Nicola Barker - Heading Inland

Chad charged into the street. Peter saw his lips moving. Give me that ! Jenny held the Soap Ball to her chest, with both hands. Nope. It’s mine ! Chad lunged at her. Jenny stepped aside. Jenny said Keep away from me with your dirty hair. All this soap and you’ve never even used it . Chad said Give it me! It’s mine ! Jenny said You had a wife and you had a education, so you say, and now you go in everyone’s bins taking their private things and their soaps and everything . Chad stopped then, stood stock still. He stared at Jenny with an odd expression on his face. Like she was worthless and he’d only just realized it.

Peter turned away from the window. Suddenly he felt quite sick, a curious feeling in his stomach. He sat down for a moment on Jenny’s bed to try to collect himself. You see, he’d just had a premonition and it had struck him with such sharpness, such clarity. He’d just had a vision. It was the future. Ten years. Chad and Jenny, living together in this small flat. The walls a different colour. Everything dirtier. Jenny had a broken arm. Chad had a drink problem. They were happy together. Happy! She was defective and he loved her and she knew that he loved her. She did. She did.

Peter stood up, gingerly.

Jenny held the Soap Ball. It was all she’d imagined. Heavy and spiky, like a deep sea creature, like one of those puffer fish that sometimes you saw dried and suspended in dusty old museums near to the coast.

The first thing she noticed was his handwriting. She was taking classes, you see, in handwriting analysis. His name was Parker Swells. She thought it was a silly name, not a name she could believe in. And his handwriting sloped to the left, wasn’t confident, was ill-constructed. There were breaks where there should be joins, no flow, no coherence.

Under Previous Experience — when she checked his application form — he had written: Builder . In one glance she saw how he’d left school at sixteen with no exams, but now. . one two three. . now he had eight O levels and four A levels. Maths, economics, sociology, physics.

But he was a builder. And you’d think, she thought, that if he was a builder then he’d consider how he wrote things, keep straight on the line, not dip below, and make sure that the overall effect was clear and true. You’d think so.

She’d only met him briefly, when she’d sat in on the interview. They’d liked him. He came over well, seemed nervous but didn’t fidget. He had a habit of blowing his fringe out of his eyes. What could that mean? She scratched her ear. Maybe he needed a haircut.

Her name was Bethan and she was a personnel officer. She was responsible for the second interview, the recall. And in this arena she brought to bear all the things she’d learned at college and at night school, and on the job, naturally, about the corporation and the kind of person who’d fit best. The corporate man. Or woman.

Tell me , she’d said, on her quiz form, which you would prefer if given the choice: a well-crafted gun or a beautiful poem?

Tell me , she said, just underneath, in your own words, what was the best thing that happened to you last weekend?

Parker Swells was not his real name. He’d done things he’d regretted in the past thirty-three years, and he had a child in Norfolk that he didn’t want to answer for to the CSA. No way.

It was a desk job he was after at one of the four big banks. He’d passed three lots of accountancy exams. He’d walked the first interview and this was his second. Filling in a quiz form full of patronizing psychological pish.

After inspecting the form for the third time, Parker wondered whether to write what he really thought or whether to write the kinds of answers he knew they’d like to hear. But how in-depth were these things? Could they tell he was lying if he did lie? Could they ascertain by the way you dotted your i s and crossed your t s that you weren’t being wholly sincere? What exactly were they capable of, nowadays? His pen wavered.

Bethan had withdrawn to her office, through a door to the left. The door was ajar though and Parker could see her ankle and the toe of her black patent leather shoe. She had dark hair and brown eyes and she was going somewhere. No wedding ring. A lambswool polo-neck which clung at her throat as tight and sure as the skin of a banana. She was slim. She was untroubled. She could afford to think about why people behaved as they did. To judge. Her life had been exemplary. She needed no excuses.

Tell me , the paper read, which you would prefer if given the choice: a well-crafted gun or a beautiful poem?

He’d been a builder. He liked tools and a gun was a practical thing. He had no moral objection to firearms. But his hand, his right hand, had been badly damaged in an accident, and so, realistically, unless he could learn to aim and shoot with his left hand — as he’d learned to write, and that had been a battle — then it would be of no real use to him.

He was shy about his right hand. It was fingerless, supporting only a thumb. He kept it in his pocket or behind his back. People rarely noticed.

Parker picked up his pen with his left hand. He reappraised the sheet of questions. What did they want him to write? In a company this big and this brutal, he supposed the gun, really. And the way the place had been built, out of steel and glass, all smooth edged and modern. A gun.

Even so, he was only one person in this whole corporation, one piece, one part. And he had a gammy hand. And he had no real use for a firearm. He wasn’t afraid of anything. He had no scores to settle. He didn’t like loud noises, nor did his neighbours. Maybe the poem.

But Parker couldn’t remember ever reading a poem. He’d read limericks. He listened to songs and memorized the words.

My old hen, she’s a good old hen

She lays eggs for the railway men.

Sometimes one, sometimes two,

Sometimes enough for the whole darn crew.

He liked that.

Bethan picked up Parker’s quiz form. In the gap under the question about the gun and the poem he had written:

Depends on what the company wants. If they want a troubleshooter, I can do that. Give me the gun. If they want someone with flair and sensitivity, I can do that too. Pass me the poem. I can be both of these things. I can be all of these things. I want everything. I want nothing. I am adaptable.

She pushed her hair behind her ear. He was evasive, she decided, and yet assertive. He was confident. But at the same time, he didn’t feel sure enough of himself to opt for one thing or the other. Maybe he didn’t like making choices. Maybe he didn’t enjoy making decisions. He was slippery.

Her eye travelled lower. She sighed at the way he’d mixed upper case and lower case letters. She started reading again.

What was the best thing that happened to you last weekend?

Here he had written:

Good things often come out of bad. Last weekend I got a message from a friend of mine. His name is Josh and we met at night school. During the day he works for a tool-hire company. Josh is friendly with another mate of mine, Sam, and sometimes we kick a ball around together in the park on a Saturday.

Three weeks ago we were playing and I accidentally fouled Sam. I kicked his shin with my spikes and grazed it. It bled a little. We parted on bad terms, but worse things have happened, so I didn’t think anything of it and waited with Josh down at the park for him the week after.

But Sam didn’t show. The week after that, either. It started to bug me. Maybe he was angry with me. Maybe he thinks I’m too bullish on the field. Maybe he really hates me. All stupid thoughts, but I was so cut up about it, this falling out, I even tried to ring once but he wasn’t in. I didn’t have the balls to try again.