Cull Read online

  She looks down at the floor, and water slops over the top of the plastic cup. ‘This is really kind of you,’ she says. ‘What’s your name?’

  Shit. Her hands shake too much and water is dripping.

  The medic gently takes the cup out of her fingers. ‘I’ll hang on to it for you,’ he says. He smells of shoe polish and Imperial Leather soap and something slightly goat-milky. ‘My name’s Mosh.’

  The door that leads to the surgery opens, and Kelly the vet comes out into reception, bringing with her the smell of antiseptic and faint dog shit. Kelly’s glasses flash as they catch the light, and Alex leaps up and for a moment is too light, might keep rising up to the ceiling. The arm of the medic is back, a gentle firm pressure across her shoulder.

  ‘Breathe out … again, slowly,’ he says.

  She does, comes back to earth.

  Kelly takes Alex’s hands, rubs them, looks into her face.

  ‘Chris is going to be fine.’

  Breathing, keep breathing.

  ‘He’s been badly bitten and lost a lot of blood, but he is a tough old thing. Nothing is broken, and there is no internal bleeding. We are going to clean out the bites and keep him here for a couple of days. He is shocked, and that, with the blood loss, is what we need to monitor. But he is going to survive this. I am going to go back in, and I’ll call you in a couple of hours when we have him settled, OK?’

  Alex nods and the nod becomes a slight sway.

  He is going to be all right. Chris will be all right. ‘I should never have exposed him to danger, Kelly. What happens if they take him away from me … maybe they should … I mean … maybe I bring trouble …’ Alex can’t stop this stuff coming out of her mouth. For a moment she remembers his bleeding muzzle in the crook of her arm, and she has to sit down.

  ‘Sorry.’

  Kelly leans down. ‘You are having a reaction to the shock. Is there anyone you can be with this evening?’

  ‘I’ll be OK.’ Alex’s teeth begin to chatter.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Mosh says to Kelly. ‘I’m going to run her to A and E in a minute for a full check. I would have taken her first, but she threatened to kill me if I didn’t bring the dog to you.’

  ‘Blimey, that is some service you are running,’ Kelly smiles.

  ‘I don’t want to be any trouble,’ mumbles Alex.

  ‘Ha ha!’ Mosh’s bark of laughter makes the cat in the box mewl. ‘Bit late for that, Alexandra.’

  Kelly squeezes Alex’s shoulder. ‘I hear you were a fucking ninja,’ she says. ‘I hope you broke that guy’s jaw.’ She looks guardedly at Mosh, who makes a placating grunt, and she turns sharply and goes back into the surgery.

  Alex knows better than to ask to see Chris. He will need sedation and rest, and if he sees her he’ll want to come with her. She would be more than happy to camp in the reception, but Mosh shakes his head.

  ‘A and E. Now,’ he says. ‘Upsidaisy.’

  Her head is thumping, and she has twisted a muscle in her stomach from trying to yank Rory out from the river, but apart from that there is no serious physical damage. Inside her soul, however, Alex bleeds rage and fear. Mosh insists she calls someone to be with her for the night.

  ‘I haven’t got any room,’ she says irritated.

  ‘Make some,’ he says.

  Alex wearily takes out her phone. She runs down the list of numbers: friends, exes, family. She can’t think of anyone she wants to speak to right now. She couldn’t face the questions. The ‘I told you sos’ and the ‘omygodthat’sawfuls’. She is about to make a fake call for Mosh’s benefit when she spies a more recent entry in her phone listings. Hmmm … maybe this is the one … ?

  She rings. The person she calls is very shocked, sweet and gentle as Alex mutters and chokes her way through the situation and a request for a couple of hours of support. ‘I really don’t want to impose but perhaps just for an hour, even?’ Alex says. ‘The bloody Community Transport guy won’t let me be home alone.’

  ‘Really?’ says the woman Alex has called. ‘Put him on, would you?’

  ‘Oh no, I don’t mean – he is really nice, really,’ says Alex, reddening, realising she might get the lovely Mosh into trouble.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ says Jenny Jameson, for it is her that Alex has called. ‘If your nice paramedic is called Mosh, then he is, in fact, my husband.’

