Cull

by Tanvir Bush

  ‘OhmygodAlex! Someone dropped ice cream here a couple of days ago. It’s all kinds of mould and vanilla. I should just have a sniff.’

  ‘Chris!’ Alex gently yanks the harness. ‘Straight on!’

  She is reminding him of their work agreement. Not that he minds working at all, at all, oh no, not Chris! Chris is very good at ‘the working’. Building lines, obstacles, roads and kerbs, bring ’em on. But these little stinks are so seductive and it would only take a minute or two …

  ‘Chris!’ Alex’s tone is a little sharper.

  Chris sighs and his tail deflates. It’s just so hot.

  A little later, and they pass another dog on a lead. It’s a springer spaniel bitch called Poppy who is all legs and ears and eyes, coat muddy and soggy from the river. Her nose is plunging at the ground, jerking her lead, scrabbling at the smells. She looks up and sees Chris in his yellow harness.

  ‘Whatyerdoing?’ she asks, tail in a confused half-shake.

  ‘I, young Poppy,’ Chris replies gravely, ‘is working.’ He carries on past her without another glance, muzzle high and pointed along the track, tail a diligent height and pace purposeful, all solemn, with a slightly martyred superiority.

  ‘Blimey, good boy,’ says Alex, surprised at his turn of speed.

  ‘Gosh.’ Poppy is dumbstruck with horror and admiration. Her legs go all quivery. ‘Working?’ she calls after him. ‘That means no sniffing? No chasing? No leaping?’ Her talking monkey-man has to drag her away.

  They are running late, so Alex decides on a shortcut, squeezing through the gates at the top of the common. Alex doesn’t see the black-and-white sign hanging from the fence next to the gate, and Chris can’t read, so he can’t warn her that it glares ‘Under New Management. Private. No Trespassing’.

  In ignorance, they cut across the fields behind the large concrete outbuildings of the adjacent Grassybanks complex. It’s a nice easy walk, and the grass is shorter and greener due to the high water table. The shortcut becomes slightly boggy about halfway along, but it’s not as bad as usual because of the drought and, nursing her usual hangover, Alex has dressed sensibly in ankle wellies and jogging pants. Water still manages to get in over the top of her boots and her socks begin to make embarrassing squelching noises.

  Up ahead in her blotchy tunnel of sight, Alex spies a man in a wheelchair and a slender woman with long black hair beside him. Alex waves. They both wave back. As she approaches, she scans around, thinking about the sound recording, but it will be fine. No traffic and almost no one about, apart from the now distant dog walker.

  They are closer to the river, and Chris lifts his nose to the cooler flirtation of wind from the surface of the water. He can smell the fish in the river, the layers of mud, the weeds. How wonderful! He almost groans with pleasure. He can read in Alex’s mind and body that she intends to let him off for a free run. Already his muscles are bunching, his claws deep in the gooey soil. As Chris drags Alex forward, she manages to get her foot caught in a clump of grass and staggers forward, right onto Rory Mortensen’s lap.

  ‘Err … hello.’ Alex isn’t sure what bit of him she has grabbed on her way down, but it wasn’t metal. She feels the blush puddle up her cheeks. ‘Sorry about this.’

  There is laughter, and a strong and gentle hand pushes her shoulder until she is balanced upright again.

  ‘You must be Alex,’ he grins, and he is as dashingly handsome as his photographs, all strong dimpled jaw and broad shoulders.

  Alex nods, aware of her slightly matted hair and now thinking the tracksuit a silly idea. Her socks squelch … Shhh, she tells them.

  ‘This is Kate. My fiancée.’ Rory introduces the woman who is, inevitably, also quite lovely, with gleaming black hair and an oval face with the almond eyes of Asia. She is being very good about not mentioning the fact that Alex has just fallen into her fiancé’s lap.

  ‘What a lovely dog! How is he coping with the heat? We have a cat who insists on sitting in the sink,’ Kate says, and Chris almost stops being grumpy as she tickles him behind his now slightly soggy ears. ‘I’m going to leave you guys to talk,’ she adds. ‘I’ve got something to pick up from the shopping centre, but I’ll be on the phone. Text me when you want picking up.’

  Then she leans down, kisses Rory on the mouth and begins to walk up to the car park. Her jeans are very tight, and Rory and Alex both watch her perfect arse as she sways away up the hill.

