Now You See Me

by Lesley Glaister

  He took a can of dog food out of his bag and opened it with the spike on his army knife. I winced as the sharp point pierced the tin. Gordon wolfed it down but Norma didn’t even lift her head.

  ‘Tomorrow, the vet, first thing,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  I drank some of the wine since it was open anyway and it got straight into my brains and I didn’t care any more where it had come from. I didn’t care what Doggo had done, just as long as he was there. I could not imagine being alone again. How can anyone bear to be alone? All that childish high-wire rubbish. The pizza dripped orange grease on the knees of my jeans.

  The only thing that bugged me was that we could hear Sarah moving about. She put the telly on. What was she doing there? There was no reason for it. She was meant to be staying with her friend. It meant we were on edge, because any moment she might discover us. Every now and then the phone rang and you could hear her voice but not the words she said.

  ‘You don’t go up university much, do you?’ Doggo said like he was throwing me a tricky catch. He flicked a bit of pepperoni to Gordon at the same time. Gordon caught the pepperoni with a snap of his teeth which was more than I did the question. There was a big creak from above and we both flinched and shut up.

  ‘Wish she’d go away,’ I whispered.

  ‘Oh she’s OK,’ Doggo said.

  ‘Do you think she’s pretty?’ I asked. He shrugged. ‘I do,’ I said, ‘or she would be if she wasn’t so fat.’

  ‘She’s not fat,’ he said. ‘She’s just … right curvy, womanly.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, staring down at my skinny knees, ‘I suppose she is.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Wonder how he is, poor bugger,’ he said.

  I nodded. While I’d been waiting for the pizza I’d watched people moving past like ghosts outside the bright window and prayed for Mr Dickens to get better and not just because of the cellar but because of himself. And because I like him. Because I was used to him sitting in his chair by the fire and telling me stories about Zita. I had liked those cosy afternoons – but they’d started to seem part of the past already. I had his watch on and the leather strap smelled of him and it still ticked away like nothing in the world was wrong.

  Suddenly Norma was sick with an awful spasm as if her whole body was going to turn inside out. Lots of froth came up and hung in slippery bubbles and ribbons from her mouth.

  I thought Doggo would cry, he looked so scared. I picked her up. Her little body was hot and shuddery in my arms like she was having some sort of fit. He wanted to go and see Sarah, see what she thought, maybe ring a vet. I knew she would be useless but what else could we do? We left Gordon behind and went out the side and back up the path, rang the Trumpet Voluntary and waited. Sarah arrived at the door at the same time as Doughnut and dragged him back. We stood blinking. It was like the Blackpool Illuminations in there.

  ‘Hiya. I’ve changed all the bulbs,’ she said. ‘He had 40 watt, can you imagine, and half of them were dead. I didn’t even know you could get 40 watt.’

  ‘Norma’s not well,’ I said.

  She lifted Norma out of my arms and carried her through. She ran her fingers under Norma’s tummy and probed. I don’t think she knew what on earth she was doing. Norma whimpered. Her breath reeked like something already dead and rotting. ‘Sickness or diarrhoea?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘She’s just puked.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Sarah sat down and cradled Norma on her lap. ‘You’re not at all well, poppet, are you?’

  ‘Will she be OK?’ I said. ‘Should we ring someone?’

  ‘Sunday night …’ Sarah said, ‘she’ll wait till morning. Get her to drink something or she’ll get dehydrated. First thing in the morning we’ll get her to the surgery.’

  ‘I was doing that anyway,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll give you a lift.’

  Norma flopped across Sarah’s wide denim lap. She seemed tinier than ever, just a rack of beating ribs stretched over with fur and these bright feeble eyes. We all sat and looked at her.

  ‘We should get her home,’ I said.

  ‘All right, girl.’ Sarah handed Norma to Doggo. He held her like a baby in his arms.

  ‘How’s Mr Dickens?’ I asked.

  Sarah sighed. ‘Not too good. He can’t speak properly and he’s confused. Actually he keeps trying to say something about some money. Apparently it was in the sideboard. It’s like he can’t rest till he’s sorted it out. Did he mention anything like that to you?’

