Nicola Barker - Reversed Forecast

‘I don’t know.’

‘We’re near the track,’ Sam offered helpfully.

‘True.’

She didn’t know whether to tell them that she worked full-time, just in case Steven had told them something himself that she’d be obliged to contradict. Eventually she said, ‘How about you discuss this with Steven first?’

Brera nodded. ‘We’d have to ask him for some kind of reference.’

They were still in the kitchen, three of them now, sitting around the table. Ruby stood up and placed her mug in the sink. ‘You could get Steven to ring me later. You could mention the idea to Sylvia as well and see how she reacts.’

Vincent came in, holding the dog by her collar. ‘I just took her out for a pee.’

‘We’re going now, anyway.’

Sam stood up too. ‘Where’s Sarah?’

He grabbed the dog’s lead. ‘I heard her talking to your sister.’

Sam had been smiling, but her smile disappeared. She was starting to wish she’d kept Sarah all to herself. Connor, it turned out, could be right about some things.

Sarah pulled up a chair next to the sofa. Sylvia was under her blanket.

‘Hi. I’m Sarah, Sam’s friend. We haven’t been properly introduced yet. I saw you earlier.’

Sylvia didn’t reply.

‘I heard you chatting to Vincent just now.’

Nothing.

Sarah thought Sylvia was just like a child. If you wanted her to do something, she wouldn’t do it. She was simply contrary. This was her way of asserting herself. She wouldn’t conform. She was outside things. Sarah understood this, wanted to let Sylvia know that she understood. She started talking. And she talked.

‘I read The Female Eunuch years ago, and when I got to the part about feeling pride in your own femininity, I discovered something very disturbing about myself.’

Silence.

‘Greer said that if you aren’t ashamed of being a woman, then it should be possible to dip your finger into your vagina, during your period, to immerse your finger in menstrual blood and then to put that finger into your mouth without any feelings of disgust.’

Nothing.

‘I tried it. I tried it, but I just couldn’t do it. I tried for years, every month, and each time I failed I felt so bloody guilty.’

Sylvia shifted under the blanket. Sarah noticed and took this to be a positive sign.

‘Then it dawned on me that the only reason I felt disgusted was because of a natural fastidiousness. I suddenly thought, How the hell does Greer get off on telling me how to feel about my sense of self? I know how I feel.’

Under the blanket Sylvia put a furtive hand between her legs.

‘Setting tests is a kind of masculine construct. If something doesn’t come naturally, then, quite simply, it isn’t natural.’

Sylvia drew back her blankets and, in the darkness, held something aloft between her finger and thumb. Sarah squinted through the half-light and saw that Sylvia was holding a used tampon, dangling it by its string as though it were a small, live mouse.

Sarah felt her gorge rise. Sylvia stuck the tampon between her teeth — like a short, fat, pink cheroot — closed her lips and sucked.

Sarah could hear the cotton wool squeaking against her teeth.

Ruby was locked in her bathroom, bathed in a red light, developing the photographs. Outside she could hear Vincent clattering around.

They’d begun arguing on the bus during the ride home. She’d made the mistake of mentioning Brera’s scheme to him. She hadn’t thought it would prove all that contentious. It wasn’t as though he even appeared to have any kind of objection to the scheme itself. At one point, though, when she’d said, ‘Maybe one day I’ll get to rent a proper house with a garden and all that stuff,’ he’d said, ‘You’re a shithead.’

‘Thanks.’

Vincent and the dog were on the sofa together, watching television, when Ruby finally emerged from the bathroom, smelling of chemicals.

‘D’you want to see the pictures?’

He put out his hand. She passed one copy of each of the prints to him.

Something smelled good in the kitchen. She walked over and peered into a pan on the stove. ‘What’s this?’

‘It’s probably ruined by now.’

‘Can I have some?’

Vincent held up one of the prints. ‘I’ve been thinking about money.’

‘What?’ She had expected a comment on the quality of her work.

‘I said …’ He perused the print as he held it aloft. ‘Brera’s eyes are skew.’

‘Are they?’

Ruby walked across and peered at the photo over his shoulder. ‘It’s just that she’s singing and focusing on the camera at the same time. Sam looks fantastic. Those lashes.’

‘She’s like a racehorse.’

‘How’s that?’

‘A painting in the National Gallery.’

She grinned. ‘Very poetic.’

He handed back the pictures. She slid them carefully into an envelope.

‘You could make some money you know, get the money you need for the dog, and you wouldn’t even have to do anything.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Sit down.’

She sat on the sofa, pushing the dog’s legs over, lifting them and arranging them across her lap.

‘Shall I give you some advice?’

Blue, blue eyes, he had. She frowned. ‘Is it sensible to take advice from someone who doesn’t give a damn about anything?’

‘Yes, if it’s good advice.’

And the funny thing is, she thought, I know exactly what kind of advice it will be.

The dog’s nose was touching his thigh. This meant that the two of them were touching, were linked, indirectly.

‘You handle a fortune every day. And if you think about it, it isn’t even as though the money belongs anywhere.’

‘It doesn’t belong to me, that’s for sure.’

‘You owe a fair amount.’

She knew this. And that he owed her.

‘You are owed,’ he said, with great certainty.

‘So what?’

‘Listen to me.’ He leaned closer. ‘Between the two of us we could make money without actually even taking anything.’

She was so tired, all of a sudden.

He outlined his plan.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s stupid.’

‘It’s not stupid.’

‘No.’

He had rejected her, that afternoon, in this very room. She would deny him whatever she could. For any reason. She would deny him.

Sylvia stood by the window. The curtains closed behind her.

Where do thoughts go? she wondered. They travel, in your voice, out of your body, in waves, into other people’s ears. She breathed on the glass. Where do they start? A circuit connecting? With an electric buzz? A chemical reaction?

She pushed at the glass. Still weak. It wouldn’t open. Sam had opened it, the day before, effortlessly. Would she smash it? She thought that she might, she considered doing it, but she didn’t.

A small bird on a telephone wire. Something travelled through his feet. He vibrated. She filled him with her thoughts, and his body contained, so perfectly, the contents of her mind.

Off he flew.

He saw things. He saw the city from above and from below. He saw trees, small, like pieces of broccoli; a blade of grass, big as, bigger than, himself. A worm, on concrete. It would curl up in his stomach.

He saw many things, and many of the things he saw meant nothing: a succession of images, only registered in his tiny brain, photographed but not digested.

Each day — she saw it clearly now — so little could happen. Each day, each person, every person, yearning for only one thing. To own, to love, to keep, to do, to forget, to try.

In Soho. Do it. I will not. Do it. I will not. A pattern, like the beat of a clock, a heart. Tick tick , tick tick , tick tick , tick tick .