Sunday 12 September 2010

What Oscar Amor Left Behind

Off went the television and in the filthy screen was the face of Oscar Amor, dead. Three days dead, yet still he clutched tight the remote-control, oil-black but for the yellow masking-tape preventing two double A’s from falling out. The other hand was free and resting on his right leg. He had ruddy knuckles, thick and coarse with wiry hair on its verges born of an out-of-doors occupation, and anyone who ever cared to consider those hands might have supposed he ate his lunches out of plastic bags and sipped watery tea from a flask battered by the knocking of tools. But they would only be half right. His tough skin and clipper-proof nails were undermined by softer palms, the likes of which told of an early retirement. Those hands had dealt with soap, choice soap, premium soap, soap of waxy-paper and bought by someone who had a preference for soap of a certain lavender scent, saw to it that Oscar got plenty of it, used plenty of it and did appreciate it. That someone was Aggie Amor, his wife. She’d found him dirty, left him clean.  

So they’d done well for themselves, through her keeping stock: of soap, of money, of food, of good-sense. She’d brought out his better nature. But he died an old, stocky, bent man – leaning always from the pains in his chest and struggling with some secret weight. In years to come they might discover what it was by digging him up and finding there a few bars of soap lathering his damp remains. That said, Oscar didn’t die alone; at his feet was the old grey heap of his dog, Fibbs. Fibbs had remained ignorant of his owner’s death until now, preoccupied as he was with sleep and with watching television, walking about occasionally with nothing in it, like old dogs do, in that bored-with-domestic-life attitude, stolen perhaps from the bored-with-domestic-life attitude of dog owners. Fibbs was frightened by the sort of change death promised them both, he stayed out of the way and sat watching it happen to Oscar and thought to himself that perhaps he had a chance of outliving his man by some margin. They had lived together since before Aggie. The pet was something she’d tried her best to cast off but had failed and Fibbs had outlasted her too.

These days he’d taken to watching whatever Oscar was watching, he had no choice in the matter anyway. He enjoyed game-shows, and he knew that Oscar knew he enjoyed game-shows, and so he was outraged when suddenly the thing was off and Oscar’s corpse was reflected in the glass of the television set. The house was muted. The answer to that afternoon’s Countdown Conundrum ‘nosmtoowb’ was lost forever -  though he’d thought, ‘boomtowns’ and was fairly convinced he was right as he’d got it within three seconds. That’s how it worked for him - if it came to him it was fast like that or it wouldn’t come at all. Now he’d never know. Before this incident he’d been rather glad at Oscar’s silence lasting the past few days’ worth of game-shows, as the quiet was usually spoilt with ‘Don’t tell me, Fibbs! I’ll get it myself.’ This he knew not to be true.  

This state of things incensed Fibbs; that the man had gone and died without at least topping up the electricity, and that he would die too never knowing the answer to the Countdown Conundrum. Because expecting something and not getting it - for a dog at least - is an abuse, and he hated that even more than the bitch next door or the torture of getting bathed. Though the latter crime had all but ceased to be a threat since Oscar had stopped going upstairs, in order to save his legs. Now he found himself thinking that a bath wouldn’t be such a bad idea, he certainly wouldn’t protest much at having one, if it was offered. When Oscar pulled back from stroking him with, ‘That’s you. I know it is. You’ve a bad smell on you, Fibbs. Now get gone.’ He found he quite consented, but felt a strange lack of conviction in the old man’s tone, and it was at these moments of hollow anger that he found himself missing her and missed seeing her in him.

Told that he smelled badly Fibbs took walks in the dark of the house. It struck him that most of the house remained in darkness most of the time. Whereas Oscar found solace in shutting himself off from certain rooms, Fibbs felt no such desire to avoid or hide. The closed doors frustrated the dog because for him these rooms held no special worth in themselves, even if they did still seem like her space and he’d become conscious of that if he wondered  by chance into thicker carpet that was particularly good and soft to walk on. When he thought Oscar had forgotten about him he would return to the space in front of the television where Oscar would then shake off his felt slippers and hold his toes out - wriggling them lose of each other like rusty chain links, and if only they were made of metal, a quick burst of WD40 might have sorted them out for good. But they were human toes: pale, stiff and hard. With these dull tools he’d rub Fibbs’ belly like it was a hot-water-bottle and then Fibbs had a time of it, he’d always been a ticklish dog. Oscar laughed too, bereft of any actual laugh; rather it was an involuntary gasping action. Fibbs felt close to Oscar at these times. He felt they were not too dissimilar after all.  

To his surprise the house did not remain silent for long in the absence of sound from the television. Fibbs soon began to perceive the irregular operations of the fridge, which seemed to be struggling now in desperate tones as it tried to carry on without any power and manage its empire on the food economy of crumb-regions and slick yellow rivers formed by accidents with the milk. Oscar never had any food in the house. He was quite content in his own way and to the acute annoyance of everyone else who happened to be around at dinner time - to eat a sliced tomato on a saucer with salt, ‘for taste’. Or fill up on a cup of boiled water with a broken Oxo cube inside and plenty of pepper, ‘for taste’. Into this soup he’d say, ‘I’ll make a meal of anything me, Fibbs,’ and then he’d give his loyal pet a wink - which made the old dog nervous for the meat on his own bones.

Fibbs went into the kitchen, his paws made little taps on the stonework until he reached two shallow porcelain bowls on a tray by the back door. These were patterned in fine blue paint depicting nursery rhymes in several stations. Fibbs much preferred them to be obscured with the soft biscuits and jellies of a meal and the water to be filled to the brim. He remembered how he used to splash the liquid about the stone as he lapped it up from these bowls, but he soon perfected a method of taking it carefully, and now he hardly ever spilt a drop. He wasn’t a greedy dog and like Oscar he ate very little anyway so that his food had lasted. But now there was no water left and the food had gone except for a sticky glisten, as though a passing snail had taken the last of it. He went back through the kitchen, ducking underneath the table when there at his feet he found ice-cold water and noticed then that the fridge had been leaking. It formed a great puddle stretching out from behind the fridge, under a wall-unit and now reached the table. This he drank, not caring whether or not he splashed it about.

In the living room he lay down. He looked hard at the deep set blue eyes of Oscar Amor, which he thought sad now and in retreat. He couldn’t remember if they’d always been like that or whether death had made him stranger. He saw the all but useless legs below the tartan blanket and a single fine line of black, petrified liquid working down to the floor. It struck Fibbs that perhaps it wouldn’t be too long before someone found them there. Oscar had family enough, from before Aggie, who paid visits to their father once in a while to check on his health and make certain measurements in certain rooms leaving carpet samples here and there by accident. Fibbs saw that the old man had lived life so completely that he’d really left nothing behind. And after all Fibbs was with him right until the end. And that’s how the dog saw it - if it came to him it was fast like that or it wouldn’t come at all.

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