GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SHORT STORY PRIZE 2025/26

KATE BARRY  

‘All Dogs’ Hearts’

THE LACES OF THE WALNUT-COLOURED SHOES WERE LONG GONE and the backs permanently stepped on. Lar had bought them with his first decent pay cheque; these days they lived by the door of the cottage for when he couldn’t be bothered pulling on the wellies. The evening check on the livestock was usually just a quick formality.  He dodged through the rain to the shed, opened the padlock, slid across the bolt. They had heard him coming and were yelping loudly, tails wagging, as the strip lights flickered and buzzed into action. The stink hit him with a synaesthetic wall of warm brown fug.

One of the bitches had whelped too soon and the pups were already dead. He texted Connolly to know what to do, even though he knew already. She was licking the tiny remains of one of the pups, but didn’t resist when he scooped them all on the one shovel and went out to fling them round the side of the shed. It was raining sheets by then. A text came: ‘Get rid’. This was the second round she had thrown. Connolly didn’t do third chances.

He picked her up. Her hair was matted.  Dark crusty discharge trailed from the inner corner of her big brown eyes. Her nails were long and she stank, but he could feel her heart beating very fast against his chest. It could have been fear or just the fact that all dogs’ hearts beat faster than ours. That’s why they die sooner. The heart wears out.

Lately, Lar had started to find himself considering how different ways of dying might feel.

The car was at the far side of the quickly-flooding yard and he headed for the dry of the cottage instead. Connolly had inherited the cottage from an uncle and aunt who had died without issue. The uncle had been mid-way doing up the place as a potential holiday-let before he made an ill-advised U-turn on a main road. They’d been on their way to a wedding and watching out for the entrance to the hotel. Too late, they’d passed it, and swung around only to be hit by an estate agent in a Range Rover late to a Saturday viewing.

Lar knew Connolly from the way back when. Connolly had been one of those clever but idle lads with no one at home to drive him on. He’d left school after the Inter and the intelligence had festered and gone bad inside of him. When Lar had been at his lowest, blind drunk after being kicked out of the lowest pub in their village, Connolly had brought him upstairs to his flat over the Centra and in the morning had offered him a job. A farming job, and no, it didn’t matter that Lar didn’t know one end of a cow from another. It wasn’t that kind of farm.

It was Wednesday night and that meant Champion’s League. The dog  nuzzled Lar’s back as he knelt to light the fire, and when invited, she hopped onto the sofa. Life was almost normal. Here he was — watching the football, kicking back, having someone to talk to. He scrolled through his phone until he found the number his better judgement told him every day to delete. He started a message and even though he knew he wouldn’t send it, felt consoled to think that right now she might be looking at her WhatsApp and she’d see ‘Lar is typing…’ and think of him.

In the morning, as the sun struggled to come out, he disposed of the bitch at a riverside spot ten minutes’ drive away. He transported her in the boot, just in case. The water was vetchy and dark so he could not see below the surface. He imagined all four legs scrabbling, the matted hair softening in water, the brown eyes bulging in terror and her muzzle open to scream for help but unable to make a sound. How long between the realisation and death itself? Not long, he reckoned. A long time for her though.

He put down the rest of the short November day feeding the others, giving the pens a rare clean-out, smoking and nurturing revenge fantasies of tying a stone around the neck of the manager who had let  Lar and the other members of the team go when what had happened hadn’t been their fault at all.

The supply of ready-made dinners in the chest freezer was starting to dwindle. Usually Lar remembered to take one out in the morning, but he’d been distracted. He reached in, opting for the luck-dip method of selection. As he rooted among the mystery meals, the uncomplicated sensation of cold on his hand brought him close to reality. Shepherd’s pie. Not that it mattered.

The microwave pinged in concert with the unexpected sound of his ringtone. Who the fuck was that calling him now?

