After the Carnage

by Tara June Winch

  This summer Elizabeth and Eugene were going away for a beach vacation; Jules and Tomas would stay at the property, and had agreed to look after their new cat, Happy.

  ‘He has tuna or ham or mincemeat, it’s all there in the fridge, and the biscuits are on the counter.’ Elizabeth handed Jules the single key and keychain.

  ‘It’s no problem, I’ve got it,’ Jules said, ‘and I’ll make sure Happy has fresh water.’

  ‘Yes of course, and inside for the night, out in the morning?’ Jules nodded with a kind smile and Elizabeth added, ‘Thank you both so much for this, I couldn’t bear taking him so early to a cattery.’

  ‘Go and have fun, have a great trip,’ Tomas called out as she lingered at their open car door. He was getting impatient with the niceties.

  Elizabeth and Eugene drove their car up the gravel drive and tooted the horn as they turned onto the main road at the top of the property. Jules threw his arm up in salutation as they walked back into their own house.

  ‘I’m not fucking touching that cat.’

  ‘Tomas, you don’t fucking have to, I’ll fucking do it.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Tomas was not in the mood for fighting; they’d done plenty of it since arriving in the countryside. There was nothing much else to do, he’d figured, no bar in the village, no train station to return to from a boozy night in the city, no taxis would even venture this far out. They’d made a great mistake leaving the city, and Tomas felt he was the only one suffering it. That’s the problem with moving as a couple from the known to the unknown, Tomas thought: if you both don’t like it the solution is simple – backtrack – but if, as was the situation for him, your spouse is happy, then you’re fucked. Or you divorce; either way you’re fucked.

  Tomas left for the local pizza restaurant, which had a terrace where he was resolved to drink and smoke and read the Sunday paper before the evening diners arrived. Jules stayed in and turned the dirt in the garden in an attempt to air out the damp earth. The sky was dimming and Jules took the key from his pocket and called out to Happy as he walked to Elizabeth and Eugene’s house. Inside the house it smelt of vanilla, and there were flowers and a tablecloth on the kitchen table, tacky bright art on the walls, magnets and photos of christenings, nieces’ and nephews’ birthday celebrations on the fridge – all evidence, Jules thought, of a woman’s presence. He left the front door wide open and called out to Happy as he snooped around. He noted the new appliances, fingered some bills on the sideboard, and ate ten pieces of chocolate orange from a partially opened box. He was writing on a Post-it 10 chocolate orange Terry’s when Happy galloped silently into the kitchen and nuzzled his head against Jules’s leg. Startled by the touch, Jules realised he did not know how to be around cats, just as he did not know how to be around children.

  ‘Hi, Happy cat,’ he said as he closed the door, and took out the ham from the fridge.

  ‘Would you like some ham, Happy cat?’

  The cat didn’t answer but ate the ham eagerly when he slapped the slice atop the biscuits. Jules opened the fridge and looked at the mustards, the wine bottles, and the jars of sweet condiments. He reached in and turned all the labels to face out. It didn’t need it, but he decided to vacuum the house and wash the windows. After that he locked Happy in and returned home in the dark. He wrote a grocery list: vanilla candles, black mustard, photo frames. Jules wanted their life in the countryside to work, he wanted friends to visit, to walk in and smell vanilla and summer cherries – and the contentment. He fell asleep that night before Tomas got back.

  At midnight Tomas turned the headlights on low as he rolled slowly into the drive. He opened the door in the dark and rubbed his hand on the side counter, his fingers finding the single key to Elizabeth and Eugene’s place. He pulled his own door closed and walked to the neighbouring house. Inside he slid his boot in the open part of the door to stop Happy getting out. He locked the door and opened the fridge, selected three bottles of white wine and set them on the kitchen counter. He took photographs of each of the labels, returned two to the fridge, opened the third with the corkscrew from the top drawer and poured the wine into a mug. He took his shoes off and walked around the house, turning on two lamps and settling down on Elizabeth and Eugene’s bed. He took his clothes off, his underwear and socks, pulled the top sheet and blanket back, and lay in the bed drinking the wine. There was a flat-screen television in the bedroom; Tomas found the remote on the bedside table and watched the re-run of a singing competition. Toward the end of the bottle he fell asleep.

