Even the Dogs: A Novel Read Free

sitting room we see the photographer laying metre-sticks out beside the body on the floor. Taking more notes, and asking questions of the policeman who’s come back in from outside. One of the men with the lights notices Penny, finally, her head wedged between her front paws and her ears folded flat against her neck. Her small brown body cold and stiff. The older policeman says something from the front doorway, and they follow his directions into the kitchen as Robert comes back from the street with a pile of steaming chips doused in vinegar which he and Yvonne eat straight from the wrapping, wiping their sticky hands on their clothes before finishing the clearing up and undressing again and squeezing into an overflowing bath where they soap each other’s tired bodies and their genes collide inside her.
     
    They sit there, in the bath, the mirror clouding over with steam and the tap dripping quietly into the still water, and we watch the new wallpaper begin to fade. Sunlight comes in through the kitchen window and the open kitchen door, falls against the striped pattern at the far end of the hall, and bleaches the colour away. The front door blows open, and exhaust fumes from the road drift in and brush against the walls, leaving fine layers of dirt stuck to the traces of grease left by trailing hands.
    They top up the bath water, the plunging gush of it suddenly loud in the small hushed room. They’re quiet now, warm-blooded and sleepy, the spring air drifting in through the open window and bringing with it the sounds of children being called home for bed, and music, and the faint shouts of football games on the playing fields. He dangles his feet over the end of the bath, and she leans her head against his ankles, and they both close their eyes.
    The steam from the bath curls out into the hallway, easing the wallpaper away from the wall. Peppered spores of mould thicken and spread towards the ceiling. Rainwater seeps through the worn pointing on the front of the building and pushes through the plaster, the damp spreading outwards like an old bruise. The varnish on the doorframe cracks as the timber swells and softens and gradually rots away.
    Later, when the water has cooled again, she stands up, awkwardly, the water streaming down her changed body and splashing into the bath. Her breasts are rounder now, heavier, and her stomach is swollen, her skin stretched taut. She grabs the edge of the sink as she climbs out, and presses a hand against the painful curve of her spine. He takes a towel from the hook on the door and wraps it round her body, holding out his arm to support her weight while she carefully pats herself dry.
    Crayon scribbles appear, low on the wallpaper by the heaps of shoes and boxes of toys. Dated felt-tip stripes creep up the wall by the doorframe, tracking their daughter’s growth a thumb’s width at a time. Tiny shoes nudge in amongst the adult-sized ones, and bigger shoes take their place. Tea-stains the colour of old photographs splash across the wall, lingering long after the broken cups are cleared away. A dent the size of a fist or a forehead is hidden by a framed school portrait. The damp patches spread further, and the paper sags away from the wall, and the ceiling stains a darkening nicotine yellow. The door is kicked from its hinges, and rehung. More framed pictures are put up on the wall.
    They scoop their daughter from the bath. This is Laura, we realise. They carry her from the room in the snug white wrap of a towel, chatting happily and playing with her mother’s hair. He leans down and kisses her damp forehead, breathing in the soapy smell of her, and he watches as his wife carries her into the small bedroom and puts her to bed, and he fetches a bottle of whisky from beneath the kitchen sink.
    In the bathroom, dark lines of mould creep along the grouting between the tiles, and the tiles crack and fall away from the wall. The sink is pulled from its fixings and breaks in two, the