Even the Dogs: A Novel (12 page)

Like Danny at the phonebox by the Miller’s Arms where we saw him last. Waiting there still, in the dark, with the evening’s trains rattling past and the door to the pub slamming open and shut somewhere behind him. Shivering and moaning and Einstein curling round and round his ankles, as if that could make him feel better, as if that could help at all, as if anything but what he was waiting for could help or can help him now.

 Do you think He believes in you.

I could just really do with something to hold me until I get out, is there anything you can do.

Pardon me for asking but if you could just, fucking.

And it was Danny doing more or less all the begging out of those two. I’m not being funny and that but I’ve not really got the temperament, Mike said, when they talked about it. Weren’t much of a discussion. I’ve not got the patience la, he said. People can be funny when you’re sat there like that, and I switch a bit easy, you know what I mean, I like lash out and that and it causes more trouble than it’s worth. I tend to misinterpret people’s faces Danny, that’s my problem, that’s one of my problems, I tend to see the worst in them pal and then it all kicks off. So like it’s best all round if you do the sitting and I’ll keep lookout and plus once we’ve got the cash I’ll take care of the scoring is that cool with you?

Muttering all this into Danny’s ear like it was a question but it weren’t really a question at all. Things weren’t like that. Were they. Mike was the one with the plan. That’s how it was right from when they first hooked up, when Danny’s first giro ran out and they had to leave the old warehouse and head out for more cash. Mike telling him the plan all the way there, stooping while they walked and spitting it into Danny’s ear.

And that was when Steve started seeing them around the place. Sitting outside the wet centre waiting for it to open, reading a book or talking to the others waiting there as well, and it seemed like every other time he looked up he’d see Danny and Mike rushing past one way or the other. Mike chatting into his phone and Danny pulling that dog along behind him. Skinny buggers the both of them, needle-thin, all hands and arms and tripping over their feet, Mike always striding out with Danny tagging along behind, Danny squinting ahead of him like he was venturing into a long dark tunnel or something. Looked like people with a lot of business to attend to. Looked like they were in what you might call a high-stress occupation. Was what Steve thought, then.

There’s a patch in the underpass we’ll try first off, over by the bus station, big crowd from the offices coming through, should get enough for the first bag of the day. This is Mike, with his plan. Then we’ll get you signed up at the
Issue
, they barred me a while back for like a misunderstanding, you know what I’m saying, but you’ll be all right and they give new boys the best patches so with a bit of joy that’ll be enough for bag number two. Then if you’re any good at lifting we’ll go through Boots and get some blades and batteries and that and sell them on at the King’s Head, maybe tap up a few more people on the way back to the flats and we’ll have enough for a third bag which’ll hold us through until it’s time for the coming-out-of-work crowd so we’ll get back down the underpass and we’ll be sorted in no time la. Then we’ll think about finding somewhere to sleep. Full-time job living like this and then some. Takes a lot of dedication. Takes a lot of planning. Got to have a plan Danny boy, got to have a plan. Stick with me and you’ll be all right. I’ve got the plans. Got them all up here.

Tapping at his head and tugging Danny’s sleeve to guide him through the crowds by the bus station, the two of them clearing a path, Mike with his long black coat swinging around his knees, Danny with his mouth still swollen and red from the lamping he’d taken the week before.

Two of them made a pair sometimes, striding through the streets with Danny hauling a load of blankets and dragging his dog along, and Mike chatting away on his phone, giving it all No you listen to me pal youse all listen to me. Like he was talking to his agent or his stockbroker or something.

Takes a lot of fucking, what, commitment and that.

Steve spent a lot of time at the wet centre when he started drinking again. Waiting. Easy place to be when he needed to get out of the rain, and no one bothered him. Didn’t have to talk to anyone unless he wanted to. And he didn’t want to after the year he’d had. This was when, long time ago now. Ten years or something. Who knows. After he’d gone dry for a time, a big mistake he was more than making up for now. Which put him in good company but he didn’t go there for the company did he. Went there for the food, the dry clothes, the chance to get out of the weather. He was what you might call between residences, meaning he had no bastard place to stay, but he’d learnt enough survival skills in the army to know that you make use of whatever resources are available to you at any given time. And the wet centre was a resource and a half and no mistake. Even if he had to wait outside half the morning for the place to open.

That dog though, what a state. Danny told him about it one time, said it was how come he’d left London in the first place. Some dealer smashed her back leg with an iron bar on account of Danny owing him money, and he thought it was best not to wait and see what might happen next. Keep trying to get to the PDSA to get it looked at, he said. But I don’t want no one taking her off me. Else what would I do then.

Some people are never comfortable just sitting there like that though. When they’re sat waiting for the same thing, at the doctor’s or the housing or wherever. Think they have to break the silence. But not Steve. He could sit and wait in silence all day if he had to. Something he’d learnt on manoeuvres. Patience. Sat outside the wet centre though and someone would always crack on about the weather or the police or asylum seekers and Steve would just give them a look and go back to whatever he was reading. That was enough, mostly. That and H growling at them. Weren’t even a growl hardly, just this noise in the back of his throat that you knew would get much worse than a growl if you didn’t stop whatever it was you were doing. He was good for things like that. Mean-looking stump of a dog, white-faced and black-eyed with a flattened nose, not exactly what you’d call playful or affectionate even with Steve but at least he kept people out of the way. Which was what Steve wanted, mostly.

But one time Heather turned up, and crouched in front of H and scratched his chin and he didn’t make a sound. And Steve looked up, and Heather said You look like you could do with a drink. Made him laugh. Felt like he hadn’t laughed in a long while. Felt like a start.

