They Do the Same Things Different There (8 page)

So, you tire of Snoopy and his anthropomorphistic ways. You want to be a real dog.

You try to tell Charlie Brown. But real dogs don’t have thought balloons. You bark, you wag your tail in urgent manners. Charlie Brown looks very confused, but then, that’s a default setting for Charlie Brown. You find a leash, drop it in front of him on the floor. At last he gets the hint.

He puts your leash on warily. He’s waiting for the punch line. He’s waiting for your ironic sneer, the little bit of humiliation you’ll make him suffer. “Good grief,” says Charlie Brown. His hands are shaking.

He takes you out to the park. That’s where most people take their dogs, but he’s never done it before. Now you’re there, he hasn’t the faintest idea what to do.

In your mouth you pick up a stick, and offer it to him. He takes it suspiciously.

His hands are still shaking.

You realize he’s scared of you. Not scared that you’ll bite him, like an ordinary dog might. But that you’ll bully him. That you’ll point at him and laugh. He was once the star of his own comic strip, and the wacky dog took that away from him, and reduced him to a stooge.

He throws the stick for you.

And, as Snoopy, so many options come into play. You could bring him back the stick, but have already fashioned it into some exciting piece of woodwork—a model boat, maybe, or a pipe rack. You could bring him instead an entire branch, an entire log, an entire tree. You could just roll your eyes, say “Good grief,” and walk away. That would be the most hurtful.

You bring him back the stick. And not in your paws, as if you’re a human. And not with a little gift bow on top, in sarcastic overenthusiasm. You bring it back properly, as a loyal dog would.

He takes the stick from you. He doesn’t trust you. He’s still waiting for the joke.

There is no joke. And each time he throws it, you bark, and race after it, and bring it back to your master. And each time, Charlie Brown’s face breaks into an ever-larger smile, and the smile is sincere and free, and it’s not a smile for the newspaper readers at home, it’s a smile for you, just for you, his faithful canine pal.

The supporting cast come back to see you again. Lucy van Pelt says, “What are you doing, you blockhead?”, and then she starts on about wanting to slug you again. Linus tells of how selfish it is that you are putting the needs of one above the livelihood of many, and finds some bit of scripture to emphasize the point. The truth is, the
Peanuts
readership is dwindling fast. No one wants to read about Snoopy if Snoopy’s just an ordinary dog. No one wants to read about a Charlie Brown who’s happy.

It’s easy to ignore Lucy and Linus, because you’re a dog, and dogs aren’t supposed to understand what humans say.

And not everyone minds. All the kids at school, the ones who never got names, the ones who never felt valued—they’re free now, they can do whatever they want. Maybe they’ll become proper kids now, with real lives, and real futures, and dreams that they have the power to fulfil. Maybe they’ll find some other comic strip to knock about in. It’s up to them.

And Charlie Brown, one morning, is excited to find something growing on his chin. “Look, boy, it’s stubble! I think I’m growing a beard!” He’s spent so many years trapped as an eight-year-old, and now even the banalities of aging seem wondrous to him.

You wrap up your storylines. Snoopy the would-be novelist puts aside his typewriter; he finally has to admit that he was never good enough to get published. Snoopy throws away his tennis racquet, his Joe Cool sunglasses, his stash of root beer.

You put on your goggles for the last time, and climb aboard your kennel. It’s time you put an end to the Red Baron once and for all. The engines roar into life, and you can feel the Sopwith Camel speeding up into the clouds. Kill the Red Baron, shoot him in cold blood if you need to, and the war will be over. You circle the sky for hours, but you can’t find anyone to fight. There’s no enemy aircraft up there. Because the First World War was such a long time ago. And the Red Baron, if he even existed, is dead, he’s already dead—maybe he was a dachshund, or a German shepherd, and he was a dog in Berlin who used to climb aboard his own kennel and fantasize about being a hero—and by now the poor animal will be long dead; maybe he died of old age, maybe he died peacefully in the arms of some round-headed little German boy all of his own.

