I’m sorry.’
‘No.’
‘It was the nurse, from the High Dependency Unit. She said she didn’t have time to phone, you know, before –’
‘No.’
‘It happened quickly, she said. Painless.’
‘No, it can’t –’
‘Darling, I’m so sorry.’ He stepped forward. ‘I’m so . . . sorry.’
Her head fell onto his shoulder, her hands clutched his shirt. Charlotte was standing in the kitchen doorway. Then Hal, behind her.
‘What’s happened?’ they asked, together. Or maybe it was just Charlotte. I can’t remember.
‘It’s Grandpa,’ Adam explained. ‘He –’ The word which couldn’t be said filled the whole house and gave gravity extra force.
Charlotte and Kate were both struggling to stay standing. Hal and Adam were both struggling to support them.
I just stood there, beside the kitchen table, not knowing what to do. Not knowing what this all meant, for the Family.
trouble
It was only when Adam told Hal, later on, that Grandma Margaret was going to live with us, that its significance started to become clear.
‘Dad, you’re joking.’
Adam sighed. ‘I’m afraid it looks like it’s the only option.’
‘But she’s still got the bungalow.’
‘It’s too expensive for her on her own. And anyway, your mum thinks she’d be better off here.’
Hal placed his peanut butter and Marmite sandwich back down onto his plate and swallowed what remained in his mouth. ‘But it will be a total nightmare.’
Adam went over to where I was standing, between the kitchen and the hallway, and tugged me forward, by the collar. He shut the door, to stop the words filtering upstairs. ‘Now, come on. Think about your mother. She wants her here.’
‘But I’ve got my A-levels. I’ve got to revise.’
‘Please, Hal. Don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.’ Adam was now staring out of the kitchen window, watching Lapsang as she sauntered the length of the fence’s top edge.
‘I don’t know why we’re all meant to be so bothered anyway. Grandpa wasn’t able to speak for years, not properly. He just sat there, wheezing away in the corner.’
‘Hal, you don’t mean that.’
‘If that had been Prince, we’d have put him down.’ I looked up at the sound of my name, feigning stupidity.
‘Hal, come on. Think about your mum, think –’ Adam broke off, hearing the mumbled voices of Charlotte and Kate upstairs. He looked at me and said: ‘I suppose I should feed him.’
‘No, Dad. It’s all right. I’ll do it.’
But I wasn’t hungry.
I just stared at my bowlful of meat and biscuits, trying to work out how to act. Who needed my support most? Was it Kate and Charlotte, tormented by what had happened? Or was it Adam and Hal, tormented by what was about to?
I had to be careful. It was a Sunday. Sundays were always danger-days, even at the best of times. The Family spent too long together, and spoke too much. But this Sunday was worse, the atmosphere heavier.
Tomorrow would be OK. I would be able to speak to Henry, my mentor and fellow Labrador. He would tell me what to do, he always had, ever since I had arrived at the Hunter household. Ever since I had been saved.
But right then I couldn’t focus. I sensed something was wrong but couldn’t quite put my paw on it. Grandma Margaret was coming to stay. That was bad, yes. Granted. But dangerous? Surely not. And yet there was definitely something amid the sad-smells, thickening the air.
The room around me was charged with a negative energy. The washing machine, the freezer, the vegetable rack, even my basket – each seemed like secret weapons in some invisible war. And that was when it became clear for the first time. Trouble was coming, and I was the only one who could stop it.
dream
That night they forgot to shut me away so I was asleep on the landing, lost in a violent wolf-dream. I ran wild. Fast through trees, together with the pack, the sun struggling its way above the horizon. I heard a distant howl. There was the smell of blood: we were getting closer, moving towards our morning kill, heart and legs in equal gallop. More smells. Pine, bark, earth, sweat, bone, wolf, sunshine. And faster, downhill, zigzagging timber, then falling out into the open, one last turn, moving as one. Wolves together, back on the flat, kicking up dirt. The promise of blood was everything, overpowering all else. In seconds we would have it, our prey, from every angle. We lowered our heads, and moved in. That was it. There was no escape. We tore and ripped the flesh apart, blood spraying our faces. But before I had time to taste it, I woke.
sound
There was a sound.
whimper
Above the wind outside, a high-pitched whimper was coming from Charlotte’s room. And a smell. The familiar fragrance of Adam’s naked feet. I watched, through bleary eyes, as they stopped in front of me. His toes twitched. Some sort of decision was clearly being made at the other end of his pyjamas.
He leaned towards Charlotte’s door.
‘Lottie?’ he whispered.
No answer.
‘Charlotte, sweetheart. Are you OK?’
Another whimper.
He gently pushed her door open. She was sitting up in bed, clutching a corner of duvet. The scent in the room was familiar. It had been there the night when Grandma Margaret had babysat and threatened her with a wooden spoon (which I am sure would have been used without my intervention). It was there when Hal had screamed at her and told her, in a primal moment of sibling rage, that he would come into her room in the middle of the night and throw her out of the window. And it was there when she had discovered, not so very long ago, the first traces of blood in her knickers and been too frightened and embarrassed to tell anybody. Apart from me.
But now, if possible, the scent was even stronger.
‘Oh, Charlotte, baby,’ said Adam, sitting next to her on the bed. ‘Come on, don’t cry.’
Charlotte’s arms rested heavy on her lap and, although we were close by, she seemed to be completely on her own. Transported to a separate world of sorrow.
Adam felt this too and realised words wouldn’t be enough to bring her back. He wanted to comfort her.
