The Labrador Pact

by Matt Haig

  The next thing I knew the strange-smelling smoke was in my eyes and going up my nose. Teenage laughter clattered in my brain. The tall boy pulled back as I started to cough.

  I felt weak as the room started to spin around me. Everything blurred. I tried to stand up on my hind legs and walk out of the doorway, but it kept sliding away to my right. I hit my shoulder. The laughter intensified. This was worse than the smell-heap. I was starting to smell things which weren’t even there - horrible things, dead things.

  I tried again for the doorway and this time just made it. I wanted to go and see Hal but it was impossible. I stood at the bottom of the stairs and realised they went on for ever. I saw a flickering presence, standing at the top, looking down at me. It was Henry. I closed my eyes but when I opened them he was still there.

  ‘It was me,’ he said, in his serious voice. ‘It was me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Everything ends with violence,’ he said. ‘No matter what we do. We all break the Pact.’

  ‘I don’t understa-’ But Henry was gone. ‘Henry?’

  My eyes grew heavy. I lay down. Everything faded.

  toilet

  I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep. Too long, I realised, as I patrolled the house.

  Everything was chaos.

  There were boys in Charlotte’s room, playing her music. Laughing as they banged their heads and made faces.

  I went into Hal’s room. Bodies everywhere, clouded in smoke. A boy stood over me, pretended to ride me, pulled my ears out and made aeroplane noises. Then sang: ‘Snoop Doggy Do-o-ogg, Snoop Doggy Do-o-gg, Bow wow wow yippy yo yippy yay, Bow wow wow yippy yo.’ Everyone laughed. Someone else started singing: ‘Who let the dog out?’ But this time nobody laughed.

  I looked around and sniffed for Hal but my senses of sight and smell were dulled by the smoke. I trod backwards, out onto the landing.

  Someone was being sick. When I moved closer I saw that it was Hal, crouched on all fours over the toilet, the way he had seen me, when thirsting for water.

  ‘Pruh,’ he said. ‘Pruh.’ I think he was trying to say my name.

  He retched again, bringing up more rich-smelling vomit.

  ‘Pruh. Hell muh.’ But I couldn’t help him.

  Things were, I had to admit, beyond my control. He hung, limply, onto the toilet seat and his hand left my collar to try and reach the chain. It didn’t make it, instead knocking the toilet lid down so his head was squashed between it and the seat.

  ‘Pruh, thah huh,’ he told me. I tried to speak to him, the way I had managed to speak to him before, but he just looked at me with blank eyes. He was never going to understand me again.

  And then, suddenly, he wasn’t looking at me at all. He was looking behind. Above. And his eyes filled with panic.

  I turned to see a girl. She was visually attractive, I suppose, at least by human standards. (And as I have said, this is all that matters for humans, the visual appearance. Stupid, I know, and completely misguided. But that’s the way it is.)

  He went to speak, but couldn’t. I knew who it was though, straight away, from the smell of fear.

  It was Laura Shepherd, the mirror-girl.

  ‘Can I use your toilet?’ she asked him.

  He closed his eyes, tight, but when they re-opened she was still there. As Henry had been. Hal’s hand lifted the toilet lid from his head and he tried to sit himself upright. The weight on his heel was too much and he fell back, nearly banging his head against the side of the bath.

  Laura Shepherd screwed up her nose and flushed the chain then locked the bathroom door with myself and Hal still inside. She pulled her jeans and knickers down and started to piss into the toilet water, making a loud noise. I went over to take note of her scent but she pushed me away.

  Hal couldn’t believe what he was witnessing, and was desperately trying to find words.

  ‘Laur-’

  ‘Cool party, by the way,’ she said, as she started to wipe herself.

  ‘Thuh,’ he said.

  I wagged my way over to Hal and licked his face, trying to show Laura my endorsement of the semi-conscious boy in front of her. She didn’t take any notice, just pulled up her knickers and jeans, flushed the chain and went back out of the door.

  video

  I sniffed Hal to assess if he was going to be OK. He was, so I went back out to check on the rest of the house. To see if it was all still there. But where could I start? Things were happening everywhere.

