Even the Dogs: A Novel (5 page)

He shouts again, his fists clenched by his side and his whole body straining up towards the window. Steve! Are you there are you fucking there? He picks up a handful of stones and throws them at the window, and they go arcing through the empty window-frame before clattering into the room where Steve lies, laid out neatly on his bed, a ghost of a smile twisting across his face and his eyes closed and Ant laid out against the opposite wall, the pigeons on the roof leaping up at the sound and scattering westward across the alley and the canal and the reservoir, climbing higher over the wooded hillside of the park and the dual carriageway beyond, their underbellies catching the last faint light of the day as we peer from the darkened windows of the van to watch them passing overhead, as we look down at the zippered bulk of Robert’s body between us and we remember he remembers we we

The ground a long way off and the branch in your hand a useless piece of dead wood and you’re falling through the

His brother still owed him from when they were kids, and he knew it. Danny had always helped him out back then, when he could, when they’d still been placed together, when it had been just the two of them against everyone else. Sitting in their room at night, whatever room they happened to be in that night because it kept changing. Talking about ways to get out and ways to find their parents and ways to go and live on their own somewhere with no care workers telling them what they could and couldn’t do. And every now and then when things had been bad his brother saying What were they like can you remember can you tell me what they were like? Which he couldn’t but he’d make out like he could, he’d say They were tall and Dad had red hair and sometimes a beard but then he got it shaved and Mum was a bit fat and she was always baking cakes she used to let us help and they had loud voices they both did a lot of shouting. His brother didn’t know better. He’d only been a baby when they’d been removed. Might have been true he could hardly remember himself but so what. He could remember the house sometimes but so what. Thick brown curtains in the front room and he could only ever remember them being shut. But so what. Red rug on the floor where he used to play with these wooden bricks and they were the only toys he could remember being in the house. Ants on the kitchen floor. Everything quiet one day, no one around when normally there were crowds of people in and out the house stepping over and around him and shouting and laughing and saying Will you get that fucking kid to bed. Putting one brick on top of another until the whole pile falls over. Door bangs open and people everywhere. Shouting and crying and footsteps up and down the stairs and someone picking him up and she smelt different she didn’t smell right. His brother didn’t know about that, he’d never asked and he’d never been told. No one had ever asked. And if they had. If they’d asked him how it felt. He’d say It’s like when you’re climbing a tree and the branch breaks off. You’re still holding on to the branch but you’re falling through

   Why didn’t you contact the police immediately?

Don’t know, I was just, I was in a state.

Where did you go?

I went everywhere, I was looking for someone.

Where did you go?

I went to the Abbey Day Centre, and the Sally Army, but there was no one there.

And then you went to this squat, to your friend’s squat.

Yeah but he weren’t there.

And after that you went to

Went to Heather’s place, the supported-housing place, but she never answered the door. Kept buzzing her but she didn’t answer. Walked round the block and came back and buzzed again and kept buzzing and shouting up at the window. All the curtains shut. Buzzed all the other flats and got no reply. They couldn’t all still be in bed but cunts never answered the door. Walked round the block and came back and buzzed again and shouted up at her window and

She was older than all of them, older than Robert by a few years maybe, and this was the first time since she was a teenager she’d had a place of her own with an address of her own and a proper lock on the door. Weren’t allowed visitors but she’d told them so much about it they might as well have been on a tour themselves. Coathooks by the door, a table and chairs and a bed by the window, a shower and a toilet and a sink and a cooker and a fridge. And everything so clean, everything painted white and the furniture brand new almost and all that light pouring in through the windows. Weren’t allowed visitors and weren’t allowed drugs and they checked up on that so she still spent most of her time at Robert’s. But even so. It’s somewhere to go though Danny, she told him. It’s somewhere safe to keep my stuff and listen to my music and sort of look out the window and think about what I’m going to do next. Didn’t like thinking about that too long so she was always back at Robert’s soon enough. But she weren’t there now and she weren’t

