Animal People (24 page)

The two men locked gazes in the swollen instant, and then Richard roared, ‘Jesus fucking Christ!' Ella fell from Stephen's arms as Richard knocked him to the floor, and now she saw blood on her father's arm. ‘
Daddy!
' she cried, and lunged at Stephen, smacking at his face. Her father swept her up into his arms and ploughed back past Stephen to the kitchen. Pat followed, prancing along behind, shouting insults over his shoulder at Stephen. The fairy simply stood in the hallway, looking down at him with folded arms, shaking her head. ‘You're completely insane,' she said, and then she stepped over him to follow the others into the kitchen.

Stephen knelt on all fours, staring, wild-eyed and lost, at the hallway floorboards. From the mesh of the day's disasters the dog in the newspaper photograph came to him, the animal who had mauled a child to death. Why had he done that? He was so tired. He wished only to lie down here in the narrow patch of space, but the little girls had all gathered to watch him from the living room. In the distant kitchen he saw the adults soothing Ella and Richard. The fairy stood inspecting Richard's arm.

Now Fiona stood above him with the staring, breathless children. She said, her voice full of fear, ‘Stephen, please tell me what's wrong.'

He looked up at her. He swallowed. Then—oh no—Richard's frame filled the doorway once more. He pushed past Fiona, a sticking plaster covering the place on his arm where Stephen had bitten him.

‘I've been very nice to you,' he spat.

‘No you haven't!' cried Stephen, struggling to his feet.

‘I've held my fucking tongue, I've done
nothing
to you up to this point. But that's it.' Stephen flinched, waited for it, the blow he had always known would come.

‘Richard!' cried Fiona, putting herself between the two men. ‘Just shut up. Go in the other room.'

But Stephen was the one who moved, full of adrenaline. He must find his bag and get out of here. He would phone Fiona, tell her later. Or never. He would never speak to her again. He shoved past Richard to the kitchen. Where was his bag? He began trotting around the room, scanning the floor and the bench and table for his bag, not meeting any of the eyes fixed upon him. But Richard followed his every step. Stephen dodged, looking under the table, by the window seat. The bag was not there. Richard towered over him. Stephen could smell his fury. Where was his
bag?

‘You're such a fucking loser,' Richard jeered. ‘You've never had a proper job. You've never been married. Not even had a proper
girlfriend
from what I hear.' Stephen saw Chris looking at the floor. It didn't matter. He must find his bag.

It was Fiona's turn for rage. ‘Shut up, Richard.' She rushed across the room, launching herself again at Richard, shouting, ‘Just get out. Get out of my house.' She shoved at his immovable bulk.

‘You don't own anything,' Richard went on. ‘You don't have any kids
.
You wear bloody
chef's
pants. You call yourself an adult. And now you go around fucking
biting
people! What sort of animal are you?'

Stephen called out, ‘Don't worry, Fi, I'm going.' He began wrenching at wrapping paper lying about, at newspapers. Where the fuck was his bag!

‘You're not going,
he's
going!' cried Fiona, pointing at Richard. She turned to her ex-husband and held out her hands. ‘Please
.
'

But Richard still followed as Stephen stumbled about the room. ‘You've been messing my kids around for a year, coming and going whenever you want. Fiona's always forgiving you this and defending that, propping up your useless fucking life.'

Stephen's body was all adrenaline and nausea; he was afraid, more than anything, that he would sob, bawl like a child in front of them all. He tried to block out Richard's voice. He must find the bag. He opened a cupboard. This was ridiculous.
Where was it?

‘Your whole life is a failure,' Richard said then, calm and certain, like drawing out a splinter.

Stephen halted. The tears came, unstoppable.

‘He's right,' Pat snarled from the corner of the room.

Stephen said stiffly, ‘I can't find my bag.' Where, where on earth was it?

‘And now,' Richard began to laugh dreadfully; a punch-line was coming: ‘And now, the greatest fucking irony of all—Fiona should have gotten rid of you a year ago, and yet here you are, and now
you're
the one who's dumping
her!
'

Stephen stared at Richard, breathing fast. Belinda looked on, triumphant.

‘
What?
' Fiona said.

Chris still stared only at the floor. So he had known, and told.

Stephen forced himself to turn, to meet Fiona's eyes. The room shrank to hold only her astonishment, this savage truth. He saw confusion ripple through her, saw her scan the room for protection, find none. She stared at him in disbelief. He couldn't say a word.

Richard said to him with final satisfaction, ‘I could see it in your
face
, you little prick.' He threw Stephen's backpack from his own shoulder to the floor, and batted Fiona roughly on the back as she stood with tears streaming down her face in her own kitchen, watched by her parents and Chris and Belinda and all the children.

Stephen hauled his bag to himself, delved into it for his wallet. He was battered, ancient. His fingers came to the hard edges of the forgotten My Little Pony; he drew it out by a corner and hoisted the bag slowly to his shoulder. He stepped across the room to where Ella was cradled by her grandmother, her face pushed into Jeanette's bony, bejewelled neck. Jeanette shrank back as he approached, as if Stephen might attack her. He bent down and put the toy on the table in front of them.

