Nicholas Royle - Regicide

I could hear my heart beating and the dog, no doubt able to smell my fear, beat its tail on the hearth rug.

My mother looked at me and smiled. ‘Are you all right, pet?’ she said, then turned away because Auntie Nan had asked her something.

They won’t help you , the dog seemed to be saying with its sinister, too-small brown eyes.

Later, they were all outside admiring the clematis that climbed over the shed at the bottom of the garden. The dog was with them, basking on the lawn. I was bored and wandered from room to room, ending up in my Aunt and Uncle’s bedroom upstairs. I looked out of the window, saw the four grown-ups in a small group by a flower bed. The dog looked up and met my stare. I dropped down out of sight, sweat pricking the back of my neck. With no real awareness of what I was doing I began to open and close the drawers in my Aunt’s dressing table, not really seeing anything, just handling things and putting them back and closing the drawer.

I heard a noise behind me and I stiffened. In the dressing table mirror I saw the white dog standing erect, ears sticking up, in the doorway. I jumped when it barked. Too frightened to turn around and face it, I watched in the mirror as it padded into the bedroom. Only when it barked again and broke into a run did I react, scrambling up to stand on the stool. But I was still within easy reach of the dog. It barked and barked, terrifyingly loud in the enclosed space, and I clambered onto the dressing table itself, my feet slipping on my Auntie’s clothes, things I’d unconsciously removed from the drawers. The dog leaped at my feet, saliva spraying from its hot snapping mouth. I skipped sideways, screaming, backing onto the window ledge. But my left leg caught the edge of the mirror and I fell, knocking my shin against the edge of the dressing table and landing on the floor at the dog’s feet.

It was on me in a second, fixing its jaws around my upper arm and pulling at me, as if to goad me into a fight. The foul stink of the animal made me retch, its hot breath curled up my nose like a poison and its teeth sank deeper into my arm. I screamed and yelled. In desperation I fought back, no longer caring that to do so would enrage the beast. I kicked and beat the dog with my free hand, but its jaws were clamped tightly around my arm.

I felt a wave of black giddiness wash over me, saw sparks dance in front of my eyes. I wet myself and my limbs went momentarily slack. The dog pressed one of its sharp-nailed feet on my chest, slipping to my throat. Just when I had completely given up the fight and thought I was about to faint my father appeared in the doorway, howling like a warrior as he threw himself at the dog. His sheer weight knocked the animal off me and he rolled with it on the floor. My Auntie Nan gathered me into her arms. I yelled, screaming and crying. Then my father was standing up, holding the dog’s two front legs. He’d forced the legs apart and looked about ready to tear the dog right open down its seam. He was panting, bleeding from a cut on his cheek, looking at us and at my Mother and Uncle Billy who had just made it upstairs. My mother screamed when she saw my father. I wriggled out of Auntie Nan’s embrace and crashed into my mother’s legs. She hugged me fiercely, saying ‘It’s all right, Carl. It’s all right, love,’ over and over again.

Uncle Billy snapped the dog’s lead onto its collar and took it from my father, who collapsed on the edge of the bed. I watched him, my chest still heaving. For a few minutes everyone maintained the same positions and no one spoke. I knew how weak the treatment had made my father, yet he had fought with the dog as if it were the sickness itself. And won.

Two days later I came home from the recreation ground. I’d been kicking a ball around with some friends. After the visit to Maine Road I now imagined myself as Francis Lee or Colin Bell as I took pot shots at Dave Enty who stood like some gloved statue between the two piles of coats we used as posts.

I walked past the garage and entered the house by the side door. I called out but no answer came. On the dining table there was a note from my mother. She’d gone shopping and would be back about five. I looked at my watch. It was half past three. I wondered why the side door had been unlocked. My father had gone to Christie’s around twelve and I’d gone out to play football before he’d come back.

I took off my muddy trainers and walked upstairs in my stocking feet. My parents’ bedroom was empty, the bed all made and everything very neat as usual, looking like a show house. In my own room I sat on the edge of the bed and flicked a half-made pampas-grass quill float that was standing in a jam jar on my desk. My father had made the desk for me. I opened its single drawer and shuffled through my Esso World Cup coins, Brooke Bond tea cards and old bus tickets. I stood up and looked out of the window to see if I could see my father coming back from the railway station.

There was something wrong. I knew it in my stomach first, where some sort of bitter fight was going on.

I went in the bathroom to see if I could resolve the dispute but nothing came. I washed my hands, a little unnerved by the sound of the running water, which seemed too loud for the emptiness of the house. Downstairs I turned the television on and glanced at the different channels. I thumbed the off switch and stood at the window looking out at the garage. Something gnawed at my insides.

Leaves were falling outside. There had been a subtle smoky taste in the air that I’d noticed coming back from the rec. The first bonfires of the season were being lit in gardens. Down back entries kids were sneaking the last illicit cigarettes of the summer holidays.

I wandered into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge door. There wasn’t much: some butter and milk, rashers of bacon wrapped in foil, and a hunk of cheese. I closed the fridge and hovered by the side door leading back outside. Through the frosted glass I could see the distorted form of the garage. I put my muddy trainers back on and opened the door. Going left, I walked down the passage between the garage and the back garden. There was a peculiar smell coming from somewhere that set my teeth on edge. And a low growling noise I couldn’t identify. I trailed my fingers against the side of the garage and slipped around the corner at its end. There was a mossy tree stump which I had to stand on to look through the grimy window in the back wall of the garage.

At first it was difficult to see clearly because of the two thicknesses of glass and the dirty swirling clouds of some kind of smoke. But eventually the details resolved themselves and made sense.

The car was in the garage and my father was sitting in the driving seat.

His head was moving from side to side, his mouth gaping open and snapping shut. His eyes met mine.

I stared at him for a few elastic seconds then dropped down off the mossy stump and sat in the soil at the base of the garage wall. I was panting for breath, my heart hammering, pulse racing in my temples. Sweat in a sheen across my forehead making me shiver. My hands shaking.

But I didn’t get up and run to open the garage door. There was still time, I knew, because he had been moving. He had seen me.

I turned around and pressed my ear to the side of the garage. I heard the low rumbling of the car’s engine, the chugging of the exhaust. The smell was sickening.

I got up and ran. I ran down the passage between the house and the garage and straight out into the road. A car slammed on its brakes, squealing to a standstill. The driver thumped his horn. Burning rubber stung my nostrils. I ran over the road and dived into the nearest back entry, the damp cobbles slippery under my feet. At the corner I bowled into someone coming the other way. Without looking to see who it was I picked myself up and carried on running.