Walking the Dog

by Bernard Maclaverty

  ‘We’ll just stick with the whiskey.’ The others agreed. Cecil poured them three tumblers.

  ‘Water?’

  ‘As it is. Our healths,’ one of them said, half raising his glass. They all nodded and drank. Dermot heard one of them say,

  ‘There’ll be no drink where Bobby’s gone.’ The other two began to smile but stopped.

  Dermot looked at his mother talking to the widow.

  ‘It’ll come to us all,’ she said. ‘This life’s only a preparation.’

  ‘Bobby wasn’t much interested in preparing,’ said the widow. ‘But he was good at heart. You can’t say better than that.’ Everybody in the room nodded silently.

  Someone offered Dermot another stout, which he took. He looked across at his mother but she didn’t seem to notice. The two women had dropped their voices and were talking with their heads close together.

  One of the farmers – a man with a porous nose who was standing in the kitchen doorway – spoke to Dermot.

  ‘Did you know Bobby?’

  Dermot shook his head. ‘Not well. Just to see.’ He had a vision of the same Bobby coming staggering up the street about a month ago and standing in front of his own gate searching each pocket in turn for a key. It was a July night and Dermot’s bedroom window was open for air.

  ‘I see your curtains moving, you bastards.’ A step forward, a step back. A dismissive wave of the hand in the direction of the McQuillans’. Then very quietly,

  ‘Fuck yis all.’

  He stood for a long time, his legs agape. A step forward, a step back. Then he shouted at the top of his voice,

  ‘Fuck the Pope and . . .’

  Dermot let the curtains fall together again and lay down. But he couldn’t sleep waiting for the No Surrender. After a while he had another look but the street was empty. No movement except for the slow flopping of the Union Jack in Bobby Blair’s garden.

  Cecil came across the room and set a soup-plate full of crisps on the hall table beside Dermot.

  ‘Do you want to go up and see him?’

  Dermot set his jaw and said,

  ‘I’d prefer to remember him as he was.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  The man with the porous nose shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘He was a good friend to me. Got my son the job he’s in at the minute.’

  ‘Bully for him.’

  A second farmer dipped his big fingers in the dish and crunched a mouthful of crisps. He swallowed and said to Dermot,

  ‘How do you know the deceased?’

  ‘I’m a neighbour. From across the street.’

  ‘Is that so? He was one hell of a man. One hell of a man.’ He leaned oyer to Dermot and whispered, ‘C’mere. Have you any idea what he was like? ANY idea?’

  Dermot shook his head. The farmer with the porous nose said,

  ‘When Mandela got out he cried. Can you believe that? I was with him – I saw it. Big fuckin tears rolling down his cheeks. He was drunk, right enough, but the tears was real. I was in the pub with him all afternoon. It was on the TV and he shouts – what right have they, letting black bastards like that outa jail when this country’s hoachin with fuckin IRA men?’

  He laughed – a kind of cackle with phlegm – and Dermot smiled.

  The signs that his mother wanted to go were becoming obvious. She sat upright on the chair, her voice became louder and she permitted herself a smile. She rebuttoned her coat and stood up. Dermot swilled off the rest of his stout and moved to join her on the way out. The widow Blair stood politely.

  ‘Would you like to go up and see him, Mrs McQuillan?’ she said.

  ‘I’d be too upset,’ she said. ‘It’d bring it all back to me.’ Mrs Blair nodded as if she understood. Cecil showed them out.

  In their own hallway Mrs McQuillan hung up her coat and took an apron off a peg.

  ‘Poor woman,’ she said. ‘Did they ask you to go up and see him?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Did you go?’ Her hands whirled behind her back tying the strings of the apron.

  ‘Are you mad? Why would I want to see an oul drunk like Bobby Blair laid out?’

  He went into the living room and began poking the fire. Their house and the Blairs’ were exactly the same – mirror images of each other. His mother went into the kitchen and began peeling potatoes. By the speed at which she worked and the rattling noises she made Dermot knew there was something wrong. She came to the kitchen doorway with a white potato in her wet hands.

