The Black Dog
Almost immediately he felt as if he’d made a mistake.
With no expectation, he had spent three days in the company of a nice new human being and now he was going to ruin it by wanting more. Like one last drink or coffee after dinner, like missing the last bus, a good time was going to be ruined by wild excess. Almost as soon as she cancelled her taxi, the walk had become dull and wearying, the conversation self-conscious and stilted and now, in the afternoon gloom of the terrible pub, that sense of folly deepened. The Black Dog was the name Churchill gave to his depression and perhaps this was where he’d got the idea: the immense TV showing Australian horse-racing, the smell of bleach, the urinals visible from the bar. ‘Perfectly okay,’ the online reviews had raved, ‘but not somewhere to linger.’ Was there an extra spare room? Of course, because everyone else was at the two nice pubs or the BB on the main street. Standing at the bar, waiting for the keys, he felt as if he was handing himself in at a police station.
‘Last night was the honeymoon,’ whispered Marnie. ‘This is the messy divorce.’
On his own, this would have been fine but even a masochist wants a clean towel, and in company it was excruciating. ‘You might still catch your train,’ he said.
‘No, I like it. I like the sound the carpet makes,’ and she tapped her foot and hummed ‘Hotel California’ as the bartender returned, slapping the keys on to the bar like a wager. Was there Wi-Fi? There was not. Michael took room three and gave Marnie room one in the hope this might be the best.
They climbed the stairs. ‘Do you think it’s haunted?’
‘The ghosts of hygiene inspectors.’
‘I can’t believe the rooms don’t have a theme.’
‘Plagues of Egypt.’
‘Horsemen of the Apocalypse.’
‘Fungal infections. I’m in Impetigo, you’ve got Ringworm.’
But he wondered if her sense of humour would survive the night. An overhead bulb, wood-patterned vinyl flooring, a greasy black duvet, a view of the railway line. ‘Room one oh one,’ she said.
‘Shall we do a runner?’ he whispered, aware of the thinness of the walls.
‘It’s fine. There’s a desk and chair, I can work. Just as long as your room isn’t sumptuous.’
It was not sumptuous. Alone again, he sat heavily on the single bed, its mattress made from torn cardboard sewn into a sack. To kill time, he called his parents. Mum was helping out at church and he spoke to Dad, a conversation that would allow him to unpack at the same time.
‘… up over Grisedale to Patterdale.’
‘Know it well.’
‘Then up past Angle Tarn to Kidsty Pike.’
‘There’s a nicer way.’
‘But that’s the way I did it, so.’
And on it went, his father telling him all the ways in which he might have done it better until Michael said, ‘Then it’ll be Richmond and over the Moors.’
‘Richmond’s near Natasha, yes?’
And only now did Michael pay attention. ‘Well. Quite near.’
‘Will you see her?’
‘I don’t know, Dad. She’s been in touch but probably not.’
‘She’s been in touch?’
‘Just to say hello.’
‘To see you?’
‘It’s best if we don’t.’
‘Well. If you do—’
‘There’s no reason to.’
‘If you do, send our love.’
There was a silence. He’d heard the change in his father’s voice, an uncharacteristic softness that he might have responded to. ‘I will if I see her,’ he said briskly. ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘And you’re on your own.’
Too much trouble to explain, too confusing. ‘I am,’ said Michael.
‘And you’re all right on your own.’ It was not a question, and he didn’t want any answer except ‘I am. I like it. Tell Mum I called.’
‘Righto.’
Michael hung up while the receiver was still pressed to his father’s ear. Every call was like this, a role-played recreation of the frustrations of his youth, the instructions and corrections, the inability to discuss anything in a direct way. He hoped he’d not inherited his father’s reticence. If he’d had his own son, he would have endeavoured to be different.
But he thought back to that afternoon’s conversation, the way he’d resorted to silence and platitude when he might, for instance, have said what it was like to want children of your own and to teach, to be presented with this parade of kids at their best and worst, year after year, their parents too, complacent, incompetent or absent, taking it all for granted, how he wanted to shake them and say, Look, look what you’ve got! He didn’t trust himself to express any of this out loud but surely there had to be a mode of conversation between therapy and trivia. He’d found it in the past, with Natasha.
There she is.As if he’d summoned up a spectre, the room began to vibrate, the key rattling in the wardrobe door, the light-bulb swinging as the southbound express train tore by. He waited for it to pass, then checked his phone. No texts, no further messages but he mustn’t think about that, must wrench himself back into the moment, try to be present with someone in the here and now, though ideally not here, and not quite now.