Fauna

by Alissa York

  Guy pats the tow truck as he passes it, as though its blue flank were sensible of his presence, desirous of his touch. Edal steps out from behind the sign, showing herself in full. “Hi.”

  “Hi, yourself.” Led Zeppelin shows where the jacket hangs open, the name in red, the dirigible itself cracked white against black. He draws the key up on its chain, fumbles a little with the padlock—the first time she’s seen any part of him unsure.

  Stepping into the yard, she finds herself scanning the place for Stephen, uncertain whether she wants him to be there or not.

  “All on my ownsome,” Guy says behind her, the padlock chucking shut in his hand. “Stephen’s out walking his dogs.”

  She turns to him. “He has dogs?”

  “He volunteers down at the shelter.”

  “Oh.”

  He tucks the key away. “We ought to get you a copy made.”

  “What? Oh, no, I—”

  “Why not? You’re a friend, aren’t you?”

  She feels her face grow hot. The day’s turning close, the air ever so slightly tarry. First smog advisory of the year.

  “Come on.” He touches her elbow briefly. “I was just going to exercise Red.”

  It’s what she’s been hoping for without knowing it. They’re halfway across the yard when the phone sounds its bygone peal.

  “Shit.” Guy wheels and pelts for the office. “Back in a sec.”

  He banks to take the corner, as though he’s got a motorcycle beneath him, or a horse. In his absence Edal becomes aware of the parkway. It would be like living alongside a waterfall, only minus the rainbows, the cool, clean air.

  “Sorry,” he calls, jogging back. “Pileup on the Gardiner.” He runs a hand through his hair. “You want to stick around?”

  Edal looks at her feet. She can see herself sitting on his doorstep, getting thirsty, maybe even heat-stroked, while she waits for him to return. Stephen or Lily showing up to find her passed out in the dirt. “I should probably get going.”

  She lifts her eyes to the zeppelin on his chest. It floats for a moment, then buckles as he twists to shuck off the jacket. He gives it a shake, swings and settles it across her shoulders. “You fly him.”

  She looks up. “Me?”

  “You know what to do, don’t you? You watched me.”

  “I guess.”

  He raises both hands to the neck of his T-shirt. “It’s the same key as the front gate. You’ll have to let me out.”

  It’s a simple enough gesture, him lifting the silver chain up over his own head and guiding it over hers. The key settles at her breastbone. She takes it between her finger and thumb.

  The red-tail’s getting tired. Its wings spread slowly now, grudgingly, and it looks darker somehow, as though its feathers have been oiled. The last few passes, it’s glared at Edal with what she can only interpret as rage.

  The rawhide drags at her arms. Reaching the door end, she skids and spirals round in time to see the cloud cover part. Light like a knife through grubby wool. It cuts across plumage, a gleaming, seconds-long span, until the hawk contracts to land in its tree. Edal stops, panting hard, hands on her knees. Suddenly the rawhide is unbearable. She straightens to struggle out of its muggy hold.

  “Hot?”

  Edal lets out a small cry. Stephen stands watching her, just outside the cage. “You startled me.”

  He blinks, black lashes sweeping. “Where’s Guy?”

  “He got a call.” She pauses, gulping air. “Pileup on the Gardiner.”

  He stares a moment longer. “Want something to drink?”

  The kitchen is cool, a boxy air conditioner humming in the window beside the door. Edal pulls a chair out from the table and sits.

  Stephen opens the fridge. “Iced tea okay?”

  “Sure.”

  He watches the drinks in his hands as he approaches, like a child afraid to spill. Placing her glass on the table, he sits down opposite with his own. His cheeks are flushed, but so far as she knows they generally are.

  “Thanks.” She drinks, ice shunting against her teeth. “So, dog walking.”

  He looks up.

  “Guy mentioned. It’s good. They go nuts cooped up in there all day.”

  He nods, takes a mouthful and sets down his glass.

  “How many do they let you take out?”

  “Only one at a time. You get the easy ones at first, until they figure out what you can handle.”

