Dead Dogs, page 11
During the summer, purple and gold bunting goes up and people with purple and gold jerseys come in and go out. Women walk by with the inevitable Wexford Creamery printed across their tits. Summer brings this year after year. A fat farmer wearing a jersey so small it looks like it’s sprayed on has just handed in a proposal and, quick as a flash, I tippex out Dairy Farmer from the occupation field and put in Pornographer. I can’t help myself.
Again, this is not done out of badness.
Sarah spends half the summer crying and smoking and drinking tea. Her tears must taste like tobacco and tannin. Her teeth are turning yellow.
Outside people move in clumps or alone. Everyone moves in sunshine. Everyone is smiling. In here the computers spew out radiation and everyone is smiling except me and the business undergrads. We are photocopying and sending off. There are targets to be met.
Trouble starts because of Dr Thorpe.
The procedure goes like this.
When a person applies for Life and Serious Illness cover or Mortgage Protection the proposal is sent off to head office for assessment and processing. Depending on the answers that the client gives to the questions on the nice peach and white forms it goes to underwriting. Depending on the answers that the client gives to the questions on the nice peach and white forms a medical report is requested. This is to ensure that the client isn’t going to die of throat cancer or renal failure any time soon.
See also Leukaemia.
See also Muscular Dystrophy.
See also Heart Disease.
One of the items that determine this is what the client’s occupation is listed as.
I don’t know who Elaine Doyle is. I don’t care who Elaine Doyle is. But it is because of Elaine Doyle that I get sacked.
Elaine Doyle is a lab technician. For all her working life she has been a lab technician and now according to the records of a certain life assurance company she is a high-class prostitute. This is quite a career move for a woman in her thirties.
I can’t remember doing this to her. Then again I can never remember individual names. All these proposals, all these lives, are one homogenous slick of sewage. Outside walking in the sunshine are factory workers, butchers, shop assistants and in the silicone depths of our database they are human waste. They are holes in the day. They are shadows in the sunlight. I’m standing at the desk watching them through the big front window. I’ve a black pen in my right hand and I’m about to have a quick rifle through today’s proposals. There’s a hugely fat couple laughing with each other in the middle of the road and I’m wondering what they work at. The woman has Wexford Creamery stretched across her chest.
It is at this moment that the shit hits the fan.
The broker, the person who owns this bustling establishment, steps out onto the office floor. Then he’s turning to me and he’s going, ‘Would you mind having a word with me in private, please?’ It’s the in private bit that gets me. I’ve never, ever, seen him pass up the opportunity to humiliate someone in public.
I follow him into his office and I close the door behind me. I’m wondering what he wants and now I’m thinking how this can’t be good. There’s a letter lying on his desk and upside down I’m reading it and upside-down I can see the signature. It says Dr S. Thorpe. I’m reading this and for some reason I’m trying to stop myself laughing. And now I’m wondering what the main part of the letter says.
I’m standing here with the broker looking at me with this prim expression pursing his mouth so that it looks almost sutured shut. He’s looking at me and his left hand is pulsing on the desk beside the letter. It is spotted and crawled over with thick veins. It is a grotesque spider, hairless and scrawny and straining with tension. I’m standing here and behind the broker venetian blinds segment the day and I’m trying to stop myself laughing.
The three paragraphs of Dr S. Thorpe’s letter probably go something along the lines of: Mrs Doyle has been a patient of mine for blah blah I have never known her to be employed as anything other than blah blah Mrs Doyle and, indeed, I, as her doctor am shocked blah blah grossly embarrassing blah blah HIV Test blah blah Internal Examination blah blah Legal Action blah blah. Blah.
I can’t read this. Upside-down it is Cyrillic but looking at the broker and the urgent blind spider of his left hand I know this is what it says. Looking at the broker and his puckered sphincter of a mouth I know this is the end of my life in the fast-paced world of insurance brokerage. I can’t say I’m exactly despondent over this and now I can feel the start of a smile leak out from the edges of my lips. It is a guilty stain.
