Nicola Barker - Love Your Enemies

He tried to stop looking frivolous and lowered his voice in an attempt at sincerity. ‘Go on, tell me. Of course I won’t make fun of you. I’m really interested.’

She paused a moment and then fiddled for a second with the hem on her dress. ‘Well, it’s like… I don’t know … it’s like we’ve got so much in common. It’s sort of an attitude of mind, a creative sincerity, an intensity. It’s like we’re very similar as people. We want the same things. He made me feel inspired.’

Steve watched her very closely and then said, ‘Be honest, do you fancy the guy?’

She shook her head, ‘No, I don’t, he’s nice but that’s all. It’s more than that. It’s like we think in the same way. He says a lot of things that really reflect how I feel. He’s really interesting.’

Someone came into the shop and browsed around. As he kept an eye on them Steve said quietly, ‘Are you going to see him again then?’ She nodded. ‘Eventually.’ Then she picked up her copy of Vogue .

That morning John stayed in bed until ten. The previous night he’d worked without pause until the early hours and he awoke feeling worn and drained. Since the beginning of his illness he’d found the start of the day increasingly arduous and impossible. Nevertheless, on awakening he struggled up and slung on the previous day’s clothes — which were ingrained with sawdust and grime — and set off downstairs to make some tea and to get work underway.

The previous evening he’d negotiated the intricate process of creating a smooth circular shape out of one of his big blocks; a perfect curve to mirror the crude curve of the wood but more exact, manmade. It had been a complicated and painstaking procedure but already he was making progress and was optimistic.

He’d had to measure himself very precisely (it felt morbid) so that he could make sure that the coffin was as short and compact as possible. He wanted to create a box which was realistically tin-shaped, a practical length and not too wide. He realized that there were likely to be restrictions on size when it came to coffins in terms of burial space. To make it too broad would be inadvisable.

He was still thinking about the lid. Initially he had been keen to have a hinged door on the coffin, probably following along the edge of the label, which would open up like a car door to reveal his body within. Eventually, however, he’d been forced to acknowledge the fact that this design was too complicated to construct and also that it would make keeping the size to a minimum and fitting the body — his body — into the coffin through a slightly more restricted space problematic. He supposed that it would be possible to push and slide the body into the coffin head-first, but felt that this would be a bit inelegant and undignified.

Instead, therefore, he opted for a classical coffin lid design; although the lid would not hang over the base of the coffin, it would fit together with the base, leaving barely a hint as to where the actual join was; like one of those brightly painted Russian dolls which smoothly opens to reveal several others inside, each smaller than the other but all intrinsically identical.

John pursued realism in his design like a bloodhound on a scent. He wanted his tin, his coffin, to look like an original Campbell’s soup can but also to look like Warhol’s paintings of the cans. The difference was subtle but significant. The beautiful silver material that Melissa had brought him would line the can, the coffin, and it would be a legitimate colour, have an appropriate sheen for the inside of a tin; enclosing him, preserving him like a product, a foodstuff for worms. A can of decay.

As he worked he smiled grimly at the notion of placing a sell-by date on the top half of the tin, something like BEST BEFORE FIRST MONTH OF INTERNMENT. He imagined people excavating his coffin in hundreds of years’ time and studying it, finding meaning where he had intended it to be; maybe even more meaning than he was capable of understanding at this juncture, from his own limited perspective, caught in the moment of creation as he was, restricted by his time to only understanding so much. He revitalized himself by thinking, ‘This thing I am creating has more meaning than even I can understand’.

During the following week John left the house only once, and that was to go to Safeways for some provisions and to a hardware store to buy wood tacks, nails and a wood file. He also bought glue. The rest of the time he stayed inside and listened to the radio, worked solidly and took to sleeping at night on the sofa downstairs. He wanted to conserve his energy, which was at a minimum, like a coin-fed gas meter at its lowest ebb, ready to run out, to close down.

Melissa was very sunny at work and busy with life. She looked forward to seeing John again but wanted a dignified period to pass before she pestered him. Her next visit was on a Saturday afternoon. Steve had agreed to cover for her if she went home early from work. She said she wanted to buy more material for her clothes designs. In fact she went straight to an off licence to buy some wine, then down to the tube.

John took a good while to answer the door. During the previous week or so this had been his technique for getting rid of frivolous callers. There had only been a couple.

He had thought about Melissa a great deal over the past eight or nine days, not romantically, although had he been anticipating staying alive for more than the shortest of periods he would almost definitely have attempted to view her in such a light. In his state of violent activity he thought of her in terms of a confidante, an inspirationee, someone he could revitalize with his last dregs of energy.

When he opened the door he smiled widely and said, ‘It’s great to see you again, come in!’

Melissa was shocked to see how different he looked. He appeared to be much thinner, more gaunt, but his face was now hidden by the beginnings of a red-tinged shaggy beard. His eyes were grey and his clothes were terribly unkempt. There seemed to be a fine pale sheen that covered him from head to foot; after a moment she realized that this must be a million tiny specks of sawdust.

John noticed her expression and said at once, ‘I know that I look a mess, it’s just that I get very involved in what I do. I’m driven. I don’t seem to have much energy for anything else.’

She followed him in and said, ‘You do look a bit like the Wild Man of Borneo.’

He smiled and took the wine that she offered on the way through to the kitchen.

No washing-up had been done since her last visit. Everything was dirty, everything had a sawdust sheen. She said, ‘Do you have any clean glasses?’

He ran a tap and washed a couple. ‘I’m sorry about this. I’ve been really busy.’

Melissa found a bottle-opener and pulled out the cork. He shook the glasses dry — she was relieved that he didn’t use one of the dusty tea-towels available — and she poured in some wine. She said, ‘I’m glad you were in. It looks like you haven’t left the place since last week. Have you achieved much?’

He took a sip of wine and smiled as he sighed with gratification. ‘I’ve done so much that I feel bloody reborn. I can’t explain it, I feel so gratified. It’s like magic the way that things just slot together. If they don’t work out you just have to try again, focus all your attention, find endless patience and eventually you attain your goal, no matter how tiny it is. You put in a nail straight or you file something into a perfect curve, make a join that is faultless. It’s fantastic.’

As he spoke he used his hands like descriptive tools. Melissa hadn’t noticed this before. He looked like Michelangelo to her. She almost felt jealous, he was so much like a child. She said, ‘I can’t believe your enthusiasm. If I were you I’d collapse from exhaustion if I got so excited about every dress that I made. Do you treat every piece like a first?’