The Drop Dead Cafe

I gloved Jamie’s small hand in mine and squeezed it so tight, in those minutes before and after take-off, that his lips disappeared into a colourless thin line. The anti-anxiety tablets I’d popped out of their little foil caskets earlier had helped a bit to calm my nerves, but I couldn’t let go—not yet. 

‘It’s ok mum. Nothing’s going to happen to us,’ Jamie whispered as he smiled up at me. His watery blue eyes were drenched in a love that I struggled to hold on to without the additional prickles of guilt that journeyed way beyond skin deep. The role of responsible adult, as at other times, had abandoned me. His mother, the unreliable carer.

Once we were at a reasonable altitude, the pilot announced we could undo our safety belts. I chose not to, always, unless I needed the toilet. Jamie’s pale delicate, fingers traced around the plane window as he viewed the darkened world outside in wonder. I leaned in towards him, closed my eyes and inhaled the fragrance that floated from his curly blonde hair.

A pulsating red light at the tip of the wing caught my attention. I blinked as images like faded polaroid photos slipped onto my horizon. A horror film I’d seen years ago of a passenger haunted by a devil-like creature crouched on the airplane’s wing. He’d had no way of escaping it. I turned away, as the sensation of iced water slipstreamed my spine.  

A few hours later, I arrived at our destination, west of Malaga, and drove the hired car into the dim lighting of an underground carpark. I clicked the engine off and scanned the four, maybe five parked cars, like abandoned shells in shadow. I shook my head. Were my thoughts still trying to provoke the anxiety within me? Taking a deep breath, I swung the car door open. 

For a while, I stood rooted to one spot. I turned to Jamie, sat astride his trunki and forced a smile. He also viewed the darkness, unblinking, and motionless. Perhaps curious about my hesitance.

‘Can I go and see the pool, mum?’

 ‘I don’t think so darling, it’s 1.15 in the morning. Come on, I’m sure Blue and Dusty will be up waiting for us, too.’

The bleached yellow sign pulsating, ‘salida,’ beyond the parked vehicles caused my chest to judder with minor relief. I grabbed the handle of my suitcase, and we darted toward the exit. We almost reached it before the sound of low, guttural growls made me freeze. A cat, with eyes like sharp shards of green glass, sneered from under a car, revealing teeth as white as phosphorous.

‘Shit.’ My hand flew up in front of Jamie. It wasn’t necessary. I’d forgotten how quick my son’s alert reflexes were as the cat ripped across our path and out of sight.

‘It’s ok. Just a bloody cat. We probably disturbed it.’

Jamie didn’t respond, his gaze fixated on the narrowing blackness ahead as if waiting for another monster to rear up from nowhere. I slipped my arm around his slim shoulders and pulled him in towards me a little more.

 ‘Come on, I can see our way out of here.’

This felt better. I was the giver again, the carer. My role intact still, despite myself, and the medication.

The lift doors opened, a slither on level four. With a desperate yank, they creaked open wide enough for us to escape the stuttering white space and inhale the cool crisp night air. We made a left turn for apartments 25 to 30. Jamie hopped and jumped free from the dankness and darkness below.

 I tapped the code into the key box on the wall of apartment 27. The cover opened, releasing a small silver key.

As I pushed the door open, relieved to be here, a foul smell invaded my nostrils. The light from the spacious lounge bled into the passageway as the dogs scuttled with gratitude around our legs. I grimaced and covered my nose to expel the stench of decaying flesh that seeped like osmosis into every pore of my body.

‘Mum. What’s wrong with him?’

I released the case from my grasp, shut the door and turned to see Jamie’s features troubled and pasty white as he stared at Dusty, the smaller dog of the two.  The dog’s appearance made me rear back in disgust. I tried to force a sympathetic smile. Difficult, when a sense of repulsion caught you off guard. I swallowed as I witnessed his ribs and spine protruding from thin gravestone grey skin with sparse, brittle hair.

As his jaws clamped together, it unleashed a sound so hollow and unnatural I trembled, despite my efforts to appear calm around Jamie. With the muscle wasted away, Dusty could no longer bark like his companion Blue. Stringy saliva, like silvery spider yarn, clung to his stained incisors as he continued this desperate act to welcome us.   

Then I felt a heated surge of anger. Why had Cheryl kept the truth from me? Yes, she’d mentioned a disease caused by sand flies; that Dusty needed medication and a strict diet. But here was the problem. I knew I would struggle to even be near him. As Jamie reached out to stroke across the top of his bony head, my heart raced. I didn’t want my son to witness or touch a pet dog in this condition. Dead like.

Somehow, Cheryl persuaded me to stay at her apartment to take care of her dogs. ‘It will be good for you.’ she’d said. And I agreed because I understood what she was trying to do; Fix the fractures in our imperfect friendship. I wanted a family. She wanted a career that took her places.

