A La Carte Read online

  Well, now, it was a December night about fifteen months ago – winter before last – and I was driving home a bit later than usual, and taking things carefully, because there were patches of fog. I turned on to a minor road near Hartley Wintney, partly because if you know the way it’s a short cut and partly because I was busting for a pee. I pulled up in the dark – side-lights left on, of course – where the road runs through a wood, got out, went across to the other side of the road where there were some bushes (I hate peeing against the wheel) and got on with it. I’d left the driver’s door open and that’s something I’ll regret to my dying day. I was in full stream, as you might say, when I saw Bruce jump over the driving seat and push his way out, I expect he wanted a pee, too, and anyway I hadn’t told him to stay where he was. He was in the middle of the road, crossing to me, when I heard a car coming and saw its lights.

  In the normal way I’d have run over to Bruce, but – well, I mean, I couldn’t, could I? I shouted ‘Bruce, stop!’ And that’s where I made my fatal mistake, because he did stop – he stopped right there in the road. At the same moment the car, a grey Peugeot 309 going much too fast, came ripping round the corner – spotlighting me – and knocked Bruce flying onto the verge. There was only one man in it: he didn’t stop: didn’t even slow down, although he must have felt the impact. In two seconds he was gone and I hadn’t got the number. But I’d noticed a discoloured patch on the boot.

  Bruce died in my arms about two minutes later. He was trying to lick my face. I’m not ashamed to tell you I was crying my eyes out. Wouldn’t you? Never mind how I took him home and disposed of him. Mrs Forster, good old soul, was terribly upset, too. I kept his collar. It’s on the dressing-table now.

  Things just weren’t the same without Bruce. I felt wretchedly lonely. I couldn’t bear to walk on the Downs without him. My bed at night didn’t feel the same. The long drives all day were miserable. Sometimes I’d wake up in the morning and I’d have forgotten and for a second I felt happy. Then it all came flooding back and I could hardly get up and shave. Mrs Forster was very kind and motherly, but I mean, what could she do? I thought of getting another dog, but it didn’t appeal – didn’t seem decent to replace Bruce like a pen or a pair of shoes. I drove alone. Sometimes I used to feel kind of mazed, thinking of Bruce and the way he died.

  One March evening about three months after the death of Bruce, I was driving down the M3 when suddenly I heard a noise in the back of the car. It was a frightening noise, and I couldn’t place it at first. Then I realised it was the growling of a dog: a big dog, too, it sounded like. It was growling on a rising note – real aggressive. I was scared.

  I stopped on the hard shoulder and looked in the back and then in the boot. Not a sausage. It was eerie: I knew I hadn’t been mistaken. After a bit I got back in and drove on. The noise didn’t come back and I didn’t mention it to Mrs Forster.

  But three days later, when I was driving home from Northampton on the A43 – a nasty bit of road near Juniper Hill – it suddenly began again. It was enough to scare the pants off anybody. In the back of my car was a large, savage dog, working itself up to attack – and nothing to be seen at all. You could even hear its claws on the seat and its coat brushing against the side. I stopped and jumped out; but then, after a few minutes, I got back in and drove on. The growling had stopped.

  But it kept on coming back – and just when you were least expecting it. I’d find myself overtaking a lorry, or doing a hill start when suddenly this appalling growling broke out in the back. Grrrr-owf! Grrrr-owf! I nearly crashed twice. I was horribly frightened. It was beginning to keep me awake nights.

  I wanted to talk to someone about it, but I mean how could you? My friends would say I was barmy with the death of Bruce. Mrs Forster wouldn’t be any good. If my employers got to know they’d think I’d got a hallucinatory nervous breakdown – perhaps I had – and very likely sack me. You need a rest, Jevons.’

  It went on, about twice a week or more, but I never got used to it. It fairly made my bowels loose when it came: it was right at the back of your head, you see, and you expected the brute to take you by the neck any minute.

