The animals always had decent, elaborate burials. Christian, Hindu, Humanist – whatever bits of knowledge and shite the kids brought home from school went into the funerals. George changed mobile phones, not because he really wanted to, but because he knew the boxes would come in handy – it was always wise to have a coffin ready for the next dead bird or fish.

He came home one Saturday morning. He’d been away, in England. The house was empty. Sandra, his wife, had taken the kids to visit her mother in Wexford. George put his bag down, went across to the kettle, and saw the brand-new cage – and the canary. And the note, red marker again: ‘Feed it’. And he would have, happily, if the canary hadn’t been dead. He had a shower, phoned for a taxi, waited an hour for it to arrive, and told the driver to bring him to Wacker’s pet shop in Donaghmede.

—Are yeh serious? said the driver.

—Yeah, said George.

—What’s in Wacker’s that’s so special?

George waited till the driver had started the taxi.

—Pets, he said.

He was pleased with his answer.

—Alright, said the driver.

He went through the gears like he was pulling the heads off orphans.

Wacker – or whoever he was – had no canaries. Neither did the guy beside Woodie’s. Or the shop on Parnell Street. When the kids got home the next day they found that the canary had turned into two finches. George explained it to them, although they weren’t that curious; two of anything was better than one.

—A fella on the plane told me that finches were much better than canaries. So I swapped the canary for these lads here. A boy and a girl.

—Cool.

He’d no idea at the time if that was true – the male and the female – but it must have been, because they made themselves a nest, and an egg was laid. But nothing hatched. Sandra bought a book and a bigger cage and better nesting material, and the two finches became three, then five, then back to four, three and two. More funerals, more dead bodies in the garden. They got an even bigger cage, a huge thing on wheels. The finches, Pete and Amy – he knows the names, as solidly as his kids’ names – built a nest in the top corner, a beehive of a thing. Amy stayed in there while Pete came out, hung on the bars of the cage and looked intelligent.

George went to his mother’s house one day, to change a few lightbulbs and put some old crap up into the attic for her. He made a morning of it, smuggled the book he was reading out of the house, bought a takeaway coffee, drove to the seafront and stayed there for an hour after he’d finished at his mother’s, parked facing Europe, reading, until he got to the end of a chapter – The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love – and needed to go for a piss. He drove home and walked into the end of the world. Sandra had decided that the morning needed a project, so herself and the kids had wheeled the cage outside and started to go at it with soapy brushes and cloths. A child opened the hatch, Pete flew out, and George found four hysterical children in the kitchen, long past tears and snot, and a woman outside in the back garden, talking to the hedge.

—I can hear him, she said.

—Where?

—In there, she said.

She was pointing into the hedge, which stretched from the house to the end wall. It was a long garden, a grand hedge.

—I can hear him.

George could hear the kids in the house. He could hear lawnmowers and a couple of dogs and the gobshite three doors up who thought he was Barry White. He couldn’t hear Pete. But he did hear – he definitely heard it – the big whoop of a great idea going off in his head.

—Listen, he said.—I’m going to bring the kids to Wacker’s, to see if Pete flew back there. Are you with me?

Sandra looked at him. And he knew: she was falling in love with him, all over again. Or maybe for the first time – he didn’t care. There was a woman in her dressing gown, looking attractively distraught, and she was staring at George like he was your man from ER.

—While I’m doing that, said George,—you phone Wacker’s and tell him the story. You with me?

—Brilliant.

—It might work.

—It’s genius.

—Ah well.

It did work and it was George’s greatest achievement. The happiness he delivered, the legend he planted – his proudest moment.

All of the gang in Wacker’s were waiting, pretending to be busy. George carried the girls up to the counter; the boys held onto him.

—Dylan here’s finch flew away, said George.—And he was thinking that maybe he flew back here.

The lad behind the counter looked up from the pile of receipts he was wrapping with an elastic band.

—Zebra finch?

Dylan nodded.

—He flew in twenty minutes ago.

—Flaked, he was, said an older man who was piling little bales of straw and hay.—Knackered. Come on over and pick him out, Dylan.

There were thirty finches charging around a cage the size of a bedroom. Dylan was pointing before he got to the cage.

—Him.

—Him?

—Yeah.

The older man opened a small side door and put his hand in. He was holding a net, and had the finch out and in his fist with a speed and grace that seemed rehearsed and brilliant.

—This him?

—Yeah.

