Nicola Barker - In the Approaches

I know. Yes. I do know that it’s Carla Hahn’s foot (who else could it possibly belong to but she?). It is, isn’t it? Yes. It is. It’s her foot. And (for the record), one of her deck shoes is falling off, revealing an old sock with a giant hole in the heel (so unfeminine! So unedifying!). She kicks out this foot, emitting another curious little yelp. And I see that her awful trousers with the roped-up waist, or another pair just like them – equally unflattering – have become hooked over a little jutting piece of wood. The belt has become hooked, I mean, the rope belt. So I say … I mean I’m speaking , although not especially well … what with the half tangerine (all this is happening very quickly, much more rapidly than I could hope to describe it – a mere matter of seconds) … I say, ‘Brace yourself. I’m going to unhook your jeans from a little … uh …’

And I unhook them. In fact I untie them. And then she falls like a bag of potatoes, out of the trousers. She disappears from view. The heel of her old white plimsoll almost smacks me in the face.

Oh balls !

‘Hello? Can you hear me? Are you all right?’

Short silence, followed by a door opening and someone speaking in a thick, German accent, followed by the gate-person, the fallen person (Miss Hahn) yowling plaintively, ‘I’ve dislocated my thumb!’

I’m not sure why, exactly, but I suddenly think that this might be a good time to make myself scarce. I’m not … I’m not running away, as such, no. I’m just not … not emotionally equipped to engage with all this right now. I didn’t … I didn’t ask for this to happen. I mean I should be planning a funeral, attending a funeral. And if not in fact , well, then at least in my fevered brain. The perfect funeral for Kimberly. A fantasy funeral for darling Kimberly, my recently deceased …

I just don’t need all this … all this … uh …

When I return to the cottage (a little out of breath, slightly furtive, perhaps) I find the big man, Clifford Pemberton (Is it Pemberton?) sitting out front on the bench. He is deep in thought. He has the rabbit in his hand. It fits, in its entirety, into his giant palm.

‘That was quick!’ he remarks.

‘Nobody home,’ I lie.

‘Oh. Well I had a thought while you were gone,’ he says, pointing towards a partially dismantled chest of drawers which is lying on its back close by on the lawn. ‘I found it in the shed,’ he says. ‘She was planning to chop it up for kindling – but in the meantime …’

I go over to inspect it.

‘We’ll need some kind of …’

‘Already thought of that …’

‘Oh yes. Genius.’

Inside the upturned chest is the cover of an old sewing machine.

‘It’s a perfect retreat,’ he says, ‘there’s a little hole in the front, the exact size he needs – custom made, almost! I filled the insides with straw. He’ll need food and water then he’s set up. Obviously you’ll want to bring him indoors at night or the badgers will suck his brains out.’

I wince. The badgers really are – they really are – the most awful blight.

‘It’s milking time,’ Pemberton continues, in a loud voice (stiffly, awkwardly, almost as if delivering the lines of a bad play). He stands up. ‘But before I head off …’

He gives me an intense, one could almost call it a meaningful look.

‘Is there a problem?’ I ask. What an extraordinary man he is! So messy. Like he’s been drawn with a broken brown crayon by a bored child with an excess of imagination.

‘You made Carla cry on the beach the other day,’ he tells me (very quickly, garbled, almost). As he speaks, I suddenly feel myself fading (or is it him? Is he fading?). Exhaustion. Lack of food, I suppose.

‘I don’t understand what happened there,’ he continues (he almost looks fierce – so big, so decent, all that dark hair, the red beard), ‘but I do know that in all likelihood it was Carla who left the shark under your bed. It’s just …’ He shrugs.

There follows a period of what I can only describe as ‘white noise’, ‘static’, and the most I can decipher is ‘Sword of Truth’ and ‘Web of Artifice’. He gives me a ten pound note and then passes me the rabbit.

‘The cow will probably kill me now,’ he says.

The cow? Sorry? The cow? Is he referring to Miss Hahn? Someone else? Mrs Barrow? His sister? His mother? Is this simply all about his being late for milking? For milking the cows? I wish I could … but the sweep of noise … like a giant … a giant wave crashing. A Lear jet flying at low altitude. A malfunctioning washing machine perpetually stuck on its spin cycle rocking its way across the kitchen tiles.

Uh …

What a strange man he is! Look at him! Look at his lips working! Like the mouthparts of a giant wasp – a bee – in astonishing close-up! So hairy – huge – confused …

Bumbling! Yes. Intense! Certainly. Deluded? Hmmn . But he seems decent enough (journalist’s first instinct. Gotta try and trust my initial gut …), uh …

Okay – okay, yes, the way he immediately knew where that missing bulb could be located. Highly suspicious. And the custom-made planks in the hedge by the Look Out? Strange. His desperate need to get shot of me for a while (Miss Hahn’s mother and the giant, German rabbits? I know for a fact – a fact ! – that rabbit isn’t even kosher ). Yup. He’s got an agenda a mile wide, I’d have thought.

Did Miss Hahn ever actually date him? It seems an improbable union. And what about the signal lack of any documentary evidence (photographic, earlier testimonial etc.) to this effect? And the parrot? Which parrot? Whose parrot?

What is he? Who is Clifford né Rusty Pemberton? What does he amount to, narratively? Is he a mere nothing? A nobody? Is he a missing link or a red herring? A loose cannon? A pointless distraction? A blind alley? A freak? A fanatic? A fantasist?

Because why would he be so determined to push Miss Hahn into the fray if he wasn’t (all of the above – none of them)? By outright accusing her? Why would a friend – a protector – feel the urge to behave in that way? So disloyal – so ungentlemanly. I mean I won’t pretend that I hadn’t suspected her myself – before. But now? No. Now, she’s the only person I don’t suspect! Our dear Mr Pemberton on the other hand … Oh-ho! With friends like these, Miss Hahn, who needs …?

Perhaps I’ve been slightly rash in confiding in him? Should’ve kept up my guard. Stiff upper etc. Although if he’s as strange and as skittish as he appears, then why would local people believe anything he says?

He prepares to leave.

Oh dear. Did I really make Miss Hahn cry the other day? On the beach?

We attempt to shake hands but this is rendered impossible by the ten pounds and the rabbit. So instead he kind of … he sort of curtseys .

Once he’s gone I sit down for a minute to try and gather my thoughts together. After about ten or so seconds the white noise diminishes. Well thank God for that! But then another sound neatly replaces it. Barking. Yes – barking! – followed by a series of profuse apologies. A woman’s voice. Then Mr Pemberton – Rusty – saying, ‘It’s fine. It’s absolutely fine. It isn’t deep. I actually … I … I sort of expected it, to be perfectly honest.’

Poor old Rogue is no more. Which is terribly sad. But worse still is the knowledge that I – yes, me ! – am going to be chiefly responsible for burying the body. Tatteh is too busy focusing on the onerous task of preparing a brief funeral oration and gathering together Rogue’s favourite toys to be buried alongside him (I note that several of these are items I have given to Tatteh myself – among them a Clarks’ sandal, a Johnson’s cashmere scarf and a little, plastic flamingo which I bought to commemorate the arrival of a lone bird of that species on Pett Pools in 1978, 1979 or some time thereabouts).