Now the broker’s face is going blood clot purple and something’s making a fault line in the middle of his forehead. He’s looking like he’s about to explode and he’s looking like he’s about to kill me and then his face is going pale again. The pink and knuckled spider on the desk is uncurling itself and I’m starting to grin.
Then he’s picking up the letter and then he’s putting it back down and then he’s saying stuff. He’s saying, ‘I’m not even going to ask you if you did this. That shit-eating expression of yours says everything.’
And now I’m realising that he hates me. Right here right now he hates me more than anything. And now I’m wondering how long it will take before he hits me. I’m suddenly worried. Offices are full of potential lethal weapons; scissors, paperweights, letter openers. That kind of thing. It’s only the weirdly constipated expression on his face that keeps me grinning.
He’s going, ‘Yeah I fucking knew it was you. As soon as I opened this fucking letter, I knew it had to be a little fucking smart arse like you.’
I’m just standing there. I get the feeling that this rant is going better than he thought. He’s leaning forward in his chair now and his head is a spitting white-hot ball bearing and he’s saying, ‘The others wouldn’t fuck up a great chance like this. Fucking summer workers, you’re all the same. Jesus Christ, I do a favour for your Da and you wouldn’t even make a fucking go of it.’ Now I’m wondering, a fucking go of what? Of stapling?
See also Photocopying.
See also Making Coffee.
See also Counting Petty Cash.
He’s sitting in his chair and if this were a cartoon little jets of steam would be whistling out of his ears. He’s sitting in his chair and if this were a TV programme I’d try to explain why I did this to Elaine Doyle amongst others. He’s sitting in his chair with his back to the day and on his desk there’s the letter, two pens, a calendar, a Waterford Crystal paperweight and his computer. He’s sitting at his desk and he’s going, ‘Do you have anything to say for yourself?’
I’m looking at him and now I’m articulating six words, ‘I’m surprised this is the first.’
Then I’m ducking and the paperweight misses my head by inches.
This all seemed quite jolly last year. Now with my Da staring at the floor and the guard grinning nastily at me it doesn’t seem so funny. Dr Thorpe is sitting in his chair with a smile creeping across his face like something seeping out from under an abattoir door. The light in here is dim and isn’t like the halogen glare of the rest of the house. All it seems to be doing is emphasising the gloom gathered in the corners and the heavy walls of books all around. I’m suddenly feeling claustrophobic and my lips are crinkling up like dead leaves and going all dry.
Into the silence, into the awkward gap opened up by the guard’s question, my Da goes, ‘Alright, Guard. That’s enough. We get your point.’
I go to say something back but now my Da is looking at me and I can see something hot and flaring in his eyes. He’s saying, ‘And can you not be such a little prick all the time? Now you’re in this as well as Seán and nobody can believe the Lord’s prayer out of either of you. So just spit it out. What were the two of you doing here spying through a fucking letterbox?’
This time he doesn’t apologise for his language and beside him Dr Thorpe has this expression on his face like a Pope handing out blessings. Dr Thorpe had that same fucking expression all the time when he came to see Mam. The night she died it was there like the skin over a blister. I remember that and now me and Seán just stand here in front of him like we’re up in front of a judge. Me and Seán just stand there and the unfairness of it all nearly has me in tears. The memory of my Mam weighs down on me. Sixteen years of age and it’s like I’m about to break down crying.
The guard nods at me and Seán and he says, ‘We’ll get to the bottom of things quicker if you just tell us the whole story. It’ll go easier on you.’
And I’m thinking, you’re all bastards. Every adult in this fucking town is a dick. It’ll go easier on you, my arse.
And all the time Dr Thorpe just sits there looking at the two of us like a curious spectator. The fact of his violence, the hidden awfulness of what he is, is sitting in my stomach like an ulcer.
The dead meat smack of it.
I know he’s going to do it before he does it. Beside me Seán cracks and beside me he goes, ‘I’m really sorry. Really really sorry.’
