by Liza Cody
‘You’re fond of her too,’ Electra told me firmly. ‘If I can forgive her, you can too – even if it’s just for one day. Okay?’ She was wearing a scarf made from green and gold sari silk. And I was wearing a green kurta-pyjama suit. Li’l Missy had cut my hair and conditioned it into some sort of submission. She warned me to stay at the back and not to make a show of myself. Pierre stood up and Alicia stood beside him. They toasted everyone in the hall.
This is some of what Alicia said: ‘Pierre and I met at a very tough time. There was a tragedy that you’ve probably all heard about. A child died. We’ve all got to look after the children – whoever, wherever, they are. And we’ve all got to look after each other, as Pierre and I are now committed to do. But love isn’t just for your partner – it’s bigger and wider than that. I feel this very, very strongly today.’
This is some of what Pierre said: ‘I’m only here in this country, and not back in Detroit or in the lockup because of Kaylee Yost over there. Stand up, Kaylee, and take a bow. She worked her ass off defending me and Li’l Missy, and even Lady B at the back there. Five-O never stood a chance with her beside us. There’s a trial coming up and it won’t be us in the dock. So, thanks, Kaylee.’
Kaylee cried again.
He went on, ‘You’re all my homies here. I don’t know what you think, but I know I kinda lost myself back there for a while. And then, when shit was at its worst, I met this awesome woman here, and see, she reminded me who I am. And, like, I gotta be true to myself before I can be true to her.’
Alicia cried and so did I.
Some time in the late afternoon, when I’d only drunk two small glasses of champagne and Electra and I were dancing together with two very little people, Bow-wow Beverly, the Dog Woman, tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘C’mon, our friends can’t feed themselves.’ And off we went to find her battered old van that smelled of dog, cat, sheep and donkey, and she drove us to the Bow-wow Bungalow, a strange place built on a hillside nearer to Bath than Bristol.
Beverly was known as Bev Savage in the late ’60s and early ’70s. She fronted a proto punk band called Be Savage, had scenes with rockers, artists and aristos too numerous to count, got hooked on speedballs, made a notorious porn movie and dropped off everyone’s screens. Now she’s known locally as Bow-wow Beverly, the Dog Woman, and she’s only notorious for having given her bungalow over to abandoned dogs and cats. People think she’s crazy, but they trust her to look after every lost dog, tortoise or budgerigar they find. She has a couple of sheds for stables, and an old admirer bought her an adjoining field where she keeps three decrepit donkeys and two ex-race horses.
She used to be beautiful, rich and famous. Now, like Electra and me, she lives off charity.
She and Lorelei were friends in the wild years, so maybe it’s no accident that Lorelei is looking for some sort of redemption at Juliet House. Maybe there are women all over the world – some destroyed by fame, some by beauty, some by men, some by weakness, some by their own greed and insecurity – all looking for a better, bigger life to make up for their mistakes.
Speaking of paying for mistakes, here is what I know about what’s happening to Cherry Price. The body the cops dug up under her shed belonged to her husband Steve, not his young son. An autopsy found six separate fractures to his skull, any one of which, they say, could have killed him.
She told the cops that he came home from the locked ward and attacked her, forcing her to defend herself.
The hospital said he had been released into the community, no threat to anyone. But they admitted that there was no follow-up.
Steve’s old solicitor, now retired, said that while in hospital Steve had begun divorce proceedings against Cherry. But then he stopped replying to letters and the solicitor thought he’d had changed his mind.
Steve’s ex-wife said she was so broken up by losing her husband to Cherry and so disappointed that he was too weak even to protect his relationship with his son, that she emigrated to Canada to be near her sister. She said Steve was so totally under Cherry’s thumb that she hadn’t been at all surprised when neither she nor their son ever heard from him again. She had no intention of returning to England unless it was to help ‘put that bitch away where she belongs.’
‘I do love angry women,’ said the Devil. ‘They make all human life miserable, and mine a pleasure.’
‘Are you talking about your frozen-faced daughter?’ I asked. ‘Are you saying Madam Icicle was so angry at the threat of divorce and losing the house that she battered poor Steve to death?’