‘Poor Dusty mum. He feels strange.’ He lifted his hand and gazed at it as if expecting to see something there.

Dusty viewed me with sad, muddied eyes in sunken sockets. Would we awake one morning to find them rolled out of his skull and onto the gleaming tiles of this perfect white apartment? Yet, his tail. It wagged stiffly, showing scraps of joy, whilst I feared rigor mortis had already consumed it?

A minute later, with long nails that curled and twisted, Dusty clicked his way over to his bed and folded down skeletal like - his body macilent and angular. He lay there, appearing exhausted by his exertions. In that moment, a trickle of warm sympathy seeped into my weighted chest as I considered his efforts to greet us despite his poor condition.

As darkness stretched out before dawn, I swallowed two more tablets whilst Jamie slept. They helped numb the fear that poked around within me. How would I manage Dusty’s illness…appearance? I would attempt to treat him with the warmth he deserved. But that death scent I couldn’t deal with. It needed to be gone. Even before unpacking our cases, I would try to clean it away. I pulled Jamie in closer towards me, tucked his favourite cuddle duck under his chin and drifted into a restless sleep.

Something woke me. I stilled in the darkness, listening beyond the noise of my heart thumping against bone. The dogs were pacing outside the bedroom door. The clicking movement of Dusty distinctive against the soft pads of Blue’s paws. Seconds later, the door flung open, hitting the back wall with a thud. I sat bolt upright, my head racing as shadows slinked and slumped around the bed.

‘Out now!’ Blue jumped onto the bed and attempted to lick Jamie’s sleeping face.

‘Get down, you rascal.’

Dusty didn’t jump up but seemed to revel in his companion’s cheekiness. I stretched my hand out to stroke him, then pulled away. To touch him would feel like touching the walking dead. Too soon. I needed a bit more time, I reassured myself. After removing both dogs from the room, I drifted off to sleep again, wondering how she could abandon her unwell dog to strangers.

‘Mum, wake up Dusty’s had an accident.’

Before I opened my eyes, the putrid, noxious odour hit my nostrils. I pinched my nose and stretched over the bed. Near the patio windows a pool of caramel-coloured faeces with dark red splotches spread across the floor. Bile rose and burned the back of my throat.

‘Mum, I don’t think he’s well. Poor Dusty.’

‘He’s going to be fine pumpkin. Come on. Take a shower while I clean it up.’ 

Later, I hid Dusty’s tablets in the small amount of food he tolerated, walked Blue in a local park, and messaged Cheryl, expressing my grave concerns about Dusty’s condition. My text came across as terse. I wanted it that way. She had a habit of letting me down. She responded a while later. Reassured me, it was all quite normal. His blood, a deep dark red. Nothing to be anxious about, she told me. Plenty of x’s on the end of the message. I shrugged; blood is blood, it shouldn’t have been there. A healthy dog didn’t shit blood.

In the afternoon, the sun broke through the grey skies. We visited an animal sanctuary to brighten the solemn mood. We had lunch in a Fortnite themed café- he’d always wanted to visit one and then we walked along the beach to collect pebbles- to paint later.

As night edged towards us, Jamie, with his cuddly duck, cwtched up with me in bed and watched television. What, I can’t recall. I must have fallen asleep. When I woke, I coaxed both dogs outside to toilet, brushed my teeth then folded myself into an unfamiliar bed with a familiar rise of anxiety twitching its way through my muscles. I popped another pill, desperate to fade into blackness again.

In the early hours, the door handle hit the rear wall, startling me from sleep again. Blue whimpered and whined as he paced back and forth in the tight space between me and the bedroom door. His unsteadiness, tucked ears and tail shredded my nerves. Where was Dusty? I counted to three in a whisper, moved my feet to the floor and slipped them into my flip-flops without waking Jamie.

One slow step at a time, I clapped into the darkened hallway, inhaling something far more pungent. I flicked the light switch. Dusty’s body lay lifeless on the sofa. His spine contorted as if spasms of death had almost snapped him in two. His neck and head, stretched up and back on itself as if staring at the door… In his dying moments, had he yearned for his owner to be there with him?

I swallowed and masked my mouth in shock at seeing the soiling on the perfect white sofa. I shifted my attention for a moment in an effort to control my breathing. The angry cold bit at my skin, resentful. I thought of Jamie. The day I’d had to avert his attention from the kitchen, to save him from the brutality death had dished up for his beloved grandfather, the man he adored. The only man who had given him his time. His own father had left me-us. I forced the image of exposed bone and flesh away. I had to deal with what lay dead before me now.