Found a phonebox by the King George and tried calling his man again from there. Nearly out of shrapnel but there was no credit on his phone so it was all he could do. And still no cunt answering the phone. Just voicemail, like anyone was going to leave a message. Always hard to get them out of bed before dinner time, cunts always making the most of their own supply late into the night before, but this was something else, it was late in the day and someone would always be on it by now. Halfway out the box and he thought about phoning the police again. Got as far as some woman going What service do you require before he banged the phone down, didn’t make sense what did he think he was going to say

   I found this body but it aint nothing to do with

I climbed in and out the window but I aint done

I don’t know

And still the van drives on, and the men in the front seats talk about what they’ll be doing for New Year, and the policeman asks his radio for confirmation that the photographer will be in attendance, and Robert’s bagged and rotten body lies between us, limp and heavy, like a roll of carpet being trundled out to the city dump. Shouldn’t be like this. Should be different, should be like it would have been in the old days, like we should be carrying his body ourselves, like bearing him high on a what on a bier of broken branches, hurrying him out to the burying ground. Burning bundles of herbs and that to hide the smell, and people coming out of their houses and lowering their heads and going Sorry for your troubles la, if there’s anything we can do. They should be closing the streets. There should be a piper or a fucking what a Sally Army band or something, TV cameras, helicopters. We should stop the van now we should climb out the van and fucking raise him up on our shoulders with our boots clattering in slow fury along the barricaded streets the traffic-jammed junctions and all the drivers getting out their cars and a big fucking crowd behind us as we turn off the main road and cut through that new business park with all them office workers coming out in their white shirtsleeves to watch us pass and all the drinkers outside the King George pouring their beer at our feet as a like sacrifice or a what a tribute to a life fully lived and then all the women stood along Forest Road like a guard of honour in their short uniforms and polished boots stepping out into the road to stuff folded twenty notes into his burial shroud as we keep walking carrying him high carrying him past the church and right through the gates of

The van turns into Forest Road, and the men in the front seats fall silent at the sight of the women stationed at intervals along it. We see someone talking to one of them, a red-haired woman in a black leather skirt and boots, and as we pass by we see that it’s Danny again, his head lowered, trying to roll a cigarette, his hands shaking and the scraps of tobacco spilling out as we

He couldn’t remember her name but he knew she knew Laura. Thought she might know something. Thought she might have seen her, said You seen Laura lately and she looked back at him and said You what? with her eyes all narrowed and dark. Stepping back and still looking up and down the street in case she missed something, and her mates further down the road looking over. He said You know Laura don’t you, I thought I’d seen you with her, only I’ve been looking for her, I’ve been looking around and I can’t find her. Something’s happened, I need to find her, I need to talk to her. Most he’d said all day by a long way and he could really feel it happening now he could feel the rattle coming on and weren’t nothing much he could do. She said What? What’s happened? He said Her dad, something’s happened to her dad, I can’t really, I mean I want to talk to her first, I need to. She said Oh fuck. She said No, love, I aint seen her. She said You need some help rolling that fag you look done in. He said You got any gear you know where I can get any gear, my man’s not answering. He said I’m fucking desperate and she smiled and backed away and said Aint we all. Ask him, she said. In that car. Bloke looked at him as he walked over, looked at Einstein, slid the window open a crack and nodded like he was giving him permission to speak. I’m after some gear, Danny said quietly. Ten pound dark. He was getting the note out from his sock even while the bloke was shaking his head. Sorry, mate, he said, I’m all out. Supply problems innit. Danny holding the money out in disbelief, Einstein lifting a foot to scratch at the car door, and the bloke going Is your dog stupid or what get him the fuck away from my car, you four-eyed

