Dead Dogs (5 page)

I’m staring at him like I’ve lost the ability to think. I have lost the ability to think. The patchwork housing estate, the sobbing dark of the sky, everything is a confusing meaningless mess.

I’m trying to speak but words aren’t coming out. I can feel my head shaking from side to side but I’m not the one doing it. It’s like someone has a hold of my skull and they’re twisting it this way and that, the way you hold somebody’s arm and start going
stop hitting yourself stop hitting yourself
. Right now someone’s doing that to my entire body.

Seán goes, ‘We can’t tell my Da. He’d kill us.’

And I go, ‘What the fuck is this “us” shite?’

Seán is staring at me and in the dark he looks like something placid and bovine on its way to a slaughterhouse.

Still tasting my own sick in the back of my throat I’m going, ‘Alright. We can’t tell your Da. We can’t tell mine either.’

Seán with his face sad, his hands flat against his thighs, Seán with his head down, goes, ‘I don’t want to do this again. I don’t want to do anything like this again.’

And then, just like that, I’m going, ‘Dr Thorpe.’

And then, just like that, I’m saying, ‘We can tell Dr Thorpe and because he’s your doctor he can’t tell anyone else. We need to tell him you need new tablets. We need to tell him that the ones you’re on aren’t fucking working.’

I take a look back into the house and I go, ‘They’re really not fucking working.’

I’m not sure if I
really like Dr Thorpe. I was scared of him when I was little. When Mam was dying but I was too young to realise she was dying, me and Da go down to see her in hospital. She’s lying in bed not moving at all. She’s lying there all snaked around in plastic tubing and a bag of clear liquid drip-drip-drips into her through an IV. With all the white and all the equipment she looks like an astronaut who’s gotten all snarled up in her own gear. She’s like someone drowning in the vacuum of outer space. Except she’s lying on a bed drowning in the antiseptic smell of a hospital.

Driving home and I’m asking Da about whether Mam will be better soon. The rain is coming down and the world outside the car windows is one solid slab of falling grey. Da says how Mam is doing fine and that she’ll be back to herself before we know it. As small as I am, I know he’s lying. But I don’t say anything about it and he doesn’t say anything else and on the radio Liam Spratt is asking his co-commentator, Georgie
O’Connor, how he found the traffic on the way up to Croke Park.

‘About the same, Liam,’ says Georgie. ‘I was in your car.’

Dr Thorpe used to live just before you turned off the Milehouse Road for our old house. Me and Da are walking up his drive and there’s something in the way that Da’s face looks that I really don’t like. Then we’re standing in Dr Thorpe’s porch and the rain is bouncing cold spray to hit me in the shins. Shorts. I’m wearing shorts.

Dr Thorpe’s doorbell goes ding-dong-ding-dong-ding-dong. Real soft. The sound is sort of woolly-edged like the sound of something whispering. Da keeps pressing the bell and he shifts from foot to foot like he really needs to pee.

Dr Thorpe’s door swishes open and he stands there looking at us with his hair a solid crest above his shining face. With the door opening comes the smell of fake pine air freshener. I remember that.

Da goes, ‘I’m sorry, Doctor. I’m sorry but I don’t know what to do. She’s in so much pain.’

He stops then and I can hear the heartbreak lodge in his throat. He is choked by sadness.

Dr Thorpe’s hand is about level with my fat face and across the back of it I can see a lot of little cuts. They’re all thread-thin and beaded with blood. As I’m looking he lifts his hand and sucks the cuts. For an instant when he talks there’s blood all feathered across his teeth.

‘We’ll think of something,’ he says. ‘Come on in.’

Dr Thorpe’s kitchen is one big cavern of amber light and
ash-blonde furniture. I swear to God it smells of cinnamon. On the kitchen table there’s about a dozen pots of sapling roses. Dr Thorpe goes over to the counter beside the sink and lifts the
kettle
and shakes it at Da and me.

He goes, ‘Tea? No?’

Da says back to him, ‘Jesus, Syl, my stomach’s in fucking knots.’

Neither of them look at me. It’s like I don’t exist anymore.

Dr Thorpe’s talk-show face splits open like an over-ripe fruit dropped from a height and from his smile his voice goes, ‘
Okey-dokey
. We’ll chat about this in the other room.’

Then he turns to me and still smiling he goes, ‘Can you wait here, little man?’

Even at six years of age I know this is a fucking stupid question.

Without waiting for my answer Dr Thorpe and my Da go into the sitting room. I can hear their voices all diffuse and burbling through the walls. They sound like indigestion. They sound like the workings of my guts.

I’m left standing in the kitchen and I stare and stare at the potted roses. On the one nearest the table’s edge I can see little white shreds of Dr Thorpe’s skin snagged on the black commas of the thorns. I remember that. I remember reaching to pluck them off. The rubbery scraps of the back of his hand.

