The Wrong Story

by James Ellis

  None of us said anything. She was right.

  ‘Well, I’m sorry – that I hit you so hard just now,’ the always-angry restaurant owner said. ‘With my rolling pin. I was angry.’

  Bullet shrugged. ‘You are always angry. It’s what you do.’

  ‘But I’m not. I’m not always angry. I don’t want to be always angry. Why does everyone think of me as always angry?’

  ‘The clue is your name, honey,’ said Bullet.

  ‘What did you do after you… ran away?’ said Billy. ‘What was it like out there, away from the alleyway?’

  ‘I don’t know. What’s it like when you dream?’

  ‘Is that how it is when you’re not here – like a dream?’ said Plenty. ‘I would like that.’

  ‘But you weren’t asleep, were you?’ Billy said. ‘You were doing things, being a dog, being a Bullet?’

  ‘Was I?’

  I see what’s not this.

  ‘Are we done fighting?’ I said, wheezing through the pain. ‘Because if we are, I’ve got two things to do. Go find the hairy man and clean up my leg.’ I looked at Bullet. ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘Are you asking?’

  ‘I am, but just so you know, we have a no-claws rule. And that means no biting, too.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of that rule,’ said Plenty.

  ‘Yes, you have.’

  ‘What about a no-abandoning rule?’ Bullet said. ‘That would be nice. Can you add that?’

  ‘It’s up to you,’ I said. ‘Stay or go.’

  The Pelican was too tired to fly, so it waddled along next to us as we made our way round the back of the house, me limping and surprisingly being supported by Plenty. Bullet followed us.

  ‘She’s got nowhere else to go,’ Plenty whispered in my ear. ‘She wants an owner. She’s our friend now but if she ever bites us again I will eat her eyes while she sleeps.’

  ‘Have you ever actually eaten anybody’s eyes?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  We made our way along the side of the house, keeping to the shadows.

  ‘There’s the window,’ I said. ‘We’ll go in that way.’

  From the front of the house we heard a doorbell ring. We didn’t move. We listened and waited. The bell rang again, a longer sound this time. I looked around, my night-sight scarcely helping me. A path ran down the garden from the house. A glass shed was on one side of the path amongst a patch of plants suffused with the smell of urine. I had to check my own urge to mark that place as mine. At the end of the path, furthest from the house, was the shape of another building, not glass but wood. A wooden summer house.

  The bell rang again, this time followed by an urgent rapping on glass.

  ‘Someone’s moving,’ Plenty said. ‘Inside.’

  I heard a low rumbling sound, as if someone had switched on an engine. It was Bullet growling.

  ‘Shhh.’

  I could hear movement now, cautious movement from inside.

  Who is it?

  Tom. It’ s Gerard. Are you all right?

  ‘Let’s wait down there and see what happens.’

  I limped and led the way down the path to the summer house. We crouched down behind the bench on the narrow verandah and waited. We could hear sounds and voices from inside the house and then, suddenly, from an upstairs window we saw the face of the hairy man looking out. Even though we had come to confront him, we all instinctively ducked down – all except Bullet. She stared through slit-like eyes at the face in the window and said, ‘I know him from somewhere.’

  ‘We all do,’ I said.

  The hairy man went away from the window and we stood up. The always-angry restaurant owner sat down on the bench and Plenty and Billy joined her. The Pelican flopped down on the lawn, laid out like a soiled serviette that someone had thrown away, and I leaned against the wooden building. I rolled a cigarette and lit up again.

  Bullet said, ‘When you sent me away…’

  ‘When you slipped your lead.’

  ‘When you sent me away… I sometimes saw that face… reflected in things.’

  ‘What things –’ I began and then stopped. Behind me the wooden door that led into the summer house was creaking on its hinges. Doors usually creak on their hinges in that way when they are opening very slowly. The fur from the top of my head to the tip of my tail stood on end. I heard footfalls on the wood. I stared at the faces of Billy and Plenty and the always-angry restaurant owner and Bullet, and then together we stepped onto the grass and into the shadows as the door opened to its full extent.

