Authors: Joe Murphy
I’m looking at the back wall of Dr Thorpe’s garden. It is suddenly light years away. There’s absolutely no chance of me and Seán getting over it before Dr Thorpe sees us. If he comes straight
into the kitchen we won’t even get as far as the rose beds.
Then Seán goes, ‘We can hide in the dog shed.’
I’m blinking and it’s like the machinery of my brain is all seized up and rusted solid.
Seán’s looking afraid too and he’s staring at me and he’s going, ‘We can hide up in the roof. Behind the dog food.’
I’m nodding because I can’t say anything. Every drop of
moisture
has evaporated from my throat. I can feel my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth like something charred in a stove. Without much conscious thought I’m running beside Seán. Running through the sunlight and the smells of roses. Running until we reach the dog shed.
No shout pursues us or halts us in our tracks. No noise comes from the doctor’s house.
The dog shed is an oven in the lifting sun and from the
shadowed
corners and the bowl of dog food there’s the sickbed buzzing of flies. We climb up into the little loft and burrow in amongst the bags of dog food and grass seed. We lie there baking under the galvanise and we try to stop our breathing from
sounding
too loud. I’m sure if you stood at the open door you’d be able to hear the woolly hammering of my heart. Of my panic.
Seán’s trying to stop himself moaning but every now and then this noise comes lowing soft from between his clenched teeth.
When I hear voices, I freeze.
Beside me I can feel the cords of Seán’s too-big muscles
tighten
and then he goes still as well. He lies there, hard and
motionless
as a concrete slab.
Outside in the garden I can hear Dr Thorpe going, ‘Good girl. Look at the fat belly on you. Come on and we’ll fill up your water. Good girl.’
And then another voice trails in on the slick of sunlight
coming
through the door. It goes, ‘How old is she now? Are you thinking of breeding her?’
I recognise that voice. The dragged-out wide vowels. The funny Rs.
Guard Devlin.
Then between the bags of grass seed and dog food I can see two shadows at the door. Then between the bags of grass seed and dog food I can see the two men.
Guard Devlin is in full uniform. His hat is crammed down on his head so that from where I’m lying I can’t see his eyes. Over his pale blue shirt his stab vest is a wall of navy panelling. Beside him, Dr Thorpe is wearing cream slacks and a red polo shirt and he reaches down to pick up his dog’s half-empty water bowl, its contents gone stagnant in the heat.
His hair glimmers in the sunshine as he’s straightening up and saying, ‘I might breed her alright. I don’t do much hunting
anymore
.’
And the guard’s going, ‘No? No, I suppose you don’t. Doing a lot of gardening these days, I see. Did you ever see
Tales of the Unexpected?
Rose bushes. Everything was all the time buried under rose bushes.’
It’s Dr Thorpe’s reaction that makes me almost gasp out loud.
He grabs the guard by the front of his stab-proof vest and
drags him all the way into the dog shed. His face is all twisted up and he looks like he’s goig to explode. His face is the colour of wet brick dust and there’s a purple worm of vein scrawled all the way down from one temple to underneath his left eye.
He has the guard by the front of his vest and he’s spraying words into his face. He’s going, ‘For fuck’s sake, Ted. That’s not a fucking laughing matter. Do you know what it’s like to be accused of something so horrible? Jesus Christ.’
The guard has his hands up with the palms out and he’s going, ‘Easy, Syl. Take it easy. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
Dr Thorpe lets him go and looks down at the clean cement floor. He shakes his head and goes, ‘I’m sorry, Ted. I’ve been under a lot of stress lately. This has been very hard.’
Guard Devlin folds his arms and goes, ‘Look. It’s all taken care of. I couldn’t care less even if she was pushing up roses.’
And there it is.
Beside me I can feel Seán spasm and the plastic bags of seed and grain crackle softly.
Pushing up roses.
Guard Devlin and Dr Thorpe don’t notice though and Dr Thorpe’s going, ‘I don’t know how you can be so cavalier about all this.’
The guard is leaning against the door jamb now and his alien voice is coming out from under the brim of his cap. He’s saying, ‘I’m not being cavalier at all. I can guarantee you that. But, Syl, if you want me to do anything else for you, you’ll have to wait a while.’
Dr Thorpe is shaking his head now and he’s going, ‘We’ll see. We’ll see.’
Then he looks down to where he’s dropped the dog’s bowl. Stagnant water has splashed all over the cement floor and made dark lozenges all over the front of his slacks.
He says, ‘Fuck.’
Then he picks up the bowl, goes to a tap by the shed door and fill the bowl again. He puts it on the ground and drags his damp fingers through his hairspray-cured quiff. He sighs when he does this and the guard goes, ‘Go and play your golf. Forget about this.’