  I went downstairs to the television room, which was full of people laid out on the floor. Someone had spilt some drink. I thought of Kate, then tried to clean it up.

  Somebody said: ‘Look, even his dog’s a piss-head.’

  They put on a video. As soon as it came on, all the boys giggled. I looked to see what was funny. It was a naked man and a naked woman having sex like dogs.

  One of the girls went to leave the room. ‘That’s disgusting,’ she said, stepping over me.

  I followed her, to see what else was happening. Then, when I was out in the hallway I caught a scent I recognised. It was coming from one of the boys walking through the kitchen towards Grandma Margaret’s room.

  When I got closer, I knew who it was.

  It was the boy who smelt of damaged skin. The one who had thrown a bottle at Adam, that night in the park. The one that had called him a wanker.

  He shut the door to Grandma Margaret’s room, but I had slipped inside just in time. The boy he was with farted and put his hand on it and passed the scent up to his friend’s nose.

  ‘You radge cunt,’ said the boy with damaged skin, opening one of Grandma Margaret’s drawers. ‘Fucking bollocks. Look at that.’

  While his friend leant against the door, he pulled out some gold jewellery and put it into his coat pocket. Then he looked at me and held my mouth shut.

  ‘Not a word, you fucking useless guard dog,’ he said to me, but more to his friend.

  ‘Let’s just get the fuck out of here.’

  I remembered the most significant rule of the Pact. Never resort to violence . . . Never resort to violence . . . Never resort to violence . . . Never . . .

  But as he kept on clamping my jaws, I felt an unstoppable anger rise up within me. And, for a brief moment, I had no control over my own body. I pulled away and lashed out at his hand in one single action, feeling my teeth penetrate his flesh. Tasting blood, I was lost in the violence, as if in one of my wolf-dreams.

  He tore his hand away and said, ‘You stupid bastard dog,’ as he kicked me in my ribs. He held his wound, which was leaking blood fast.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said the friend as they opened the door. I was left dazed, in the corner of the room, breathing in Grandma Margaret’s thousand smells, wondering exactly what I had just allowed to happen.

  The Labrador Pact: Never resort to violence

  The mission of each and every Labrador will be accomplished without resorting to violence.

  Throughout history the Labrador breed has risen above the wolfish tendencies of many others within our species.

  In the halcyon days when all dogs remained loyal to their human masters, violence was often considered a necessary last resort. However, Labradors have always realised the truth. If you have to descend to violence, the mission has already failed.

  After all, to be a Labrador means to separate ourselves from the barbarism of our wolf ancestors.

  We may bark, we may growl, but we must never deliberately shed human blood.

  connections

  Kate’s nose twitched once she was inside the house. The windows had been open all day but the party smells were still just about detectable, even to human noses.

  ‘Hal.’ She pronounced his name in two stages. ‘Ha-al.’ This was always a danger-sign.

  ‘Mum, Dad. I didn’t hear you come in.’ He stood at the top of the stairs with a cloth in his hand.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Kate.

  ‘It’s a cloth,’ he said.


  ‘I can see that,’ she said. ‘I just wondered what it was doing in your hand.’

  The scent of panic filtered down the stairs. ‘I, um, I thought I’d tidy up before you came back.’

  Adam laughed in disbelief. Charlotte, still smelling like a reformed character, ushered Grandma Margaret into the living room.

  ‘You thought you’d tidy up,’ echoed Kate. As she started to sniff her way around the house, Hal froze, terrified. Realising he needed help I ran into the television room, ahead of Kate, and lay myself down on the drink-stain.

  The tactic worked, but I knew it was only temporary. I could not stay there all day. Kate looked at the ornaments on the mantelpiece and the Family portrait above them.

  ‘These ornaments,’ she said. ‘They’re all the wrong way round.’

  ‘Oh, um, yeah,’ Hal said, as he finally walked down the stairs to join us. ‘Jamie came round last night. He was messing about.’

  ‘Was he smoking?’

  ‘No. ’Course he wasn’t, not in the house.’

  ‘Well, why does everywhere smell of smoke?’

