by Jonathan Lee
Joy takes a step back, twigs crackling underfoot. The dog turns, looks – yes – straight at her. There is a moment of total silence. The beast does not blink. And then it growls, and the fact that it growls after this thoughtful pause makes Joy feel that everything which is about to follow – the dog twisting towards her, tensing its muscles, starting to run – is part of some deliberate design. The animal has a plan.
It takes her no time at all to feel afraid, the mouth of the dog stretching back over ominous intimate teeth as it bounds at her, takes her no time to decide she needs to turn and run – human nature to run rather than hold your ground – and as her skirt rides up her thighs, legs lifting high, she trains her gaze on the hedges, she’ll be all right if she can get to the hedges, and she just hopes she gets to the hedges as in one prolonged and airy and discontinuous instant she leaps over the stream and feels the hard soil shock her shoe-soles and turn her calves tense. Running, this whole day of planned composure turning into a run, skirt hitched and lungs burning as the hedges get closer and a second arrives in which she sees herself as the black dog must see her: a mass of moving monochrome, spooky-soft, another animal to bite and rip. How could they let this thing near their daughter? Her muscles go hard at the thought of their own ripping, her brain fear-charged, everything tight and trembly, and it feels like the dog is ten yards behind still running but maybe less. She is panting and navigating the unruly sprawl of roots underfoot and in a split second she’ll have to decide what to do about the ragged wall of hedge – where’s the gap in the hedge gone? – she half jumps half skips with her shoulder leading the way and comes out the other side with a slapstick bit of bush around one leg and knuckles lashed and grazed. Blundering through the back gate she risks a glance behind her and sees to her horror that the dog, closer and closer still, its muscles quivering, is bursting straight through the hedge mess she’s thinned – straight through it and through the gate too – closing ground. She thinks she hears a growl but it might be the sound of the air in her ears as she sprints across shadows on half-frozen soil, handbag banging her thighs, fully into the Heath now and the fucking thing still chasing and this is when, pulse racing, unable to stop herself turning back for another look, she trips over her own feet and comes down hard.
Let it happen, is her thought. Let it happen. And as the dog leaps on her and thrusts its face down into her neck she has only that thought again: Let it happen.
But it does not happen. No teeth meet her throat. She is not being mauled.
Lying here with the dog on her chest, three facts reveal themselves: one, this dog is grey not black; two, this dog is smaller than I thought; three, this dog is licking my face.
When her breath has come back she lights a cigarette and pets its head. It looks pleased to have company. So much sagging skin it’s like a taxidermist got bored mid-project. The long cone of ash leans close to its paw. The dog’s eyes – sensitive to smoke? – go nervy and bright. She listens to the hum of its lolling tongue. Thought only cats could purr. She massages its back with long slow strokes.
Her grazed hand lifts the lit stub, hovers it above the paw, the ash about to drop. She has an urge to press the stub deep into the fur. She has an urge to hear the dog let out a small yelp, to see it run back to the house looking hurt.
She fears she will do this to the dog.
What if she did this to the dog?
She stretches her fingers out on the soil next to its paw. She looks at the back of her hand. She presses the stub into a vein.
Barbara
HALF THE staff are liars. Liars or – worse – fools. I know you’re seeing some of them so I thought you’d like to know.
A fall and a jump are as different as a stapler and a hole punch. If you confuse the two you’re either an Italian with mozzarella for brains or someone looking to mislead. She never did that to herself. Never did any of it. If there’s foul play it was probably that Samir. When he held her feet during sit-ups he wore – he really did – gloves. Gloves! Wouldn’t be surprised if he had something to do with her looking all beaten up in the basement that Friday afternoon. Only killers and lepers wear gloves. Him or Peter, both dark horses, both obsessed with her in their own way. Peter was down near the gym that afternoon. I know for a fact he was. Saw him going down there with his trainee, her wearing a dress that made no compromise with the weather, him carrying a bag with some bulky green thing poking out of it. Going fast with his head down, pretending he doesn’t hear me calling him. Couldn’t get hold of anyone to deal with the issue on Project Poultry. Had this key document and no one – never is! – to give it to.
