Jon McGregor - Even the Dogs

All those years thinking about him, and once she was back there she found it hard to think of him as her dad at all. He didn’t even look much like that photo, by the time she got to him. The Robert she met — fat with drink and sorrow, unwashed, with a crushed face and a sunken posture, each hand punched into an arthritic curl — was the man her mother had warned her about, the man she’d always been told they’d left. The man Robert had only really become once they’d closed that door behind them and he’d started drinking seriously. Once he’d given up expecting them to ever come home. She’d imagined hugging him when she came back. Sitting on his lap, resting her head on his shoulder. Making up for everything they’d lost. Which had sort of happened, once, soon after the second time she came back, putting her arms around him and clinging on desperately until the smell of his long-worn clothes had pushed her away. After that, she’d only ever touched him when she wanted money. Crouching beside him and resting a hand on his knee, or standing behind him with her hands on his shoulders, leaning over and talking softly into his ear. She felt bad asking, but she felt like he owed her. All those years he hadn’t been around. That one time though, she thought about it sometimes. When she wasn’t thinking about other things. The way it felt. Nothing like she’d been expecting. The solid, numbed stillness of him. Like hugging a tree. His arms by his side, lifting out into the air for a moment, uncertainly. Like he’d forgotten what he was supposed to do, and by the time he’d remembered she’d already gone, again.

They stand around the cutting board, the doctor and the technician and the assistants and the photographer. The rest of us pressing in around them. The doctor separates out the liver, lifting it in one hand and resting it in the shining bowl of an electronic set of scales. Two thousand seven hundred and forty-three grammes, he says, and one of them just about whistles, and the junior doctor writes it down on the whiteboard. The liver is a yellowish orange colour, like a sponge, speckled and grainy, and thick gobbets of fat spread out across the knife as the doctor slices into it. What can you tell me about this? he asks his junior. Cirrhosis, the younger man says. Advanced cirrhosis. Thank you, the doctor says, smiling. The technician takes one of the liver slices and puts it into a clear plastic container, soaking it with formaldehyde and carefully labelling the lid. The doctor separates out the heart, an awkward-looking lump of flesh with severed pipes and tubes fingering out in all directions, weighs it, and puts it back on the board. He cuts into it, exposing the chambers, the valves, the arteries, using his scalpel to indicate particular features while he dictates his notes.

Heart: enlarged, flabby, otherwise of normal external appearance, firm, reddish brown, no lesions apparent. Left and right ventricles normal, cardiac chambers normal although some clotted blood apparent, endocardium normal. Sections through the coronary arteries show significant narrowing, of approximately seventy to eighty per cent, indicating severe coronary artery disease.

If it comes down to it la I will cut out your heart.

Remember Danny and Laura and Heather and Ben all cooking up together one time. Down under one of the arches by the canal because Mike was up at the flat and he hadn’t put any money in for the gear. Was it that or just we didn’t want him around. Danny doing all the prep and the rest of them watching like coppers so the shares would be even. Got a couple of two and one deals between them all, so he mixed up the dark and the light in the spoon and got it cooking, drew the whole lot up into one barrel to measure it and then squirted it back out into the spoon, shared it out into everyone’s pins, and then everyone backed off to get digging. Heather laughing at Ben because he said he still didn’t like needles and that was a fucking joke that made them laugh every time. Danny and Laura going at the same time, bang on the same time, the crack kicking in first and the two of them watching each other when it did, some kind of fucking beautiful going off there between them for what is it seconds a minute two minutes like you you euphoric between them like a whoosh like a bullet through a tunnel bursting out into the sunshine firelight with this what this great big God almighty yes yes yes before sinking settling down into the cotton-wool embrace of the dark the brown taking the edge off taking the edge all the way right fucking off. Heather still laughing away at Ben, going I reckon you’re in the wrong fucking line of work here Benny boy, all four of them laughing and lying back on to the rubble and ash under the arch, listening to the white-noise roar of the water pouring over the top of the lock, the clatter of the trains running over them, Danny turning to look in Laura’s eyes again but she was all gone away. Rubbing his fingers over and over his face, feeling well, feeling welcome in his body again. Feeling like, fuck, the things a body can do, these fingers, these bones, this muscle and skin, the bones of his face, the jaw and the cheeks and the eye sockets, the cells dividing and forming and healing and beginning again, all the things we do to these bodies and they keep beginning again, the cuts and bruises and festering wounds, this crash helmet of a skull keeping this suffering brain safe. For what. For this. For this feeling well again. For all the things a body can be. For when all this is over and done with and life can begin again.

Would like to have seen her naked one time. Just once. Probably she was all fucked up, all bones and bruises and broken veins, but still even so. Would have liked to see what her body could do, what her body could be. Long and white and pale and turning towards. Opening towards.