Then the two men turn and leave the dog shed. The last thing I hear before they get too far away is Guard Devlin going, ‘I’ll say this though, Syl. You need to get a grip on that temper of yours.’
We, me and Seán, stay hiding behind the bags of seed and dog food for another fifteen minutes. We stay there so long that my shirt feels like it’s been drenched in warm water and sweat is dripping from my eyebrows. We stay there for fifteen minutes not saying a anything. And for fifteen minutes the words
pushing up roses
are cycling through my brain. Round and round and round.
Eventually Dr Thorpe’s German Pointer pads into the shed and sits on the warm cement floor looking up at us. She
whimpers
way down in the back of her throat.
Seán goes, ‘What do we do now? Are we in trouble?’
And I go, ‘No. We’re not in trouble. We’re fucking right. We’ve been right all along. I did see something. I knew it.’
The dead meat smack of it.
And Seán turns his big head and he says, ‘So are we going home?’
He says, ‘Are we ringing the Guards?’
He says, ‘I don’t like this place.’
And looking at his soft sweating face I know he’s going to have a hard time understanding all this.
I go, ‘We can’t ring the Guards because they seem to be in on this. If we ring them we might end up pushing up roses too.’
Seán’s frowning and his cheeks are oceans of perspiration. He’s frowning and he says, ‘What does
pushing up
roses
mean?’
He’s looking at me like he hasn’t heard the conversation between Dr Thorpe and Guard Devlin. He’s looking at me with a strange searching look on his face. His eyes slither over my
features
like leeches.
He’s looking at me like this and then he’s going, ‘Tell me.’
And with my heart still slam-dancing against my ribs I say, ‘I can’t tell you.
‘I can’t tell you,’ I say again. ‘But I can show you.’
The spades in Dr Thorpe’s
sheds are all ridiculously well maintained. The handles are worn and sweat-lacquered to a matt sheen and the blades are all shiny and oiled and free from rust and muck. You could perform surgery with them. Or an autopsy.
I grab one and Seán grabs another and the two of us go over to the big spiral rose bed. Dr Thorpe’s German Pointer tags along after Seán. We get to the rose bed and we start to scoop away the mulch and dead grass. At the beginning Seán has no idea why he’s doing this but the longer we keep at it the more the realisation dawns on him.
He stops and goes, ‘What if we find her?’
I look at him and the heat of my efforts is dribbling sweat into my eyes and scalding them.
He stops and goes, ‘Maybe we should ring your Da or
someone
.’
I look at him in disgust and go, ‘Because that did a whole lot of good the last time?’
I’ve cleared a big swathe of mulch and dead grass and it’s lying scattered all over the lawn next to the rose bed. When Dr Thorpe comes back it’ll be obvious what’s after happening and if we’re still here I’m pretty sure we’re dead. Now I’m standing on the raw soil of the rose bed. Wexford soil, dark as molasses, and my spade bites into it and throws it out and away.
And then Dr Thorpe’s German Pointer comes up beside me and starts scratching right beside where I’m digging.
I’m looking at the dog and I realise that Seán has stopped digging and he’s watching too. The dog’s two front paws are churning the soil and she’s yipping to herself, soft but frantic.
And now I’m going, ‘Seán, could you come here and hold the dog, please?’
I’m calm. Calm as a graveyard.
Seán’s hand on the dog’s neck stops her digging and Seán
half-lifts
half-drags the dog away. When the dog is out of the way I start ramming the spade into the grooves her paws have carved.
I dig for ten minutes and then I dig for ten minutes more with the fats in my body melting in the heat and drooling out of my pores.
I’m thinking, what if I find something?
When I start to retch I’m glad I haven’t eaten anything.
The noises I’m making frighten the dog and she ducks behind Seán’s legs. I stand there doubled over and every muscle in my torso is aching because I’m dry-heaving so hard. My throat is
burning because my stomach is trying to eject bile and acid out through my mouth.
Seán just stands there and looks at me like I’m not me
anymore
. Already there’s flies starting to land in the crater at my feet. From out of it I think I can get the stink of something rotting. It smells like that gutted house. Like dead dogs.
The crater is about two feet down under this lovely cottage rose. I can’t see it yet but under the rose there must be a body. Under the rose and under the mulch, its flesh is starting to sour. According to every
CSI
I’ve ever seen, after this length of time the body should be a good distance down the road to decomposition. Especially in this weather. My brain is telling me this and I’m
trying
to tell it that I don’t want to fucking know. I’m trying not to think of that cracked porcelain doll’s face. That cloud of frizzy red hair. I’m trying not to think of her skin putrefying and sliding off her bones. I’m trying not to think of her belly blowing up with gases until her insides liquefy and dribble out her own anus. I’m trying not to think of the smell. Of the flies.
