The Mongrel

by Seán O'Connor

  “I love you, too.”

  He gave her another hug, then bent and kissed her bump. “Bye, bye, little buddy.” Then he kissed her cheek and guided her back into the car. “Stay inside, right?”

  She just nodded and watched again as he faded into the gloom. When he disappeared, she pushed the buttons on each door down, the act sealing her in and bringing on an uneasy sense of isolation. She didn’t like being alone, and as she sat there, looking at the darkness where Phil had been a moment ago, the silence hit her with an impact she hadn’t expected—all force, no sound.

  Her anxiety deepened, and the throbbing from her bloodied finger didn’t help. Being alone was something she’d never got used to, but here she sat in solitude, lost in the Wicklow Mountains, afraid of the thoughts and emotions swirling through her.

  FIVE

  Erin always wanted to be the master of her own emotions, but could never fully manage to take hold of her life. For reasons she didn’t really understand, she allowed pain and violence in—almost embracing it—her desperate love for Phil often the only bulwark against complete annihilation; his penchant for violence echoing deep in her soul.

  Dark clouds blocked out the glow of the full moon, engulfing the road in darkness. Then the snow arrived. At first it fell soft and gentle, but it didn’t take long before it came down in relentless flurries, blanketing the old Ford. The road quickly disappeared, and even though Erin used the wipers, her visibility decreased with every hard-fought swipe—the rubber sticking and ribbing as it struggled against the snowy build-up, causing the wiper motor to seize every few seconds—the overworked electronic device whining in protest.

  She fought for breath as panic gripped her. What seemed like ages ago now, they’d sat watching the sun go down, and now, here she was, alone, hoping Phil would appear at the top of the road with a small tank of petrol under his arm. But he hadn’t returned, his absence compounding her concern about the worsening weather conditions. She gnawed at her nail. Where was he? If he got caught in the blizzard, he could freeze to death. The terror of that possibility had her heart skipping, and she fought to catch her breath, each fitful exhalation a plume of vapour, further fogging up the car windows.

  Her fearful focus was broken by a vibration coming from her handbag on the floor. Her phone. She lunged for her bag and pulled it out. The eight o’clock daily reminder to take her birth-control pill. Before she was pregnant, of course. Out of sheer laziness, she’d never bothered to cancel it. Groaning, she stabbed at the screen with her forefinger. Then it dawned on her that she was holding a phone. It had been in her bag all day and she’d never once thought of it. Her heart lifted at the prospect of contacting Phil to see how far away he was. The beat-up phone had seen better days, surviving being dropped twice from a height and once submerged in a toilet. Despite this, it still functioned, now actually receiving a faint signal, even with her being in the pit of a dark valley.

  Without hesitation, she tapped into the address book and selected Phil’s number. It didn’t surprise her when it took a while to connect, especially with the hills being so steep on either side. When it did, an automated woman’s voice answered: “The customer you are calling is unavailable at this time. Please try again later.”

  She tried a couple more times, but the annoying answering machine kept telling her what she didn’t want to hear. Groaning—almost growling—she slapped the glovebox. The worry flooded back, apprehension gripping her as she feared the worst for Phil. If something happened to him, how would anyone know where she was? How long would it take people to realise she was missing? She’d started her maternity leave two days ago, finally bowing to Phil’s constant pressure to stay at home. It was bad enough getting from Lusk to the hospital as it stood, the last thing they wanted was to go into labour while in the office. She was self-conscious enough as it was and didn’t want her colleagues seeing her waters burst all over her chair. Needless to say, the good people at Elliot and Sons Accountancy where not expecting a call from her anytime soon. Back in Lusk, they were yet to make any real friends, or even properly introduce themselves to their neighbours, and the rent wasn’t due for another three weeks, so their landlord wouldn’t notice a thing.

  The snow grew heavier, the wind swirling it into small drifts against the windscreen. She tried phoning a few of her friends, but all efforts failed to connect any further than an answering machine.

