – even if you’ve been on your own for only 10 minutes. The glorious holler of happiness you emit when you meet your favourite people among our friends, all of whom have generously taken care of you over the years. I’ll miss how cute you look when you come back from the groomers. I’ll miss doing your voice to entertain David (I hope he realises that was me). I’ll miss the walks. The adventures.
At New Year we were all in Mallorca but David needed to go to the US, so I rashly decided to drive back to London solo. Well, not solo, with Macy. It would entail three days on the road through sunshine and blizzards. Each morning, on our first pitstop, I would purchase us a croissant each (all food rules were off). Macy mostly dozed but any hint of rustling paper would cause an eye to half open, watching just in case there was an additional pastry portion going begging.
At night we found nice hotels and in the dark of the room she would wedge herself against me, rolling on her back before we nodded off to see whether I would be up for dispensing one final belly rub. I knew that this would be our last big adventure. I would have happily bypassed London and just kept on driving. Trondheim here we come.
But even if the road has now run out, tonight I have insisted that there will be a glass of champagne. And there will be a toast. To Macy Noodle, the puppy who changed our lives.
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