  The Lull

  Jenny, together with baby Serena in her pushchair and a large bag of groceries, is already standing outside Alex’s flat when the ambulance arrives. Mosh jumps down to help Alex out before going over and kissing his wife and daughter. ‘She insisted on stopping at the bottle shop,’ he whispers to Jenny. ‘I don’t blame her, but it’s not going to help her any with the shock.’

  Jenny nods and follows him and Alex into the flat.

  ‘Gosh, it’s chilly in here,’ says Mosh, surprised. Smells of breeze blocks too.

  ‘Sorry about the mess,’ Alex says, lamely. She is so sore and tired she can’t think of how to make conversation.

  ‘I don’t care,’ lies Jenny, kindly. ‘Don’t worry about me, and Serena is already asleep. Mosh will come back to collect me in a couple of hours, and in the meantime I am going to cook you something to eat.’

  Alex stands in the middle of her living room. She can’t remember what comes next.

  Jenny squeezes Alex’s shoulder. ‘Are you going to have a shower?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks … yes … shower. Good idea. And thank you, Mosh. I … you got him to the vet …’

  ‘It’s no bother, Alexandra. You get some rest, now.’

  And Mosh is gone, and Jenny doesn’t say anything when Alex picks up the freshly bought bottle of vodka and takes it with her to the bathroom.

  In the bathroom, Alex chugs straight from the bottle. She knows that it won’t help anything, but she can’t think of what to do to stop her brainstorm of fury and fear. She unpeels her clothes, wincing as she pulls her T-shirt over her head. There is dry blood in her hair and Chris’s blood under her fingernails. She showers, and when the water goes cold she stands and sobs under it, scrubbing her skin with a loofah until it is raw.

  She eventually emerges in a vaguely clean pair of tracksuit bottoms and a vest top she has found on the bedroom floor. Her hair is still wet, but her eyes are dry. The vodka bottle is half empty.

  ‘OK?’ asks Jenny, pretending not to notice the bottle. She is at the kitchen counter chopping onions for one of her vegetarian specials. They are all mostly cheese, lentils and onions, in various quantities. The smell of cooking is soothing, and the hiss and crackle of the onions frying is better music than the memory of Chris’s screaming. Alex is glad Mosh insisted she call someone. The vodka has numbed her. She is in a neutral place where no one can get to her. She sits on the little sofa and folds herself into the cushions, just letting herself drift.

  When Jenny’s phone goes, Alex is asleep.

  It’s Mosh. ‘Apparently the Grassybanks security told the police that one of their security dogs got out and attacked Alex’s dog by mistake. They say they didn’t come on the scene until after the attack. They also say that Alex attacked them.’

  ‘Oh no! And the man in the wheelchair?’

  ‘He wants to press charges, but his girlfriend says he can’t. She says his international sponsor will drop him if there is bad publicity. I don’t know … he doesn’t seem like the type to be intimidated. Don’t tell Alex. It’s going to be really hard for her.’

  ‘She’s asleep, Mosh. I think I’ll let her rest. She can deal with this in the morning.’

  Jenny stands watching her baby and her new friend sleeping. She thinks about the men who attacked Alex, and a tingle of anxiety for her own daughter makes her skin goosebump in the dim flat.

  Why? she wonders. Why the weak?

  Chris Comes Back

  When Chris comes back into his poor bruised body, he is a different dog. It isn’t the attack so much as the anaesthetic and surgery that have caused the crucia
l change. Dogs’ lives are short, so they live fiercely, every hour and every minute, close to the earth, caught in the residue of stenches from yesterday and the wafts of the stinks yet to come. Even asleep a dog is alive, dreams full of spice and fight and light. Chris may appear to be conked out on his dog bed for hours at a time, but he is vibrating in every part of his doggy brain and body, the sensations of pillow and carpet, of cotton, wool and wood under his body and the myriad scents in every cubic inch of air feeding him. So then, take a dog and anaesthetise him, even for an hour or two, and the dog falls from his own body into a fearful darkness, and on returning finds himself ‘other’ and, worse, older. It is as if a human had been in a coma for a week or longer. There is a terrible gap and much to relearn.