  ‘You should have.’

  ‘Should have what?’

  ‘Gone up to see him.’

  ‘Bobby Blair!’ Dermot dropped the poker on the hearth and began throwing coal on the fire with tongs.

  ‘Your father would have.’

  ‘They asked you and you didn’t.’

  ‘It’s different for a woman.’

  She turned back to the sink and dropped the potato in the pot and began scraping another. She spoke out to him.

  ‘Besides I meant what I said – about bringing it all back.’

  Dermot turned on the transistor and found some pop music. His mother came to the door again drying her hands on her apron.

  ‘That poor woman,’ she said. ‘It was bad enough having to live with Bobby.’ She leaned against the door jamb for a long time. Dermot said nothing, pretending to listen to the radio. She shook her head and clicked her tongue.

  ‘The both of us refusing . . .’

  As they ate their dinner, clacking and scraping forks, she said,

  ‘It looks that bad.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The both of us.’

  Dermot shrugged.

  ‘What can we do about it?’

  She cleaned potato off her knife onto her fork and put it in her mouth.

  ‘You could go over again. Say to her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Whatever you like.’

  ‘I don’t believe this.’

  She cleared away the plates and put them in the basin. He washed and she dried.

  ‘For your father’s sake,’ she said. Dermot flung the last spoon onto the stainless steel draining-board and dried his hands on the dish towel, a thing he knew she hated.

  He slammed the front door and stood for a moment. Then he walked across the street, his teeth clenched together, and flapped the letter-box. This time the door was opened by a man he didn’t know. Dermot cleared his throat.

  ‘I’d like to see Bobby,’ he said. The man looked at him.

  ‘Bobby’s dead.’

  ‘I know.’

  The man stepped back then led the way into the hallway. The farmers were now standing at the foot of the stairs. The one with the porous nose was sitting on the bottom step swirling whiskey in his glass.

  ‘Ah – it’s the boy again,’ he said. The man led the way up the stairs. Dermot excused himself and tried to slip past the sitting farmer. He felt a hand grab his ankle and he nearly fell. The grip was tight and painful. The farmer laughed.

  ‘I’m only pulling your leg,’ he said. Then he let go. It was like being released from a manacle. Somebody shouted out from the kitchen.

  ‘A bit of order out there.’

  In the bedroom the coffin was laid on the bed, creating its own depression in the white candlewick coverlet. The man stood back with his hands not joined but one holding the other by the wrist. Dermot tried to think of the best thing to do. In a Catholic house he would have knelt, blessed himself and pretended to say a prayer. He could have hidden behind his joined hands. Now he just stared – conscious of the stranger’s eyes on the back of his neck. The dead man’s face was the colour of a mushroom, his nostrils wide black triangles of different sizes. Fuck the Pope and No Surrender. Dermot held his wrist with his other hand and bowed his head. Below the rim of the coffin there was white scalloped paper like inside an expensive box of biscuits. The paper hid almost everything except Bobby’s dead face. Instead of candles the room was full of flowers.
The only light came through the drawn paper blinds.

  From downstairs came the rattle of the letter-box and the man murmured something and went out. Left alone Dermot inched nearer the coffin. His father was the only dead person he had ever seen. He pulled the scalloped paper back and looked beneath it. Bobby was wearing a dark suit, a white shirt and tie. Where his lapels should have been was his Orange sash – the whole regalia. All dressed up and nowhere to go. Dermot looked up and saw a reflection of himself prying in the dressing-table mirror. He let the scalloped paper drop back into place. Footsteps approached on the stairs.

  Two oldish women were shown in by the stranger. One was Mavis Stewart, the other one worked in the papershop. Mavis looked at the corpse and her lower lip trembled and she began to weep. The women stood between Dermot and the door. Tears ran down the woman’s face and she snuffled wetly. The woman from the papershop held onto her and Mavis nuzzled into her shoulder. She kept repeating, ‘Bobby, Bobby – who’ll make us laugh now?’ Dermot edged his way around the bed and stood waiting. The women took no notice. Mavis began to dry her tears with a lavender tissue.

