BOOK EXTRACT The Last Resort

THE LAST RESORT

Below is an extract from The Last Resort, by award-winning Northern Irish writer, Jan Carson. The Last Resort is a series of short stories, which were aired on BBC Radio 4.

Jan Carson.

Maggie toddles along behind me, sniffing and pausing to dribble on the grass. Sometimes she veers dangerously close to the edge. I’ve nothing against her. As far as dogs go, Maggie’s grand, and there’s been times when Mummy’s tearing strips off her that I’ve even felt a bit of solidarity. But, if she were to totter over the cliff’s edge, would that be such an awful thing? There are worse ways for a nineteen-year-old dog to go. On a selfish note, it’d free me up. At least I tell myself it would.

Would it really? I doubt it. The problem is Mummy’s got to me. She’s spent so long telling me I can’t manage myself I’ve actually started believing her. I’m a homebird. I’m not cut out for socializing. And, when it comes to men … Well, Mummy says there’s no point setting myself up for a disappointment. I’d like to have got married, maybe even had weans. For a while I was seeing Leonard from church. He wasn’t good-looking or anything, but he was awful kind. And he’d his own house and the plumbing business. I could’ve been happy with Leonard but he wanted to get married right away. I couldn’t abandon Mummy. It wouldn’t have been right. Those last few years she needed me for everything. Feeding. Bathing. Helping her to the toilet.

Leonard said I needed to draw a line. Mummy was asking too much of me. Leonard’s with Michelle now. She’s younger. They’ve a wee one on the way. I’m happy for them. At least, I’m trying to be. It’s too late for me to be happy myself. I’ll be fifty soon. I’ll hardly be making any big changes now.

There’s a word for the day after tomorrow: overmorrow. It was on Eggheads yesterday. I’m forever accumulating useless facts off Mummy’s programmes. I’ve been thinking about overmorrow all day. It’s depressing me. Nothing’s going to change tomorrow or the day after or any time soon. What have I got to look forward to? Work. Church. Home. Caravan at the weekend. Same old, same old for the next thirty years. Then eternity with God and Mummy. Hopefully God’ll stick us in different bits of Heaven. Knowing my luck, we’ll be sharing a caravan.

I’m standing on the clifftop, right in front of poor Lynette’s bench, feeling sorry for myself, when the foreign fella grabs me from behind. I don’t hear him. I don’t see him. One second I’m alone in the dark, the next I’m being dragged backwards by the shoulders. Everything happens so quickly I don’t even think to scream.

‘I got you,’ says the man. He speaks English with an accent: Polish maybe, or Romanian.

I turn to look at his pale face, looming out of the dark. He looks straight at me. I recognize that look. It’s the way people always look at me: Leonard, Michelle, the girls in work. This stranger pities me. He sees a frumpy, middle-aged woman, standing alone on a cliff edge, looking sad, and he’s made the assumption most people would make. I’m mortified. I begin to mumble incoherently. ‘I wasn’t … I wouldn’t … I’m just out here walking my dog.’

The man’s embarrassed too. He’s misread the situation. Or perhaps he hasn’t. He doesn’t know how you move away from a cliff edge. He seizes upon the dog.

‘You’re walking dog?’ he repeats desperately. We’re both clinging to this line.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Maggie. My mother’s dog.’

‘Where is dog?’

I look around. Maggie’s nowhere to be found. I call her name. She usually comes when I call. Tonight, she doesn’t. I know instantly, we won’t find her. Maggie’s gone. She’s toddled over the cliff or those horrible children have taken her. Still, I let the man help me search. Anything to delay the moment when I have to tell Mummy I’ve lost her dog. She’ll go ballistic. Even The One Show won’t be able to distract her and Mummy never misses The One Show, although she says it’s not the same since Christine whatsername went over to Loose Women. (Mummy doesn’t approve of Loose Women, neither the concept nor the show.)

We spend ages searching for Maggie. We go all the way around the site. The man’s English isn’t great and I’ve no idea what he’s doing here. But he is kind and I am grateful for this. I won’t tell Mummy about him. It’d be nice to have something of my own. Beneath my anorak, my shoulders are still throbbing where he grabbed me. It is years since anyone touched me. Literally years. I wonder if he’s left a mark.