Kieran.Stories

Mum

You’re surprised the school’s still open, but if there’s one place in the country that stands for stiff upper lip above all else, it’s Propert College. Not a college, though. Something else that has niggled you. A day school for girls. 

A boarding school would have been a bridge too far, but you could convince yourself that a day school wasn’t as – there, you’re thinking it – elitist. But it is. It unquestionably is. It is. After Evie’s first term, at weekends you noticed how her voice had changed. You’d expected her voice to deepen, to match yours. And it did. But this was different. It wasn’t only that her phrases were more clipped, that her consonants were more pronounced, like crystal. She came out with her own ideas, slowly at first, but with each term, she gained confidence. It was a bit shocking, you thought, that she’d picked up a new way of talking so soon. It was as if she was keen to shake off everything she’d learnt since birth to age eleven. You could put an exact price on that confidence: £7,726. Does that make it better? There’s causality; this is what you paid for.   

When Evie was in the third form, Katie joined, and history repeated itself, not in precisely the same way, because Katie is – you’re sure – her own person, but enough to suggest that the girls would have turned out differently if they’d been to a school like yours. 

But how would they be different? If you can’t know, is it worth asking the question? You think of all the hypotheticals you manage at work. The similarities between the world of finance and childrearing; the peaks and troughs, the hypotheticals, the unknowable quantities, the constant worry. Above all – the worry. 

Evie has been prepped for St Andrews. All being well, she’ll go next September. Katie, meanwhile, already, at her age, is keen on Cambridge, over its famous boat race rival. 

But the news this week has stopped all talk of St Andrews, or possible future Cambridges. They found Ms Gisford with her husband and their seventeen-year-old daughter, Samantha, dead, splayed out on the school’s rifle range. The police are confident that there was no third party involved in the deaths. This strikes you as strange. At the back of your mind, unbelievable. Especially when you remember the photos in this year’s prospectus. How happy they looked. For Mr Gisford to shoot his daughter, his wife, and then himself: beyond comprehension. But no, it isn’t. Because it has happened. It is being reduced to a regular topic of conversation.

At least, that’s the rumour. The part about the rifle range. You imagine the scene. The school cleaner doing his dawn round. In the gymnasium. He notices that the entrance is unlocked. The door to the rifle range, which is accessed by a wide but steep set of stairs, is also ajar. The cleaner descends. He finds the bodies, calls the police. He tries the head’s mobile, before realising that there is a phone vibrating on the floor, next to one of the bodies. He hadn’t recognised Ms Gisford – not due to shock, he was an army man – but because the head had been obliterated. But then, would the cleaner have the head’s mobile? Unlikely, maybe. 

Spaghetti bolognaise is the choice for tonight. This comfort food, autumnal food. We’re bridging the gap between November and December. You think you’ll go away, see if the house in Ambleside is free. Could you afford the time off? Surely, you could take the girls away for a few days. Under the circumstances, you imagine the school will be lax about giving girls time off to recover. The shock. They were never army men. Besides, you have paid for the term. It’s done, dusted. If you want to take them away, you will. But no, you won’t. Katie would come. Evie would only come begrudgingly. The school teaches its girls to be begrudging but polite; belligerent but calm. They’re well-armed. 

The girls are due back any minute, and you’ve recently ended a difficult call with Simon. He positioned his camera so you could see the spread of the office, the whole floor, high above the City, a veritable hive of activity, as Jim would have said, when Jim was still your boss. But now: Simon. 

You open the tomato puree and cut yourself on the lip of the sharp, metal tube. ‘Shit.’ You wonder if the girls have rubbed off on you. On your proud comprehensive education and (dare you say it, even think it?) working class upbringing. In your younger and more vulnerable (or, less vulnerable) years, you conjured a limitless stream of swear words to replace your now dainty, italicised, shit. You put down the tube of puree and catch the blood in your palm. 

Katie arrives home first, says hello, because she’s nothing if not polite, and goes upstairs to her room. You call after her, ‘Food in thirty minutes.’ Why thirty minutes, not half an hour? When did you start saying thirty minutes? 

You wonder what’s been said today. 

Evie comes into the kitchen. They catch the bus home together. You have given them lessons in public transport, which you think their peers might have missed. They are as comfortable travelling on a Stagecoach bus as Propert’s own air-conditioned coach. 

‘How was it today?’ 

