And then, because I am nothing, I do not feel and have no words and I can move to my door and beyond it, crawl those few feet along the landing to sit and shudder by their wall and listen and listen and listen to their undressing, their mediocre little dialogue, their shifting and trying to connect and then the beat of him in her, too fast, the beat of him in her, he is too fast, the beat of him in her, the beat of him in her, the beat of him.
I don’t know when I slipped from her house and started walking for the Square. I don’t know how long the journey took. I wanted it to be longer, I’m sure of that.
The light was still on in the room, although it was morning. Nathan had worked through a day and its night, writing himself all out. He let his arms fall to his sides and rolled his shoulders, went through the usual moves for easing his pains when a piece was over. Not that he felt especially tired, or anything that he could put a name to.
He’d expected that, at this point, he might cry, but instead he was only peaceful and far away. The island was silent, too, crouched around him under the autumn dawn. He ran himself a drink from the tap, let out the dog and stood in the doorway, taking in the cool air, the cool water.
You never do exorcise anything. You don’t even manage that other thing: the making of the silk purse from the pig’s shit, from the wreckage of yourself. It doesn’t work. In the end, you only put things down to say they happened, to say you happened, and to hope you have a chance of making it all less real. Even if you never manage, even if you always still remember, anyway.
Nathan poured a little of his water over his fingertips and then baptised his forehead, his eyes, the back of his neck. The feathering breeze felt especially live where the liquid had dampened his skin. One peaceable, merciful thought turned and locked in place.
It’s a good day—right for getting things done.
Ah.
Bad head. Bad pains in the head.
I don’t think I’ve had enough milk. Milk is the missing element here—milk for the prevention of pains in the head—this I know. Jack told me. A quality, professional drinker, Jack Grace—knew his stuff. Gave me the tip about the milk. Can’t remember when precisely, but he did. Good old Jack.
Too sad to think of him now. Don’t want to be sad.
More milk, Nathan, and you won’t pass out—you will stay the course and you will get as drunk as it is possible for a mortal thing to be. Mortal drunkenness—this is the first part of the plan.
Milk, then.
Don’t like the look of it.
Half a glass?
Don’t think I could manage half a glass. A quarter glass, that’ll be enough to see me right. Or wrong. Whichever.
Unless this is actually a proper headache, a migraine or something like that, and not in any way connected with the drink.
Migraine—funny word. And it is, I happen to know, also the name of a vineyard, down somewhere in France. At least, I’m almost sure it is. Fucking stupid name for a vineyard—someone should have told them. Still, in French, it might not mean the same.
Or maybe that’s where the word comes from—you never know—it might be the name for the headache you get from drinking Migraine wine.
Not sure about the French for anything, just at this point. Not sure. No.
Nobody gives a fuck in any case.
Except the French.
So. Mouthful of milk. A mouthful’ll do. No need to go overboard.
Good lad, Nathan. God loves a trier, which would definitely mean that God loves you.
And next the brandy. Down it goes and keep it down. Yes.
Not ready for action yet, though, not by a long way. Still, I don’t have to hurry—everything’s waiting, all safe behind the fence, all prepared—by me and for me—and a neat job, if I do say so myself. Want a thing doing, you do it yourself, because no fucker else will. Too right, too fucking right.
And now for a drop of the Lagavulin. Good.
I’ve been to where they make this—Port Ellen—lovely, lovely whisky from a fairly lovely place. But I won’t go back there.
Burny stuff, the drink. You forget how uncomfy it was when you started at first—when you were young and only wanted to be older, to do old things— when you coughed yourself into adulthood with fly wee packs of Woodbine and bottles of fortified wine.
Then, eventually, the burn seems to be natural and you get used to it—but, really, there’s no change—every mouthful keeps on tasting like a little bit of hell. Which is what being adult is all about—learning how to swallow your own damnation. How to keep it down.
Only my opinion, of course. But quite an unsuitable subject for right now. Shouldn’t mention hell now, not even purgatory—limbo maybe—see how I feel.
Another go at the whisky, Nathan, another good swig, come on and take your medicine. Then we’ll start in again with the lager and the milk.
And so, and so, and so.
And I am—yes, indeedy—starting to seed ouble. No. To see double. Yes.
That’s nice. Doublethevalue, doublethefun.
Hm.
Talking of fun.
Deadfall—that’s a grand word. It practically fucking perfectly tells you the nature of itself. The toggle trip-release and the spear deadfalls—poetry in those names, you can’t deny it. Affy footery contraptions to build, though—all those toggles—pain in the arse—far more whittling involved than I would like.
And the spring spear trap, also requiring a carefully hand-crafted toggle.
Where the fuck would we be without toggles?
Up shit creek without a toggle, that’s where we’d be.
But I am a man who has toggles. Sufficient, a sufficiency, almost a superfluity of toggles. And they’re all there, waiting just for me: the toggles and pits and trips and traps and even a couple of wee spring leg snares for a laugh—do you no harm, those, not a bit.
Fff. Getting sleepy. Tha won’ do.
Lager.
Right.
Yes.
