Iceberg

“If Kavanagh’s first novel was Art Brut, this is a brilliantly animated series of Donald McGill cartoons, with the same scabrous innocence and scarifying pathos. But it mutates into something wilder and deeper – a joyous, kaleidoscopic vision of life. It resists both summary and analogy. It is, simply, inimitable Kavanagh.”

David Rose, author of Vault

They were poor and defeated and they scurried through life, they feared the light, they feared the heel of a size ten boot, they feared their own shadows, shadows which had been distorted, as two cockroaches.

They lived in a grim Northern town.

It had been shaped by the wind and the rain, by the screams, the cries, the punches and the kicks, the shattered glass that covered the roads, the vandalized shutters, the bars on shop windows and pubs, the flashing lights and sirens, the fear, the paranoia, the hatred, the abuse, the abandonment, the mildew, the mold, the moss, the smell of verdigris that soiled, by the nodes of wasteland that housed the homeless, by the failures and the diseased, by the imprisoned and the unemployed.

Its streets were narrow and winding, the backstreets dark and dangerous.

It was a redbrick Northern town tenaciously fighting off a slow death, a death that was inevitable, death was near, the fighting was now most brutal, the town was now at the stage where death glowed neon.

The Northern town and the people were fighting with all they had; they were steadfast, obdurate, and blind.

This fight had left scars upon the people’s faces. The scars varied. The scars deformed, the scars cut deep, the scars never closed they hemorrhaged obscenities perpetually, loudly, making up new obscenities when the old obscenities were deemed mundane and harmless, the scars would never heal; the scars were passed down from mother to daughter from father to son.

To alleviate the pain and suffering violence and boredom all turned to alcohol and drugs and cigarettes and passionless sex.

Lies and deceit were as common as the red house brick; violence and thievery were as common as the dog excrement left on the uneven pavements.

Mothers found comfort in prams with puling babies and fathers vented in flashes of gratuitous, mindless violence. Mothers were superseded by daughters and fathers were superseded by sons, the circle just kept turning, and the perpetrators kept perpetrating, the scars got longer and deeper.

The rented flat was deep within a council estate. Sometimes the drunks on their way home from the local pub – a pub that Don and Phoebe never went to, it was run down and the windows had bars, there were more fights than singsongs – shouted obscenities. The obscenities were thick as the clouds that hung inert over the grim Northern town and as plentiful as the rain that covered the red bricks in green, slimy moss. Don and Phoebe were unsure if the obscenities were meant for them. The obscenities could have been for anybody, but they did grow louder and viler as the drunks staggered past Don and Phoebe’s flat. The rented flat they shared was small. All the furniture was secondhand or homemade. It was an incongruous place, uncomfortable, porous, and unwelcoming. Don and Phoebe did their best to make it feel like home, but it was too much for them, the flat would always feel as though it belonged to somebody else. Don did his best to keep the flat clean. He kept the sink clear of dirty pots; he hoovered when the hoover worked; he removed the dust and the dead skin and the discarded hairs. He tried. A flower and herbs sat on the windowsill in the kitchen. Don watered the flower and herbs, but he knew they were dying, if not already dead. They lacked sun, there was no warmth, and the water smelt of rust.

A dog shared the rented flat. It lived on scraps and generic dog food. It struggled not to be taken outside and once outside it whined to be taken back indoors. The dog no longer barked. It was an emaciated thing, ugly, and feeble of mind. The dog was found on a street corner. A car had hit the dog. Don and Phoebe had been to the pictures. At the time Don was working at a music store and Phoebe was teaching English. The dog was whimpering. There was nothing broken. The dog had a fever and was drenched; it smelt of the water that trickled through the canal, verdigris, rotten eggs, carrion. They agreed that they should take the dog home. On the collar there was no name or address. Not wishing to impose on the dog they agreed not to give the dog a new name. The dog already had a leash, which was made of old rope; they untied the brick from the old rope and took the dog home. The dog filled out quickly. They saw psychological damage. A knock on the door sent the dog hiding. If something was dropped or if there was a loud bang the dog defecated.