*
Sleeping, Dan thought he was in a hole in the mud, his face squashed up against soft dirt, but when he jerked awake with a shout he realised it was just the duvet. It smelt funny. Stinky. Holes in the ground. Must have been thinking about that body. He turned over and fell into a mess of half-awake dreaming, a Bambi deer looked in the gate from the woods, the ghost of handless Jenny walked under the trees down by the Dogwood Beck that ran down the narrow valley between Hothemby Fell and the Copcollar. Mist rolled down from the heights and handless Jenny turned into his mother sitting on the bathroom floor looking up at him with big black suffering eyes. There was a thunderstorm, heavy rain pounding the bedroom window, he was running through the woods, gasping and panting, crashing wild, throwing sticks for Billy, a grumpy little black and white runt with a docked tail and a tic in his head and a terrible flatulence problem. Something crept over him, and he woke at last, fully, flailing, with a cat getting settled next to him and the thought of his old dog Billy in his head. Tears shocked him. How he ached this morning, body and soul. Pathetic.
Should get a dog, he thought, reaching for his watch. Getting on for noon.
Old, he thought, drinking his tea on the back step, stiff all over.
‘There you are, you bugger,’ he said. The big orange cat sat on the step below watching him. One notched ear was bent over, didn’t look right. The cat moved suddenly and made a peculiar little sound as if saying, ‘What’s up?’
‘Come, Puss,’ he said. ‘Come on. C’m’ere.’
Puss purred but would not come.
‘Sod you then.’ He drained his tea and sat for a while gazing down into the tannin-ringed grimness of the mug. The eternal cowboy, free and cheerful, swirled his lasso on its side, his colours eroding.
He had to go into town. Things to get. Get in and out quick, he thought.
Half-way there, the car started whining, a high thin nag of a sound that made him want to punch it in the mouth. Town was packed. He went to Currys, Wickes, Wilco, bought some paracetamol from Boots and swallowed a couple straight down without water, relishing the horrible taste. Coming out of the market hall he saw Madeleine on the other side of the road, pushing a double buggy. She was with a tall girl who looked like her. Her daughter maybe, no, grand-daughter probably, Christ, the time gone, insane. Madeleine was leaning over the bar of the buggy, googling delightedly at the little things in it with their kicking legs in pastel socks. She didn’t see him. He thought about going over and asking her about all that stuff with the police, but didn’t. Nothing seemed to have come of it anyway. Those poor legs in pastel socks waiting to walk and run, fuck, all that long life in front of them, poor things. Baby animals, break your heart. No. Leave her to it, all goo goo ga ga. Instead he popped into the Wagon for a pint before heading off. It was nice and dim and quiet in there, the TV was on but the sound was down, the News with words scrolling across the bottom. Earnest politicians. Fuckem. He sat in his corner, wondering about the whine in the car. Hadn’t drunk in here in a good while. Used to come in a lot once. College. God, that’s an age ago. He was a drinker even then, before he met Madeleine. Runs in families, doesn’t it? His mum always drank but discreetly, in that you never saw her doing it, you just noticed the level in the bottle on the shelf going down, and that was just the bottle you saw, there were others hidden away. And his father’s people, the Brooms, they were all drinkers too. They bred dogs in Durham. The Brooms, sounds like something in a comic. Rough-faced men in old pictures, faded. Grey fields and terrier dogs. Never saw a one of them for real. Like people in books, but somehow inexplicably linked to him. She didn’t get on with them. She didn’t get on with many people. Couldn’t stand poor old Madeleine. The way she went on about her, and she never hurt a fly, poor girl. She looks like a horse. He just sat there. Should have stuck up for her more. The face of a big horse. She’s got that kind of skin that gets threadveins when you get older. (Actually that had come true.) Madeleine couldn’t eat tomatoes or potatoes. What’s she mean, allergies? Everyone’s got allergies these days! God knows what she’d have made of it now with all the gluten and stuff. Good job she’s out of it. I wish you’d never gone to that college, she used to say. Car mechanics. Madeleine doing sociology. She had ginger hair that grew longer and longer as time passed, and she never wore makeup at all,
