The Kingdom

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IT WAS THE DAY DOG died.

I was sixteen, Carl fifteen.

A few days earlier Dad had shown us the hunting knife I killed him with. It had a broad blade that glinted in the sun and was grooved on the sides. Dad had explained that the grooves were there to channel the blood away when you dismembered your prey. Even that was enough to turn Carl pale, and Dad asked if he was thinking of getting car-sick again. I think that was why Carl swore he was going to shoot something, anything at all, and dismember it – cut it up into tiny little fucking pieces, if that was what had to be done.

‘Then I’ll roast it and we’ll eat it,’ he said as we stood outside the barn, me with my head bent over the engine of Dad’s Cadillac DeVille. ‘Him, Mum, you and me. OK?’

‘OK,’ I said as I turned the distributor cap to locate the ignition point.

‘Dog can have some too,’ he said. ‘There’ll be enough for everyone.’

‘Sure there will,’ I said.

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