There Is No Dog Page 6

  Well, what do you expect when you skip through Creation in six lousy days?

  Very creative, yes indeed. And now, as usual, he had to pick it apart. Day after day, strand by bloody strand, coaxing the Gordian knot to loosen its grip, begging and hoping it into submission.

  Mr B shook his head. Behold man. Violent, self-serving and ruthless when in power; exploited, miserable and diseased when not. On the one hand there was slavery, war, inquisition and ethnic cleansing; on the other, Shakespeare, chocolate, the Taj Mahal. A fine balance.

  Whales. He called up an abstract of International Whaling Commission guidelines, read it through, found the cross-reference to the actual petitioners taking issue (who could blame them?) with regulated harvest and the destruction of the oceans. ‘Regulated harvest’. What a charming alternative to ‘murder’.

  The latest crisis was contamination, a potent cocktail of herbicides, fungicides and pesticides that poisoned the groundwater that poisoned the sea. And so the whales set off, the ones that remained, circling the globe in an increasingly desperate search for more congenial waters, a sea that they remembered from long ago as safe and welcoming.

  Oh, the whales, thought Mr B, the poor whales.

  He contemplated folders and boxes, Post-it notes stuck to his desk, a stack of coloured files piled to the ceiling, a to-do list with the ancient neglected appearance of a holy relic. Could he clear all this before he left?

  He sighed. Of course he couldn’t. But he was determined to make a final stand, to guarantee the safety of his whales before he waved goodbye to the whole miserable enterprise.

  He placed both hands over his ears in an attempt to shut out the sudden pounding of hailstones on his window and then looked up, startled. Hail, in a heat wave? A knot of dread began to form in his bowels.

  Here we go, he thought, it’s starting. Sex weather – excited, confused, arousal weather. How many times over the centuries had he experienced this development as a prelude to catastrophe? Mr B could not pretend that this was just some ordinary climatic variation. He recognized Bob’s presence behind the sudden peculiarly urgent change of weather.

  God help us, Mr B thought. With no actual hope that he would.

  18

  ‘What’cha doing?’

  ‘What do I appear to be doing?’ Mr B replied mildly. ‘I’m dedicating every minute of my life, as usual, to the futile pursuit of order. I am but a humble fisherman engaged in the hopeless task of unravelling the frantic net of despair you have cast upon the victims of your creativity.’

  Bob rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, but aside from that. I mean what are you doing right now? Because I need advice.’

  ‘A bit late for that, buddy boy. I could have offered oodles of advice back when you were playing 52 Pick-Up with alphabet spaghetti and calling it creation. But would you take advice then?’

  ‘Hello?’

  Mr B paused. Put down his pen. Rubbed his aching forehead. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘You spend all your time worrying about people you don’t even know. And you don’t ever stop to wonder whether I’m suffering too.’

  ‘Are you?’ Mr B raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, I am sorry. Do tell.’ Eck had crept on to his desk and was attempting to pocket a teacake. Mr B picked the cake up and replaced it on the plate. Eck snapped at his hand and missed.

  The boy folded his arms across his chest and turned away. ‘I’m not going to tell you now.’

  ‘Excellent. If we’re finished, then perhaps I could get back to work.’

  Bob stamped his foot. ‘You never pay attention to me! You don’t care about anyone other than those poxy poor people in your poxy files.’ He put on a nyah-nyah whine. ‘Oh, look at me, I’ve got AIDs, I was in a war, my baby’s dead. If you’re so worried about them, why don’t you go live in the bloody Democratic bloody Republic of Tonga –’

  ‘Congo.’

  ‘Bloody Democratic bloody Republic of bloody stupid-arse Congo.’

  Mr B regarded him dispassionately. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘Lucy.’

  ‘Not again.’

  ‘No, not again. We’re in love.’

  ‘In love? Sounds idyllic. So what’s the trouble?’ I know what mine is, Mr B thought. Every time you fall in love, my problems increase exponentially.

