NSSA 2024 - Nice Dog by Vee Walker

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome back to the BBC Short Story Podcast, where this week we're showcasing the five shortlisted stories from the 2024 BBC National Short Story Awards. Today's story is the fourth shortlisted entry and is written by V Walker, a former museums and heritage consultant from Scotland. The reader is Patterson Joseph. by V. Walker. Read by Patterson Joseph.

My name is Duby. I live in the great French city of Nice, up a narrow dark passage at the foot of the castle hill. Once, tourists would only have found the Allée de l'Ancien Lavoie, if they were lost, but now it is marked on all the maps of the old town. This is for three reasons. The first is that it contains the only marble washing trough to remain in the whole of Nice. Such a strange choice.

to wash off one's smell, is it not? It is smell which says the most about any animal. Where was I? Yes, secondly.

Almost alone in the whole of Nice, our alley never gets any sun. It is narrow and twisted and ancient and blissfully cool in summer. And, well... we will get to the third reason i have not yet introduced you to papa remy my papa has lived in this alley since he was a little boy for many years with his mother The ancient ashes of Grand-Mère sit in a large brass pot on the windowsill of the salon, flanked by five cremated chihuahuas, each small urn adorned with its own etched portrait.

On the far side of the ghost chihuahuas sits a photograph of an unknown woman. Sometimes Papa Rémy looks at this picture and sighs. at those moments i roll over and wag my miniature white tail and grin at him this distraction almost always works i am no longer a puppy nor am i yet ready for the sixth brass urn

but I do find the high marble steps leading up on the alley a little tiresome, so Papa Rémy has acquired a padded bag in which to carry me. I try not to mind that it clearly once belonged to another dog. His name still adorns it. Papa Rémy takes me out three times a day. To reach our beloved Promenade des Anglais, we cross a small courtyard where Papa Rémy always stops to stroke the polished marble edge of the Lavoie, lost in thought.

Once safely down those awkward steps, in the old bag which once belonged to Louis, Papa Rémy carries me all the way to the Rue de la Préfecture. There I hop out. and we make for the hustle and bustle of the Corsalea street market. Here I raise my little tail high, because now, beyond the throbbing traffic of the Quay des Etatsunis, lie the precision-planted palms of the Promenade des Anglais and the scintillating seascape of the Bay of Angels beyond. Oh, my, oh, my, the fragrances!

the palm-tree roots soused in message-peace the legs of the blue chairs which line the promenade each suffused with its own ravishing canine perfume on one i can smell petite marguerite the divine miniature Yorkshire terrier who lives with the nimble Madame Couchteau above the Macron shop. Marguerite and I always pause for an appreciative sniff of each other's tail as I inhale.

spring blossoms explode in my brain on a nearby bench leg i detect a pungent lingering trace of my sworn enemy the dachshund von teckel this disagreeable cut Price Doberman, pees here just to spite me, for he knows this is Papa Remy's favourite place to rest his hip. But the padding paws and strolling shoe-soles of the Promenade des Anglais bring me the olfactory... delights of the whole world. Even Van Gogh, the Rottweiler, leaves his message piss here now. But I digress. It may seem strange.

but i like the promenade des anglais best when it rains after the cleansing deluge the palms release a sizzling blast of petrichor while the starlings strut and shriek and preen among the steaming fronds above. When the sun returns, the heady accumulation of fresh canine message peace begins all over again. I trot joyfully from tree to bench to lamppost, snuffing and whiffling and catching up on how my friends are doing. Humans do have noses of a sort, but they appear to have little sense.

of how to use them the thin women with puffy lips walk by drenched in expensive products without realizing that their own fragrance is far more evocative

I can tell a nasty human from a nice one at fifty chihuahua paces. It all began one day, about three years ago. papa remy had released me from louis's old bag at the corner of the courtyard and after i left a romantic message piece for petite marguerite je t'aime mon ange i trotted around the corner towards the front door as usual there

I stopped dead. The smells of the alley were all wrong, and a pair of half-dressed young humans lay sprawled on our front doorstep. Get out of here, you two, shouted Papa Remy. The boy looked up and replied in a slurred voice, and as he spoke, something terrible, something like the smell of death, leaked out from deep inside him. Then the girl's head had lolled back. She was sick. The boy dragged her to her feet and off they lurched, whooping and ha-ha-ha-ing, stinking vomit. I thought...