  Lying on his side feeling the breath pushing in and out of his lungs, Chris can smell every other animal in the recovery room. Some, like him, are still waiting for sensation, pain and memory to return. Some weep. Some sleep. The cats, who travel in and out of their physical bodies all the time, have a better return from any surgery. They are gifted self-healers, and once they get over the dizziness, a purr can mesh bones and bodies back into shape in half the time. From a cage up over his head Chris can hear an old tom cat, now ex-tom, screaming in rage. ‘Who took my fucking bollocks?! Come on, you freakin’ cowardly monkeys! Come on! I’ll fucking ’ave you! Which one of you was it?’

  Across from him lies an Alsatian bitch. She has been cut into and rendered sterile. He feels the waves of deep sadness and confusion pulse through her and wash away into the antiseptic- coated air. ‘Something’s gone,’ she says to him.

  Chris can’t respond yet.

  In another cage is a snuffling hedgehog, a road-crossing survivor. She has smelt concrete and tar before but never Formica and plastic. ‘What is this shiny place?’ she is whispering. ‘It is like winter, but warm. Where is the proper air? Has anyone seen my husband?’

  A door bangs open and a human comes in. Chris doesn’t move, although he recognises the smell, a sea-green cool smell with light lavender thrumming through the green. He is frightened. She was the one who sent him into the black, but still he doesn’t move, and now she is on her knees at his cage door and her hands are on his fur and they are gentle.

  ‘Hey there, Chris. You are going to feel rotten for a little while as the anaesthetic wears off, but you will heal up fine, I promise. Alex was here.’

  Alex. The word makes Chris try to lift his head. Yes, he must have Alex. They need each other. Now.

  ‘Sorry, boy.’ The vet responds to his attempt to sit up. ‘She isn’t allowed back here yet. But you sleep, and maybe the day after tomorrow she can take you home, OK?’

  She lays a cool hand on his head and he drops it back down and closes his eyes. Pain has begun to return like a smouldering fire. ‘Alex,’ he whimpers. ‘I need my Alex.’ His whole soul is stricken with loss. Alex.

  ‘Yo, bitch!’ yells the tom cat. ‘It was you, weren’t it? You took my nuts. Bet you needed both hands, right? Bet they were so big and heavy you almost fainted, right? You are going down, monkey tits. Going down!’

  The vet stands and stretches. ‘Aww hey, Hector, puss puss puss,’ she says to the cat. ‘You poor old sod. No more illegitimate kits for you, my man.’

  ‘I can still spray, dumbass,’ Hector screeches at her as she checks the Alsatian, hedgehog and other cages. ‘I can still spray the piss out of that old bag’s house, and you know I will. I am going to spray the walls, man. Spray the ceilings! Teach her to knobble my knackers!’

  The vet heads for the door.

  ‘My nuts, for Isis’s sake! How could you?’ Hector hisses at the door as it shuts. ‘Fuck this for a lark.’ He twists himself in two and begins lapping at the stitches. ‘Gonna spray your house down, momma,’ he is singing under his breath as Chris falls into a troubled sleep.

  Alex Plays Pinball

  Without Chris, Alex is incomplete, both in her head and in her body. The gaps in her vision seem bigger and whiter. The white billows and stretches like mosquito netting, obscuring the pavement, the car park, as well as the milling crowds around the entrance to the station. She manages to cross the taxi rank without getting killed, but only just. Heads appear like dark balloons bobbing ahead of her.

  Alex has done this journey so many times, but without Chris pootling along by her left knee she feels as discombobulated as a moth in daylight. She is a pinball bouncing from one obstacle to another. Of course, she is used to her sight impairment. Her sight has deteriorated slowly over twenty years, giving her time to adjust. In fact, like the proverbial frog in a pan of water that doesn’t realise the heat has been turned on, Alex barely pays attention to how much sight she has lost. Is still losing.

  So, it is a rare thing for Alex to feel so out of her depth with it. It is just that she and Chris have been partners for over seven years. They have grown into each other in a way that two humans could never do. In the morning they yawn together, stretch together, and move in synchronicity through their worlds.

  Sometimes Alex is sure she is dreaming of chasing bright yellow tennis balls across an endless stench-ridden beach. She wonders if Chris ever dreams of turning up at a party completely naked. Probably not, given his constant state of furry undress. He has snuffled into her nightmares on a couple of occasions, and she has been relieved, followed him out, waking with the sweat cooling on her face.

