Nicola Barker - Love Your Enemies

It was a dull afternoon, so inside the house the lights were on downstairs. Melissa uttered a sigh of relief. On the tube she had worried that he would be out and that she would be forced to call again. Drawing up close to the door, she put out a wet hand and rang the bell.

John was busy in his living-room tacking a series of woodwork-made-simple illustrations on to the wall. Next to these were a selection of illustrations of Warhol’s work, and of course, centrally positioned, an illustration of his Campbell’s soup cans. These he had enlarged on a photocopier earlier that day.

That morning John had been out shopping. He had bought a comprehensive selection of brushes and paints which he had selected with painstaking attention to colour.

His entire body shuddered when the doorbell rang. He wasn’t expecting a call and he had no desire to see anyone. He felt like a tiny sea mussel which was snug and moist inside its charcoal shell, waiting for the sea and yet not waiting, independent, serene.

The doorbell rang again. He pushed the last pin into the wall and then hurried to answer it. When he opened it his immediate thoughts were, ‘Who is she, and what the hell is she doing here?’

Melissa could barely recognize the man she had spoken to the day before. He looked entirely different. He seemed a lot thinner and younger out of his suit. His brown hair was obviously unbrushed and his face seemed worn and wary. This effect — she decided — might have been exacerbated by the slight shadow of a beard that he had grown overnight.

After he had opened the door he stared at her for a moment and touched his chin with his hand. She said, ‘Hello. I don’t expect that you’ll remember me but I was at the shop yesterday when …’ — she paused for a moment — ‘… when you wanted to buy some material.’ He frowned and rubbed his chin some more. She added, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve interrupted you but I’ve got some of the material that you wanted.’ She indicated the bag with a slight movement of her head. He said, ‘I haven’t shaved today,’ and before she could reply he added, ‘but then why the hell should I? I’m my own boss.’

In his mind he thought of the incident on Charing Cross Road a couple of days before and smiled to himself. Then he reached out his hands towards the bag she was holding. ‘Let me take that from you. I suppose the least I could do is offer you a hot drink. It’s very wet.’

Melissa wasn’t sure whether it was sensible to follow him in, especially after Steve’s warning on the previous day, but she was cold and damp. To cover herself she said pointedly, ‘Steve would have come but he’s busy at the shop. He sends his best wishes.’ Then she followed him in and closed the door behind her.

John walked through the hallway and into the kitchen. In the living room the radio was spilling out the top twenty at full volume. He switched on the kettle with one hand and then reached inside the bag that she had brought and whistled. ‘How did you guess what sort of amount I’d need?’

She shrugged and this movement tipped a hundred tiny rain-drops snailing down her mac. ‘Well, I thought it’d need to be quite wide and very long if it was for a coffin. I didn’t know whether you’d line the lid as well so I got extra.’

He looked at her sharply. ‘Good point.’

He hadn’t got round to considering this yet himself. Then he said uncomfortably, ‘I’d forgotten that I’d mentioned that it was for my …’ — he paused — ‘… the coffin.’

She looked past him and towards the kettle, from which steam was now emerging, ‘Yes, you did. Do you mind if I take my mac off? I’m a bit damp.’

He reached out a hand for the mac, slung it over the draining board and then removed two mugs from underneath it with one hand. She said, ‘Let me take the material and get it out of harm’s way. You don’t want to spill coffee on it or get it wet.’

He gave her the bag and said, ‘Put it on the sofa in the living room. I’ll bring the coffee through.’

She nodded. ‘Milk, no sugar please,’ and moved off in the direction he’d indicated.

John switched off the kettle and made the coffee. He felt jittery and nervous. He was embarrassed by the idea of having a strange woman in his home, but was even more uneasy when he considered the scrawled message that he’d accidentally acquired the previous day. Suddenly it was very important to him that she should not think that she could see through him again. He was determined to be something more than what she had seen the day before, to create a new life out of nothing for himself before he died, to become something significant, something exceptional and extraordinary. He picked up the coffee cups and padded into the living room.

Melissa was sitting on the sofa paging through one of his coffee-table design books. She had turned the radio off. She looked up, smiled and reached out her hand for the coffee. He tried not to spill any when he passed it to her. She said, ‘You’ve got a weird set-up here. A lot of the young designers that I know work from home. Have you only just got started?’

He shook his head quickly. ‘No. Well, yes. I used to work for someone else and now I’ve set up on my own. This is one of my first private commissions, so it’s all a bit perfunctory.’

She smiled. ‘That shows great initiative.’

He tried not to let her patronizing tone affect his expression. She frowned. ‘I didn’t mean that to sound patronizing. I suppose I’m just a bit jealous. I’d love to have the nerve to do something like this; you know, to be independent and creative. I don’t really have the gumption.’ She paused and then said, ‘I made this shirt I’m wearing myself.’ He studied the shirt. It was rather unusual but well-tailored in a purple silky material. He said, ‘It’s nice.’ She shrugged and sipped her coffee.

He felt slightly strange talking about someone else for a change, given that his thoughts had become so charged and introspective over the past few days. He relaxed. ‘No, I mean it. It’s very stylish. It’s just as smart as anything that you see in the shops. It’s certainly a lot better made than most stuff you can buy.’

She smiled. He could see by the confidence in her eyes that he had won her over. She was now at her ease and believed the entire situation to be as it seemed. She said, ‘I can’t deny that I was surprised when you said that you made coffins the other day.’

He leaned against the work-bench and warmed his hands on his cup. ‘Oh yeah? Didn’t I fit neatly into whatever categorizations you have for carpenters or coffin makers?’

She shook her head and had the good grace to appear embarrassed. ‘Maybe I should be honest about this.’

He raised his eyebrows — he hoped encouragingly — and she continued, ‘Well, we play a lot of silly jokes in the shop, otherwise we get bored. Steve had dared me that I wouldn’t be able to guess the profession of the next person who came into the shop. I know this sounds silly. The next person that came into the shop who I didn’t already know was, well, was you and I thought on first impressions that you were a salesman or something. You have a very smooth, confident voice.’

John smiled. ‘But you were wrong.’

She smiled back. ‘I guess so.’

After a few seconds John put his coffee cup down and picked up the bag of material from the sofa. He touched it again and said, ‘If I was going to sleep for ever I’d want this softness to surround me. It’s incredible.’

Melissa nodded. She said warmly, ‘I’m really keen to know what you are intending to do with it.’

He suddenly felt very shy. ‘It’s not all that interesting.’ He loved the feel of the material but hadn’t really fitted it as yet into the great scheme of things. He stared at it for a moment, then his heart lifted and he said, ‘In fact this is quite incredible. Yesterday when I saw this material I didn’t really have the first clue about what design I was going to use for this piece. I was just drawn to it because it was gorgeous. But last night I made a few plans without even considering this fabric as a part of the scheme, and believe it or not, it fits in perfectly. It’s fantastic!’