Andrea Bennett - Galina Petrovna's Three-Legged Dog Story

‘You should go now.’

Katya turned, startled, and the spoon in the cup she was holding rattled.

‘Go on – I don’t want your tea, or your pity. Fuck your best day! You don’t fucking love Depeche Mode!’

She looked at him intently, holding his gaze until he had to look away. His breath came in a half sob and Mitya ground his teeth to try to stop it.

‘You can be rude, that’s fine: you’re upset about something. You may even have a head injury and contusions. But you’re getting tea whether you like it or not, Mitya. You need something to settle your stomach. I’ll go when it’s made. And for your information, I do love Depeche Mode.’ Katya turned away after her speech, busying herself with tea preparation and humming a disjointed medley of Depeche Mode songs that battled for Mitya’s attention against the beats coming through the wall.

He felt small. He sat perfectly still listening to the sounds of the girl making tea. He dreaded the moment the sounds would end, and hated himself for it. He knew he couldn’t bear for her to go, couldn’t bear the thought of sitting there alone, in his orange box, with the spattered lino and the sounds of Andrei the Svoloch shagging broken child-whores next door. He couldn’t bear to sit comparing her best day with his best day in a contest that might well have him prising himself out of the window frame and splatting on to the cool hard tarmac four storeys below before the dawn broke. He couldn’t bear for her to look at him, couldn’t allow himself to look at her.

A teaspoon tinkled in a cup.

‘Here you go. Drink it while it’s hot.’ Katya put the steaming mug on the floor next to him with a careful hand, and got up to collect up her things. She moved slowly, methodically, and he watched her surreptitiously, willing her to move more slowly, to turn in to slow motion, to become a permanent fixture, just to stay. Momentarily he imagined her waking up next to him, and wondered what she would look like, smell like. But before he knew it she was heading for the door, and a feeling close to panic covered his skin with goose bumps and brought bile to his throat once more.

‘Katya, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean what I said.’

‘I know, puppy.’ She turned and put her head on one side, and waited.

‘I… I do want… your help. Can you help me?’ It came out as a hoarse, high-pitched whisper, and Mitya struggled to clear his throat, too late, as ever.

‘Yes, of course I can. What’s the problem?’ Katya the angel came back, and shone her light on him.

Mitya’s eyes filled with tears, and he looked up at the ceiling, blinking furiously. ‘I’m not sure. I can’t really tell you. But there are things I need to do. And I think I need to do them now.’

Katya’s eyes were round and wide, and she salivated slightly as she replied, ‘Cool. I’m cool with adventures. And I’d like to help you, of course. My life is so boring, really.’

Mitya glanced at her face, looking for any trace of sarcasm. There was none.

‘But why, Katya?’

‘You are my friend, Mitya. You’re a funny guy. You come over all tough but… I saw your face when we were saving those puppies. I saw the care you took with them. You’re a good man.’

Mitya thought about this, and closed his eyes again. He heard her come back towards him, drop her bag and sit down on the floor. He listened to her clicking through his cassette collection, humming, and decided that he liked it. It was strange, but also weirdly familiar, as if she had always been there, doing that, but just in the next room, just out of reach, just out of his earshot.

‘Where are you from, angel? You don’t live here, do you? I’m sure I’ve never seen you here before this week.’

‘I’m here staying with my cousin: she’s got a room at the top of the hall. She’s the big lumpy girl with bad skin and several chickens – you might have seen her? Her name is Marina. To be honest, I don’t really like her. But I needed a place to stay while I study, and she’s all I’ve got.’

‘What do you mean, all you’ve got?’

‘I’m an orphan. I’m a no-one.’

‘Where are you from though? You’re not from Azov? I’ve never seen you here before. I think I would have… remembered.’

‘No. I sort of grew up everywhere, but I’m from nowhere really. I’ve lived in lots of places: lots of homes; lots of towns. I like Azov though. I wouldn’t mind coming from Azov. It’s a friendly place, isn’t it, puppy?’

‘Don’t call me puppy, Katya. You can call me Mitya.’

‘Mitya-the-Exterminator. Yes, I know.’

‘You know?’ Mitya was stunned.

‘My cousin told me that was your name. I prefer puppy.’

Mitya looked at his feet under the blanket, and the worn patch in his white sock, and wondered just what the cousin had told Katya about him.

‘What do you exterminate, Mitya?’

Mitya hesitated for a long moment.

‘Memories, Katya. Memories.’

She looked at him and unleashed her lopsided grin. ‘You’re a real Russian man.’

‘You think? I don’t even drink vodka.’

‘A man who can be maudlin without a drop of spirit, is a Russian man indeed,’ she laughed. Mitya smiled back, and as the muscles in his face stretched and moved, he realized he could not remember the last time he had smiled for real, at another human being, sharing something.

‘So, Mitya, are we going to have a little adventure?’

‘Adventure? I’m not sure. I have to get it straight in my mind. And I can’t think with this excuse for music going on so loud!’ He banged the wall with his fist, and winced as the scabs forming on his knuckles made contact with the orange wallpaper and left tell-tale rosy smears on its surface.

‘I have headphones. Look – take them from my Walkman, plug them in here, listen to Depeche Mode, plan our adventure. It’s not so hard, Mitya. Don’t give up before you’ve started.’

Stretching out a stiff arm, Mitya took the headphones and put them on. Why had it never occurred to him before? Instantly, Andrei the Svoloch was banished from the room and Dave Gahan and the lads were in the centre of his brain. Katya passed him a pencil from the desk and he started, slowly, to draw up a list of things to do, to make him sane. Mitya didn’t put pen to paper often: the writing was spidery, and the list was necessarily short.

When the track ended, he took off the headphones and was transported back to the crushing despair of Andrei the Svoloch ’s reality. He dropped the pencil.

‘Well, there’s the list, angel, but you know, actually, it’s all shit.’

‘What is, puppy?’

‘My life. It’s too late. I’ve fucked it all up. It’s not like it’s meant to be. We all hate each other. It’s all a waste of time: a waste of life.’

‘It doesn’t have to be.’

‘Yeah, yeah, like there can be a happy ending.’

‘There can be.’

‘No, you don’t understand. There can’t be a happy ending. I’m just incapable now of making any sort of ending of this mess. I don’t deserve better, and I can’t make it better.’

‘That’s not true.’

Mitya looked away from her, turning to the wall.

‘Everyone can make things better.’

‘You’re naive.’

‘And you’re making yourself into a loser.’

‘No, they made me into a loser. They did it.’

‘They, whoever they are, just made a start, and you are doing the rest yourself. It doesn’t have to be like that. I don’t care who you are: it’s not a done deal.’

‘Maybe it’s all I deserve. You have no idea of the thoughts that go through my head. I scare myself sometimes. You don’t know me, and I don’t know what I’m capable of.’