  ‘Right,’ he coughs. ‘Shall we begin?’

  Alex can tell he would rather be with that arse. She doesn’t blame him. They turn left on the river path and gently mooch along, Alex holding Chris’s harness with one hand and the micro recorder pointed towards Rory’s face in the other. The path is lined with willows, oaks and lime trees and the breeze is stronger.

  They small-talk a little while Alex fiddles with her micro recorder. She presses Record and is just turning to Rory to quiz him about his experience of finding work again after his re-habilitation when they hear a shout. After that everything happens very quickly.

  Alex barely catches sight of a large dark shape flinging itself over the wet grass towards them before Chris’s harness is jerked from her hand, and she hears him scream.

  ‘Dog! Fucking attack dog!’ Rory is shouting. ‘Help! Loose dog! Dog!’

  Alex, without pausing to think, drops the sound recorder and drives her hand deep into her pocket, her ears bursting with the sound of the vicious growling from the alien dog and Chris’s high-pitched, terrified screaming. She grabs her can of LDA pepper spray, pulls it from her pocket and rips the cap off with her teeth and aims at the blur of writhing, screaming, growling dogs.

  It is happening too fast for Alex’s damaged retinas to make sense of the squirming canine bundle. She knows that Chris is still in his harness, and this will mean he won’t be able to twist away from the bigger dog. He will be helpless, unable to fight back. She has to assume the big dog will be on top. She aims at the top dog’s head and prays that Chris will be slightly out of firing range, then pushes the plunger over and over.

  ‘Get off him! Get off him!’ she screams, pumping until the tube is dry. Now the other dog is whining pitifully and has broken away from Chris to rub its burning eyes against the wet grass. Then it staggers into a lope and dashes, still whimpering, off in the direction it came.

  Shaking so much she can barely stand, Alex scans, but her eyes don’t find Chris.

  ‘Chris! Chris!’

  ‘I have him, Alex!’ Rory is behind Alex with Chris in his arms. She runs to them, and Rory gently lowers Chris to the grass. Alex eases off the guide-dog harness and runs her hands over his poor shivering coat to check for breaks and open wounds, dashing hot tears from her eyes. He is bleeding and drooling, shocked and shaking. A tiny whine comes from his throat. She feels him all over and finds puncture marks at his throat and on his rump. She doesn’t think anything is broken, though, and his breathing, though shallow, is regular. But he is really badly hurt, resting his head into her shoulder, eyes rolled back and half shut. She can smell he has shat himself. The shit and blood smell terrify her.

  ‘I need to get him to the vet,’ she says, and Rory, nodding, is already on the phone, but then the light darkens. Several people have come up behind them.

  ‘Thank God!’ Alex whirls around on her knees. ‘Help us,’ she pleads. ‘We were attacked. There is a dog on the loose!’

  ‘Yeah, that was our dog, Hobgoblin, and you fucking crips are trespassing.’

  There are four of them, three men and a hard-faced woman. The man in front is young and blond with small, close-set eyes.

  ‘What are you talking about? This is the river path. It’s a public space … Look! My guide dog … I need to …’ Alex can’t process what they are saying.

  ‘Are you deaf as well as blind? I said you are trespassing. This is private property.’

  ‘Are you fucking mad? There were no signs. I am calling the police,’ says Rory.

  The man kicks the sid
e of Rory’s wheelchair, rocking it. The phone flies out of Rory’s hand and into the river.

  ‘Hey, what the hell are you doing?’ Rory is as confused as Alex.

  ‘Oh yes, Big Guy. You going to get up and get it?’

  Another man kicks the other side of the chair, and Rory has to grab the wheels to steady it. Alex, kneeling with Chris, can see Rory go pale. Chris shivers, whines and Alex rocks him gently. Everything is happening too fast.

  ‘We need to get my dog to a vet,’ she repeats.

  ‘What you need, crip bitch, is to be taught a lesson, is what. You been poking your nose into places you shouldn’t, and you ’ave upset a few people including the man at Grassybanks what pays my wages …’

  What … ? Alex can’t get her thoughts together. Why are they talking about Grassybanks?

  ‘You have to stop your sneaky ways, cunt, and we might let your dog live.’