  I shook my head and Doggo shrugged. I went to pee and gave myself a quick wash in Mr Dickens’ cloakroom with the leathery soap. I stood there trying to make it lather up and thinking how I would kill for a bath, deep and full of that milky plant stuff that Mrs Harcourt had. It would have been so brilliant to float in warm water and get my whole body sweet and clean. But I had to make do with the fossilised soap and a stiff rag of flannel.

  When I came out, Doggo and Sarah were bending over Norma, their heads nearly touching. Sarah’s hair looked very white next to the black of his, like a negative. They stopped what they were saying when I came back in the room.

  ‘I’ll run you home,’ Sarah said, reaching for her car keys.

  ‘Nah,’ Doggo said, ‘we’re fine.’

  ‘You staying here?’ I asked.

  ‘I think I will tonight,’ she said. ‘In case the hospital ring. Sure I can’t give you a lift?’

  We went off down the path as if we were going away. She stood at the door for a minute so we had to go along the road and wait before creeping back. It was hard, after the bright light in the house, to settle down in the chilly gloom of the cellar which smelled foul even after I’d cleaned up the sick.

  The Calor heater was starting to sputter which meant the gas bottle was nearly finished. We both clammed up. It just seemed like there was nothing much to say. My arm was hurting where Doggo had squeezed it. I wanted to look but I didn’t want to remind him of that subject. He had gone sullen like maybe he was regretting what he’d told me. He settled Norma down on a pile of old curtains. Gordon licked her face and gave me a look from under his grizzly eyebrows like whatever happened next it was down to me.

  I brushed my teeth and while Doggo was out having a pee I quickly stripped off my jumper and jeans and got into bed. Doggo came back and took off his jacket, two sweaters and his jeans. His thighs had strong muscles in them, very darkly shadowed with hair. He paused for a minute then came across and got into bed. I couldn’t say no, it was too cold for him to sleep on the chair. And anyway, there was more between us now. There was the truth. I thought the bed would tip over. It’s a small bed for one let alone two.

  He smelled strong but when you got used to it it wasn’t bad, like old leather mixed up with ginger or something. We were crammed together, front to front, and I could feel every breath that went in and out of him, and feel his heart.

  ‘Shame you don’t do sex,’ he said.

  His cock got hard and twitched about between us like a wild animal. I hollowed my stomach trying to get away from it. He didn’t do anything. He could have. He was so much stronger than me. I got a powerful feeling running through my veins, like love.

  ‘Doggo,’ I whispered. He stilled like he was waiting. ‘Could you be, like a couple with someone and not do it?’

  ‘Do what?’ he said but I could hear the stick of his lip on his tooth as he smiled. Then he said, ‘Dunno. What, never?’

  ‘I dunno,’ I said.

  ‘Well nor do I.’ He pressed his body against me so I could feel all the desire in his. I wished that I could feel it too. I did start to feel a tingle but I didn’t dare to show it. There is something wrong with me. Where women are supposed to go all soft and wet, to open up, I do the opposite. I do not melt, I freeze. If we started and that happened he would hate me, he would be that disappointed. What could he do but leave?

  It was dangerous being in bed with a murderer, it’s only that that made my heart beat
hard. He could have raped me but he didn’t. He can’t be that bad, can he? He can’t be a really desperate man. Unless he doesn’t fancy you, a voice said, one of the voices back again, not next to Sarah. Why should I want him to fancy me anyway, why should I want him to when we could never ever do it?

  Once he was asleep I wriggled my arm into a comfortable position and relaxed. It was like heaven listening to the knock, knock, knock of his heart. When I was a kid I used to wait for Jesus to come knocking at my heart but he never did. The knocking of Doggo’s heart was the sweetest sound I ever heard. I went to sleep with it steady against my ear. It was the best sleep I’d had since I don’t know when. But when we woke up, Norma was dead.

  Twenty-four

  Doggo wept. He picked Norma up and held her on his lap. Her eyes were open just a shiny slit and her paws stretched out as if she was dreaming about running. A stiff pink petal of tongue poked from the side of her mouth. Gordon sat by Doggo’s feet and whined. I tried to pet him but he jerked his head away. Doggo’s tears fell on Norma’s fur and balanced there, glistening. I didn’t know what to say or do so I just made the tea as usual.

