Now You See Me (20 page)

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.

When I got through the nicotine the hospital air was so hot I nearly fainted. It wasn't just the heat. It was the officialdom of the atmosphere. I hadn't been anywhere official for years. Not since the loony-bin. I nearly turned and walked straight out. But I didn't let myself. I was just a visitor, not a real part of it. Just passing through. When I'd been in hospital I'd so envied the visitors with their coats and proper outside shoes with mud on. With their proper outside lives. And now I was one too.

There was a row of artificial Christmas trees, all identical, the tinsel crackling with static. The foyer was like a station with a newsagent's, a café and a florist but instead of platforms and trains there were lifts and people milling about waiting for lifts.

I bought a card for Mr Dickens. The picture on the front was of a cat in plus-fours playing golf and inside it said, ‘I heard you were below par.' Hahaha. I don't even know if Mr Dickens ever played golf in his life. I borrowed a pen from the woman in the shop and put
Love Lamb
and then stopped, wondering if I should put Doggo too. I did in the end even though it used to annoy me at school when a girl only had to snog a boy once and she'd be signing him on her Christmas cards as if they'd been happily married for fifty years.

It took ages for the lift to come and then a crowd of visitors, patients and nurses crammed in together like sardines, strange smells and wet paper full of flowers and other people's hair too near your face. It was friendly in a way though, as if we were all in it together – like wartime was meant to be. The man pressing up against me was not a visitor but a patient. His skin was as silver as fish skin and he smelt like fish too. I turned my face away from his scuzzy smile.

The ward was high up and you could see across the city for miles. Mr Dickens was in the end bed. He was lying on top of the blankets wearing green pyjamas. I think he looked pleased when he saw me. I didn't know whether to kiss him. I left it too late in the end and didn't kiss him but I got hold of his hand and half shook and half squeezed it. He wrestled with his face a bit and said, ‘Lamb, I want to say …' but he couldn't get the next bit out. It was as if the words had turned to bubble-gum in his mouth. I didn't know what to say. The man in the next bed had a shaved head with a tube stuck in. I felt my knees going. It was so hot in there and the hygiene clung in my nostrils like cellophane so I could hardly breathe.

There were some skinny flowers in a vase but they'd been put where he couldn't see them without craning his neck and I knew the trouble he had with his neck. There was a plastic beaker with a lid and spout like a baby's training cup. It was half full of tea. I sat down in a chair. I opened the card and showed it to Mr Dickens and half his face beamed with the old familiar crinkles. The other half was smooth, as if all the lines had been ironed out. The front of his pyjama-trousers gaped a bit and it was hard to keep my eyes away from the grizzled gap even though I really didn't want to see.

‘Lamb …' he said again. He was getting agitated. I didn't know what to do. He looked much smaller on the bed and much cleaner. Someone had shaved him but left a triangle of silver bristles on one side of his nose. Once I'd started talking I couldn't stop. I gabbled on about the garden and what Doggo was doing and told him about Norma dying and how we were spring cleaning the kitchen. It was like I was talking for England or something which is not like me at all. I told him that Doggo and I would be minding his house and his dog while Sarah was away.

A crazy idea started growing in my head then that maybe we could stay in the house for ever, Doggo and me, and live there properly. When Mr Dickens came out of hospital we could look after him and the garden and the house. Be his housekeeper and gardener. I would have to brush up a bit on housekeeping though. That would be so wonderful and safe. A proper life to live.