Dead Dogs (6 page)

Seán goes to say something but I’m putting my finger on my lips and then I’m bending down so that when I look in through the wavy glass at the side of the door I’m sort of hidden by the wooden panel at the bottom. I can’t see much and the rippled
glass panelling only shows shapes. Black on gold. But I’m getting a sense of perspective. I can make out the length of the hall and the bright blaze of the room at the end. It’s like Dr Thorpe’s house is decorated the colour of honey.

I can’t see much so I bend a little lower and lift the letterbox a little. I’m lifting the letterbox and then I’m looking through.

Way down the hallway, way way down where the bright light comes from the room at the end, I can see two shapes. One on top of the other. I see Dr Thorpe and he’s on top of this woman with real frizzy red hair. They are both naked and pale and
sweating
. He’s on top of her and his hands are round her neck and they’re vibrating he’s squeezing so hard. Then he stops and then he’s looking at her and her face isn’t moving. Then something horrible happens. I’m kneeling down in the thick fake summer light of Dr Thorpe’s house nearly breathing it in like breathing in the fake pine that clots the air coming through the letterbox and I’m watching Dr Thorpe do something much much worse than anything Seán’s ever done. Dr Thorpe’s rearing naked above the woman’s own nakedness and he brings his right fist down in a long arcing missile trajectory. It smacks into her face with a hard packing sound. There’s no blood yet but the woman yelps because she’s been slapped back from the brink of
unconsciousness
. Then she gasps and grabs at her throat and looks around making this raw ragged sound, like she must have imagined what just happened.

But she isn’t imagining and I’m kneeling sickened as Dr Thorpe hits her three more times. Her white limbs writhe as she
kicks out beneath him. Now she’s crying and wheezing and now Dr Thorpe grabs her again by the neck. There’s blood coming from her lips and making jagged rivulets down her cheeks. They look like black scrawls of ink. They make her face look cracked. A cracked porcelain doll’s face, broken and distorted. There’s a stillness about her now. She is heavy and lax as a bag of clay. Her head has gone sideways and her eyes are looking right at me but she can’t see me. She can’t see anything.

She looks the way I remember my Mam looking in old
photos
. Like she’s 2D. Like she’s not really there.

I know she’s dead and Dr Thorpe knows too and he leans
forward
and his face is so close to hers that it’s like he’s going to kiss her on the cheek. His talk-show host’s hair is a sandy wave in the sandy light and it doesn’t move and it glimmers with hairspray. His eyes have a fire in them that Seán’s could never match. His eyes are shining marbles and he looks stoned. He looks ecstatic. He leans forward and he puts his finger to his lips and he says to her, ‘Shhhhhhhhhh.’

I’ve only ever been to
one proper party in my entire life and my Da hammered the shite out of me afterwards. This was last year and I’m only just gone fifteeen. This is before the fucked-up trip to Dublin and before I know what Rory’s big brother does for finance. Rory, the other keeper, lives on Courthouse Street with his Ma and Da and his big brother, Davey. He lives in one of these old redbrick Edwardian houses. It’s not his. His Ma and Da rent the third floor. Most of these old buildings have been chopped into segments like this. They stand along the road, rising from their little gardens. They are uniform as photocopies except that their doors are painted different colours beneath their different fanlights. Blue, yellow, green or red, they are sunk into the rust-coloured fronts of the buildings and beside each door is the grey box of a buzzer/intercom. I like these old houses. Some of their apartments are even shittier than my house.

Council Houses: Come for the space; stay for the lung infections.

Rory lives a few houses down from the old Courthouse more or less across from the Clinic and down the road from O’Leary’s pub. The path along the road is always splatted with thick ropes of last night’s puke and the Clinic’s ground floor windows are always broken. This doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad place to live.

What makes Rory’s house a bad place to live is that a couple of weeks ago the guards break into the house’s first-floor apartment. What they find is the mother of this bizarre immigrant family that lives there sitting in an armchair with her head and hands cut off. There’s no sign of her husband or her children. This is plastered all over the news and the papers and Rory and his family and everyone within a half-mile radius are asked about a million questions by the guards. Rory hasn’t heard a thing so he tells the guards he hasn’t heard a thing. The upshot of all this is that nobody wants to live in the house except Rory and his family. Every day they tramp up the stairs and pass that locked door with the garda tape still making a big white and blue fluorescent X against the panels. Since nobody lives in the house except Rory’s family, his big brother is forever throwing parties. Nobody who goes to them is put off by the garda tape and there is nobody left to complain about the noise.

It’s dark and there’s rain falling. The rain slants across the waspy orange of the streetlights and makes harp strings against the night. I’m wearing a jacket with the collar pulled up but even
like this there’s water running off my hair and down the neck of my shirt. Underneath the arches of the bridge the river is roaring and is pouring dirty white froth over the little step in the channel. A bag of cans is straining downwards from my hand and the plastic is beaded and running with rain. My jeans are a soaking navy and the bag bounces against my leg, rattling and shedding fat drops.