Could feel the note in his sock as he walked away, crumpled and damp with sweat and whatever else his feet were wet with. Weren’t used to having cash on him for that long. Weren’t normally a problem spending the stuff but more like getting hold of it in the first place. Begging off people on their way to work, selling the
Issue
, thieving razors and batteries and meat and anything else they could sell in the pub, begging again at lunchtime, keeping up with whoever was on giro day and getting something out of them. And counting the money all the time, taking care of the pennies until there was enough for a ten-pound bag to keep them going while they did it all over again. Three or four times a day, measuring out the hours, filling their pockets with shrapnel until they could change it for gear. Having a dig and a nod and then getting up and starting all over again. Full-time job just keeping the rattles off. Takes a lot of effort maintaining the thing, a lot of fucking what, resourcefulness. The girls on the road did the best, made the most money and bought the most gear, the best gear. The sight of them there and they weren’t dressed for the weather. Must be good business even today. Must be good business every single day of the year. Basic law of supply and desire and there’s always a desire for that. Don’t need no marketing and don’t never see them going short of

Wouldn’t mind a bit himself sometimes. Other priorities most of the time but just now and again. A bit of, fucking, come over here and get some, fucking, how you like that and give us your, oh, fucking

Other things to worry about now though, such as

Down by the canal and the sickness rising in him, the rattles taking hold. Cramps in his stomach, aching in his legs his back his bones. Pulling down his trousers behind a bush because he can’t keep it from rushing out, black and steaming on the frozen ground and nothing to clean himself with, nothing to do but pull up his trousers and try to do something about it later. When he gets the chance, if he gets the chance, when he’s scored and sorted and feeling able to face it. Sweating and cold and feeling it badly now and where’s Mike when you need him. Can’t get rid of the cunt most days and now he’s

Shouldn’t have gone to his brother’s house. Should have known it wouldn’t make no difference it being Christmas. If he’d wanted to play families he should have stayed at Robert’s with the others. Or he should have gone and seen Laura again and made up for the time before. Probably it was too late now. Was always too late was how it felt sometimes. Already felt too late the first time he met her. Which was when, hanging around outside the Catholic church waiting for the lunch project to open and she asked him for a smoke and he actually had some tobacco so that felt like the first thing that had gone right for days, the way she looked impressed, the way she smiled when he said Don’t tell no one and said I won’t if you won’t. Like it meant something else. Like it meant anything. Cracked red sores around her mouth which opened up when she smiled. Dark sagging skin beneath her eyes. Her face pinched and pale and her hair thin and lank but it weren’t hard to think she’d been fucking gorgeous one time but not for a while. Rolled a fag for her and she said Oh cheers mate you’re a diamond you’re a star. Bobbing up and down on her toes like she was cold but it weren’t a cold day at all. Scratching her neck and scratching the back of her head and scratching her face and when she lit the fag she sucked so hard he thought she might smoke the whole lot in one go. Obvious it was more than tobacco she had a craving for. Obvious that tobacco weren’t hardly making her feel better at all. Soon as she turned away Mike was there in his ear giving it all You don’t wanna

Left at the boarded-up petrol station with the weeds where the pumps used to be, weaving up through the estate between the railway and the ringroad, turn left turn right, turn left turn right, past all those white walled houses with cars parked in the gardens, and the low wooden fences mostly broken, and ugly-sounding dogs jumping up behind the thin front doors. Two lads waiting by a phonebox on the corner, pacing and fidgeting and looking around so he said You waiting to score? Two lads looking at each other. One of them said Yes, mate, why, you looking? If you wait up here you can buy a bag off our kid as long as you split it. Other one said You got the time, mate, and Danny took his phone out to have a look, and that was a mistake because one of them punched him in the face and took the phone and told him to fuck off. Nothing you can do when that happens and it was his own fault. Einstein started barking and jumping up at them but he pulled her away and legged it down the road, slipping on some ice on the corner and smacking his head on the cold hard ground but clambering up and grabbing his glasses and running again in case the blokes came along for more. What else can you do you can’t do nothing always some cunt after the last little bit you