‘Well, well, well. You’re still angry enough yourself to believe the worst of my poor daughter.’ His laughter was insinuating. ‘Where’s the benefit of the doubt? Where’s the compassion. Can’t you even bring yourself to believe that she was attacked by a big, unstable man and had to defend herself?’
‘No,’ I said, without a moment’s hesitation.
‘It’s possible,’ said Electra. ‘Give yourself more time.’
‘Too late, time’s up. You’re unforgiving and anti-woman. I’ve got you pegged. You’re one of mine.’
‘Ignore him,’ Electra said. ‘We’ve got mouths to feed, cages to clean, and all my friends need a walk.’
Yes, I’ve got my old job back: cleaning up after caged creatures. But animal poop is so much better than human poop. And I am so much more comfortable with animals than with humans.
Last week Bow-wow Bev gave us a new dog. ‘Try to socialise him,’ she said in her brusque way. ‘He’ll be up shit creek if you can’t.’ Meaning, of course, that if an animal can’t fit into this weird sanctuary, and is too difficult for adoption, there’s nowhere else for him to go. We are the resort of last resort. After this there is only death.
Electra and I call him Max… well, Mad Max. I wanted to call him Connor, but she wouldn’t let me.
He came in a sack. Bev and I opened it with care, because we never know what we’ll find. This time we found a big beautiful animal who looked like a cross between a husky and a wolf. His muzzle was taped with duct tape as were his legs. He was emaciated. But what made Bev exclaim, ‘Oh shit,’ in, for her, a hopeless tone of voice, was that one of his eyes had been nearly gouged out of its socket, and the other was staring at us with such stony hatred that not even Electra could advise us to release him. Clearly Bev had seen that look before. And so had I – on Connor Cropper. We all knew what it meant.
Bev phoned Frieda, our vet. There was no discussion. Frieda injected the dog with a strong sedative and we waited, probably longer than was strictly necessary, before cutting off the duct tape.
Frieda couldn’t save the eye. ‘It’s too late,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how long ago this happened, but it wasn’t yesterday.’ She examined the other old scars. ‘Is this a fighting dog?’ she asked. And then, feeling along his ribs and spine, she answered herself, ‘Maybe. Probably. But dogs usually don’t break other dogs’ ribs. I should X-ray, but you mustn’t bring this animal to the surgery until he is safe. If he needs more treatment, I will come here.’
She gave him a hefty shot of antibiotics. Flea and worm shots followed, and she recommended we bathe some of his lesser wounds and cut out the blood-matted hair before he woke up. ‘Because,’ she said, ‘You won’t to be able to go near him or let him run with other dogs for a long time – if ever.’ She and Bev left me to it and went off to sample some of Bev’s good single malt.
‘What do you think?’ I asked Electra.
‘You’ve got to try,’ she said, sniffing at Mad Max and wrinkling her nose. So I went over him, inch by inch, cleaning his wounds, washing him, smoothing antiseptic cream on gashes and scratches. He was scarred everywhere. His fresh wounds looked about a week old.
I said, ‘He lost his last fight.’
‘Yes,’ Electra agreed. ‘And I lost my last race.’
I found the knots and nodules on his spine and
ribs which had made Frieda think he’d been kicked. ‘Yes, a lot,’ I concurred. And I ran my hand down from the base of his tail to its tip. I thought I could detect two breaks. As I touched him, a low warning sound came from the back of his throat. Even deeply asleep his lip curled back showing large dagger-sharp teeth. I stepped back hurriedly.
And yet, in spite of his wounds, he was a beautiful creature with a thick coat of white and several tones of grey. He was well-proportioned and shapely.
‘In the prime of life,’ Electra pointed out sadly.
‘Without this beautiful fur coat, he’d look like Connor,’ I said. ‘All bones, bruises and scars.’
‘Forged in cruelty,’ the Devil reminded me, squinting over my shoulder at the sleeping dog. ‘Impossible to love, and if you want my opinion, without any long term career prospects.’
‘There are no bad dogs,’ Electra said. ‘Only bad owners.’
‘And no bad children,’ I agreed. ‘It’s never the child’s fault.’