I’m this wet because I’ve walked from town down the
Twenty-One
Steps and then down across the river. This is a short walk in the sunlight but on a rainy night it feels like a marathon. I’m walking because I can’t afford a taxi and I’m watching people who can afford taxis cruise past and I’m getting wetter and wetter. Water drips from my fringe and into my eyes and I sneeze. I am catching my death.

The headlights of the passing cars are wet-reflected and the streetlamps are suspended embers. There are three steps up to Rory’s front door and in the rain they’re a miniature waterfall. The buzzer beside the door is picked out in orange highlights. The dead woman’s apartment has its buzzer blacked out. I’m standing in the rain and now I’m pressing Rory’s buzzer and now I’m stepping back and now I’m looking up. Raindrops are hitting me in the face and are crawling down my cheeks.

The whole building is dark except for the top floor. Its
windows
are bright and they frame sets of cheap net curtains. Then one of the windows is opening and now Rory’s leaning into the streetlight and he shouts, ‘Catch!’

Next thing a big bunch of keys comes tumbling and chiming
down through the rain. I’m standing here waiting for the keys to fall and I’m wondering how did Rory recognise me from up there in the dark? Not that it matters. The keys are falling at a velocity of thirty feet per second from a height of roughly forty feet. When they hit my cold, wet hand it hurts like someone’s hit it with a hammer but I don’t want to risk losing them in the dark so my sore hand spasms closed around them and their chiming goes dead.

I eventually find the right key and the interior of Rory’s house is black dark except for the stairwell. I know there’s the ceramic nipple of an old-fashioned light switch sticking out from the wall by the door but I don’t use it. The light coming down the stairs is kind of hazy and weak but it’s enough to find your way up. Rory’s flat is on the top floor and first you’ve to climb to two landings. The stairs and landings are fleeced with grey carpet and on the first landing you’ve to walk past the blue and white fluorescent X of crime scene tape. I don’t look at it.

The door to Rory’s flat is open a crack. Out of it comes a yelping overlay of conversation. It sounds like a dog kennel. You climb the grey stairs which you don’t pay attention to and you go past the garda tape which you make sure you don’t pay attention to and now you’re at this half-open door. It’s a gap into someplace warm and vital. So what do you do? I stand there for a moment listening to the noise of conversation and I drip quietly, a soft patpatpat onto the carpet.

Then someone goes, ‘Would you come in for fuck’s sake. You’re letting in a draught.’

How do you refuse an invitation like that?

I’m pushing open the door and then I’m through into Rory’s flat and I’m shutting the door behind me. The place is thick with warmth but I’m shivering because the water that’s soaked into me is like ice in this atmosphere. Now I’m dropping the bag of cans and now I’m massaging some life back into my rainslicked
fingers
. Then I’m sneezing. I’ve definitely caught something.

Rory’s house is pretty big. It consists of a sitting room/kitchen and three bedrooms. I’m standing in the sitting room/kitchen and as far as the eye can see the floor is a bristle of candles. Each one is lit and each bouquet of wax is crowned with a blossom of fire. This explains the heat. What explains the thick, acrid smell of hash is the fact that all twelve people in the room are well on the road to being stoned. They sit or stand in twos or threes and they’re all engaged in guffawing conversation. Four guitars are leaning against one wall. Because anyone can play guitar.

Rory comes from around the jutting wall that divides the smoky humidity of the sitting room from the smoky humidity of the kitchen. I’m standing like a drowning man held upright by rigor mortis and Rory goes, ‘Jaysus, is it raining?’

I go, ‘This is sweat.’

Now Rory’s coming towards me carrying a can in one hand and a sausage sandwich in the other. Brown sauce is leaking between his fingers in fat tongues. Brown sauce is making a ring around his mouth and he’s saying, ‘Ah you’re a funny fucker. Grab a can or something and sit down, you’re making the place look untidy.’ Then he’s taking a bite from his sandwich and then he’s
walking over to two lads trying to get a bong going in a corner. I’m standing there with my jacket soaked and heavy and my jeans glued to the scrawny knots of my knees. The brown carpet beneath my bag of cans is sodden and it is three shades too dark.

I don’t know anyone here yet so I’m lifting the bag of cans and now I’m putting them into the fridge and now I’m coming back from the kitchen with a can of Dutchie in my hand. My hair and jeans are still saturated but my jacket is now off and hanging on a kitchen chair to dry. I’m still cold and shivering, though.

There are three armchairs and a couch making an upholstered semicircle around a coffee table in the centre of the room. There’s a very very attractive girl sitting on the couch next to another not-so-attractive girl. I’m thinking of going over to sit beside her but then she’s looking me and her eyes are taking in my plastered hair and drenched jeans and then her upper lip curls and her eyes look away. I’m thinking that I don’t want to sit beside her after all. This is my first real party and I’m feeling pretty nervous. Most of the people here are way older than me and Rory. They’re all his brother’s friends from college. I’ve never liked Rory’s brother. I know everyone says how he’s the biggest dealer in the town. Everyone says how the guards are just waiting to get Davey on something big. But he’s not here. Not beside the very very
attractive
girl. Not smoking with the others. Not anywhere. This is a good thing. In spite of the very very attractive girl’s venomous appraisal of me, I’m smiling.

