I sit in the car, still breathing heavily, and I pick up my phone.
“Are you at home?” I ask when Anouk answers.
“I’m just coming out of Tesco,” she says. “Solvig, what’s up? I haven’t heard from you in ages. You won’t answer my texts. James has gone AWOL too. Did he find out about Mars?”
“James and I split up,” I say. “I nearly slept with this woman. Then I had a miscarriage. Now I’m pregnant again.” I look at my reflection in the rear-view mirror. “I hate myself, Anouk. I hate myself for bringing a child into this terrible mess.”
It annoys me that Anouk doesn’t agree with me. “You poor thing,” she says. “Why didn’t you tell me? Do you want to come round for a cuppa? I’ve just bought a multipack of Kit Kats.”
“I need some alone time,” I tell her. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
I sit in the car park for a few minutes, waiting for my heart rate to decrease, and then I drive home. I’m sensible and generous, letting cars out in front of me wherever I can. Each time someone raises a hand to thank me, I feel like a slightly better person. If two more people thank me on the drive home, I’ll keep it.
I let three more cars out in front of me, but only the first driver raises his hand.
When I get home, I climb the stairs and go straight to bed. I’m surprised to find Cola lying on James’s side. His eyes are open, unblinking.
I lie down and spoon him.
“Hello, baby. You’re all right now. It’s over.” I stroke his velvety ears, his shaggy muzzle, his rigid body.
34
I must have fallen asleep with the bathroom light on. It’s giving my skin a bleached, otherworldly glow. My dead dog is in bed with me. His lank fur is pressed against my shoulder. He smells of the juice at the bottom of a bin.
When I lie on my back, my stomach becomes a hammock slung between my hip bones. Tonight, though, there’s something different about it. Just below my navel, and slightly to the left, there’s a bulge. Looks like I’ve swallowed a lump of moon rock.
I need to get up.
I put on something warm; then I go downstairs and down two glasses of water. I slip my feet into my laced-up trainers and head into the garden.
In spite of James’s attempts to get me into gardening, it’s been ages since I’ve been in the shed. It’s so tidy in here. I grab the spade and begin to dig smack bang in the middle of a flower bed. “Cyclamen are a great food source for caterpillars,” James told me when he planted them last year.
I’ve never buried anything before. I’m not sure how deep you’re supposed to go. I can make out only basic shapes using the light from the kitchen window—but no doubt I’m digging up worms and grubs. I wonder what they think is happening, suddenly being thrust out into the cold air.
The hole becomes so deep that in order to continue digging, I need to climb in. I dig until the ground is level with my knees; then I sit in my man-made crater as though it’s a bathtub. I rest my head on a pillow of dirt and look up at the sky. I can see the Big Dipper and, using that, the North Star. I’m pretty sure that one of the other bright objects in the sky is Betelgeuse. You can tell by the reddish tint.
It’s time to bury my dog.
I leave a trail of soil all the way up the stairs and into my bedroom. When I put my arms around Cola, I hear him exhale.
“You alive, boy?”
He looks like a taxidermy animal, like an imitation of a dog I once had. He’s definitely not alive; his carcass must have released air when moved. I carry him downstairs carefully, nervous that he’ll leak something dead onto me.
As I lower him into the hole, I wonder if I should say a few words. We never had a funeral for my mum. We gave her a direct cremation, without a service. When I was old enough to discover that’s what Dad had chosen for her, I assumed he was being a cheapskate. When I think about it now, I don’t want a funeral either. I want to explode in a blaze of glory, then disappear into the ether.
I run back into the house and grab something I’ve been keeping stuffed behind the recipe books in the kitchen: the onesie. I let it fall onto my dog’s frozen haunches, and then I bury the whole lot, until I am looking at nothing but earth.
•
The ocean is hidden by clouds, but that doesn’t change anything. Fact is, there are people walking on the seafloor at this very moment. There are sharks and manatees and humpback whales and seahorses swimming in every direction.
I have a tray of food in front of me. Tarragon chicken with dauphinoise potatoes; couscous salad; a bread roll; cream crackers; a rectangle of mild cheddar; chocolate mousse. Every element makes me feel sick. The chicken is the worst, though. It makes me think of battery hens, crammed into tiny cages, their bald skin rubbed free of feathers.
“Seems a little early for lunch.” The passenger next to me nods at my uneaten food. In front of her is a selection of vegetarian curries. Smashed lentils, bruised veg, sauces bleeding into one another.
I smile. “Yes, exactly.”
“They’ve got a lot to get through, I expect.” The woman nibbles a pakora. “Still, it’ll be a while before we get to DC. And I’m not sure if we get dinner.”
“I’m pregnant,” I blurt. “The baby isn’t an embryo any more. It’s a foetus.”
The woman raises her eyebrows, then points at my chicken. “Better keep up your strength in that case.”
“Can I ask you something? It’s kind of personal.”
The woman turns towards
