The Big Pink

THE INSTANT THAT TIME CEASES TO MOVE

  Exactly one year later and Levin MacHill’s rat was dead.

  MacHill looked at it, the immobile white shape, the lifeless corpse. He knew it almost immediately – it was obvious, though what was obvious he could not have said. He neither approached it nor backed away; neither turned his gaze, nor looked at it more closely. He only stood on that patch of thin carpet, facing the sawdust-filled grill of bars that held something that would never escape or now had escaped once and for all.

  He let go of his breath where it had been pent up this long, too long and difficult moment. Intermittently angry, tired, he felt, and then simply existent. He unclenched his fist and deliberately wiped the palm of his hand off his trouser pocket in an uncharacteristic gesture.

  He let himself crouch down and touch the floor with spread fingertips. The cage was visible clearly, nestled beside his catering books and notes under the desk. Poor old Whitey; he thought. He kept his feelings tight, down, didn’t let himself see them. Stared into the cage with a scowl. Better to feel rage.

  He rocked back and forth on tips of his toes for a slow moment. Then he let himself reach forward and give the cage a single futile thump. It rattled; the rat fell solidly into the dust.

  Levin MacHill puffed and rose up again. The rat was dead; there was no way to get out of it; now he had to do something about it because the dead rat wasn’t going to get rid of itself. A man had to do that; an unhappy man, like MacHill. He caught a view of the sawdust bag by the radiator and thought with angry sadness how he’d never have use for that stuff again. He felt deserted.

  The rat was dead. He sighed and left his room, heading downstairs for a plastic bag and some toilet roll. He avoided the livingroom, that room of smoke and happy thoughts he had left but ten minutes ago – and lifted a plastic co-op bag from the counter top where such bags lay. Toilet roll from the toilet next to his room on the first floor. The rat he released from its cage with a hand wrapped in toilet roll – the hand, he thought sadly, that had willingly held soft fur, was now disgusted to touch the stiff carcass. He dumped the body in the bag.

  Now he was annoyed. He could not simply throw this, like some disgusting mess from Esperantos, out the window, or into the alleyway with the other bags, or in a plastic bag to rot like some turd chucked from a car. His rat deserved dignity in its passage. He left the rat on the bed. He descended, slowly and thoughtfully, to the livingroom door. After the smallest of pauses he entered.

  Levin McCochall and James both sat where he had left them: on the sofa, Levin with a half-smoked joint lying out of his mouth, and James rolling another. Coop orange concentrate, sellotape, tea lights, remote controls, cups, half-eaten dinners and Tennants cans fought for dominance. The Wall made statements like “Blown to Little Bits”, “I’m Staying Alive”, “All We Need Now Is Corpses In The Street” and other messages. “Bring back the glorious name of Stalingrad,” it said. “Card firm called me a f***ing paki.”

  James completed his joint with practiced rapidity.

  Levin McCochall looked at MacHill with an uncanny semblance of knowledge, as if MacHill’s inner pain was made known by some writing on his chest. MacHill couldn’t keep his eyes level with Levin’s. He had to look away. Levin McCochall looked on; MacHill could sense it. He felt the overwhelming despair opened underneath him like the trick trapdoor the grand vizier uses to teach his subjects a lesson.

  MacHill blew through pursed lips and clicked his tongue.

  ‘Anyone know how to bury a rat?’ he asked, annoyed, and throwing himself onto the sofa.

  Levin McCochall looked up, momentarily not understanding. Then he got it, and said, ‘Naw,’ in a way that went to MacHill’s heart.

  ‘Naw …’ said Levin McCochall. ‘Your rat’s not dead, is it?’

  ‘.’

  ‘Aw shit – is it really dead?’ asked James, suspended in the act of lighting the joint.

  ‘Completely dead dude.’

  James lit the joint. ‘Shit,’ he said and gave it to MacHill.

  ‘Shit – ah.’ Levin McCochall sat more upright. Then he slunk down into his chair again. ‘That’s really shit.’

  ‘It’s totally shit!’ said MacHill, glad now he had an audience to share this with. ‘He dropped dead overnight. He was fine yesterday and nowhere to be seen this morning.’

  ‘And he just fucking died? Fuck that,’ said Levin McCochall.

  There was nothing Levin McCochall hated more than mortality. He hated it. He was always saying: wouldn’t it be great if we lived forever? Or even just a few thousand years.

  ‘Yep. Totally dead.’

  ‘What age was he?’ asked James.

  MacHill frowned. ‘Probably about two years old. I don’t know. I got him from a pet store.’

  ‘You had him for about a year, didn’t you?’ said Levin McCochall, trying to dredge up his faint memory of facts about the rat.

  ‘Yes, about that.’

  ‘Shit. Uh, where is he now?’

  ‘In a plastic bag in my room. I was going to throw him in a bin.’

  McCochall looked at him for a moment, again seeming to probe into his soul with his bloodshot eyes.

  ‘Naw …’ said Levin after a moment or two, seeming to have decided on which side this thing lay. ‘Naw, you can’t do that. You need to put him away somewhere with the right dignity.’

  MacHill nodded – he had already come to this conclusion himself.

  ‘Bury him in the garden,’ suggested James. ‘Smoke that joint.’

  MacHill nodded affirmatively. Joints and burials; those were the things to think about. He drew on the smoke heavily.

  ‘Ok. Somewhere in the garden, I suppose,’ MacHill said, exhaling.

  Levin McCochall looked sceptical.

  ‘Mmf,’ he said; ‘our garden? I don’t know.’

  MacHill faced him. ‘Where then?’

