Nicola Barker - Love Your Enemies

She looked at her watch and decided that it was probably best to go. After finishing her coffee she searched around for a pencil and found a piece of paper that was blank on one side. On it she wrote: Dear John, I didn’t like to wake you when I got back from the shops. Your soup and tablets are in the kitchen. I did a bit of tidying, hope that’s all right. Please phone me at work tomorrow . She wrote the number in big, bold letters. I’d like a proper chat with you. Love, Melissa . She pinned the letter to the wall next to John’s other diagrams and illustrations and then left the house as quietly as possible.

John awoke and staggered to the kitchen for a glass of water. He saw the painkillers on the sideboard and grabbed them, hurriedly placing several into his mouth at once and chewing them before swigging them down with a mouthful of water. He was indifferent to the unpleasant sour taste that they had left in his mouth.

Every sensation in his body and brain on wakening had been immediate. Increasingly he was fuelled and energized only by desperate cravings and sheer necessity. He just had to keep his body moving, to satisfy it, to quell its pain. He could not think beyond these needs, these basic urges.

After swallowing the tablets he tried to open a can of soup but he did not have the strength to grip the tin opener and turn its handle at the same time. He also knew that when the strength in his body returned it would have to be conserved for more important work. Painting was now a priority over eating, completion was his only real desire. He slumped against the kitchen cabinets and slid slowly down on to the kitchen floor where he lay on his side and stared at the tiles, tracing each line, each square into infinite patterns and diagrams, into apartment blocks and fairgrounds and Meccano sets. The floor was very clean. He thought of Melissa for a moment before pain drove him back into a state like sleep.

Melissa keenly awaited John’s telephone call the following day at work but he did not phone. Nor on Tuesday, nor on Wednesday. For some reason this lack of contact made her feel unbearably sad. She knew that her options were open to go and see him again, but felt that her welcome could not be guaranteed since he had made no effort to get into contact with her. She wondered if she had offended him in some way, or whether he still hadn’t forgiven her for her frank behaviour on her previous visit.

Steve watched Melissa becoming increasingly depressed and listless as the week progressed. It didn’t take much intelligence to guess why she was so down.

On Thursday he decided to broach the subject directly. She was folding up some T-shirts that a customer had unfolded a few minutes before. He was at the till putting in a new till roll. As he wound the paper up tightly and pressed it into the till he said, ‘You haven’t mentioned that guy John in a while, have you seen him?’

She turned from her task and stared at him. ‘Why do you ask? Did he phone earlier while I was out getting lunch?’

Steve shook his head. ‘Were you expecting to hear from him today?’

Melissa sighed and completed what she was doing. Then she straightened up and leaned against the shelves, tucking a stray piece of dark hair behind her ear. ‘I don’t think he’s very well. Every time I go and see him he looks worse. I went on Sunday and he looked like an Auschwitz survivor.’

Steve pulled a rather cynical expression and her eyes widened. ‘No, honestly, I’m not exaggerating. He looks all thin and he’s growing this awful beard. He’s really unkempt and the house is in a terrible state.’

Steve thought for a moment and then said, ‘Have you spoken to him about it?’

She sighed. ‘What am I supposed to say? “Hello, God you look awful?” I don’t think he’d even pay any attention if I did. Last time I went to see him he sent me off to the shops to buy some soup and painkillers then when I got back he was fast asleep, really deeply asleep. He didn’t look too good.’

Steve shrugged. ‘Maybe he is unwell. I thought he was a diabetic or something. Did you wake him up?’

Melissa shook her head. ‘I didn’t like to. I hardly know him. I cleaned the place up a bit — it’s really messy and dusty and dirty now — then I went home. But I left a note for him asking him to contact me here.’

‘But he hasn’t?’

‘No, he hasn’t.’

John had not seen Melissa’s message because everything had been unfocused all week. It had taken several hours on Sunday night to drag himself into the living room from his position on the kitchen floor. He had almost lost all feeling in his feet but his hands were still clumsily movable which, he told himself, was all that really mattered. Standing was virtually impossible. Any fast movement was now entirely out of the question and everyday tasks like getting food and drink, washing or going to the toilet were now arduous and exhausting.

Using his initiative, he managed to rig up a bucket and washing bowl system in the living room so that he hardly had to move from that room any more. The bucket was full of drinking water and he used the bowl as a chamber pot. Most of his time was spent on the floor. He had pulled his coffin down off the bench and now lay across it as he painted it. After several attempts, he had managed to drag the central Warhol illustration from the wall, ripping it in the corners where the drawing pins stayed fixed into position. Melissa’s note was now out of his range.

One of the windows in the room was still open for ventilation which meant that he felt very cold a lot of the time. But he saw the cold as a kind of blessing because it prevented him from sleeping and forced him to work, although his hand shook so much as he held the brush that he had to hold it still with his other shaking hand.

The radio was always on, day and night, and the tunes flew around the room like brightly coloured birds which he could not grasp, but he watched them and was dazzled by them. In all his pain he felt so happy and so righteous. He had never felt as happy before and he welcomed this feeling as if it were a stranger and shook its hand with great formality and offered it a cup of tea. But he only had water now, and after a few days the bucket was nearly empty and he had difficulty telling the bucket from the bowl until he sipped a mouthful of his own urine; but after a while his urine tasted only of water.

And so his time passed, everything in close-up, each letter, each colour, each movement of the brush the only thing, everything, his only concern. He had nothing else left to think about and that was tantamount to bliss.

Eventually he was numb to the hips and he smiled and pretended that he was a snail. It was nearly done.

Steve was really quite concerned about John and told Melissa that she should go and see him again, and soon, but she wouldn’t go. She kept saying — and with increasing insistence and irritation — ‘If he wanted to see me he’d contact me. I don’t want to get involved and find that I’m out of my depth. He’ll phone eventually, and if not, well, then not. The end.’

Steve kept saying, ‘But what if he’s ill and hasn’t seen your note?’ She didn’t answer.

He also asked her about John’s work. He felt an unaccountable concern for John and was interested in what he was doing; he respected it, he understood it. After their initial discussion about John on the Thursday he’d asked, ‘How is his work progressing? How’s the coffin? Is it nearly completed yet?’

Melissa shuddered. He smiled, ‘A sensitive subject?’

She shook her head, ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I hate it. I think it’s evil, I know it sounds stupid …’

Steve nodded, ‘You’re right. It does. It is.’