by Krissy Kneen
She laughed, but he was still lost to the last of the pleasure, rocking up and back and she clung to his shoulders and found herself grinning into his neck.
And then he was still except for the thrumming of his heart against her chest.
She let him lift her off him and lay her on the couch and spread her legs out so that he could look at her all swollen and sticky.
She liked him looking at her like this. She liked that his eyes were wide as if she had given him some rare gift. Then he bent his head over, sweat dripping from his forehead, and he placed his lips on her cunt and he kissed her and this was how it ended. Lips wet and smiling when he pulled away.
‘I want more of that,’ she told him. Her voice was strange to her, thin and breathless.
‘I want that too. And…after. More nights like this.’
She nodded. And then she breathed out, smiling.
The dog started to bark again.
William pulled away. ‘What’s wrong, boy?’
It was over. That was the end of everything: Jessica knew this even as he pressed a hand against her stomach and urged her to stay where she was while he moved to the window, naked, hard again, as if searching for her in the cold empty dark.
Dog or cat or tiger. Tiger, tiger burning bright.
She was putting her shirt back on, strangely embarrassed now. ‘You should go.’
She wanted him to put his clothes on. She wanted him to step away from the window.
‘There’s nothing out there.’
She wanted to turn back the clock and undo what they had done. She wanted to do it again.
‘I think you should go.’
‘There’s no one out there. It’s a dog or a cat.’
‘Please go.’
And he turned towards her then, deflated. ‘Okay.’
Matthew would never have left. Matthew would have talked her into letting him stay. Maybe she wanted him to stay. But it was too late now.
She watched him pick up his clothes. He looked so chastened, Jessica wanted to reach out and hug him, but she couldn’t. He shut the door of the bathroom and when he came out, dressed, cowed, she took his huge hand in hers.
‘I—thanks—more than…’ She lifted his hand to her face and pressed her lips into the centre of his palm. ‘I’m sorry. Just the barking and…it’s maybe too…’ She gestured to the cold emptiness of the cabin. ‘It was so good. Honestly. I haven’t felt like that in—’
He nodded. ‘I would like to see you again.’
Jessica nodded. Yes, she knew he wanted to see her again. And yes.
Brutus barking and they both looked towards the window.
‘I don’t feel good leaving you. Not if there is the possibility that someone…’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’
‘Will you?’
‘Yes. I promise.’
‘Okay.’
He kissed her. It made her uncomfortable to be kissed like this with some dog or cat or tiger out there in the dark. The world had been banished for a moment; now it was back. She kissed him and then pressed her hands against his chest and moved him away from her gently.
As he left he glanced around nervously. Nothing. Nothing out there but the dog barking and barking and sometimes howling as if someone, something was lurking out there in the dark. She closed the door quickly behind him and leaned against it. The world was back and all the things in it and all the things that she had done or had done to her. She walked back down the corridor to stand beside Brutus, growling and barking by her knee.
And the blood hit her like a wave. She was drowning in it. She was gasping, sitting up in bed. No, not bed. The couch, because the dog had destroyed her bed. Brutus and his constant barking, and eventually the falling falling falling into dream. The rifle in her hands, aiming, each time something different in her sights. She didn’t want to remember but she was remembering now. That last dream, the one where she could line up her sight, picking out her mother, no, Philip, no…
William. Such a surprise to see William in the sights.
Squeezing the trigger.
‘William?’
No. He wasn’t here; she had sent him away.
The blood knocking her back.
‘Will?’
And only the sound of Brutus barking barking barking. No stopping that dog. No moving him from his vigil by the sliding door.
It was almost light. The dog was silhouetted by the coming morning. Little glints of sun on the shifting tide. She should be up and dragging the boat out. She longed for the habit of casting out a net, pulling in a pot crawling with the insect legs of crayfish. She stood tentatively. She felt sore, as if she had been running, and then she remembered the overwhelming pleasure of last night. The sense of safety, the wonderful freedom of letting go. Safe in those huge hands. Except…
They hadn’t used a condom. Before Matthew, at uni, she would never have slept with a man or even a woman without protection. She was a scientist. She knew the risks. And here she was now, running blind and headlong into consequences. Infection, pregnancy, the damning judgment of the people in town. What if someone really had been out there in the dark, watching them? Grieving widow turned suddenly into treacherous slut.
Brutus was still barking.
She picked up her phone and brought up William’s contact. Hey. Thanks for last night. I can’t stop thinking about it. I would like to see you soon. Her thumb hovered over send.
Would she? Would she like to see him soon?
Bark. Bark. Bark.
‘For fuck’s sake!’
She was fully dressed. She hadn’t even changed into her pyjamas. She opened the sliding door and Brutus bolted, down the stairs, out into the tiny garden, leaping over the rocks and landing in the damp sand. She saw him kick up sand as he ran. She called out to him, too slow coming down the stairs to see where he had gone.
‘Brutus?’