  As each long minute passed, she fought a sense of growing desperation, and even though she figured it was her own mind working against her, that knowledge made the situation seem worse than it actually was. If she were to call the emergency services now and then moments later Phil turned up, it would be the height of embarrassment. Still, she couldn’t get a grip on the stress spiralling through her. Panic raced up her back with a surprisingly warm sensation that flushed through her body. With only one bar left on her battery, she decided it was time for the last resort. She scrolled down to the number and pressed call. It only took a moment to connect, and she took a shaky breath when it started to ring.

  “Hello, Erin? Is that you?” The tone was stern and she didn’t know how to respond—it had been so long since she’d heard his voice.

  “Hello!” he barked into her ear.

  She took another deep breath, her hand on her swollen abdomen.

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  The ensuing silence had her squirming in her seat. The pair hadn’t spoken since herself and Phil moved to Lusk against his wishes.

  Joseph Greene was a ruthless, yet successful businessman. For the last five years, his company had returned substantial profit annually, his empire expanding primarily because of his cut-throat ambition. It got to a point where Erin couldn’t walk around the city without his presence following her. This affected Philip more than anyone. He couldn’t bear her father’s attitude towards him, as he felt his profession was always an issue, viewed as inferior and insufficient.

  She loved Phil so much that it didn’t matter what his job was. He could be an astronaut or a binman for all she cared—it didn’t matter. He was a chef. A good chef. He was her chef and her whole world, and this drove her father berserk.

  “How… How are you, Princess?” her father stammered down the phone. The shock of the out-of-the-blue phone call had clearly caught him off-guard. She remembered the last time they’d spoken, the night before she’d moved out, forced to pick between him and her fiancé.

  “Daddy, I…need your help,” she said, cutting straight to the point. She blurted out the details, telling him about how they’d gone on a Sunday drive into the mountains, and how she was now stranded on the side of the road, somewhere unknown to her.

  “Where’s whatisname?’ Joseph asked. ‘Phil, isn’t it?”

  She closed her eyes, not surprised at her father’s game-playing. The old man always got a jab in whenever Phil came up in conversation. She couldn’t understand why he saw the love of her life as some sort of rival. Whatever his reason, that’s the way he was—there was nothing to be done about it now. She sat upright. “He went to get help, Daddy, and he hasn’t come back yet. I think something’s happened to him.” Tears welled and she couldn’t hold back the sobs queuing in her throat.

  The baby reacted by kicking into her ribs, something that had increased over the last hour or so.

  “Calm down, Princess, calm down. Look, say no more, I get it. But I need to know where you are or else I can’t help you.” His firm boardroom voice softened. “The storm is only getting started.”

  She wiped the window and looked into a dark wall of falling snow, the persistent flurries consuming visibility. “We stopped in one of the valleys.”

  “You need to be more specific, love.”

  “It’s dark, Daddy. There are woods on either side of the road. I can’t tell for sure, but I know we’re in the Wicklow Mountains somewhere?”

  “Jesus, Erin, that could be anywher
e. Can you take a look around, or get out to see if there are signposts—some sort of landmark that can help me zone in on your whereabouts?”

  “What? I can’t get out in this, Daddy. It’s a blizzard out there!”

  “Look, you don’t have to go far. Just take a quick look around and see if there’s anything that you can point me to.”

  She turned the headlights on full and got out, the glare reflecting back off the windblown flurries in almost a solid wall of white. Wiping her eyes, all she could make out was snow, trees, more snow, and more trees. A rush of blood and nerves shot up the back of her legs and her heart fluttered, her anxiety washing over her like a dark wave. “Daddy… I can’t…” But then she noticed a small brown signpost up on the side of the road. Though barely visible, it was there, and it could lead to salvation. She placed the phone back inside the car, clutched her bump and made her way over to the sign, crunching the loosely packed snow at every step. With the near-blizzard conditions, she had to go right up to the sign to read it.

