Boris blunders through our miniscule sitting room. He can smell the bacon, sausages and eggs and I, in my haste to feed Carlos, have forgotten to close the nursery gate in the door way.
‘For Christ’s sake Ruby. Does he have to watch me eat his own kind?’ he says.
He does not notice the smidgeon of red sauce on his two day old t-shirt or the yellow yolk stain from yesterday’s breakfast. But I do and I know what is coming next.
‘Come on pig, get your fat arse out of here.’
Boris needs no further instruction and semi-circles round to leave. His hind quarters connect with a standard lamp, it wobbles, it sways and with an almighty crash, it hits the floor. Years ago, it had an art deco shade but, like his Mother, it is long gone.
‘That’s it. I’ve had enough of that darned animal. Who in their right mind would have a pig for a pet?’
‘Oh, come off it Carlos. He’s not just a pet is he? You said it yourself, he’s a member of the family.’
‘More like squatter you mean. Look at him. What does it do all day? It just lies around, piling on the pounds, whilst I work in that sweat shop, day in day out. And for what? Hell, it eats more than me.’
It had been his idea to buy Boris in the first place, that was when he was in his ‘Babe’ phase and we were in the process of setting up home together.
‘Aw Ruby, go on.’ He’d said patting my behind. ‘Just look at the little guy. The breeder says he won’t grow to more than fifty pounds.’ I had looked into his beady-brown eyes, and I—despite being worried about the smell, what the neighbours would think, the very fact we would have a pig living with us—had relented.
‘Carlos, it’s not his fault is it? How were we to know that the breeder was bent?’
‘I don’t care, I want him gone and you're going to be the one to get rid of him.’
‘But…’
‘No buts, and I want it done by the end of the day.’
He lumbers away to his box room cum office, with our Yukatan cum Old Spot trotting behind him, his belly swaying from side to side and slammed the door.
Grunting, Boris returns to sit at my feet. I scratch the top of his head with one painted finger nail, fondle his silken ear and taking the breakfast remains, feed it to him piece by piece.
‘Boris, say goodbye to Daddy.’
A few minutes later, I open the door of the study to find him as he usually is, a huge hulk squashed in amongst; the mountain of paperwork that never got processed, the long line of crunched up cans of lager—it’s an art form he tells me—the endless plates of half eaten pizza, the well leafed, curiously-stained porn mags, his mind elsewhere in cyberspace.
‘Carlos,’ I say, ‘I’ve made a phone call.’
‘Oh, which means what?’
‘A car is coming in fifteen minutes to take the pig away.’
‘Good work, babe.’
‘Yes it is, isn’t it Carlos? And guess what Carlos? Your girlfriend is driving.’