  ‘What are… what is…’ said the Pelican, coming to life and seeing us huddled on the lawn in the dark. And then it saw what we saw. ‘Oh.’

  Stepping out onto the summer house verandah, one by one, were a tall woman buttoned up and belted in her overcoat; an older, willowy weasel of a man; a heavy-set teenage girl and a slim teenage boy, his face mostly obscured by hair. They stood in a line and looked at us. It was too dark to see them clearly, but I could see that, like us, they were threadbare; unhealthy; unclean. Bullet wandered over, sniffed them and wandered back to us. They watched her with disinterest. They seemed disinclined to talk, to do anything other than stand there and look at us, as if awaiting direction.

  ‘Who are they?’ said the always-angry restaurant owner. ‘Why do they look so dopey?’

  ‘You might say they’ve slipped their leads,’ said Bullet. ‘I would use the word abandoned – until further notice.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  I was impatient now. ‘Come on. Forget them. We’re going in.’

  Leaving the forlorn four to stand by the summer house and watch us, we crossed the lawn and returned to the open window that led into the outhouse.

  ‘This is it,’ I said. ‘One way or another, this is it.’

  Trying not to catch my loose flap of skin on the woodwork, we climbed inside.

  22

  Tom sat at the kitchen table. Beside him was Caroline, and at the counter making coffee was Borkmann. The kitchen light was on, and beneath the upper cupboards, concealed halogen bulbs lit the counters, illuminating the kitchen in a way that the flat overhead light couldn’t and creating shadows with textures and depths that on another occasion would have pleased Tom.

  ‘I’m not well, am I?’ he said. ‘That’s what you’re both thinking.’

  But he couldn’t be sure if what he was saying was because it seemed to fit the circumstances, or because he believed it. Every time he tried to think, he felt tired. He felt tired and weary and life was becoming too difficult. He wanted to be alone to think whatever he wanted and to forget whatever he had forgotten without guilt.

  He tried to picture Otto, his beloved Labrador, his beautiful pet, and saw only the words, epithets that floated in the air because he knew that some of the time he was confusing Otto with Bullet, and what did that mean? He had forgotten all about a living, breathing dog that had looked to him for care and love and attention, and now he was probably dead because of Tom’s neglect, or feral, or starving, or being skinned alive by Cruella de Vil.

  There was guilt, and fear that he had so easily forgotten something so real, but those emotions seemed to be one step away from his feelings, as if they were bubble-wrapped or behind a window: seen but not felt.

  ‘It’s a terrible thing when someone says you did this or you did that and you have no recollection at all,’ he said. ‘It’s like being lost in a maze…’ And then he stopped. ‘What am I talking about? Actually, it’s nothing like that. It’s just very, very annoying.’

  Caroline squeezed his hand. ‘But you remember things now?’

  Tom looked at his hand in hers, his paw. He said, ‘From the moment I woke up in the hospital, I’ve been trying to remember things, trying to remember and trying to imagine what happened to me. Every waking moment has been about that – and quite a few unwaking moments, too. I’ve thrown my whole mind at it. I’ve put so much effort into trying to imagine what happened,
that now I’m not sure if I can actually tell the difference between what’s true and what’s not. And I’m not sure I even care anymore. I’ve been haunted by my missing memory, Caroline, and I wonder if I’ve been haunted by Otto, too. And yes, I have been drinking. I admit it. But that’s how I work. I need a drink to lubricate my mind, to fire up the engines, to get the images rolling.’

  ‘Well, that’s one way of putting it,’ said Borkmann.

  ‘It’s not like there’s a cupboard I can look into and rummage around until I find something. Imagine a page in a book that has been folded over and stuck down. I read that bit and that bit and I never knew that there was something in the middle. I forgot I had a dog. What else have I forgotten?’

  But still Tom had the sense that he was constructing a description that had no root in how he felt. It was as if there were two Toms: one who lived on the surface where everyone could see him, and one who lived deep underground, an unseen mass of rolling thoughts and emotions that was neither able nor willing to be articulated.