  ‘Hang on, Andre,’ says one of the other men, a thick-set brute with a tattoo of a spider’s web on his cheek. ‘Was that a guide dog? I love guide dogs …’

  ‘Oh shut up, Ronnie, you fucking moron.’

  ‘You stay away from them!’ Rory’s voice is steady, but his knuckles are white on the wheel-grips of his motorised chair.

  ‘Or you’ll what?’ Andre turns to him grinning. ‘Kick me in the bum, posh boy?’

  He aims another kick at Rory’s wheelchair, and Rory’s hand shoots out and just manages to grab the hem of the man called Andre’s trousers. Alex sees the muscles in Rory’s arm swell and flex as he yanks the trouser cuffs, and the security man flies through the air, landing hard on his back.

  The woman in their little mob actually cackles, a sound Alex hasn’t heard outside pantomime.

  ‘Andre, you been floored by a crip! Wait till I tell the boss.’

  The others join in the laughter, but Rory and Alex are quiet as they can be. They cannot run. They must just wait. Alex is slowly levering her hand behind Chris’s shivering body, reaching for her handbag.

  The man, Andre, is slowly getting to his feet. He is taking his time, allowing his rage to build, and it floods his face, turning the skin from white to pink and back to white again. His cohorts slowly go quiet. A snicker from one of them disappears into the sound of the river water gurgling along the banks. For a moment there is a kind of stillness.

  Then Andre grabs the woman’s face and pulls her into him as if he is going to kiss her. Only he doesn’t. He spits instead, and then pushes her away. She staggers backwards, yellow saliva dripping from her nose and chin.

  ‘You fancy the posh boy, do you, Lou? The posh boy with no legs? Do you? Fancy a ride on his chair?’

  The other men begin to warm to the theme. ‘Yeah, Lou wants crip cock!’ sings one, and kicks the back of Rory’s chair, sending it forward into the woman’s knees. She staggers, and Rory tries to catch her to stop her from falling, but she shrieks and slaps at his hands.

  ‘Gerroff me, you fucking retard!’

  Andre has a plan. ‘You can have a ride in his chair, Lou … you just need to get him out of it.’

  Alex’s eyes are wide, horrified. She makes eye contact with Rory, and he gives her just the tiniest shake of the head. No, don’t even try and protect me. It will be worse for you. Such a sad expression in Rory’s beautiful eyes.

  ‘What did you say, retard? You gonna stand up for the lady?’

  Now all of them including the woman circle the wheelchair. One kicks and as Rory moves to deflect him, the second kicks and then the third. It is like a grotesque game. The chair begins to rock and it is too close to the water.

  ‘Stop it!’ Alex screams, she cannot help herself. ‘Help, help!’

  ‘Someone shut her up,’ says Andre.

  One of the men turns from taunting Rory and leans down to where Alex is crouching protectively over Chris.

  ‘She’s not bad looking for a crip,’ he says, and coming behind her he reaches under her armpits and squeezes her breast hard.

  At that moment, the others manage to kick Rory’s chair over and he tumbles face forward onto the grass bank with his face in the water. He begins slipping forward.

  Enough.

  Alex has been around. She knows a thing or two about a thing or two. She takes a breath and relaxes, feeling the muscles in her thighs and back. ‘Hold on, Chris,’ she whispers, letting him gently down to the ground. ‘Hold on.’

  Then she pistons upwards, smacking her head backwards as hard as she can into the face of the man behind. She hears, as well as feels, his nose crack and senses the man tumble to the mud. At the same moment, she drags out her folded white cane from her handbag and, taking a giant step forward for balance, brings it two-handed across Andre’s jaw.

  Another pleasing crack. Both men have dropped out of Alex’s vision, and the other man and woman are howling but have moved back, away from her. Alex desperately scans around just in time to see Rory slipping further into the water, head first. Diving forward, she manages to grab the back of his jeans with one hand, but he is too heavy and he is flailing, trying to raise his head from the river, and by doing so he is tearing away from her grasp.

  ‘Help!’ she screams, praying for a dog walker, a jogger, anyone. ‘Someone help me!’ She twists her head around and sees the woman, Lou, bending over Andre where he lies in a foetal position, moaning and clutching his face. Blood pours through his fingers.

  ‘Lou, please,’ Alex begs, ‘help me! He’s sliding into the water.’

  ‘Fuck you, crip bitch and your fucking dog,’ Lou snarls, and turns back to Andre, managing to hoist him to his knees.

