Nicola Barker - Three Button Trick and Other Stories

Ralph turned and appraised Tina. His mouth had fallen slightly ajar. Tina looked down at the counterpane. She opened her lips to say something but then Ralph spoke first.

‘Actually, Paolo,’ he said calmly, ‘she throws up everything. It’s a medical condition. She’s an anorexic.’

‘Bulimic,’ Tina corrected him, quickly.

‘That too.’

Tina chewed on her lower lip. She felt so tired. She could barely call up the strength—physical, moral—to meet Paolo’s gaze. ‘I’m sorry, Paolo,’ she said finally, peering up beseechingly. ‘It was no reflection on the meal. Really it wasn’t.’

Paolo continued frowning for a few seconds longer and then suddenly he smiled. Tina smiled back. Even Ralph smiled.

‘Dear Tina,’ he said gently, ‘you must think me a beast. I had no right to look into your bag. I’m sorry.’

His face softened and, true to form, Tina’s heart—like a lump of semi-congealed butter on a warm hotplate—softened with it. Everything would be all right. She felt it, suddenly. Everything would be just fine. She turned to Ralph. ‘This is ridiculous, Ralph,’ she said boldly, ‘and it’s all gone on for long enough. We should tell Paolo about the pen. I’m positive he’ll understand.’

‘The pen?’ Paolo’s eyebrows rose.

Ralph’s face was rigid. ‘I don’t think so, Tina,’ he said slowly, his eyes fixed on her most expressively.

But Tina didn’t baulk. ‘It’s just got way out of control,’ she said firmly. ‘Tell him, Ralph. Get it over with.’

‘Get what over?’ Paolo leaned forward in his chair, his neck extending so that the muscles stretched and pumped with all the elasticity of chewing gum.

Tina took a deep breath. ‘It isn’t an erection, Paolo. Ralph’s got a pen down his trousers. It was all just a stupid joke. He told me while you were in the bathroom.’

Paolo got to his feet, very slowly. ‘Ralph,’ he said softly. ‘Over the past hour I have had the opportunity to scrutinize your clothes and your footwear at some length. Your shoes are very unusual. In Italy we don’t have anything quite like them. Perhaps I could take a closer look. Would you mind?’

Ralph, paradoxically, had pushed his body as far back into his chair as it would go. He took a deep breath. He shook his head. ‘Of course I wouldn’t mind.’

Slowly, stiffly, he lifted up his foot so that Paolo might see one of the shoes without bending down. Paolo took hold of the foot, pulled the shoe off and quietly inspected it.

As he did this, Ralph watched him fixedly, and then, for a split second, his eyes darted sideways, towards Tina. In that instant Paolo grabbed hold of Ralph’s jaw, prised his mouth open and rammed the tip of the loafer into it.

Ralph flailed helplessly, his jaw stretched wide, his eyes squeezed tight. Tina sprang up and grabbed hold of Paolo’s arm. ‘Stop it! Leave him alone! You’ll hurt him!’

As soon as she touched him, Paolo let go. He raised his palms to the ceiling. ‘See? I’ve let go. See?’

Tina nodded.

‘Are you happy now?’

She nodded again.

‘Good.’ Paolo smiled. Tina tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage it. Ralph? Ralph didn’t even try to smile. He was too busy choking. The loafer lay in his lap, bereaved of its fancy buckle.

Tina hadn’t yet noticed. Ralph, gagging, threw his shoe at her to get her attention. He tried to cough but his throat was blocked and he couldn’t exhale. Tina caught the shoe. She looked down at it and then over at Ralph who was slack-jawed and drooling.

‘What’s wrong?’

He clutched at his throat.

Paolo glanced down too.

‘I think he’s choking on something. Ah!’ He pointed to the shoe Tina held. ‘The buckle’s come off. He must have swallowed it.’

‘Oh God!’ Tina dropped the shoe. ‘So now what?’

Paolo shrugged. ‘I suppose we should call for an ambulance.’