I’m implying nothing. Implication is not a pastime I partake in. We all have enough to worry about without getting into implication.
Me?
Since Friday?
Well the whole thing’s been on my mind, hasn’t it? At my age I’ve seen it all. You get older and men don’t give you the glances any more, it’s like you’ve become invisible, but the lack of incoming attention frees you up to be alert to what’s around. To watch a pretty young woman falling from such a height, though. The impact was…the noise was so…real. Whole room seemed to vibrate. People went slack, dropped their champagne. Lawyers round here, corporate types with interchangeable heads, they stand so rigid most of the time. But seeing that happen they went all loose and childlike. There’s no easy way to shrug that memory off. It’s half the reason I need a break from this place. Do you think when I was a girl I imagined I’d still be stapling documents at seventy-three? That I’d have to practically beg these people to let me carry on for a few more years? That I wouldn’t even be able to afford to go and visit Jackie, would instead be stuck working with fools with no regard for English? Yesterday I saw Alfredo looking at something on the Internet Explorer and I say, Hey, Alfredo, how about some work once in a while? And when I get close it turns out he’s looking at flights. He’s looking at flights! And he says, I’ve got all these-ah air miles to use from my-ah trip to Australia last-ah year. Australia! I wish he’d go down under and never come up.
What? What do you mean?
You don’t listen, do you? It’s like a rule of the twenty-first century: don’t listen. You’re just like Alfredo. He doesn’t listen. You remind me of him, actually. The way you sneeze, it’s like you’ve both been to the same Sneeze School. Perhaps on account of his similar nose you think you have something in common with him, do you? He’s one of the group rushing to therapy, is he? I’m genuinely traumatised and he’s coming here just to sit and chat and drink espresso? Well, lemme show you something that’s going to change your mind, make you realise what a joker this Italian is. I told you I’d bring evidence and I have. This is what he’s been doing when he’s on the Visualise software. Debs, our Team Supervisor, she makes allowances – he’s been selected for the Visualise software training – too busy for this – too busy for that – Joy Stephens wanted him on the Visualise Support Staff Trial. Well, fine, but is he actually using the Visualise software for proper business purposes? I had an obligation to go into his workspace. It was my duty to find out. And I present to you – yes, take it, have a look, you can keep this copy – Exhibit A.
Exactly! As the fee-earners would say, smoothing out their costly hair, I rest my case. And there’s more where that came from. You want to see?
Makes no difference to me. Why should I care?
Maybe, maybe not. Have a cup of this and tell me what you think of the exhibit. You want a cup?
Well, that’s possible. Finally you speak some sense. We all need an outlet. We’re all still children deep down. But either way – you doing one of those no-caffeine things? either way there are days when my new hip causes me no trouble at all. There are worse things than a new hip. I’d take a new face if they’d give me one. If our National Health Service is so great where’s my platinum cream! There were weeks when she’d come in, tell me she’d given up caffe
ine, meat, water. I’d just nod. She’d have me running around at lunchtime on a new hip to find her some bread-free, meat-free chicken sandwich, or sushi with no cardboard footprint. Would give me maybe ten pounds and with the juice it would come to maybe seven and she’d say, Barbara, you’re a star, and Barbara, keep the change, which quite frankly is somewhat patronising, don’t you think? I wanted to say to her: Joy, do I look like someone who accepts tips? The only tipping I’m worried about is the toe-stubbing type that sends me flying down the stairwell. And if it wasn’t for the fact I needed it, the money, I would have refused point-blank to take it. Plain as day I would. It’s a strange universe they live in, don’t you think, where their own pride is so big they can’t see anyone else’s?