And just the sound of the waves coming back to her.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ she said again, climbing down onto the beach. The tide had left a line of jellyfish almost at the rocks, glistening in the reluctant grey light. Her boat had been moved, shifted to one side by the rising water. It lay sideways, still tied to the tree where she always moored it, but blocking her usual climb down from the rocks. She followed the dog’s tracks, the only footprints on the beach. They raced past three other shacks then left the sand and disappeared into the grassy climb at the verge.
‘Brutus!’
Nothing. Not a sound. Not a trace of his footsteps. Jessica began to walk along the road. Some of the houses had lights on. Some had smoke pouring from their chimneys, some were cold and sleeping, abandoned till the tiny window of summer opened again.
‘Brutus!’
And the few occupied windows lighting up now, one after the other. She was calling them out of dreams and she didn’t care. She had lost her boyfriend. She wasn’t going to lose her damn dog as well.
There wasn’t enough petrol in either car. Christ. She swore as she searched the boxes under the house. There was a hose. She cut a length of it. How could a person be such a fucking idiot? She sucked, tasted the bitter petrol just in time and slipped the end of the hose into the bucket. Spat onto the grass. She held the hose until the petrol trickled and stopped. Add it to what was left in the other tank…maybe enough to get her to Dover, to a petrol station. She poured it carefully into the Mazda. Piece of Shit: her name for the car with its dodgy lights and terrible turning circle and the doors that needed to be slammed or they wouldn’t shut, and yet it was a fuel-efficient piece of shit. At least compared to Matthew’s four-wheel drive.
She checked her phone. No message from William. She tried to call. Waited till it rang out before climbing into the car.
As she navigated the precarious turns around the cliffs, she looked down to the water. She turned the wheel hard, correcting a drift towards the precipice, and the flyers slipped off the passenger seat
. Missing dog. She had used the same template as the posters for her missing husband. Same font, same position of the photograph—not a photo of Brutus but a similar labrador that she’d found on the internet.
It made her look bad, she supposed. This apparent inability to keep track of her loved ones.
If you don’t find the lost relative in the first forty-eight hours then it is unlikely that you will find him at all. She pressed redial and let the phone sit on the passenger seat, shouting out into the abyss.
It was her, the blonde girl. Perhaps she had always worked at the petrol station. Jessica rarely filled the tank herself. Matthew liked to drive; she liked to stay close to home. He would take the car out for supplies, bring it home with a full tank. She had been here a few times, of course, but she had barely noticed the blonde woman. Just another local yokel with her T-shirt knotted to show off her spray tan, her nails too long for someone who works a petrol pump.
The smell of the perfume hit her like a slap. Jasmine. She almost choked on it. She wished Brutus was in the back seat. She wanted him to recognise the smell, to reassure her that this really was the same scent, the smell she had found on Matthew’s shirt. She wanted the dog to bark at this woman.
She remembered last night. That little flip in her guts. No dog to bark now. No message from William on her phone.
The woman frowned when she saw her standing there, second in line to pay. The man in front of her hitched his trousers up with his thumb, zipped his padded coat and stepped out into the cold. Jessica shuffled up to the counter.
‘Seventy-four fifty.’
‘I…’ She shut her mouth, drew breath. This was ridiculous. Matthew was gone. Whatever was done was done. There could be no recriminations now. So what if he’d been fucking this girl, what good would it do to find out the details? And maybe—a tiny maybe—she was just a friend. A goodbye hug, the sweet smear of jasmine on a collar.
‘I need some two-stroke.’
The woman stood staring, her lips bright red and slightly parted. Her eyes cold and narrow. The perfume. Jessica struggled with a surge of hatred. If something had happened between her and Matthew it was on Matthew, not this woman. Jessica watched and hated the cartoonish sway of the woman’s hips. Heels, high heels working in a servo. Bleached blonde hair. How could Matthew fall for a cliché? She felt her mouth tightening as the woman bent for a small container of two-stroke oil; bent further for a five-litre can.
She handed them both to Jessica. ‘Go crazy, lady.’
Jessica filled the can, squeezing all her hatred into her clenched hand on the nozzle of the petrol pump. She wanted to throw it all into the car and drive off without paying. She tried to remain calm, almost pleasant. She handed over her credit card. The woman waited for the payment to go through, looked over her shoulder, nodded with her chin. ‘Nice car.’
‘Have you got a problem?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Have you got a problem with me?’
‘Do you want a receipt?’
‘No.’ Jessica took her card back. ‘Thank you.’
She sat in the car, her chest tight. Turned the ignition on and the car lurched forward. She’d left it in gear.
‘Fuck.’ She tried again. Successfully starting the car seemed like an achievement. Her hands were shaking. ‘Fuck.’
She leaned forward and her palm hit the horn and it beeped. It felt good. She slammed her fist into it again. Very good. She leaned on the horn. She thumped it again and again. People were staring at her. Crazy lady, crazy with grief. She held her hands to her face and screamed into them. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She had her petrol and her two-stroke. She had put up posters for her missing dog and missing boyfriend; a lover also missing, or avoiding her. She eased the car out of the servo and back onto the road. She wanted to be on the water. She wanted Brutus in the front of the boat and the icy chill of the wind off a gentle tide and the fish below. She hadn’t realised how much she needed that dog. Only a few days and the loss of him would destroy her. She wanted William back on her couch, she wanted him inside her. She pressed redial and glanced down at her phone as the call rang and rang and rang out unanswered.