  “You’re good with them, I bet.” Somehow this is the wrong thing to say; the lashes drop, as though in answer to some internal twinge. “I’ve seen you with Billy,” she adds, “that’s all.”

  His smile comes back halfway. “He’s great, isn’t he?”

  “He’s a beauty.” Probably best to leave it there. She lifts her glass and drains it.

  “Want some more?” he asks, already rising.

  Edal’s never been good at knowing when people are just being polite. Not enough practice. Better to leave early just in case. “Okay, thanks.” It must be the thirst talking, all that moisture she sweated out. At the same time, she becomes aware of a need to pee. “Mind if I use the bathroom?”

  He unseals the fridge door. “Go ahead.”

  It’s a small room, uncluttered, surprisingly clean. Paper on the dispenser, almost an entire roll. The toilet’s an old one, the bowl yellowed with age, but the seat shows no splashes, no errant hairs. No need to crouch.

  The sink and surrounding counter are of a piece, one of those hard plastic slabs with a seashell-shaped depression. A little grime around the taps, but nothing unusual. There’s a cake of white soap in a shallow, ribbed dish, a can of Barbasol and two plastic Bics. Two toothbrushes and a pinched tube of Crest in a cheap black mug.

  Edal washes her hands. No hand towels—that would be downright spooky—just a couple of what look to be beach towels, one garish as a fruit salad, the other navy blue with orange tropical fish. She lowers her nose to the fish towel—Guy’s towel, she decides, the more mature of the two. No funk, not even a hint of mildew. No false-flower detergent smell either. Just towel. Used recently to dry a clean man. She draws another deep breath through her nose before using it to dry her hands.

  When she emerges, Stephen is standing beside the table, holding her full glass. “Want to see something?” The look on his face is disarming—he could be ten years old.

  “Sure.”

  He sets the iced tea down and turns, stepping quickly to the bright green door—the door to what is, almost certainly, his bedroom. Not ten years old, Edal reminds herself, twice that. She follows several steps behind him and halts in the frame.

  The room is deep like the kitchen, neat and spare. An old four-poster stretches along the far wall, its head lined up with the door that must lead through to the office. Stephen hasn’t much to his name. Hooks on the wall dangle T-shirts, a couple of pairs of jeans. Runners and a pair of sand-coloured boots lined up on the floor beneath them. Heavy, lace-up boots. Edal’s eyes skip again to the bed. Plain tan sheets, a single grey blanket tucked tight. The pieces shift a moment longer before clicking into place—his knack for silent approaches, his unnerving, straight-backed stance. Even now, as he lowers himself to his knees at the bedside, his movements are quiet and controlled.

  For a moment, Edal imagines he’s about to pray. Is that what he wanted to show her? Is she expected to join in?

  Only now he’s on his hands and knees, then knees and elbows, reaching beneath the bed. Whatever the treasure is, it must be fragile; he pulls it toward him with care. Edal steps into the room, peering past his rounded back. A mid-sized dog carrier comes into view. She draws alongside him and kneels.

  There are four of them, eyes wide open, hands reaching through the metal grid of the carrier door. Raccoon kits, five, maybe six weeks old. One gives a whickering cry.

  “Hey, fuzzballs,” Stephen says, and the kits break into a squeaking chorus. “Okay, okay.” He shuffles back on his knees and stands.

  Edal l
ooks up. “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be right back.” He turns and slips out the door.

  She stares after him for a moment before turning back to the kits. Their cries are working on her, causing her to feel vaguely upset. She considers rising to see what’s keeping him, but thinks better of leaving the babies alone. Kits, not babies. For God’s sake, they live in a cage under a bed.

  When Stephen returns, he’s carrying a cookie tin. Standing up in it, like rubber-capped toy soldiers, four undersized baby bottles. He kneels carefully, setting the tin down between them.

  “They can all get going together for once,” he says softly, handing Edal two bottles. “No squabbling.”

  He opens the door, the kits spilling out to crowd around his knees. Without further ado, he upends his bottles and guides their little yellow nipples into the two nearest mouths.