—What’s his name again?

—Pete.

The new Pete wasn’t a patch on the old Pete – he was a bit drugged-looking. George liked the finches but they were a pain in the neck – the shit, the sandpaper, food, water. He was halfway to Galway one day when they had to turn back because they’d forgotten about the birds and who was going to look after them; they couldn’t come home – they were going for two weeks – to a stinking kitchen and a cage full of tiny, perfect skeletons. They found a neighbour willing to do the job and started off again, a day late. Sandra told George to stop gnashing his teeth; he hadn’t been aware that he’d been doing it. The fuckin’ birds. But then, another time, he was up earlier than usual – this was back home. He went into the kitchen and saw Dylan sitting in the dawn light, watching the cage, watching Pete and Amy. George stood there and watched Dylan. Another of those great moments. This is why I live.

George is walking the new dog. A Cavalier spaniel. A rescue dog. He looks down at it trotting beside him, and wonders again what rescue means. The dog is perfect, but it had to be rescued from its previous owners. He’s walking the dog because he likes walking the dog and he has nothing else to do. His kids are reared and he’s unemployed. He’s getting used to that – to both those facts. The election posters are on every pole, buckled by rain and heat – it’s early June and the weather’s great.

The guinea pigs stayed a day and a half and introduced the house to asthma. George came home from work – he remembers that feeling – and the boys showed him the Trousers Trick.

—Look, they said, and brought him over to the new cage – another new cage. There were two guinea pigs inside, in under shredded pages of the Evening Herald. Ben, the eldest, opened the cage and grabbed one of the guinea pigs, and George’s objections – unsaid, unexplored – immediately broke up and became nothing. The confidence, the sureness of the movement, the hand, the arm into the cage – the kid was going to be a surgeon. He held the guinea pig in both hands.

—What’s his name?

—Guinea Pig, said Ben.

He got down on the kitchen floor. Dylan had grabbed the other pig and was down beside his brother.

—Look.

They sat, legs out and apart. It was summer and they were wearing shorts, and that was where the guinea pigs were sent – up one leg of each pair. George watched the guinea pigs struggling up the boys’ legs, heard the boys’ laughter and screams as they tried to keep their legs straight. Dylan sat up and pulled a leg down, to make room for his guinea pig to bridge the divide and travel down the other leg. It was a joy to watch – and Ben actually became a barman. But that night, he started coughing and wheezing, and scratching his legs till they bled. His eyes went red and much too big for his face. They suddenly had a child with allergies and asthma and the guinea pigs were gone – replaced by the rabbits.

The first dog ate one of the rabbits. George wasn’t sure any more if it had been one of the first, original rabbits. He could go now, he could turn and walk to Ben’s place of work, the next pub after George’s local – a fifteen-minute walk – and ask him. It’s early afternoon, and the place will be quiet. He can leave the dog tied to the bike rack outside, have a quick pint or just a coffee – the coffee in a pub with a bike rack is bound to be drinkable. He could do that; he has the time. But he doesn’t want to seem desperate, because that’s how he feels.

The Lost Decade – that was what the American economist called it, Paul Krugman, the fella who’d won the Nobel Prize, on the telly, a few weeks before. He hadn’t been talking about the last decade; it was the next one. It already had a name, and George knew he was fucked.

The quick decision to get rid of the guinea pigs – George hadn’t a clue now what had happened to them; something else he could check with Ben – had brought biblical grief down on the house. Ben had actually torn his T-shirt off his own back.

—It’s my fault! It’s my fault!

—Ah, it’s not.

—It is!

They filled the car and headed straight to Wacker’s. Did George ever go to work back then? His memory is clogged with cars, years, full of happy and unhappy children. Shouting at traffic lights, trying to distract the kids, getting them to sing along to the Pretenders’ Greatest Hits, the Eurythmics’ Greatest Hits, the Pogues’ Greatest Hits. We had five million hogs and six million dogs, and seven million barrels of porr-horter. Sandra held Ben’s hand and walked him around the pet shop, looking at his eyes. She kept him well away from the guinea pigs. She bent his head over a bucket of rabbits.

—Breathe.

—Mammy, I am breathing. I have to.

—Let’s see you.

George watched Sandra examining Ben’s eyes, face. He was keeping the others outside, at the door, so they couldn’t gang up on Ben if he failed the test and they had to go home empty-handed. But he could tell, Ben was grand. They’d be bringing home a rabbit.