  At 4.00 am he woke needing to masturbate and drink water. Happy was crying out near the front door. Tomas showered, dressed and took the empty bottle with him, switched off the electrical things and opened the door, letting Happy run out into the deep blue dark. He locked the door, put the empty wine bottle in the trunk of his car and joined Jules back in their own bed.

  Jules roused Tomas at nine. He was dressed already in his farming attire, Hilfiger farming attire. The ceiling light was on.

  ‘Did you let Happy out?’

  ‘Yeah, I let him out early this morning.’

  ‘Everything was okay? Did you give him more food?’

  ‘No, he just wanted to go out.’

  Jules hesitated but said, ‘Oh, I’m sure that’s okay.’

  ‘Of course it’s okay, fuck the light off!’

  Jules walked to the sedan, with the intention of buying fresh bread from the bakery for breakfast. It was too far into town to walk. The wind through the forest behind him sounded like a steadily nearing, speeding car or the ocean against the shoreline. He turned instinctively, only to see the gale bend the pines in unison. At the top of the driveway Jules indicated to turn onto the busy main road; he looked left, then right. On the road was a ball of white: a piece of cloud broken off? A plastic bag filled with a dirty nappy? A Styrofoam relic from the past – or a dead cat?

  Jules ripped at the handbrake, ran into the wind and found Happy. Happy’s eyes were open and he was panting fast, blood was at his open mouth, he’d shat over the bitumen. Jules ran to the car to get the picnic blanket from the trunk. He ran back as passing cars slowed to look but didn’t stop. He scooped up Happy, pulled his seatbelt across his shoulder and drove to the village, the cat on his lap. The car stank. He realised he didn’t know how to be around the maimed either. He cooed, ‘Happy, shhhh, it’s okay, Happy, be happy, Happy, shhhh.’

  He knew where the vet was – it was a small town – in the row of shops near the bakery. He pulled in and ran into the vet with the picnic blanket and Happy. Upon seeing them the vet immediately opened a door into a room with a high metal table. Jules placed the package of shit and blood and cat onto the surface. ‘I don’t know how long he was on the road for, I just found him two minutes ago.’

  ‘Has he been here before?’

  ‘I don’t know, he’s my neighbour’s cat, I’m cat-sitting.’

  The woman listened to Happy’s chest with a stethoscope and then stuck a thermometer into Happy’s butt. Jules looked away to be polite.

  ‘Okay, I’m going to call the vet hospital. We’re too small here, and they will do a radiograph. It’s ten minutes’ drive, it’ll be fine.’

  ‘But you’re a vet!’

  ‘Yes, but we’re too small, I’m going to give him something for the pain first though, okay?’ She stuck a needle in his paws, but the breathing was still fast and Happy still looked the same.

  ‘Go now.’ She picked the package up and pushed it into Jules’s arms. ‘Go fast.’

  Tomas kept sleeping while Jules drove twenty miles an hour over the speed limit. He felt entrusted with a momentous task, like an ambulance driver. ‘Come on, stay alive,’ he yelled now, as he overtook cars and drove over the top of roundabouts. Happy was still alive, panting just the same, but he cried out once they pulled up at the vet hospital.

  There they did the
same routine: stethoscope, butthole. Then they put a catheter into his little leg, strapping it with what Jules thought looked like very sticky plaster tape and then took him away for his X-rays. Jules was told to go and sit in the waiting room.

  I guess I’ll get the bread, flashed the text message on Jules’s phone.

  He couldn’t think of anything sufficiently passive-aggressive to reply, so he didn’t. He thought about calling Elizabeth and Eugene, but decided he shouldn’t ruin their vacation yet. Jules looked at the pictures of humans in the animal magazines. After he’d looked through an entire stack he walked around checking the astronomical prices of pet food arranged on the shelves.