  Bob squirmed and looked away. ‘I want to have sex with her. Be with her. You know, the proper way.’ The expression on his face softened.

  If, after their many millennia of togetherness, Mr B had retained even an ounce of interest in Bob’s emotional struggles, he might have experienced a twinge of sympathy. ‘The proper way? And what way would that be?’

  Bob’s mouth twisted, his eyes glittered with unshed tears. ‘You know. Flowers and love songs and that. Like they do it.’

  ‘They, humans?’ Mr B remembered another girl, another time, with the face of an angel and the sweetest manners, a child’s soft mouth and an expression open and trusting as a lamb. She had seen Bob for what he was, and loved him anyway. Mr B removed his spectacles, hoping to erase the vision in his head. That romance had ended with floods, tornadoes, plague, earthquakes and the girl’s execution for heresy, a few weeks before her fourteenth birthday. By special order of Pope Urban II.

  Bob nodded.

  ‘Well, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be a god and live like a human. What are you going to do once you fall in love the “proper way”? Buy a nice suburban bungalow? Work in an office? Go to barbecues?’

  ‘I don’t think you understand.’ Bob’s tone was icy. ‘Lucy and I are going to be together forever. We’re getting married.’

  ‘Together forever?’ Mr B felt a little wild. ‘Do you even know what that word means? If you hadn’t created humans to grow old, die and rot in less time than it takes you to get dressed most mornings, then maybe you could have been together forever. But you and Lucy will not be together for anything remotely resembling forever. It’s not possible.’

  Bob said nothing. He gazed into the middle distance, looking wounded.

  ‘Look.’ This conversation was proving tiresome, and Mr B had work to do. ‘Why not take her out for a meal, see how it goes and then make another date? Take it one step at a time. Deal with this week before you get on to eternity.’

  Bob rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, thank you. Fantastic advice. Thank you so much.’

  ‘It might go down better than appearing to her as a giant reptile encased in a ball of fire and forcing yourself on her.’

  ‘Why do you always have to bring that up? Why don’t you just leave me alone?’ Bob stormed out, slamming the front door behind him.

  Thunder crashed. Electric rain fell in sheets.

  19

  ‘Daddy, I’ve become very attached to him.’

  Her father didn’t look up. ‘That’s unfortunate.’

  ‘Nevertheless.’ Estelle paused. ‘I’d very much prefer it if you didn’t eat him.’

  Hed sat with a calculator, adding up figures. ‘All well and good for you, but what about my wager? What if I start not collecting debts? Then what? Everyone and his penguin will be wanting an exception.’ He looked at her. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t be having that. Who’ll keep you in frocks then?’

  Frocks? Estelle looked at him.

  He sighed, impatient. ‘What do you propose I do? Tell Mona it was all a mistake? That a debt is not a debt?’ His eyes softened. ‘Of course, she is a good-looking woman. Funny how you can sit across a poker table from someone all these years …’ Looking up, he saw Estelle staring at him thoughtfully. In an instant his face clouded with anger, and he brought his fist down on the table. ‘No! No exceptions. And no more bothering me.’

  Estelle waited for a very long time, unmoving, as he continued with his sums. She was not a girl to waste valuable time that might better have been spent thinking. ‘I’m not saying you should cancel the debt,’ she said at last, a
nd then paused. ‘But I have an idea.’

  Her father sighed again. ‘What sort of an idea?’

  ‘A good one. It involves accepting something. In lieu.’

  Hed’s eyes were black and as fathomless as eternity. ‘That won’t do.’

  ‘Surely that depends on what the something is.’ They stared each other down. ‘Daddy, for heaven’s sake. You don’t really want to eat the Eck, do you? I’m certain Mona just made that up about how delicious he is.’

  ‘I hope, for her sake, that she didn’t.’

  Estelle’s gaze remained steady. Hed thought he detected the flicker of a smile. He sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. ‘Stop beating about the bush. Let’s hear.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not yet.’

  He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. But what makes you think I’ll find your plan acceptable?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said.

