Nicola Barker - Reversed Forecast / Small Holdings

The park was quiet. Fifteen yards to her left she noticed a young girl and a woman standing by the lake’s edge. The girl was eating a sandwich. She looked about five years old. The woman, who Sylvia presumed to be the child’s mother, bent down to talk to her and then walked away. Sylvia decided that she must be going to the seafood stall on the park’s perimeter. She frowned and thought, That girl looks too young to be left alone. Everything’s big. There are so many possibilities. None of them good.

Her attention was distracted by a tatty flotilla of Canada geese who were gradually making their way towards the edge of the lake. She stood up, pushed some hair behind her ears and strolled over to them. They crowded around the bank as Sylvia squatted down and smiled at them. A couple of them honked their admiration. She reached out a slow hand and rubbed the edges of the closest bird’s beak. This was a form of caress that most birds usually understood.

As she petted the geese Sylvia noticed that the girl was moving towards her. She was small and skinny with wide blue eyes and yellow curls. She sidled up to Sylvia with her sandwich in one hand and a fold of her skirt in the other, which she pulled and twisted with tiny fingers.

Some of the geese turned their heads to stare at her. One or two backed away, but a couple of them noticed the bread in her hand. Sylvia saw the bread too. She stood up and looked down at the child. On her sandwich was a mixture of cheese and luncheon meat. She said, ‘Birds like cheese. It’s full of fat which is good for them.’

The girl gazed at Sylvia and gave a small laugh. She seemed too young to make conversation so Sylvia stood in silence for a few seconds and stared at the geese and the water. The girl let go of her skirt and tossed a piece of cheese from her sandwich on to the ground by her feet. It landed at least half a metre from the edge of the lake. One of the geese stretched out its neck to try to reach the cheese, but it was too far away. Sylvia frowned. ‘If you’re going to feed them, then place the cheese closer. They won’t bite.’

The girl looked up. Her face seemed very tiny to Sylvia, and yet everything about it was adult, especially its expression, which was puffy and petulant. Even so, it was a child’s face. She looked straight into Sylvia’s eyes and said, ‘Why should I?’

Sylvia paused and contemplated this question. ‘Because you have to treat other animals with respect. If you don’t, then they won’t respect you.’

The girl moved forward slightly and pushed the cheese closer to the edge of the lake with her toe. As she did this, the pressure from her shoe covered the cheese with sand and dirt. Nevertheless, the goose reached for it again, stretching its neck thinly across the bank and opening its beak to try to grasp the cheese. But before it could do so, the little girl had lifted up one of her feet and had kicked at the gravel and dirt in front of her, blinding the goose with a spray of soil and stones.

It only took an instant. Before she knew what she was doing, Sylvia had grabbed hold of the girl and had thrown her, arms waving, legs kicking, into the lake. When it was done, she thought, Maybe she can’t swim. What if the lake is deeper than it seems?

But it was too late. She was running.

She didn’t turn back to look at the lake or the geese or the girl. She thought she heard screaming, but by then she was right by the park gates and on her way home. Not a scream, she decided, panting already, struggling to breathe. Not a scream, but the call of a crow.

Ruby unlocked the door and automatically reached out her hand for the light switch. She stopped herself just in time, feeling the switch with the tip of her finger but applying no pressure. Instead she paused in the doorway for a moment in order to adjust her eyesight to the room’s darkness. After a few seconds she could make out the shape of a figure on the couch – Toro, still snoring – and she could also see, if she stood on tip-toe, beyond the sofa, where Vincent’s blanket was bundled up into a deceptively large pile.

Very gently she closed the door behind her. She fancied a cup of coffee but didn’t want to wake her guests, so she settled for a glass of water and then padded quietly into the bathroom.

It smelled. She closed the door and switched on the light. She was positive that the smell was of vomit, but could see no sign of it. She inspected the toilet bowl, which looked clean, but squirted some bleach down there for good measure.

After completing her ablutions, she switched off the bathroom light and made her way blindly into her bedroom. Before she closed the door she felt under the handle on both sides for the keyholes, located the key on the other side, took it out, pushed it in on her side, pulled the door to and locked it.

The small window in her bedroom let in just enough light. She pulled off her clothes and hunted around on the floor for something suitable to wear. Eventually she found a large T-shirt which she put on and pulled down.

She climbed into bed. Her blankets were rucked up and jumbled. She put out a hand to pull one over and then gasped as she touched something warm and bristly.

There lay Vincent in a state of irritable semi-wakefulness. He opened one eye and stared at her. ‘Get your hands off my neck.’

She sprang out of bed. ‘Christ! I locked myself in here and you’re in here already.’

He pulled himself up on to his elbows, thought about saying something, opened his mouth to say it, but no words came out, only liquid.

Ruby was almost sick herself, but not in sympathy, not exactly.

‘Get out of my bloody bed! You could be anybody!’

‘I am anybody.’

He rolled over, stood up and staggered towards the door clutching his stomach. He pulled at the door handle with his free hand but it wouldn’t open, so he threw up against it, then fell to his knees and inspected his handiwork.

‘That’s my kidney, liquidized.’

Ruby snatched a cardigan from the floor and wrapped it around her.

He groaned, ‘You really think I intend taking advantage of you when I’m crippled by some kind of chronic gastric disorder?’

She pushed past him and switched on the light. They both blinked. Ruby’s eyes adjusted. Vincent’s wouldn’t focus. He removed a hand from his gut long enough to touch his forehead and then clutched his stomach again, leaning forward. Ruby, fearing more mess, looked around for something he could vomit into, but didn’t have a rubbish bin in the room or anything like a bowl or bag. Instead she grabbed hold of an old broken guitar without strings that was leaning against the wall. She thrust it towards him. ‘Don’t you dare be sick on the floor again.’

Vincent stared at the guitar. ‘If you’re expecting me to vomit into a musical instrument, I’d prefer a trumpet.’

He leaned even further forward and put a hand across his mouth, speaking through his fingers, ‘Just open the door.’

She dumped the guitar, turned the key in the lock and pulled the door wide. He crawled through, and, after a moment’s hesitation, dragged himself into the bathroom. Ruby glanced over at her bed and saw that his vomit was a particularly strange colour: a harsh taramasalata pink.

When Vincent crawled back out of the bathroom a short while later, he paused in the doorway and watched as Ruby stuffed all affected linen into a refuse bag. She scowled at him. ‘This pink stuff is like something you’d serve with crackers.’

She went and found a cloth in the kitchen and began to scrub at the door and the carpet. Vincent made no attempt to help her or to arrange himself comfortably. Instead he lay in a clumsy heap next to the wall.

She walked over to inspect him. He looked pale and sweaty. She prodded him with her toe.