The Ned Wood Archive

And we walked back to the road, unchained

Most mornings, I walk up to King’s Buildings like going into work. It is going into work. I start my commute at different times, depending on what time I get up: 8:30, 9:00, sometimes even later. I’ve always been a morning person. Mostly I get in before everyone else in the department anyway, so even arriving at 10:00 was fine. Not that my presence was always noticed. I spent a lot of time in the lab or in the library, or at a terminal in the computer room.

Sometimes on the walk in, I notice this woman walking her dog. Sometimes at the top of the road, sometimes a bit nearer our place. She’s going down the hill while I’m going up. Always dressed smartly in a grey and black tweed jacket and dress or a grey and black tweed coat when it was colder. Always with the dog, a black retriever, always on a lead, walking right by her side, never ahead, never behind. Not one of those shaggy long-haired retrievers you sometimes see, but tidy hair like a Mary Quant bob. Every time I see them, they were both so well matched and so well-behaved, you’d have thought they were one being. Neither of them look right or left, just carry on walking, looking straight in front. Always side by side.

And one day, as I came out of the door to the Palace of Marchmont, they were walking down the pavement right outside. A sudden burst of curiosity took over so I followed them down the hill. At each road: Warrender Park Road, Meadow Place, Melville Drive; the dog sat down without being told and waited, then stood up and crossed the road when the traffic had gone, again, seemingly without being told. Then, the other side of the whalebones, it sat down again and waited. Without a word, the woman unclipped the lead and the sensible, obedient, well-behaved dog immediately haired off up the walk as if late for a train. Then suddenly changed course and haired off towards Tollcross like it had just remembered it needed to pick something up at the shops before it got sold out. And then it came sprinting back past us towards the Tennis Courts at the other end of the Meadows. Maybe it had urgent need of the gents.

All the while, we were just stood under the trees near the whale bones, separately, me and the old dear in the tweed suit. I looked at her and noticed that she wasn’t watching the dog as closely as I was. She just stayed still, meditating and enjoying the spring sunshine, tranquil and at ease. I left them to it. The dog randomly bouncing backwards and forwards across the Meadows; sprinting here, there, and everywhere, sniffing every blade of grass, barking up all of the trees; her just standing there, a serene smile on her face, oblivious to the world. Satori must be something just the same. I walked back up Marchmont Road to pick up my commute, wondering whether the dog would ever come back to its owner and whether they’d ever walk back home so obediently and orderly again.