  “Go ahead,” he tells her, and when she does the same for the other two, they latch on with surprising strength. One bunches over onto its side and twists its neck, cheeks and throat pumping. The other rolls onto its back, offering up the smooth maroon pads of its little hands.

  When Stephen glances up at her, she can’t help but return his smile. “Where’d you find them?”

  “Hole in a tree.”

  “You took them from their den?”

  “Well, yeah.” His smile fades. “Their mother was dead.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean, am I sure? Dead is dead.”

  “No, I mean, how did you know it was their mother?”

  He looks down at the kits, all four of them nursing hard. “I knew.”

  “It’s just, sometimes people mean well, but—”

  “They would have died if I’d left them.” His voice is still quiet but no longer entirely soft.

  “Okay.” She focuses on the levels dropping in all four bottles. “Is this cow’s milk?”

  “No, it’s not cow’s milk. It’s the stuff you give kittens. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Okay, sorry. It’s just—shouldn’t you be starting them on solid food?”

  “I am,” he says sharply. “I will. What makes you such an expert anyway?”

  “Me? Nothing. I’m not.” A squeal alerts her to the fact that her hand has shifted, popping the nipple from one of her hungry mouths. The kit kneads the air fretfully. “Sorry,” Edal says again, and she nuzzles the tip back in.

  It would appear Lily’s not a fan. She’s still picking at her first helping while Guy and Stephen go back for thirds, even though Kate went with a mild-to-medium rogan josh. At least Lily came. Kate thought she saw Edal frown at the mention of curry, and sure enough, she hasn’t turned up at all.

  “We should have this every night,” Stephen says, scooping up a last forkful of rice.

  Kate smiles. “You liked it?”

  “More than like.”

  “Ditto,” says Guy.

  “I meant because of The Jungle Book, though,” Stephen says. “Indian food for an Indian story.”

  “I don’t know how Indian it is.” Kate hears the edge in her voice. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the book. It’s just not—he’s not Indian.”

  “Sorry.” Stephen flushes. “I didn’t—”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  “We should have raw meat.” Lily stands, reaching for Kate’s plate. “Antelope, maybe, or monkey. If we want to be like the book.”

  Guy laughs. “Cut down on the dishes.”

  “Speaking of which.” Stephen rises, takes his own plate and Guy’s, and follows Lily to the sink.

  Guy stands a moment later and heads for the corner room. Kate’s not sure what just happened. She reaches back for her ponytail and holds it. When Billy nudges up against her, it’s all she can do not to cry.

  Tonight’s chapter is uneven. “The King’s Ankus” starts off promisingly, but Kate feels her attention begin to wander during the scene in the ancient vault. She has about as much interest in the mounds of forgotten treasure as Mowgli does. When the jewelled ankus catches the wolf-boy’s fancy, her mind wanders even more.

  Lily’s right, The Jungle Book is about the animals—at least the best parts are: Mowgli wrestling with Kaa until the great snake tires of the game and sends him sprawling; the pair of them swimming silently together in the pitchy-black pool. Kate tunes back in when Mowgli returns to the jungle and meets up with Bagheera. What a thing it would be to go running with a panther—even if it was to follow a trail of corpses, tracking the cursed ankus from man to greedy man.

  She’s not sure what she expects when the reading’s over. Anything but this sprung silence, the four of them staring at the closed book as though they’re waiting for it to move.

  “Okay.” She rises. “Well, thanks again, Guy.”

  “Any time. Especially if you bring the food.”

  Billy trundles out from beneath the table to press against her. “Bye, Billy.”

  “I’ll let you out,” Stephen says.

  “Oh. Okay, thanks. See you, Lily.”

  “Yeah.” Lily’s got the book in her hand now. She doesn’t look up.

  Stephen walks ahead of her to the gate—part gentleman as he holds it open, part warden as he secures it again.”Good night, Kate.” His face not unfriendly, but perhaps not as friendly as before.

  “Good night.”

  She’s tempted to run home, flip-flops or no. Why she wore them tonight, she can’t say—except that they’re red and new, and her feet were craving contact with the spring air. The leather rubs between her toes as she walks. She might have to go barefoot part of the way; blisters would mess with tomorrow’s run.