I saw a figure step out of the shadows to meet them, but it was too late, for dear Papa Rémy had scooped me up in his arms. He was shaking, his heart pounding against mine. He poured himself a pastis, although it was much too early for an aperitif. So young, Duby, I heard him mutter. They cannot have been a day over fifteen, either of them. Children. And yet, already, Papa Rémy remained deeply upset for several days. It was during this time that we began to see a Rottweiler in the courtyard.

He belonged to a new resident, an odd young man who had a tattoo of a spider across his left cheek and brow. Beside his secretive owner, whom everyone somehow now knew was called Toile, the dog would stand stock still. curling his lip with raised hackles and a menacing growl. But his message piece came across as a polite, Bonjour, ça va? At first, to my shame, I shunned him.

The young people began to increase in numbers. They hung around the alley in the darkness, drinking, laughing, smoking. Once Papa Remy found a broken needle on our doorstep. and Twal would appear and disappear among them, his Rottweiler at his heels, blank-faced, snarling as required, both on duty.

It was after washing away the third pool of vomit from outside our front door that Papa Rémy cracked. Caroletta, the floriste on the Cours Saléa, was selling off some huge Swiss cheese plants dirt cheap. Remy bought six on the spot and placed them on either side of our shady doorstep. Trees! A little woodland grove, almost. I christened as many of them as I could.

the next day madame couchteau walked petite marguerite down her alley with an old push-chair which contained a straggly weeping fig there remy she said too hot for it chez nous you look after it instead The faecus instantly looked grateful when it was placed beside the giant Swiss cheese plants. Other neighbours followed suit, first a pallid rubber plant, then a massive yucca.

soon other green plants began to appear often at night the alley was quieter somehow and the air sweeter and no one sat on our doorstep to be sick or drink or smoke any more papa remy began to hum under his breath again. It could not last and did not. One morning a few days later we awoke to find every plant and pot had gone.

A veritable massacre hit our eyes, a mess of broken greenery and shattered terracotta, and there, surveying the terrible contents dumped at the bottom of the old Lavoie, was Toile, hands on hips. his massive dog panting at his heels. Why, was all Papa Remy could say, despairing. Twile shrugged. Kids, he said, maybe they don't like that you're trying to push us.

them out his breath smelled of tar his clothing of a sweet plant of some kind i approached the wottweiler whose hackles i noticed had not risen He gave the faintest wag of his stump and politely bent to inhale the fragrance of my own tail. I stood as tall as any chihuahua can to reciprocate and was greatly surprised. This was a kind dog.

Tales never lie. I live here, Papa Remy raged on. So do you, boy. Toile lifted his hands defensively. Look, old man, he said. This was not me. You got that? Kids. At least we both better hope it's kids. And just what do you mean by that? demanded Papa Rémy. Toile did not respond. Instead, he hopped up onto the smooth lip of the trough and dropped down inside.

Look, only a couple of pots are broken, a few snap leaves and branches, that's all. We can put things back in order, OK? Papa Rémy had no choice other than to nod. Twal then further surprised him by naming each plant variety in Latin as he handed them back up. I like growing things too, he said. I was at university. Biology.

Couldn't afford the fees, so I dropped out. I have quite a few plants of my own up there. Don't you dare tell me about what you grow, shouted Papa Remy. I don't want to know. Twelve gave him a look. Oh, if you were going to go to the police by now, old man, you'd have done it, he said. The Rottweiler, whose name we learned was Van Gogh, lay in the shadow of the Lavoie, wagging his stump. For the first time I felt able to wag my own tail in return.

Whether Toile had had a word with his clientele, Papa Rémy did not know, but after that day a small forest of green plants began to spread along the alley and into the courtyard, planted in old mayonnaise jars, fish boxes and cracked mop buckets. They thrived, and still more plants appeared. On one occasion we found that someone had left us four crimson poinsettias. Papa Rémy stared at them for some time in silence.

a christmas mystery was all he said shrugging as he pushed the plants into the rich earth between that christmas and new year the alley and the courtyard twinkled with tiny lights festooned between the plants. It felt like all was well with the world once more. Alas, not so. It happened in January.

Papa Remy had got up early to wrap the white bougainvillea in horticultural fleece. I ambled into the courtyard where I could hear raised voices. A dog began to bark, then to howl. I yipped inquiringly. but there was no reply from van gogh the gunshot took us all by surprise above us lights were coming on and windows being flung open stay said papa

A command I obeyed for all of five seconds, and then we were both rushing towards the open door behind which lay Toile and Van Gogh's attic. No! I could see the hindquarters of a dog twitching, stretched across the tiles. Papa Rémy muttered something under his breath, pulling out his mobile phone. Toile was crawling towards Van Gogh from the bottom of the dim staircase, his face bloodied, one ankle lying strangely twisted behind him. Stop!