  ‘Dunno. Botanic Gardens? It’s far nicer.’

  ‘In the rose gardens,’ said James.

  ‘Hmm,’ said MacHill, thinking about it. ‘The rose gardens … the Botanic Gardens … hmm …’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘We could sneak him in easily enough.’

  ‘Oh, the place is locked now, isn’t it.’

  ‘Aye, its dark.’

  ‘Somewhere else then.’

  ‘Lagan – whatdoyoucall it, Meadows. That place we went with you and Erwan and Hamish.’

  ‘That place? That walk that took for fucking ever?’

  ‘It didn’t take forever man.’

  ‘It did dude,’ said James.

  ‘All right, suit yourselves. Somewhere else then.’

  ‘How about somebody else’s garden? Just chuck it over next door’s wall.’

  Levin McCochall looked at James with disgust. ‘Jesus man. No.’

  ‘How about the Lagan river?’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘All right then. Let’s do that.’

  They rolled a few joints for the voyage. MacHill collected the carcass of the rat from his bed and rattled the keys of his mini in his hand as he stood waiting for James to finish rolling.

  ‘Come on man.’

  ‘Hold your horses! Do you think the Lagan’s going into low tide or something?’

  ‘Why would it be going into low tide?’ asked Levin.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied James. ‘I was just trying to figure out why he was in such a rush.’

  ‘I’m not in a rush – you’re just being slow. Hurry up James!’

  ‘You can’t rush a masterpiece like this. This one is for Whitey.’

  ‘Oh, well, in that case … hurry up dude. Ha ha ha!’

  Eventually James finished and they shoved themselves into MacHill’s tiny blue car. MacHill cursed and choked the motor into life while James hugged his legs in the back seat and Levin McCochall reluctantly held the rat bag between pinched fingers. He did not like rats, even deceased ones, and it was clearly only in consideration for MacHill’s emotions that he
consented to carry it at all.

  MacHill manoeuvred out of the parking space outside the house and roared up Eglantine Avenue towards the Malone Road.

  What bridge were they going to go to? They discussed this quickly, since the mini was tearing the road up at no small pace. The M3 bridge, McCochall suggested. This was correctly considered dangerous by all three, with Levin, James and MacHill opposing the idea. The bridge beside Central Station, came another thought. No. Too open and busy. Ormeau Bridge.

  MacHill skidded a right turn at the top of Eglantine Avenue and took the sharp L-straight-¬ of Chlorine Gardens, left onto Stranmillis. There were students and other vermin stalking the streets. He did his best to avoid ploughing into them.

  A roadsign somewhere halfway down this road directed them to the King’s Bridge, as long as they weren’t driving a lorry over 2t in weight. The mini didn’t classify. MacHill rolled down the steep road.

  ‘Ah, the Lyric’s on this road,’ said Levin McCochall

  The Lyric zoomed by.

  ‘Where are you going man?’ asked James as they mounted a short bridge over the Lagan and turned left.

  ‘Probably this bridge will do. Just need to find a place to park.’

  There were no places to park. That was evident. The mini careened wildly, as if it possessed only one fixed speed which was high. It rushed onwards towards a bridge that took it back over the river again.

  ‘Alright, choice of bridges. Try this side.’

  ‘Keep on heading along the river. Up that way, not into town.’

  ‘Sure,’ said MacHill. The mini swerved and meandered just like the Lagan beside it.

  ‘Here, we’re just by the Lagan Meadows now.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Aye, there’s that bar, Cutter’s Wharf. Head down there.’

  There was a car park beside it, and the entrance to the Meadows was just a few tens of yards further along a path.

  ‘Give me that rat,’ said MacHill, tenderly prizing away his departed friend from Levin McCochall’s fingers.

  ‘Be my guest,’ said Levin.

  They took one look at the deep dark shrouded entrance, overgrown with greenery, one dim public light flickering and showing up the vines and the entrails of dimly coloured graffiti sprawling all over ancient concrete and electrical conduction meters.

  ‘That?’ asked MacHill, somewhat taken aback. ‘That’s where we walked to that time?’

  McCochall nodded. ‘Yes … looks different at night.’

  ‘Looks like someone might stab us to death.’

  McCochall winced. ‘Jesus, keep it down man.’

  ‘Just be the person who does the stabbing,’ said James.

  ‘No. No stabbing,’ said Levin.

  ‘Stabbed. What a word. It even sounds violent.’

  ‘Stop talking about stabbing,’ said Levin.

  They walked as one towards the desolate ruin of broken branches and overgrown grass.

  A white ghost emerged on the path ahead and jogged up to them and away.

  ‘Shh-it!’ said MacHill, when it was gone.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Levin.

  They came up the path against the river, now much narrower than it later became downstream.

  ‘This thing gets narrow quickly, doesn’t it?’ said James.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Levin.

  They stood in a line, looking at the dark water. It was warm for February so no-one had taken anything more than a thin coat or jumper. There was no wind but a heavy drop or two of water fell regularly from the sky.

  ‘So …’ said MacHill.

  ‘What gets said on an occasion like this?’

  MacHill decided to speak from his soul.

  ‘This, was Whitey. He was a rat. To most people he was just some rat, in a cage in a room. To me, he was a companion, the last creature to see me at night, the first to see me in the morning when I awoke. Goodbye Whitey.’

  Levin MacHill filled the bag with stones. Then he swung it and let go; the rat in the bag rose and then fell with a splash in the water. It sank; or at least they thought so, in the dark light.

  ‘There goes Whitey,’ said Levin McCochall with sympathy.

  All three shared a joint and then drove home.