Knew Heather from around but hadn’t spoken to her before. Hard to miss though. Big woman, with layers and layers of clothes and long knotted hair that she kept changing the colour of, and a whole bunch of tattoos including a tattoo of an eye in the middle of her forehead. Which was what people mostly noticed first. Was hard to miss.

So I can keep an extra eye out for trouble, she said, when people asked her why she’d had it done. There’s sort of always trouble to look out for.

They started drinking together, Steve and Heather, and they got talking, and she asked him about H. He said he’d had him about twelve or thirteen years, since he was a puppy, and that was more or less how long he’d been out on the streets. Been through a lot together, he said, and Heather finished a can and said Haven’t we all sweetheart.

She said it sounded like they’d been on the scene for about the same time. Said she’d been in a band before that, they’d done a lot of touring and it had been going well but things hadn’t worked out. Musical differences, she said, rolling up her sleeve and showing him the state of her arm. All the marks from what the needles had done. Plus this other stuff, these rows of raised pink scars all up and down her arm. Helps to distract you sometimes, sort of keeps you from doing other things or thinking about other things.

She asked him where he was stopping and he said Nowhere much, and a while later, when they were leaving the wet centre, leaning out into the night like they were walking into a storm, holding each other up and slipping on the dry ground, she said I’m stopping with this bloke up the way, he don’t like going out but he’s a decent bloke so he won’t mind if you stop there for a bit as well. And when he got there he was too drunk to be surprised that it was Robert’s flat they were falling into.

It all comes round again, in the end.

Robert didn’t look surprised to see him. It had been years though hadn’t it. Maybe it took them a moment to recognise each other. If they even did. How long had it been. It had been years. It was hard to remember. There were too many. Could have been seven or eight or nine years, could have been two or three. Too many, gaps.

Didn’t say much when Steve said hello. He’d got himself a dog as well by then, Penny, and all three of them watched Penny and H sniffing around each other for a minute, like Little and Large, growling and snapping and then calming down. H sniffing around for crumbs on the floor. Steve sat on the floor because there was only the one chair by then. Heather fell over in the corner and closed her eyes, and just before she fell asleep she said Eh now you two I’m still watching you two now. Meaning with her third eye, with that faded blue and green tattoo.

Told the same joke most nights from what Steve could tell. Weren’t even that funny. Gave him the creeps.

Weren’t quite true when Heather said she’d been in a band. Was more like she’d been with a band. Or like they’d been with her.

When they woke up in the morning, the three of them, with H and Penny barking in the hallway and banging against the door to be let out, Robert looked over at Steve and pushed his hat up out of his eyes and said What was your name again mate? Don’t I know you from somewhere?

These, gaps.

Here’s something, he said. I’ll tell you what. This is important.

Steve waited all day for Robert to remember who he was, and then he forgot about it. It had been a long time ago. They’d both, what was it, they’d both moved on since then. Although Robert hadn’t moved far, about two or three feet by the look of it, and Steve was still drinking, was drinking again, and still going around the same places. But still, things had happened in the meantime. Steve had been away, for one. He’d been dry, and he’d been away, and he’d come back and he wasn’t dry any more. Robert had put on weight, had more or less doubled in size it looked like, like he must have stayed put in that chair the whole time since Steve had seen him. Like he’d run out of the energy or something.

Robert had seen Laura, it turned out. That was something else. Just turned up at the door one night. With a backpack and a tie-dye headscarf and some story about hating her mum and never wanting to go home. She hates me too, she’d said, I know she does, she don’t want me around no more, she can’t be bothered, she’s all bloody wrapped up with Paul and she aint got time for me no more, she’s always bloody moaning about what I do all the time, staying out late and going over my mate’s and smoking and all that bollocks, she’s such a bloody hypocrite I bloody well hate her.

Said all that to Heather. Standing in the darkened kitchen with her backpack at her feet, glancing through to the lounge where her dad and two other men lay slumped on the floor, and eventually she said Like are they all right or what?

Heather had been drunk when Laura had arrived. But not as drunk as the others, and not so drunk that she didn’t ask who was there before she answered the door. Says she knew it was Laura as soon as she saw her. Even though she didn’t look all that much like him, then. She’d done her best to look older and rougher but she hadn’t done enough. She’d ripped her jeans, and scuffed her boots, and pierced her nose. But so what. Her fingernails were still clean, her hair was tied back, her skin was pink and soft and unmarked by bruises or scars or tattoos. She’d brushed her teeth that morning, and every morning and evening before that. Didn’t have any missing from what Heather could see.

Reckon she thought she’d come to the wrong flat when she saw me stood there, Heather said, when she told Steve about it. State of me. Bless her though, she was all geared up for this grand reunion and her old man was crashed out cold on the floor. Must have been a bit disappointing.

Who you calling disappointing? Robert asked, and Heather looked at him, and the three of them tore into laughter.

Robert’s laugh the loudest of all, the wheeze and whistle of it filling the room.

Laura in the kitchen telling Heather how much her mum hated her, the only light coming from the orange streetlamps in the carpark outside, her face shadowed and urgent and her eyes beginning to shine, and when she’d finished Heather said How old are you now love?

She put her hands in her back pockets and said I’m fifteen, have you got any fags?

Laura rolling a cigarette with Heather’s tobacco, her long white fingers fumbling with the thin paper and once she’d licked it shut those same clean fingers picking the strands of tobacco from her tongue. Looking around for an ashtray. Heather pointing out all the fag-ends lying trodden into the floor, and saying I wouldn’t bother sweetheart it’s too late for that.

He waited years for them to come back, and when one of them did he was too drunk to see it.

Should have told her to go home right then. But she wouldn’t have listened. Fifteen and on the road for the first time, she wouldn’t have listened to no one.