He said frantically, spitting out a tooth. No police, no ambulance. He suddenly looked very young. But... I whimpered then too. Papa Remy was kneeling over Van Gogh. Shot through the neck. he's still breathing he winced as his hip twisted i'll need lucien from the episserie to help me get him into his van go gasped toile this time papa remy told me to stay

And I stayed. Toile was sitting on the bottom step with me in his lap by the time Papa Rémy came back. Touch and go. We'll know more in the morning. Twa rubbed his black eye with the back of his sleeve. I can reimburse you, old man. No, he might be sealed. I don't want your money. Now answer me. Is he likely to come back? Who? asked Toile unconvincingly. Papa Rémy glared at him. No. Yes, I don't know, said Toile. During this inconclusive exchange, I, Duby,

Busied myself with my nose. I criss-crossed the floorboards, inhaling everything. A picture took shape. That of a tall, thin-faced man with a big nose. who smelled of sour spices, garlic and a bitter hair oil. Papa Rémy reluctantly moved Toile in with us to recover. He occupied the protesting mattress, which at once cocooned the considerable bulk of Grand Mère. Many thousands of euros later, Van Gogh came to stay with us too. Madame Cousteau was the first to visit.

tripping up the steps in her heels, clickety-clack, with Petite Marguerite bounding at her side. My beloved delicately touched her nose to that of Van Gogh. madame couchteau had brought toile a dozen of her best little madeleine cakes your favourites she said i saw papa remy scowl at such familiarity they were his favourites too Old Lucien from the épicerie appeared next with dog food for Van Gogh. Papa Rémy asked Philippe, the healer from round the corner, to look the dog over. Again.

Both these local men seemed to know Toile well. Looks like it was a warning, said Philippe. A couple of cracked ribs, I reckon. Someone stamped on the ankle, so you are lucky it's only sprained.

Once these guests had gone, Papa Remy turned on our unexpected guest. Well, don't you owe me some kind of explanation for the past 48 hours, young man? Over the next 48 minutes, Papa Rémy and I learned more than we had ever wished to know about the drugs trade in Nice. It seemed that Toile grew a plant known as weed, cannabis sativa. and now supplied most of the old town with it many older people were his customers he said avoiding papa remy's eye it helped with the ageing joints

And yes, yes, he had stupidly begun to sell other, stronger drugs too. Had he tried to make sure that everything was of good quality, clean, though, he protested. Papa Remy simply said, clean. how can any drug be clean idiot all had been fine for a while explained twal but then some foreign gang had rumbled that his small enterprise was encroaching on their trade

It was one of them who had broken up Papa Rémy's plants, then come back to beat up Toile and fire a bullet through poor Van Gogh's throat. Papa Rémy remembered something then. Mon Dieu! That American girl, the one they found dead on the beach last year? Yes, yes. Everyone knows that was them, said Twile glumly. The heroine she took was probably cut with something else, see?

They target women especially. You would be surprised, old man. Papa Rémy's hands were trembling and I saw him glance at the mantelpiece. But all he said was, So... What will you do now? The boy shrugged. When Van Gogh can walk properly again, we'll move on. Sleep rough for a bit. No! Papa Rémy surprised us with his loud shout. Running away is never the solution.

You must stay. I cannot, old man. I'll be putting you in danger. Their argument went on long into the night, as I dozed in my basket, quite calm. For I do be. the niece Chihuahua had already formulated a plan. Toile's recovery was long and feverish.

on the third day he began to fret about what he referred to as his garden and so papa remy took himself off up into their tiny attic studio after turning the key He gasped out loud, Magnifique, at the sight of the neatly staked rows of cannabis plants warmed by bright white lights dangling from the roof beams. Papa Rémy could never leave any green thing to die, and so it was that he tended the weed plants every day until Toile recovered.

By this time, the town council had become most enthusiastic about Papa Rémy's official jungle in the Allée de Vieux-Lavoie, even offering a grant to help maintain the greenery. A journalist turned up. Tourists came, and even the local corps de ballet arrived for a photoshoot, pirouetting among the delicate foliage. a few days later when the smart tourist strolled across the courtyard snapping away with his shiny camera one whiff and i knew exactly who he was

I saw him turn to Papa Remy with a smile like a sharp blade and say something false. Papa Remy smiled with pleasure. Why is it humans cannot sniff out bad people? and so it fell to me to jump up and down against the stranger's expensive trouser legs he shoved me away with his shiny leather shoe then my masterstroke i begged No human can resist this, and yes, the man bent down and petted me briefly on the head. Nice dog, he said with deep insincerity.

