Remember Why You Fear Me (10 page)

“No,” said Martin.

“We could have been great, you and I. We could have been great.”

And Martin kissed him. And he knew that what he was kissing was a dog, and that it was a
dead
dog, but it was all right, it didn’t matter, it was all all right.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Martin. And he got his coat, locked the front door, and put the keys through the letterbox. He considered leaving a note for Moira—but really, what would he have said?

And man and dog went out together. They had no money for food, but that was okay, they had each other. They’d sleep when they got tired, on park benches, in shop doorways, wherever they could cuddle up. And people would avoid their gaze on the street as always, and some would still spit at them. But together man and dog had a strength. They would stare down their persecutors. They showed they weren’t ashamed.

Early one morning they were shaken awake by an angry farmer. They’d decided to spend the night in an empty barn—the straw was scratchy but warm.

“Get out!” screamed the farmer, with a fury that was mostly fear. “Get off my property!” And he jabbed at them with the handle of his pitchfork.

“There’s no need for that,” said Martin. “We’re going.”

“You’re filth!” the farmer shouted after them, as Martin and Woofie walked to the door with as much dignity as they could. “You dead bastards. You dead perverted . . . and on my property! You’re filth!”

And, quick as a flash, Woofie turned round, leaped up, and tore out his throat.

Martin looked as surprised as the farmer, who, eyes bulged in shock, reached out for a neck that largely wasn’t there, before pitching forward on to his face. The blood sprayed across the straw.

“Oh my God,” said Martin, bending down. “He’s dead.”

“Good,” said Woofie. “Now he knows what it feels like.”

“Oh God, oh shit,” said Martin.

“Come on, let’s go,” said Woofie.

They walked in silence for a while. Martin kept looking at his hands, and every time he did—yes—they were still smeared with blood.

“Oh God,” he said at last. “It was an accident. It was an accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” said Woofie. “I all but bit his head off.”

“Oh God.”

Nothing more was said for a few minutes. A man walked towards the pair down the footpath. He gave them the customary glare of hatred and contempt. And then he saw Martin’s bloody hands, and the way Woofie openly snarled at him, and there was blood there too, right on the jaws—and he hurried on.

“What’s going to happen to us?” Martin moaned.

“What are they going to do? Send us to Hell? Been there, done that.”

“Oh God.”

“Hitler was like this, you know,” said Woofie. “The first time he had a Jew killed. Well, that’s it, Woofie, he said. If I’m right, then I have made a blow for justice and the common man. But if I’m wrong . . . If I’m wrong, I’m damned forever.

“And do you know what I said? What I whispered into his ear. Oh, he couldn’t hear me, of course. Dogs can’t talk. But I whispered it anyway.

“If you’re going to Hell for one Jew, then why not for a hundred? For a hundred thousand. For six million. If you’re going to be damned anyway, at least be damned for something impressive. I’d rather be damned for being Hitler’s dog than Goering’s. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Martin. “Oh God. I understand. Oh God.”

“There isn’t a God,” said Woofie. “Stop saying that.”

“Sorry.”

“Do you realize by how much the dead outnumber the living? Do you? Thirty to one. And yet
we’re
the outcasts. We’re the ones who are spat at. How long do you think that can go on for? How long
should
it go on? Martin?”

“What?” said Martin weakly.

“How long?” demanded Woofie.

“I don’t know.”

“Then think about it,” said Woofie sternly. “For once in your life, just think.”

And Martin thought.

“But we mustn’t hurt them, Woofie,” he said eventually. “We can’t do that. We should just put them . . . I don’t know. Out of harm’s way.”

“For their own good.”

“For their own good, exactly. Somewhere safe. Promise me, Woofie. Promise me, whatever happens. That what we’ll be doing is good.”

Woofie promised, Martin smiled, and on they walked. A man and his dog, making plans.

It had taken her long enough to get used to the idea he was her boyfriend. She kept on expecting him to open his eyes, realize there were other girls out there, prettier, smarter, go with them instead. And then that day he’d proposed, right out of the blue, and amid the excitement and the pride she’d also realized she’d have to start thinking of him as a fiancé now, it’d be another adjustment to make. But now here they were, they’d done the registry office, both families had got together without incident, there’d been none of the clashes they’d been expecting—hey, even the weather had stayed bright for the photographs. And as the cameras were trained on them, she looked at him, and thought,
husband
now, got to think of him as
husband
. That sounded good to her, the most right so far. He smiled at her, and she could see in that smile that he loved her; she’d got him now,
husband
, he wasn’t going to get away. And in the relief of that moment, in that triumph, she realized at last that she loved him too.

There wasn’t to be a honeymoon, they couldn’t afford it. Maybe one day, he said, when they were rich. And she’d agreed, and pictured that in a few years’ time, in a hotel in Marbella, somewhere with a beach, they’d look back and say,
this
is our honeymoon, and laugh, because by then they’d be rolling in money,
every
holiday could be a honeymoon. But there was still a treat in store, far better than a honeymoon could offer. His parents had spoken to her parents, and together they’d bought them a flat. It was a small flat, there was no point in pretending otherwise, but it was theirs, and they wouldn’t be in anyone’s spare rooms anymore. They climbed the stairs, unlocked the door, and they stood on the threshold of their new home. He asked, jokingly, if she wanted to be carried over the threshold, and she, jokily, said yes. And because neither of them could quite be sure how much the other was joking, they did it anyway; she lay back in his arms, and he heaved her bulk into the tiny kitchen. They both felt a bit self-conscious afterwards.

