Nicola Barker - Small Holdings

‘Doug?’

I touched his shoulder. He felt cold. I looked into his eyes. They didn’t focus.

‘Doug?’

I touched his cheek. Waxy. I put my hand next to his mouth. No air. I pulled the blanket up to his chin. I shuddered.

‘Doug?’

I backed out of the room, quietly, slowly.

The next door along. I tried it. Saleem’s room. She was on her bed too, curled up like a squirrel under the sheets. I opened my mouth to say her name but I didn’t say anything. I squatted down next to her. The side of her face was bruised where she’d hit herself. Her bottom lip stuck out like she was sulking with sleep.

I leaned forward, barely breathing, and I don’t know what I was planning to do. Maybe I was intending to get right up close to her ear and then to shout in it, to scare her, to start to pay her back for all the bad things she’d done. Perhaps not.

In fact I drew close and I found myself touching her cheek with the tips of my fingers. She opened her eyes. ‘Climb in,’ she said, dopily. ‘Come on.’

I pulled off my shirt. I pulled off my trousers. I pulled up the sheet and climbed in. Under the sheet she was as warm as baked bread. She curled around me and pressed her nose to my neck. I touched her hair with one hand. With the other I touched her hip and her thigh and her left breast which was like moss only softer. She crawled around me, like I was an old sofa and she was settling herself comfortably.

She kissed me. I kissed her. I counted the bumps on her spine with my index finger, pushing the skin on her back and feeling it slide. She took hold of my hand and guided it down, between her legs, and then lower, to her lost leg, to where it stopped. The scar tissue had left it as fragile as a petal. Just like a plant, I thought, when it’s been pruned back in autumn. And I drew my hand up her leg again. And I kissed her.

‘Fuck Nancy.’ I said, feeling her moving.

‘Fuck me,’ she said, and almost started laughing. And I would have, but I kept thinking about Doug and whether I’d dreamed him.

‘Doug’s dead,’ I said, finding a place to fit myself.

‘He’s not dead,’ she sighed, ‘only sleeping.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I sighed back. ‘He isn’t breathing.’

‘What?’

I said nothing. I carried on moving.

‘What?’

She pushed me off and sat up. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me before?’

The light shone down brightly and rudely. Saleem was wearing my shirt. I wore my trousers, hastily pulled on. I buttoned up the fly as I watched her.

‘Oh God, ‘ she said, ‘you’re right. He doesn’t seem to be breathing. Can you feel a pulse? Do you know where to look for one?’

I drew closer to the bed. ‘His eyes. Open like that,’ I said, squeamishly, ‘that’s what struck me as wrong, first off.’

‘His pulse!’ she yelled furiously, ‘where is it?’

I grabbed hold of Doug’s wrist. I stuck my thumb across it and pressed down hard.

‘I don’t feel anything,’ I said, ‘but I’m probably not doing it right. What did you give him?’

‘Same stuff you had.’

She was slapping his face now, gently and then harder.

‘What stuff?’

‘Tea, stupid.’

‘Tea? Where from?’

‘I made it. Boiled it.’

‘Boiled what?’

‘You know, that stuff. You told me about it.’

‘Stop hitting him. If he’s dead it won’t be helping matters. If he comes to, he’ll be livid.’

She turned and glared, ‘D’you have any better suggestions?’

‘What kind of tea was it?’

‘I can’t remember the name. You pointed it out to me. You told me to boil the root.’

Things started slotting into place.

‘ A plant? And you gave it to me too?’

She grunted her affirmation. She had her ear next to Doug’s lips.

‘Why did you give it to me?’

‘You fucked me off. It was only temper. I regret it in retrospect.’

‘I could’ve been dead too.’

‘You only had a cupful.’

‘What did Doug have?’

‘Since this morning? Two pints.’

‘How did you get him to drink it?’

‘Told him the first lot was brandy. He knocked it straight back. Second lot I fed him through a straw.’

‘Maybe he choked. You shouldn’t have done that.’

Saleem looked up at me. ‘What shall we do if we’ve killed him?’

‘We? We’ve killed him? I haven’t been anywhere near him.’

Her mouth turned down at its corners. ‘Great one. Who was it told me about the plant? You did. I wouldn’t mind, but you came in here, saw Doug was distressed and your only course of action was to creep into my room to try and cop off with me. That in itself is tantamount to bloody manslaughter.’

I stared back at her. ‘You are truly a vixen,’ I said, stunned. Her face slowly crumpled, as readily as a fistful of tissue paper. She flung herself across Doug’s chest. ‘Oh Christ!’ she said, ‘and I really love Doug.’

I went and sat down on the other side of the bed. I said, ‘I didn’t know you loved Doug.’

‘Of course I do,’ she muttered, through tears and through mucus. ‘Why else would I have gone to all this trouble?’

‘For yourself,’ I said.

She pulled her head up and stared at me. ‘To think,’ she said, ‘to think I was going to let you fuck me. My God.’

I stared back at her. ‘You poisoned me, you lied to me, you shaved my eyebrows off, you hit me with a saucepan.’

Saleem sniffed. She appraised me. She said, ‘You have such a negative approach to things.’

‘Where did you get the plant from?’

‘Inside the museum. The plant which grew from my leg. I thought it was a sign.’

‘The grenadilla.’

‘The passion flower.’ She nodded.

‘Didn’t you stop and think about how strong the stuff was? After you boiled it?’

‘Of course I did,’ she scowled, ‘I tried it out on the cat.’

‘The cat.’ I smiled.

‘What are you smiling at?’

‘The cat,’ I said. ‘Remember?’

‘What?’ She was losing her temper again.

‘You thought you’d killed the cat.’

‘So?’

I decided to tell her. ‘OK, ‘ I said, ‘I’ll admit it. I felt Doug’s pulse. And he blinked.’

‘What?’

‘While you were sobbing just now he blinked.’

Her eyes were round as two full moons. ‘He blinked? He blinked, you fucker, and you didn’t tell me?’ She lunged at me. I stood up. I was very proud of myself, suddenly. I was avenged.

Saleem was looking around her for some kind of weapon.

‘Let’s hope,’ I said quickly, ‘that Doug comes to in time for the meeting.’

Saleem had grabbed hold of the bedside light and was trying to yank the plug out of the wall by its cord. It wouldn’t come, thankfully.

‘Doug’s not dead,’ I said, resolutely, ‘which is something to be pleased about, surely.’ She stopped yanking for a moment. ‘And you love Doug,’ I said, ‘apparently, so you should be ecstatic’

‘Get stuffed.’

Saleem put down the lamp and stared into Doug’s face. ‘He’s still out cold,’ she said and then peered up at me. ‘I knew you wouldn’t go to the meeting. I knew it. That’s why I got so angry.’

I was indignant. I said, ‘I was seriously considering going.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘Before you shaved my eyebrows off.’

‘Bollocks you were. I knew you wouldn’t. You don’t have the guts.’

I shrugged. There seemed little point responding. I said, ‘May I have my shirt back, please?’

‘Why?’

‘I want to go home now. I’m tired.’

Saleem left the room. I sat down on the bed again and looked at Doug. He was still fast asleep but his eyes remained open. I considered trying to pull down the lids, gently. I leaned over him.