Nicola Barker - Reversed Forecast

The first voice sounded sad: ‘That’s just it. You have to involve yourself, otherwise you can’t give anything.’

‘I want peace and freedom.’

‘Clichés.’

‘Why?’

‘Because those things don’t mean anything when you say them.’

Sylvia picked up the word mean and juggled with it. She thought, Everything has meaning. I’m in a sea of it. Swimming in it, drowning.

The voices came together in her head and each voice she tried to simplify by making it into a shape. The harsh voice became a square, the white voice an arrow, the familiar voice was a circle … A fifth voice emerged, strident, sensual, suggestive, feminine. It said, ‘I don’t want truth. Ideas get lost in truth. Truth is stupid. Take any letter away from it and it becomes stupid. Trut. Thur. Hutt. Ruth . It’s just a word. It’s just another word and words stand for very little unless you use them sensibly and with rigour. I only want truth if I can use it. I want to rebuild the world with my own ideas, selectively.’

This voice contained all of the other shapes. It was a star. It throbbed. For a horrible moment Sylvia thought that this was in fact her voice, her own voice, but then she realized that she didn’t believe anything that this voice was saying. She mistrusted it. She had no voice herself.

Ideas flooded the room and she floated on them. One idea was that every story was one story, everything boiled down into one single narrative. Every thought, idea, commentary, fiction, was travelling towards a single meaning. She tried to find this meaning but it was hopeless. It was too big. It was nothing. That one meaning might have to be God, she decided, which would be like a defeat.

She found herself in a cave. She remembered reading A Passage to India (where did that come from?) and the sequence in the caves, with the echo, when every noise that was made, that could be made, every noise was reduced to nothing, a hauntingly meaningless echo, a jolt, a thud.

A song became a thud, a poem became a thud, a prayer became a thud, a sneeze, a thud, science, thud, beauty, thud, glory, thud, love, thud, God … And so …

She sighed. The mask fell from her face and she, in turn, fell from dreaming to sleeping.

Brera put down the phone and walked over to Sylvia. She picked up the mask, folded it and turned off the nebulizer at the plug. The air smelled high and vaporous. She stared down at her sleeping daughter, then slowly, hollowly, said out loud the worst word she could think of: ‘Cunt.’

She regretted this instantly. ‘Sam would have something to say about why I chose that word,’ she muttered. ‘I’m too old to swear.’

It didn’t even make her feel better. It just sounded foolish.

Connor woke Sam by kissing her ribs and her belly, by dampening her hips with tiny, sharp licks and bites.

Unfortunately, as Sam awoke, instead of finding this luxurious introduction to wakefulness pleasurable and erotic, she had to restrain the impulse to slap Connor with the back of her hand, to swat him.

‘Did we argue last night?’ she asked.

Connor’s tongue stopped what it was doing and he straightened up, placing his head next to hers on the pillow. He stared at her, but she didn’t catch his expression because she was looking up at the ceiling.

‘I don’t think we did. I was drunk. I remember Sarah droning on about something.’

‘What’s the time?’

She could smell his hair, which, although it looked ragged and uncombed, was soft on her shoulder and smelled of smoke from the night before.

‘I dunno. Eight? Eight-thirty?’

She sat bolt upright. ‘I promised Brera I’d be home early today. We’re going shopping.’

Connor grinned. ‘Oh yeah?’

She looked down at him. ‘You can’t come.’

‘Why?’ He pretended to be hurt.

‘Because I’m going with Brera.’

‘Sounds weird when you call her by her name.’

He reached down and pinched her knee, then let his hand slip up and along the inside of her thigh. She leaned over, pecked his cheek and jumped out of bed. ‘Actually, I would invite you to come, but I know you’ve got an interview at lunchtime.’

‘Which leaves me four hours to think of something interesting to say.’

‘You think that’s long enough?’

He laughed and threw a pillow at her, but she ducked and padded through to the kitchen.

Sarah was lounging against the kitchen cabinets waiting for the kettle to boil, wearing a short, multi-coloured bathrobe. Her long thin legs protruded from the robe, untanned. As she leaned over, Sam could see the curve of her breast and her tiny, pink nipple. Sarah’s red hair had fallen across her face, half covering it.

‘Hello.’

Sarah turned, straightened herself, and pulled a handful of curls behind her ear. ‘I’m totally knackered. Jet lag.’

She yawned with neat precision, like a cat.

‘Making coffee?’ Sam asked.

‘Tea.’

Sam walked over to the kettle and turned it off at the plug before it had a chance to boil for too long.

‘Mine’s white, if you’re making. I like it insipid.’

Sam busied herself locating cups and finding a tea-bag. She wasn’t sure if she felt a tension between them. She thought, Maybe it’s just because she isn’t dressed. She’s so sluttish, the way she lounges about. No make-up, her face all gaunt and white.

‘Do you have any plans for today?’ She poured water on to Sarah’s tea-bag.

Sarah shrugged, noncommital. ‘You?’

‘I’ve got to go shopping with my mother. We’re having some photos taken this afternoon.’

Sarah’s face brightened. ‘Can I come?’

‘It’ll be very dull.’

‘Go on. It’ll be a laugh. I can meet your mother. That’d be interesting.’

Sam finished making the two coffees. ‘I’ll phone and ask once I’ve taken this in to Connor.’

Sarah poured some extra milk into her tea. ‘I hope he appreciates you running around after him like this.’

Sam said nothing, only smiled as she carried the cup carefully out of the kitchen.

Connor reached out for the cup. Sam perched on the edge of the bed and handed it to him. ‘Can I use the phone?’

‘Sure.’

He pulled himself up into a sitting position, careful not to spill anything.

‘Sarah wants to come shopping.’

He frowned. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. She said she thought it’d be fun.’

‘Amusing. I bet she said she thought it’d be amusing. That’s the kind of thing she’d say.’

‘She said she thought it’d be a laugh.’

He brushed some hair out of his eyes. ‘Will she be going back to the flat in Hackney with you?’

‘Does it matter?’

He seemed to think that it did.

‘Have you told her about Sylvia?’ Her name felt strange on his tongue, as though it implied a familiarity that didn’t in fact exist.

‘No. Why? Should I discuss my sister with everyone? I’m sure you don’t make a habit of discussing your family at length with every new person you meet.’

‘I’m just saying that you hardly know her.’

Sam stared at him, irritated. ‘I hardly knew you once and it wasn’t a problem.’

Connor put his cup of coffee on the carpet and lay back down in bed. How can I feel jealous? he thought. Of her . Christ.

‘I’m tired,’ he said, sullenly.

‘Fine.’ She stood up. ‘You’re being pathetic.’

He didn’t answer. She pulled on her clothes, picked up her coat, which was slung over the door handle, and closed the door gently behind her.

Sarah was getting dressed in her bedroom. The door was slightly ajar. Sam called through: ‘I’m ready to go when you are.’