  He had held Karen’s hand in the hospital. He had felt it; he had felt the skin and the bones and the flesh. He had felt the warmth and the familiarity of her hand. How could that not be real? He looked at Borkmann. ‘Do me a favour, Gerard. Let me hold your hand.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let me hold your hand.’

  ‘Hold your own hand. I’m making coffee.’

  ‘I’m holding your hand,’ said Caroline. ‘See?’

  Tom saw. She was. But it wasn’t the same.

  Borkmann poured coffee and fetched milk and added sugar and busied himself in the up-lit corner of the kitchen while Caroline watched Tom. He wanted a stronger drink than coffee. It was lubrication time.

  ‘Imagine a world,’ he said. ‘A world where there is only ever now. No past, no future. Wouldn’t that be nice?’

  ‘You’ve just said how awful it is not to be able to remember,’ said Caroline. ‘You’re describing dementia. You wouldn’t be able to remember all the lovely things that had happened to you.’

  ‘That’s not what I’m saying. I’m describing a state of being, a way of life, a different perspective. It would be a bubble in which everything you needed was with you. Forever. Like that moment when you’re about to wake up. Or maybe that moment just before you die.’

  Borkmann brought the coffee to the table. ‘Tom, can we park all the fun talk for a moment?’ He sat down and rubbed his face. He looked tired, too. ‘Let’s keep it simple. All this talk about bubbles and Karen and children and living in the now, what are we meant to do with that? How do we process all that information? It doesn’t sound like a normal person talking.’ He put his fingertips together and created a steeple. The three of them studied it as if it were a structure in which the answers to everything were contained. ‘Let’s focus on Otto,’ he said. ‘I thought when I brought you home that he was here. I should have checked. You haven’t seen him since you came home from the hospital?’

  Tom stared at Borkmann’s hands. What was the right answer? He didn’t know what he thought now. Had he seen Otto in the house? He had heard a dog. He had heard a dog the first night he woke up in the hospital. Was that Otto calling for him? Or tinnitus? Or a dream? Or a wild demon hunting him down?

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

  ‘I don’t know. Look, I get it. I forgot him and he must have been lost and bewildered and died alone and it’s my fault.’

  ‘Was he chipped?’ said Caroline.

  Tom groaned. Was he? He couldn’t remember.

  ‘I don’t think he was. No.’ He shook his head. Idiot.

  ‘Okay. So we need to phone around the dog centres, the police, the RSPCA. I can do that, Tom. A big dog like that can’t just be –’

  ‘Left to die in the gutter?’

  ‘Tom,’ said Borkmann. ‘There’s no blame here. It’s not your fault. Just shut up a minute and let me develop this train of thought. Otto’s not here so what does that mean?’

  ‘It means I’m bad.’

  ‘No it doesn’t – it means: if he’s not here then why is he not here?’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘Well, Otto hasn’t got a key, has he? So he didn’t let himself out. Presumably Tom did – and that was probably to take him for a walk. And if you took him for a walk and he’s not here, then it’s because you didn’t bring him home; because you couldn’t bring him home.’

  Tom sat up. ‘Because I fell off a roof,’ he said. ‘Good point, Gerard.’

  Borkmann stared at Tom. ‘Which is why I don’t think you did jump.’

  ‘Gerard.’ Caroline looked anxious, as if using the word ‘jump’ might invoke some new terrible incident.

  But Borkmann wasn’t deterred. ‘On that Sunday you probably went for a walk with Otto. A Sunday morning walk. And if you took Otto for a walk then I would say it’s unlikely that you intended to jump and leave him loose. Even you’re not that selfish. If you had intended to jump, then you would have made provision for Otto.’

  ‘Not if it was a spur of the moment thing.’

  ‘But you’re not a spur of the moment sort of person. You’re a planner, a draughtsman, you make things neat, not messy. There are no loose ends in Tom Hannah’s life. It is all there because it’s needed. No passengers.’