  Lugnaquilla Mountain Park.

  She couldn’t hold back her smile. Finally, a lucky break, and something to work with. With a scream of delight, she almost ran back across the road, the headlights throwing her exaggerated silhouette onto the falling wall of snow. She got into the car, picked up the phone, and with an excited burst of breath, shouted what she’d read. Her voice crackled from the cold and she wiped dripping snot from her nose. “Daddy, you there?”

  A long silence ensued, and she had to check to make sure she was still connected. “Daddy? Hello?”

  “Erin, love, did you say Lugnaquilla? The Mountain Park, or just the actual mountain?”

  “The Park. Does that help, or what?”

  “Are you one-hundred-percent certain?”

  “Yes, Daddy, I’m certain. Why?”

  “Okay, listen to me carefully. Wrap up warm. It’s going to take me some time to get up there. With this weather, the roads are going to be treacherous.”

  She didn’t like that response. “But…how long will you be?”

  “Listen, Erin. It’s going to take me a while, but that isn’t the only issue here.”

  She listened hard as her father disclosed his main concerns, telling her that the extended area was heavily populated with deer, which needed to be culled every year. And this year, because hunting had been banned to combat the scourge of unlicensed hunters using unregistered firearms, the authorities had come up with a green solution to the problem. The squared area from Donard to Glendalough, and Glenmalure to Rathdongan had been fenced in, and grey wolves were introduced into the enclosed area to see if the deer population could be kept in check in a more natural way. When she asked how he knew all this, it turned out that the Irish Wolf Conservation Trust was in the middle of this zone, and he was the trust’s main financial backer, chairman of the board, and brainchild behind the project.

  “Wolves, Daddy, are you serious?” She shuddered from a combination of cold and fear. The interior of the car spun, and she held onto the dash to steady herself. All she needed now was to start getting sick from the thoughts flooding back into her mind at the very mention of the beasts. She remembered how the wind sounded like howling on the day of her mother’s funeral. Hailstones clattered against the closed coffin as she stood in disbelief. Her father was distant that day, the pain in his eyes on show for all to see. She chalked it up as shock and wasn’t surprised when he smothered her with love—he’d always been over-protective—and she’d given him a pass, but also began to distance herself from the overbearingness of it all. Perhaps leaving him alone was the wrong thing—never in a million years did she expect him to obsess over the animal that decimated their family.

  “Yes, love. I acquired the land a while ago and launched the trust a little over a month ago. From now on, until I get there, please stay inside the car. Remain calm and wait for me. I’ll find you.”

  “But, wolves? Who the fuck made the decision to put wolves up here? What about hikers?”

  “I did, Princess. People aren’t supposed to be walking around an area that’s closed off to the public. It was advertised quite a bit over the last few months. How could Phil be so stupid? He should’ve known if he was driving around those hills.”

  “Oh, God. Please hurry, Daddy. The baby. We’re hungry and scared.”

  “I know, Princess, I’m on the way. Just do me a favour, will you?”

  “Of course, what is it?”

  “Just stay inside the car. You’ll be safe in there. And most importantly, can you please—”

  “Daddy? Hello.” She looked at the phone. “No. No!” But it was dead. She roared at it and slapped and punched the dash and passenger door. The interior spun again and shivers rushed through her, and even when she tried to slow her breathing, counting through her exhalations to get it together, her mind wouldn’t follow—all kinds of worst-case scenarios racing through her head.

  Surely Phil wouldn’t have been stupid enough to drive into an area filled with wolves? How did he get the car in, and what if they got him on his way to the garage? On his way back? Hyperventilating, she held her bump and resorted to prayer, calling to an unknown force from above for Phil to return safely.

