Matthew Twelve: Chapter Two

On a Saturday morning school became a foreign memory.
Matthew's hand drifted over the belly of the dog laid out before him.  A thin line of hairs stood on end along the ridge of its back, dark against the light.  He dipped a finger forward allowing it to catch and drag over like a distant gust.  His fingers were splayed, almost an inch between the longest and his nails were beautifully clean after scrubbing them with his mother's nail brush every evening.
Underneath his hand the dog breathed on, deeply.  Occasionally its face quivered from a dream, tickling the edges of its mind and spilling onto the sleeping jowls of its face.  Equally, at times, the legs would shake, simulating a final mad dash for some faraway prey.
A shadow passed through the room; a solitary cloud strayed into the sun's sight, lingering longer than it was welcome, before moving into the east.  Returning to the room,  light blanketed every inch in rich, warm light.  Matthew felt the breath of heat return to his outstretched hand, warming the thin skin above bone and blood-invested veins  The corner room was always filled with light this way; it was at the eastern and southern point of the house, with windows giving way to folded views of green fields, or in later seasons, large yellow swathes of rapeseed that spilled up to high bordered hills.
Matthew could sit here, secluded and alone for hours, but now there was the dog.
They had never had a dog before.
The dog's ears twitched at a creak from above; the creak of the floorboard continued as his mother's foot planted its weight down.  Footsteps slowly, quietly, drifted from the landing until reaching the hallway.  The latch raised up on the kitchen door letting in a draught that slipped through the house and woke the dog.
Moving to the window seat Matthew watched her as she disappeared past the wood's edge, down toward the bench again. Taking his list from the night before he slid his empty shoes on and left the house, the dog beside him every step, bouncing and only occasionally looking up at Matthew.
Re-stocking never took very long, he counted out as near he could to the exact change.  The girl at the counter always smiled.  Matthew thought she probably smiled at the time he took to order the coins, by value, in his palm.  Fifties, tens, twenties, pounds and coppers.  The dog barked from outside and the girl's smile receded and she watched Matthew leave hurriedly.
Deciding to detour through the wood, Matthew swung the bag at his side, the dog took off and burst through hedges first ahead of him then emerging behind him, circling in a wild dash.
At the end of the path the house came just in to view and there he stopped, sucking in the wood's air and listening to the branches sway and wave.
The dog barked once and sat at the path's edge, looking back at him, a stern intensity in its eyes.
Matthew smelt smoke and saw a dark puff exhale from the kitchen door.

*

His mother lay on the floor and stank of acrid black smoke.  The frying pan was ruined and cleaning the stove took Matthew longer than he expected.  The walls were dirty now from the stink of oil and choking smoke.  Dragging her clear of the kitchen had been easy, she was feather heavy.  Her chest rose and fell and so Matthew left here there, shutting the door to the hallway while he doused the pan and fanned out the invading pall.

In bed, his mother turned from one side to the other, coughing and occasionally spitting into the bucket Matthew had left beside her.  He had used a sponge to clean her face and now he watched as she moved about.  The sound of the sheets shuffled and a lost bluebottle buzzed at the window, inches from escape through the opening there, but failing to realise.  Gradually this became the only sound in the room as his mother eased her way into sleep.  Matthew brought the sheet up tight to her, caught the fly and tossed it clear into the night air.  Keeping watch on the woods, the dog sat in the garden, listening to shadows, turning once to the sound of Matthew at the window.

All night the dog sat there and in the morning Matthew fed it: cold meat from a can.  Without school to worry about he took paint and brushes and hid the worst of the kitchen's soot under a fresh coat.

All day his mother lay in bed, though this wasn't unusual.  Once the painting was finished he made sandwiches for them both, eating his in the sun outdoors.  Hers remained untouched, which was usual.  And, as always, he covered them in foil for his pack lunch the next day.  The rest of the day he spent keeping watch over her and paranoid a neighbour might call about the smoke, rising like distress signals, the day before.  But no one came.  His mother slept on.  The dog kept its vigil in the garden.

In the evening the fire was built up again and the dog exchanged its sentry post.  Both he and Matthew stayed there like that for a second night.

In the morning Matthew set about his usual routine, tempting his mother out of bed, but she didn't rise and he was forced to leave her there, but before the dog could hop out through the door with him, he twisted and locked it in, though it grumbled and howled.  School was no place for a stray dog.

Matthew reversed the detour he had used at the weekend and pushed on through the wood to the bus stop, though it was a longer route.  The trees stood still today without a breath to move them or bring forth a familiar wave.  Overhead the sky was clear, but it was chill and there was a dampness to the wood's air.

Seeing the open road ahead of him Matthew quickened his pace and saw the bus, on time, fly by.  It would circle at the village's top just in time for him to catch it without wasting time standing silently with the others.  In the distance he heard the dog's howl and turned as if to see the sound breaking through the trees' guard, but saw instead a lone man in shabby ragged clothes running toward him.