Nicola Barker - Reversed Forecast

Toro unscrewed the top of a vodka bottle and asked for some glasses. Ruby picked up a couple of dirty mugs and went to the sink to give them a wash. She couldn’t find a clean tea-towel to dry them with so used a bathroom towel instead. Toro grimaced at them. ‘The mouth of these mugs is too thick.’

‘Not mouth, lip. You should know. You’re the wine waiter.’

She banged the mugs on to the floor next to his feet and sat down again while he poured. He half-filled both mugs and then handed her one. She took a sip, pulled a face, but said nothing. Two hundred quid, she thought.

Toro was over fifty and poorly though smartly dressed in a grey suit and old shirt. He was small and slightly overweight, with dark black hair, greased back, and sallow cheeks. His eyes were hooded, red, but lively. She’d never seen him clean-shaven, but often smelled aftershave on him — a whiff of cinnamon and spearmint. He worked in a restaurant, but spent most of his time gambling.

Ruby told him about Vincent and he listened intently. She concluded, ‘I’ve never even met him before, but now he expects me to fork out two hundred in bail money.’

‘That Dawn’s a bitch.’

Ruby wasn’t receptive to this. She didn’t want to feel implicated. Even so, she said, ‘I’ve still got the money I won on the National. I’ve got at least two hundred left. I wanted to use it for something sensible, to invest it … I dunno.’

Toro bent over and screwed the top back on the bottle. ‘You were lucky for me this morning. I bet on the two dogs you were with at Hackney. Won both times.’

He indicated the two bottles with a smile. Ruby smiled too; not at him, but to herself.

‘They were Donald Sheldon’s dogs,’ she said. ‘He came over and had a chat. He said he’d offer me a job full-time if he got the chance. Took my number and everything. I told him I’d sooner be a trainer than a kennel-girl. Lots of women do it, you know.’

Toro chuckled. He said, ‘A big dog in a place like this?’

She scowled. He offered her the bottle again. She gulped down her vodka in one go and passed him her cup. While he poured she visualized Donald Sheldon. Top trainer at Hackney, she thought, remembering how he’d put his hand on her arm as he’d spoken to her. Creepy. Sexy. Too old for me, and too flash.

Toro was watching her face. ‘Don’t pay that bail,’ he said, misinterpreting her thoughtful expression.

‘What?’

‘He’s taking you for a fool.’

She stood up and went into the kitchen, took a coffee jar out of the cupboard, opened it and removed a bundle of notes.

‘Toro,’ she said, suddenly feeling lively and quite purposeful.

‘What?’

‘You’re full of bull.’

In the bathroom, she applied a thick coat of bright red lipstick, licked her teeth to ensure it hadn’t smudged on them, stared into the mirror at her own simple, stupid face, and mouthed the word moron .

Sam was peering through the kitchen window, trying to see if Steven was outside yet and what kind of car he drove. Brera was clearing the table. Sam said, ‘He drives an old Jag. I wonder what that means.’

Brera piled a cup on to a plate, a cup on to a plate, a cup on to a plate. Spinal column, she thought, vertebra, disc, vertebra, disc. She carried them carefully over to the sink, slipped them into the soapy water and then peered out too. ‘Your problem,’ she said curtly, ‘is that everything always has to mean something. I like him.’

‘That’s simple enough,’ Sam said, wondering what Brera meant exactly.

Steven was debating whether it would be possible to get an old girlfriend of his to do some promotional shots of the Goldhawk Girls. (Bad name, he thought. That’ll be the first thing to go.) She wasn’t professional, but she was cheap.

As he drew closer to his car, he noticed that the side mirrors had been pulled off and that the aerial had been twisted into a heart shape. ‘Curse the bastard,’ he muttered. ‘Curse the bastard that did this.’ He grabbed the aerial and tried to straighten it.

Sylvia walked out of her room and into the kitchen. ‘He makes me want to spew,’ she announced.

Sam and Brera were doing the washing up. They both turned to look at her.

‘He liked your songs,’ Sam lied. ‘You should’ve come in and said hello.’

Sylvia removed a strand of her hair from the confines of the pony-tail she was wearing and twisted it around her finger. ‘He hated the songs. I heard him.’

Brera pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘He thought they were good but unusual.’

‘Don’t make me laugh.’

Brera crossed her arms and stared at Sylvia as she stood in the doorway. ‘Grow up.’

‘I’m nineteen. That’s old enough.’

For what? She didn’t look nineteen. She looked twelve. Like a scruffy, ill-adapted pre-teen.

‘And by the way,’ she added, ‘I vandalized his car.’

Brera continued to stare at her. ‘You appal me.’

Sam leaned on the window-sill and peered out again. Steven was still there, yanking at his aerial.

‘It’s only the aerial,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it’s an old car.’

Sylvia glared at her. ‘Who asked you?’

Brera threw herself forward on to the table and banged her forehead against it. Thump . She did it again. Thump .

Sylvia was furious. ‘Stop it!’

Brera stopped and straightened up. ‘Are you happy now?’

‘Yes!’ Sylvia shouted, and the shout turned instantly into a cough, into several coughs, whooping coughs.

She couldn’t breathe. She clutched her stomach and leaned against the side of the door, bent double.

Good, she thought. Punishment for everybody.

She coughed carelessly, loosely, so that the unrestrained force of her hacking might rip up her throat and bring out blood. She visualized the cough as two tiny beings playing volleyball inside her throat, passing the tickle back and forth, catching it, returning it, blocking it, holding it. If only, she thought desperately, seeing their impassive faces through her streaming eyes, if only they could enjoy my illness as much as I do.

She turned, still coughing, and staggered back down the corridor.

‘Go!’ Brera shouted after her. ‘I’m sick of the sight of you!’

Sam began washing up again. After a minute or so she said, ‘I think she feels left out.’

Brera rubbed her eyes. ‘She’s such a little bitch. She never does anything for herself and she resents everything we do.’

Sam ran a finger across the bubbles in the sink, watched them burst on her skin. ‘She’s bound to feel threatened by Steven. She might feel like she’s losing us. Losing something.’

Brera’s lips tightened. ‘To hell with what she thinks.’

Sam glanced towards the open door and then walked over to shut it. As she turned back she said, ‘Perhaps we should’ve explained about her to Steven. I’m sure he would’ve understood, and if he hadn’t, then we wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with him anyway.’

‘You think I’m ashamed of her?’

Brera’s eyes filled. Sam found the sight of her mother’s imminent tears disagreeable and unsettling. I shouldn’t feel that way though, she decided, and tried not to. She pulled off a piece of kitchen roll and handed it to her. Brera blew her nose and then looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot.

‘I’m frightened, that’s all. I want to protect her.’ Her eyes exuded tears: large, fat tears like transparent slugs, slithering down her face. ‘She’s such a little shit.’

Sam watched the tears. If I taste one, she thought, then everything will be all right. She put out her hand and brushed a tear from Brera’s chin on to her finger, then let it fall from her finger on to the end of her tongue.