Page 79 of The Good Boy

“Right,” Miles says. “Well, bye, Genie.”

Why did that goodbye feel so final?

“Fuuuuuuck,” I say to no one once I have shut the door on Miles. Rory snores loudly from the sofa. His leg twitches as if he’s dreaming about running across wide-open spaces. I’d better sleep in the armchair, keep an eye on him.

Grabbing my pillows and duvet, I fetch a glass of water for Rory, a bottle of wine and chocolate for me, and commence my long dark vigil of the soul in which I plan to stare at the ceiling and wonder how the hell it came to this.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Genie! Genie! Wake up! I’m dying. No, wait—I think it’s worse than that. I’m not ready for this! I don’t want to go over the rainbow bridge without a tail! I’ll be a laughingstock! Genie!”

It’s actually Rory’s terrible, garlic-laced breath as he shoves his face right in mine that wakes me up a few nauseating seconds before his hoarse cries for help. I don’t remember falling asleep. The last thing I remember is lying back in the chair, watching the occasional headlights of a passing car track across the ceiling, when suddenly a switch flicked on in my head, and I knew exactly what I had to do. I must have drifted off soon after that, which feels like it was about ten minutes ago.

Rory is kneeling on the carpet in front of me, his chin on the arm of the chair, with eyes that look much more like they belong to a Saint Bernard than a golden retriever. “Genie, take me to the vet. I’m dying. I hate the vet, but I think this time I need to go. I think that Matilda’s claws are venomous and I am poisoned, Genie. I’m poisoned. We must find the antidote before it’s too late and I am condemned to cross the rainbow bridge in trousers!”

“Calm down, Rory,” I tell him. “For starters, you are not dying, you are just hungover. And secondly, the rainbow bridge is...more of a metaphor that some people use to make themselves feel better when their pets... stop living. It’s not an actual place.”

“Wait...? What?” Rory looks puzzled. “I think you’ll find it is an actual place. Three of my friends have crossed over it since I lived here, Genie. I heard their owners talking about it. Oh, wait, no, one of them—Jeff, the bulldog—he bought a farm instead, but I think it’s around the same area as the bridge, so that we can all hang out there. Also, what is ‘hungover’ and is it fatal?”

I decide to let him have the rainbow bridge thing. He’s got enough to deal with as it is without us having to get into the ins and outs of the existence of an afterlife. After all, recent, somewhat magical events do make it seem more likely that there might be a strange sort of heaven floating around up there where deities mess with our lives for kicks.

“No, although a hangover sometimes feels like it, it is rarely fatal. It happens after drinking a lot of alcohol—wine, in your instance. Alcohol is a kind of toxin. It doesn’t hurt you in moderation, but if you drink a lot of it, it makes you feel... well, like you feel.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Rory flops back onto the floor. “Why didn’t you tell me that the wine would make me feel like this?”

“I know,” I say. “I should have. I’m sorry. Yesterday was a bit overwhelming, even before Matilda tried to kill you and Claudia told me she was going to ask Miles out right in front of my eyes. I took my eye off the ball. That’s another thing too much wine will make you do.”

“So, I’m definitely not dying?”

“Definitely not,” I reassure him. “I’ll make you a nice fry-up for breakfast and sweet tea to make up for it, okay?”

“Okay, because now that I’m not dying I need to work out how I feel about all this living.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, getting out of the chair to lie down next to him on the carpet.

“I thought I didn’t want to die, but now I know I’ve got another fifty years to go, and I can’t even have wine to make it all go fuzzy without feeling like I want to die the next day, I’m not sure that I want to live.”

“Welcome to the human condition,” I say, rolling over on my side to look at him. “Look, Rory, don’t worry. Everything is going to be okay. You are going to get to be a dog again, I promise. I had an epiphany in the night.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Yes, actually,” I say. “Sort of. Especially the part when I watched Claudia ask Miles out.”

“Out where?On another picnic?”

“Similar...”

“When did that happen?” Rory is amazed. “I mean, that seems like a pretty big deal and I do not remember it at all.”

“It happened shortly before you passed out in the pudding.”

“Oh, I thought that was a beautiful dream,” Rory says. “So, wait. Miles, who you have loved all your life, is going on a date with Claudia, which means”—he looks at me with big sad eyes—“you must feel sad and confused.”

“I do,” I confess. “But it is what it is and instead of wallowing in self-pity I am just going to be bloody happy anyway even if it kills me.”

“Oh kaaaay.” Rory sounds doubtful.

“The trouble is, I found a nice safe groove to fit into. It wassmall and stable and safe,” I explain. “I got in the groove and I made it cozy and I’ve stayed there ever since. I even got a dog to keep me company in my groove.”

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