‘There’s going to be an assembly tomorrow.’ She gets herself a can of Diet Coke from the fridge. Adam talked you into this fridge. It cost £1,999. It has two doors, and an ice maker. Evie shovels ice out of the draw, and puts it in her glass, before pouring her drink. You could have saved the money, you think, idly. Or spent it differently. Sometimes at night, before bed, you see green and red lines against a black screen, and you wonder what was there before. But the money you play with at work is different, is almost fictional. It could never have been exchanged for a fridge. You’re running your cut over cold water. It numbs it. Evie asks what you’ve done to your finger. 

‘Do you need a plaster?’ 

‘No, it’s fine.’ You tie kitchen roll over it, tightly, and get back to the spaghetti bolognaise. 

Evie, Evelyn, has inherited her father’s height. His lank. She is a head taller than you, at seventeen. ‘There was an announcement at registration. The school is in a period of mourning.’ 

‘I was surprised they haven’t closed it.’ 

Evie considers this but says nothing. She sits herself at the table behind you. You pick up the puree again. You ask if there’s any news.

You say, ‘I saw a report on the news, at lunchtime. It was surreal, seeing the school.’ You think this is the type of conversation Evie will find engaging. 

‘I saw that. You can tell everyone looks down on us.’ 

You’re chopping onions. Out of stubbornness, or sheer determination, over time you have learnt not to cry when chopping onions. ‘Looks down on you?’ 

‘Susan Copeland says it was triple suicide.’ Katie has appeared, ghostlike. Her face is pale, in fact. Her growth spurt is delayed, or maybe it will never come. She will be fourteen by the end of the year. 

She has changed into her Cambridge hoodie, grey with black and red detail. Evie says, ‘That’s ridiculous.’ 

‘Why?’ It is a genuine question from one sister to another. ‘Stranger things,’ Katie adds, leaving it at that. She has lost the robustness of her childhood body. Puberty has made her convex. 

‘That doesn’t mean it did happen,’ Evie says. ‘We know what happened.’ 

‘They were found on the rifle range, weren’t they? I heard that today.’

Both girls stare at you. Katie is leaning against the kitchen counter. Her hands are clasped at her front. She places both in the pocket of her hoodie.

‘I haven’t heard that.’ Evie picks a grape from the fruit bowl, in front of her. She holds it for a moment. ‘They were found at one of the properties.’ 

‘The rifle range?’ Her eyes grow even wider. You understand, her whole day has been filled with speculation. But where did you hear about the rifle range? Adam arrives in the kitchen. His voice fills the gaps in the space, and there’s no room to think. You boil a pan of water. When Adam comes in, Evie leaves. She has some prep to do. You tell her, food won’t be long. 

Evelyn

Your phone is off, and it is oddly liberating. Mum is at the table. You’re getting ready to wash the pots. It was spaghetti bolognaise tonight. Everyone knows they’d feel better if they left their phone off for the day. Today, you have let the battery run down. It lasted on one percent for a surprisingly long time, between school and home. On the bus, you watched the bar in the top right corner, which had been reduced to a sliver, and watched for the screen to turn black. It happened when you weren’t looking. Most people would benefit from having no phone. You understand, this is quite a high and mighty thing to think, and you’re certainly not above your phone. But today – you let it die, and you liked it. The rest is silence, until you plug the charger in. What did people do before the iPhone? But you’re tired and uninterested in your own question. You need a distraction. There is a golden glow. You look out for a second, fixing your marigolds. 

What happened on this spot three hundred years ago? You would have been happier; life would have been simpler. It’s nice to imagine you would have been content, because what’s the alternative? Worse than now? That’s the last thing you’d like to contemplate. 

You think about the fact that at midnight tonight, it will be forty-eight hours since Samantha and her parents were found. A few days after that, it will be a week. Soon, it will be a month. And so on. In your twenties, which are not so far away in the scheme of things, will you look back on this episode? How will it appear? Could you smooth it out, turn it into an anecdote, a factoid about yourself? I went to Propert, I was there when those shootings happened. But that seems unlikely. 