He had to stand up to retrieve the phone from the mantle over the fireplace. Aine. The only one of the cousins who still kept in touch.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi Lar. It’s me Aine.’

‘Oh, hi Aine. How’re things?’

‘Mighty Lar, you know yourself. Up the walls here with work and the house and the kids. How about you?’ Tiny bit nervous there with the last part.

‘Grand.’

‘Would you like to call down there some weekend? We’d love to see you.’

‘Maybe. Sure why not.’ Lar was immediately sorry.

Once Aine had the hint of a commitment, she proceeded to pin him down to a Saturday in two weeks’ time. Her eldest would be turning eleven and they would have a cake at home on the day. The big event was the following week, when he’d share a party in Airtastic with a classmate.

‘Is he not getting big now for birthday parties?’

‘This’ll be the last. He’s growing up fast alright. Hasn’t asked for any toys, not even a bike. All he wants is a dog.’

‘That’s alright, isn’t it?’

‘Not these dark nights with it pissing all over the house it isn’t. We’ve told him a dog is for life, not just for Christmas, but he won’t take no for an answer. Says it’s for his birthday, not for Christmas and he can’t be expected to move his birthday. Gave us both a look, like he knows now who’s responsible for that one.’

‘What will ye do?’

‘We don’t know. It’s all he wants. But sure where would we even get a pup this time of the year? Decent people don’t want to sell you a pup around Christmas. I mean, there are others that will, but we wouldn’t buy from them. You hear it don’t you? That any you see for sale around now are from those puppy mills. And we wouldn’t want to be supporting that carry-on.’

“No you wouldn’t. 100%.’

Lar got her off the phone eventually. A new episode of The House of the Dragon had dropped. Still gave him goosebumps, the cello intro to the show, bringing back the days of Game of Thrones, the release of a cork from the neck of a bottle of Shiraz and cozy snuggles on the bouclé sofa in their docklands apartment. Conversations at work Friday mornings: OMG, did you see? The bitch had left a hollow spot on the blanket. He shook it out. Shake it off, man. She’s not coming back. You’re not going back. The gearbox of life doesn’t have a reverse.

* 

Around a week after Aine’s call, Lar had rung her back to say he had been talking to a lad who had a dog with new pups. He wasn’t sure what cross they were — the bitch had been in heat for a week and half the dogs of the parish were after jumping in over the wall to her —  but he would reckon they’d be small enough. Lar had kept his mouth shut, he told Aine, but he had the guy’s number if she felt like granting the boy his wish.

* 

The day of the birthday was 15th December. The pups in the third pen on the left seemed the healthiest and Lar knew they were at least seven weeks because that’s how long ago it was since Scotland had beaten Wales in the Six Nations. They were liver and white with various markings but he didn’t overthink the choice, beyond making sure it was a dog pup because that would be one less hassle for Aine.

 *

Aine’s husband tried to pay Lar, sliding two fifties wordlessly across the island while the young lad attempted to fight back the tears of joy. The boy had another year or two yet to be a child but was old enough to know emotions equalled shame. Lar slid back the notes, realising that by taking the pup he had effectively robbed Connolly of five times that amount.

‘How’s tricks?’ Aine’s husband had some kind of job in Sales and had the high colour and flabby physique of a habitual dashboard diner. He’d been a champion handballer in his youth. Pride of the parish. He was still sound, and knew better than to ask any question that might require an answer.

‘Grand. Sure you know yourself.’

‘Yeah. Any news?’

‘No news.’

‘No news is good news, as they say.’

‘So they say.’

Aine asked would he join them for Christmas.

 ‘I’ll think about it.’

‘What is there to think about? Have you other options?’

‘I might. You never know.’

* 

Connolly arrived on the 20th and loaded up the car boot with pups.

‘What time do ye sail?’

‘Nine o’clock. Should be in Stranraer for eleven. There’s a fella will meet me and these’ll all be off his hands by Sunday night.’