  In the end I decided I’d try changing the car. I spun them some sort of a fanny at the office about the clutch-plate not being too good, and they gave me another car while they took it off the road for attention. When they brought it back I said the new car was so much better; could I keep it? Well, the old one had done seventy thousand odd anyway, so they said all right. I really felt relieved – for about three days. Then, one night north of Newbury, the growling came again; and it was worse than ever. I couldn’t stay in the car with it. It was like a wild animal. I stopped and got out and gave it half an hour. But it was getting me down. I was seriously beginning to wonder what would become of me.

  About a week later, I was coming home unusually late. It had been a hard, frustrating day – a bad day, really. I turned into the wooded minor road near Hartley Wintney where Bruce had been killed. And it was coming down that road, in the woods, when the steering began to go funny. I slowed down. Bump, bump. It was pouring with rain. I got out my torch. The off-side rear tyre was flat.

  Oh damn and shit! I thought. To have to change the wheel at this time of night, in all the rain! My shoes and hands will be filthy and I’ll get wet through and probably get a cold or worse. Well, there was no help for it, so I opened the boot, lugged out the jack, the wheelbrace and the spare tyre, prised off the hub-cap and started in.

  I’d done two of the nuts when I heard another car coming. The lights came round the bend, showing up the rods of rain, and then the car passed me and stopped. It was a grey Peugeot 309, and my torch showed the same discoloured patch on the boot. It was the car that had killed Bruce; I felt certain.

  The driving door opened and a man got out into the road. I shone the torch on him and he flapped his hand, dazzled. I didn’t like the look of him at all. He was big, heavy, about thirty, with a lot of black hair and a sort of nasty, oily smile. He came up to me.

  ‘Oh! Got a puncture, ’ave yer?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Bit of a sod, that. Want any ’elp?’

  That’s very kind of you.’

  ‘What’ll yer give me?’

  This surprised me, of course, but after a moment I said, ‘Well, how much do you want?’

  ‘Well,’ he answered, still with that horrible grin, ‘I think I’ll take what yer got.’

  And with this he stepped forward and seized me, pushing his fingers down between my neck and the front of my shirt. His other fist was clenched.

  Just at that moment the driver’s-door of my car flew open -I honestly can’t tell whether I’d shut it or not – and then the man staggered back, clutching at his throat and shouting, ‘Keep it off! Keep it off!’ It was like a dream – all unreal; I mean. He was ducking and weaving all over the place and trying to cover his head. As I looked at him, great rents appeared in his clothes. The growling and snarling was like I’d never heard. The man tried to kick out, and then grabbed at his ankle, screaming. I was crouching beside the car, wet through and terrified. Just as the man managed to lurch as far as his own car, a police car appeared and drew up.

  One of the policemen went straight to the man and tried to speak to him. Then he supported him into the back of the police car. There was some talk I couldn’t hear and then this policeman came over to me.

  ‘Stand up, sir, please. Is this your car, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  “Where is your dog, sir, please?’

  ‘I haven’t got a dog.’

  ‘Well, where is the dog?’

  ‘I haven’t seen a dog.’

  ‘Well, sir, this man’s been very badly bitten and mauled. It’s a hospital job, this is. Are you saying it wasn’t your dog that did it?’

  ‘There isn’t a dog. You can look in the car – anywhere.’ ‘The dog ran away?’

  ‘I tell you – I haven’t seen a dog.’

&nb
sp; ‘Then are you saying, sir, that that dog came out of thin air?’

  ‘Well, in effect, yes.’

  ‘Oh, so there was a dog?’

  ‘I tell you I didn’t see a dog at all.’

  An ambulance, its lights flashing, arrived and took the wretched mugger away. The policeman, having heard my story, seemed to decide that they were no nearer the truth, but that I was shocked and talking rubbish about there having been no dog. I left my car and they gave me a lift home. I was totally exhausted. Mrs F. gave me a cup of tea and I slept like a log.

  Next day was Saturday. Over breakfast, planning to get a taxi to take me out to my car in the woods, I heard a ring at the bell. It was another policeman – a sergeant. I sat him down and he questioned me again. He said that I could be prosecuted for letting this savage dog attack the man. The man was in hospital. When I asked him point- blank, he told me the man was known to them and that he had a police record.