Wrapping a lifeless dog in black bin liners on your own as their innards spew out is not pleasant. Tears blurred my sight. Probably a good thing. These memories would be easier to forget later. He must have died some hours before, as his emaciated limbs had already stiffened. But then he’d been slipping into death when we arrived. I carried what was left of Dusty to the garden in two bin liners tied in the middle by cord I had found in a kitchen cupboard.

Was there any respectability in death- it held no grudges towards life, but sure liked to make a spectacle when taking it? I lowered what remained of Dusty behind the garbage bins, where I thought there might be the most shade, wondering how the hell I got here. To this place where the ultimate fate of existence pursued me like an urgent child. I didn’t sleep, not one wink after abandoning a soulless Dusty to eternal night. Jamie was awake but lay quietly next to me. Too quiet. It scared me.

‘Are you ok Mummy?’

I sighed. Then softened the loss of Dusty for my son. Aren’t stories wonderful at removing the harsher realities of life when needed? He understood as I told him gently to stay out of the garden. Later, at breakfast, I stared at those gleaming white tiles and faint upholstery stains where I’d scrubbed and scrubbed death away earlier, with a viciousness that made my head hurt. Then I contacted my friend, a friend I already disliked. She arranged for Dusty’s body to be moved to the vet late afternoon.

For a while I considered finding a guest house that took dogs. But I lacked the energy needed to find other accommodation and pack again. Instead, we stayed out the entire day. We ate at an expensive restaurant and sat outdoors with Blue grazing at our feet. We strolled around Port Belarus, stopping for ice-cream and latte breaks. It helped. We returned late evening to an empty and quiet apartment. With Dusty’s body removed from the garden, we fell asleep almost immediately.

At 2a.m. I woke up spitting out maggots. It took me a while to realise I’d had a bad dream. I pulled wet strands of my blonde hair from my mouth, then stilled. What was that noise? Blue must me moving around outside.

Jamie whispered. ‘I hear it too, mum.’

‘Click, click, click…’

I grasped at Jamie’s hand as my mind ricocheted from one faint sound to another. Maybe it was the pills. Twisting my reality. Despite this, I tried hard to sound brave.

‘It’s ok, it’s Blue. I should have let him sleep in with us tonight.’

He shuddered in the darkness. His milky smooth fingers pointed to the bottom of the bed. I would have prayed right then if I believed in God. Blue stared back at me, his pupils large and glassy. Only then I understood. It was Blue who trembled as he tried to bury his head in folds of the blanket.

Then the clicking stopped the other side of the door. I held my breath. A metallic taste permeated my mouth as I bit into soft flesh. Jamie wrapped his arms so tight around my neck I gasped for air in deep anguish. Did Dusty feel all alone?

For a while, neither of us moved or spoke. I eased an arm from Jamie’s nervous grip and stroked across his head to comfort him.

‘Mum, that was Dusty.’

‘I know. Try not to think about it too much, darling.’

I’m not sure how long we lay there in the dark before sleep stole us.

As dawn crept onwards I sat in the garden staring at my uneaten breakfast. Jamie slept. An emptiness lingered in my stomach with a heaviness that hurt. Had the diagnosis of Eidetic memory, an ability to recall minute details from the past, made it all the harder to fend off emotions that wished me to surrender to it all?  

The sound of metal twisting against metal drew my attention from my fractured thoughts. I stood slowly, not really bothered anymore by who or what it might me. A door opened, then shut. Heels clicked along tiles. I gazed down at my stained joggers and t-shirt, suddenly feeling so very tired. As Cheryl approached me, her gaze flickered to where I had laid Dusty’s dead body earlier.

She embraced my unyielding body without saying a word, then stepped away, still grasping my hands. Her eyes were glassy and wet.

‘I am so, so sorry. I should have been there…’

She didn’t finish the sentence. Was that on account of me and the death I had been served, like a menu at the drop-dead cafe?

She loosened her grip, and I sank into the chair, puzzled by her presence. She must have noticed.

‘I caught the first available flight back. I couldn’t leave you alone here after… everything.’

 No words left me despite my efforts to say something.

I saw the soft skin on her forehead crumple like crushed tissue paper when she clocked Jamie’s tattered duck in my hand. My jaw tightened.

‘Your dog. He, he needed you here when he… not a stranger.’

A loose tear dripped down her cheek and balanced on her jawbone before falling away.

‘Sophie.’ Her chest shuddered.

‘I’m so sorry, I should have been there for you when…when Jamie died.’

I tried to shut her words out. Why should this so-called friend speak his name now? Lifting Jamie’s old, tattered duck to my nose, I inhaled the faint fragrance that remained of him. The sweetest smell in my world. Where he should be.

Everything’s going to be ok mum.

How can it be pumpkin without you?