Nicola Barker - Heading Inland

Lyndon calculated that if he stuck his knife in, just so, in that place where nothing particularly important was stationed. . He knew the distinction, it must be admitted, between grievous bodily harm and murder. Nick had his back to him. Lyndon’s knife was so sharp it slid in with ease.

Nick had arrived, finally. This was his moment. He was so happy because everyone was shouting and looking and touching and pushing and staring. Finally the crowds cleared and a doctor stood before him.

‘Let’s see,’ he said, swabbing Nick’s wound with cotton wool, assessing its relative anatomical insignificance. This was Casualty. He was busy.

Even so, Nick was losing an unusually large amount of blood. The doctor felt Nick’s pulse. It was weak. He used his stethoscope. He could hear almost nothing. The faintest of sounds.

Nick stared up at the doctor, full of joy, and debated whether to tell him his secret. He opened his mouth, he breathed in, he was just about to, and then something wonderful occurred to him. Wouldn’t it be great, wouldn’t it be just the best thing ever, if he left the doctor to find out for himself? How exciting that would be. What a revelation!

After Nick died, the doctor spent a long while marvelling over his peculiar insides. And the coroner did, too. And the student working alongside the coroner. He’d never seen anything quite like Nick before. All back to front! Nick was his first. Nick was very special. Yes, he was. He was.

Davy swore to himself, that day on the New Plaistow Road, that even if he lived to be one hundred years old, he would never ask a woman out again. Not like that. Not cold . ‘Next time,’ he decided, ‘I’ll be in a disco. I’ll ask her to dance, I’ll offer to buy her a drink. .’ A series of small questions. She could turn any single one of them down and he wouldn’t be irreparably injured. No matter how fine she was, how pretty.

Inside the café on the New Plaistow Road, Jodi, the girl he had asked, was wiping down a table. There was only one other person in the café. He was a short, squat man, a heavy drinker. His name was Leonard.

‘You bitch!’ Leonard said. ‘You turned him down flat, just like that. Do you know how much pluck it takes for a man to ask out a girl?’

Jodi had her back to him as he spoke. ‘Are you married, Leonard?’

She knew that he wasn’t. He wore a gold ring, like a wedding ring, very plain, but he was not married. Never had been. Brown and bitter was his poison. His father was Greek, his mother Italian. Both dead now. He was sixty-two years old, unemployed.

‘I am not married.’

She turned and faced him, one hand held aloft, clutching a moist cloth tightly so that no crumbs should fall from it, her other hand, open below, ready to catch.

‘Can you play chess, Leonard?’

He rubbed his nose, which was puce and bulbous. She thought his nose looked as if it was riddled with woodworm. Pores both full and black or gaping.

‘No chess. Dominoes.’

‘Well,’ she said, having established her position in her own mind very comfortably with these two questions, having justified herself quite adequately, ‘butt out.’

Davy opened his packet of cigarettes, removed one and stuck it between his lips. He squinted down at it as he fumbled in his pocket for his lighter. In his head her voice reverberated. She said, ‘D’you want a can of anything to take with you?’ She always said this to him when she totalled up his lunch on the till.

‘Not today,’ he said, breaking with tradition. ‘Actually. .’

‘OK.’ She was about to tell him how much he owed her.

‘Actually I wanted to ask you something.’

She looked up.

‘Yes?’

It occurred to Davy, at this moment, that most people would have said what , but she had said yes . Why is that? he thought. What does it mean? And then: Ask her, you fool.

‘I wondered if you’d come out with me some time. I mean tonight, maybe. Or Saturday.’

Jodi put her head to one side and stared at him. Her hair was carefully arranged in the strangest style. The first time he had gone to the café he had been confused by it, suspicious. Since then, however, quite spontaneously, he had decided that he liked it. Her hair was thick, straight, black, parted viciously, pulled into two fat plaits and these plaits curled into little, neat bundles on either side of her head; thick, black limpets. It was a weird, wretched, ridiculous, Germanic hairdo.

He was fashionable himself, did his hair in a self-conscious quiff at the front, at the back, a duck’s-arse. Fashionable he could understand, but strange? Had her hair been loose and straight, he would have propositioned her two weeks earlier.

Of course, Jodi hadn’t even noticed him. He was only another bloody customer.

Eventually she said, ‘I honestly don’t think it’s worth it.’

‘What?’

‘Put it this way. .’ She paused. He waited for her to tell him that she had a husband (no ring), a boyfriend, a sick mother. He wanted to say, ‘I work as a runner for a film company up West. I’m twenty-two. I’m actually very interesting. .’

‘Imagine,’ she said coldly, ‘if people were like. . if their faces were like television screens, and when any one person looked at another person they could see everything they were thinking and everything they had ever thought or said about each other. Well, if that were the case, you’d be looking at my screen, and let me tell you, right off, my screen would be completely blank. Just empty.’

Davy was silent for a moment and then he said, ‘How much do I owe you?’

‘Two fifty.’

He handed her the money.

‘Thanks.’

She opened the till and put it inside, then picked up a damp cloth which she kept behind the counter to wipe down the tables.

He said, ‘A simple yes or no would’ve been perfectly adequate.’

Jodi ignored this, ducked under the counter, walked to the table that he’d used and began to wipe it down.

She was too thin, he decided, and those stupid black plaits on either side of her head looked like Mickey Mouse ears.

‘See you.’

He walked out, relieved that only one other person had been present in the café to witness his humiliation. An old geezer who was always there, sitting at the corner table, smoking, half-pissed. Sweaty.

It was good and cool outside. He stopped next to the edge of the kerb and scrabbled around in the pockets of his jeans for his cigarettes. Screw her! he thought. Never-a-bloody-gain. No way.

‘You bitch!’ Leonard said.

Jodi listened to Leonard’s comments and responded appropriately. She then returned to the till, picked up a copy of The Times , turned it to the correct page and then folded it down to a manageable size before lounging against the counter and studying it.

Leonard stood up. She didn’t raise her eyes from the paper. He was an old bastard but a regular. She trusted him.

He staggered to the door, pulled it open and then stepped outside.

‘Hey. You, boy. You still hanging around here? Still after something?’ He coughed quietly, drew a glob of phlegm from his throat, into his mouth and then swallowed it down. Davy was inhaling on his cigarette. He turned and looked over his shoulder at Leonard.

‘Who, me?’

Leonard moved towards him. ‘Tell me something,’ he said. ‘How come women are so fucking stupid?’ He tapped the side of his head with a plump, yellowy forefinger. ‘No logic.’

‘What?’ With my luck, Davy was thinking, this fat old git’ll turn out to be her father.

‘Ask me about her,’ Leonard said. ‘Anything you like. I know everything about her.’

‘How come?’