  Doggo cried as hard as if someone was grabbing fistfuls of roots and wrenching them out of his guts. I took Norma off his lap and he flopped face down and sobbed into the bed. I thought, how could he stab a man and sound so cool about it, yet weep like that about a dog? I put Norma on the floor. She was cold and stiff and had probably been dead for hours. Gordon lay with his head across her neck and closed his eyes as if he was weary of the world and wanted no more of it.

  Doggo cried for so long the tea got cold and I had to make some more. Eventually he sat up. His face was shiny and swollen, with snot in his moustache, and you could smell the hot salt of his tears. I got him a cold flannel to wipe his face with. He drank the tea and his shoulders kept shuddering with the aftershocks of his weeping.

  ‘We’ll have to bury her,’ I said.

  He nodded and looked at me as if he was grateful for the suggestion though it was obvious that was what we had to do. Doggo carried Norma outside. He dug a deep hole by the back fence. The soil wasn’t frozen but he had to chop through a tangle of roots to make it deep enough, a cradle-shaped grave. The roots would grow back and grow through Norma’s bones, the spaces between her ribs. She would become part of the tree. I didn’t say that but hoped that Doggo was thinking it too. A good thought. When I’m dead I want to be buried under a tree like that so I can be part of it. I do not want to be cremated.

  Doggo lifted Norma up very gently and held her in his arms again just like a baby. He kissed her on the side of her nose and said goodbye. I stroked her cold fur and said goodbye too. He knelt down and put her in the hole. She wouldn’t go sideways because her legs were stuck stiffly out so she had to go on her back with her legs sticking up. It felt awful shovelling the earth in over her face and her front. Soon just her paws were sticking up which would have been comical if it hadn’t been so sad.

  Doggo kept shovelling earth on but one of Norma’s paws kept sticking out like it was growing longer or something. Doggo gave up and crouched down with his muddy hands over his face. I finished off, digging up some more earth and making a mound to be sure that every scrap of her was buried.

  A question leapt into my head. If Doggo had just escaped from prison how come he had the dogs? It didn’t make sense. I wanted to ask but I didn’t dare then. It didn’t seem the right moment for a new interrogation.

  A steamy rush of water emptied into the drain, showing that Sarah was up. Gordon was crying from the cellar. I was worried that Sarah might hear him but we couldn’t let him out in case he tried to dig Norma up.

  Sure enough, just as I was patting the earth on the mound, the door opened and Sarah stood there tying a dressing gown round her waist. Doughnut yapped and tottered down the steps.

  ‘You’re early!’ she called, then to Doggo, ‘What are you doing here anyway? I thought you just came weekends.’

  Doggo stayed put with his back turned and I went up the garden to the kitchen steps. Sarah’s dressing gown was pink towelling, shaggy with loose-pulled threads. One of her cheeks was creased with sleep and her hair was wet.

  ‘How’s your arm?’ she whispered.

  ‘Fine. But Norma died.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ She sifted her hand through her hair. ‘I’m so sorry, Lamb. It’s all my fault.’

  ‘Don’t think that,’ I said.

  ‘But …’ A tear rolled down her cheek.

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ I said. ‘Nobody thinks it was your fault. But I hope you don’t mind us burying her here. We haven’t got a garden.’

  ‘Course not. Oh dear … I’m so sorry. I should have done something.’

  ‘She was our dog.’

  ‘Just that what with Uncle …’

  ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Sarah plonked herself down on the step. I could see the smooth white skin on the insides of her thighs disappearing into fuzzy blonde shadow and I was glad Doggo wasn’t standing where I was. I couldn’t believe how white and smooth her flesh was, no scars, no veins, no pimples, not even any roughness on her knees. As if she was made of dense white bread instead of flesh and gristle and bones like me.

  ‘I can’t bear it when an animal dies,’ she said. ‘Makes you feel so useless. That’s why I’m giving up being a vet.’

  ‘So you’ve decided?’

  She nodded. I thought it was just as well, considering how useless she’d been. She got a crumpled tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose. ‘Is that Gordon?’ She tilted her head to one side. Gordon was going demented underneath us.

