Even the Dogs

And what do you think has happened to your friends?

I don’t fucking know.

Where do you think they’ve

Waste of time thinking about all these questions anyway, waste of time worrying whether the police were going to suspect him of anything. Like they were going to give a shit either way. Like Robert was even going to get in the papers for

Got up by the roundabout and phoned the number and it weren’t a voice he recognised, mostly they were faces you’d seen about or people you’d been introduced to but not this one. Girl who answered wanted to know where he’d got the number before anything else, so he told her about the kid and where he’d seen the kid and that he knew Ben from

Lights on in the pub but hardly no one there. Bloke in a rugby shirt behind the bar rubbing his face and looking up at the ceiling. TV on in the corner and Christmas decorations still dangling off the walls. Door swung open a minute but someone must have changed their mind because no one came out. Intercity train rattling along by the sidings, the empty carriages lit up like shop windows, the squares of light skimming over the rubbish and weeds and treestumps at the side of the tracks. The old man in the wheelchair pushing himself up the hill, the stuffing spilling out of his coat and his feet dragging along the ground as he inched his way forward one grunt at a time, each small turn of the wheel marked by a grimace across his

Huh. Hah. Huh. Keeps going but it takes him

She said All right then what you want and he said Ten dark. She said That’s all? You having a laugh? He said That’s all, and he heard her talking to someone else again, checking on something while the cramping in his stomach had him bent over and gasping, desperate to shit and his hands shaking and

The girl said It’s difficult right now see

Einstein running circles outside and scratching at the glass

And she said Right well wait there we’ll see what we can do it’ll be half an hour or something and he shoved the door open and puked into the long dead grass

And we see him there for the last time, bent double on the wasteground behind the phonebox, stumbling around in circles, desperate, waiting. We watch him through the darkened glass, getting smaller as we circle the roundabout by the Miller’s Arms and turn into the grounds of the teaching hospital, slowing between the landscaped embankments and security huts, round the outskirts of the site towards the mortuary buildings. Maybe in another place or another time we would be carrying his body ourselves, there would be music and prayer, there would be crowds, and carriages, and cameras. But there’s none of that now. We drive round the back of an industrial-looking building and down a long dark ramp, and some metal shutters are rattled open, and the photographer records each movement as the bagged weight of Robert’s body is slid on to a large trolley with a squeaking wheel by men who had hoped not to be at work today, who would rather be at home with their families, who are even now thinking about phoning and telling their wives they’ll be home soon in the hope that something will be put in the oven for their tea, and as the policeman rolls the shutters closed behind us we think of Danny out there now, still walking in circles, still waiting, his dog beside him and his bag getting heavy and the sky getting darker all the time

three

They lay him away behind a shining steel door in a room as cold as stone.

We gather together in the room, sitting, standing, leaning against the wall, and we wait. For the morning. For someone to come back. For something to happen.

Waiting is one thing we’re good at, as it happens.

We’ve had a lot of practice.

We’ve got the time.

We’ve got all the time in the world.

The room is windowless and dark, tiled from ceiling to floor, with a row of heavy steel doors at one end. Each door has three tags clipped to it, with names, dates and reference numbers. The doors feel cold and hard and smooth. Two rows of fluorescent lights hang from the high ceiling on long cables and chains. A large clock sits on the end wall. The quarry-tiled floor slopes down towards a narrow gutter, and the gutter flows into a grated drain. Everything is dark. Everything is spotlessly clean.

And those days he was waiting there like that. For someone to come and find him. For someone to come and help. Just lying there, looking up at the ceiling and waiting. Or was it, what, sitting in his chair. Did it not even take that long. Lying there waiting for help and then all the waiting come to an end and his tears all wiped away or something more or less like that.

Which is something else we know about. Lying on the ground and looking up and waiting for someone to come along and help. In some kind of trouble. A turned ankle or a cracked skull or a diabetic epileptic fit or just too drunk to stand up again without some kind of a helping hand.

Which is when you’re most invisible of all. Get a good look at people’s shoes while they’re stepping around you. Like they’ll leave you there for days. Like they’ll leave you there as long as it takes.

And how many times had he been lying on his floor like that. Over the years. Waiting. The way he waited when Yvonne and Laura first left. Must have waited weeks and months before he really gave up. If he ever did. Waking up each morning going What was that. The sound of the softly closing door. Remembering they were gone and thinking about what he could do to make them come back.

Weren’t nothing he could do to make them come back and he knew it.

He knew it but he couldn’t help waiting. What else could he do.

Lying in bed in the mornings, and getting up to watch television, and sitting there waiting for his wife and daughter to come home. Even tidying the flat once or twice, throwing out all the things he’d smashed up, washing the few dishes that were left, opening the windows to clear out the smell of drink so he could sit there in a state of what, like some respectability, while he waited to welcome his wife and daughter home.

Must have known they were never coming home. But he wanted them to. Jesus. Weren’t all that much to ask. He wanted the phone to ring one mor

ning, and to pick it up and hear Yvonne asking if they could talk, if they could meet and talk and like work something out. He wanted her to pass the phone to Laura, and to hear Laura say she missed him and she wanted to come home, and to be able to say You are coming home my sweetheart, you’re coming home very soon.

He told Steve that one time. Steve didn’t say much. What could he.