“We can’t leave her,” Andy says. “We can’t.”
He can do it by himself. The dog is maybe ten or twenty feet underground. He can dig out a passage. The dog is dehydrated, starving, but can live another day or so. He can work all night, all day tomorrow. Maybe some of the replacement teams can lend a hand. It will be hard, but he can save her. She’s as worthy as anything else of living, isn’t she? And that’s what they do, isn’t it? Save lives?
The team turns away from him. If it were Momo and Kami trapped down there, they’d break their fucking backs to get them out. He hates them. Cowards, one and alclass="underline" Colin, and his shitty, screaming brood; Reg, who called him a poofter in the squad room; John, without a gram of brain for every kilogram of muscle; Sam, who claims to have a girlfriend but is too ugly to admit that it’s a lie; and Mike — fucking Mike—
“Andy,” Les says, gently. Andy has been squeezing his fists so tight that his knuckles bleed. Les puts a hand on Andy’s shoulder. Anyone else, and Andy would have socked him. But not Les. Never Les. “You’ve done all you can,” Les says. And right then, Andy knows what it must feel like for that dog: a flash of light, an instant of hope before plunging, irrevocably, back into darkness.
When Andy arrives back at the tents, Ted is waiting with another box. Last night, he could only finish half of the blood pudding. The tinned meat reminds him of a housewife he passed earlier, her body the color of Ribena, striated and bloated. Andy vomits into his mouth, and he can taste the blood pudding again: the salt, the sour of his stomach acid, the slickness of the fat. But instead of letting it spew onto his cheeks, down his chin, he forces it down. He’d never really fancied blood pudding. His father did — Mum made it for Dad. Andy had to smother his in jam to stomach it.
Andy drops his equipment onto his cot. He’s got to repack. The bus to Ahmedabad leaves tomorrow afternoon, and they’re on it. These clothes he’s worn for the last five days straight? Burn them, a big fucking bonfire. He’s got a change of clothes in his sack, at the very bottom, wouldn’t you know. He holds a T-shirt to his face and breathes deep. He still takes his laundry to Mum every other week, and she says, “So the hero still hasn’t learned to wash his own clothes?” She smiles when she says it.
“I wouldn’t stick you with more blood pudding than you could eat.” Ted takes cans out of the box — corned beef, fruit cocktail — and sets the box down at the foot of the cot.
“No need,” says Andy. “We’re through.” He has a pair of Skivvies somewhere — ah, here. “Our mission is over. We’re leaving tomorrow.”
Ted stares at the can tops, as if wondering what to do with them now.
Tomorrow, they’ll stop in Frankfurt for a one-day layover for debriefing and relaxation, and they’ll have a hotel. He wants nothing more than a proper shit, shower, and shave. He wants to be presentable so that when Dr. Cameron asks him, How was it? he can answer, It was fine, and if Dr. Cameron inquires about his outburst at Ashpura, he can say, Momentary stress overload. And if Dr. Cameron persists, What’s causing this stress? what will Andy say then?
Christ, what do people want from him?
Tomorrow in Frankfurt, there will be steak. Tomorrow, there will be lager.
Reg says, “Come on, Les. Let’s give Andy some alone time with his boyfriend.”
Andy reaches for a can and, before he has time for regret, hurls it. Reg is too shocked to raise his arms in defense. There are so many ways this could go wrong: the hard metal lip hitting Reg’s eye could blind him; the can striking him in the mouth could chip a tooth, leave him with a torn and bloody lip. But as it happens, the can hits him broadside on the forehead with a dull thunk. Reg staggers back, and Andy looks at Les, whose mouth is wide with disbelief.
“You little shit!” Reg roars. He rubs his head. He starts for Andy, but Les restrains him.
“Andy,” Les says, “get out of here.”
But he’s ready for a fight. His hands — cracked and scraped as they are — are fists. I’ll show you.
Ted tugs his elbow. “Let’s go.”
Les says, “Leave!”
Reg yells, “I’ll report you!” He strains like a dog who’s come to respect the leash.
“Come on,” Ted says. Ted grabs Andy’s bag and pulls him out.
“You’d better run,” Reg says.
But there’s nowhere to go. Everything is waiting to swallow him up. The night is a void; the sky is a void. Ted is a void. They go past the fire, past Ted’s tent. They shouldn’t even be out walking; curfew is in effect. But the final destination doesn’t matter. It’s still nowhere.
When they stop, Ted asks, “Why’d you do that?”
Andy shakes him off. “That cunt’s been on my back for months.”
“But that’s no reason to—”
“Yes,” says Andy, “it is.” Andy holds out his hand for his pack. “I need to go back.”
“I think you should cool off first.”
“I don’t care what you think. Just give it here.” Andy tries to grab his rucksack, and Ted swings it behind his back. “I’m not playing.” He wants to be rid of Ted, like when he sneaks out of a stranger’s flat or when he kicks a stranger out of his own flat: No offense, but I have trouble sleeping with someone else in my bed. But he and Ted haven’t slept together; they’ve only danced around one another, circling, sniffing. It’s much easier to be rid of someone when you know what they need, and you fulfill that need.
“Don’t go just yet,” Ted says. “Come with me.”
Oh — what the hell. A condemned man’s last wish.
Ted leads Andy to a dark hotel. Men have paid for hotels before; men have offered to pay his way through life: men of means, men who form words as crisp as freshly pressed sheets. And Andy can’t say that he hasn’t been tempted. He could have been like one of those Marylebone lapdogs: too pampered to even walk on the ground. Too helpless to do anything for themselves. He was fifteen when he first had to bathe his father. His mum usually did it, but a year after his father’s accident, paralysis set in, as if the daily handfuls of pills hadn’t just numbed the pain but everything else as well. That evening, Mum had worked a double shift, and she called for Andy to help, a half scream that made him think that maybe his father had slipped, split his head on the bathtub. But no: his father simply couldn’t hold up his own weight, and Mum was too tired to support him any longer. “Get his feet,” she said. His father — half-submerged — was naked, and his pasty skin floated on the surface like foam. He didn’t seem ashamed that his wife and, now, son had to see him like this. His limp penis bobbed in the water like a lamprey. “What are you looking at?” he asked, and Andy said, “Nothing.” His mother dipped a washcloth into the water, and the ripples shifted islands of foam onto his penis, a dead thing. “Wash his feet,” his mum said, handing Andy the cloth. His feet were swollen and bulbous, the veins blue beneath the skin. His toenails disappeared beneath encroaching flesh. It was all Andy could do to touch him. The air smelled of the same soap he used himself, but it had a sour undertone, a smell Andy would always associate with hopelessness, failure. As the tub drained, his mum said, “Thank you, Andy,” but his father said nothing — not even a nod of acknowledgment, as if this were an everyday occurrence in Andy’s duties as a son — which it did, in fact, become. He doesn’t want to say he felt relieved when his father died, but he doesn’t know how else to describe it.