  ‘I never met a man like him for dancing. He would have danced the legs off you. And he got worse when the rock and roll came in.’ Dermot coughed, hoping they would move and let him pass.

  ‘And the twist,’ said the woman from the papershop. ‘I think that boy wants out.’

  Mavis Stewart said,

  ‘Sorry love,’ and squeezed close to the bed to let him pass. Dermot nodded to the stranger beside the wardrobe.

  ‘I’m off.’

  ‘I’ll show you out.’ The stranger went downstairs with him and went to open the front door. Dermot hesitated.

  ‘Maybe I’d better say hello to Mrs Blair. Let her see I’ve been up. Seeing Bobby.’

  He knocked on the living-room door.

  ‘Yes? Come on in.’

  He opened it. Mrs Blair was still sitting by the fire. She was surrounded by the three farmers. Dermot said,

  ‘I was just up seeing Mr Blair.’

  ‘Very good, son. That was nice of you.’ Then her face crumpled and she began to cry. The farmer with the porous nose put a hand on her arm and patted it. Dermot was going to wave but checked his arm in time. He backed into the hallway just as young Cecil appeared out of the kitchen. It was young Cecil who showed Dermot out.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ he said. ‘Again.’

  A VISIT TO NORWAY

  In Heathrow the girl at Security, feeding bag after bag through the X-ray machine, says to your man,

  ‘May I ask what’s in your cardboard tube, sir?’

  ‘A reproduction of a woodcut – “The Kiss” – by Edvard Munch.’

  ‘I much prefer his mezzotints, ‘says she, patting his chest, his thighs and buttocks.

  IN BED

  The buzzer sounded long and hard – a rasp which startled her even though she knew to expect it – maybe because she knew to expect it. She splayed her book on the carpet so as not to lose her place and went across the hall to her daughter’s bedroom – moving quickly because the long buzz created a sense of urgency. The girl was crouched on the bed, her face turned towards the door in panic.

  ‘Mum, another one,’ she said and pointed to her hand pressed down hard on the pillow.

  ‘Take it easy. Relax.’ Her mother hurried out of the bedroom and came back with an empty pint glass from the kitchen.

  ‘How can I relax with a thing like that in bed? It might breed, might be laying eggs.’

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘Dad uses a bar of soap. Don’t let it get away.’ The girl’s face was anxious and much whiter than usual. She was wearing pyjama bottoms and a football shirt of red and white hoops. ‘I hate them – I hate them.’ Her voice was shaking. Her mother approached the pillow with the pint glass inverted.

  ‘Easy now – lift your hand.’

  The girl plucked her hand away. The black speck vanished – it was there, then, suddenly, it wasn’t – before the glass could be slammed down. The girl screamed.

  ‘It’s jumped.’

  ‘Blast.’

  The girl held her hair back from her face, peering down at the surface of the sheet.

  ‘It’s gone – it’s got away.’

  ‘Aw no . . .’

  ‘Oh I hate them, I really hate them.’ The girl’s voice was on the edge of tears. She was shuddering. ‘They make me feel so . . . dirty.’ Her mother bent over and stared closely at the surface of the white sheet, pulling it towards her a little to flatten a wrinkle.

  ‘Don’t move,’ she whispered. The girl gave a little gasp.

  ‘Where? Where is it?’

  Her mother raised the glass and quickly pressed it down onto the sheet.

  ‘Gotcha.’

  The girl bent over and looked inside. She pulled up her lip in distaste when she saw the black speck.

  ‘Eucchh.’ It jumped again and she squealed even though it was inside the glass. ‘I’m never going to let that cat in here again. I hate it.’

  ‘Take over,’ said her mother. ‘Press it down tight. Don’t let it out.’

  She went out of the bedroom and her daughter heard her filling a basin with water. She pressed the glass down until her arm ached. The rim of the glass dug into the sheet and made the centre swell like a pin-cushion. The flea disappeared.

