Redemption's A Bitch - 2. No Sympathy For The Devil

Kieran poured himself out of his shower and wrapped a black silk sarong around his hips before setting about the overly long task of drying his yard-long hair. The one thing he’d always remembered about his father was that he kept his hair traditionally long and often braided, and Kieran did the same. Even if it was a hassle, and it was, he liked the way it looked and the other-worldliness it gave him, as though he wasn’t unusual enough. It was some point around nine, Kieran never bothered to keep an exact schedule before noon, and he clicked to the dogs as he padded across the thick carpeting. Like their owner, the dogs kept a strange schedule, and they were used to being walked at two, three, four in the morning, and so were perfectly happy to laze around and sleep until whenever, secure in the knowledge that they would get all the love, attention and exercise they could possibly want once their master arose.

When he’d taken over the third floor, Kieran had made sure that, if he wanted to, he could stay in his suite for days, never venturing into the main area of the house. He’ hadn’t done so, of course, in years. Not since he’d stopped being a moody, arrogant, little teenager full of angst and melodrama. Shastan said that Kieran had never been as bad as he claimed he’d been, but his cousin was terminally positive, and he loved to see the best in everyone. Kieran fed the dogs straight from the fridge in his kitchen, the canines snatching steamed chicken morsels out of mid-air, before pouring out four bowls of prepared mince and roughage biscuits. He fed Vuka out of sight of the others, because even though Shadow was old he was still alpha enough to growl the twins away from his breakfast, and Kieran drank juice from the cartoon and watched his dogs eat.

Vuka was the youngest, and at just two, he was still trying to find his place in the pack. He was a rather insecure dog, especially for a wolf-dog, and Kieran would often find him curled at his feet or at the side of the bed. The others didn’t pick on him as such, simply reminded him of his position. Vuka had largely been raised and given manners by his pack-mates.

Once Shadow had finished, Kieran loaded the bowls into the dishwasher and wandered downstairs. He was not yet in the foyer when the barking started, quickly becoming cacophonous, and pierced by a series of panicky feminine shrieks.

“BOYS!” Kieran snapped. The barking died instantly. “Heel!” One by one, the dogs came slinking back towards him, heads hanging low. Kieran rounded the corner into the main reception room. They called it the chapel, because of the vaulted ceiling and the funny little arched window at the far end. “Hello Rebecca, please could you stop the women from making that awful noise?” Kieran smiled genially at his cousin’s fiancé.

“Morning Kieran.” Rebecca smiled gently, as though talking to a slightly annoying teenager. “These are my bridesmaids, Melinda and Issie.” She gestured to the two women she was with. They were both boring, slender and largely shapeless to Kieran’s view, with blonde hair they obviously wished was longer. “We’re having the dresses fitted here, and this evening hair and make-up are doing a tester, and the cake lady is coming to discuss final details. You will be joining us for dinner won’t you?”

“God, I hope not.” Kieran smiled tightly. “Sorry, the dogs need me.” As he walked away he heard one of the bridesmaids mutter something about how sexy he was. Not for the first time, Kieran wondered if painting a sign on his back saying ‘sorry, but I really like dick’ was a smart idea. It would certainly save time.

Outside he stood on the patio with his arms folded over his chest and watched his dogs sniff around the garden in search of missed scent trails. Vuka followed Shadow at a distance, and lifted his leg everywhere the older dog had peed. The twins grabbed the ends of a bit of thick woven cotton rope and began a game of tug-of-war.

“Morning Kier.” Shastan stepped out onto the stone patio too. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks Shas.” Kieran smiled at his cousin, the only family he had. “Apologise to Becca for me?”

“You know she hates being called that.” Shastan chided gently. “I already have. You don’t have to be so rude to her friends you know.”

“You can’t stand them either.” Kieran observed.

“I know.”

“It is my birthday.”

“Correct. Here.” Shastan held out a white card box to his cousin. “Just something little.”

It was a sculpture made entirely from chocolate and tiny jewel-like accents of spun sugar. The four dogs sat holding out between them, a banner which read ‘Hapy Birtday Kier’ in deliberately poor handwriting. Kieran chuckled.

