Free Natural History by Neil Cross Page A

head in his lap. She said, ‘I was sending a message to him. In case he’s out there.’
    â€˜Well, he’s not.’
    She nuzzled his thigh; nibbled it. He yelped.
    â€˜It was probably kids,’ she said.
    Because she appeared on television, Jane had always received a certain amount of fanmail.
    The very first obscene letter had made her guffaw in shock. It was a Polaroid of a man in a gorilla suit; through a hole in the crotch projected what Jane at first honestly took for a banana—the man in the gorilla suit having taken the trouble to paint it yellow.
    But after that, it wasn’t funny. The letters, with their inept obscenity, depressed her more than they frightened her. There just weren’t enough synonyms for breasts, penises, vaginas, anuses, semen, orgasm. But all those words got used, and used up, and used again and again.
    Her agent paid a long-retired corporate PA to filter the fanmail. And for three years this woman, Gwen, spent every Wednesday opening white envelopes and Jiffy bags addressed to Jane c/o the production company, or the BBC, or various magazines that had featured or even mentioned her in passing.
    Gwen sorted the DIY porn and the hatemail and forwarded the rest of it—the fan worship, the begging letters, the marriage proposals—without comment; just two loopy initials scrawled on a hand-dated comp slip.
    Jane never met Gwen, so she wasn’t able to picture the look on Gwen’s face, the day in 1994 when she opened the first of the really bad letters.
    At a first, cursory glance, the letter resembled an invitation to attend a local function, perhaps high tea at the Lord mayor’s house.
    Dear Whore (it read)
    I know how much you love it I know the things you do. Your ‘husband’ doesn’t know, does he. But I do, I know. I have stood close to you I touched your arm I could smell the cum on you
    As well as the letter, the envelope—which was postmarked Bath—contained Polaroid photographs of Jane’s house, and Jane in her car, and Patrick walking Jo to school.
    They went to the police. A young PC took them to an office. He listened, then read the letter to himself as Jane sat there, squirming. Then he tugged at an earlobe and told them the best thing was, keep an eye out for anything unusual.
    â€˜Like what?’ said Patrick. ‘A pervert in a tree? In my wardrobe? What?’
    â€˜Anything unusual.’
    The kids knew nothing of this: not the letters, nor the injury it caused to their parents’ marriage, because Patrick and Jane made a furtive secret of it all, keeping their frightened arguments, to hissing spats in otherwise empty rooms.
    But there was hardly any need for all the whispering and skulking around. The kids were teenagers; Patrick and Jane were little more than fixtures so permanent they’d become morally invisible.
    When Jo wasn’t at school, she was in her room, reading. Now and again she could be found in the living room, watching Star Trek movies on VHS. The Voyage Home was her favourite.
    Charlie was struggling with some unhappiness of his own. Something was wrong. He alternated, apparently at random, between resentful silence and confrontational malice.
    Patrick thought Charlie resented Bath, because he liked it; liking it unsettled him. He’d liked other places, and left them.
    So it was Patrick’s idea to acquire for him a token of domestic permanence. At Bristol Dogs’ Home Charlie picked out a mongrel terrier—a perky bitch called Blondie who sat panting in his lap all the way home.
    Blondie never learned the proper place to shit. Every morning, Patrick scooped her curly black turds into a carrier bag, knotted the carrier bag and threw it in the dustbin.
    She had not been spayed. That was Patrick’s job, and he never got round to it. It was an omission he regretted, because Blondie’s oestrus drew to the door a jostling, whining pack of males. This feral