The pups were anywhere from four weeks to ten weeks; the weaker ones mightn’t see Scotland, never mind the New Year. Natural selection. You could call it quality control if they gave a fuck about customer satisfaction

The only clean thing in Connolly’s car was a folder where plastic pockets kept the fake vaccination certs pristine. Most of the all-white or all-brown pups were already sold. Connolly’s associate had a digital file of puppy portraits that could be posted alongside one of ‘mum’ curled up contentedly in a farmhousey-looking kitchens. There might be a picture of ‘dad’ chasing a ball on some green grass, or running on a windswept beach. The pups were sold as designer dogs: cavapoos, chorkies, schnoodles and maltipoos. Really they were random anythings. Part of Lar’s job had been to watch the bitches for signs of heat and spray them from a canister of blue paint. Connolly would arrive with a stolen Schnauzer or Cocker Spaniel who probably thought he’d gone to heaven until the next day when he actually did. Drowning these boys was especially hard because they were often so cared-for and so well-loved and he would wonder what child had tied that purple collar around a neck and in what faith people attached little bone-shaped labels engraved with their phone number. These dogs had names: Oscar, Brody, Shay, Bailey. He wondered why Connolly didn’t ransom them, but when he asked was told that was a different game and there was plenty money but a lot of risk and it was better left to the knackers.

Any pups that were left over could be sold at markets, but that was a lot dodgier. You couldn’t have too many and had to be ready to pack up at a moment’s notice.

‘Like the police have nothing better to do. Like there’s no muggings or break-ins or packs of foreigners making hoors out of young ones who should be in school.’

Lar expressed agreement with Connolly. Then he asked what he would do now. His orders were to get rid of the dogs that were left; they’d start again fresh next autumn.

‘How’ll I do that?’ Lar almost panicked at the thought of throwing that many dogs into the river. He could barely do one at a time. That many together would be the end of him.

‘You could go to the trouble of drowning them, but easier to just go away and leave them for a few days. Open the cages. Take up the water. Then it’s just a case of the clean-up.’

Even after five months on the farm, Lar was speechless.

‘I’m joking man.’

He handed over a clear plastic bag that Lar could see contained a glass bottle and something else.

‘50 CL’s each’ll do the job, into the muscle. Spare a bit maybe on the smaller ones. You run out, you do the usual.’

After Connolly had left, Lar took the thick glass bottle out of the plastic bag. It had a pink and white label featuring a skull-and-crossbones one a red background, and a tiny opening at the top that was covered with a rubber seal with a metal ring around it. The other item in the bag was a new plastic syringe inside a smaller plastic bag. And there was something else he hadn’t seen: an even smaller plastic bag with a needle in it. Connolly must have bought all this stuff new and Lar wondered where he had gotten it from and how hard or easy it might be to arrange to purchase similar should he decide to do so in the future. 

This wasn’t something you’d buy in the co-op or over-the-counter at the chemist. This stuff was poison. It was called phenytoin/pentobarbital and on the part where it gave ‘indications for use’ there was only one word: euthanasia. Lar instinctively put the bottle up ahigh on the big beam mantle. He put the needle into the plastic bag that had the syringe in it and put this behind the bottle. When he sat down, all he could see was the top of the bottle, the metal glinting in the blue light from the television and the yellow light from the kitchen where he left the fluorescent bulb on all the time apart from when he went to bed.

During the night Lar got up, took down the bottle and took the syringe and the needle out of the plastic. The needle had some kind of a safety case over it that he had a job removing, but it screwed on fairly handily to the syringe. He pierced the rubber with the needle. It took more pressure than he expected but that made sense. You wouldn’t want a child playing at this. The bottle was full almost to the top. If he pulled up the plunger the syringe would fill. The bottle was dark brown so he couldn’t tell what colour it would be.