I think there might be an issue with the heating. If you’re OK – natural insulation and so on – don’t worry, I don’t fuss over weather. Alfredo is Italian and I have nothing against Italians but, like Joy, he thinks he’s the heart of the world. Always laughing that our English weather doesn’t suit him, fussing with our section’s thermostat like he’s the Lord God Almighty. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint, but next Monday, when I have enough evidence, I’m going to put a stop to his grinning. Nothing brings me down like that man’s grin. All that flirty nonsense with the younger girls in my section, who does he think he is? He creeps up on them like global warming. Invades their environment. Though in truth when people talk about global warming I think about how much further my winter-fuel allowance might go. I mean generally on the question of global warming I take the standard English perspective – I’m in favour – but when it comes to visiting Jackie and the little ones on her side of the family? If a special summer offer from a travel company was advertised in the Mail? Well I wouldn’t want to go in summer. A New York summer? I’d boil! Now if I was a fee-earner – ha! – if I was one of them I’d charge flights to business development and go whenever I wanted. Don’t even get me started on business development and the things they can claim. I’ve got four fee-earners I look after plus the Halfwit Peter Carlisle on temporary cover while Lauren’s off with irritable bum syndrome and one of them – remains unnamed – he gets Booking Desk taxis with his hedge-fund friends to – to? – yes – Private Liaisons – buys them all sorts – they leave voicemails the next day – say, oh – oh, Peter – that girl – that girl was hot. He thinks I don’t know what Private Liaisons is but I do. I’ve seen the fake money on his desk, with the G-string where our Gracious Queen should be. You want to dish out some therapy, you should dish it out to him. All these lawyers. They’re not people. They’re professionals! They’re the opposite of people! Is it fair that he gets ferried back and forth, charging champagne and nipples and who knows what, and I can’t get to New York to see Jackie? I wouldn’t fly in winter. Too cold. Was saying that to Dennis this morning at the hospital. Leave winter to the Eskimos. One of Alfredo’s favourite pastimes, analysing the Eskimos. He should try some work once in a while – stop drawing stupid pictures with his Visualise – stop talking about people of no consequence like the Eskimos. Never trust a people with sixty thousand words for snow.
What was that? Speak up. You’re too nasal for this world.
Yes, yes, at the hospital this morning.
Well, if you’ll permit me to speak once in a while, that was the unusual thing. It wasn’t actually in that bit of the hospital. I’d been to see Joy at the whatschacall, ICU. She was much as she’d always looked, despite the coma. Her skin was still smooth and girlish, and the chin was raised a bit. Gave her a look of anticipation. Only the tubes and beepers made her strange. And those plastered legs, all raised. So I sat with her a while and told her various things, including the Alfredo business, the fact someone’s got to put a stop to it, and then on the way out I manage to get lost in the corridors. I don’t know why the NHS doesn’t invest in some signs. Hospitals are full of people who’d be happier if they knew where they were going. So I’m wondering where to go and I get approached by some boy-nurse and he says all kindly, Have you forgotten which room’s yours, dear? And I chuckle, and he chuckles, and then I thwack him with my stick and keep walking. Then finally I get to a reception desk with someone in uniform behind it who’s thankfully older than twelve – black as the ace of spades, poor girl, but with a friendly face – and I go up to ask her where I am. But just before I speak I see that in this little waiting area to the side of the desk there’s Dennis. And I think about just ignoring him. Lemme tell you, to give that man a minute is to give him your best years. But anyway I decide I should say hello. Maybe make him feel valued by asking his views on the best airlines going to New York these days and what have you. All a theoretical, of course, for when my fair share of overtime comes back. And you should see the surprise on his face when he sees me. His eyebrows and his ears – almost as big as your ears, to give some context – they float up.
Barbara, he says.
Dennis, I say.
You’re here, he says.
And I tell him let’s not get into philosophising, it’s too early in the day.
So we talk for a bit but – but – it’s not the usual wading through mud. He keeps his sentences all short. Mainly little asides the mind forgets. The only thing I truly remember him saying is that when Joy slept next to him she’d often jerk awake. You know, sudden movement, two or three times a night. He said in her dreams she was falling all the time. Those were his words. Falling all the time. Probably fancies himself as a poet. And he looked off into the distance like he really was some kind of poet, rummaged in his pocket all suspicious, got out his phone, and tapped something into it.