I’m smiling and now I’m sitting with my back to a wall. I think I’m starting to dry out and the beer tastes good. I’m sitting beside
a bunch of candles and the heat radiating off them is beginning to seep into my flesh. It’s a welcome relief from getting pissed on. Most of the candles standing around the place are set on plates or saucers but some genius, probably Rory, has set a good few on old CDs. The CDs are title-side down so that the candles are planted in the mounds of wax accumulating on the silvered sides. A band of rainbow colour makes a bright radius from the base of each candle to the outer edge of each CD. The discs look like puddles of glowing mercury. What whoever set the candles on them fails to realise is that if the candles are let burn down, the nice puddles of mercury will turn into small infernos.

People are arriving now in small groups. I’m the only one who turned up here on my own. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some wild-eyed recluse. I’m chatting to people and having a laugh with everyone except the very very attractive girl. I think we got off on the wrong foot. I’m not too distressed over this fact, nor am I over the fact that I arrived here on my own. Neither am I suicidal over the fact that I’ll probably be leaving on my own as well.
Ninety-nine
times out of a hundred I leave even teenage discos on my own. I’m used to it. I’m moving about the place and the smoke is getting thicker and everyone’s starting to get a bit louder. Now I’m talking to two lads from my football team and now I’m
listening
to them bitch about a teacher they both have. Everyone else laughs and smokes and drinks.

Rory’s brother’s friends all seem to be stuck in the sixties. They are all hippies. It is only a matter of time before one of them picks up a guitar and starts playing Joni Mitchell or Van Morrison.

I’m thinking this and then someone’s doing this.

He is a thin guy with an earnest face. His eyes are bloodshot from smoking and seem cut-and-pasted from Droopy Dog. He’s picking up a guitar and then he’s playing the first few chords of ‘Big Yellow Taxi’. It’s more Counting Crows than Joni Mitchell but no one seems to mind. The guy playing the guitar sings with his eyes shut. It’s like he’s in pain. He keeps time by tapping the beat out on the floor with a pair of hundred-and-twenty quid runners. The two lads from the football team are now dancing with each other.

Now the other guitars have joined in and the music is stuck somewhere between the late sixties and early seventies. Someone’s starting to play a Christie Moore tune and then I’m getting a beer and then I’m bumping into Davey.

This happens because I’m coming back from the kitchen and I’m checking my phone for messages. I’m walking with my head down and I’m walking with my mind elsewhere and I’m walking straight into Davey’s chest.

He goes, ‘You’d really want to watch where you’re going’.

I’m looking at him and I’m trying to say something and then I’m sneezing again.

The rest of the party suddenly feels about a million miles away and Davey’s saying, ‘Bless you.’

The party has now left our solar system and its fake hippy, faux-folk strumming is receding into the background like the smell of air freshener. It’s like myself and Davey are at the centre of a rapidly expanding circle of empty space. But not one person
moves away from us. The party’s Brownian motion continues and the very very attractive girl is brushing past Davey and at the same time everyone’s leaving orbit.

I’m feeling this and I’m looking at Davey and I’m thinking, ground control to Major Tom I think we have a problem.

From the centre of our total exclusion zone, from the centre of our private vacuum, I’m saying, ‘Good party.’ My words are clear and perfectly discernible through the cords of smoke and over the sound of Luca who lives on the second floor of some other house in some other galaxy.

Davey takes this with what I’m beginning to realise is a
nonchalance
born of arrogance. He’s looking at me like I’ve just told a joke. His shoulders are wet from the rain where it’s soaked through whatever jacket he was wearing and his hair is dripping. There’s some kind of wax or gel in it, so the water’s gathered on it like blisters and where the light hits it it throws off blue
highlights
. Like Superman.

He is smiling and for a second I’m thinking maybe I have told a joke.

Then he goes, ‘You don’t mean that. If you want to be invited to all the best shindigs, I’d suggest you work on your sincerity, little man.’

Then he’s walking around me on the way to the kitchen and now the party comes crashing back on top of me. It is the Big Bang in reverse. It is a falling anvil.

All of Rory’s brother’s friends are Arts students. All of Rory’s brother’s friends are now drunk. The music is all done
except for two girls who are both trying to play the same guitar. One girl is making the chords while the other tries to strum. They are both fucking up royally. The one doing the strumming has lost all coordination and she keeps tangling the plectrum in the middle strings. The one making the chords is slightly more together but every so often a string doesn’t ring true and it buzzes like a fridge, like a detuned radio. They’re attempting to play a Radiohead song. The one girl’s terrible strumming is attracting slagging from her friend and the comments are getting more and more sarcastic and more and more cutting. You can tell from strummer girl’s face that it won’t be long before she’s bleeding tears.