Various Pets Alive and Dead (36 page)

‘Hello, Floss-Floss-Flossie!’ She moves her face into the baby’s field of focus, smiling full on and jiggling her head.

‘Hup!’ says Flossie, and lets out a dribble of curdy milk.

‘I wanna hold her!’ Oolie makes a grab.

‘Sit down. Don’t grab!’ Doro has a sudden flashback to an unfortunate hamster incident years ago. ‘Hold your arms out carefully!’

‘Shall I get my tits out?’

‘No, it’s all right.’

‘Hup!’ says Flossie.

‘In’t she cuddly? I’d sooner ’ave a babbie nor a ’amster.’ Oolie gazes down into the little baby face, which now seems to have dropped off to sleep.

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to come here with Oolie. Doro feels a sinking in her guts, in anticipation of the question that will inevitably come next.

‘Can I ’ave a babbie?’

‘I don’t think –’

‘They’re quite hard work!’ Molly laughs, carrying the tray with a dancer’s grace, her loose curls falling forward as she places the cafetière and cups on the low table. How pretty she is, thinks Doro. And how nice it is to be old enough to enjoy another woman’s beauty without feeling that little prick of rivalry.

‘I’m good at ’ard work,’ says Oolie.

‘Schrrrup …’ Flossie murmurs from the depths of sleep.

‘I can’t tell you how grateful we are to Serge.’ Molly pushes her hair back from her face to pour the coffee. ‘Without him, we’d be out on the streets.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Lending us the money, when they were going to foreclose on us. Otto says he’s more like a brother than a friend.’

‘He lent you money?’

‘Yes. Don’t sound so surprised!’ Molly smiles, stirring four spoons of sugar into her coffee. (How can she take so much sugar and not get fat?) ‘He’s a really nice guy.’

‘I know he’s nice. I just didn’t know he had any money.’

‘Well, I think they get paid quite well in the banking world.’

‘The banking world?’ She tries to keep her astonishment out of her face. ‘Oh yes. Of course.’

‘Anyway, it was nice of him to help us out.’

‘Mm. Which bank is it he works for? It’s completely slipped my mind.’ Doro gives a little dotty giggle.

‘Eff – something. I’ve forgotten too,’ Molly laughs.

‘I don’t like coffee. Ent you got no tea?’ Oolie interrupts sulkily.

‘You sit!’ says Doro to Molly, jumping up. ‘I’ll get it!’

She’s glad to turn her back on Oolie and Molly for a moment, and gather her thoughts. She can hear Oolie saying, ‘Mum says I can ’ave a babbie, if I’m good.’

She wishes that bloody smug Mr Clements with his checklists of ‘blossoming individuality’ could hear this.

‘Where d’you keep the tea bags?’ she asks.

‘Are you gonner get your tit out again?’ asks Oolie.

‘Not now. Cupboard above the sink. I think it’s called FATCA? Does that ring a bell?’ says Molly.

‘Ent you got no sweeteners?’ asks Oolie, stirring four spoons of sugar into her tea in imitation of Molly. ‘Mum says I gotter ’ave sweeteners.’

‘Yes, that’s it!’ says Doro.

It isn’t until they’re on the train back to Doncaster that she realises she still has the crocheted bonnet in her bag. Oolie is asleep, snoring with her mouth slightly open. Serge’s phone is still switched off. Doro watches the landscape fading from daylight to dusk as it flies past, imprinted with the emotions of all the other times she’s travelled up here. It seemed crazy, exhilarating, their first journey north in 1969.

Looking back, as she increasingly does these days, she finds herself wondering what it was all about. They’d been so certain in those days; so convinced of the rightness of their mission. Her whole life since then has been a journey backwards into uncertainty – from knowledge to doubt; from black and white to shades of grey; from taut to baggy, like underwear; from rigid to squashy.

‘Wake up, sleepyhead.’

A woman is standing over Serge with a cup of tea – she’s wearing a fluffy dressing gown and pink slippers. In his bleary state, it takes him a moment to recognise Juliette.

‘Oh, thanks. How long have I been asleep?’

‘It’s Saturday afternoon. Are you feeling better?’

‘Saturday? Oh, shit!’

‘How’s the nose, pet?’ She cups her hand under his chin and jerks his face round. ‘Does it still hurt?’

‘A bit.’

‘There’s some swelling. Maybe a hairline fracture.’

‘I should get going.’

‘Wait till you feel better. We don’t want you passing out on the underground.’

‘No. I guess not.’