Mum is on her MacBook. Both you and Katie have the newer Pro models, but your mum makes do, is proud of the fact that she still uses the first MacBook she got in, like, 2011. She uses it to make a point. It’s not like she couldn’t afford the latest one. But your mum has odd lines she won’t cross. Her iPhone is still an iPhone 11. But then, she has no problem flying to Zermatt to ski every August. ‘What’re you up to?’ you ask. She sighs. ‘Just finishing up some work.’ You wonder why you asked. She goes back to her typing, and you turn back to the washing up. This is another thing your mum is keen on: the dishwasher can only be used at Christmas, and on any other day, the pots are divvied up between you and Katie. 

When you plug the charger in, how many notifications will you have missed? 

Considering the last two days, you’re coping well. You’re not sure. Perhaps they’ll be no messages to only you but lots to the various group chats. Girls of the Upper Sixth. It’s no surprise which girls are keen to organise get togethers, minute silences, gushing Facebook posts with everyone tagged. That’s the real reason you let your phone die, why you marked it DNR. There shouldn’t be this sort of organising. It’s a mufti day to them. Just another event to get their claws into. Some of your classmates have no dignity. The side plate you’ve been sponging for however long, slips away into the bowl, lost in warm, white suds. No one knew, know one knows, about you and Samantha. You barely knew yourself. Something would have happened, if you’d wanted it to, if her father hadn’t shot her point blank, earlier this week, before turning the gun on Samantha’s mum, then himself. It’s what could have been that upsets you, but it’s not even that. Not quite. You wonder when the rumour about triple suicide started, and where it came from, and how these phrases are being fed up and down form rooms. The pots are done. You clean the surfaces. Mum closes her laptop. 

‘How’s your finger?’ 

She says it was only a little cut. You’re not really listening. 

Be honest. 

You’re thinking about Mr Epping’s lesson on entropy. Order and disorder. This takes you back to Samantha. Notifications. We are a text-based generation. As Head Girl, you are to speak at tomorrow’s assembly, but what is there, really, to say? 

Katie

Your phone has been resting in your pocket. You take off your hoodie and hold your phone in one hand, and you feel disappointed when once again there’s no text. The texts have been regular since the start of last term, always around teatime, but since Tuesday, they’ve stopped. The significance of the date is not lost on you. 

One of Evie’s friends has written a post on Facebook, and everyone seems to be putting their messages to Samantha there. She has posted an album of photos, on behalf of the Upper Sixth. Photos from Samantha’s short time at Propert. She only joined when her mum became head. Most of the comments are simple but elegant, but there are a few heart emojis, which you think is somewhat distasteful. You wonder if the person behind your teatime texts is taking a break out of respect for Samantha. It must be someone in school, you think. You lean over to open the window latch. You sit cross-legged on the bed, scrolling up to the first text. There has been very little variation since the beginning. Katie Fletcher: smelly cunt. At first, you were frightened, upset, unnerved, but you grew to expect it, and now it’s been taken away, you feel almost bereft. You had thought it might be the preamble to something bigger; something would happen at school. But nothing did. Only the texts. Katie Fletcher is a smelly cunt. And only once, Katie Fletcher smells like a cunt. But this last example is an outlier, it feels like it came from another author. 

You have a shower. It’s almost eleven. Your bedroom is on the floor above your parents and Evie, and you have your own bathroom. It’s yours, Mum said, if you keep it clean, if you look after it. And you do respect your bathroom, you keep it in order. You dry yourself. You have left your phone on the bed. You’ll get into your pyjamas, read a chapter of your book, Atonement, which you are trying to keep a hold of in your head, and then you will allow yourself to check your screen; and when no text appears, you will go to bed.  

Evelyn

You are at the bus stop, on the main road. During your escape, you cut across the school field. How long will the next bus be? You’ll head into town. It is only ten. You have never left school like this before, and you wonder if someone in the school office is on the phone to your mum, or Adam, telling them the grave news, that you’re on the loose, gone AWOL. The news has obviously hit her hard. Maybe some people have started to make the connection. Your reaction, when you mentioned Samantha in your speech, was too much, for someone who usually comes across as composed. But this might not be how people think at all; it is how you see yourself from their perspective, and that might be all wrong. The two of you were careful not to interact too much in school. You shared some classes. You sat away from each other. Careful why? You get on the bus. It takes you and its other passengers – there aren’t many – into Southport. You alight near Waterstones. You go to the top and look at the poetry books. Do you remember the way from here to Selworthy Road? You could find it on your phone, but you want to remember. Samantha walked you there from here. 

