Jon McGregor - Even the Dogs

We didn’t know this, before. Even Heather says she didn’t know, she sort of can’t remember, she must have been sort of out of it and she can’t quite believe it was her. But we know it now, we see it and we believe it now. None of us is shocked. Most of us have known something like it before anyhow. None of this is new. None of it matters no more.

The doctor turns back to the board and cuts open Robert’s lungs, and the airways spill into his hands like roots pulled up from the soil.

Lungs: normal external colour and appearance, heavy. Airways congested with aspirated blood. Primary bronchi and successive bronchi showing signs of tar-like deposits probably from cigarette smoke. Dilated airspaces at extreme upper lobes indicate probable emphysema. Note that trachea and large airways also contain blood.

The technician puts the heart and lungs and liver into a red plastic bag, and the photographer takes more pictures as the doctor weighs and dissects the other organs on the board. He shows something to the others, gesturing with his scalpel, and the technician goes to Robert’s hollowed body and fetches short lengths of his intestines, snipping them loose with a pair of blunt-nosed scissors and carrying them over to the workbench. She slices them open, washes them out at the sink, and puts them to one side. The doctor speaks again, and his junior makes more notes on the whiteboard.

Stomach: normal external appearance and colour, compressed and empty of food contents. Small intestine also empty of digestive content; descending section of large intestine contains faecal matter; conclude that the deceased had not consumed food for a period of approximately twenty-four to forty-eight hours prior to death.

We sit around talking in low voices, looking at him, and someone puts on his favourite CD, Neil Young singing I’m going to give you till the morning comes, and someone else comes out the kitchen with plates of sandwiches, sliced ham and cucumber and cottage cheese. Cut into little triangles and passed around the room, and when someone says Oh I couldn’t possibly someone else says Eh now come on you’ll want to keep your strength up la. And we light more candles. Do we bollocks.

People think it’s all about being hungry and that but hungry’s got nothing to do with it. Can always find food if you want it. Soup runs and day centres and hostels and that. Food don’t cost much. Food don’t cost nothing if you know where to look. Can go without eating for a couple of days, more when there’s other stuff you need to sort first. Like getting sorted. Food don’t matter when you got the rattles coming on, and when you’re sorted you don’t even care. But Robert always liked his food didn’t he though. Was always after sending someone out to get him something. Pizzas and kebabs and all that. Don’t know where he got the money from but he was never short of food. Something must have happened if he didn’t eat nothing for twenty-four hours. Something must have gone off. All that talk about where he got the money from but he never went short of food or drink. These little shits tried robbing him once but they only found a tenner on him. Remember that. They never tried it again after we’d done with them. Must have kept it somewhere but. Liked having something to eat.

Little shits must have been waiting for us all to go out, watching, because they got Robert when he was on his own and we didn’t often leave him on his own. Said he liked company. He gave them what they could find, a tenner and some fags and a bottle of cider, and he got a good look at their faces while they were knocking him about, and as soon as we got back he told us who it was. We didn’t need telling twice though did we. Remember that. That was what it was, it was like a what, an unspoken deal. He let us hang out in his flat, do what we wanted there more or less, sleep there if we needed to, and we looked out for him. Got rid of people he didn’t want there. Sorted out his debts. And found the little shits who tried to tax him, followed them down to the underpass near the canal and near enough broke their fucking legs with a short bit of scaffold pole that Ben had happened to find along the way. Only two of them so it weren’t hard. Certain things we’d all do for Robert and that was one of them.

He shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t be here. He should be in some fucking what some funeral home or something all laid out nice with flowers and candles and what and music. We should be here to pay our respects instead of all this. Who’s going to lay him out now. Where will they take him. The state of him once this lot have done. The box they’ll have to cart him off in, and who’s going to stick him in the ground, who’s going to pay for all that. No one’s going to get Yvonne to come back. Not now, not when she’s so far away. His parents are long gone. And will they find Laura, does anyone even know who she is. Someone’s got to take him and bury him and say all the prayers and all that. He shouldn’t be here, he shouldn’t even fucking be here. We shouldn’t be here.