  Hal’s face collapsed under the dual weight of his parents’ glare. ‘I don’t know. Jamie smokes so maybe he just smelt of smoke.’

  ‘Maybe he just.’ Kate turned to her husband. ‘Oh, Adam, you talk to him.’

  ‘Hal, come on, tell us the whole truth,’ said Adam who now seemed to be back to his reasonable self.

  Of course, the whole truth was impossible. Hal only knew the beginning of the truth. The bit that involved him being handed a bottle of clear liquid and heading upstairs.

  ‘I have,’ Hal lied. ‘Jamie came round.’

  When Adam and Kate left the room I stood up.

  Hal realised he had missed the drink-stain. ‘Oh, shit.’

  He had no time. He fell to his knees and started rubbing with the cloth. I could smell that Kate was about to re-enter the room so I tried to lie back down.

  ‘Prince, what are you doing?’ Hal said as he elbowed me away.

  ‘Hal, what are you doing?’ asked Kate, standing in the doorway.

  His mouth opened and closed but no words came out. He tried again. This time, he managed: ‘I must have spilt something.’

  Kate blew air out of her nostrils. Another danger-sign. I wagged at medium speed, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

  It seemed to work. Hal seemed to have got away with it. But of course, I knew what was coming. I knew, as I trailed Grandma Margaret and her thousand smells into her bedroom. I knew as she pulled back her drawer and gasped in horror. But what could I do? Use physical force?

  It had to come out some time.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Grandma Margaret. ‘Oh dear, no.’ She went into the kitchen to see Kate.

  ‘Mum, what is it?’

  ‘It’s gone.’

  Kate shook her head crossly. ‘What’s gone?’

  ‘My jewellery. It’s not there.’

  ‘What do you mean it’s not there?’

  ‘My brooch. And all my necklaces, the one Bill . . . for our silver wedding.’ She started to tremble, and the thousand smells intensified.

  Kate went to check and returned moments later chewing her bottom lip. She placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder. It was difficult, at least immediately, to sense what she was thinking.

  ‘Hal.’ Her voice, although loud enough to carry through to the television room, was gentle.

  ‘Mum,’ he called back.

  ‘Come here.’ Still the deceptive softness remained. Hal obeyed. ‘Sit down.’ Hal hesitated, and then, in a tone she usually reserved for myself, Kate said: ‘Sit.’

  Hal sat down. He looked at Grandma Margaret, who was still trembling. He had absolutely no idea what was going on. ‘What’s, what’s the matter?’ he asked, fearful.

  Adam, coming downstairs, asked the same question.

  Kate explained the matter. ‘Now Hal, what really happened?’

  ‘Nothing. I don’t know. I told you.’

  Anger-waves quivered through the air. ‘Hal, if you don’t tell us the truth now, you will be in serious trouble.’

  ‘Come on, Kate,’ said Adam in an unsuccessful bid for calm.

  The anger-waves were starting to have a strange effect on Hal, and again he was struggling for words. Or rather, struggling to find the right order to put them in. ‘I, um, I, well, it’s, no, I, the, I don’t know.’ As he spoke he held his palms out, facing upwards, in some kind of desperate plea for this whole situation to end.

  ‘Do you know just how much that jewellery meant?’ asked Kate. ‘Do you have any idea?’

  Hal was cornered and there was nothing I could do to help him. He either had to tell them now or had to tell them later. He decided on now.

  ‘I had a party.’

  Grandma Margaret scowled and bowed her head. Adam stared at the ceiling.

  ‘You had a party.’ Kate pronounced the word ‘party’ as if it had just entered her vocabulary.

  ‘Yes. It just sort of happened.’

  ‘It just sort of happened ?’

  ‘I told you: yes.’

  ‘It just sort of happened?’ Kate’s anger was entering a new dimension. Her sense of perspective was now well and truly beyond retrieval. I had never seen her behave like this before. This was worse than when Adam had turned into a monster.

  ‘Mum, just listen to me, it wasn’t deliberate. Things got out of hand. It was Jamie. He invited loads of people round who I didn’t even know.’

  ‘Oh, this just keeps on getting better. You let strangers into the house. Well, that’s fine then, isn’t it? That makes everything all right.’