And what about Ben. Jesus. That time in Laura’s old bedroom when Heather had some rocks to offer him. No one really knew about it at the time except we knew something had gone off. We know about it now though but. Pulling him into the room and closing the door. Sitting down on the bed, near enough falling down on the bed, saying Come here Benny boy do you want a smoke do you want a go on the pipe? Reaching in her pocket and taking out a bag. Ben smiling that smile again and going Heather mate does the Pope shit in the woods or what? Heather filling a pipe for him and offering it up, and Ben’s brain going pop pop pop as he sucked away on it. Heather waiting, watching, Ben chatting on about the trouble he’d been having at the hostel, something to do with another resident lying to the staff about him tooting in his room and when the staff came to search it they planted some rocks under the mattress because they had it in for him anyway they wanted an excuse to get him out of there he’d been lippy one time too many and they like you to know who’s in charge who’s the boss who’s the fucking what what the number one. Heather watching his eyes flicker to the pipe and the lighter and the bag hidden tightly in her fist. Ben stuttering and stopping and saying Heather I’m not being cheeky or nothing but can I have some more? The hunger it gives you, the need. Nothing you could ever need as much as another go on the pipe. The first time the best time and you’re always chasing after that. Do anything to get back to that. Never get there but you always get close and you always keep reaching. Don’t you. Heather looking up at him, her eyes unfocused, saying Come here then. Lowering her voice and saying Come here. Putting her hands out and pulling him towards her by the waistband of his jeans. Ben pulling away, and Heather pulling him back, saying Come here Ben, come here, pulling him to the edge of the bed and keeping him there with her legs squashed around his. Looking at him looking at the pipe. Looking at him as she undoes his trousers and keeps him from pulling away. Saying Come on Ben, come on. What are you scared of? You’ve known me long enough, haven’t you? Come on, come on. It’s not going to do any harm. Ben looking away, to the battered wall behind the bed, to the corner of the room, saying Heather I don’t really want to. I don’t want. Heather still murmuring, reassuring, one hand behind him now and the other hand working on him through his pants. Saying Do me a favour love. If you want another go on the pipe. There’s plenty more where the last lot came from. Saying What’s the matter Ben, don’t you like me or something? And Ben, his whole body stiffened and still, saying Heather it’s not that of course I like you it’s just it’s not like that I don’t want to. Cold resignation in his voice. Taking the pipe as she hands it up to him. Taking long blistering draws on the smoke while she pulls down his pants and does what she wants to do, squeezing his balls, tugging at his unwilling erection, working her calloused fingers into the crack of his arse while a smell like pear drops bubbles into the room and his brain goes pop pop pop and he pictures the light sparkling round through his bloodstream, surging, charging, roaring, picking him up up up and over the room looking down and further right out of the room and the first time he met Heather outside the train station where he was tapping people up and she told him You don’t want to do that here sweetheart you’ll get picked up in no time, couple of coppers on the way over even while she was talking and she took his arm and led him straight off down the road. Weight of her hand on his elbow. Her wide round hips squashing into his. Funny-looking woman but he didn’t mind going off with her, seemed like she knew a thing or two. Leading him like a blind man which is what he was more or less when it came to living out on the street. Was a lot better now but he never saw this one coming. Should have done but he didn’t, the pipe burning dry and the popping in his brain fading away and the anxious gnawing appetite sliding back in. Looking down at the back of her head while she sucks away at him, her greasy half-red hair with the black roots turning grey, the smell of the burning crack drifting off and the smell of her replacing it, the smell of drink and old sweat and bad teeth and he tries to pull her head away by the hair but she don’t stop. Saying Fucking stop it stop it Heather will you stop it please. Things she warned him about but she never warned him about this. Heather wiping her mouth and smiling and saying Oh come on Benny boy, what’s wrong, you don’t want any more goes on the pipe? Looking at him looking at the bag of rocks in her fist. Saying Come on now Ben. No one’s going to know. I won’t tell anyone. Come on. Give me some more and I’ll give you what you need. Her hands all over in between his legs now, pulling at him, pinching and scratching him and pulling him closer. Ben turning his face towards the ceiling and screwing up his eyes. Saying Heather fucking hell fucksake. Saying it under his breath as if daring himself to say it, fucking hell Heather I don’t want to. You stupid fucking bitch. Heather’s eyes widening with anticipation when he says this, wrestling with her own trousers, the belt and the buttons and the tangle of shirts and shawls hanging around them, kicking the trousers to her ankles and falling back on to the bed. Pulling Ben down on to her and tugging him in and saying Say that again. Say bitch again. Ben with his eyes screwed shut but still the smell of her all over and the soft rolling slap of her body beneath him and the grunt and moan of her gaping crack-headed need swallowing him up. Thought he could trust her even though one thing she warned him was never trust no one and it turns out she was right about that. Should have learnt it years ago but. Way back when all those people he thought were helping him out were just grassing him up and getting him sent back to the home. In the day centre. At the church. That woman at the train station when he tried to jump the barriers. That bloke he asked for money outside the theatre who put him up for the night. All of them going Yeah yeah I’ll help you out, son, and then running off to phone up and get him shipped off back to the home. Too late for them now though. They couldn’t do that no more, he was too old for care, too old to get taken back, he was on his own now and he liked it that way, it was better that way. Old enough to look after himself and he had been for a long time. Heather going Hold me down then now, like a bastard, you’re a bastard, go on, hold my wrists. Ben opening his eyes for a second and saying Fucksake Heather you mad fucking bitch, bitch, bitch, you mad fucking bitch, saying it to a rhythm without even meaning to and then holding her wrists down on the bed, thinking about the pipe, trying to think about nothing but the pipe and feeling himself lifted high above the room but still hearing her and feeling her and smelling her even with his eyes screwed tightly shut, the scabs and bruises of her thighs clenched around his legs, the cigarette burns across her stomach, her grunting and moaning and going Pull my hair fucking pull my hair you bastard you bastard and Ben trying not to listen, trying not to think of nothing but the pipe at the end of all this going You fat, fucking, bitch, you sick, fat, fucking, bitch, you sick, fucking, fucking, fucking, and Heather going Yes yes no please no.