‘You know, I’ve always preferred Hughes to Plath,’ she says, picking up the thick Faber and Faber edition of Ted Hughes New Selected Poems 1957-1994. 

‘You’re seventeen,’ you laugh. 

‘Can we not have opinions? When can I start preferring one to the other? Nineteen? Twenty-five?’ 

‘I don’t know. Maybe you don’t need to compare them.’ 

It is the day before Halloween. There are some decorations in Waterstones. Paper pumpkins. And on the desk, downstairs, someone has put a witch, which dances when you wave a hand in front of it. You have been to Starbucks, after school. You drank your spiced lattes and walked over the war memorial, in the centre of town. You have not been to the pier. Neither of you buy any books from Waterstones. You follow Samantha downstairs, and then you start the walk to Selworthy Road, where she lives. 

She puts the code into the keypad, and the gate opens. She tells you the code. She says it’ll be easier, if you’re coming round in the future, just to let yourself in. 

‘Why two Land Rovers?’ you ask. 

‘Because they both wanted the same one, I don’t know. I think Mum got hers, and Dad got jealous of it, wanted one for himself. That’s my theory.’ 

‘I thought they were away, why are both their cars here?’ Did Samantha forget to tell you, her parents are back? You don’t particularly want to see Ms Gisford, or her husband, who you have never met, outside of school. 

‘They took the Prius.’ 

By the time you arrive at Samantha’s house, it is almost six. The sun is low. There’s a breeze. This is how you like to remember this evening, the world closing in, folding over you both, like a blanket. 

Samantha leads you through the side door, which opens into a hallway with a sturdy coat stand. Compared to your house, this is modern. There’re smart screens fitted into the walls. Samantha can control the lights with her voice. You think about the smell of musk in your hallway. You used to think the house was haunted, and you liked it more. Now, the smell is not a sign of a Victorian spirit but only a smell. You imagine Samantha doing what you’re doing now: walking into your house. You would need all your family out. Katie especially. Samantha shares your opinion that girls in the lower forms are clawing, with all the arrogance but none of the intelligence. You know Katie has started to read Atonement, just to say she’s read it, so she can tell Mrs Lanham – it’s not because she wants to get anything from it, really. 

Samantha turns on the lights. Almost immediately, there is the rat-a-tat of nails on hard floor. She picks up the dog. It’s grey and black. Wirey. 

A real rat. 

‘Seabook, this is Evelyn.’ 

‘Nice to meet you, Seabrook.’ You play along, but you’ve tensed. This dog looks dangerous to you. It’s wired. It’s never slept, it’s always alert, a coiled spring, jerking its head. Samantha is holding Seabrook like a baby, holding him in front of you, as if she wants you to take him, hold him. His mouth is set in a snarl. You see deadly little teeth. 

‘He only nips.’ 

‘Great.’ 

‘I’ll put him down.’ Seabrook is placed on the floor. You wonder if you’ve fucked it up already. 

Seabrook is taut. You watch him. You wish, in the moment before he shoots towards you, he knew how good he has it, how many people wish they could have the same kind of uncomplicated existence. Then, he nips. But it feels more like a bite. He’s against your heel. He locks onto your heel. The serrated line of a steak knife. The staple remover in your pencil case.

Samantha picks up her dog, tells it off. She sounds genuinely pissed off with it. The little shit. You’re pleased. Seabrook has attacked. Maybe that means he’ll be locked away, while you’re here. You feel like you can’t think around him. He’s so erratic. There are certain things you’d like to say to Samantha tonight, and these things require an amount of careful consideration. The way you say these things, these things you’d like to get off your chest, you feel, will impact your future directly. Even if she wants nothing to do with you, surely you’ll carry that with you. Either way, you want to be able to think. 

You ham up your injury. You even put on a limp as Samantha takes you into the kitchen. She gets you a drink, asks if Becks is okay. It’s the only beer they have in. She takes a moment, as you sip, to put Seabrook away in the messy room. 

‘It’s the one room Dad won’t let the cleaner clean. Sometimes I see him go in there with the vacuum, that’s about the extent of his housework.’ 

‘I guess I’m not a dog person.’ 

‘Not even a little bit?’ 

You shake your head. ‘Are you disappointed?’ 

You expect a different answer. ‘He’s a shit, but he’s mine. I genuinely love him, with all my heart.’ Samantha smiles. She bends down to inspect your heel. She tells you to sit on one of the chairs. You kick off your shoes.

