Nicola Barker - Reversed Forecast / Small Holdings

He watched as she pushed her hand through her hair. He thought, She’s still wearing too much make-up and her skirt is too tight. Paradoxically, these familiar flaws made him feel inexplicably fond.

‘Can I come in?’

‘Um.’ She thought about this for a moment. ‘Why don’t we go out for a drink? I can run up and fetch my coat.’

‘And put some shoes on.’ He pointed to her stockinged feet.

‘Yeah.’ She turned. ‘Wait here.’

He ignored this and followed her, up the stairs and into her flat.

Her jacket was slung over the arm of a chair. She grabbed it and frantically looked around for her shoes. He stood in the doorway and appraised the room, wondering what it could be that she was so keen to conceal. Someone was in the bathroom. He could hear a tap running. She pulled on a pair of boots. ‘That’s Toro,’ she said, ‘washing his face.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s drunk. He won on a couple of races this morning.’

Steven stared at the bathroom door, waiting for it to open.

She checked in her pocket for her keys. ‘Right, let’s go.’

‘Don’t you want to tell him?’

‘What?’

‘That you’re going out.’

She stood in front of him, awkwardly, her eyes unblinking, hiding something. ‘No.’

He looked not at her but over her shoulder.

‘How about that person on the floor?’

‘Who?’

She turned. ‘Oh. Him. He’s fine.’

Vincent lay on his back, spread-eagled across the carpet, his head hidden from view behind the sofa.

‘Is he sleeping or what?’

She sighed. ‘It’s not a problem.’

Before he could respond to this she said, ‘How do you manage to always make me feel so bloody guilty?’

He shrugged. He just had that knack. They both knew the reason. He disapproved of her. He liked her, but he thought her capable of behaving, at times, stupidly and carelessly. She allowed her life to become sordid. He found this hateful.

He walked over to where Vincent lay. ‘Who is he? Do I know him?’

‘No.’

‘Is he all right?’

‘I think so. He passed out.’

‘When?’

‘Five minutes ago.’

‘His head’s disgusting.’

‘He did it this morning.’

‘He must be concussed. Has he been drinking?’

She smiled, unhappy. ‘He got shit-faced with Toro. One minute he was chatting away, the next, pop! Flat out.’

‘Is he breathing?’

Ruby stepped across Vincent’s prone body and lifted one of his eyelids to reveal the white of his eye. ‘He’s out cold.’

She stood up again.

‘You aren’t just going to leave him there?’

‘Yes, I am.’

Some things she’d always disliked about Steven. He liked order and he didn’t often do dirty or grubby things. She believed that he thought them, but he wouldn’t do them, wouldn’t let them happen. So he disapproved of her for letting them happen. And I do, she thought, I really do.

Toro staggered out of the bathroom, barely acknowledging them both, stumbled into the living-room and sat down on the sofa.

‘I’ll meet you in the pub,’ Steven said, his tone measured. The Blue Posts.’

‘Right. Give me five minutes.’

There’s a line, he thought, heading down the stairs, a fine line between being soft and being stupid. She can’t see it.

It was a moral flaw. He believed this. But morality didn’t interest him, only manners.

Ruby wandered into her bedroom to find a blanket. After a short, fruitless search she pulled one from her bed and carried it into the sitting-room. She wondered whether it was preferable to let Toro stay or to make him go home, but by the time she’d returned with the blanket that decision had already been made. Toro was stretched out on the sofa, covered in his coat, fast asleep and snoring.

She looked down at her wrist-watch. It was only eight-thirty. She made her way over to where Vincent lay and covered him with the blanket. She touched his hand, which felt stiff and cold, so she knelt down next to his head and put her ear close to his mouth. His breath touched her ear and tickled it.

She turned her head to stare at him. His face was tense, even in sleep. He was frowning. She inspected the skin on his cheeks very closely: the pores, the paleness and the small, reddish bristles of his beard. Her eyes were drawn to the bump on his forehead which now appeared much angrier and tighter than before, and the cut, much purpler. A few of the hairs in his fringe had bent down into the mouth of the cut. She repressed the desire to move them, to pull them out, in case this should wake him.

She moved back a fraction, still staring. He looked gruff but intelligent. He seemed troubled. She thought, I wonder what he does? She had a suspicion that he didn’t do anything.

She frowned and then pulled the blanket up and tucked it around his chin.

Steven had already bought her a drink.

‘Thanks.’

She took it from him and sipped it. She had known him for six months. He was her oldest friend in London. He’d lived in London all his life. He was an expert at it. She’d arrived six months previously from Sheffield. They’d met at night-school on a photography course.

‘Would you do me some photos?’ he said.

She grimaced.

They’d bought a camera together, during their single month of intimacy. She’d kept it. He liked borrowing it. Borrowing her. Will he ask about Vincent? she wondered. Will he moan about Toro? Steven knew Toro of old and hated him. Not so much hates, she decided, just doesn’t have the time.

‘If we arrange it for Tuesday,’ he said, ‘that’d be good. Four, half-four.’

The ceiling, she noted, was stained beige with smoke. In centuries to come, she thought, scientists will find this ceiling and they’ll have the equipment to analyse the smoke, to tell something about the lives of every single person that ever exhaled in this pub.

Ruby. Unnatural blonde. Never wore matching underwear. A pushover.

‘Hang on,’ he said, ‘make it five, to be on the safe side.’

Steven. Big hands. Nice face. Small ears. Gives Ruby a hard time.

Steven wrote down the address. ‘They’re called Sam and Brera. Brera’s Irish. You’ll like them.’

He handed her the slip of paper. ‘Don’t lose it.’

She frowned at him.

‘Yeah, well, I know how you are.’

She recognized several people in the pub. Punters. Where do they get their money from? she wondered. Not from me. Losing’s the whole point of a gamble.

‘Be professional,’ he said, slightly embarrassed to be asking. ‘Take the tripod and everything. Also, this might sound stupid, but, well, try and ignore the smell.’

She tried to remember the last time she’d had a bath. Last night? Yesterday morning?

‘Did Toro go?’

She shook her head. Here it comes, here it comes. I’m stupid, I’m useless.

As he spoke she wove a fantasy out of different parts of the pub’s decor: the colour of the liquor in the bottles, the texture of the barman’s starched, white shirt. In this fantasy, she was very rich, she did what she liked. No one told her what to do.

Vincent opened his eyes. Black. He turned his head to try to look around him. It was then that he realized that he had no head. He didn’t attempt to confirm or deny this possibility by touching his face. He said, ‘If I have no head, how can I touch my face?’ and then, ‘God, my voice sounds strange. Where’s it coming from? My armpit? My arse?’ Wouldn’t be the first time, he thought.

After a moment’s consideration he said, ‘Why am I talking out loud? Maybe I’m not talking at all. Maybe all this darkness is only inside me. Fuck.’

He staggered to his feet and banged his leg against the stereo. It rattled. The room wasn’t completely dark, but even so, he still had some trouble locating objects and moving without collision.