“That’s awesome.”

“I took plenty of pictures already, you go ahead and eat.”

Kieran snapped the top half of Inu off the chocolate base and toasted his brother with the chocolate.

“To the best birthday breakfasts!” And he ate.

After that Kieran decided getting dressed and out of the house was the smartest move he could make. The dogs freaked out Rebecca’s bridesmaids, and in truth Rebecca wasn’t fully at ease around them either. Everyone was intimidated by the size of the three big huskies and the wolf-features of Vuka. Kieran pulled on bootleg jeans and a bright yellow and blue t-shirt, something he’d picked up for a couple of quid from a second hand and vintage store. It had someone else’s name and team number on the back, and Kieran, who had never done well in team sports, enjoyed the sense of belonging to a place in the Mid-West that he’d never previously heard of. He braided his hair, collared each of the dogs, found their lead ropes and by-passed the Mitsubishi in favour of walking. The truck was his utility vehicle, and Kieran had stripped and refitted it himself, making the back a perfect safe and comfortable space for the dogs to travel in, even now that there were four of them.

It wasn’t far up the main road towards the big roundabout which joined their spur into town with the big bypass, and from there Kieran and the pack left the pavement in favour of the wilderness. In years past, when it had just been him and Shadow disappearing into the wild for hours and hours, Kieran wouldn’t have bothered with a lead at all. All the dogs were brilliantly trained, and not one pulled, though Vuka was still juvenile enough to want to stop and sniff when the rest of the pack pulled ahead. Mostly the ropes were for show, a tool to stop other people from worrying.

Once they were out in the green, Kieran set the dogs loose, and so began his favourite regular activity which didn’t involve a bed of some description. Shadow liked his routine, and though he was by no means the fastest, he dictated the route they took. Inu and Suk pulled Vuka into their game, running round and back in circles and weaves, doing three or four times the distance Kieran travelled, chasing rabbits and investigating empty fox-holes, and wearing down their energy. Kieran threw heavy sticks that wouldn’t bounce, but generally the dogs simply loved to run, chasing each other up and down the valley walls, getting into everything. It was blissful.

They stopped at the top of a rise near to the car park after a few hours and Kieran bought a cola from the little kiosk and sat looking out at the three hundred and sixty degree vista that people travelled for miles to see. It was a good bit of land up at the Dyke, nice for exploring, popular with hill walkers and the more outdoorsy sort of hung over student. Once Kieran had paid off a group of kids from the art school after Inu had run in stolen their cold roasted chicken, and run out again, hastily pursued by his brother. Now Shadow flopped next to him, and the big black dog rolled onto his belly as the younger pups mock-growled and played on the windswept hillside.

“A whole nine years together.” Kieran stroked the thick fur, lost in thought, “a whole nine years.”

Shadow had been his fifteenth birthday present, the very first that Shastan had bought him. At the time, Kieran had only been living with his much older cousin for about two months: long enough to get into a familiar routine, but not enough time for either of them to claim that they really knew the other. Shastan was twenty-two then, and Kieran had felt the last thing his cousin needed was to have some kid around putting a damper on his style. The house had been too big, too empty, and Kieran hadn’t liked it; too different from the life he had always known before. Shadow had been a blessing wrapped up in thick black fur and a floppy tongue, and Kieran hadn’t been a day without him ever since. Where he went, Shadow went.

They walked again until Kieran’s phone alarm went off, which meant that it was two in the afternoon, and he had an hour to get home, get changed and get into town. Kieran did not keep a morning schedule, but four days a week, he could always be found at three pm, in exactly the same place.

*

Over the years, the yummy mummy’s and Nigella-worshipping au-pair’s had gotten used to Kieran standing at the school gates with them. When he’d first started showing up, a tall beautiful young man with incredibly long hair and sharp green eyes, there had been hard looks and questions from the staff. Today, Kieran had brought Vuka with him, because the youngest dog was a great favourite at the school gates, and he had such a good manner with the little ones. Shadow has lost patience as he got older, and while neither Inu or Suk would snap at anyone, they also generally ignored most humans too.