‘I think he drew blood,’ you say. 

‘Fuck off,’ Samantha laughs, as she removes your sock. This is just about the most exciting thing that has ever happened to you. 

Later, she gives you the proper house tour. Her parents have gone away to reconnect. You’re upstairs, far away from the dog, and Samantha has been showing you her room. She’s sitting at her desk, and you’re on the bed, perched on the edge. 

‘I think that means they’ll be having sex, or they’ll try to.’ 

‘I don’t know how you can even think about that.’ 

‘It’s not like I’m picturing it.’ 

You ask if they argue much. You’re not sure where the question came from, you only said it. Samantha sighs. ‘No, they’re fine. Most of the time. They don’t talk much. When they do, it’s hardly enlightening. They like to discuss money. Boring.’ 

‘What’s boring about money?’ 

‘Oh, Mrs Epping, don’t go philosophical on me.’ 

‘Fuck off.’ 

This is a joke between the two of you. You are Mrs Epping. Mr Epping is one of the teachers you share. He went to Oxford and completed a masters in New York. He has written a short novel, which Samantha bought on eBay and snuck into your bag one assembly. 

Samantha lifts the bottle of Becks to her lips. ‘I just think she struggles to accept change. And he probably feels emasculated by her big profile. Her job.’ You ask what her dad does, and Samantha says she doesn’t know, but something to do with property. ‘That’s my reading. It’s all so English. Neither of them would ever do anything. They’ll stay together. It’s all very passive, not aggressive.’ 

‘They fuck you up your parents.’ 

‘She’s a poet now.’ 

You laugh, and Samantha asks if you want to watch a film downstairs. You say sure. 

It’s dark out. Samantha draws the curtains. You’re watching a documentary about Nina Simone. You hibernate. But you’re not tired. You talk over most of the film. She has changed into a blue top, and leggings. You’re in your uniform still, but you’ve taken off your blazer and tie, and your top buttons are undone. It occurs to you – Samantha’s eyes are impossibly large. She has dark rings underneath, too. Her voice is different to yours, and right now, you’re not so much listening to watch she’s saying. She was raised in London. She went to prep school, then Godolphin and Latimer, before her mum was offered the headship of Propert. Now, her head on your lap, masticating a mouthful of popcorn, you wonder what brought this moment into being. It’s alchemy. You are over your distrust of Seabrook. He’s settled. He moves every now and then, nipping people in his dream. 

‘I love him, you know. I meant it.’ She puts her hand on his ratty back. ‘You’re not much to look at, but I love you. There’s something pure about him.’ 

‘Don’t you just think that, because, I don’t know.’ 

‘What?’ 

‘Like, a dog is the ultimate form of projection, isn’t it? You can map anything you want onto him, and he’ll respond in that way, if you want to see it. He doesn’t feel anything towards you. He doesn’t know anything about you.’ 

‘I don’t agree.’ 

‘Not a dog person, see.’ 

‘We’ll change that, won’t we?’ 

Katie

Dad won’t be home before ten. Mum suggests Chinese. You can tell, this conversation about Chinese and Dad is the preamble to Mum asking what happened with Evelyn today. You say, ‘I don’t know.’ After she ran out of assembly, you didn’t see your sister for the rest of the day. ‘Call her, please. Katherine.’ Your mum is wearing a purple, velvety dress. ‘Now, thank you.’ She doesn’t miss a beat. She has been in the office today, which you know takes her three hours on the train. You arrived home before her today. She came through the door at seven, meaning she left London at four. You wonder what went on, whether she went in for a meeting. She is forty-five this year. You know this because the number forty-five is circled in red on the family calendar. Before you have a chance to call your sister, she arrives home. You look at the menu for Golden Dragon, on Shakespeare St., while a brief argument breaks out in the hallway.  

Mum

Are you being unreasonable? You smooth down your dress, it feels nice. You made an effort this morning, and before alighting, you made sure you looked as presentable as you did three hours before. But during the meeting, the school called. Evie: missing. The voice from Propert was calm and composed. You closed your eyes and imagined the fine oak furniture in the school office. The argument then was very short, you didn’t get a word in, really, before she tramped upstairs, pulling at the straps of her rucksack, like she used to when she was little and angry, her long hair pulled back tight. She had it cut into a bob last year.