This lager’s pish. No point in it, either—doesn’t do the business—no fucking use. Want only the stuff to take the head: to confuse, bemuse, excuse. Stuff like that.
Fucking lager. Can’t think why I bought it.
Odd deal, that. Take Mary over to Ancw, bring the booze back. Not a good swap. But the one I needed.
And she knew, looking at me like that all the way—she knew there was something up. Sweet girl. Sweet girl to worry. Wish I didn’t worry her. Don’t ever mean to. I won’t do it again.
Enough of that.
It’s the lager talking—depressing bloody swill at the best of times and these are not the best of my times.
Ah, but I do remember—yes—exactly why I bought it now. That’s right, I was pretending to be about to be having a party and lager seemed convincing as a detail to add in. Six pack asacover story.
Donthink I’ve drunk this much since—
Cunt.
Go on, then, say it.
Since the night before my wedding night.
Cunt.
Night we don’t mention.
Cunt.
And then there’s the other night we don’t mention.
The one that we walked right fucking into. Grinning all the way to the fuckingslaughter. But let’s not mention it.
Cunt.
Nomention.
Cunt.
Nowife.
Cunt.
Nolife.
Cunt.
No.
Nocunt, neither.
Cunt.
Brandy.
Brandy better and whisky wetter. Fuck me—practically a poet. ’Magine that, dying a poet— who’d ’ve thought.
This thing, glass, glass thing, tumbler—getting slippery.
Bugger. Gotto be able to walk. Still have to walk.
Night we don’t mention—that night—didn’t tell her—wanted to—would’ve made the difference—had it all prepared—wee bit of poem—Gaelic old poem. Women are suckers for that. Gaelic old shit. R
emember it—
But the time has passed
and I will not see your like,
your like
your like
Fuck it—think
until I am put in the ground,
I will love you without ceasing.
My young, white love.
See? Hardly drunk atll—could be able to walk, nobother.
Found the poem somwhere, somewere—put it in the notebook like a good boy—just in case—just in case—if I ever would see her again.
Never used it.
Stupid fuck. You never used it.
My youngwhitelove.
Somepoor fucking woman wrote it forher man—buut same fucking difference. If the love fits . . .
Glad Mary’s away. Off with Jonno again. Can’t keep them apart.
Fucking like bunnies. Donblame them.
Christ.
She won’t see this. Shouldn’ see this. This me.
Christ.
Thing is not to cry because it stops me swallowing.
Stay solid. Act the man. Like usual.
Badact.
Best I can do, though.
Verybest. And. And I’ll fucking behere, be heer, be here for me like I always have been here for me, like every fucking all the time when no cunt ever else has been heer for me.
My father told me—born alone, die alone, live alone in between. Find one fucking friend, you’re bloody lucky.
Well, I did, I found him, lliked him, luky me. Looked at him dying. Saw him on the slab. Lucky me. Jacky the man my fucking friend. Mr. J. Dowd bastard Grace. Here is to you, you fuck.
In pishy lager.
And in brandy.
And in our favrite. Islay’s finest. Heerstoyou.
Good at dying, aren’twe, Jack?
Yes. About ime nowtoo. About ready.
Yes.
Here’s to me, then, Nathan Staples, who
was not a very good husband and
was not a very good father but
who always fucking wished that he could be.
I did.
Just did.
I just did wish.
To love my people. Only ever wanted that.
And then Nathan went out.
He staggered the door shut, already feeling breathless, sticky, and made the small climb to the wood, the fence, the gate. Then, whisky-slowed, he stooped and finally tumbled, both hands busy with his laces, intent on removing his boots. He frowned, twisted where he lay and persevered with his unfastening, stripping his feet to the skin.
Heat and breath clouded round him while he rolled over to right himself, crouched and knelt and trembled up on to his bared feet and then struggled for balance before attempting to move forward over the cold and suddenly terribly distant rocking turf. The grass was wet, harsher than he’d imagined and, at each step, he wondered if he’d reach it.
Nathan made it to the gate, which then took a week or two to open, and stood at the edge of the trees with his plan already fixed, politely hidden in the golden green ahead of him, primed to strike. A will he did not recognise started him swaying numbly on, the swoop and dart of small lights swarming close, the kiss of dying leaves against his face.
He hugged his arms in around his shoulders, closed his eyes and was no longer sure whether he was walking inside or outside his mind. The safe way through had escaped him, he knew that. He’d drunk it all away—part of the plan.
Four steps on and he felt a rush, the screamed white of an impact and then nothing, merciful nothing, the world gone.
A magpie.
Laughing.
Nathan blinked. A band of chill hurt cupped his head and the magpie flew, sheathed and unsheathed the sore white of its wings, and dropped up out of sight, still laughing.
Before he could prevent himself, he rolled from his back to his side, unable to rise, and was sick. A kick of pain wrenched his right shoulder, spiked and spidered behind his ear. He was sick again.
If he moved his eyes too quickly a tremor started in his jaw, but, working very gently, he could show himself which particular device had hit him, which one he’d wandered into, which one had only half caught him, had failed to finish up the job.