  ‘I shut him in that old cellar,’ I said, ‘just while we were burying Norma.’

  ‘Come in for some breakfast when you’ve finished,’ Sarah said. ‘And bring poor Gordon in with you.’ When she went in she left the back door open a bit as if she was trying to be part of us which she wasn’t.

  Sarah made scrambled eggs which Doggo managed to wolf down despite his grief. We didn’t say much. Sarah kept sniffing. I don’t know why she was acting so upset. Norma wasn’t anything to do with her.

  ‘Do you want to visit Uncle with me?’ she asked. I looked at Doggo but he was staring at the fire, chewing on the inside of his cheek. ‘He’s really got a soft spot for you,’ she said to me.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. Actually once she’d suggested visiting him I knew that of course I would. But alone, not with Sarah, because if we were standing side by side what would be the point of me?

  ‘His speech is all …’ she said. ‘But he managed to talk about you a bit. He thinks you’re too thin.’

  ‘Not that thin,’ I said taking a bite of toast.

  Gordon whimpered in his sleep. ‘Poor sod,’ Doggo said, the first thing he’d said since we’d gone in.

  ‘Yes. They do mourn, you know,’ Sarah said, ‘dogs, they do mourn. They need to grieve, just like us.’

  I remembered those stories about dogs who pine to death by their masters’ graves and all that weepy stuff. Though Gordon did still have Doggo – and me, sort of.

  ‘Did you ever see that film called … some journey,’ I said, ‘about a couple of dogs and a cat – or maybe cats and a dog, who went hundreds of miles to find their owners? It was just amazing how they found the way. They went on boats and everything.’

  ‘The Incredible Journey. I loved that film,’ Sarah said. ‘I was wearing a muff when I saw that, white fur, and after the film I suddenly thought it might be made of cat-skin. I’ve never worn fur since. That’s when I decided I wanted to be a vet.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ I said.

  There was a long pause then something amazing happened. It was like the answer to a prayer.

  ‘I want to ask you two a favour.’ Sarah sounded nervous. Doggo dragged his eyes away from the plastic fire. I got a glimpse of Sarah as he might be seeing her. Her curves straining against the pink dressing gown, her blonde hair which had dried like something from a
shampoo advert. All she needed was to toss her head about a bit but she didn’t, she pushed a wisp of hair behind her ears and wrinkled her creamy forehead.

  ‘I’ve got to go away,’ she said, ‘probably just for a few days. Something’s come up. I just wondered if maybe one of you, or both, would mind staying here. Looking after the place – and Doughnut. And maybe visiting Uncle, I know it’s a lot to ask but I can’t bear to think of him in there with no one to visit. I feel bad about it but I really need to go. I can’t think of anyone else to ask.’

  There was a long silence. Doggo and I did not look at each other.

  ‘If not I could shut up the house and take Doughnut but I’d rather not.’

  ‘I guess we could manage that,’ I said in the end. ‘Doggo?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Don’t see why not. If he can stay too.’ He nodded down at Gordon.

  ‘Course,’ she said, ‘oh that’d be so brilliant. A weight off my mind. Thanks so much. See there’s this chance of a job and if I don’t …’

  ‘No problem,’ I said. I didn’t dare catch Doggo’s eye because a coat-hanger of a grin had got in my mouth and was trying to stretch it open.

  ‘It seems such a cheek when I hardly know you,’ she said.

  ‘Really it’s fine,’ I said. ‘Glad to help.’ And after a reasonable pause. ‘When are you off?’

  ‘Well,’ she pulled a face. ‘If possible today. I know it’s short notice. Or I could put it off till tomorrow.’

  ‘Whenever,’ I said. ‘Soon as you like. No problem, is it, Doggo?’

  She went upstairs to dress. I piled the breakfast things up and carried them into the kitchen with a sunbeam feeling inside me even though the sky was like a wad of thick grey felt and there were muddy footprints on the floor. Even though Norma was dead and Doggo was so cast down. It was hard to stop myself from singing.

  Twenty-five

  Outside the hospital a huddle of people in dressing gowns were smoking. Tragic. A man in a wheelchair and even a woman with a drip on a stand hunched over in the cold, sucking grey smoke into their grey skins.