They brought home three and the dog ate one of them. He didn’t eat the rabbit, exactly. He perforated the spleen and left it on the back step. The rabbit looked perfect, and even more dead because of that.

Suffer, your man Krugman said, when he was asked how Ireland should deal with the next ten years. Well, this is George, suffering.

Those years, when the mortgage was new and money was scarce, when the country seemed to be taking off, waking up or something, when the future was a long, simple thing, a beach. When he could hold Sandra and tell her they’d be fine, she’d be fine. The first miscarriage, her father’s death, his own scare – he’d never doubted that they’d be grand.

He stands outside the pub, away from the windows – he doesn’t want Ben looking out and seeing him there. He isn’t even sure if Ben is on today, or on the early shift.

Gone. That certainty. It wasn’t arrogance. Maybe it was – he doesn’t know. It doesn’t feel like a sin or a crime. He exploited no one; he invested in nothing. He has one mortgage, one credit card. One mortgage, no job. Seven years left on the mortgage and no prospect of a fuckin’ job. He’ll be near retirement age by the time they – he gets through the lost decade. He’ll have nothing to retire from and the dog he’s tying to the bike rack will be dead. And there won’t be another dog. This one here is the last animal.

The girls found the rabbit on the back step and they went hysterical – everyone went hysterical. No one blamed the dog. It was his instinct, his nature. So George couldn’t get rid of him. But then he bit Ben’s best friend, and fuck nature; he was gone, down to the vet, put out of George’s misery.

—It’s for the best.

Goofy was the dog’s name. Simon was the friend’s. Simon was fine but the dog was a bastard. Refused to be trained. Stared back at George as it cocked its leg against the fridge and pissed on it. A bastard. And George hid it, the fact that their dog was a bad-minded fucker, the fact that maybe his family had created this monster. He got up before the rest of them every morning and mopped the shit and piss off the kitchen floor before they woke, had the place clean and smelling of pine when they came in for their Coco Pops and Alpen. When Goofy took a chunk out of Simon – when George heard about it, when Sandra phoned him at work – as he ran out to the car, he actually felt so relieved that guilt never got a look-in. Two stitches for Simon, death to Goofy. A good bottle of Rioja for Simon’s parents.

He didn’t have to bury Goofy, or the unfortunate twit that came after him, Simba. George reversed over Simba – heard the yelp, felt the bump – jumped out of the car and, again, felt relief when he saw that it wasn’t a child that had gone under the wheel. He looked around; he was on his own. He grabbed Simba’s collar and hauled him to the front gate. He looked onto the road, thanked God that he lived in a cul-de-sac, and dragged Simba out to the road. Then he went in and told them the bad news: some bollix had run over Simba. And felt proud of himself as he wiped tears and promised ice cream and prawn crackers. He never told anyone what had actually happened and had never felt a bit of guilt about the cover-up. Although the oul’ one across the road looked at him like he was a war criminal and he wondered if she’d been looking out her window when he’d dragged Exhibit A down the drive. But he didn’t care that much and, anyway, she was dead now too. There’s a gang of Poles renting that house now – or, there was. It’s been quiet over there for a while, and he wonders if they’ve left, moved on. There are stories of cars abandoned in the airport car park; the place is supposed to be stuffed with them.

He pats the dog. She’s a tiny little thing, smaller still on a windy day when her fur is beaten back against her.

—Twenty minutes, he says.

He’s actually talking to the dog, out on the street. He’s losing it.

He straightens up. He looks down at the dog. He can’t leave it here. It’ll be stolen, the leash will loosen – she’ll run out on the street. He can’t do it.

He pushes open the pub door. He was right – it’s quiet. It’s empty. There’s no one behind the bar. He waits – he doesn’t step in. He wants to keep an eye on the dog. Then there’s a white shirt in the gloom, and he can make out the face. It’s Ben, his son.

—Da?

—Ben.

—Are you alright?

—I’m grand. I’ve the dog outside—

—Bring her in.

—I don’t want to get you in trouble.

He shouldn’t have said that – it sounds wrong. Like he’s trivialising Ben – his job.

—It’s cool, says Ben.—I can say it’s your guide dog.

He’s come out from behind the bar. He’s twenty-two but he’s still the lanky lad he suddenly became six years ago.

—I’ll get her, he says.

He passes George, and comes back quickly holding the dog like a baby.

