The Friend

The narrator is “forced to contemplate” (107) the fact that Apollo is an aging dog. She wants Apollo to “live as long as I do. Anything less is unfair” (107). Remembering the words of Karl Kraus, she points out that “it’s to people that dogs are loyal, not to other dogs” (108). She regrets that she did not know him as a puppy, when he would have been full of energy. The narrator thinks about how, in books, “something bad happens to the dog” (109) and gives numerous examples.

Thinking about Apollo and other dogs, the narrator likes to believe that they are capable of showing gratitude. She tries to understand how he perceives the world. At a party, an unknown woman “giggles and says, Aren’t you the one who’s in love with a dog?” (112). This causes a moment of reflection for the narrator; she admits that “this love is not like any love I’ve ever felt before” (112). The narrator has a “recurring anxiety” (112) about Apollo’s real owner finding him and trying to claim him back. She rereads Ackerley. When asked to recommend a book for a radio show, the author selects The Oxford Book of Death, which she is rereading “with particular attention to the chapters ‘Suicide’ and ‘Animals’” (113).