"The dogs cease movement and lie about silently farting, colonizing the room with fart, still as rocks."
Gail by Rowan Somerville
Gail sits at her computer at a bow legged circular table, crowded with books unwatered plants, a cloche covering a bunch of leaves - black with age, a lit candle, a red rose encased in Perspex and a pair of Rodin maquettes -authenticity to be confirmed.
At ground level, a seething orgy of canine fur separates into a pair of Boston terriers and a French bulldog. The larger Bostonian is heavy and brain damaged, the lolling tongue too lolling and complicated for her mouth. The bulldog is magnificent, the empress of the mêlée. The beasts fight and hump drily. All are female; snorting, grunting, frotting and gnawing. The noise is grotesque, it is repulsive, it cannot be ignored. The mentally compromised terrier is on the bulldog's back thrusting away, her ludicrous tongue resting like a single slim saddlebag on the flank of the perfectly groomed French bulldog.
Gail's elegance is not affected by the dogs, nor by her video game. She is dueling with a 12 year old boy somewhere in Japan. She extinguishes her cigarette with a chic twist and curses briefly. She is rated twelfth in the world. The game is called Flo-on-the-go. The Japanese child is sixth. Flo runs a virtual diner of moon-rocket complexity with ditzy, grumpy and psychotic guests who must be placated with plate of cartoon food. The noise of grunting and humping is everywhere, like a sound track to Hieronymus Bosch's hell. Gail is not disturbed.
On the bed, Elizabeth the Great Dane flops amidst goose down pillows, paws like child's hands stuck on long brittle branches. Her limbs protrude from the mattress. Rose print counterpanes, thick rugs, frayed silk carpets and dogs like overstuffed black puddings beneath. Elizabeth lifts her great head and flops back into the down with a sigh.
At an invisible sign, a change in atmosphere, a shift in spirit, the dogs cease movement and lie about silently farting, colonizing the room with fart, still as rocks.
Gail lights another cigarette.
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Rowan Somerville is the author of two novels, The End of Sleep and most recently, The Shape of Her. He lives in London.
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Thursday, 5 August, 2010
In Character studies
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