VII. No Limits
40
It was no morning for burying dead dogs; the sky was too high and promising. Jets, trailing vapor, crossed to America, the woods budded and winged with life. Still, the work had to be done, however inappropriate.
Only by the uncompromising light of day was it possible to see the full extent of the slaughter. In addition to killing the dogs around the house, the intruders had broken into the kennels and systematically murdered all its occupants, including Bella and her offspring. When Marty arrived at the kennels Lillian was already there. She looked as though she’d been weeping for days. In her hands she cradled one of the pups. Its head had been crushed, as if in a vise.
“Look,” she said, proffering the corpse.
Marty hadn’t managed to eat anything for breakfast: the thought of the job ahead had taken the edge off his appetite. Now he wished he’d forced something down: his empty belly echoed on itself. He felt almost lightheaded.
“If only I’d been here,” she said.
“You probably would have ended up dead yourself,” he told her. It was the simple truth.
She laid the pup back on the straw, and stroked the matted fur of Bella’s body. Marty was more fastidious than she. Even wearing a pair of thick leather gloves he didn’t want to touch the corpses. But whatever he lacked in respect he made up for in efficiency, using his disgust as a spur to hurry the work along. Lillian, though she had insisted on being there to help, was useless in the face of the fact. All she could do was watch while Marty wrapped the bodies in black plastic refuse bags, loaded the forlorn parcels into the back of the jeep, and then drove this makeshift hearse across to a clearing he’d chosen in the woods. It was here that they were to be buried, at Whitehead’s request, out of sight of the house. He’d brought two spades, hoping that Lillian would assist, but she was clearly incapable. He was left to do it single-handed, while she stood, hands thrust into the pockets of her filthy anorak, staring at the leaking bundles.
It was difficult work. The soil was a network of roots, crisscrossing from tree to tree, and Marty soon worked up a sweat, hacking at the roots with the blade of his spade. Once he’d dug a shallow grave, he rolled the bodies into it and began to shovel the earth back on top of them. It rattled on their plastic shrouds, a dry rain. When the filling was done he patted the soil into a rough mound.
“I’m going back to the house for a beer,” he told Lillian. “You coming?”
She shook her head. “Last respects,” she muttered.
He left her among the trees and headed back across the lawn to the house. As he walked, he thought of Carys. She must be awake by now, surely, though the curtains at the window were still drawn. How fine to be a bird, he thought, to peer through the gap in the curtains and spy on her stretching naked on the bed, sloth that she was, her arms thrown up above her head, fur at her armpits, fur where her legs met. He walked into the house wearing a smile and an erection.
He found Pearl in the kitchen, told her he was hungry, and went upstairs to shower. When he came down again she had a cold spread laid out for him: beef, bread, tomatoes. He dug in with a will.
“Seen Carys this morning?” he asked, mouth crammed.
“No,” she replied. She was at her most uncommunicative today, her face pinched up with some fermenting grievance. He wondered, watching her move around the kitchen, what she was like in bed: for some reason he was full of dirty thoughts today, as if his mind, refusing to be depressed by the burial, was eager for uplifting sport. Chewing on a mouthful of salted beef he said:
“Was it veal you fed the old man last night?”
Pearl didn’t look up from her labors as she said: “He didn’t eat last night. I left fish for him, but he didn’t touch it.”