I ran back towards Van Gogh and thrust my head where the man had laid his tainted, treacherous hand right under my friend's nose. Van Gogh sat up, blinking and glaring around him with an audible growl. All dogs possess the ability to absorb smells, very much as humans learn a piece of music. What is more...

We can pee it out of us again, too, and it was in this way I chose to spread the news. Soon, all my message piece on the blue benches and the palm trees of the Promenade des Anglais contained a distinctive fragment of the smell. of the evil one. When Papa Rémy took me for my walk, it took so much longer than usual. Come on, Doubi, mais enfin!

he did not understand that i had to stop to sniff the tail of every dog so that i could invite them to smell my head where the bad man's hand had touched my skin some days later Papa Remy was reading bits of the Nice Matin out loud to Toile. I heard him snort. That's odd. It says here that there's a street in the Carré d'Or where the dogs won't stop howling.

i exchange glances with van gogh the most expensive part of the city of nice may be but who knows how some of the humans who dwelled there made their millions How I wished I could hear this massed chorus of pampered Pomeranians and Buffon Bichonfrise howling in protest at the wicked one's presence among them. Soon, residents were reporting bizarre dog behaviour all over my beautiful city.

Even my sworn enemy, Von Teckel, the dachshund, had caught the thread of the man's smell, pointed his ugly, undershot crocodile snout at the sky, and had howled that very day, yes, on the promenade du Bayon. That evening, Papa Remy and I were sitting at the Sunset Bistro. Papa Remy had his pastis, and Francesco had sneaked me a slice of toast with a little truffle scrambled egg.

A bright red sports car pulled up outside and someone slipped out of the passenger door. The man flopped down heavily at a table at the front, then crooked a finger at Francesco, who hurried over with a menu. I looked around me in desperation. Normally the Que des Etats Unis would be heaving with hounds. Today, of all days, not a single other canine in view. I must act, act fast, and act alone.

Francesco had delivered him a glass of some foul-smelling amber liquid which humans enjoy, and I waited until he had tilted it back against his lips before raising my perfect tiny nose to the sky and letting out a howl. Everything happened very fast after that. The glass fell from the man's hand and smashed on the floor. He swore in a language I did not know.

I heard Papa Rémy say, Mais non, Duby, what are you doing? And at the same time, our enemy sprang to his feet. I kept howling. Surely, surely, one of these dim humans must now notice who was the focus of all the howling. I felt a sudden, agonising crunch and heard a yelp and realised both were me. He had kicked me, hard, with his shiny, pointy shoe, once, then twice, propelling me across the bistro linoleum.

There was no third kick. Francesco had flung himself at the man from behind and was now sitting on the villain's chest, both men breathing heavily. Francesco fumbled around and extracted a gun from my attacker's jacket pocket.

At that point, I think I must have fainted. The good people of Nice love their dogs. When the story appeared in the Nice Matin, it came as no surprise to anyone that the madman, who had made a vicious attack on a little white chihuahua, should also turn out to be an international drug dealer. I was awarded a gold medal for an act of courage and devotion from the President himself in Paris. We travelled first class, and I watched the countryside speed past.

from the comfort of louis vuitton's old bag although really i thought papa remy could have invested in something special for the occasion we were both glad to return home from the grey skies of paris to nice and were touched to find that all our friends and neighbours had planted up the Lavoie in our honour with trailing blue-green ivy. Papa Rémy wiped something from the corner of his eye, and I managed to wag my tail.

shortly after this papa remy took delivery of his most ambitious plant yet a vast fragrant and sticky joye donated by the jardin botanique papa remy emptied Grand Mare into a huge terracotta pot, mixing her tenderly into the light soil. Soon each ghost chihuahua had its own verdant resting place, too. All bones are best buried, after all.

After this emotional planting session, Papa Rémy's hip pained him so greatly that Toile helped him up and then, with some ceremony, handed him a thin, twisted tube of white paper. A week after we returned from Paris, Papa Rémy was playing piqué with Toile, who had now agreed to downsize his drug enterprise to the provision of weed only. Papa Rémy had begun to smoke an occasional joint.

if cigarettes which could kill you were still legal he reasoned then why not weed which made him feel so much better twile had just drawn the ace of spades when we heard hesitant footsteps coming up the alley and then impossibly, a key turning in the lock. The woman who stood on the threshold held a battered carpet bag in one hand. The face on the windowsill stared back at her.