  ‘But the dog must be destroyed, sir. Now I know you were a bit shaken up last night, but this matter can’t be overlooked.’

  ‘I swear to you, sergeant, I have no dog and haven’t had one for months. Let me call my landlady.’

  Mrs Forster came in and she confirmed that I’d had no dog since Bruce had been killed.

  ‘Well, sir,’ said the sergeant at last, and, so it seemed to me, reluctantly. ‘I’d rather it had been your dog. Then we’d all know where we were.’

  ‘Where we were?’ I said. ‘I’d like to know that, too.’

  He left, shaking his head. I set off to get my car. All the tools were still in the road and it was untouched.

  Since then, the noises in the car have stopped altogether. I’ve got another dog, another collie called Cracker. He’s great. I feel a new man.

  I’ve only told this to one other person; my drinking friend Jack Vincent, who teaches Eng. Lit. at the Poly. We’d had three pints each when I told him in the bar at The George one night. I felt I had to tell someone or bust. I thought he’d laugh at me or tell me I was trying to fool him. But he didn’t. He heard me out in silence and he stayed silent when I’d finished.

  ‘D’you believe me?’ I asked him.

  ‘Yes, I think I do,’ he answered. Then he said, ‘It is nought good a sleeping hound to wake.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Chaucer, old boy. “Troilus and Criseyde”.’

  TAIL

  Bill James

  There was an agreement. Brian and Jill had spelled it out together one night, more than a year ago. They told each other it was for the sake of the children. And Brian told himself that, too. But he knew it was for his own sake. He must not lose Jill. To keep her he had accepted terms. They would be friends, living together with their family. For passion she would go elsewhere. It was terribly regrettable, she said, but something had died. It could happen in a marriage. Look at some of their friends! She still loved him dearly, but was not ‘in love’ with him any longer. She had met someone else, a little older than Brian, as it happened, and also married, but none of that seemed to matter. They had fallen ‘in love’.

  Obviously, Brian had been hurt, but did not really accept the difference between love and ‘in love’. Or, at least, did not believe that side of it would last. He would wait it out. And so, the agreement. He considered it a workable, not necessarily humiliating pact and, even at the end, remained convinced that nobody reasonable would have foreseen such loss and violence.

  When the arrangement began, Jill used to offer some more or less plausible tale to cover the times she was absent: shopping, a drink with Amy. Then she stopped that. It obviously sickened her to lie. She had a wonderful honesty. It was one of the things he loved her for. These days she would say only that she would be out in the evening or, more usually, the middle of the day and afternoon, and he asked no questions because none was necessary, and because this silence had become part of the agreement.

  Other extra, unspoken clauses to the treaty had also established themselves. For instance, he noticed that she never dressed up in her smartest outfits to go to these meetings, nor wore any of the best jewellery he had bought her. Brian saw she did not want to rub his nose in it by making herself festooned and special for someone else, and he felt grateful. He could not tell her that, though.

  In fact, it was when Brian and Jill called the babysitter and they went out as a couple to a restaurant or party at a friend’s place that she wore her best outfits, and appeared at her most gloriously elegant. A room full of people shone when she was among them, shone because she was among them. He had always adored her for this quality, and did now. Brian was proud to be married to her. Just as much as feelings and sex, her allure and brilliance were the essence of Jill, and these she did not withdraw from him. This was why he could abide by the agreement. She remained his. The wondrous public side of her belonged to him, still. Ask anyone what they thought of first when Jill’s name was mentioned and they would say her vivid radiance in company. He could read envy of him in men’s faces. Lately, she would give extra care to her appearance when, with Brian and the children, she visited his parents. He knew his mother and father understood now what an asset to him Jill was. Both Brian’s daughters looked like her, fortunately, and, even at ten and thirteen, it was obvious that they, too, would be beautiful women.

