Nicola Barker - In the Approaches

‘Oh,’ I say, deflated, ‘well, good.’

‘It may interest you to know that several times in the course of our labyrinthine discussions he actually encouraged me to hold things back. He’d say, “Let’s not trespass any further into that, Alys. I can see how you’re struggling. Save it. Preserve it. Some things need to remain truly inviolate …”’

‘Are you serious?!’

After even only the briefest of acquaintances with Mr Huff, I find it difficult to imagine him readily employing the phrase ‘truly inviolate’.

‘Absolutely,’ Alys insists.

‘And then what?’ I ask.

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Well did you change the subject?’

‘Uh …’ Alys ponders this for a moment. ‘Sometimes. Yes.’

I roll my eyes and start to walk over towards the window, but am prevented from doing so by the tangled phone cord. I grimace and start the laborious task of unwinding it.

‘Well, for what it’s worth, he was still incredibly rude about Rogue’s weight,’ I mutter (smarting at the mere memory), ‘unforgivably rude.’

‘Rogue is horrendously overweight, Carla,’ Alys sighs, ‘Rolfie too, for that matter. Your father systematically overfeeds them. It’s awful – strange – cruel . You’re always moaning on about it yourself …’

She has me there, admittedly.

‘In Shimmy’s defence,’ she blithely continues, ‘it’s probably the expression of some profound, deep-seated emotional conflict or trauma, possibly relating to the persecution of the Jews.’

‘He is fat,’ I murmur, slightly shame-faced now, ‘but to be so … so forthright about it, and so mean, so horribly judgemental—’

‘Mr Huff has been resident in Pett Level for almost six weeks now,’ Alys interrupts, ‘and in that entire time has hardly breathed so much as a word to you, Carla. Perhaps you might be feeling a little … I don’t know … sidelined? Ignored? Piqued? ’

‘That’s ridiculous!’ I exclaim, horrified. ‘I never had any intention of speaking to the man! I’ve been actively avoiding him. Why else did I hire Mrs Barrow to clean the cottage? To act as a go-between? I was actually glad he didn’t approach me – relieved.’

‘Sorry …’ Alys interjects, ‘there’s interference on the line.’

‘I said I was glad he didn’t approach me,’ I repeat, louder, briefly desisting from my frenzied untangling.

‘Right. Okay. So that’s why you approached him this afternoon …’ she wryly observes.

‘I didn’t!’ I squeak. ‘He’s staying in the cottage, my cottage, and by all accounts he’s gradually dismantling it, piece by piece. His wife ran over Mame ’s cat, for heaven’s sake! What other option did I have? He lied about his true identity on the lease. They signed in under Ashe …’

‘Yes, yes. And of course you just naturally presumed …?’ I can hear the infuriating smile in Alys’s voice, and behind it (like the alternating layers of blue-grey wash in the lowering sky of a fine watercolour painting) a parrot muttering, ‘Baldo! Baldo! Baldo! Baldo!’ culminating with a deafening, ‘WAH!’

‘Presumed what?’ I demand, wincing (although I know exactly what she’s about to say).

‘That he wanted to talk to you . That he’s obsessed by you – stalking you . That you would naturally be the “crucial witness”. The main focus. The hidden key to it all! You’ve been actively looking forward to rejecting his advances, but he hasn’t actually made any. He’s been the perfect gentleman! Face it, Carla, you’re more obsessed than he is!’

‘I didn’t presume anything …’ I grumble, wounded. Once again – as a distraction – I start untangling the line. ‘Although it was perfectly reasonable to assume that after he’d approached pretty much everyone even remotely connected to the Cleary visit … I mean he tracked down the milk man, Alys! Old Billy Peck who was always deaf as a post. He tracked him down. And the woman who ran the mobile library – I don’t even remember her name!’

‘Meredith Brown. So perhaps he got what he needed from other sources?’ Alys suggests brightly.

‘Yes. Yes . Maybe he did.’ I sullenly play along.

‘I mean it’s not anything too in-depth that he’s after, just a series of captions for this little book of photographs. By Kimberly Couzens. That Canadian woman. The photographer. You know – the one who was with Mr Cleary when …’

‘Well hopefully he’s satisfied with what he’s got,’ I concur, moving a couple of feet closer to the window (as a consequence of my untangling), ‘and now he’ll clear off and leave us all in peace.’

‘Hopefully,’ she echoes (perhaps not entirely convinced).

‘Is it raining in Hove?’ I wonder.

‘It was earlier. Fairlight?’

‘Tipping it down.’

I gaze out at the rain.

‘Are you thinking of heading back?’ Alys wonders, after a brief silence.

‘Sorry?’

‘To the cottage. To sort it all out.’

‘No!’ I snort, then, ‘Yes. I am, actually. But he’ll probably be home again by now.’

‘You should go anyway, and if he is there, apologize. Make it heartfelt. It was an awful thing to do, Carla. He’ll think you’re completely unbalanced!’

I grimace.

‘And after I told him – at such unbearable length – about what a dear little lamb you are!’ she murmurs, softening.

I promptly baaaa (it’s automatic, semi-ironic, perfectly sincere). I have always – always – been Alys’s dear, little lamb.

‘Exactly!’ She chuckles. ‘But don’t just hang around in Fairlight pointlessly over-analysing everything like you normally do. Each second counts. Your honour is at stake here – and that of the entire community, by default,’ she adds.

Great. No pressure then. I solemnly inspect the rivulets of water trickling drably – incessantly, wetly – down the windowpane. Of course she is right. Alys invariably is. I will go. I was angry. I was wrong. I have behaved like a maniac. I am at a moral disadvantage. It simply won’t do.

I draw a deep breath and steel myself, preparing to say my goodbyes, but am momentarily distracted by an unexpected rumble – very low, like a long, metal snake of conjoined supermarket trolleys being pushed, some distance away, across a wide expanse of tarmac. Oh God, I recognize that sound! My skin instantly starts to prickle its automatic response (Quick! Run , Carla, run !). Seconds later (and I haven’t even shifted by so much as a centimetre) – pouf! – my garden shed evaporates.

Baldo! Baldo! Baldo! Baldo! WAH!

WAH!

‘Sun’ near ‘cage’! Yay! ‘Sun’ near ‘cage’! Look at ‘sun’! Joy! Blink! Look at ‘sun’! Near ‘cage’. Happy. Happy ‘sun’. Rock, rock, rock. Happy!

Hup! Whassat? Eh? Ooogh! Ooogh! Oooooogh …! Urgh! Big poo! Aaah. Aaaah! Good.

Where’d it go?

Eh?

Twizzle head.

Eh?

Where’d poo go?

Ah!

Look! Look!

‘Seed bowl’!

Yay!

Baldo crap in ‘seed bowl’! Baldo crap in ‘seed bowl’!

Yay!

‘Sun’ near ‘cage’. Happy! Happy ‘sun’! Crap all done. Aaaah! Happy moment. Happy moment. Crap done. In bowl.

Now what?

Wanna fly! Wanna fly! Wanna fly!

Nest. Where’s nest? Why no nest? Wanna nest. Baldo find ‘twig’. Baldo find ‘straw’. Baldo find soft, soft, soft … Wanna fly! No. No. No fly. No nest. Sad. Sad moment. Sad Baldo.