He walked over to the phone and picked it up. Tina watched as Ralph’s complexion rainbowed from red to wine to damson to ivory. Then he fell from his chair and on to the carpet.

Tina felt sick. Ralph was writhing. She was panicking. Paolo, perfectly calm, spoke on the phone for a short interval and then returned to Tina’s side.

‘An ambulance?’

He nodded. ‘It’ll be a short while.’

‘But he’s choking!’

‘ Sì. ’

‘Can’t you do something?’

Paolo shook his head. ‘I am not insured to intervene in this kind of situation. If he dies I might get sued by the family. It could ruin me.’

‘If he dies?’ Tina gasped. ‘You’re a doctor, Paolo!’

Paolo cleared his throat. ‘Roughly.’

‘Roughly? What do you mean, roughlγ ?!’

‘I’m a chiropodist.’

Tina fell to her knees, grabbed hold of Ralph’s head, stared up at Paolo and said, ‘So, fine, if you were a doctor, what would you do?’

Paolo scratched his head. ‘I suppose I would try the Heimlich Manoeuvre.’

‘Yes!’ Tina exclaimed. ‘How does it go?’

‘I have no idea. But, uh, after I’d tried that, if it didn’t work, I’d make an incision at the base of the throat and push a straw into it so that he could breathe from below the blockage.’

Ralph, meanwhile, was undergoing some kind of spasm. Tina didn’t know what kind of a spasm it was, only that it looked almost biblical in its monstrosity. His face was ashen, his eyes were rolling.

Tina exploded. ‘I need a knife. But I haven’t got one. Do you have one?’

Paolo shook his head.

‘I need something pointed. Anything pointed.’

Ralph clutched at his groin.

Typical, Tina thought. Even in his moment of crisis … But then she remembered. She grabbed at his trousers, yanked down the zip, ripped out the Bic pen and held it aloft. Ralph had started to foam and to slacken.

Tina indicated towards her own throat as she looked up at Paolo. ‘Is this the place? At the bottom here? Is this it?’

Paolo shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know, but I don’t think shoving a bone into his throat is any way to go about it. It looks dirty and it’s blunt at its tip.’

Tina scowled down at the pen. It was a pen. It was a pen. It was. She started shaking. She looked into Ralph’s face. Oh God, she thought, Rome was holding something special just for me. Not a statue, not an orange tree, not even a shady walkway, but Ralph. Ralph!

She stared at him, fixedly. How did she feel? She hated him. Ralph opened his eyes. They were the colour of two brown hazelnuts. That did it. Tina shoved his head between her knees, raised the sharp point of the Bic pen skywards, paused for one second, one long second, and then brought it down, forcefully, with as much accuracy as she could muster, into the base of Ralph’s throat. It entered so easily. Ralph arched and stiffened, but she kept her hand steady.

‘Stay still. Hold on.’

Tina yanked the pen out again, ripped the biro section from its centre and then firmly thrust the hollow pen shell back into the wound.

Glub.

Ralph lay still, corpse-like, flaccid. Two seconds, three seconds, four seconds, five … And then his chest started to rise. It rose, it rose, it rose. Air whistled through the pen’s shell. In, in, in and then out.

Paolo threw himself into a chair. ‘You could’ve killed him.’

‘But I didn’t,’ Tina said, almost regretfully, and as she spoke she cleared a piece of clotted blood away from the pen tip. The air whistled in and it whistled out.

‘Do you hear that, Ralph?’ Tina whispered, conspiratorially. ‘The pen’s making a noise like a penny whistle. Do you hear it?’ Ralph’s eyes had been shut since the pen had entered him. But now, slowly, gradually, he opened them. His mouth moved, it started to form a word. Tina stared at his lips. What was he saying? Was it ‘Thank you’? Was it ‘Sorry’? What was it? And then she realized. Chiropodist, he said. Chiropodist! Ha. Ha. Ha.