  ‘Mr …? Err, Happy?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  ‘I’m Mark, the vet who has been monitoring Happy – you are?’

  ‘Jules, Happy’s … friend.’

  ‘Okay, I am going to explain everything we’ve tested. Come through.’

  ‘He’s going to be okay?’

  ‘Well, he was hit by a car, the panting was not just shock, a lot of organs were crushed against his lungs and one of his lungs has completely collapsed.’

  ‘Oh my gosh …’

  ‘The next issue is his brain, unfortunately he has bleeding on the brain.’

  Jules hadn’t understood animal–human love yet, so surely it was too early to deal with animal–human loss, with death? A panic attack ensued. He lay on the ground, weakly content at the rushing familiarity of this emotion. Mark stood over him.

  ‘Frankly, I recommend you put him to sleep. There are no cat brain surgeons in the entire country.’

  ‘How much would it cost to fly one in?’

  ‘About twenty thousand dollars.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But Happy will never have a good life again, he’ll have trouble defecating, he’ll be in pain regardless.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘I’m very sorry, take some moments to think about it.’

  Jules tried, but no thoughts surfaced. He was led to Happy’s enclosure. The cage’s door was ajar, revealing the powder-blue bathroom mat beneath his body. His jaw had closed more now and his breathing was still fast, though slower than during the car ride. Happy’s entire body and face had changed: he looked more like a wolf, like something wild that had been formed in the woods, as if he had aged and shrunk a thousand years within hours. When Jules patted his fingers against the ridge of the cat’s nose, Happy let out a sound that was neither meow nor growl, but something howling. Jules recognised the universal call, that cry of pain, that animal sound – people made it too. Jules had made it before. Tomas had never. Jules called for Mark and asked him, without words, to put Happy to sleep.

  ‘Would you like to hold him when we give him the injection?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Sit here.’ Mark pulled out a chair for Jules and laid a paper towel over his lap. The towel crackled like Christmas wrapping. Mark placed Happy in Jules’s lap, and the cat wailed and howled out with all his teeth exposed. Jules cried out too, but pulled his lips over his teeth.

  ‘He’s in a lot of pain, even on morphine it hurts.’ Mark assured him that this was the best choice.

  ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘No time at all, it will be instant.’

  Jules held the cat in his arms awkwardly, angling him against his torso as he imagined he might a baby or a large pumpkin, and looked into Happy’s wide eyes.

  ‘You don’t really know me but where you’re going there is going to be no pain and so many mice to torture, and I’m sorry and I think I love you.’ Jules cried then with his teeth exposed and Mark put the needle in the catheter and then Happy was still, he felt limp, but still of his structure, he had not gone away from his bones yet. Happy’s eyes were open and Jules put his hand over them to make them close.

  ‘It doesn’t work like that, the eyes don’t close like they do in the films,’ Mark said with a hand on Jules’s shoulder.

  ‘Oh, sorry.’ Jules took his hand away and took the corner of the paper towel and held it over Happy’s eyes so he didn’t have to look at them.

  ‘Everyone does that,’ Mark said.

  When Jules returned to his car he could smell the cat still, not the scent of shit and blood anymore, but the scent of animal. It was as if Happy, on his way to the other side, had marked his territory: on the road; at the veterinary clinic – the first and then the final one; in the car. It was like the almost death of winter being pardoned by the floral wafts of spring. But Happy’s scent would go eventually, Jules thought, the excretion hadn’t left him undead.

  As Jules arrived home Tomas was walking toward Elizabeth and Eugene’s house.

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘At the vet.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I found Happy on the road this morning.’

  ‘He was hit?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s dead?’

  ‘Yes, now.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘They are going to freak out.’

  ‘Did you call them?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Don’t, just wait until they’re back, it’s a new cat so they can’t be too upset.’ Tomas sounded bored already with the conversation.

  ‘Maybe because it’s a new cat they’ll love it even more, they’ll be more upset,’ Jules said.