My sinuses are clogged with the pulpy sweetness of rose petals.

Everything in the other room goes all quiet and when Dr
Thorpe and my Da come back into the kitchen I jump. Dr Thorpe is going, ‘If she’s let home on Saturday, I’ll call round Saturday night.’

And Da’s going, ‘Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.’ He’s nearly crying and snot is emptying out of his nose.

I’m watching the two of them and when Dr Thorpe says, ‘This is between us and nobody else. We’re all in this. Understand?’ even my six-year-old ears hear that there’s something not right about this.

And Da’s going, ‘Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.’

Dr Thorpe plugs in the kettle and goes, ‘Just remember. You owe me one.’

I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t know why the adults are ignoring me and talking in code. At six-years-old I don’t know all that much but I do know that Mam comes home on Saturday morning and Dr Thorpe pronounces her dead at eleven fifteen that night.

Like I said, I’m not sure if I like Dr Thorpe.

Dr Thorpe lives just down from the grotto on the Nunnery Road. There was this derelict site there for years until he bought it and built this massive big detached mansion on it. We used to play there with the lads from the council estate when we were younger but then Jarlath Gildea got in a fight with one of the older lads from the estate and we weren’t allowed to play there anymore. Now there’s an eight-foot wall most of the way around except
where a set of big double gates opens out onto the road. There’s a sign on the gates that says
Beware of the Dog
. Dr Thorpe’s dog is a German Pointer like my uncle’s and she’s the nicest dog you’d ever meet. I don’t know why he puts the sign up. Everyone knows it’s a load of crap.

To get to Dr Thorpe’s we, me and Seán, have to head back down the Milehouse Road and swing left and go through the estate. The estate used to be rough enough a few years back but it’s mellowed these days. Everyone’s gotten on a bit and lots of the older lads have moved away. There’s a lot of pensioners in the estate now and a lot of the houses are actually owned and they’re not the Council’s anymore. It’s like it’s respectable all of a sudden.

We half-jog down through the estate and now we’re on the Nunnery Road.

We stop to catch our breath and Seán goes, ‘I’m really sorry. I’m really really sorry.’

I’m smiling at him but I know it looks watery and that I don’t mean it but I’m saying, ‘It’s not you. I know you’re sorry. We’ll get you to the doctor and then it’ll all be okay.’

Seán nods and smiles and he doesn’t catch the desperation in my voice.

Dr Thorpe’s gates have a little buzzer set into the concrete of one of the pillars. There’s a little plastic panel with a light behind it that shines like sun through fog and there’s this kind of
speaker
thing that’s making this constant sort of crackling noise. Beyond the gates Dr Thorpe’s big house has a light on in every window. It looks like Eldorado in the dark. Seán’s standing beside
me and he’s shifting his weight from foot to foot and his fists are clenching and unclenching. He’s nervous and angry with himself, and shame and embarrassment are reddening his face even as he’s standing there.

I say, ‘It’s alright, Seán. He deals with people who like to stick their dicks in industrial machinery. If he can treat knob burns without passing judgement, you’ll be a doddle.’

I’m grinning then because I’m trying to reassure him and then I’m punching him in the shoulder. I’m punching him in the shoulder and then I’m pressing the buzzer.

Nothing happens.

No chime. No voice. Nothing. The incessant crackling noise just keeps on crackling, not changing tone or breaking up in any way. A soft exhalation of white noise is hitting me in the face and I’m staring at the buzzer and I’m pressing it again. To anyone watching me I must look like one of those lab monkeys that have to try and solve a puzzle to get a banana.

Nothing happens. No banana for me.

Seán is frowning at me and a car rumbles past on the road, its headlights dipping so that it doesn’t blind us. Nevertheless Seán turns away quickly when the car first rounds the corner and lights us up. He spins his back to the road in an awkward,
drunken
lurch. With the two of us standing outside Dr Thorpe’s gates, me with my face shoved up close to the buzzer and Seán hiding his, we must look like the two most inept burglars on the planet. To the driver of the passing car we must look like complete scumbags.

Seán is groaning again and he’s pressing his hands to his eyes. His breath is whuffling in the cupped palms of his hands and now I’m thinking, the smell from his hands. Dog’s blood. Dog’s blood must have gotten all over me. The stink of it. My football jersey is stained with the clotted blood and amniotic fluids of that dead dog.

I’m almost retching again and Seán’s groaning words. He goes, ‘I want to go home. I don’t want people to see me. Everyone thinks we’re freaks as it is. Don’t make me.’

And I say, ‘You’re not going home until we get you sorted out. You need a doctor, Seán.’

Seán groans and groans and now he’s rocking on his heels.

