Jon McGregor: Even the Dogs

We get up, and we leave the flat. We’re not sure what else we can do. In the street, the men slide Robert’s body into a van with darkened windows, and we all climb in beside him. There isn’t enough room, but it seems like the right place to be. In the circumstances. They slam the doors closed. The air inside is hushed and still, the steel floor shining with cold. Two of the men stand outside, talking to the younger policeman and the photographer, and the man with the dark tangled hair. At the top of the steps, the woman with the checked dressing gown is standing with her arms folded, watching, the older policeman beside her. People have appeared on the walkway, and at windows on the upper floors. A group of children are standing on the pavement, pushing each other, shouting questions. The two men, and the younger policeman, climb into the front of the van, and there’s a rush of cold damp air before they close the doors. They start the engine, and the tyres slip and squeak as we drive away down the hill. We look back, and we see the garage roof behind the flat, where Danny jumped and slipped and ran off looking for someone to tell. And we see Danny

They carry his body through the city at dusk and take him away to the morgue.

And we see Danny, stumbling away from the garages at the back of the flats, tumbling down the hill like he’s about to fall, rubbing at his cheeks with the backs of his hands in great angry gestures which look almost like punches, wiping at the tears which haven’t yet fallen from a face still twisted with fear. Einstein beside him, snapping and whining and trying to keep up, held back as always by the weight of her broken

Had to find someone and tell them was all he could think. Had to find Laura and let her know, had to find Mike. But tell her what, him lying on the floor like that, one leg bent wrong under the other and one hand over his mouth like he could smell himself beginning to rot. Tell her what, he died peacefully, they took him in and did everything they could but in the end there weren’t nothing to be done. He didn’t suffer. Couldn’t tell her that. Didn’t know much about it but knew it weren’t nothing like that. He had all his friends around him when fuck

Through the darkened windows of the van we watch him, slipping and hurrying down the hill to the main road and the underpass and through the darkened windows we see the city passing us by, whole streets abandoned to the cold, faint shadows moving behind curtains backlit by a flickering pale blue. Christmas decorations dip and swing between telegraph poles and skeletal trees, hang from garage doors, trail from the lids of bins spilling over with crumpled paper and packaging foam. Coloured lights snap on and off in front-room windows, and around shop-front displays, and we follow him down to the bottom of the

Danny, were you the last one to see him?

Fuck should I know.

Was anyone there when you found the body?

Don’t know I didn’t hang around.

What did you do? Where did you go?

Fucking ran what do you think. What would you

He’d been away was what he’d tell the police. He decided. If they came looking for him, if they had a reason to come looking for him, which if he kept his mouth shut why would they. Unless some cunt. He’d been out of town. He’d gone to his brother’s house, for Christmas, he’d got the idea into his head that they could have a like a family thing for once. Danny and his brother Tony and Tony’s new wife and them two kids which weren’t even Tony’s. Weren’t much of a family. Weren’t much of an idea anyhow because Tony kicked him out on Boxing Day, like gave him a cold turkey sandwich and told him to fuck off but that was where he’d been and that was what he’d tell the police. If they showed up, if they took him in and asked him questions like

We’ve all known people dead but aint many ever seen it. Thought he’d look asleep or something but weren’t nothing like that at all. Was more like, what. Flies and maggots and stuff leaking over the floor. And the smell of it. Churns in your guts and comes pouring out your mouth like

Two days to get back from his brother’s, two days of walking and hiding in train toilets and jumping over barriers and sleeping in carparks and walking some more and carrying Einstein when her leg got too bad. Big fucking dog to carry but what else could he do. When it was his fault about the leg anyway. And this was the welcome he got, no cunt anywhere and Robert laid out dead and no clue what’s going on at all. Had to find Mike was the thing, Mike would sort it, Mike would know what was going on and what to do. But had to find Laura as well, had to tell Laura before some other cunt got there first. Like Ben or some cunt like that. Had to find somewhere to score. And his own brother had shut the door on him, had said

The driver talks to the policeman in the front, and for the first time we can hear what they say. Is this your first one, he’s asking, and the policeman says Yes, just about, first proper one like this, and the two men laugh and say You’ll soon get used to it, chap, it’s a busy time of year. We follow Danny down to the bottom of the hill, trailing his blankets, tripping over the sodden ragged hems of his jeans, turning to call and hurry Einstein along. The van sweeps up the sliproad at the interchange, and we lose sight of him for a moment as he stumbles down into the underpass, the weight of Robert’s body shifting in the bag between us as we turn on to the exit road and see Danny climbing the steps back up to the street. We see him shaking his head, taking off his glasses and wiping them clean across his coat, looking around for anyone he knows. But there’s no one. Only Einstein, sitting at his feet and panting hard, standing and following as Danny strides away again, the way he always walks, swinging his arms too hard like he’s struggling up a steep hill or something, off towards Barford Street and the markets, turning to look at us for a moment as we drive past and leave him behind, as we weave smoothly through empty one-way streets past loading bays and bus shelters and somewhere out beyond, accelerating away up the steep ramp of the flyover towards the bruise-dark clouds of the blackened

He saw Sammy, down on the corner of Barford Street and Exchange Street. Saw him from the top of the road but he knew it was him, weren’t no one else it could be. That great long beard and the screwed-up eyes and the way he shuffled around like his feet were chained together or something. Called out as soon as he saw him. Sammy, Sammy mate, Sammy, near enough running down towards him in his usual spot on the corner with the benches and bins and flowerpots and that sculpture of fuck knows what. Sammy mate. Sammy. His voice ragged and breathless with the pace he’d kept up since climbing out of the window at the flat. Sammy pissing into a bin, waving fuck off over his shoulder. Sammy, mate, I’m looking for Laura, have you seen her, do you know where she is? Sammy turning and putting his knob away, wiping his hands on his filthy trousers. Staggering with the effort of focusing on Danny, his mouth opening and closing like he’d already forgotten the question. Danny kept moving, kept walking, couldn’t stop, looked away up Barford Street and back the way he’d come, headed off up Exchange Street and away towards the Abbey Day Centre. Not seen no cunt for days, Sammy called out, and Danny turned back to listen, walking backwards for a moment to see if there was anything more. Not seen no cunt for days, Sammy said again, almost to himself, sitting down heavily and reaching around on the floor for his bottle while a pigeon circled in from a rooftop, settled on the edge of the bin, and pecked at a sodden kebab. You can fuck off an all, Sammy said when he heard it, spitting in its general direction, the phlegm trickling through his beard as the pigeon flew up over the marketplace, the station, the multi-storey carpark and the office block and the long dwarfed spire of the