Fuck.
But then the phone buzzed and she flinched. She pulled over to the soft leaf litter on the verge.
It wasn’t William’s number. She picked the phone up warily.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi.’
And the disappointment was like the water in the bath running out, gravity suddenly pulling at her, all the weight of the world returning.
‘You didn’t come.’
And only now recognising the voice as Maude’s.
‘No.’
‘We just wanted to make sure you haven’t been speaking to anyone.’
‘No.’
‘Because we’ll know, sooner or later. Probably sooner. Fucking town.’
‘I haven’t.’
‘Because grief sends you crazy. Crazy enough to sit in a car beeping the horn over and over again for no reason. Don’t worry. I’ve been there.’
Jessica glanced over her shoulder back to the empty road. The water was still draining out of the bath. She felt heavier and heavier. She had never weighed so much.
‘Anyway. We are just checking in to see if you’re okay.’
‘Right.’
‘Let you know we’re looking out for you. Day and night. Just say the word. You don’t even have to say the word. We’ll be there. Do you understand?’
‘I think you’ve made it clear.’
‘Benefits of country living. All this neighbourliness.’
‘Okay.’
She stopped the call. Dialled William one more time. Come on. Come on! And something was wrong. Brutus was gone. William wasn’t answering. Perhaps she had made it all up. Perhaps it was all an extended hallucination: the coven of women, the hunting, the dog, the man, the sex. How could any of it be real? She was losing her mind.
She drove home on a familiar road but everything around her seemed less solid. It was insane; all that had happened was insane. She would wake up knowing it was a nightmare or she would find herself locked up. She pulled up outside her shack and there was Matthew’s car, still dented in the front fender. So it had happened. It was all true, or some of it anyway.
And if it was all true—had she killed a man? Had she slept with a man? Had there ever been a dog to lose?
Jessica woke up on the couch, disoriented. Where had the day gone? She had checked her phone about a thousand times. She remembered defrosting some smoked salmon. She did not remember eating it, but maybe she had. She certainly wasn’t hungry now.
The fire was out. She reached through the icy dark to open the door and put another log on the last embers. There was that animal smell again. It was so strong that she turned, expecting to see it—the dog, the tiger, the devil—standing close behind her. She felt the prickle of warning up her back. She wanted Brutus. She wanted William. She should call him again. One last time. She had offended him somehow, something she had said. He just needed a day to recover.
She shouldn’t pester him now. Matthew always said she fussed too much. She never gave a man his space. Men needed their space. And she could be bossy, too. She should never have sent William away like that.
Maybe she should call him one more time. Apologise for bossing him around. She reached for her phone and felt the house shake. Footfalls.
‘Brutus?’
Human steps. On the back stairs, the ones that came up from the beach.
Who could be walking up those stairs? Maude? William?
She remembered the police arriving at the beginning of things.
If she hadn’t opened the door that first night, if she had let them knock and knock, she would not know that Matthew was lost. She could have stayed hidden inside. She’d had enough food for weeks, maybe months. She should never have opened the door.
There was a scrabbling sound there now. Scratching, dragging sounds, and
then, at last, a knocking. Whoever it was knew she had heard him. He was waiting just beyond that curtain, ready to deliver the news. Of course it would be bad news; there could be no other kind.
Jessica dragged herself towards the door. There were things in her way, a shopping bag with cans in it, still not unpacked. When had she bought these supplies? Not today, surely. She stepped over her handbag, dropped where she had been standing, a pile of newspapers spilling out across the lino.
Was there a story to file? What day was it?
She put her hand out to touch the curtain. When she saw the police officer’s face, she would know. A body had been found. Some new clue. The promise of sadness set like black ice on the road.
She gripped the curtain and eased it open.
There was a moon. Without it she would not have been able to see him, his face. As it was…
Unmistakable.
‘Matthew…’ A catch in her throat.
Why didn’t she fling the sliding glass door open? Where have you been? she should be saying. You scared me half to death. Just enough light to see that it was him, but something in his eyes, a wildness. Something new, or had it always been there? Had she forgotten him, so quickly?
He wasn’t wearing anything at all and he was thin. So thin, with the light playing on the ribs, painting stripes on his pale flesh. He had never been thin. He was a shadow of the man she loved.
Jessica put her hand up to the glass. Matthew mirrored her gesture, his skin against hers. His mouth was not touched by even a hint of a smile. His eyes were flat, but smart. Curious.
And she knew. Realised with a flood of relief that she didn’t need to wonder anymore. This was what happened to Matthew. This.
Slowly, Jessica slid the door open.
There was blood on his thigh. Leaves in his hair, which had grown longer, clumping in thick strands of mud. He stepped into the shack and she could smell him. He was ripe in the way that homeless people are ripe. Old sweat, unwashed. Not quite the same smell as the animal reek she had smelled on her mattress, but similar. Wild human instead of wild beast. There were scratches on his arms and his back. His ribs stuck out rudely.