  Naturally, it was part of the agreement, one of the formally spelled-out parts, that if he found somebody else, he would be free to seek fulfilment with her, though observing a like care for preservation of the household. But Brian was sure he would never want that. Unthinkable. He saw that his certainty on this used to enrage Jill now and then. It possibly increased her proper and commendable sense of guilt. But he could not change. Jill was the only woman he wanted, and, if necessary, she would be his on the present hard but bearable conditions. Once, and never afterwards, she tried to explain what it was that had drawn her from him to this other man. What she said seemed rather imprecise to Brian. Perhaps she avoided too much clarity for fear of injuring him more. She would be like that. What it appeared to add up to was that the lover radiated unceasingly a ferocious desire for her. This was the word she picked, ferocious. She spoke it without hesitation, and had obviously selected it very carefully a while before and kept it ready for this declaration. Brian was embarrassed by it rather than injured. She sounded absurd, he felt. Yet she said this man’s passion had left her no choice. Brian did not protest, though he longed to say he, too, had desire for her. Didn’t his humane tolerance of the agreement prove this?

  When the arrangement was new, he did not allow himself to think very much about where the two of them went on their sorties, and at that stage he would never have tailed her, or had her professionally tailed. Although this was certainly not expressly banned by their agreement, it would have been shady then. In those days, Brian totally despised snooping. He assumed they generally went to an early lunch in a restaurant, and then somewhere else. Unseemly to speculate on that, and probably unhealthy. She liked to be home soon after the children returned from school.

  What he took care never to do on days when she had obviously been to a rendezvous was suggest they eat out together somewhere that evening. This would have been cruelty, forcing her to consume two big restaurant meals in a day, and seeming to score over the lunch date by getting her to dress up for dinner. It was certainly not for him to, as it were, punish her. He had told her once or twice that he was ‘not in the business of blame’.

  Yet sometimes after she had been capering somewhere with her lover in the day, Jill would seem to detect Brian’s delicacy and grow defiant and combative in her wise shame. She herself would insist they summon the babysitter right away and go to the very best restaurant they knew. It was as if she were insulted by his considerateness and wanted to destroy it. Perhaps she thought he believed his gentlemanliness made him superior. This was plainly unjust.

  Then, in the restaurant, looking brilliant, she would talk and radiate at full power, and anyone watching would sure
ly have supposed them alight with joy in each other, perhaps even lovers, not man and wife. This would thrill him. This was Jill as Brian’s, her jewellery very much in place. Always on these occasions she would order expensively, and took something from every course. She would eat little – probably could eat little – but this did not matter. As Brian saw it, wanted to see it, she was demonstrating that she was his and therefore had not the least need to stint. Her extravagance was possessiveness. As far as he could tell from studying her eyes and face, the vivacity was real, not merely acted out. He would not believe that, behind it all, she was venomously comparing this outing to the one she had been on earlier that day as preamble to sex.

  Now and then, they would bump into friends in these places and perhaps make up a four or even push tables together for a party of six or eight. The more the better for Jill. She would grow livelier and livelier and, in Brian’s opinion, anyway, lovelier, too. No, it was not only his opinion. He could see this view endorsed in the eyes of the other men, and even in the eyes of some of the other women. Jill had this wonderful ability to bring glamour to a group, without causing jealousy. This was the girl he had married and cherished, regardless. He knew he was lucky.

  On one of these evenings, they came across a group of dining friends at Claud’s Bistro, and, while they were rearranging tables, he felt a hand, probably the back of a hand, a woman’s hand judging by the size, pressed for a second, possibly a fraction more, very firmly against the inside of his left, upper thigh, and high. His initial thought was that it had happened accidentally, in the minor confusions of already heavily aperitifed people moving furniture. Soon, though, he realised that this could not be; the duration of the contact was too long, its nature too deliberate, too questing and cogent. He decided, yearned to decide, that it had been Jill. Was she telling him in a sudden, uncontrollable, almost shy way that she belonged to him after all; altogether belonged to him, and not just her public self, however worthwhile that public self might be? Perhaps her affair and therefore the absurd agreement were over. Always he had known time would put matters right.