  ‘Get up, Andre, you fucking tosser! Someone’s coming.’

  The man with the now broken nose is staggering around in circles clutching his face, eyes shut. Blood and saliva drip through his fingers and down to his wrists, droplets spraying in all directions. Ronnie, with the spider tattoo, grabs him by the shoulders and pushes him into a staggering run.

  ‘You can’t leave us!’ Alex screams furiously at their retreating backs. She is frantic now. She makes another gargantuan effort to pull Rory backwards. For a brief moment, Rory manages to get his head above the water, but without legs for leverage he cannot get traction on the bank. He gags and chokes and slides further. Alex’s fingers have gone numb. She isn’t strong enough to swing him back onto the bank. Her fingers begin to slip.

  ‘Rory!’ she is yelling, and another voice joins her, and there is the sound of thudding feet. People descend. Many people. Hands reach out, and suddenly Rory is flopped on his back on the path next to Alex, but he is very still, his lips are blue. She is pushed to one side as a dark shape drops to its knees next to Rory and begins resuscitation.

  ‘Rory!’ Kate has come back. She runs past, black hair flying, arms outstretched. Alex gets up into a semi-crouch and staggers to Chris where he lies, still bleeding, and gathers him into her arms. Her tunnel of sight is blurred now, the adrenalin is ebbing, and she is shaking so hard she thinks she might come apart.

  A huge black man with a grey uniform and with a shining bald head is asking her if she is hurt, but she can only shake her head and point to Chris. She doesn’t seem able to speak.

  ‘Yes, I know, love.’ The man has a baritone to rival Paul Robeson. ‘We’ll get him to the vet right away, don’t you worry.’

  There is an upheaval behind her, and she hears Rory vomiting and gagging. Kate is sobbing with relief. Alex can hear them being taken to one of the waiting ambulances.

  At some point someone takes Alex’s elbow and tells her to let go of Chris. She won’t, so they are put on a stretcher together and placed in the ambulance with Community Transport Ltd on the side. Inside it’s dark and Chris’s muzzle is on her lap, and there is blood in his mouth. Another gap in Alex’s memory, and then bright lights and the sharp biting smell of disinfectant. She realises they are not at the hospital but at the vet’s.

  Thank God we are here. Thank God, thinks Alex. Yes, she must have convinced the paramedic to
bring her. There is more kerfuffle and to-ing and fro-ing as Chris is gently separated from Alex by the bald paramedic and Kelly, Chris’s vet.

  ‘We have to take him now, Alex honey,’ says Kelly. ‘Take a seat and someone will get you a tea. As soon as we have Chris settled I’ll come back.’

  A little later and Alex is sitting on a hard orange plastic chair in the vet’s reception, waiting.

  ‘How are you holding up?’ comes the deep voice of the paramedic who brought Alex and Chris. Alex remembers now that this paramedic is with the Community Transport Unit and told her he had just gone off-duty after doing a final patient transfer into Grassybanks. He had heard the shouting for help and raised the alarm. Off duty. That’s why Alex had been able to convince him to get Chris to the vet before taking her to any hospital. He squeezes his enormous bulk into a bucket seat next to her and taps a plastic cup of water against her stiff fingers. Alex doesn’t unclamp her mouth quite yet. She is scared of bursting into tears. Her lips quiver and she stretches them against her teeth to stop it.

  ‘Breathe,’ says the paramedic.

  Oh yeah. I forgot, Alex thinks. And does.

  ‘I need to take another look at your head,’ says the big man with the kind face.

  Alex gives him a wobbly grin. ‘I fear you may find teeth marks in it.’ She allows him to inspect the back of her head again, where it has made contact with one of the attacker’s faces.

  ‘I am going to disinfect it. It will sting, but you’ll live.’ The medic’s hands are large and warm. She shuts her eyes and leans her skull into them.

  ‘What news on Rory?’ she remembers to ask now.

  ‘He’s in Allenbrook Hospital but just for observation. He had inhaled water, but he is not in any danger. He’ll be fine. It would have been a different story if you hadn’t been there.’

  The medic shifts in his seat to pull out some swabs from his bag. Opposite them sit a curious couple with a cat box. They don’t hide their stares, and although Alex can barely make out the white ovals of their faces, she can feel their gaze. She wants to push them away.