‘I'm sorry, Ellabella,' he whispered, his voice catching. He spoke as near to her face as he could without touching her, without frightening her. He couldn't look in Fiona's direction. He wiped his hands on his trousers and walked from the room. He knew she was following him as he walked down the hallway, through the front door and out into the blistering heat.

At the gate he stopped. Fiona stood behind him, alone on the path. All the humming energy of her had drained away; she looked drab, dishevelled. He had done this.

‘I don't understand,' she said. ‘You're just going to leave me here, with all of them.'

She tried to collect herself. ‘I don't understand what's even gone
wrong
,' she whispered. And suddenly she was just like Ella, wiping her wet nose with the side of her hand, unguarded as a child, her face blotchy with tears. He had done this; it was unbearable.

He said, ‘I'm sorry. I just—'

He could find not a single thing more to say.
I just want to be free
. He could not say those stupid words. They had already withered in his mind, turned to dust. He did not even know, he marvelled now, what the hell those words had meant.

Fiona looked back towards the house, trying to compose herself. She drew in a single, shuddering breath, and exhaled. A corner of her mouth began pulsing, a tiny tremor. Then she said, still looking towards the house, ‘You think I want what they tell me to. But when I think of them all in there, in that house . . .'

Ella and Larry appeared, began to clamber down the steps of the house. Fiona lifted her head and looked into his eyes. ‘The only time I have ever felt that I could—' she searched for words—‘properly
breathe
, is with you.'

Her eyes filled again, and as the girls reached her, winding themselves around her waist, the tears ran down her face. Her hands went to her daughters' heads as she struggled to stop crying. It was intolerable. Stephen was still frightening all of them, his girls. Ella stood in her limp fairy skirt and her dirty, twisted Barbie t-shirt. Larry watched on, frightened. Ella opened her mouth to speak. ‘Are we still going to the circus?' she croaked.

He stared at her sticky, swollen face. ‘I don't think so, Bella.' She stared back at him, still afraid, but did not cry.

‘I have to go,' he whispered, and turned out of the gate.

Walk.

He pushed his legs, they crossed one wide driveway, then another and another, the fences of the houses of Longley Point sliding past him. His head burned, his feet. His mouth was full of ash. His body was old and rank, polluted. He stared ahead to the tunnel of trees, the shade, then the bus stop: all he had to do was reach the stop. He entered the great shaded hollow made by the trees, and reached the bus shelter. He sat down on the metal strips of the seat and waited. He was free, and in the dark cool air and his sweat, he shivered.

CHAPTER 7

He lifted his head from the bus window as at long last it rounded the corner onto Park Road. He would soon be home to his empty, dirty house. To his bed, the snarled sheets velvety with grime. There were few passengers left on the bus. Two old women from the housing commission flats greeted each other from far seats, shouted about the heat, god jesus could they believe this weather, where was the promised cool change? One called that she had been on an errand for her grandson. ‘He asked me to get him summa that Lynx,' she called.

‘What?' said the other woman. ‘What'd he want?'

The first woman rummaged in her plastic bags. ‘That Lynx,' she said, brandishing the tall black can of men's deodorant. ‘It's on special,' she said, and stroked the can before putting it away. It tinked against other cans in the bag.

Stephen thought dully of the grandson, what kind of grandson this might be. He remembered the Lebanese boy from the bus this morning. H
ARDEN THE FUCK UP
, and now he saw the boy for what he was—the kind of boy who might be a grandson watching a television advertisement glistening with women's bodies, who saw a catalogue of supermarket specials and asked his grandmother to buy him some of that Lynx, and in her kindness she would do it, would go out into the ferocious heat of the city and fetch him the foolish thing. Because she loved him.

Margaret, his mother, had asked him for one simple thing, and he could not oblige her, because it was too much. He loved her; he would always hurt her. Poor creature. The grandmother smiled down into her shopping bags, and then waved to her friend as she lumbered towards the door, swaying in the intolerable air.

A group of people was gathered in a circle in Dunmore Park. As Stephen neared them he heard a strange hooting. It was the Laughing Club. A tall, pasty man with thinning blond hair, a purple yin-yang t-shirt and stew-coloured hemp shorts was its leader. He was grinning from ear to ear as he called to the small band of followers.

‘Okay, fantastic. Fant
astic
chuckling. I'm really impressed with how you're doing, okay? And what I want to hear from you now is a big, raucous belly laugh.'

The people—a couple of middle-aged white women, a young Indian man Stephen recognised from the checkouts of the supermarket and two other scrawny, hippie-looking men who looked as if they might work in a health food shop—placed their hands on their stomachs. The leader began to tilt backwards and forwards from the hips, hands on the little pot of his belly, fingers spread wide. Stephen could not look away as the man called out, ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!', seesawing forward and back in a parody of laughter. The others followed suit, barking out
hah
-has and hoh-hoh-hohs. The heat had not subsided, not even here in the green of the park. Stephen walked on, transfixed by this sad performance. Why were they not ashamed, to be doing this? He glanced up once more at one of the women, at her anxious eyes, her teeth bared at the leader as her mouth opened to let out the hollow sound, and then he was past them.

Stephen almost thought of relating this scene to Fiona—but he veered from the thought at the last instant, made his mind blank. His teeth ached, his mouth was dry. It was as though every drop of moisture from inside his body lay on his skin; his entire body was drenched in sweat.