In spite of my indignation. In spite of my anger at how powerless we are. In spite of the fact that nobody belives us. In spite of all this, Seán can’t keep it in anymore. I listen as he talks and with every word he says I can feel any hope we have of seeing Dr Thorpe taken away in handcuffs disappear. Every word he says knocks the steel out of me bit by bit and I can feel myself sagging. Physically sagging. Worse than this I can feel my mind playing tricks on me. I’m standing there listening to Seán talk about what he did to those dogs and I’m wondering, did I actually see anything at all? Did I see Dr Thorpe, smiling, talk-show Dr Thorpe, actually strangle someone? Am I going nuts?
All the adults are listening to Seán and he’s almost sobbing now. He’s sobbing with relief and his words are roped all together with mucus and he’s snuffling because the shame and disgust he’s carrying around with him is being purged. It’s like Dr Thorpe’s study is a confessional and Seán wants nothing but to be absolved.
All the adults are listening to Seán and expressions are sleeting one after another across their faces. My Da is sitting there and his face seems to be all concern and reassurance but he can’t hide the curl of his lip and the weird wrinkle of his nose. He can’t hide how appalled he is by Seán. He doesn’t want them to but his eyes keep flicking to the dark stains on Seán’s jacket and I know he’s remembering the smell he got in our hallway. The guard is sitting forward in his chair with his forearms braced on his thighs and his pudding fingers bundled together like he’s praying. He’s nodding in fake plastic understanding and his head is doing that horrible insincere bobbing thing that adults do when they’re patronising someone. But in his face and in the set of his shoulders I can see that he’s delighted at this. Every single suspicion he’s had about Seán Galvin has been confirmed and laid out in front of him. Each one spelled out in an augury of spilled entrails. And Dr Thorpe just sits in his bloody robe. Sits and radiates sympathy. Lord of his domain.
When Seán finishes, Dr Thorpe goes, ‘We’ll need to put you on some rather stronger medication, Seán. I’m sorry the other prescription didn’t work as well as I’d hoped.’
And the guard goes, ‘I’m sorry for disturbing you, Dr Thorpe. This was a waste of everyone’s time.’
Dr Thorpe looks at him and smiles and says, ‘No problem, Ted. Sure, aren’t we all here to serve. If Seán gets the help he needs out of this, well then at least some good has been done.’
Da doesn’t say anything. He’s just looking at Seán like he’s seen him for the first time.
I can’t say anything. I’ve never felt so beaten. I’ve never felt so worthless. How this has happened I don’t know but all my fucking arrogance has been misplaced. Nobody takes me seriously. Not just Seán, but us. I’m suddenly as big a fuck-up as he is. I’m a sixteen-year-old child getting laughed at by people who know more than me. The limits of what I can do are now clearly defined and set out for me and what they amount to is shag all.
And all the while Dr Thorpe is smiling his smile and then he winks at me. Slowly and carefully. A we know something that they don’t know sort of wink.
And now I’m thinking, I’m going to get you, you smug arsehole. You’re going to regret this.
When Dr Thorpe shuts the front door he straightaway turns off the porch light. Me and Seán and my Da and the guard are all suddenly drenched in dark. Skin looks blue without light and the guard’s big moon face turns to me, turns to Seán, turns to my Da. The guard shakes his head and then says to my Da, ‘Can we have a little chat?’
The two of them go over to the squad car and me and Seán are left standing on the porch. I have my stupid gear bag slung on my back again and Seán is still sniffling and I’m going, ‘Would you cut that out.’
Seán shakes his head like a dog drying itself and he goes, ‘I had to tell them. My head was all full of stuff. I couldn’t listen to them talk anymore.’
I’m watching the guard and my Da mutter to each other. The guard has his big blue-sleeved arm around my Da’s scrawny shoulders. I don’t look at Seán but I’m saying, ‘I know. You’re in a bad way. I know you feel bad about the dead dogs. I don’t blame you for anything.’
Seán nods slowly and then he says, ‘Dr Thorpe thinks he got away with it.’
And just like that I know why I’m friends with Seán. He never doubts me. He doesn’t say, You never saw anything. He doesn’t say, Dr Thorpe wouldn’t do something like that. He doesn’t say, Nobody can believe the Lord’s prayer out of you. He trusts me.