  He knows when she is sad, when she is premenstrual, when she wants to dance. She knows silly things about him too. He doesn’t like to be watched when peeing. He has a problem with whippets. He likes sheep and rabbits’ droppings but declines horse poo. He worries about her drinking, does double sighs when she staggers to the fridge.

  She knows when he isn’t feeling well by the way his ears smell.

  ‘What the hell is wrong with you, lady?’

  Oh damn. She has been standing in front of the ticket machine for too long, but scanning and scanning, she can’t see where the ticket has popped out. It’s a new machine. Usually the ticket slides out of the side with a peep. Obviously not on this model.

  ‘Oh … velly solly.’ She is not sure what accent she is pretending to do … a Spike Milligan Goon Show Chinaman classic, possibly. ‘Me no know this machine …’

  ‘Jeez … fucking tourists. It’s right there!’ The man behind her reaches past and down, and Alex hears a flapping crack sound. Oh, one of those machines with the slot right at the bottom. She lets the man push the ticket rudely into her hand.

  ‘Sank ooo velly much,’ she says and quickly moves out of the man’s way.

  She isn’t carrying a cane. In the current climate being a crip alone isn’t altogether wise. She has a long purple umbrella instead, tightly bound up and with a long curved handle. She now uses this in the same way she would use a cane, to fend her way through the station doors, up the stairs and over to the platform.

  The train storms into the station. Alex finds the bright red door easily and jumps up into the train carriage. She manages to get an aisle seat and pretends to read a book, waiting for the train to lurch out along the platform. She couldn’t cope with anyone trying to interact with her. She checks the book cover is the right way up. Yes. She has chosen the one book that does not encourage curiosity, intrigue or collusion. Any fellow passenger will glance at the jacket and remain stolidly mute. Self-Help for Substance Misuse and Addiction. It’s the best thing for a quiet journey.

  She goes over the instructions Gunter had texted her. Petertown station concourse. Café Coffee on the mezzanine floor. Third table back from the counter on the right.

  Easy enough, thinks Alex, feeling sweat in her palms and unable to keep her foot from tapping a manic rhythm on the train floor. Oh God … what if I miss him? What if this is all hokum and there is no CDD file? And worse … so much worse … what happens if Chris can’t work any more and Guide Dogs take him away?

  Petertown is the third stop, and she lets everyone else off first before carefully stepping d
own from the train and merging into the crowd of commuters as they stream through the barriers and out onto the bright central plaza. She almost stabs a toddler with her umbrella, but somehow, even with the bouncing sunlight adding to the messy reception at each retina, Alex finds the right café and heads to the counter. She moves slowly, umbrella-cane subtly sweeping the ground in front of her leading foot. There is a queue, and she has to pause for a little while to figure out which end she should join. She checks her phone for the time. Another ten minutes. She rolls her shoulders and instinctively lowers her hand to pat Chris’s head, wincing when she hits air.

  ‘Large cappuccino,’ she says and then waits, refusing to let the stroppy woman behind her pass. Alex needs to be able to see exactly where the barista places her cup down, and standing right at the centre of the counter means she can get a full scan of the bar top.

  ‘Some people,’ she hears the woman hiss to her friend, ‘are so rude.’

  Alex has a momentary urge to throw the coffee into the woman’s face. It’s nerves. She recognises the feeling of irritation, near violence. She could be a cocked gun. She breathes slowly and, a little shocked by how much her hands are trembling, picks up the cup and saucer and carefully turns to the tables. Third back on the right. Is that the right facing or turned from the counter?

  And she finds a table and a chair, and she sits and tries not to put her head into her hands. Breathe, Alex. She has thought about Gunter a lot over the last few weeks. In that one night he had nearly got her believing in the possibility of a relationship again, and that’s quite a feat considering Alex’s track record with commitment. She likes sex as much as the next person, but she is loath to share a bed for long.

  She suspected ‘love’ wasn’t going to happen for her, just as kids weren’t going to happen. She reckoned she was just too selfish. She had seen a shrink once … OK, more than once … who had told her that she had abandonment issues. She had slept with the shrink to prove that wasn’t the case. And then abandoned him to drive the message home.