  There was a beat, and then Hed’s face broke into a smile like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. He sat back in his chair and gazed at his daughter admiringly.

  ‘You’re a girl after my own heart, Estelle. Shame I can’t convince you to play poker. You’d wipe the floor with us all.’

  Estelle’s mouth curled ever so slightly upward. ‘I may do that anyway.’

  20

  Mr B found himself alone one minute and not the next. On a chair opposite him, Mona squeezed greyish water from the crocheted doily that comprised her dress.

  ‘Oh! Hello, my darling. What appalling weather. How on earth do you manage to survive on this dreary little planet?’

  Mr B shivered, though not with the cold. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s been terrible.’ Increasingly terrible. Rain, storms at sea, thunder, gale-force winds – every violent nasty element you might expect to follow one of Bob’s tantrums. If he didn’t get together with Lucy soon, they’d all be blown away, struck by lightning or drowned.

  And if he did? B sighed. It would probably be worse.

  Mona examined his office. ‘So, this is where you’ve been hiding.’

  ‘Hiding, Mona?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘How very nice to see you again.’ Bob’s mother was living proof that self-centred fecklessness could be inherited, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to dislike her.

  She peered at him. ‘Darling, you look tired. Are you working too hard?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Of course not? He smiled. ‘You, on the other hand, look lovely as ever.’

  She exhaled deeply. ‘To be perfectly honest, I feel a bit down.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Bob’s terribly cross with me for gambling away his pet.’

  Mr B tried to look sympathetic while Eck, who had been standing under the desk, poked his head out a few centi-metres and peered up. ‘Eck?’

  He patted the little creature absently. ‘I thought you’d given up gambling.’

  ‘It was wrong, darling. I know that now.’

  Mr B looked thoughtful. ‘I don’t think we can allow him to …’ He briefly mimed bringing a fork to his mouth.

  ‘No, no, of course not. I’ll figure something out. I’m certain Hed will be willing to compromise.’

  Under the table, a gleam of hope lit Eck’s small black eyes, but what little Mr B knew of Emoto Hed made him think that Mona’s certainty was misplaced.

  ‘And even if he won’t, I’ve told Bob I’d get him another pet. Ten more. But he’s not having it. So unreasonable!’ She wrung her hands. ‘I know he’s my own son, darling, but I hope you’ll excuse my saying that he can be impossibly stubborn. It must be dreadful for you, sharing a life with him. And it’s all my fault.’ Mona appeared genuinely contrite. ‘But, you see, I was just trying to be a good mother.’

  ‘Of course, Mona.’

  ‘And any day now, Bob will rise to the challenge.’

  It had been approximately ten thousand years. To Mr B, this seemed sufficient notice to rise to most occasions. He smiled, a little tightly. ‘Perhaps he will. But in the meantime I could very much do with some help.’

  She brightened. ‘I am utterly at your service, my dear. Just say the word.’

  Mr B said a great number of words. He told Mona about Bob and Lucy and the weather. He told her about the state of his nerves and the despair he felt for Bob’s creations. And then he took a deep breath, and told her that he had handed in his notice.

  Mona’s hands flew to her mouth. ‘Oh, my heavens!’ she cried. ‘You’ve resigned? But you can’t resign! You can’t leave Bob to run the planet on his own.’

  Mr B frowned. ‘He is God.’

  She waved dismissively. ‘Yes, well, he may be God, but just between you and me, he’s not much of a God.’ She sighed. ‘He’s hopeless, in fact. You know it, and I know it, and all of his miserable little creations know it.’

  Mr B examined the upper left-hand corner of the room.

  ‘You’re serious this time, aren’t you?’ Her eyes shimmered with tears.

  He nodded.

  ‘But how will he manage alone, poor thing?’

  ‘If you’ll excuse my saying, Mona, it’s not Bob so much I’m worried about.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Mona’s eyes overflowed. ‘But you have to make allowances; the poor boy’s suffered terribly.’

  Mr B raised an eyebrow.

  She sniffed. ‘He’s nearly an orphan.’

