Pat Barker: Another World

Nick opens the living-room door, sees buckets, cloths, scrapers and a stepladder. My God, she means it. A choppy sea of paint-daubed dust sheets covers the floor. Jasper’s marooned behind the gauze mesh of his playpen, one cheek scarlet. Nick rests his own cheek against it as he carries him down to the kitchen. ‘That rotten old tussie-peg bothering you? You’re in the wars, aren’t you, son?’

Like your dad. Last thing he needs after being stuck in a board meeting with a load of vacillating academics is to spend the evening decorating. Couple of stiff gins and something mindless on the box. Make sure of the gins anyway. One-handed, he opens the freezer and gropes about for the ice tray. ‘I can’t seem to find any ice.’

Fran’s voice from along the corridor. ‘Try harder, darling.’

There isn’t any, beloved. Back across the floor, picking his way between red, yellow, blue and orange men wielding the tools of their various trades — full employment in the plastic world anyway — he opens the fridge door. No lemons. Ah well. Dragging Jasper’s toy box into the middle of the floor, he begins sweeping up workmen with dustpan and brush and throwing them into the box. Jasper screams with rage and takes them out again. ‘Don’t do that, Jasper,’ Nick says, uncoiling his son’s sticky fingers from an orange plumber.

Jasper screams again, louder, bringing Fran down the stairs, open-armed and indignant. ‘Do you have to do that, Nick? There must be a better way.’

Nick swigs his ice-less, lemon-less gin. Fran heaves one huge breast out of her sweatshirt and plugs the howling child on to it. There’s something disturbing about his broad sticky hand kneading Fran’s breast. High time he was weaned, it isn’t good for her. The drained face, the straggly hair, the huge belly, the skinny, sharp-boned cat-with-too-many-litters look, it reminds Nick of some awful Victorian pamphlet advocating the virtues of self-restraint. Not that he’s exactly tempted to abandon it. The truth is he’s repelled by her, but the truth frightens him and he sheers away from it. Jasper stares at him accusingly round the curve of his mother’s breast. ‘Sorry,’ Nick says, sitting down and immediately leaping up again. ‘What on earth is that?’

‘He was sick,’ says Fran distantly. ‘I’ve been meaning to clear it up.’

Miranda comes into the kitchen in time to see Nick drop his trousers. ‘Can I help?’ she asks, looking from Fran’s breasts to Dad’s Thing and rapidly down at the floor.

‘Throw it out,’ Fran says.

Miranda stares at her.

‘The cushion. I’m not washing it.’

Miranda picks up the cushion fastidiously between thumb and forefinger, and takes it outside.

Silence. Nick says, ‘I better phone in the order if we’re having pizzas.’

‘All right.’

She sounds indifferent, her attention focused entirely on Jasper. Look at me, Nick wants to say. Instead he goes to the bottom of the stairs and calls Gareth, who for once appears without having to be threatened or cajoled. Perhaps he’s hungry. Or perhaps he senses there’s something going on.

Nick rings in the order. He has to repeat the address.

‘That’s not the Summerfield estate, is it?’

‘No.’

‘Only we don’t deliver there.’

‘How long will you be?’

‘Half an hour.’

‘Half an hour,’ Nick repeats, replacing the receiver.

‘Believe that, you’ll believe anything,’ says Gareth. They’ll get lost.’

‘No, they won’t. But I think we might as well get started, don’t you?’

Nick and Fran look at each other.

‘Right. I’ll see you in there,’ she says.

In the living room, Nick and Miranda pick up their scrapers in silence. Barbara’s moods had brought them closer together. Fran’s can’t be mentioned.

After a while Nick asks, ‘Where’s Gareth?’

‘I don’t know.’

He goes to the door. ‘Where’s Gareth?’

Fran hands Jasper over. ‘I’m on my way.’

Shouts from upstairs, then Gareth appears, looking shocked. ‘Mum switched my computer off.’

‘Don’t worry,’ says Nick. ‘It’s not a life-support machine.’

Gareth looks at the buckets. ‘Do we have to?’

‘Yes,’ says Fran.

‘Why can’t we decorate our own rooms?’

‘Because we’re a family,’ Nick says. ‘And this is our room.’

Jasper, arms on the rails of his playpen, nappy sagging between his knees, swigging orange juice from his bottle, looks like a bucolic and disreputable Farmer Giles. Peal after peal of laughter greets the children’s efforts to splash wallpaper remover on to the walls without getting it in their eyes, and when Gareth trips over a bucket and falls headlong Jasper chuckles round the teat till he nearly chokes.

‘Oh, very bloody funny,’ Gareth says.

The wallpaper darkens under their cloths. At first Nick tries to talk, but then, when there’s no response, turns on the radio.

‘Christ,’ Gareth says.

‘Choose what you want, then.’

Gareth fiddles with the knobs, producing a blare of sound that makes conversation impossible. They scrape away, the paper coming off inch by painful inch. Half an hour passes, then a further ten minutes.

‘Told you they’d get lost,’ Gareth says.

Jasper’s getting tired. He pulls at his ears, dribbles and wails until eventually Fran picks him up and sniffs his crotch. ‘I think he needs changing.’

‘Can we change him for one that doesn’t scream?’ Gareth asks.

The nappy’s full and pungent. Fran presses her hand hard into the small of her back, as she kneels down.

‘You sit down,’ Nick says. ‘I’ll do it.’

Fran won’t use disposable nappies, because of the rain forests or blue algae or something. Normally Nick’s a dab hand with squares of cotton and Velcro, but tonight he’s tired, and suddenly Jasper seems to have six heels and shit on every single one of them. Not solid either — a paste that spreads relentlessly from bottom to feet to hands to oh my God his mouth.

Very distinctly, as if giving lessons in elocution, Fran says, ‘Nick, you are without doubt the most completely useless man it has ever been my misfortune to meet.’

Nick throws down the nappy, and walks off.

‘Would you pass the baby wipes, Miranda?’ Fran asks.

Miranda hands her the box, and in the process gets a closer look at Jasper. ‘Ugh. Oh dear.’ She swallows hard. ‘Would you mind if I sat down?’

‘What’s wrong with you? ’ Fran asks.

‘ “I think I’m going to faint,”’ warbles Gareth.

‘Nothing.’

‘Is it your period?’

‘ No ,’ says Miranda, with an agonized glance at Gareth. ‘I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep very well.’

‘She’s afraid of ghosts,’ says Gareth.

‘I’m not ’

‘There aren’t any ghosts,’ says Nick sharply.

‘There aren’t any pizzas either.’

Nick draws a deep breath. ‘I’ll ring.’

In the hall he stands for a moment, gazing up into the darkness at the top of the stairs. He didn’t like that remark of Gareth’s about Miranda being afraid of ghosts. Gareth’s capable of playing some very cruel games, but there’s nothing he can do about that at the moment. Pizzas, he thinks, and reaches for the phone.

A brief, acrimonious conversation, then he bangs the phone down and goes back into the living room. ‘Another ten minutes.’

‘Ssh,’ says Fran, who’s trying to get Jasper off to sleep.

Miranda’s picked up her scraper again.

‘Sure you’re all right?’ Nick asks.

‘Fine.’

They must have been working in total silence for five minutes when Gareth says, ‘I’ve found a foot.’