Panel one. And you’re indoors. And your head is on Charlie Brown’s lap. And he’s scratching at your ears, and you like that. It makes you feel dizzy, it makes you feel you could just let go of this world altogether and drift off somewhere magical. And Charlie Brown says to you, “It was never what I wanted. I didn’t want fame. I didn’t know what I was agreeing to. I was just a little kid. What’s a little kid to know? And do you sometimes feel that you just want to change, to be a different person, but you can’t be? Because you’re surrounded by people who know you too well already, and they don’t mean to, but they’re going to hold you down and keep you in check, there’ll be no second chances because you can’t escape their expectations of you—and the whole world has expectations of me, they’re looking at me and know who I am and how I’ll fail at every turn. And then the second chance comes. Impossibly, the second chance is there. I never wanted a dog who was extraordinary. I wanted a dog who was ordinary to the world, but extraordinary to
me
, who’d love me and be my friend. I didn’t want a dog like Snoopy. I wanted a dog like you.” And this was all far too much to fit inside one speech bubble, but it didn’t matter, this is what Charlie Brown said to you.

Panel two. And he’s still scratching at your ears. But, no, now he’s tugging. He’s tugging at your ears. He’s tugging at your head. And you want to say, no, Charlie Brown, no, you blockhead! Because he’s going to ruin everything. Because Charlie Brown was never supposed to be happy, because this isn’t the way it’s meant to be—and he should leave your fake dog head alone, the two of you work like this, it’s
nice
like this, isn’t it? It’s neat. And if he pulls your head off and reveals the girl beneath there’s no going back, it’ll all change forever—and maybe the head won’t come off anyway, maybe it isn’t a costume anymore, maybe at last you’ve turned into a real dog—but still he tugs, he just keeps tugging, and there’s give, you can feel the weight lift from your shoulders—oh, you want to shout out, tell him to stop, good grief, Charlie Brown!—but you can’t speak, a dog can’t speak, you can only bark.

Panel three. And the head’s off. The head’s off. The head’s off. And there’s your hair everywhere. It’s spilled out all over the frame, there’s so much of it, how it has grown, how ever did you manage to stuff it all away? And its colour is so vivid, bursting out of a black and white strip like this, it’s wrong, it’s rude. Rude and red, the brightest red, the reddest red, red hair everywhere. You stare up at Charlie Brown. And he stares down at you. The round-headed kid, and the little red-haired girl.

You stare at each other for a long time.

You wonder whether you’ll move on to panel four. What the punch line will be, the thing that’ll bring you both crashing down to earth. But there doesn’t have to be one. There never has to be.

Karen thought of them as her daughters, and tried to love them with all her heart. Because, really, wasn’t that the point? They came to her, all frilly dresses, and fine hair, and plastic limbs, and eyes so large and blue and innocent. And she would name them, and tell them she was their mother now; she took them to her bed, and would give them tea parties, and spank them when they were naughty; she promised she would never leave them, or, at least, not until the end.

Her father would bring them home. Her father travelled a lot, and she never knew where he’d been, if she asked he’d just laugh and tap his nose and say it was all hush-hush, but she could sometimes guess from how exotic the daughters were, sometimes the faces were strange and foreign, one or two were nearly mulatto. Karen didn’t care, she loved them all anyway, although she wouldn’t let the mulatto ones have quite the same nursery privileges. “Here you are, my sweetheart, my angel cake, my baby doll,” and from somewhere within Father’s great jacket he’d produce a box, and it was usually gift-wrapped, and it usually had a ribbon on it—“This is all for you, my baby doll.” She liked him calling her that, although she suspected she was too old for it now, she was very nearly eight years old.

She knew what the daughters were. They were tributes. That was what Nicholas called them. They were tributes paid to her, to make up for the fact that Father was so often away, just like in the very olden days when the Greek heroes would pay tributes to their gods with sacrifices. Nicholas was very keen on Greek heroes, and would tell his sister stories of great battles and wooden horses and heels. She didn’t need tributes from Father; she would much rather he didn’t have to leave home in the first place. Nicholas would tell her of the tributes Father had once paid Mother—he’d bring her jewellery, and fur coats, and tickets to the opera. Karen couldn’t remember Mother very well, but there was that large portrait of her over the staircase, in a way Karen saw Mother more often than she did Father. Mother was wearing a black ball gown, and such a lot of jewels, and there was a small studied smile on her face. Sometimes when Father paid tribute to Karen, she would try and give that same studied smile, but she wasn’t sure she’d ever got it right.