  ‘Perhaps I did make provision and I’ve forgotten. Perhaps Otto is staying with a friend or something.’

  ‘Tom, you have no friends. The only person with whom you would have made provision is me. The only four people in your life are you, me, Caroline and Otto – Caroline lives in the Gambia, you are you, and Otto is the missing dog. Which leaves me, and I haven’t got him. So, for whatever reason you ended up on the top of the car park, it wasn’t through self-pity – hard though that may be to believe right now.’

  ‘So I didn’t jump?’

  ‘It doesn’t seem likely.’

  ‘I never thought I had jumped,’ he said, looking at them both.

  Borkmann finished his coffee and stood up. ‘I don’t know why you were up there, but at least you probably weren’t alone. I think Otto was with you. So it’s still a conundrum, Tom, but one I will have to leave you and Caroline to ponder. I have to go. Early start in the morning.’ He looked at Caroline. ‘I’m glad you’re here now. Call me if you need anything.’

  Tom stood up too. ‘Sorry about your trousers.’

  Borkmann sighed. ‘Just get drawing again, Tom. And do us all a favour – lay off the booze. It doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘I’ll see you to the door,’ said Caroline.

  Tom wondered what whispered messages they might exchange in the hallway. When Caroline returned, she sat opposite him and held his hand again, a bridge between two people that spanned the table.

  Poor Caroline. Tom’s borders were now closed. No more connections would pass across that bridge that night. The black hole in his head was beginning to shrink and everything in orbit around it – Karen, Holly, Dan, Caroline, Borkmann, dogs, foxes, nurses, hospitals, alleyways, the past, the present, the future – were spinning in ever decreasing circles towards the centre of his mind. It didn’t matter what was real and what was fiction, what was imagination and what was memory. All that mattered to Tom now was to bring them all home safely, neatly, orderly, and to put them in the right compartments.

  He looked at his hand and at Caroline’s hand, at their stillness and their shape, at the flesh and the creases and the hardness of their nails. The blood and bones and tendons and sinews.

  ‘He might still come back,’ Caroline said. ‘Somebody might still take him to the police station.’

  ‘Who, Gerard?’

  Caroline laughed. ‘No, Otto.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Can I ask you a question?’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please. Just the one. And then I promise I’ll
go to bed.’

  ‘There is never just one, Caroline. What is it?’

  ‘Did you really think it was Karen? That she was here. Did you really think that?’

  Tom looked down at the table. Did he think that?

  Did he?

  Really think that?

  The police came this morning. We wondered where yo u were.

  This morning?

  We weren ’ t there yesterday.

  He looked up. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Of course it matters. Gerard said that Karen is in Dubai.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And children. Did you think there were children here?’

  ‘That’s more than one question.’

  Caroline squeezed his hand again. Was it to comfort him or to wring out the answer she wanted to hear? They sat there for a while, Caroline squeezing his hand and looking at him with a soft, puffy expression while Tom waited for her to stop doing that and to go to bed. Perhaps if he closed his eyes she would be gone when he opened them.

  ‘Have you seen other people here?’ she said.

  ‘Other people?’

  ‘You know, other people. Like Mum and Dad?’

  Tom saw for a moment a hungry wolf sitting opposite, a hungry wolf with greedy eyes, searching his face for food.

  ‘No, Caroline. I haven’t seen Mum and Dad here.’

  ‘No, of course not. Sorry.’

  The wolf was gone and Tom saw his sister again who, like him, was alone. ‘I’m not crazy,’ he said, gently. ‘I might look it, but I’m not.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘They did scans and all sorts of tests. They said I was fine. They said I was very lucky.’

  ‘You are very lucky. You could have died.’

  ‘I know. So you must expect a few wrinkles. I’m getting better, I’m getting better every day. I’m just trying to piece it all together in my own way, that’s all.’

  He smiled at her and knew that with his missing tooth and wild moustache, it would not be a reassuring look. She nodded and laughed, sniffed and sighed.