“UNCLE TRISTAN!”

Kieran whipped round in time to bend and catch the young boy who came flying at him. He hugged little Benji against his chest while Vuka stood on his hind legs and whined excitedly.

“Hey there little man.” Kieran grinned. “Where’s your sister?”

“Talking to Dennis.” Bailey, the eldest boy at eight years, rolled his eyes. “He wants her to be his girlfriend. Ick.” Bailey settled to ruffling Vuka’s pointy ears. “I’m never having a girlfriend Vuka, girls are weird.”

“Do you have a girlfriend Tristan?” Benji held onto Kieran’s long braid as he was put down, reaching up to stay connected to his favourite non-familial adult.

“How can I when you guys keep me so busy?” Kieran smiled. “Vuka! Go fetch Katy! Fetch!”

The dog jumped up and sprang across the playground. He had known the children since he was a very small puppy, and had no trouble picking out Katy from the assembled blue gingham dresses. He was a good wolf-dog, and after tugging twice at her hem to pull her away from her conversation, simply put his big wedge shaped head against her side and began pushing her towards the gate.

Katy pouted when she reached them.

“Tristan! I was talking.”

“OK…” Kieran shrugged like he didn’t care. “You can go back and talk to your boyfriend, but you’ll be late for ice cream…”

“Ummm…”

“ICE CREAM!” Benji shouted. “I want ice cream!”

“Alright then. Ice cream it is. Is that alright with you little miss?”

Katy bit her lip and nodded. As they walked, Benji with his hand wrapped firmly around Vuka’s collar, Bailey holding the lead and his little brother’s other hand, Katy fell into step beside Kieran and took his hand.

“How was school?”

“It was good. I made a volcano in science.” She was silent for a moment. “I don’t really like Dennis that much, but all the other girls have boyfriends.”

Kieran looked down at her. Katy was ten, and already the social pressure of being a pretty girl with long blonde hair was making her sigh sadly on a sunny summer afternoon.

“Well you just tell him he can’t be your boyfriend, you’ve got me. What d’you need Dennis for anyway?”

“Tristan…” Katy rolled her eyes at him. “You can’t be my boyfriend.”

“But they don’t know that.” Kieran hugged her quickly to his side. “You wanna go to the park and go on the swings?”

“Will you push me up really high?”

Kieran grinned.

“Always.”

It was the only thing in Kieran’s calendar that he was never late for. Never. Every afternoon after school finished, his world revolved around Benji, Bailey and Katy.

He had met them one afternoon when he’d been basically asleep on the grass in the park, and after Benji’s curiosity had gotten the better of him, the children had sat and talked to him for an hour or more until the sun had started threatening to sink behind the trees. Kieran had been only twenty then, wholly unaware of the trials and attentions of children. It hadn’t occurred to him in that hour, someone should have missed them.

Eventually their mother had arrived, fresh from the office and hysterical when she’d found that her children hadn’t been at her house eating their tea. Kieran had soothed and calmed her, having already fed the kids sandwiches and crisps from the kiosk in the park. It turned out that their new baby sitter had received a call from her boyfriend and wandered off. Callé had been livid and relieved all at the same time, and then panicky about what she would do the following day. Without a second thought, Kieran had said he’d collect them from school: after all, he had nothing better to do.

Callé had been dubious, openly doubtful of his promise. Kieran knew why. He was a just-not-teenager with no job and no responsibilities. Why would he give up his time to look after children he’d never met before? And what sort of influence would he be? But Kieran was well spoken, and so it was agreed. He carried little Benji home from the park, by that point being way past the three year old’s bedtime.

Now they called him ‘Uncle Tristan’, and he loved them like family. Callé and Rob had him over for dinner every now and then, and Kieran couldn’t much imagine life without them.

Ice creams in the park, and running around with Vuka, and lots of work on the swings and the see-saw later, Kieran packed them up and together they all headed home.

“Who’s got homework?”

There was an assembled soft groan from the children.

“I’ll make you snacks…”

“I have spellings.” Bailey volunteered with a smile, taking Kieran’s other hand. “Will you make wedges?”

