Nicola Barker - Love Your Enemies

He opened his wallet, and as he did so he wondered where he could buy some wood locally. He felt like a kid again.

Steve had bought a copy of the American magazine Vanity Fair on his way to work that morning and had been reading it with great intensity for several hours. It was Tuesday. Melissa slunk around the shop, rearranging clothes, straightening clothes hangers, occasionally standing in the doorway and staring down the street in the intermittent sunlight. She felt distracted and miserable, not depressed though, it wasn’t a physical thing beyond her control, it was more a conscious state of mind, a decision. She felt distracted and despondent, but didn’t want to disturb Steve’s reading with her melancholy.

Steve was reading an article about how Richard Gere was a Buddhist. Occasionally he would pass on a comment about what he was reading. As she stood in the doorway he said, ‘I’d never have thought Gere would be a Buddhist. He doesn’t seem very serene or sincere. Apparently he spent quite a bit of time in a sort of monastery place in Tibet or somewhere.’ Melissa sighed and said, ‘Lots of stars are Buddhists. It involves chanting and candles and shit, doesn’t it? I think Tina Turner was one. Maybe it was someone else, though.’

Steve looked up again. ‘I think it was Tina. It changed her life after Ike.’

Melissa shrugged disinterestedly. Steve flicked through the pages again and then said, ‘I read a really interesting thing in here this morning on the tube, about an American psychiatrist called Dr Death who travels around the country getting first-time killers the death penalty by saying that he knows and can guarantee that someone is going to kill again.’

Melissa carried on staring down the road. She said, ‘That’s weird. Surely it’s impossible to tell whether someone is going to kill again, unless, I suppose, the person is mentally unbalanced.’

Steve stood up and rearranged the changing-room curtain. He said, ‘No, it doesn’t work like that. The whole point of him is that he testifies against first-time offenders, people who are apparently sane and have only murdered once. He uses strange moral arguments, as far as I can understand. If a killer has been very cool and calculating and mercenary about the murder and doesn’t really feel bad about what he has done, then he says that they are a sort of type, a kind of person who will have no qualms about killing again because they have a warped moral code; they aren’t insane, though. It’s really interesting. I haven’t done the article much justice.’

Melissa bit her lip. She was feeling uptight and sensitive. In her mind’s eye every arrow pointed at her. It was as though she was wearing a luminous dress and the world was all black. She said, ‘Are you getting at me, Steve?’

Steve stopped his tidying and stared at her incredulously. ‘We’re a bit sensitive today, aren’t we Melissa?’

She frowned. ‘Sod off.’

Steve sat down on the swivel chair by the till and moved around on it so that he faced Melissa directly. She was still staring out at the road with her back to him. He paused a while then said, ‘I don’t understand what’s upset you so much all of a sudden, would you mind explaining?’

Melissa remained silent for a moment and then said, ‘I feel like you’re getting at me in some way. Like you’re trying to make some kind of point. You’ve criticized me before for feeling and not acting, for not expressing myself and what I believe in with concrete acts. Maybe you think I’m a calculating person capable of really horrible things …’

Steve interrupted her, ‘I’ve not said or implied anything of the sort. For God’s sake Melissa, in your next breath you’ll be accusing me of comparing you to Richard Gere.’

Melissa grunted and crossed her arms. ‘Weren’t you?’

Steve paused a moment and then said, ‘Is something wrong with you today? Are you feeling ill?’

She shook her head.

‘Well, what is it then?’

After a few seconds she turned from the doorway and faced him. Her eyes were tearful, ‘I can’t explain it. It’s just that I feel so helpless and so furious inside at the same time.’

Steve frowned. ‘Like frustrated?’

She shrugged again, ‘I don’t think so. I know it sounds stupid, but it’s like I care about things so much and yet I don’t seem to be able to do anything, like I’m frozen. Everything around me affects me so much, sad things cloud me up inside, I feel so terrible about homelessness and sadness and AIDS, loads of things, but I feel as though I can make no difference, I can’t do anything to make things better. Nothing real, anyway.’

Steve looked mystified. He said, ‘I just don’t understand why it is that you feel compelled to feel bad about things all the time. It’s so bland and aimless. It’s like you’ve decided to feel bad just for the sake of it, just to look saintly and worthy. But you can’t even be specific about your so-called sympathies. Just caring about things doesn’t amount to much at the end of the day, it isn’t enough.’

An incident popped into his head from a few weeks back in which he and Melissa had been walking home from a club in central London very early in the morning. He had been dressed up for a night out with his hair gelled and some make-up. As they waited at the bus stop a small group of men had approached him and taunted him: they had shouted in his face and abused him. The bus arrived in a minute or so and he had gladly climbed aboard before the situation turned violent. Throughout this incident Melissa had said and done nothing. He hadn’t reprimanded her.

Melissa broke his reverie. ‘It’s not that I don’t do anything, that isn’t what matters. It’s caring about things that matters. I do care about things.’

Steve stopped the music tape and changed it to something quieter and gentler. He knew that she was being sincere, but he still couldn’t resist saying, ‘Please cheer up, Melissa, we still have to work together you know.’

Melissa clammed up. They sat in silence for a few minutes. Steve flicked through his magazine some more, but couldn’t concentrate. As a peace offering he said, ‘Do you fancy some tea? I’m making.’ Melissa shook her head sulkily. He made himself some tea and they sat in silence again. After a while he said, ‘Why don’t we cheer ourselves up with a bit of Power Selling?’ He picked up a silver jacket which had a picture of the Last Supper on its back made entirely out of different coloured beads. ‘You buy lunch if I sell this, OK?’

Melissa grimaced and marched off to make herself some coffee.

The next customer who came in was one of Steve’s regulars. He had a good body and gregarious tastes. He liked Steve and he liked the jacket. By the time that Melissa had finished making her drink a deal had been transacted. He’d bought the jacket and they’d arranged to go out for a drink together after work. Once he’d left the shop, Steve couldn’t resist saying, ‘God, I’m hungry.’

Melissa stared at him coolly. ‘I’m on a diet.’

Steve brushed a few tiny pieces of fluff from his tracksuit bottoms and ran a hand through his short, blond, bristly crew-cut. He said, ‘I’m getting myself a Big Mac, all right?’

It was nearly three o’clock by the time John got home. As he shut the front door his arms ached on account of his having carried home a large, new toolbox complete with saws, chisels, a power drill and a small chain-saw. He put his new purchases down in the hallway and went and stood in his front room, scratching, stroking his stomach meditatively. He didn’t have a garage; his front room would have to be as good as. He pushed his sofa up against a wall and dragged the two chairs into the hallway and then upstairs into his small bedroom. Next he got an old newspaper and used each page to wrap up various fragile glass and china objects before putting them into a box which he pushed into a corner of the room. He moved the bookcase into the hallway and pulled up the Turkish rug. He rolled it and leaned it up against the bookcase. The room was now much simpler and emptier. He dragged his new toolbox into the room and placed it in the middle of the floor, then opened it and arranged around it all the new things that he had bought so that he could inspect each item individually. He glanced at his watch, because he was waiting for a few deliveries. To pass the time while he waited he put on some plugs. Then he found a pencil, rubber, ruler and some paper and sat on the sofa making some initial, perfunctory plans. As his hand flew back and forth across the paper he felt the rest of his body relax, although the left-hand side of his anatomy was numb and heavy and his face was as pale and as puffy as dough.