At the base of the tree trunk were the neat little pegs that once held the bar that once held the line that once held the deadfall’s weight. Somewhere at his back would be the other peg, the one where he’d tied down the trip at ankle height, so as to catch the ankle, to jerk the line, to shift the bar, to loose the line, to drop down the deadfall and crack out the life that Nate built. If everything had gone as he’d intended.
A low noise was raking in him under the hack of his breath, probably something to do with concussion, and he certainly had a fractured or a broken collarbone, which hurt like fuck but was not enough damage, nowhere near enough.
Serve you right for playing at it.
Next time, make it easy. Take the booze and then take pills. Just do it right. Too tired for anything else. Pills and then fuck it, fuck everything.
The noise needled at him, louder, while he tried to think if he could manage to stand up. Across the grass, the shadows were racked out, the light bloody: it must be evening, then, he must have lain that long. A fraction of him wished that he could want to be home before dark and safe and licking his wounds, but he understood in his heart that it no longer mattered to him where or when he was.
A fierce desire to leave the island hooked him, a need to be away from what he knew and what knew him. If he kept moving long enough, if he burnt up his pointless money round the world and ran just enough ahead of himself as the time zones fell away, he might finally blur to an adequate peace, get as close to death as made no difference. Pills or perpetual motion—such a wealth of choice.
Nathan heard himself laugh and then held steady beneath the ache this lashed across his skull. Then he heard the noise again, that continual noise: it rose and answered him. It was something like the scream of metal tearing metal: a high, almost mineral sound, but sticky with horrified muscle, with the unwelcome persistence of life.
The sound was impossible, coming from nowhere, twisting in the air behind him and above. He tried to scramble up and find it, understand it, to just stop it from going on, but his legs were stupid, his one good arm worse, as it scrabbled to support him while his balance Ferris-wheeled inside his skull. He looked down to see the dark shine where he’d bled into the grass. He looked up and saw a shadow, hung up against the last of the sun.
There was a pitching silence. Nathan finally stood. And then the shadow breathed and looked at him and a twitch of what he knew at once was happiness moved its length and ripped out another cry from the soft dark of its throat.
“Jesus, Eckless. Oh, my wee man. Jesus Christ.”
The dog had been caught by his hind leg, hauled aloft by a spring trap and held with no choice but to suffer his own weight.
I can’t reach to get him down. Shit, I can’t reach him—even if I could, my one arm’s fucked. God, his hip—oh, Jesus.
“Wee man, sssh. Don’t move, though. Please.” Not knowing whether to touch him or not. “Wee man, you’ll be, you’ll be fine. I’ll get you better. I’ll get you down.” Steadying the body against his dead shoulder and stroking the dog’s head, “Sssh. Sssh.” Vertigo whenever he looks up, whenever he thinks of the displaced hip, the tearing, “Wee man,” and the sick turn of his heart when Eckless nudges at his hand, whimpers.
Can’t do anything. Fuck. Must be something. No way to get up, no way to lift him—loop’s too tight around his paw, I’d have to cut the line. No fucking knife.
“Be easy now, be still. Please. Be still. I’ll think of something.”
This is my fault, this is my fucking fault. I should have checked, checked he was safely in the house, shut the fucking gate behind me, just made fucking sure that he couldn’t get in here, couldn’t follow me.
Stupid, self-obsessed fuck.
“Brave boy. You are. You’ll make it.” The dog’
s muzzle comfortable in his palm, familiarly soft.
Oh God, and I’ve been shitty to him all this week.
“Wee man, I’m going to have to leave you and you mustn’t bark and you mustn’t cry. Please.” Feeling the eyes move, gentle, through the warmth of their closed lids. “Keep still. Please, keep still. I have to go and get help.”
He’s a fucking dog, he doesn’t understand, he’ll just think I’m leaving.
God, you fucker, why are you doing this to me? He’s all I’ve got. And he doesn’t deserve it. And he’s all I had that was really mine.
“You be a good boy. You be a good boy.”
And Nathan leaves his dog, carefully, gently, and runs now, as best he can, nausea sweating him to the bone, and no turning back to stare up at the stretch of that body, at the pain he can’t stand to look at any longer and he’s praying there won’t be any more sound, more crying, although this might mean the whole thing’s over, that he’s already murdered his fucking dog.
Don’t you take him, God, don’t you fucking dare.
Yelling as he staggers, half falls, and his vision softens for a second and then drifts back, “Here I am! I’m still here! You’re OK!” and not a murmur comes to him from Eckless while he lurches beyond the fence and down the hill, thin-headed with panic and driving to stay with this first burst of his horror, the one that will keep him conscious and of use. “I’m still here!”
Richard and Lynda, they’re the closest, but they’re still not close.
What if he can’t walk again—if he loses his paw.
Shit, I’m so stupid, so fucking stupid. I don’t take care.
“I’m still here!” Nathan’s voice shearing off now and his strength slipping, his speed very difficult to judge. He runs on, head down and lolling beyond his control. He tries not to watch his naked feet, not to see where they’re bleeding and where any hurt might be. “I’m still here.”
His progress drags and surges, sickens him, eats away the possibility of an arrival until he is flailing and juddering forward like a man caught in a looping dream.
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