Kindle Notes & Highlights
Luce, the meanest of the voices inside Jude’s head,
He can’t bear it when people are angry with him.
Squash: Well done, darling. You can tidy it later.
His thick dark hair was like a strange sea sculpture, sticking up at the back and at the side, with a big swirl flattened against his crown and a straggly greasy bit hanging down in front of his ear where he’d pulled at it.
She’d always felt a slight revulsion for Jude’s work,
She was definitely dead. He needed to think. Think, think, think. His voices were silent.
He could put her in the chest freezer, the one in the back of the workshop.
He told himself that it would be just like doing any other animal, only bigger. He could handle that. The body in front of him was just meat now, just like the beloved pets he spent most of his time stuffing.
It took him three hours to prepare her for the freezer.
He imagined her suddenly sitting up to say “What in goodness name are you doing, Jude Horridge!”
His voices had been mercifully silent throughout. Maybe they’d finally lost their tongues.
Stan: Disobeying her already… she’s not even cold. Not even cold. Here was his most talkative voice.
Sometimes he thought the things Stan said held a remarkable resemblance to his Gram.
His narrow single bed, with the faded navy blue duvet cover he’d chosen when
he was fifteen and wanted to be more of a grown-up.
animal anatomy posters,
His laptop was on his desk – the one he’d had for almost a decade, which he’d used to teach himself how to build websites.
the voices were always coming up with new ways of abasing him. Especially Luce. The night light kept them at bay – like the opposite of moths to a flame, they seemed to be deterred by the glow and festered in the dark corners of his room, waiting for their moment.
The dreams weren’t scary. Jude had more than his share of nightmares – and some days with his voices it didn’t feel like there was much difference between his bad nights and his waking life.
It was as if the whole dream was set to music, like a Laurel and Hardy film, with escalating piano scales and dramatic chords for suspense.
His voices knew where all Jude’s buttons were, had spent their entire histories learning how to get the maximum reaction.
What girl would want him, and where would he meet any girls anyway, with his territory extending only as far as the workshop?
He lived like a monk
Most kinds of classical music seemed to calm his voices down, except Wagner,
Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was a composer of sweeping, dramatic music and a Chronic Migraine sufferer. He described his frequent migraine attacks as the “main plague of his life.” However, rather than compose calming music to soothe his Migraine brain, Wagner wove the loud, pulsing, pounding migraine music in his head into the orchestral music he composed. https://migraineagain.com/migraine-music-of-wagner/
Things would be easier if he was working on his animals. The voices very rarely bothered him when he was concentrating hard on scraping fat from skin
It's only when questions offer alternatives, two sides, negatives and positives, that Jude seems to get into strife. Working on his animals = routine, a comfort zone. He knew the answers already.
Was he sad that his Gram was dead? It seemed like the kind of thing he ought to feel, if he was a normal person.
Jude had been forging handwriting since he was a boy and he was quite an expert.
He’d got his Specialist Taxidermist qualification four years ago now, but he’d been earning before that.
a hand-drawn poster on bright orange paper, and said, ‘A friendly group made up of voice-hearers, where we share our experience and know that we’re not alone.
2pm at Butterworth church,
‘unwanted dog, call this number.’ Unwanted. He found himself memorising the number without quite knowing why.
Jude couldn’t stop thinking about the dog.
“I wanted some company for myself. My mum died recently. I’m on my own now, could do with having another living being in the house.”
To help himself think he got up and put on some Erik Satie. As the first notes sounded he felt immediately calmer, like taking a draft of some soporific drug.
The music washed over him, through him.
It was nice to be freed from the usual constraints of communication with humans – whether he was getting it right or not, what they might be thinking of him, what he should say next. It didn’t matter with Dog – she seemed to accept everything he said, as long as he used a reasonable tone.
He also seemed to face a new domestic challenge several times every day. If it wasn’t for Google he’d never have coped.
She hated loud noises and sudden movements – she became a trembling mess whenever an aeroplane passed over, or if Jude moved too suddenly or dropped something.
She was generally good company, though, as they learned how to rub along with each other.
The voices had a field day when Jude felt depressed. They were almost unbearable.
Suddenly Jude couldn’t imagine giving her away to anyone. How could anyone love her as much as he did?
Nervous energy was bubbling up in him. This was probably the longest conversation he’d had with another human being since Gram had died. He felt out of practice.
The girl sat down across from him again, caught his eye and gave him the thumbs up. He felt grateful to her, but he didn’t know how to let her know.
Next it was the girl and Jude listened for her name. “I’m Beth and I’m feeling sad.”
he looked behind him and there was Dog at every pace. “You’re like a little shadow, aren’t you?”
Maybe Shadow would be a better name for her. “Shadow?”
he was surprised at how quickly she had transformed from ‘Dog’ into ‘Shadow’. It was as if the name Shadow had been her real name all along,
He’d stopped thinking about finding a new owner for Shadow. He couldn’t quite see her as belonging to him, more that this was where she happened to be staying at the moment.
out. A few people continued to ask after her occasionally – the butcher, the milkman – but they seemed to accept that she was gone
Despite his shortness with her sometimes he was quite sure she was better off with him than she’d be with most people. That made him feel good.