Father didn’t call Nicholas “angel cake” or “baby doll,” he called him “Nicholas,” and Nicholas called him “sir.” And Father didn’t bring Nicholas tributes. Karen felt vaguely guilty about that—that she’d get showered with gifts and her brother would get nothing. Nicholas told her not to be so silly. He wasn’t a little girl, he was a man. He was ten years older than Karen, and lean, and strong, and he was attempting to grow a moustache; the hair was a bit too fine for it to be seen in bright light, but it would darken as he got older. Karen knew her brother was a man, and that he wouldn’t want toys. But she’d give him a hug sometimes, almost impulsively, when Father came home and seemed to ignore him—and Nicholas never objected when she did.

Eventually Nicholas would say to Karen, “It’s time,” and she knew what that meant. And she’d feel so sad, but again, wasn’t that the point? She’d go and give her daughter a special tea party then, and she’d play with her all day; she’d brush her hair, and let her see the big wide world from out of the top window; she wouldn’t get cross even if her daughter got naughty. And she wouldn’t try to explain. That would all come after. Karen would go to bed at the usual time, Nanny never suspected a thing. But once Nanny had left the room and turned out the light, Karen would get up and put on her clothes again, nice thick woollen ones, sometimes it was cold out there in the dark. And she’d bundle her daughter up warm as well. And once the house was properly still she’d hear a tap at the door, and there Nicholas would be, looking stern and serious and just a little bit excited. She’d follow him down the stairs and out of the house; they’d usually leave by the tradesmen’s entrance, the door was quieter. They wouldn’t talk until they were far away, and very nearly into the woods themselves.

He’d always give Karen a few days to get to know her daughters before he came for them. He wanted her to love them as hard as she could. He always seemed to know when it was the right time. With one doll, her very favourite, he had given her only until the weekend—it had been love at first sight, the eyelashes were real hair, and she’d blink when picked up, and if she were cuddled tight she’d say “Mama.” Sometimes Nicholas gave them as long as a couple of months; some of the dolls were a fright, and cold to the touch, and it took Karen a while to find any affection for them at all. But Karen was a girl with a big heart. She could love anything, given time and patience. Nicholas must have been carefully watching his sister, just to see when her heart reached its fullest—and she never saw him do it; he usually seemed to ignore her altogether, as if she were still too young and too silly to be worth his attention. But then, “It’s time,” he would say, and sometimes it wasn’t until that very moment that Karen would realize she’d fallen in love at all, and of course he was right, he was always right.

Karen liked playing in the woods by day. By night they seemed strange and unrecognizable, the branches jutted out at peculiar angles as if trying to bar her entrance. But Nicholas wasn’t afraid, and he always knew his way. She kept close to him for fear he would rush on ahead and she would be lost. And she knew somehow that if she got lost, she’d be lost forever—and it may turn daylight eventually, but that wouldn’t matter, she’d have been trapped by the woods of the night, and the woods of the night would get to keep her.

And at length they came to the clearing. Karen always supposed that the clearing was at the very heart of the woods, she didn’t know why. The tight press of trees suddenly lifted, and here there was space—no flowers, nothing, some grass, but even the grass was brown, as if the sunlight couldn’t reach it here. And it was as if everything had been cut away to make a perfect circle that was neat and tidy and so empty, and it was as if it had been done especially for them. Karen could never find the clearing in the daytime. But then, she had never tried very hard.

Nicholas would take her daughter, and set her down upon that browning grass. He would ask Karen for her name, and Karen would tell him. Then Nicholas would tell Karen to explain to the daughter what was going to happen here. “Betsy, you have been sentenced to death.” And Nicholas would ask Karen upon what charge. “Because I love you too much, and I love my brother more.” And Nicholas would ask if the daughter had any final words to offer before sentence was carried out; they never did.

He would salute the condemned then, nice and honourably. And Karen would by now be nearly in tears; she would pull herself together. “You mustn’t cry,” said Nicholas, “you can’t cry, if you cry the death won’t be a clean one.” She would salute her daughter too.