Always in the wrong place, the wrong time. The wrong fucking body, the wrong fucking skin.

And remember what Laura said that time, about wanting a new body, wanting to start again with a new body so she could go round all over again. Don’t work like that but she wanted it to. When Danny found her that time. When she’d run out of veins or she thought she had. Been trying to get a dig for over an hour, sitting there by herself just poking around with the pin trying to get in to all those collapsed and raggedy veins, trying to find the other ones deeper in but the pin weren’t long enough. Rooting around and getting more and more desperate, more and more scared. Danny found her round by the bins behind the hostel and for a minute he thought she’d been cutting herself. All that blood. Looked like it was just seeping out through her skin. She was crying and swearing and going Danny fucking what Danny what am I going to do now? Scratching her neck and pulling her hair and going Danny I’ve been trying for fucking ages I can’t do it. What the fuck have I done? Cold and white and the rattles on her so bad he could more or less hear them. Blood all over her hands, and then blood all over Danny’s hands when he tried to find a dig for her. Her voice all thin and tired going Danny fucking what what I need to fucking start all over again or something don’t I. Don’t even want to stop but maybe I got no choice. Danny giving up in the end and finding Mike, Mike coming round and sticking one in her neck, going You don’t wanna try this yoursen though la, you need to see what you’re doing an it’s too easy to pop an artery, you know what I’m saying. It’s game over when you do that an no mistake. Laura with her chin right up looking way past Mike to the sky, her eyes spilling with tears and holding her breath while he eased in the pin. Clinging on to his arms to keep still, like he was her only hope or something. Like he was the one who could make her body new. A new body and what though but. A new heaven and all that. All Laura wanted was one more vein. One more chance to begin again.

Ben had a laugh when she said that. No chance of that is there, no one gets a second go and anyone who says you do is talking fucking bollocks. Laughing like it was a joke but he weren’t joking. Was he. Sweeping the hair out of his eyes and sniffing and smearing the snot from his nose with the back of his hand. No one gets a second go. Where was it. Remember that. Where were we when. Climbing up the garages round the back of Robert’s flat to get in that time, after he couldn’t get to the front door to open it. Mike giving Danny a leg up and Benny boy talking to Laura while they waited their turn and Einstein sniffing around the garage doors. Only a few days after Mike had helped her do the vein in her neck and she was talking about wanting another chance. Maybe if I give it a rest I can start up again once it’s healed, she said. The old woman with the tiger-paw slippers walking her dog round the edge of the playing fields and giving them a funny look like they were up to something. Her and her rat-faced little Yorkshire terrier with the tartan jacket, and Mike telling her she could take a picture if she wanted and that sent her shuffling on her way. When was this. Laura said What you talking about second goes and that, what would you know, you’re not even old enough to have had a first go yet. I don’t know about that Laura, he said, smiling even more than usual, I’m old enough, I’m old enough for a bit of you know what. She laughed, and reached out to smack him round the head, and as he ducked out of reach he grabbed her wrist and said Don’t you dare don’t you fucking dare. Pulling his face close to hers and stopping himself from saying whatever he was going to say next, pulling his face close enough that their foreheads touched, until she pulled away and told him to fuck off. The two of them out of breath a little, and the old woman watching them again, and Mike and Danny out of sight on the garage roof. And that smile again, and Ben going No but leave it out will you I don’t like girls giving out like that, it’s not right. What was he talking about. What did he mean. How should we know. Mike leaning over the edge of the roof and reaching out his hand, going Up you come la there’s room for everyone, up you come the two of youse. And then climbing in through that kitchen window and Robert sitting in his chair laughing at them all, that laugh deep down in his belly going Here comes the cavalry! Here comes the fucking mountain rescue! What you got for you Uncle Robert? When was this. Three days before Christmas. So what happened then.