‘Rubbish,’ put in the unwelcome voice of my mother. ‘You never had a rotten, dirty daughter. How little you know!’
‘Damage comes from damage,’ the Devil said. ‘Generation upon generation of my pleasure went into the making of Connor. And, for that matter, the making of you.’
‘Why don’t you both shut the fuck up?’ I shouted. ‘I’ll give this poor dog a decent life. Just see if I don’t!’
‘Like you did for Connor?’ The Devil giggled slyly. ‘How many times did you desert him? Remind me.’
I ignored him. I ran my hands over Max’s entire body so that my scent would cling to his fur. Then I ran my hands over my clothes so that his scent clung to me.
‘Not a bad idea,’ Electra commented. ‘But I’m not sure I like it.’
‘Try to get used to it, please,’ I said. ‘I can’t do this without you. I need you.’
She sighed. ‘Everything you’ve learned about humanity, you’ve learned from a dog.’
We sat together in Max’s small pen and I put my arms around Electra, holding her close. I said, ‘And everything I’ve learned about cruelty I’ve learned from humans.’
‘That’s not true,’ she said. ‘You’re just being cute with words. Your Devil’s right about one thing.’ She got up and went over to Mad Max, sniffing him carefully. ‘Yes, damage comes from damage. And if that’s true of Connor, Max and even you, it must be true of Cherry too. When are you going to give her a little understanding?’
‘Never!’ I yelled. And then I heard a very strange, unique sound in my head. I can’t be sure, but it might have been Electra and the Devil both laughing at the same thing, at the same time. That never happens.
I disregarded them both, and instead took a sustaining mouthful of wine from the flask I keep in an inside pocket. I put a small amount of dogfood in a stainless steel bowl and water in another, placing them within Max’s reach. Then I covered him with a blanket. I locked his pen carefully and wondered if I should wait close by until he woke up, or if I should let him wake up and get used to his monocular vision by himself. He’d feel safer on his own, I thought. But if I was going to convince him eventually that it was safe not to be alone, maybe I should start straight away.
He was still unconscious after I’d finished my chores, so Electra and I sat down outside his pen to enjoy the last of the afternoon sun. Electra laid her head in my lap and went to sleep. There were a few mouthfuls of wine left in my flask. I could wait for Max to wake up, or I could cadge a lift to Bath or Bristol. Maybe I’d find a pitch where Electra and I could sit and watch the world go by. Maybe I’d earn a few quid. I thought, ‘Maybe I’ll buy half a bottle of red. Or maybe I won’t.’ Did you hear that? Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll take the kindness and generosity of strangers back home with me and give it to Bow-wow Beverly the Dog Woman. Or maybe I’ll stay here and wait to see how much Max hates me. One thing’s for sure, I won’t let him bite me the way Connor bit me. And I won’t abandon him the way I abandoned Connor. Electra and I would find a solution. Together.
There are choices. And I’m free to choose. Amazing, isn’t it?
Okay, maybe I’m not big enough to forgive Cherry. And I haven’t forgiven myself either. But, I don’t have to be perfect, do I? I don’t belong in the real world. Either I am a stone in your shoe or a ghost in your machine. The only weapon in my armoury is guilt. Give me money and I’ll go away forgiving you for having more than me. And then you can forget me. It’s allowed. Until the next time.
About The Author
LIZA CODY is the award-winning author of many novels and short stories. Her Anna Lee series introduced the professional female private detective to British mystery fiction. It was adapted for television and broadcast in the UK and US. Cody’s ground-breaking Bucket Nut Trilogy featured professional wrestler, Eva Wylie. Other novels include Rift, Gimme More, Ballad of a Dead Nobody, Miss Terry and Lady Bag. Her novels have been widely translated.
Cody’s short stories have been published in many magazines and anthologies. A collection of her first seventeen appeared in the widely praised Lucky Dip and other stories.
Liza Cody was born in London and most of her work is set there. Her career before she began writing was mostly in the visual arts. Currently she lives in Bath. Her informative website can be found at www.LizaCody.com which includes her occasional blog. You can also follow LizaCody on twitter.