What happened next would always be different.

When he’d been younger, Nicholas had merely hanged them. He’d put rope around their little necks and take them to the closest tree and let them drop down from the branches, and there they’d swing for a while, their faces still frozen with trusting smiles. As he’d become a man, he’d found more inventive ways to dispatch them. He’d twist off their arms, he’d drown them in buckets of water he’d already prepared, he’d stab them with a fork. He’d say to Karen, “And how much do you love this one?” And if Karen told him she loved her very much, so much the worse for her daughter—he’d torture her a little first, blinding her, cutting off her skin, ripping off her clothes and then toasting with matches the naked stuff beneath. It was always harder to watch these executions because Karen really
had
loved them, and it was agony to see them suffer so. But she couldn’t lie to her brother. He would have seen through her like glass.

That last time had been the most savage, though Karen hadn’t known it would be the last time, of course—but Nicholas, Nicholas might have had an inkling.

When they’d reached the clearing, he had tied Mary-Lou to the tree with string. Tightly, but not
too
tight—Karen had said she hadn’t loved Mary-Lou especially, and Nicholas didn’t want to be cruel. He had even wrapped his own handkerchief around her eyes as a blindfold.

Then he’d produced from his knapsack Father’s gun.

“You can’t use that!” Karen said. “Father will find out! Father will be angry!”

“Phooey to that,” said Nicholas. “I’ll be going to war soon, and I’ll have a gun all of my own. Had you heard that, Carrie? That I’m going to war?” She hadn’t heard. Nanny had kept it from her, and Nicholas had wanted it to be a surprise. He looked at the gun. “It’s a Webley Mark IV service revolver,” he said. “Crude and old-fashioned, just like Father. What I’ll be getting will be much better.”

He narrowed his eyes, and aimed the gun, fired. There was an explosion, louder than Karen could ever have dreamed—and she thought Nicholas was shocked too, not only by the noise, but also by the recoil. Birds scattered. Nicholas laughed. The bullet had gone wild. “That was just a warm up,” he said.

It was on his fourth try that he hit Mary-Lou. Her leg was blown off.

“Do you want a go?”

“No,” said Karen.

“It’s just like at a fairground,” he said. “Come on.”

She took the gun from him, and it burned in her hand, it smelled like burning. He showed her how to hold it, and she liked the way his hand locked around hers as he corrected her aim. “It’s all right,” he said to his little sister gently, “we’ll do it together. There’s nothing to be scared of.” And really he was the one who pulled the trigger, but she’d been holding on too, so she was a
bit
responsible, and Nicholas gave a whoop of delight and Karen had never heard him so happy before, she wasn’t sure she’d
ever
heard him happy. And when they looked back at the tree Mary-Lou had disappeared.

“I’m going across the seas,” he said. “I’m going to fight. And every man I kill, listen, I’m killing him for you. Do you understand me? I’ll kill them all because of you.”

He kissed her then on the lips. It felt warm and wet and the moustache tickled, and it was hard too, as if he were trying to leave an imprint there, as if when he pulled away he wanted to leave a part of him behind.

“I love you,” he said.

“I love you too.”

“Don’t forget me,” he said. Which seemed such an odd thing to say—how was she going to forget her own brother?

They’d normally bury the tribute then, but they couldn’t find any trace of Mary-Lou’s body. Nicholas put the gun back in the knapsack, he offered Karen his hand. She took it. They went home.

They had never found Nicholas’ body either; at the funeral his coffin was empty, and Father told Karen it didn’t matter, that good form was the thing. Nicholas had been killed in the Dardanelles, and Karen looked for it on the map, and it seemed such a long way to go to die. There were lots of funerals in the town that season, and Father made sure that Nicholas’ was the most lavish, no expense was spared.

The family was so small now, and they watched together as the coffin was lowered into the grave. Father looking proud, not sad. And Karen refusing to cry—“Don’t cry,” she said to the daughter she’d brought with her, “you mustn’t cry, or it won’t be clean,” and yet she dug her fingernails deep into her daughter’s body to try to force some tears from it.