Rémy, she gasped. Forgive me. I thought poor Papa Rémy might pass out. I thought you must be here. I was one of the lucky ones. i am better clean for two years her voice faltered i brought you poinsettias last christmas my courage failed me that night but when i saw the story about doobie in the newspaper She said no more, because Papa Rémy had leapt to his feet and crushed her against his heart. Come on, both of you, said Toile with a grin and a nod to Van Gogh and myself.

Hawkies. Hoo la la. Humans. Patterson Joseph was reading Nice Dog by V Walker. The producer was Justine Willett. Here's an interview with V on Radio 4's Front Row.

Now, on Front Row last Thursday, we announced the shortlist for this year's BBC National Short Story Award. And this week we're hearing from the finalists. Today is the turn of V Walker. Her story, Nice Dog, is set in the French Riviera. and told from the perspective of a witty, feisty chihuahua who sniffs his way about town and is the hero of the hour. I asked V Walker what her inspiration was.

Well, we were fortunate enough to have a family gathering in Nice for Christmas last year. Really an extraordinary thing. And we'd never been to Nice before and the... Ville Ancienne, the old town where we stayed, was quite a scary place. We arrived late at night, walked up through shadowy alleys and really thought, oh, where are we coming to?

And then we turned a corner and one of the alleys was packed with green plants quite unexpectedly. And we thought, wow, this is very different. There was your setting for your story. But what led you to have a dog? narrate the story i don't know kirsty my stories just come i don't plot them or plan them i simply had a

a little dog voice in my head saying, Bonjour, my name is Duby. And it all steamrolled from there. I'm an editor, and the number of times I've lectured people on perhaps not opening their novels and short stories with dialogue, but it... just couldn't be any other way. Stories tend to appear in my head fully formed and I just have to write them down. And you fretted about the opening line, didn't you? That bonjour. You fretted about that. Why was it so fretful? Well...

It was fretful because in the small print, and there's a lot of small print to these competitions, it said that the story had to be written in English. And I thought, well, the judges are probably just going to pick it up and then bin it within the first few words because I begin... with, Bonjour, my name is Duby. So I said to Duby, do you want to go anywhere else in the story? And he said, no. So that was that. So we have a story about a dog who's really a sleuth. But tell me all this idea.

About French cafe culture and dogs being there, witnessing everything. It seems very French. Elderly men with small dogs. Yes, a remarkable number of tiny sort of toy dog varieties. But I warmed to them while I was there. I almost shocked myself because, like many people, I've perhaps grown up with collies and things here in the Highlands, big dogs, working dogs, and to see these little tiny chihuahuas everywhere underfoot.

Initially, I thought, oh, no. But actually, once you start watching their behaviour, they're so clever and they're really cute. This story is about, you know, it's a bit of subterfuge, finding things out, a bit of drug dealers and all the, lots of stuff in there. But... At the heart of it, this little chihuahua, the message piece. Message piece. That features a lot in the book. And obviously, we know what the piece is. But is that actually a French expression?

No, I'm afraid it's a V Walker expression. I wanted to describe it and I spent a lot of time trying to work out. how to describe this action of basically dogs sort of, you know, lifting their leg on things and sniffing each other's tails. How could I make that acceptable in language? So I decided it would be chic and French.

And you have a mannequin piece in Brussels. And I thought, well, you could have message piece in Nice. Why not? So the dogs pass on all the information to each other through the message piece. I mean, to me, it's kind of Monsieur Hulot's holiday meets 100. One Dalmatian's Meets Greyfriars Bobby. Indeed. I mean, the thing is, a short story is very tough because you have to convey so much with brevity, but also create the atmosphere.

Did your professional life help you do that? Absolutely. I've been a museums and heritage consultant all my working life. I've been a writer, but a writer, a hired hack in a way, someone who has been paid by clients to write nonfiction for them largely. And interpretive writing has taught me to distill the essence of a story. quite rapidly to actually draw it out, to pare it back to its bare bones. And that's a very useful skill, both for editing, which I do as well, of course, and writing.

But it is a great keeper because the dogs, you know, the dogs led by the Chihuahua foil an attempt by a drug criminal and all the while... bring different people in the community together to replace flowers and plants that have been missing. It's a kind of feel-good story in the end. Yes. I can't write... clever stories I want to write a story that lifts people's spirits makes them smile entertains them if I have a bit of melodrama and adventure in it then that's great

The issue about legalising drugs and things is touched on as well. But I can't do anything that's too carefully plotted. It just has to sort of trot out of my head and along the nice pavements and into existence. Thanks for listening to the BBC Short Story podcast. Join me again tomorrow to hear the next story shortlisted for this year's BBC National Short Story Award.