Irvine Welsh - If You Liked School, You'll Love Work

— Well, maybe you should, Kendra says, slamming the papers she’d printed from the websites onto the desk, — because it’s well known that people in South Korea eat dogs and cats!

— We ain’t in Korea, miss. They don’t do that sort of thing here.

— How in hell’s name do you know that?

— Well, I guess it’s our different cultures. I see it as kinda about respect. Like, people in India do not believe in eating cows. They get horrified at the way cows are treated here in the USA. But they know we do things differently, so they accept it. Just like Korean folks accept that they can’t eat dog here. But it’s a valid point, in general terms, don’tcha think?

— No it is nat! The relationship between pets or even working animals and their owners is intrinsically different to that between humans and domesticated animals raised for food! Can’t you see that?! Kendra shouts, unable to believe that the police officer is even attempting to justify this.

The officer is not for backing down. — Dunno bout that. I guess the way they see it is that some animals are raised to hunt, others to fight, others to be eaten. Besides, pet breeds ain’t used for food back there in Korea.

— You don’t know! Kendra wails. — I’ve researched this! She points at the papers. — Because dog meat is expensive, the people in rural areas of Korea will raise and kill the dogs themselves; or steal them. That chef’s done something awful to Toto. I just fucking know he has!

— What kind of dog are we talking about?

— He’s a papillon.

— Right. No offence, miss, but a papillon dog don’t exactly constitute a banquet. Why, I doubt you’d get a decent portion of gyro outta one of them little guys, the cop smiles.

— I want him back! Will you fucking well help me find my dog!

The policeman’s voice grows firmer. — Now, miss, I realise that you’re a little upset here. Why don’t you just go home and see if that little fellow shows up and we’ll call you if anything happens this end?

— Thank you, Kendra sneers sarcastically. — Thank you so much for your help.

Outside on the steps of the station, she seethes in impotence. The only thing she can think of doing is to head home. Back at the apartment she stealthily creeps upstairs and listens outside the chef’s door. There is no sound. She goes back downstairs. Her despondency is compounded further by the mess of her apartment. A huge laundry has piled up but she can’t face going down into that basement right now.

Kendra decides to go and visit Stephanie at her workplace. She should be finishing up soon. Steph knows about animals and their behavior. She might be able to piece together Toto’s state of mind and his likely destination, if it wasn’t up the stairs and into the chef’s cooking pot. She heads to the practice on Clark. — Miss Harbison has just finished a consultation, the soccer mom receptionist informs her.

She goes into Stephanie’s office. Her friend is at the window, blowing cigarette smoke out into the street. — God, those people, Stephanie scoffs, looking below onto the Clark traffic, — they cannot seem to accept that they are nat my clients. They are merely the sponsors. Victor is the client.

— Who is… Victor?

— A Netherland dwarf rabbit with an eating disorder. I felt like saying to his stupid bitch of an owner, ‘Have you looked at yourself in a goddamn mirror lately? Ever stopped to consider that poor Victor might just be modeling behavior ?’ Stephanie bellows in exasperation. Then she seems to regard Kendra for the first time. — But you look stressed out, honey. What’s up? she asks, then wariness sharpens her features. — Like, why are you here ?

— Toto’s gone! The chef… upstairs, the guy from the restaurant; he’s done something terrible to Toto. He’s Korean. They eat dogs!

— You cannat be serious, Stephanie says, then she molds her face in that expression, the one she always thinks of as her ‘clinical, diagnostic’ look. It involves making her eyebrows almost collide. — Look, Kennie, Toto was — she corrects herself, — is… a very sweet dog, but let’s face it, he has several issues.

An arrow of filial failure thuds into Kendra’s chest. — You think I should have taken him to Dr Stark?

Stephanie flicks her cigarette out the window, sits down, crossing her legs. She regards her own fishnets, enjoying what she thinks of as ‘the coiled-springed sexuality’ of them. They were pantyhose but guys never knew for sure. You just reeled in the catch, like she’d most certainly done last night. A fortuitous chance meeting in the street on the way home, then a late drink, after the others had departed. She regards Kendra, who was just a little too quick to wind up the evening, and something approaching shame bubbles up inside her. Then she slips back into her professional mode. — Phil Stark would have identified Toto’s abandonment/rejection complex straight away and drawn an appropriate behavior modification program, she briskly informs her friend. — I also think it was a no-no calling him Toto. By identifying him with the dog in The Wizard of Oz , you subconsciously factor in the state of his being lost and searching for home as an inbuilt element of his psyche.

— But he has a home, Kendra cries, — our home!

— Course he does, princess, Stephanie agrees, — Toto’s a very loved little dog, she coos, realizing that Kendra is too distraught to be left alone. She calls Stacie, telling her to meet them back at Kendra’s apartment. They leave the practice and walk down Clark without speaking to each other. As well as the intense heat, they are now assaulted by thunderous roars in the skies above them, as four jets, like birds of prey in a mechanized flock, slash through the clear blue sky.

Back at the apartment, Stacie appears and they sit together on the couch, comforting a distraught Kendra with a glass of wine. — I can’t go out… I just feel so helpless, waiting by the phone, she says. Then there is an almighty roar from outside, the jets flying so low that the window bellies inwards. — Shit, Kendra barks in a galled enmity, — Can they not go to Iraq and do that? Is that not what it’s for?

— It’s just a show of strength. I find it pretty reassuring, Stephanie says. — I like the idea of us burning loads of gas in these trials.

— It must be terrible living in a war zone, Stacie shudders.

— It’s kinda what they choose, Stephanie asserts. — If they don’t like it, they can get off their butts and leave, like our forefathers who came here did.

Stacie seems to consider this for a while. Then she casts her eyes around Kendra’s apartment. It’s a mess, but it’s exactly what she needs. — I’ll bet this place is really expensive, she eventually says as she registers the empty spare room she has long harbored designs on moving into. — Can you afford it? she asks Kendra.

— Jeez, you don’t get it , Stace. That question should be reframed: can I afford not to have it? Get with the Breaking News: princesses live in palaces, she shrieks, sliding a Xanax into her mouth, and washing it down with a sip of red wine.

Stephanie fidgets, looks at her watch and tries to get onto the subject of work. — Real estates’s booming, right, Kendra?

Kendra would normally breezily chirp, ‘More than ever,’ even if the market was slow, aware that expectations drive everything and therefore need to be talked up. It was the professional way. Now she can only distractedly moan, — Toto was an angel in the body of a dog.

— She’s so upset, Stacie whispers to Stephanie, as she squeezes Kendra’s knee.