Jerome turned up for his shift by the ticket machine at Heuston Station and Mustafa, the security guard, was there already, using the top of the machine as a table from which to eat his breakfast of Centra croissant and Spar Americano.
‘How’s tricks, Mustafa?’ said Jerome, and toasted him with a bottle of Benylin. He had a cold coming. Ten days of hanging about angling for change would do that to you. He had a bit of a grace period going at the gaff where he was staying. But with its owner due back on the weekend, that grace period was frayed now down to its final thin lattice of fabric, requiring of Jerome drastic, asky measures. At his feet, the dog wagged his tail so hard his haunches and arse shook, skittering his nails on the tiles.
Mustafa looked at Jerome sidelong and said, ‘They are bad.’ He looked down at the dog. ‘Hello, little man.’ He stooped to pat the dog’s head. He was a fuzzy yoke, the dog. His name was Niall. He had bear-like ears and a greyed muzzle whose moustaches had nevertheless retained their russet-caramel hue. The same was true of the long, ratted hair of his body and the spray of his tail. On his wee head, the hair would nearly pass for neat, in falling curtains like a boyband member, or Kurt Cobain on his cleaner days. But the most salient element of the dog’s lid was his amber eyes: their knowing, banked glow to them, making them seem ominously goat-like.
Mustafa was either immune to this eldritch quality, or else didn’t notice, because he was such a unit, his hand twice the size of the dog’s brittle skull. He was gentle with the little scut, though, and giggled as Niall the dog’s tongue licked out to caress his palm.
‘He is smiling. He likes me so much,’ said Mustafa, his native French softening the ‘ch’ to a mushy hush.
‘Can a dog smile?’ said Jerome. ‘Does a dog have lips?’
‘I do not think,’ said Mustafa, ‘that a white man even has lips.’ He waggled his fingers, making a target for the dog to swing his nails at.
A customer was nearing the machine – two, in fact, a harried-looking mother and a young boy of about six, coming across the blood-lit rink of the forecourt.