Right now I hate Dr Thorpe more than anything.
I retch and I retch and I retch.
And now there’s the sound of tyres on gravel.
I straighten up and me and Seán look at each other and we stand like pagan ogham stones. My mind is thinking there’s no way that could be the doctor back. He couldn’t have finished already. And then it’s thinking, maybe he forgot something or there was a mix-up with the tee-offs. And then it’s thinking
ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit
.
From around the front of the house I can hear a car door slam.
Out of a black well of horror I can hear my voice go, ‘Seán, we have to get the fuck out of here. We have to get the fuck out of here now.’
Seán says, ‘But we haven’t found her, yet.’
And then he goes, ‘What if she isn’t here?’
I can hear the doubt in him. It’s like something lost in the dark.
I look from Seán to the hole between my feet and back again. I’m standing there like a moron and, like I have no control over it any more, I hear my voice go, ‘She’s here. She’s right here. I can smell her.’
Seán looks from the house to me and then back to the house again and he goes, ‘We may run. I don’t want to get into any more trouble.’
We can’t be found here. I know this with all the certainty that I know I saw what I saw. I’m looking at Seán and I’m looking at the back wall and then I get an idea. I’m swallowing what feels like a knot of oily rags in my gullet and I’m going, ‘We’ll run around the front. Dr Thorpe’s inside the house. If he goes into the kitchen, he’ll see us. If we head out the front at least he might be afraid of other people seeing him.’
And just like that me and Seán are turning to run.
We tear around the front of the house and any second I’m expecting to hear Dr Thorpe’s voice yelling at us. We pound around the corner and there’s Dr Thorpe’s car. In the sunlight it
looks like a giant, carapaced insect. It is still running and the front door to Dr Thorpe’s house is standing open and I can
imagine
the fake pine smell curling out from it. At the bottom of the drive the black iron gates are open too. Me and Seán don’t even have to say anything, we just barrel straight down the drive toward those gates and away from the horror of Dr Thorpe’s house.
Me and Seán run and run and we’re near the gates when a shout comes from behind us.
‘Hey, stop! What the fuck were you at?’
And then Dr Thorpe’s voice takes on a ragged edge and his next words sound sort of splintered like the scream of a seagull. He screams, ‘You little fuckers! What were you doing in my house? Get the back here!’
I’m thinking he obviously hasn’t seen the garden yet. I’m thinking that when he does he’s going to come after us.
We, me and Seán, are through the gates now and we’re on the Nunnery Road. We pitch right and centrifugal force hurls me out on to the road before I yaw back onto the path. Me and Seán are running harder than I ever thought it possible for someone to run. I am borne on a jet of pure adrenaline. Terror propels me forward. Terror carries me toward the barricades a hundred yards in front of us.
Beside me Seán’s heavy head is a dull ball of concentration but I’m giggling as I run. With an awful clarity I realise that I’m on the verge of hysteria.
In front of us the orange plastic barriers are manned by two
guards who are paying absolutely no attention to us as we close the distance.
Then, without any warning, from behind us comes the bellow of a big diesel engine and Dr Thorpe’s 407 slews out of his gate and onto the tarmac.
Seán looks behind him and goes, ‘I’m scared.’ Every syllable is punctuated by a whooping breath.
My voice is all high-pitched and warbling but I look at him and I say, ‘Me too.’
The guards at the barricades are taking notice because two teenagers are sprinting towards them, closely followed by a
gleaming
black car that’s rapidly gaining and you can hear the whine of the engine as it’s pushed into the red before every gear shift.
We reach the barrier with about twenty yards to spare and behind us the sound of braking fills the world. The two guards step out from behind their barrier and one of them is saying something into his radio. The other one is transferring his gaze from us to Dr Thorpe’s 407 and back to us again. Me and Seán try to get past them but the second one stops us and says, ‘What’s the problem lads?’
Before Seán can say anything, I go, ‘There’s no problem, Guard. We’re just late meeting our friends in the Square.’
His buddy has by now strolled over to Dr Thorpe’s car which has come to a stop up on the kerb much closer to us than I’d like. The guard is leaning in the passenger window and he’s saying something to Dr Thorpe. Then he’s straightening and then he’s looking at us and then he beckons his partner over.
The guard says, ‘Stay here.’ And he walks over to where his buddy is talking with the good doctor.
Seán, standing beside me, goes, ‘We’re not staying here, are we?’
I look at him and then I look at the two guards and their cosy little chat with Dr Thorpe and I go, ‘Stay here? No fucking way.’
Just as the second guard goes to turn away from the 407, me and Seán turn tail and run as hard as we can. I take a look over my shoulder and I can see the first guard saying something into his radio and I can see Dr Thorpe getting out of his car. His face is all hard and shiny and now instead of looking like Pat Kenny he looks like Henry Fonda at the start of
Once Upon a Time in the West
. And I’m thinking how blue blue his eyes are. And then I’m thinking of Henry Fonda again and then I’m thinking,
ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit
.