  They studied each other for a minute.

  ‘What’s that?’ Jules asked, pointing to the wine bottle in Tomas’s hand.

  ‘I drank a bottle, just replacing it.’

  ‘That reminds me – I have to find chocolate oranges too.’

  But all Jules could think of was that before the vet had taken Happy away for disposal, Jules had noticed how alive the cat was: still but alive and part of life. He’d felt shocked by that, not the dying and the dead animal itself, but by the lack of contrast between Happy alive and dead. There was so little difference; Happy just didn’t move.

  Failure to Thrive

  First Day

  I knew if I reached the seat first, presented my argument as to why I should be president of the missions committee, they’d just let me have it. I angled my knees toward the far corner of the auditorium.

  ‘Finally, on a lighter note, while you’re all here working at the United Nations, you may, from time to time, come into contact with celebrities, our ambassadors – for pity’s sake, don’t ask them for autographs, don’t mention your favourite film of theirs! When they are here they want to be taken seriously as part of the Secretariat, representatives of the United Nations. Best policy, utterly ignore them. Please. Now, thank you for spending the time orientating yourselves today, welcome to all our interns again – please make your way into your interested groups.’

  I ran as fast as I could walk and got the chair. People began to gather, I sat and made small talk with some of the others standing around, acting as if I’d built the chair myself. I introduced myself to a few young bleeding hearts. I didn’t want to be here just as much as all they wanted was to be here. But I had no choice: guy from Nigeria doesn’t get an internship at Goldman Sachs. I knew for a fact they rejected almost every blind application that came in; every Goldman Sachs intern came from the World Bank, the IMF, or straight from the Ivy League. I was no Ivy Leaguer. All I needed was to get through my stint at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs here, make an impression at the World Bank or the IMF through the missions committee, do six months at one of the two, make a further impression, and then I’d do whatever I could to get my foot into Goldman as a summer associate intern. I’d do anything, and I had one year in meagre inheritance savings to do it.

  They agreed I could be president of the missions committee, they couldn’t argue – I was first to the chair after all. We finished our orientation; we all got plastic lanyards
and blue IDs with our photographs. I went to the UN shop right away and purchased a covered lanyard in vinyl, so the people in the Secretariat couldn’t tell if I was an intern or not. Despite not wanting to be here, I still wanted to look the part of someone that was, at the very least, paid.

  I rode the 6 train up to my apartment on 116th Street; I’d moved in a week prior and thought that living in Manhattan was Manhattan, which meant what it does to everyone not from New York: Ray’s Pizza, yellow cabs, Broadway, Times Square. At 116th and Lexington there was only Sam’s Famous Pizza and someone was often outside the place fighting about the fact it wasn’t a Ray’s.

  I’d found Pedro’s apartment on Craigslist. The day I went to look at the apartment, it was already too late for me to find something else. The ‘bedroom’ was just the end of a kitchen: a cloth partition between the oven and the cot was the beginning and end of my privacy. It was not ideal, yet I felt a fondness toward Pedro right away. When I first arrived in the apartment and saw the telenovela playing on his laptop it had reminded me of Nollywood and my mum with her hair tied in a gele, moisturising her feet and watching her romance shows on the evenings we had electricity.

  ‘It’s a telenovela, you know it?’ Pedro asked, noticing.

  ‘It’s like Bollywood?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Okay, we have the same in Nigeria, it’s called—’

  ‘Nollywood, right? Yeah I love it too man! You know I’m from Brazil – lots of Nigerians in Brazil!’

  ‘Right, the Candomblé?’

  ‘That’s right, brother,’ he’d said and slapped me on the back.

  Even if the neighbourhood seemed shady, I’d felt good about living with a guy who was into watching shows like this; he was harmless.

  I called my brother a week after the internship started; he’d gone to Germany to do studies in international business a year earlier.

  ‘So Idriss, you’re the president?’ My brother, Abdullah, was brushing his teeth over Skype.