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Pointlessness.
Everything is meaningless.
Empty.
My life is empty.
Brutus stares at me as I get to my feet.
My steps are light on the stairs, my tie still perfectly knotted as I stare at my haunted face in the bathroom mirror.
I clear my throat as I ease open the cabinet door. A row of bottles, perfectly lined up. Prescription painkillers, easily enough to end it all, all lined up, just waiting for me.
My heart beats quickly. My mouth is dry as a bone.
I draw myself a tumbler of water. Pick up one of those pill bottles and shake its contents.
Empty.
My life is empty.
I picture my boys’ faces as they told me they were going to the game with Terry. Claire’s twisted expression as she screamed You’re just like your filthy fucking father.
I picture my filthy fucking father.
I can feel Bill Catterson’s clammy handshake.
Ronald Robertson’s tabloid sleazy grin as he stares at me.
I picture Vivian Rachel Farr. The hate in her parents’ eyes as they screamed at me outside the courtroom on Lionshall Lane over a decade ago.
I shake that pill bottle.
It’s not that I want to commit suicide. It’s really not that dramatic. There isn’t any wailing, or panic, or crushing sense of misery.
It’s not any of those things that ensure I have a stock of medication on hand to end it all at any time of my choosing.
It’s the nothingness. The pointlessness. The exertion it requires to get through day after pointless day, knowing tomorrow is going to be more of today, and the next day is going to be more of that. On and on and fucking on.
For nothing.
For no one.
Although that’s not strictly true.
I hear Brutus on the tiles. His panting breath. He has such rancid breath.
The thought makes me smile.
I take a breath of my own.
Brutus was the most hopeless, desperate animal they had at the shelter. That’s what I wanted, and that’s why I took him.
Vicious. Untrainable. Unlovable. Haunted. Scarred. Ugly. Miserable.
Hopeless.
And less than twenty-four hours from euthanasia when I loaded him into the Merc and brought him home with me.
We’re a good pair.
Vicious. Haunted. Hopeless.
He grunts at me as if he knows it.
I put those pills back in the cabinet and take a shower.
I jerk myself off to brutal pornography in my dressing gown.
I think about burying my dick in another man’s asshole as I finally come, ignoring the sickness in my stomach, ignoring the memory of that public urinal all those years ago.
I let Brutus out for his late night shit. Give him a fish stick as a reward for basic bodily functioning.
And then I go to fucking bed.Chapter NineMelissaI’m rattling with nerves as Cindy and I take the tube across the city. I’ve officially signed my life away to whatever non-disclosure criteria Henley Grosvenor insisted upon. I didn’t even read it, not completely, just signed my name in the box and landed it back on Janet’s desk first thing this morning, much to Dean’s despair.
Cindy is quiet on the crowded carriage, and I bite my tongue, holding back the stream of questions zipping through my mind. We get off at Kensington and Cindy hands me the company expenses credit card outside the vets. She shows me the exact treats for Brutus inside, some gross dried-up fish things that barely look edible, even for a dog.
“Always these,” she tells me. “Never walk through that door without them. Seriously, that nasty little shit will take a bite out of you.”
“I guess he’s a guard dog,” I comment, handing the card to the woman behind the counter. Cindy hands me a little black book and flips to a page partway in. The company credit card pin is written amongst a load of random numbers.
“Guard dog my ass. The thing’s a menace.”
I hold back judgement until I meet him for myself.
Mr Henley’s house is an impressive white building on a leafy corner. The garden is neat but plain, ornamental hedgerows and wood-chipped flower beds. The front door is thick and black, standing at the top of some fancy white-tiled steps. I’m full of butterflies as Cindy talks me through the set of keys, turning one at the bottom before adding a second key to the top.
She pauses before opening the door. “You don’t have long to disable the alarm,” she tells me. “The number’s in the book.”
I flip through the pages. “Seven seven six, three four five nine.”
“That’s it. Keypad’s under the stairs, to the right. Brutus is always in the conservatory, you’ve got time to sort out the alarm without him causing problems.”
“Got it,” I say, and she opens the door.
The countdown bleep of the alarm sounds right through the house, and I make a dash for it, heading to the little white door under the stairs and searching inside. There are coats in here. They smell of him. Him. Butterflies. So many butterflies in my belly. Seven seven six, three four five nine. I sigh in relief as the alarm goes silent, and turn to find Cindy smiling at me.