Evelyn

Thin red lines, like the remnants of fire. You inspect your arms, the places where he’s scratched you. Understandably, he’s cross. You escaped a confrontation with your mum, you didn’t really hear what she was saying. You were focused on getting yourself to your room, making sure she didn’t notice the living thing in your rucksack. As you hold him, like an unsure, newly made auntie, you feel his chest expanding and contracting rapidly. You tell him, you’re putting him down on the bed. He’s dazed, but not exactly angry. Confused. You get the banana and the sandwich from the front pouch of your bag and feed the sandwich to him. You’re unsure about the banana; they might not agree with dogs, you don’t know. His eyes are cloudy as he focuses on eating. He has to sniff the sandwich first, suss it out. Samantha never mentioned how old he was. She’d only said they’d had him since they moved, which would have been about three years ago. Even if you knew Seabrook’s age, it wouldn’t mean anything to you. Dog years are different. They operate on another space-time continuum. You hear your mum on the stairs, talking to Katie. Then, she calls the takeaway. Seabrook is working his nails against the duvet. Mum will bypass your room; she will wait for you to come to her, because she believes she has brought you up to apologise and make amends, when really you’d like to upset her, to gnaw at her emotions. 

You reach across and retrieve Mr Cat, so Seabrook doesn’t get to him first. You would have shown Samantha Mr Cat, your oldest toy. 

You’re upset. 

These are the facts. 

You haven’t processed. If the brain is really like a computer, Tuesday night, and everything since, is still downloading. (Surely, a computer is like the brain, you think.) But you do feel an urge to protect this dog, with his issues, his long nails and cloudy eyes. He’s Samantha’s and you want to make sure he’s OK. Katie and Mum are directly below your room. They’re watching television. 

Seabrook sits. Quiet. 

You get the letter from your rucksack. This is the other thing you took from Samantha’s house. You remembered the passcode for the gate. There was a woman in the house, on the phone. You ghosted past her. You went upstairs and took the letter from the desk. You had no idea she was writing you a letter, although it was something you’d half joked about. ‘I’ve always liked the idea of an epistolary romance.’ It was the closest she came to confirming something between you. 

And the letter will give you what? 

You are thinking about the fact, and it is a fact, that at some precise moment this week Samantha died. A second after she was shot. After her chest collapsed. Longer than a second – shorter. Mr Gisford had shot his wife in the face, and his daughter in the chest. Why? 

You refocus. Seabrook moves in a leisurely fashion across the four-poster bed. He scrats at the ball of your heel. You let him. 

He wouldn’t shoot her face. He chose the chest. That was a decision he made. 

You heard Melanie Hurts use the phrase family annihilator in Form today. This seems like such a perfect collocation, such a precise and aesthetically pleasing coupling. You’re crying.

Mum

Chinese done. Katie’s falling asleep on the settee. The TV’s on, but you’re looking at your phone. Adam’s still not back. Katie has left most of her food. You look at her. She could fall through the gap at the back of the settee. 

Evelyn

You’re holding the letter. You remember when Mr Epping gave you a crash course in entropy, thinking he was telling you things you didn’t know. But it’s nice seeing Mr Epping try. You mentioned Philosophy at St Andrews. He told you about block time. Imagine your life as a reel of film. We experience the film as it plays, and when the films ends, we do. But we don’t – or at least, our life doesn’t – end. The reel of film exists. ‘But aren’t most films digital now?’ you said, and Mr Epping smiled, as if you’d said something very acerbic, beyond your seventeen years. 

Before you open the letter, you leave your bedroom. You shave your legs. The door’s locked. You look into the empty bath. You move the razor slowly across your right leg. It seems like a good thing to do. It’s mundane. It will make whatever is written in the letter easier to handle. Do you believe this? Does it need to be true? In reality, this moment is nothing in the scheme of things, and even what happened on Tuesday, as terrible as it was, will not have any impact on the world. This isn’t a particularly profound or original thought, but it’s true. It is the thought you’re having. As a reel of film, the night with Samantha exists. 

The odd, sweet smell of Gilette. The best a man can get. You hum. 

When you return to your bedroom, Seabrook is in the centre of the bed eating the letter. You watch him from the door, and after ten seconds, he begins to cough, and the paper is sicked up as a wet yellow paste.  

Banner Painting: FEMME AU CHIEN, 1953 by Pablo Picasso.