  ‘Oh no. Mum!’ She put her face down close. The black speck reappeared. Her mother came back, forced to take short steps with the weight in the plastic basin. Some of the water slopped over the sides and formed droplets on the carpet.

  ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Let me at it.’ She set the basin on the floor and looked around. She took a Get Well card from the mantelpiece and turned it over to the plain white side. Her daughter let go of the glass and the mother began to slide the card beneath it while still pressing down.

  ‘Don’t let it get away,’ said the girl. She was holding her hair back with a hand on either side of her face. The black speck was flinging itself into the roof of the pint glass.

  ‘Easy does it.’ Her mother completed sliding the. card all the way across. She picked the whole lot up and showed it to the girl. The trapped speck did not move.

  ‘They’re so thin,’ said the daughter. ‘One-dimensional.’

  ‘Two-dimensional – that’s so’s they can move through the animal’s fur.’ Her mother squatted down beside the basin and held the glass over the water. ‘I feel like a priestess or a magician or something. A new rite. Releasing the flea. Dah-dah.’ She lowered the card partially into the water then withdrew it, leaving the flea floating. They both peered closely at it.

  ‘Look at the legs – the length of them,’ said the girl, leaning over the side of her bed. Her mother nodded.

  ‘That’s why they can jump over the Eiffel Tower.’

  The flea was in a panic, cycling round the surface of the water, travelling backwards. The girl flopped back on her pillows, panting.

  ‘Oh God,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That’s really exhausted me.’

  ‘Rest for a while.’ The girl nodded. She was very white now.

  ‘You’ve ruined my card,’ she said. ‘It looks all weepy.’ The water had made the ink run. Her mother patted it dry against the carpet.

  ‘It’s an old one,’ she said.

  ‘I like to keep them all. Let me see it.’ Her mother turned over the face of the card and handed it to her. It was a picture of a person in bed covered from head to foot in bandages. ‘Oh, that’s really ancient – two years ago, at least. From Johnny.’ All the volume had drained out of her voice.

  Her mother was bent over still staring at the flea.

  ‘It’s not floating,’ she said. ‘Surface tension. It’s in a kind of dimple on the surface.’ She looked up at her daughter but the girl didn’t move. She just lay there with the card in her hand and her eyes closed. She could hear her breathing through her nose.

  With her finger she sank the
flea to the bottom of the basin and got up and tip-toed out.

  About an hour later the buzzer rasped again and the mother went in.

  ‘Could I have my tea now?’

  ‘Anything to eat?’

  ‘One bit of toast – no marmalade.’

  When the supper was made she carried in the tray and set it on the chest of drawers. She pulled her daughter up into a sitting position, and propped her large sitting-up pillow behind her, then put the tray across her knees.

  ‘Do you want me to stay?’

  The girl shrugged. ‘Whatever you like.’ The wind rattled the windows and rain scudded against the panes. Her mother sat down on a bedside chair.

  ‘It’s a terrible night.’

  The girl nodded and sipped her tea. The draught made her mobile rotate. A year ago, when she’d rallied slightly, she’d lain on her side in the darkened room and, with a little help from her father, had made a papier-mâché model of the sun. She was pleased with it. Then she made the earth and moon in the months that followed. When they were all finished she said, ‘And on the seventh month she rested.’ Now the heavenly bodies hung from the ceiling on threads above her bed. ‘Give me something to stare at,’ she’d said. ‘Like a baby in her pram.’ The earth was realistic, with blue oceans and brown-coloured land, but the sun and moon had faces. The yellow sun had spikes radiating from it and half the grey moon’s face was covered in black shadow.

  ‘How’s our friend getting along?’ said her mother. She looked towards the basin still on the floor.

  ‘How does anything travel like that? It just hurls itself anywhere. Doesn’t know if it’s going to land in the fire – or my tea or anywhere.’

  ‘A leap in the dark,’ said her mother and smiled.

  ‘What a life.’ She bit at the edge of her piece of toast. ‘Well, it’s over now.’