—She had a crap earlier, George tells him.

—That’s good, says Ben.—So did I.

He puts the dog down, ties the leash to one of the tall stool legs.

—You sit there, he says.—So she can’t pull it down on herself.

—Grand.

George sits. Then he stands, takes off his jacket – it’s too hot for a jacket; he shouldn’t have brought it. He sits again.

—Quiet, he says.

—Yeah.

—Is that the recession?

—Not really, says Ben.—It’s always quiet this time. What’ll yeh have?

—What’s the coffee like?

—Don’t do it.

—No coffee?

—No. Nothing that needs a kettle.

—I’ll chance a pint.

He watches Ben putting the glass under the tap, holding the glass at the right angle. He’s never seen him at work before, and knows that he’d be just as relaxed if the place was packed, the air full of shouts for drink.

—Everything okay, Da?

—Grand, yeah. Not a bother.

—How’s Ma?

—Grand, says George.—Great. Remember the rabbits?

—The rabbits?

—The hutch. Goofy killed one of them. Remember?

—Yeah.

He puts the glass back under the tap. He tops up the pint. He pushes a beer mat in front of George. He puts the pint on top of it.

—Lovely.

George gets a tenner out of his pocket, hands it out to Ben.

—There you go.

Ben takes it. He turns round to the till, opens it, takes out George’s change. He puts it beside George’s pint.

—Thanks, says George.—There were three rabbits, am I right?

—Yeah, says Ben.—Not for long, but.

—What were they called?

—Liza, Breezy and Doughnut.

—And Goofy ate Breezy.

—Liza, says Ben.—Why?

—Nothing, really, says George.—Nothing important. It just came into my head.

The pint’s ready. He hasn’t had a pint in a good while. He tastes it.

—Grand.

—Good.

—Good pint.

—Thanks.

—Do you like the work?

—It’s alright, says Ben.—Yeah. Yeah, I like it.

—Good, says George.—That’s good.

He hears the door open behind him. He looks down at the dog. She stays still.

—Good dog.

Ben goes down the bar, to meet whoever’s just come in.

George loves the dog. Absolutely loves it. She’s a Cavalier. A King Charles spaniel, white and brown. George loves picking her up, putting her on his shoulder. He knows what he’s at, making her one of the kids. But she’s only a dog and she’s doomed. George watched a documentary on Sky: Bred to Die. About pedigree dogs. And there was one of his, a Cavalier, sitting on the lap of a good-looking woman in a white coat, a vet or a scientist. And she starts explaining that the dog’s brain is too big—It’s like a size 10 foot shoved into a size 6 shoe. The breeders have been playing God, mating fathers and mothers to their sons and daughters, siblings to siblings, just so they’ll look good – consistent – in the shows. Pugs’ eyes fall out of their heads, bulldogs can no longer mate, Pekinese have lungs that wouldn’t keep a fly in the air. And his dog has a brain that’s being shoved out of her head, down onto her spine.

He leans down, picks up the dog. He can do it one-handed; she’s close to weightless.

Ben is back at the taps. Pulling a pint of Heineken for the chap at the other end of the bar.

The dog on George’s lap is a time bomb.

She’s going to start squealing, whimpering, some day. And that’ll be that.

He won’t get another one.

—Remember Simba?

Ben looks up from the glass.

—I do, yeah. Why?

—I hit him, says George.

—You never hit the dogs, Da.

Ben looks worried.

—No, says George.—With the car.

—With the car?

—I reversed over him.

—Why?

—Not on purpose, says George.—I was just parking. Fair play to Ben, he fills the glass, brings it down to the punter, takes the money, does the lot without rushing or staring at George.

He’s back.

—Why didn’t you tell us?

—Well, says George.—I don’t really know. Once I saw it wasn’t one of you I’d hit, I didn’t give much of a shite. And the chance was there, to drag him out to the road. And once I’d done that, I couldn’t drag him back – you know.

—Why now?

—Why tell you?

—Yeah.

—I don’t know. I was just thinking about it – I don’t know.

—It doesn’t matter.

—I know, says George.—But it would have, then. When you were all small.

—No, says Ben.—It would’ve been alright.

—Do you reckon?

Ben looks down the bar.

—Listen, he says.—We all knew we had a great da.

George can’t say anything.

His heart is too big for him, like the dog’s brain. The blood’s rushing up to his eyes and his mouth. Him and the dog, they’ll both explode together.