  ‘I couldn’t help it.’

  ‘You’re seventeen years old. You’re doing A levels. In one month’s time you’ll be old enough to vote. In three months you’ll be going off to university. And yet you have no power to stop people coming here and messing up our house and stealing your grandmother’s jewellery. Good God, I sometimes wonder at just what we have managed to raise!’ She glanced at Adam as she said this last line, and shook her head.

  ‘Come on, please. This isn’t getting us anywhere,’ Adam said.

  I barked out of the french windows at nothing in particular, but it was clearly too late for diversionary tactics.

  The anger-waves switched direction. Now they were coming from Hal. He scraped his chair back and started to walk out of the room. He knocked Adam’s shoulder as he passed him. This wasn’t deliberate, rage was starting to affect his co-ordination.

  ‘Where are you going?’ said Kate.

  ‘Get back here,’ chimed Adam.

  ‘Fuck off.’ And then there was a silence. Even Hal seemed surprised with the words which had just been spat out of his mouth.

  ‘Oh, Adam, please. I can’t deal with him any more.’

  So Adam followed his son into the hallway. ‘Hal, be reasonable.’

  ‘No, fuck off.’

  ‘Hal, I’m warning you.’

  ‘Dad, what you gonna do? Hit me? Go on then, hit me. That’ll teach me. Yeah, go on then. Fucking hit me, you model of liberal parenthood. Fucking hit me on the nose, you bastard hypocrite. Hit me, hit me. Fucking do it.’

  For a moment, it seemed that Adam was genuinely tempted by this proposition. His whole body twinged with the aching need for violence.

  ‘Hal, just shut up,’ he barked. ‘Shut. Up.’

  ‘No. I’m not going to shut up. I always shut up. And the reason I just shut up is because I thought it was easier, but it’s not because no one in this family has one fucking clue about how I feel.’

  ‘You’re being pathetic and you know you are. Your mother has every right to be angry- for God’s sake, Hal, you invited burglars into our house. You were meant to be revising.’

  And then, when it looked like things were as bad as they were going to get, there was another interruption.

  ‘Urgh!’

  The disgusted noise came from Charlotte.

  Adam glared a
t his son suspiciously and walked into the living room to discover the root cause of the disgusted ‘urgh!’. He stared at the TV in disbelief as a man’s penis entered a woman’s mouth.

  ‘That’s good, baby,’ said the man whose penis had now almost completely disappeared. ‘That’s really good, you horny bitch.’

  ‘I pressed play on the video, and this came on,’ explained Charlotte.

  Kate was now behind Adam, and behind her was Hal, wearing the face of someone who faced certain death. He stepped backwards, in a daze.

  ‘This is just . . . I don’t . . . want . . .’ said Kate.

  Grandma Margaret had now returned to sit in her chair. Fortunately, she seemed unable to recognise what was taking place on the TV screen in front of her.

  ‘Hal! Come here and explain this!’ shouted Adam, following his son back into the hallway.

  But of course, Hal couldn’t explain anything. He didn’t know how to. When I moved back out of the living room I could smell that Hal was losing himself. He was disorientated, bouncing back against the wall. And then it came to me again: there was nothing I could do. Nothing at all to prevent Hal from kicking his foot into the wood panels along the side of the staircase. He kicked a second, and a third time, until he broke through, his leg halfway into the cellar.

  As this happened, at the point of that final impact, Hal screamed. No. Howled. Releasing some primal force he had previously kept buried.

  Charlotte was now out in the hallway as well. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked, distressed by the sounds of destruction. Her question went unanswered.

  Adam grabbed hold of his son, trying to contain the force which had just been unleashed, but Hal was too strong for him. He twisted away, arms thrashing aimlessly into the air.

  ‘Hal, stop it!’ screamed Kate. ‘You’re destroying the house!’

  Adam made another attempt at restraint, and this time managed to get the arms under control. He held him in a tight grip, around his chest.

  Hal struggled, and kept on struggling. His rage had left him breathless, and his scent was more complex than ever, a confusion of competing emotions. He stared at the damage, at the black hole and the splintered wood, and his face contorted in disbelief.