  At Broadview, she catches herself looking back, hoping to see a pair of inseparable figures, one upright and willowy, the other stump-like on all fours. The street is a void. Three short blocks until it turns back on itself alongside the wrecking yard and comes to an end.

  She keeps her shoes on through Chinatown, bends to slip them off as she leaves the coloured light behind. The pavement is smooth enough, but she keeps her eyes down, scanning for a spring smear of dog crap or the warning glister of glass. Which may be why she doesn’t hear them coming, why she jumps when Billy’s nose meets the back of her knee.

  “Sorry.” Lily hops off Guy’s old bike beside her. “Did we scare you?”

  Kate nods, her heart hammering. “A little.”

  “Sore feet?”

  “New shoes.”

  “Maybe you need physio.”

  “Yeah, vet tech heal thyself.”

  Billy walks between them, his fur brushing Kate’s bare leg. She lays a hand on his head and lets it ride along.

  “You think it’s for real,” Lily says, “that ankus thing? Do they really stick hooks in the elephants’ heads?”

  “I don’t know, maybe. Probably not anymore.”

  “Aren’t you from there?”

  “India? No. My dad is.” She pauses. “I’ve never been.”

  Is Lily just escorting her home, or is she planning on coming inside again? Last night she spent the whole visit on the kitchen floor, bridging the gap between natural enemies. Maybe this time they should sit in the living room.

  “You have to work tomorrow?” Lily says as they take the turn.

  “Nope.” Kate waits a moment before adding, “How come?”

  “No reason.” Lily runs her fingers through Billy’s swishing tail. “What’s it like, anyway? Is it, like, a gym for dogs?”

  Kate laughs, then winces, stepping on something sharp. She stops to inspect her heel and finds a pebble, dark and pointed, clinging to her flesh. They’re two doors down from the house. She could invite Lily in and describe the rehab centre in detail, just like she did when Lou-Lou asked. Or she could try something new. “You really want to know?”

  “I asked, didn’t I?”

  Kate nods, deciding. “You’d better lock up the bike.”

  “It doesn’t have a lock.”

  “Okay, then, bring it i
nside.” She tries the heel, finding it only slightly tender. “Come on, I have to get the car keys anyway.”

  Lily raises her eyebrows. “You have a car?”

  “Nice.”

  It’s the first word Lily’s spoken since she bundled her dog into the back seat and buckled herself into the front. Silence as they crossed the Gerrard Street bridge. Silence through Cabbagetown, the gay village, downtown. Now, as they idle at the corner of Harbord and St. George, Kate can only assume it’s the sprawling campus that’s finally prompted her to speak.

  “This is U of T,” she says. “Maybe you know that already.” She pauses. “Are you from Toronto?”

  “I meant the car.”

  “Oh.” The light changes, and Kate eases her foot off the brake. “It’s nothing fancy. I think it’s a ninety-nine.”

  “It’s nice,” Lily says again. “It’s cute.”

  Of course it is. Kate loves the little hatchback—why did she put it down? Another red light at Spadina. She slows to a stop. “It was Lou-Lou’s.”

  “I figured.” Lily’s quiet until the light turns. Then, as Kate touches the gas, “I should learn to drive sometime.”

  Kate nods, eyes on the tail lights before them. It’s as good a chance as any. “How old are you?”

  “Me?” Lily spreads a grubby hand on the dash. “Old. Fucking ancient.”

  It’s the last response Kate expects. “No,” she says, “seriously.”

  “Seriously?” Lily turns in the seat to face her. “I’m seventeen.”

  “‘Annex Canine Rehabilitation Centre.’” Lily reads the sign aloud as Kate punches in her access code. “You get any dogs on meth?”

  “Har har.”

  Six digits and they’re in, the time of their arrival recorded somewhere, though Kate doubts anyone ever reviews such things. If they do, she can always say she forgot her purse and had to come back. Hell, why even lie? No one’s ever told her she can’t bring a friend down after hours for a tour. All the same, she’s glad the Emerg entrance lies around the corner, out of view.