I’ve always been conscious of avoiding tactlessness, so I didn’t ask him what he was tapping into his phone. Me and the girls keep a spreadsheet to avoid tactlessness, a list of fee-earners who are going through difficult times, to remind ourselves that if we’re surly to them we could get sacked like what happened to Teri. At the moment there’s three lawyers with cancer, two on nervous breakdowns, one who’s recovered from self-harm but isn’t allowed scissors or staple removers, four with a recently deceased parent and twelve with chronic fatigue syndrome. So with my heightened awareness of impoliteness I don’t ask Dennis what he’s tapping, I ask instead why he’s sitting in a different wing of the hospital to the one his wife’s in. And do you know what he says?
He says – wait for it – Peter normally visits around this time. That was it. No further explanation. Peter normally visits around this time, he said. As if that explained him sitting in a completely different wing of the hospital.
Isn’t that one of the strangest things you’ve ever heard?
Well, it got me thinking. The Halfwit Peter Carlisle must have had something to do with Joy’s accident. Must have done, mustn’t he, or else Dennis wouldn’t have said that.
Don’t you think?
Who knows.
Your guess – if you believe the phrase – is as good as mine.
2.25 p.m.
SHE FINDS the area easily, making only one further stop on the way, a quick look at a tree-tacked poster for a missing cat. Already wasted enough time today on people’s pets but she’s a sucker for these posters; more than tsunamis or earthquakes they make her maudlin. Something deep and dreamy about this realm of woodland. Trees bunched like troubles. They crowd around unexplained clearings in which only earth seems to grow – within itself, swelling against its own skin.
This is the clearing she wants to view. She will get this right. It will be her focus however tired she gets. Licks the cigarette wound on her hand. Wedges herself between two tree stumps to face the right place. In a final shuffle to remove a twig from under her bum she grazes her jacket sleeve. Everything grazed – clothes, skin, Marc Jacobs. Chips of bark lie about wearing downy flakes of frost. She imagines how in a few hours her nylon tights will shimmer like stalactites. Tights; stalactites. The pun gives her a weak little stab of satisfaction.
She
has trapped herself well. It hurts to flex her right arm but she can manoeuvre her wrist just enough to access the bag. She has a hundred-strong tub of sleeping pills inside. Enough to kill a whale. Enough to send the whole of Dispute Resolution sailing down the stream. Her left hand has to balance the BlackBerry on her legs so that it can join the right and open the tub. Press. Twist. The motion and the click make her think of the time she found her mother’s tablets, played with them a while as the adults argued downstairs. Bitter and bulky. Not like her yogurt raisins at all. At Lenox Hill Hospital on East 77th Street, as Joy slowly woke, stomach pumped, feeling her throat had been torn open by the tube, her mother said the same line to any medic who’d listen. ‘The thing about child-proof tops is that they only work on retarded children.’ Cold is settling into her fingers and toes. ‘Does my child look retarded to you, Doctor?’
She will get this right. Nothing will distract her. Except perhaps if she sees Brambles the Cat, in which case she may take time out to return him.
Wriggling her skirt upward she pinches the tub of pills between her knees. She settles on a method whereby the tip of her index finger rubs each drug up the inner plastic wall and through the container’s neck, at which point the thumb has room to assist. Each pill torpedo-shaped. White. The cigarette burn, a little pink crater of collapsed flesh, has a twinkle in it. She must remember to tug the skirt back down when she’s done. No appearance of sexual interference.
Pill number one. Chalky-bitter in her mouth. Gets a blood rush from its foul foam, pauses to let air allay her nausea. Should have brought water. Expert dry-swallower but not with these. The website said Easy Swallow, Easy Sleep. Internet: just a sticky web of half-truths and hard-ons. Should have lined her stomach too. Couldn’t eat that chicken sandwich. Felt she could taste the bird’s terror in the mayo. Two: disgusting. Three: less bad. The fourth and fifth pills add padding to her own closed world. Six catches in throat, comes back up on a cough. Stay positive. Bilesurf on the tongue will help seven and eight slip down. Amid the dark raftered trees her heart beats quickly. The sweet-scented silence is endless. The light moves. A squirrel pads its harmless face. A leggy crow steps over twigs. A single drop of thawed water shuffles down a branch. But none of this peculiar beauty is enough, not today, not for Joy, and she will make sure she gets this right.