  As Mr B understood the word ‘orphan’, being nearly one was tantamount to not being one at all. And if (by chance) some question remained, Bob’s status as orphan seemed disadvantaged by his mother’s presence here today. As for his father … Mona might not know which of her many lovers he was, but chances were he was still alive and kicking.

  ‘Well,’ she said, pulling out a small notepad, ‘I shall certainly put my mind to the Bob problem. Just remind me what’s required? Let’s see. One: make Bob a better God. Two: get him to stop playing with mortals. Three: no more floods, rain, natural disasters, etc. etc. and four …’ She raised an eyebrow in the direction of the Eck. ‘No et-P-ay for inner-D-ay.’

  Mr B blinked.

  ‘Right. Is that everything? Yes? Excellent. Now don’t you worry, my darling. Mona will take care of everything.’ And then she was gone.

  Once more, he wondered what would happen next.

  ‘Eck.’ The noise from knee level was mournful. Mr B reached under the desk and patted Bob’s doomed pet. With a sigh, he opened a drawer and pulled out some ancient peanuts in a cellophane packet. Eck snaffled them up with his flexible nose and scuttled off into the corner to eat them. Mr B watched him.

  Until the poker game, he had been quite a feisty little soul, falling upon food each time with a glorious bleat of joy. He was a different Eck now that his life had been truncated, and who could blame him? Each meal he ate was one closer to his last. This was not an easy concept to swallow. Being mortal, he would, of course, have died eventually, but now he knew exactly when, and why, and (to an unpleasant extent) how. Now, every tick of the clock brought him closer to oblivion.

  Mr B felt depressed. Another doomed creature he couldn’t help.

  When next he checked, the little beast was asleep, his empty peanut packet cradled in his arms like a baby.

  21

  Newspapers reported the worst spring weather in the history of spring weather. The rain seemed to have developed a personality of its own – sharp and vindictive one minute, heavy and morose the next. So peevish was the mood that it might have been programmed by some gigantic, lovestruck, miserable, sulking teenager.

  Which, of course, it was.

  Low-lying areas began to flood. Plastic bottles floated and bumped in casual rafts accompanied by the sordid ghosts of billowing carrier bags. Defunct sandbags sagged against doorframes; shop owners pressed gaffer tape on to window frames. Filthy water fed the sewers, which fed the canals, which fed the rivers and the bay, and ran eventually into the sea.

  And
still it rained.

  At not yet ten in the morning, the vicar of St Christopher’s church stared out of the window of his office while speaking emphatically and with some volume down the telephone.

  Outside, the water was still rising; police and coastguard teams occupied themselves in the relocation of vulnerable citizens. Large pieces of furniture floated by, while individual articles of clothing hovered just below the surface, appearing and disappearing according to the movements of whirlpools. A pair of boys, balancing golf umbrellas between their knees, paddled an orange inflatable, peering into the windows of abandoned shops and flats as they passed.

  Looking for loot, Bernard thought. Nice.

  A dog swam past the window searching for somewhere to rest. He scrambled up on to a windowsill and lay with his thin heaving chest and front paws clinging to the ledge while his rear end still churned away, treading water. Poor old thing, mused the vicar, he won’t last long there. And, sure enough, after a minute he was off again, paddling doggedly downstream past a long row of shops, searching for solid ground, in vain. Maybe the boys would find him and pull him on board their boat, make him some sort of mascot.

  Maybe they wouldn’t, and he’d drown.

  ‘I haven’t a clue what to do with these people.’ Speaking slowly, to encourage comprehension at the other end, Bernard attempted to keep the impatience out of his voice. ‘We’ve run out of Weetabix and coffee and blankets. And nappies and loo paper. And sanitary towels. The toilets are flooded so we’re resorting to buckets, there isn’t enough bedding to go around and the children are howling. There’s tea and shortbread, but I don’t dare put it out. We’d have a riot.’

  He listened for a long moment.

  ‘Well, yes, of course I understand, but …’ He broke off at the sight of a large green reptile advancing on his office.