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Alice tapped on George’s door and entered. Still sat in the chair facing the window, he didn’t turn with the swoosh of the door, nor when Alice softly called out to him. She pulled up a blue plastic chair from the corner of the room and sat alongside him.

“Bernard’s dead.” George’s voice came out croaky and raw.

“Oh, George, I’m so sorry. What happened?”

“Juan said it was a heart attack. He died in the ambulance.”

Alice reached across and squeezed his arm.

George sighed. “I’m not at all surprised. Bernard liked to live large. Juan and I were always telling him to slow down. Sixty-six though, that’s no age, is it?”

“No age at all.”

“Poor Juan is distraught. He’s blaming himself because he’d plied Bernard with rich food and alcohol. And he bought him a birthday cigar and let him smoke it even with his bad chest. But it was his birthday. Our birthday!” George’s voice cracked. “It isn’t Juan’s fault.”

“No, poor guy. Had they been together long?”

“About six years. They both work in the theatre business. Bernard cast Juan in one of his plays and they fell in love. I was a bit sceptical at first as Juan’s so much younger. He’s around your age, but he was good for my brother. He made him very happy.”

“Not all of us youngsters are gold-diggers, you know?” Alice smiled.

George scoffed a laugh. “I didn’t mean to imply that. Bernard was my little brother. I always looked out for him. We didn’t have the easiest childhood.”

“The answering machine message, I think it was when Juan and Bernard were on the way to hospital. Do you think when you heard it, it triggered your fugue?”

George nodded. “My mind has been scrambling through flashbacks over the last couple of days, but now I quite clearly remember hearing the message and turning to see a flash of black fur in the front garden. I thought it was Pyg, so I followed her.”

“Pyg — as in your childhood dog?”

George nodded.

“I don’t mean to be insensitive, but surely Pyg must be long gone?”

“Mmm, you’re right. She died a long time ago. But I don’t sleep well — chronic insomnia. If it’s been an especially bad patch, I sometimes see the shadows of things that aren’t really there.”

Alice rubbed his arm through the thin paisley fabric of his pyjama shirt.

“Perhaps with the shock of hearing Bernard… my mind was playing tricks on me? Or it could’ve been Pyglet I saw? It’s the only sense I can make of everything. Pyg was there when Bernard and I went through a particularly difficult time as kids. She was like a beacon when all other hope had faded.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Bernard died without knowing the truth. I just wanted to protect him, but I should’ve told him.” George squeezed his eyes shut and a tear rolled down his cheek and into his beard.

Alice drew closer, moving her hand from his arm to his back. His chest heaved with the weight of his sorrow. There was something unsettling about witnessing fragility in a person as sturdy as George, almost like watching a crack appear in a mighty dam.

1978

SKULKING IN SHADOWS OF THE PAST

Asense of melancholy weighed heavy on me as I stood in the front garden of the only home I’d known as a child. Despite the warm spring day, a strong smell of damp earth and decomposing leaves filled the air. The vibrant flowerbeds our mother had once tended were now choked with weeds, and the hedges surrounding the property formed a twisted, impenetrable mass which cast long, dark shadows.

I glanced at my watch; Bernard was over twenty minutes late. I hadn’t wanted to be here alone, that’s why I’d asked him to come all the way from London. But I should’ve guessed at Bernard’s tardiness and planned accordingly. I paced the broken concrete path that led to the front door and kicked a chunk of moss.

“Shit!” I said when it left a muddy mark on my new leather brogues. I bent and brushed the dirt away. They’d cost me a decent chunk of my first pay packet, but a respectable teacher should have a nice pair of shoes. And that’s just what I was now,a respectable teacher.Pride swelled in my chest at the thought.

Finally, I was earning an income and no longer reliant on handouts from the church or money from my grandmother — not that that would be happening any longer.

“Georgie-boy!” Bernard’s bellow pulled me out of my head and instantly dispelled my low mood. He rounded the hedge looking like a rock star, with aviator sunglasses and a pencil moustache, which he smoothed with his finger and thumb. He wore a pair of purple flares and a colourful shirt with a ridiculous floppy collar.