  SIX

  In her darkest moments, she would come home to her parents’ house to find him waiting outside for her in their crappy Mondeo. To cast out the shadows that consumed her, they would use the ultimate weapon—chat. For hours they would lie together on the bed in her attic room. Her walls were decorated with occult posters and rock stars, with one in particular—her absolute favourite, and the centrepiece of her collage—an early pic of Quartorn from Bathory. Phil didn’t get jealous back then, or if he did, he hid it well. Needless to say, he thought her interests and taste in music strange and hard to take. She came to the conclusion that it must be hard to be jealous of something you don’t understand. But this didn’t stop them becoming inseparable, forming a bond that would challenge all around them, and it started with talking, sometimes for hours, learning everything about each other, including their flaws. They would tuck away on the third floor, smoke, drink, fuck, and enjoy each other with the skylight window open. The crisp spring air filtered in and engulfed the room in a beautiful fresh scent. Indeed, the weather was great when they first met.

  Now, the blizzard raged around her, the Mondeo consumed in snow. Inside, she was doing her best to keep it together, focusing on happy memories, but her mind seemed to be working overtime against her, swelled her anxiety levels beyond healthy. The interior of the car would have been pitch-black if it wasn’t for the low-wattage blub on the ceiling illuminating what could only be described as the inside of a fridge. An abiding undercurrent of panic gripped her, threatening to choke all sense of reality, yet somewhere within all the despair, she clung to Phil—to hope.

  Phil was no fool. He’d be sheltered somewhere safe for the night. No way would he make it back to the car, and even if he did, they wouldn’t be going anywhere without a few hours of hard labour digging out the snow, not to mention the road out of the valley that could probably only be cleared by a plough.

  As she finally accepted the inevitability of her situation, she settled into having to stay the night, alone, waiting for the storm to pass. Then in the morning, Phil would come to her aid. Or Dad. That brought a chuckle, imagining the two of them turning up together from different directions.

  She shivered, clutched her bump, and sang softly to it, then apologised out loud for allowing herself to get into this mess. At first, she blamed Phil for making such a stupid decision to take them into the valley, but she didn’t have the energy to maintain her anger. Her tummy groaned again, famished, and her baby knew it. Apart from the panic of her situation, all her thoughts focused on her hunger. Why hadn’t they brought food with them? Now, looking at the empty smoothie bottle, she couldn’t remember a time when they hadn’t taken snacks or sand
wiches with them on their long drives.

  To stop thinking of food, she took herself back a few months to when she decided to leave home to live in Lusk with Phil. Financially, it made sense—they couldn’t afford anywhere in or around the city—and Phil wanted them to live together, to see the baby in. But in reality, their relationship was already seriously strained when they received the keys from the letting agent. Phil’s pride and jealousy was always a stumbling block in their decisions, with him refusing every bit of help offered out of a stubborn sense of obligation, and in doing so hindering many of their plans. It came as no surprise considering he shared near-identical traits with her father.

  She blinked away tears, her teeth chattering as shivers raced through her. Why hadn’t she brought her coat? So stupid. Phil couldn’t be blamed for taking his with him. How else was he to stay warm on his way to the garage? She looked around for something to wrap herself in. Daddy did tell her to wrap up warm, after all. Perhaps he knew all along she’d be here for the night?

  All she saw on the back seat were empty sweet wrappers and plastic Coke bottles that only had a flat dribble left in them. She sighed and hugged herself. Loneliness was casting a darker shadow now, and boredom. One reason she hated being alone was her low-attention span. She’d always been that way, and her father hadn’t let her forget it. Phil understood—he’d got her a new smartphone to keep her occupied. She loved it, and the many ways it connected her to the outside world. If only she’d remembered to charge it. She turned it on again, surprised to see it spark to life, but only with two-percent battery power. And when she phoned Phil again, that woman’s obnoxious pre-recorded voice began to speak, only to be cut off when the phone died for a second time.

  “Fuck.” It came out as more of a growl as she flung the phone onto the floor. There had to be something in the bloody car. She looked in the glovebox, but it contained nothing of use—nothing to keep her warm, anyway.