Feeling wobbly and strangely weepy, he sinks back on to the sofa in front of the TV, where they’re still on about the G20 summit. The crisis has sprouted a field of overnight experts tut-tutting about the runaway sub-prime mortgage market; too much risky lending has resulted in no lending at all, because no one knows what any bank’s assets consist of. Billions of pounds’ worth of derivatives that may not be worth the paper they’re written on have been sold and resold. Cases have come to light of mortgages secured on non-existent properties, mortgages written up to people who never existed, mortgages secured in the names of people who are already dead. It seems everyone was in too much of a hurry making money to check. He listens with detached interest. It all seems rather seedy and meaningless.

Images from last night nudge his brain. What happened in that room? He struggles to remember. Something to do with a dog.

‘What d’you want for breakfast, pet? Bix or flakes?’

Sounds like dog food.

‘I’m not that hungry, thanks, Juliette.’

The television news has moved on from the G20 summit. Twelve miners killed in Romania. Israel blockades Gaza. Britney Spears charged with dangerous driving. What a terrible mess the world is in.

She leans forward and snaps the television off. ‘It’s a wonder you didn’t have nightmares, sleeping with that on all night.’

‘Maybe … Juliette, do you ever –?’

‘That’s another thing I don’t get – why d’you keep calling me Juliette?’

‘I thought …’

‘My name’s Margaret, pet. I told you. Don’t you remember?’

So Juliette must be her ‘professional’ name.

‘And you said yours is George. Such a nice name. Like the saint.’

Serge nods silently. He feels some affection for St George, who is the patron saint of Doncaster, but he can’t remember ever having adopted his name. In fact, he has no recollection of this conversation at all.

She heaves a large black bag with a padded shoulder strap on to her shoulder.

‘I need to pop out to see a client, George. Will you be all right on your own for a bit?’

‘Sure.’

‘I’ll leave Beastie here. He gets snarky sometimes when I’m working. Possessive. You naughty boy.’

Beastie woofs and thwacks his tail.

‘If you feel like going out, there’s a nice W-A-L-K through Smithfield Market and down towards St Paul’s. Don’t forget to take a pooper bag. Some people are so intolerant. You’d be amazed the fuss they make. I mean, it’s just nature, isn’t it?’

‘Mm.’

‘Help yourself to anything you fancy from the fridge.’ She waves in the direction of the kitchen and disappears. ‘Bye, George! Bye-bye, Beastie! Bye-eee!’

After she’s gone, he goes into the kitchen and puts the kettle on. He’s feeling hungry now, though his face is still throbbing. He opens the fridge, but all it contains are the rancid remnants of a curry takeaway, two dried-out crumpets and a monster sausage in a plastic skin. He takes it out cautiously. It looks like no sausage he has eaten before – in fact, it looks like a giant penis sheathed in a giant condom. He cuts a slice. The taste is bland, faintly meaty, faintly chemical. The texture is rubbery. He has to force himself to swallow. Beastie has followed him into the kitchen and is sniffing eagerly at the open fridge, nose quivering, thwacking Serge’s leg with his tail.

‘Go away, Beastie.’

The tail stops thwacking and Beastie growls. Serge holds the monster sausage up to his nostrils. The smell is not nice. Then he sees, in faint print, on the plastic skin: ‘Top Dog Doggie Dinner’. Ah. He remembers their first encounter, with Doro, outside St Paul’s – Doro’s incandescent rage, Beastie’s determined crap, Juliette’s humiliated retreat. This explains the poor mutt’s toilet habits. As he’s about to return the sausage to the fridge the poodle, with a sudden leap he wouldn’t have thought it capable of, snatches it from his hand and carries it off to the front room. By the time he’s tracked it down behind the sofa, there’s nothing left but shreds of chewed-up plastic skin. Too bad.

He dampens the shrivelled crumpets under the tap then toasts them (an old Solidarity Hall trick) and eats slowly, gazing out of the window. All before him is a vista of drab apartment blocks and mangy grass dotted with leafless trees. The room is small, stuffy and cluttered with knick-knacks, chipped souvenirs from dismal seaside towns, faded Monet prints, china animals. Everything seems so banal, could it really be the setting for the brutal drama he witnessed last night? Or was that all a dream? Hang on – didn’t he take some photos? He fishes his iPhone out of his jacket pocket, but there’s only an out-of-focus picture of St Paul’s dome.