And then Seán goes, ‘I don’t want to take any more tablets he gives me but I don’t want to do any more bad things.’
I’m looking at him now and I go, ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do, Seán.’
The guard and my Da are walking back towards us now and before they get to us Seán says, ‘Nobody believes us.’
And I go, ‘No. They don’t.’
Then my Da is standing in front of us and he’s saying, ‘Garda Devlin said he’ll give us a lift home. We’ll drop you out first, Seán.’
Seán’s house is out the Still Road beyond Cherry Orchard. We have to pass our old house on the way to it. My Da is sitting in the passenger seat of Guard Devlin’s squad car and between him and the guard the shiny plastic block of the radio bleeps and lights up. Every so often a squawk of static erupts from it and you can hear voices all tinny and distorted saying stuff. The guard has it turned down though so you can’t get any sense of what obscure dramas are going on around town as we rumble out the Milehouse Road and swing left at the Aldi roundabout. The static of the radio is the only sound in the car. Otherwise we’re travelling along in a little box of inarticulate tension.
When we pass our old house I twist like something caught on a hook so that I can catch a glimpse of our old garden. The new owners have cut back the ditches and my Mam’s flower beds have all been dug up and grassed over. We drive past but my head keeps swivelling. My gaze is tethered to our old house. Big, heavy hawsers of memory and laughter tie me to it. I’m sitting watching my childhood race away through the rear windscreen and I can feel myself go limp. The sight of the house like this has me not just hooked. It has me gaffed and gutted.
Seán’s driveway is short and it’s concreted over and leads down to an old dormer bungalow with a glass and plastic conservatory thrusting out from one gable wall. It’s dark now but in the day you can see the green mould and the drifts of dead flies that cram the angles of the conservatory windows. Seán’s Da hasn’t really been paying attention to the little things for the last while.
When the front door opens Seán’s Da is standing there and against the light from the hall you can’t see his face but you can make out the stoop of his shoulders. You can make out the lack of surprise at the sight of a squad car in his yard. You can make out the resignation that weeps from him.
Seán gets out of the squad car and walks past him into the house and just like that Seán’s front door is hammering closed. His Da doesn’t acknowledge us. He doesn’t say anything to anyone, just slams the door shut on himself and his fucked-up son.
My Da and Guard Devlin exchange a look but they don’t say anything to each other and they definitely don’t say anything to me.
The guard swings the car around and its headlights splash across the front of Seán’s house, splash across the ditches and bushes along the drive and now they’re splashing out across concrete and tarmac. In their light everything is given brittle edges and the shadows behind things are intensified. It looks like the entire world is one huge page from a giant pop-up book. In the headlights the whole place looks two-dimensional and backed by nothing but empty space.
When we get home Da thanks the guard and apologises for my behaviour and then he drags me inside the house. Before I can say anything he goes, ‘You’re not seeing that Galvin boy until he gets put on his new meds. Do you hear me?’
I blink at him and say nothing. I hate this.
By the time I see Seán again his black eye is starting to fade into the yellow colour of a thunderhead.
Without Seán, I have nothing to do. I spend the next couple of days avoiding my Da. I try not to think about Dr Thorpe’s fist crashing into the brittle cartilage and soft blubber of that woman’s face. Again and again and again. The dead meat smack of it. I try to not think of the spark that I saw go out in her. I try not to wonder what Dr Thorpe has done with her. My dreams are full of clutching hands and the smell of fake pine. They are full of voices saying, ‘Shhhhhhhhhh.’
Two days later I ring the guards again and the voice at the other end of the line goes, ‘Is this about that yoke with Dr Thorpe? Listen chap, Garda Devlin has that under control.’ And then the line goes dead and I’m left holding the receiver and staring at it while it beeeeeeeeeeps at me.
Garda fucking Devlin.
I think about going down the Banks and then I think better of it. Seán isn’t in school all week and he doesn’t reply to my texts and his Facebook page is shut down. I don’t know what’s happening to him but I’d say there’s doctors involved. I’m really worried and every time I see a squad car I want to run and hide.