He put the bottle down on the table and paced around for a while. It was pitch mountainy black outside and cold whistled under the door. He put on a jumper, and also socks because it felt kind of wrong to die in your bare feet. After three full glasses of Jameson he rolled up his left sleeve and tapped the crook of his arm a few times. He’d seen lads in films use a belt and their teeth for this part, but they were junkies who had run out of options. A couple of opening and closing of his fist and he had a few potential delivery points.

He wasn’t sure enough though and you would want to be certain. What would happen in the shed? He would be gone, himself, and beyond caring what starving to death might feel like.

He put the bottle back on the mantle, this time with the syringe still stuck in by the needle, and went to bed.

Lar decided ten o’clock would be a good time to die. Beforehand, he filled all the bowls with food, shaking even the dust out of the last of the bags. It occurred to him that they would rather a run around the yard over a full belly, but that was too much of a risk. He drained the diesel tank in the yard, even though the car was due a fill. He brought the diesel in buckets up to the abandoned slurry tank and left them ready at the edge. Then he went inside and packed a small duffel bag, emptied what was left of the milk down the sink, dug out a change of good clothes and left them on the bed.

At ten he went from pen to pen and from cage to cage; none of the them knew what was happening. He wondered what would he do if he ran out, but that didn’t happen. He’d hitched up the trailer and he checked every dogs’ neck for a heartbeat as he loaded them in. It was over quick enough; he looked down into the slurry pit one last time before upending the buckets of diesel, aiming for as even a distribution as possible.

One match was all it took.

He used up most of a bottle of shower gel, shaved, and put on the Ralph Lauren jumper that hadn’t seen the light in twelve months. Then he locked the house and put the key back through the letterbox. Connolly was to call on Stephen’s Day and pay his bonus, provided that the shed had been cleaned out and no trace left of the livestock.

Well, he’d come and find the place empty. Lar pulled out into the boreen and didn’t stop until a Circle K three towns away. As he drove, he thought of an exchange from Game of Thrones.

‘What do we say to the God of Death?’

‘Not today.’

Not today. He pulled into the forecourt and put 80 quids’ worth into her before sitting at an outdoor table to drink his takeaway coffee and smoke the first cigarette of whatever was going to come next. A small dog was tied up to the stand holding sad pot plants and bales of briquettes. The dog ignored him, starting intently instead at the automatic doors and straining at the leash.

A young girl came out and the dog yelped with excitement. The girl hunkered down and rewarded its fidelity with rubs and endearments.

‘Is that your dog?’

‘Yes, her name is Honey.’

‘You’d want to be more careful of her. Don’t be leaving her tied up outside shops.’

The girl was nonplussed, having expected compliments on Honey’s cuteness rather than advice. An older girl appeared with a bag of shopping and started to unwind the leash from the plant and briquettes stand.

‘I was saying to your sister there that you wouldn’t want to be leaving a dog like that tied up anywhere.’

‘She doesn’t mind. She knows we’ll be back.’ The girl looked about fourteen and was managing to keep a firm hold of her two charges as well as the shopping.  

‘There’s people walk off with them. People who aren’t nice.’

‘I know, thank you. It was just for a minute.’

She was old enough to realise that he meant them no harm. Had she been five years older still, she might have had the further confidence to lay a hand on his arm when he hid his face and began to weep.

‘Did someone steal a dog that belonged to you?’

Lar nodded, just to make her go away.

‘That’s awful. We’re sorry.’

He took a moment to gather himself.

‘Ah, it’s a long time ago now. But be careful. You wouldn’t want anyone making off with that dog. She looks like a pet.’

The girls left the Circle K, Honey trotting contentedly beside them. The older one looked straight ahead but just before they crossed the road at the traffic lights, the younger one looked back. Lar raised his hand in what was almost a wave and tried to smile. He didn’t want her to know, not yet anyway, that the world could be a dangerous place for dogs, that sometimes the things you loved got taken away from you, and that often your only available option was to somehow pretend that you were grand and everything was all alright really.