He said it really was
very
small, this place. Not enough room to swing a cat! And she laughed, and said they’d just have to make sure they didn’t
get
a cat then, and he laughed, and said he didn’t like cats anyway, he was allergic, and she laughed again, but realized with some little shock she’d never even known that, were there other things about him she didn’t know? He looked at the hand-me-down furniture and the hand-me-down wallpaper and said it would have to do for the moment, they’d do better later. And he took her to the hand-me-down bed, and there they made love. And it
felt
like making love, too, she’d always thought of it as just sex before, something you did guiltily in the spare room hoping the parents wouldn’t hear, but now he was her
husband
, wasn’t he, and this was their home, wasn’t it, this was Making Love. As he bounced around on her she imagined this was what Mummy and Daddy got up to, how they’d done it all these years, mature, legal, sanctified by wedding contract and local registrar. She squealed with pleasure throughout the whole thing, even when she really wasn’t feeling very much anymore, even when frankly it was all over and the two of them were spent.

Maybe it was the squealing, or maybe the added frisson of being newly wed. But within a few days she realized she was pregnant. She called her mother to ask her advice, but her mother wasn’t much help—she said the whole wretched business had been rather a long time ago, and she was really doing her best to forget all about it, thank you. The wife didn’t mind; she liked the idea of another life inside her, and she wondered whom it would most look like, herself or her husband. The husband didn’t look too happy when she told him though. He pointed out there wasn’t even the room to swing a cat, hadn’t he said they couldn’t swing a cat? And a baby was even bigger than a cat, most likely. And the wife laughed and said they’d just have to take care not to swing the baby, and he sulked a bit and said it wasn’t funny. And he asked her whether she really intended to go through with this, to alter their marriage so drastically even before it had started. Wasn’t she thinking of aborting it? And she hadn’t been, actually, but now she
did
think of it. She made herself a cup of tea in their hand-me-down kitchen with the hand-me-down kettle, and applied her mind to the notion. And she concluded it’d be rather a shame, wouldn’t it?—and they’d never find out which of them the baby most looked like, she was looking forward to that, that would be the best bit. It’ll be all right, she assured him, trying to coax him out of his sulk, they had each other, and they loved each other, and this baby was a
result
of that love, they’d love it too and care for it and not swing it around the cramped flat. They made love again that night, and the wife had to give him credit, the husband certainly put in as much effort as he normally would, you would hardly guess he was so angry.

The leaflet she got from the library was packed full of information and lots of colourful pictures. The wife thought the cartoon drawings made it all look very exciting, and could hardly wait to see what she was going to enjoy the most—the morning sickness, the strange hunger cravings, or watching her own belly button pop out. But she didn’t have to wait the nine months she’d been promised. That Friday evening, as the married couple sat in front of the portable television, her waters broke. She told her husband she felt the most extraordinary urge to
push
, but he told her she was being ridiculous and went into the kitchen for a Diet Coke. But she pushed anyway, she lay on the floor and pushed and pushed, and she did it all very quickly; he hadn’t made it back from the fridge before she gave birth. She felt it suck out from between her legs, and then the sort of physical relief she associated with having a really good belch. And she got to her feet to see what her new baby looked like. Her husband, on his return, almost dropped his Coke can.

It wasn’t what either of them had expected. It wasn’t a baby, or not a human baby, at any rate—instead, they were looking at a Chesterfield sofa. The wife couldn’t help but wonder how something so big had been hiding in such a small place—because this wasn’t one of your
small
Chesterfield sofas, no, this one was at least six foot long and three foot tall. It was covered with some strange thin gloop, and the wife worried that it might stain the leather upholstery—but it was all right, it was like cellophane wrapping, it came off in one easy tug. Now both husband and wife could see that it was a very good sofa indeed, high quality stuff, that—and the leather was coloured a fashionable dark green. Neither of them quite knew what to say for a while, until the wife remembered the leaflet she’d been reading, and suggested they cut the umbilical cord. So the husband dutifully went back into the kitchen for the scissors. And as he cut away, the wife looked her new baby over, from every angle the cutting would allow, and couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. The Chesterfield sofa didn’t much look like
either
of its parents.

At first it was pleasing to have such a fine quality piece of furniture. The hand-me-down pieces they’d been left by the flat’s previous owners were serviceable, but not at their best—the single armchair was fraying at the sides, and if you sat too close to the left armrest you risked being jabbed by a loose spring. The Chesterfield sofa, on the other hand, was luxury indeed. It was far more comfortable even than their bed, and one evening the husband began to make love to the wife on it, and only stopped when she pointed out it made her feel slightly weird having sex lying on her own offspring. But the richness of the green leather only showed up how drab everything else in the flat was by contrast—it looked strange and alien against the peeling pink wallpaper and the threadbare stained carpets. And it was clearly too big for the sitting room; the only way they could position it was diagonally from one corner to the other, and even then it was hard for the wife to see the television screen; it blocked so much light from the window it made the whole flat seem dark, small, and dingy, even more so than it really was. So the husband told her that they’d have to get rid of it, such class simply wasn’t for them, and the wife reluctantly agreed. Late one night he brought some of the lads home from work, and they heaved it out of the flat, down the stairs, and into a skip they’d found further up the road. The sofa all but filled the skip, but the lads had done it under cover of darkness, no one had seen them do it, so it was all right. And the wife noticed immediately that her husband’s mood lifted, he seemed more relaxed than before. They made love that night and it was passionate and it was good, she squealed for all the right reasons this time, and she thought as she lay in his arms afterwards that she could get used to this. She could get used to not having a baby after all if this is what marriage could be like. And she told him that, and he looked so pleased, and even though he was very drowsy he put his tongue in her mouth and they made love all over again.