The room where Juliette (he can’t think of her as Margaret) sees her clients, the room sandwiched between the bedroom and the sitting room, is locked, so he tries the door to her bedroom. Beastie has reappeared, snarling and snapping, his tongue hanging out, his breath warm and foul. He shoves the dog out with his foot, shuts the door and sets about examining the room. There’s the usual girly paraphernalia – undies, tights, tampons, tissues – nothing to suggest whiplash activities.

Surely she must keep an appointments book, or some record of her clients. On her bedside table is a paperback novel called
Under the Duvet
and beneath it a booklet that turns out to be a manual for some equipment which looks like a mini-washing machine attached to a bed. Aqua-Clinic Colonic Hydrotherapy. Weird. On the wall there’s a photo of Juliette, much younger, in a nurse’s uniform a bit like the one she was wearing today. Maybe she really is a nurse. All the while he’s investigating the room, the dog yaps and scratches outside.

He opens the door carefully, but Beastie is waiting and hurls himself through the opening, teeth bared, snarling. He tries to slam the door, but unfortunately slams it on Beastie. The dog lets out an agonised yelp and falls on the floor, thrashing its body from side to side. A dribble of blood spurts on to the carpet.

He’s standing there, wondering what to do, when he hears the noise. The whiplash crack. The long-drawn shuddering groan. He freezes, all his senses jangling. Now, in the daylight, the sound seems less human and more mechanical. The strange thing is, it seems to be coming not from the locked room next door but from the far end of the corridor. In fact, it’s coming from outside the flat. He looks down at Beastie, expecting some reaction, but the dog seems to have passed out. Or maybe he’s dead. Remorse seizes him. What a scumbag he is. This is how he repays Juliette’s kindness – by killing her pet! Then he hears another disturbing sound: ping-ping!

Quickly, he heaves the dog’s limp body into the bedroom and closes the door. There’s only a small smear of blood on the carpet – he’ll deal with that later. He puts his eye to the spyhole in the door, but the face in the lens is too small and distorted to recognise. He hesitates. Common sense tells him to pretend there’s no one at home but, half hoping to see Chicken standing there, he opens the door.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’

A blush rises to Serge’s cheeks.

‘You are also waiting …?’

‘She’s gone out,’ Serge says.

‘I have an appointment. I am rather early.’

‘D’you want to come in and wait?’

‘Thank you.’

The Hamburger follows him through into the sitting room and sits down stiffly, knees together, at one end of the spongy sofa. Serge sits down at the other end. Between them is a metre of embarrassed silence.

After a moment, the Hamburger asks politely, ‘You are often coming here?’

‘No. It’s my first time. I’m a bit unsure …’

He wishes he hadn’t opened the door. He wishes he could call a vet to check on Beastie. He can hear a faint whimpering sound from the bedroom. The Hamburger hears it too, but mistakes its source.

‘There is nothing to fear, Serge. Some initial discomfort. You get quickly accustomed.’

‘You do?’

‘You will feel better after.’

‘That’s what I’m hoping,’ he mumbles.

‘The nature of our work is not healthful. Too much sitting on the underbottom. It is sensible to seek relief.’ The Hamburger shuffles about on the sofa.

‘Mm. Yeah.’

‘I thought you may be unwell when I saw you were running away the other day.’

‘Yeah. I felt … like crap.’

‘A sudden urgency?’

‘Yeah. Exactly.’

‘I think Margaret can help you.’ The Hamburger nods slowly. ‘So you have not heard about Maroushka?’

‘Maroushka?’ Serge’s heart thumps in his chest.

‘The
Nutte
has been promoted.’

‘Promoted?’

‘Yes. Max Vearling announced yesterday, after you run away. But I have always considered her approach unsustainable. Not skill. Corruption.’ The Hamburger sniffs the air as he speaks.

Serge sniffs too. Their eyes meet, and each looks away quickly. There are some thoughts which cannot be spoken. The stench of corruption is palpable. In fact, it seems to be coming from behind the sofa.

After a moment’s silence, the Hamburger grins awkwardly. ‘So it is your introduction to the See Eye.’

‘Er – what exactly is the See Eye?’

‘You are not coming for the colonic irrigation?’

‘Oh. I see. C.I.’ He forces a grin on to his face, but his heart is jumping about wildly. That diagram of a washing machine attached to a bed. The hosepipes! The horror! He leaps to his feet.

‘I have to go. A sudden … urgency! Will you give Juliette my apologies.’

‘Juliette?’

‘Sorry – Margaret. I thought she was someone else. You know how once you get an idea in your head …’

‘Really, Serge, my friend, there is nothing to fear …’