I’m thinking, for fuck’s sake. I push at the gates to see if they’ll slide open like on the Enterprise. They don’t. They just rear in front of me solid and slippery and obsidian. The
Beware of the Dog
sign flaps on its little wire fixings and the Alsation etched into the yellow plastic looks like it’s laughing at me.

And now I’m going, ‘Open sesame or something you fucking piece of junk.’

I’m rattling the gates now and they’re still not opening and Seán’s groans are getting louder. Pretty soon someone’s going to come walking along or they’ll stop their car and ask us what we’re doing standing here moaning and rattling the doctor’s gate. Pretty soon someone’s going to ask us this and then they’re going to see that the dark stuff on Seán’s jacket sleeves is too dark to be just rainwater and then they’ll get the smell and then we’re pretty much fucked.

Seán goes, ‘I want to go home. Let me go home.’

I can feel every spark and flare of every synapse. I can feel the hot workings of my bowels and stomach. I’m suddenly aware of every inch of my frogbelly skin. I can feel my eyes in their
sockets
. They are coated with grit. I am beginning to panic and the fact that I’m pretty calmly reflecting on the fact that I’m
beginning
to panic doesn’t help matters in the slightest.

I’m looking at Seán and then I’m looking at the gates and then I’m going, ‘We could climb the wall or something.’

And Seán goes, ‘I don’t want to climb the wall.’

I’m pissed off now and I go, ‘For fuck’s sake, Seán. You’re worse than a child. Do you want to go home the way you are? Do you want to explain to your Da why you’re so worked up?’

I’m snarling at him and I hate the rasp that’s in my voice. I hate that the years of being Seán’s only friend have bred in me this amount of venom. Every time I’ve had to make an excuse. Every time I’ve had to cover for him. It all bubbles through my words.

I’m saying, ‘I’m not leaving you on your own, Seán. Not until I can get you sorted. I don’t trust you.’

Seán looks like I’ve kicked him in the stomach.

I’m looking at him looking at me with his big soft head and I’m thinking, we haven’t got time for this crap. I’m thinking this and then I’m going, ‘We’re climbing the fucking wall and that’s it.’

And, just like that, Seán goes, ‘Okay.’

The wall around Dr Thorpe’s house is eight feet high and built out of concrete blocks. Dr Thorpe hasn’t gotten round to
painting
it yet and so the blocks make one big expanse of abrasive grey.
Here and there moss and tiny little plants with loveheart leaves make green smears on the dead stone and cement. I’m looking at the wall and then I’m looking up and down the road and then I’m going, ‘You go up first. I’ll give you a boost and then you can pull me up after.’

Seán looking hurt shakes his head and Seán still looking hurt goes, ‘I’ll drop you.’

Now I’m sighing and I’m going, ‘You won’t drop me. I didn’t mean to say I didn’t trust you. You won’t drop me, Seán. I’m your friend. You won’t drop me.’

Seán nods once. His head is like one of those massive old bells that the lads with the ropes swing out of. Except Seán is a silent bell. He is ponderous but quiet as nightfall.

I give Seán a leg up so that he can reach the top of the wall and his runners daub my hands with mud and God alone knows what else. When he’s up he lies on his belly and now I’m taking a run from halfway across the road. I’m planting one foot against the wall and I’m reaching up with my right hand. My gear bag swings awkwardly and clatters against the wall but Seán’s grip is like a clamp on my forearm. The strength in him appalls me. He is a thing of awful potential, like a boulder balanced over a drop.

And then we’re over the wall and into Dr Thorpe’s front garden.

Dr Thorpe’s house has a big huge green tongue of lawn that licks all the way up to the house, and around the back he’s got so many rose bushes that when they all shed their petals at once it must be like the ground is haemorrhaging. The main driveway
leads up from the gates and because it’s made out of red brick all herring-boned together when we run up it we make hardly any noise at all. And as we’re running I can feel my right hand tingle where Seán gripped it. I can feel my heart pumping blood into suffocated flesh.

It’s when we get to the front door that things get really weird.

Seán stands with his head down again like a poor beast in the rain and I go, ‘I’ll do the talking.’

Seán’s about to say something but he doesn’t because there’s a noise like a scream from inside the house.

We, me and Seán, look at each other.

Dr Thorpe’s front door is a big, mahogany-red slab of wood and to either side it’s got these tall skinny windows of wavy glass that reach halfway to the ground. Through them the yellow light in Dr Thorpe’s hallway lights up the doorstep and the first few yards of driveway. Me and Seán stand in the yellow light and we listen hard. We don’t say anything and Seán’s mouth has unhinged and he’s concentrating so hard that a little bit of drool is hanging from his lower lip.

We’re listening so hard that the next sound makes us both jump.

Something in the house breaks and you can hear a man’s voice not shouting but getting there.