“If you’re good. Katy?”

“I have to write up my volcano experiment. I have notes. Can I use the computer?”

“Yes.” Kieran smiled at Benji, who was holding onto Vuka as they walked. The wolf-dog loved the little boy, they’d grown up together after all, and it was nice to know Vuka would keep him safe. “Benji?”

“Colouring in.”

“Alright then. Homework time and I’ll make you guys wedges and tempura vegetables.”

“With the barbecue dip?” they chorused.

“Yes.”

*

Kieran returned home close to sundown to let the dogs out, and they ran around the garden for a while before flopping down in the grass to gnaw on a collection of rawhide dog treats. The inside of the house smelt like flowers and pink, and while Kieran didn’t have a problem with either in principle, the fact that the wedding seemed to have now spread over three reception rooms irked him.

His cousin was happy, and Kieran could not begrudge his only living relative the chance to have love, to spend the rest of his life with the woman he adored, but The Wedding seemed to have been going on since the moment Shastan had proposed nearly eighteen months ago, and Kieran thought that if he had to hear one more thing about shoes, tiara’s, flowers or table settings he was going to go insane. Shastan had wanted something quiet, simple and easy, but Rebecca and her mother had spent their entire lives dreaming, planning and re-planning a Big White Wedding since she was a little girl, and now that at the age of thirty she had finally found the right man, there was no way Shastan’s soon to be family-in-law were going to allow anything less than the whole shebang, even if it bankrupted them. Shastan had offered to pay, he had more than enough money to last him forever if he lived that long, but his new nearly parents-in-law had refused: which didn’t stop Kieran’s cousin from slipping money into the wedding account and paying any of the tradespeople that he could.

Kieran was just thinking about the possibility of going out early to a bar and finding a beautiful man to fuck him into oblivion for a an hour or so, just to kill the time, when various voices shouting his name reached him. Shadow, who had come to lie over his chest on the cooling grass, grumbled softly and folded back his ears. Kieran stroked his head and sighed.

“I know bud. I don’t wanna go in either.”

“KIERAN!”

“Fuck it.”

Kieran went in through the door to the den and settled the dogs before he entered the house, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans.

“What?” He glanced around, then realised the hallway was one of the few areas of the house that no one was currently in. “Oh, bollocks.”

He found the bridal party, eventually, in the little sitting room. Rebecca was standing on a raised platform in what was fast becoming her wedding dress, a cream-puff concoction of lace and silk. Kieran sighed. Shastan had fallen for her when she’d been dressed in a second hand blouse and three quarter length plaid slacks with deck shoes; Kieran highly doubted that his cousin would recognise the woman who stood before him now.

“Yes?” He asked acidly.

“Kieran darling,” Rebecca sounded flustered. The room was feminine chaos. One of the bridesmaids was wearing a very-unfinished powder-pink dress. The other was fussing around the dressmaker, making unwelcome suggestions. “I need you to get my wedding shoes. I forgot them at my parent’s house.”

Kieran glared at her.

“You are kidding?”

“No. Kieran, I need them.”

“They’re just shoes!” he exclaimed. “You practically live here, use one of your three dozen other pairs.”

“Ze hem iz verrry important.” The seamstress spoke through a mouthful of pins. “It iz vital zat she have ze right shoes.”

Kieran stared at the woman who would not be his anything-in-law, if one were being technical about it.

“Last time I checked, you were marrying my cousin. Make him do it.” Kieran glanced around. “Where is Shas anyway?”

“Upstairs, getting measured for his suit.” Rebecca replied.

“He can’t see her anyway!” The bridesmaid half in the dress snapped. “It’s bad luck.”

“I will never understand straight people.” Kieran muttered, knowing how it riled his present company. “Where are the shoes?”

“They are in my old bedroom, in the ivory box by the bed.”

“You realise that you live in the middle of nowhere?”

“Kieran, the next town over is not the middle of nowhere.” Rebecca smiled good naturedly. “Please? They can’t finish the fitting without them.”

Kieran smirked.

“Do you know how fast I drive? I’ll be back before you know it.”