Jon McGregor - Even the Dogs

Jesus. Where do they get these people.

Ben told them about the only foster home he ever got placed in, with some woman called Sandra who lived in a big old house by the river and who used to wait for him to get back from school with a plate of biscuits and cakes she’d been baking, and orange squash, and questions about what he’d been doing all day. That was all right, he said.

And the woman said What else do you remember about, Sandra was it, about living there?

Which was her way of trying to like facilitate some disclosure or something.

So he told her that one night he’d wet the bed, and hidden the sheets in a cupboard because he’d been scared of what she might do, and when she found them she phoned up Social Services and got him taken back to the children’s home again.

She liked that though, the facilitator. Giving it all Well done, Ben, thank you, I really appreciate your openness, I’m sure that wasn’t easy for you.

Everyone else sat there looking at their feet or looking at the clock or still counting the tiles on the ceiling. And the joke was on her because that never happened anyway, it was some other foster-kid who hid the sheets and got removed, not Ben. He was there at least another month or something.

Decent place to be as well. He wouldn’t have minded staying longer. He had a nice room in the attic, and if he stood up on a chair and looked out through the skylight he could see the river, and hear all Sandra’s friends laughing at each other’s stories. She let him stay up late with them sometimes, and they all talked to him like he weren’t even a kid at all. She drank this well strong coffee out of espresso cups, and when she let him try some once he was almost sick, and when he had a bath she used to knock on the door and come in and wash his hair, holding a flannel over his face so the shampoo didn’t go in his eyes. No one else ever done that.

Didn’t tell the group all this though. Speaking up once was enough to get a tick on the court order. Sat there waiting for it to finish while the woman went on about remembering they always had choices and not getting trapped in the past. Ben remembered that he had the choice to keep his mouth shut and wait for the end of the hour or whatever. He was good at waiting.

Things you think about. All the time in the world for waiting and these things keep coming to mind.

Like all the stories you have to tell people when you’re asking after something. When you’re in need. In need of something just to hold you for a few hours. The stories you have to come up with.

Like Mike one time when he went to the church to tap up the priest, and the priest said Sit there, son, I’ll speak to you after Mass. Leaving him sat there mumbling Hail Mary and Our Father and all that like he was a good Catholic boy fallen on hard times who only needed a quick helping hand to get himself sorted out. Priest up at the front telling two old ladies and Mike that In the same way, after supper, he took the bread and gave it to them saying take this and eat this in memory of me. Near enough looking Mike straight in the eyes when he said But we are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table. And then afterwards when Mike was giving him the story, telling him that he had to get back to Liverpool for a funeral, it was his da’s actually and even though he hadn’t seen the old man for years he still felt like he had to get back for one last goodbye like and he’d been supposed to be getting a lift but someone had let him down so he really badly needed the money for the train ticket and he was sure that once he’d explained to the family he’d be able to pay the money back and then some, the priest had interrupted him and said, like straight out without going around the houses or nothing, Do you believe in God, Michael? To which Mike had said without even pausing for breath I don’t know Father, do you think He believes in you? And can you lend us some money for the train or not la?

This was before he met Danny. Before Danny showed up in town one day and had his teeth knocked out when he’d hardly had a chance to say hello. Because once he started going around with Danny they had things sorted out a bit better and he didn’t have to go storytelling so much.

The number of funerals Mike’s parents had had though. It was enough to make him believe in the resurrection of the flesh and all that.

Where was it. Under the flyover. Waiting for the soup van to turn up. The usual crowd, sitting and standing in the yard where there used to be cars for sale but now there was just boarded-up arches and trees coming up through the cracks in the concrete. And Danny must have stood out straight off, because he was carrying all his stuff with him, sleeping bag and blankets and binbag and everything, and also because he went straight up to Spider and Scots Malky and started talking to them and no one who knew them would have done that. Everyone moving away a bit and turning their backs while he got taxed, and he was off out the yard before the soup van had even arrived, Einstein whimpering and limping along behind him.

Mike followed him out. No reason for him to get involved was there but he did. Caught up with him at the crossroads by the derelict pub and said Eh you all right there pal you need a hand.

Weren’t even a question and Danny didn’t disagree. Looked at him with one hand cupped over his mouth and tried to say something, coughing and stumbling, spitting blood and bits of teeth into the gutter. Mike said Eh now you, come and sit down a minute, and when he put his arm round Danny’s waist to help him to the kerb Danny pulled away and said Fuck off I aint got nothing left to nick. The words gurgling and dribbling from his bloodied mouth.

Three of them sat there a minute, the sun low through the evening and the pigeons chasing across the sky while the traffic stretched and hooted along the road overhead.

The soup van drove past, and they watched it go.

Danny wiping at his face with his hand, and Einstein licking the blood from his fingers.

You got a smoke, Danny said, and Mike rolled one up, and Danny smoked it quick enough that no one could take it off him, coughing up bloody phlegm once he’d done.

He’d left London to get away from this kind of thing, and it had followed him anyway. Weren’t nowhere safe when it came down to it.

He’d walked out early in the morning, walked right up to Brent Cross and then waited all day for a lift up the Great North Road and this was as far as he’d got and he was desperate now. Desperate to get sorted.

You know where I can score? he asked, and Mike made him a deal.

Always waiting for that.

Always working and watching and chasing around for a bag of that. Jesus but. The man-hours that go into living like this. Takes some dedication, takes some fucking, what, commitment.

Getting a bag and then finding somewhere to go to cook it up in a spoon and dig it into your arm or your leg or that mighty old femoral vein down in between your thighs. The water and the brown and the citric, waiting for it all to dissolve, holding up the flame while those tiny bubbles pop and then drawing it up through the filter and the needle into the syringe. And waiting again for the gear to cool down. Sitting with someone you’ve only just met, in a rib-roofed room with a gaping hole where the window should be, the floor littered with broken tiles and bricks, in a building you can’t remember the way out of. Tightening off the strap and waiting for the vein to come up. This bloke you’ve only just met passing you the loaded syringe. Smacking at your mottled skin and waiting for the vein to come up. Pinching and pulling and poking around and waiting for the vein to come up and then easing the needle in, drawing back a tiny bloom of blood before gently pushing the gear back home.