Nicola Barker - Three Button Trick and Other Stories

She kept remembering all the things that had happened with the saucepan. How she’d bought it from Argos. A set of three. How she’d liked to boil eggs in it and cook spaghetti hoops. She kept going over the pan’s history in her head; it was bought, it was used, it was broken. All in that order. And now he had it. What had he done with it? Her pan.

Wednesday morning she was up at five. Sitting on a chair next to the window, overseeing her rubbish bags in the pile next to the hawthorn. During the week she’d packed them so carefully. She’d kept thinking about what was rubbish and what was not, what she could throw out and what she could not. Only food and packaging and broken glass. Old newspaper.

Anything potentially useful, anything personal, she kept back. A threadbare face-cloth, a used toothpaste tube, an old hairbrush, an empty moisturizing cream bottle. Anything personal. These things she stacked on her kitchen table in a sad, useless little pile.

Six-forty on the dot, Chad trundled with his trolley into the crescent, pulled up next to the pile of bags, paused, chewed his lower lip, inspecting them. Jenny pushed her face so close to the window that she steamed it up with her breath and had to pull back to wipe it clear. Chad kicked one of Jenny’s bags gently with the toe of his boot.

Chad knew about bags. He was an expert. He knew that the best kind of bag for his purposes was the kind of bag that jutted and stretched, that fought to contain something within that fought just as hard not to be contained. Jenny’s bag felt soft and soggy, like it was full of bits of food and slush.

Naomi’s bag, however, seemed distinctly more interesting. He untied it. Naomi’s hands were frail and so Chad found her knots less difficult to negotiate.

Inside, on top, Chad found a mug tree. Natural pine, one of its branches missing, the base stained with something that looked like cod liver oil. He held it aloft. He smiled to himself.

Jenny had been intending to bang on her window as soon as Chad touched one of the bags, but when he didn’t touch hers—only kicked it—she felt a loosening of her resolve.

Instead, she watched him inspecting the mug tree and enjoying a snout through Naomi’s bag. Chad reknotted Naomi’s bag, after placing the mug tree in his trolley. Might use it at Christmas, he was thinking. Paint it green or something.

He left Jenny’s bags alone. As if he knew! she thought, furious. Almost as if he knew! She stood up and tossed the chair she was sitting on against the opposite wall.

Chad heard the commotion emerging from Jenny’s first-floor flat, glanced up for a moment, raised his eyebrows, sniffed, muttered ‘Slag!’ under his breath and then moved off.

Naomi, next door, eating her breakfast, chewing on a piece of bacon rind, heard the chair smash, jumped up and bolted towards her front door.

Peter looked at the growing pile of ‘useful’ rubbish on Jenny’s table: ‘So what’s going on, Jenny?’ he asked softly. Jenny had made him a cup of tea but she was too angry to speak, almost. ‘I can see that you’re very uptight over something,’ Peter added sympathetically, sipping his tea and wishing she hadn’t added Hermesetas instead of sugar.

‘Naomi’s worried,’ he said, pushing aside an eggbox and an empty cornflake packet so that he could rest his cup on the table.

‘What’s his name?’ Jenny asked, her throat so taut she nearly growled.

Peter stared at her blankly.

‘His name! Him!’ Jenny yelled, picking up the eggbox, tearing it in half and then smashing it on to the kitchen lino.

‘You know what I think, Jenny?’ Peter said brightly. ‘I think you and I should take a trip over to see Dr Eric this afternoon. Maybe cutting down on your pills wasn’t such a good idea after all.’

‘His name,’ Jenny repeated, softly.

Peter took another sip of his tea. ‘I don’t know,’ he said gently, after swallowing.

Later, Naomi told Jenny—in passing, not connecting anything with anything—that Chad’s name was Chad. Jenny digested this information silently. I knew it! She told herself, victoriously, I just knew his name would be Chad.

Jenny was quiet for the rest of the day. In her mind she was thinking, Chad, Chad, Chad, Chad, Chad.

When she went to see Dr Eric, she purred and she simpered like a friendly kitten.

That whole week Jenny assembled all the best things she could find. Her favourite Catherine Cookson novels, her best lace tablemats, a sturdy teapot she’d not yet had occasion to use, a packet of felt-tips which she kept in a drawer for when her nephew called, a full bag of rice, a tin of Heinz baked beans. She lay out her array of goodies on her living room carpet. Then she placed them, one by one, into a black refuse bag.

Chad was late that Wednesday. He’d drunk a bottle of Tia Maria the night before which had left him feeling drugged and sweet and dumb. He was slower than normal as a consequence. And sticky.

It was almost seven when he turned into Jenny’s crescent. From a distance he stared up at Jenny’s window. He was fully aware of Jenny. He was sensitive like that. He had to be. He knew that for years he’d been looking in her bin and for years she hadn’t cared but that now she did care. He knew that people were very prone to chucking things out and then feeling like the things that they’d abandoned still belonged to them in some sense. Stupid.

He saw Jenny’s outline etched in charcoal against the window-pane. He didn’t like being watched. Even so, he drew close to the bags, let go of his trolley, appraised the bags. One bag had been piled up on top. It had an interesting shape. He knocked the bag with his foot, kicked it aside and inspected some of the other bags below.

Jenny was dumbfounded. She was incredulous. All those good things in her bag, all her best things, and he had kicked it aside. If she squinted, she could see that he had opened another bag and was now cradling an old telephone directory in his arms. It was doused in something that looked like beetroot juice. Something cerise. Ugh!

Chad put the directory into his trolley, returned to the bag, pulled out an empty chocolate box, inspected it, put it back, tied up the bag.

He opened another bag, close to the bottom. From within this bag he withdrew an old mop head and a plastic packet of carrots which hadn’t been opened. He turned the packet of carrots over in his hand to double-check that they hadn’t been touched, grimaced, noticed some mould on one of the carrots. He tossed the mop head into his trolley, tore open the plastic wrapping on the carrots and took one out. He bit off the mouldy end, spat it out, into the hawthorn, then proceeded to crunch his way through the remainder.

Jenny’s eyes were wide, her mouth gaped. Those were her carrots. That was her mop head. This bag, her second bag, her rubbish bag, had been put at the bottom of the pile, specifically, so that Chad wouldn’t get at it. How did he know? How?

Jenny raised her fist as if to knock on the window but stopped herself, froze, just in time, as Chad, at last, turned to the special bag, the kicked-aside bag.

As he untied it he was muttering to himself. He was saying, ‘Something funny here. There’s a reason. Something funny. That slag. Something up. Doesn’t smell like rubbish. Bag’s clean.’

He opened the bag. He pulled out a couple of lace tablemats. He folded them carefully and put them on the pavement to his right. He took out a Catherine Cookson novel and did the same. He took out the bag of rice, the felt-tips—these he held for a moment, he liked them, clearly—he took out the beans and the teapot. He liked the teapot, too.

Jenny sat at her window, watching him. She was very pleased indeed. This was right. This was good. She just knew this would happen. Absolutely.