During the Strawberry Fair there’s only one place to go where you’re going to be guaranteed a crowd so when we get to the Pig Market Hill we turn left down towards the Maket Square. Behind us the two guards and Dr Thorpe are sort of half jogging, half walking. They’re doing this so that they don’t attract too much attention. Because they’re doing this though we’re extending our lead on them.
We’re about halfway down Main Street and the music from the makeshift stage down in the Square comes skirling up through the warm air. There are people here. Lots of people and the crowds are getting denser the further into town we get. Locals and tourists and families from out the country, all with tubs of
strawberries in their fists and smears of cream slathered across their faces. Purple and gold shirts are everywhere. They don’t notice anything except their own company and me and Seán hurry between them and behind us the two guards and Dr Thorpe are all spiky and urgent in their movements.
Me and Seán have stopped running now because once you get to the junction between Main Street and the Square you can’t run anymore. It’s too packed. Dr Thorpe is still behind us but now there’s no sign of the two guards.
Out of breath, Seán goes, ‘Where are we going?’
And exhausted I say, ‘I don’t know.’
There’s something in Seán’s face that makes me frown and I’m saying, ‘What’s wrong?’
Seán blinks real slowly and his big shoulders shift
uncomfortably
and he goes, ‘Are you sure you saw what you saw? We’re going to get in loads of trouble if you didn’t see anything.’
In the middle of this crowd of people I go, ‘For fuck’s sake, Seán. Not you too?’
Seán blinks again, real slow, and now I’m worried because he doesn’t say anything. He just looks at me with his great sad eyes.
Still frowning, I go, ‘Come on.’
We’re wending our way through the crowds but it’s impossible to see where we’re going and I’m just waiting for a guard’s big hand to land on my shoulder or Dr Thorpe to head us off. Ten or fifteen yards behind us I can hear him apologising to people for barging into them.
Up on the bandstand a rubber chicken outfit of two guitarists
and a drum machine are playing ‘Kelly the Boy from Killann’. The crowd are loving it.
In front of us one of the guards from the barrier pushes through the crowd like an ice-breaker. His eyes are looking ahead at something and his gaze slides right over our heads but I can feel my bladder spasm anyway. Me and Seán stop talking and he passes within a few yards of us as the gold sun of freedom
darkens
at Ross.
We duck down as low as we can without attracting attention. I’m peeking out through a meaty fence of arms and hips and torsos and I’m terrified but I’m trying to think of what to do. I’m trying to think of some way to get away from here. Around the square there’s a ring of guards and if they’re all pals with Dr Thorpe then we’re well and truly fucked. Even if they’re not we have no way of knowing until it’s too late. I’m thinking, if only there was a way of letting everyone know all at once.
Everyone
couldn’t be in on it.
And on the bandstand the lead singer is braying out that dauntless Kelly is Mount Leinster’s own darling and pride and then I’m turning to Seán and I’m going, ‘Come on.’
I’m looking at the bandstand and then I’m grabbing Seán by the collar and I’m going, ‘Just follow me.’
We’re pushing through the crowd and I’m going, ‘Excuse me. Sorry. Coming through.’ There’s people getting annoyed and there’s this ripple of disgruntlement spreading out from where we’re moving.
Off to the right I catch a glimpse of Dr Thorpe and I know
that he sees me because he starts angling toward us. He’s moving through the crowd a lot more elegantly now that he can see us. Under his petrified quiff, his face is hot and slick with sweat.
Right in front of the stage the festival organisers have placed the white plastic lawn furniture. This tacky seating area is lightly populated with a scattering of old men and women who sit there with their handbags on their laps and their walking sticks on the ground and expressions of contentment on their faces. Me and Seán barrel through them towards the stage. Brilliantly, one old man with skin like yellow paper and liver spots all over his bald skull lets out a roar on our way by and swings his stick at us.
Seán is moaning now and because we’re clattering through the plastic seating, the crowd no longer hides us. Out in the open like this we are the focus of every eye in the Square. The thing is Dr Thorpe can see this too and he’s stopped on the edge of the crowd like a swimmer afraid to get in the pool. His face is this weird shade of red that I’ve never seen before. It’s like his veins and
capillaries
are flushing madder beneath his skin.
Everyone is looking at us and even the band have stopped playing.
Everyone is looking at us as me and Seán vault over the
waist-high
steel fence that protects the stage. Everyone is looking at us as me and Seán climb up onto the stage and look out over the crowd. Every face is turned towards us and every eye sees us standing there and down in the crowd I can see Dr Thorpe take a step forward.