Darkside_ A Novel - Belinda Bauer [52]
'OK,' said Dougie.
The house smelled old and cold. The front room was devoid of furniture apart from an oversized green vinyl sofa and a large TV with wires pouring from the back like entrails, and connected to various speakers, games consoles, DVD players and satellite receivers strewn about the dirty carpet.
'I haven't done anything wrong,' said Ronnie instantly. He sat on the floor while a white-muzzled greyhound took up the whole length of the sofa behind his head. The dog lifted its nose and looked at Jonas with its solemn, blue-sheened eyes, then lay flat again.
'I know,' said Jonas, standing in the doorway. Dougie hovered a little nervously between the two of them, unsure of whose side he should be on.
'Then why are you here?' Ronnie put down the game control he'd been holding in his lap and turned away from Jonas to pet the dog. The vast, flat animal lifted its front leg off the sofa so Ronnie could tickle its armpit.
'She likes that,' said Jonas.
'Yeah,' said Ronnie. And then - after a long pause - 'You told me that.'
'What?'
Ronnie spoke with his back to Jonas but his voice was softened by the contact with the greyhound, which lay stiff-legged, hypnotized by pleasure.
'You told me dogs like their armpits tickled.'
'Yeah?' Jonas was puzzled. 'When?'
Ronnie shrugged one shoulder. 'Dunno. When I was a kid.'
Jonas had no recollection of it. He only vaguely recalled Ronnie Trewell as a child - marked out by his limp - hanging around on the edges of everything, never excluded but never really involved either.
He watched the teenager's callused, oil-stained fingers gently stroke the most tender skin the dog had to offer.
'How old is she?' he asked.
'Twelve,' said Dougie, relieved at this new non-confrontational turn in the conversation. 'She used to race. She had tattoos in her ears but they cut them out when they dumped her.'
Jonas saw the dog's cloudy eyes widen and its whole body stiffen as Ronnie lifted its ear to show where the delicate drape of silken flesh had been brutally sliced to prevent identification and responsibility.
'She doesn't like it when you touch it,' said Ronnie, letting the ear drop back into place. 'Even after all this time.'
'She remembers, see?' said Dougie, and he walked over, perched on the edge of the sofa and smoothed the dog's brindle flank. 'Don't you, girl?'
Jonas suddenly felt overwhelmingly sad and disconnected.
The soft thief, the unformed boy, the stale room. The old dog with its long memory of bad things.
He said something to Dougie - something about the help he'd rendered yesterday. He didn't know what he said or what was said in return - it was just a way to excuse himself and move from inside the house to outside, where he could breathe and be alone.
He turned left out of the front gate instead of right and walked twenty paces across the frozen mud to the stile that led to the moor. He climbed on to it and stood there, raised into the icy night sky, confused by the depth of his own feelings.
So what if the dog was old? So what if it had had its tattoos cut out? Dogs went through bad things all the time and then recovered from them and lived happy lives. Just like people did. The dog was loved and cared for now, so why did he feel so sad?
Because the dog remembered.
Worse than that, the dog could not forget.
Even when it had an entire green-vinyl sofa to stretch out on, and a boy stroking its armpit, the memory was right there, right underneath, all ready to burst through the skin, tear open old wounds and make them bleed afresh. And it wasn't just the wounds. It was the memory of the trembling, pissing terror every time a human approached and a hand reached out, in case it held not titbits but sudden sharp and selfish pain.
Jonas was dizzy with the fear of the remembering dog. He had no idea why; he just was.
He swayed atop the icy stile, sucked air into his lungs as if he'd just missed drowning, and squeezed his eyes shut.
He wouldn't cry. He mustn't cry. He was not allowed to cry.
For some reason which escaped him, that thought made