Nicola Barker - Small Holdings

‘What time is it?’

Saleem knocked the cat off her lap, leaned back on her chair and stared at the clock on the cooker. ‘Six fifteen.’

‘When’s the meeting?’

‘Nine sharp.’

Upstairs I heard the taps turning.

‘What’s he doing?’

‘Having a wash. Maybe a bath. He usually gets up at about this time. Just shows you. He was comatose an hour ago. He’s so bloody determined. That’s what happens when your mind starts to turn.’

I was suddenly frightened. I said, guiltily, ‘I don’t suppose you could give him some more tea?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not risking it.’ She smiled at me. ‘So Now what, Phil? An y suggestions?’

My head was empty.

‘There’s a heavy chest of drawers,’ she said, softly, ‘in my bedroom. You could push it up against the bathroom door. Jam him in.’

My heart began beating. ‘I’m very weak,’ I said, nervously. ‘My hand and my foot.’

‘It’s u p to you.’

‘He’ll go mad.’

‘He’s mad already. It’ll only be like more of the same. And anyway, ‘ she added, ‘he’ll still be kind of slow and fuzzy, like you were when you first woke up.’

I remembered and began blushing. ‘Fine,’ I said.

The drawers were heavy. I couldn’t get any grip with my bad hand and I couldn’t get any thrust with my bad foot. After five minutes I’d got them to the doorway of Saleem’s room. I paused a moment to get my breath back. While I paused the bathroom door — directly opposite — opened and out came Doug, still steaming from his bath and wrapped in a towel. He looked lidded and dopy. He paused in the hallway and appraised me.

‘Phil,’ he said, eventually, groping for my name. Feel.

I froze. My heart stopped and then it started up again. ‘Hi Doug.’

He stared at the chest of drawers. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Nothing. I’m helping Saleem move some furniture.’

‘You look different,’ he mumbled and scratched his head, like he couldn’t quite believe he wasn’t just imagining me. I took a deep breath.

‘Actually,’ I said, thinking on my feet, speaking quickly, ‘I think you cut yourself shaving. On your cheek. It’s bleeding.’

‘Yeah?’ Doug put his hand to his cheek, blinking with the effort this afforded him.

‘You’d better go and check in the mirror.’

Doug slowly turned and went back into the bathroom.

‘Is it bad?’ I asked, ‘It might’ve just been a nick.’

Doug didn’t reply straight off. I bounded over the drawers, pushed the bathroom door to, bounced back again and gave them a mighty shove. A deep breath and then another shove. During the second shove Doug tried to open the door but the door only pushed ajar by five inches before I gave the drawers a third great heave and knocked it shut.

I waited for a minute, in silence, breathing heavily, sweating. After a minute, Doug said, ‘Phil, I have a beard. I haven’t shaved with a razor in fifteen years.’ His voice sounded muffled through the wood. Thick-grained and oaky. He tried the door. Another minute. ‘Phil,’ he said, ‘what’s the problem?’ I felt my heart swoop. Doug tried the door again, more aggressively this time.

With impeccable timing, Saleem appeared at the end of the corridor. She put her finger to her lips. I realized my mouth was open. What had I been intending to say? I closed it. She slid past me and into her room then came out dragging an old camp bed. She put her lips next to my ear and whispered, ‘If we prop this between the drawers and the wall there’s Noway he’ll be able to get the door open.’

I took hold of the bed and did as she’d said. Doug was silent for a moment. I guessed he was intent on listening for any noises outside. Then I heard him curse under his breath before he launched a full-blown attack on the door. The door shook. I stepped back, shocked by his sudden vigour.

‘It’ll hold,’ Saleem whispered, apparently unfazed. ‘It’s an old house. The doors are solid and so are the frames.’

She grabbed my hand and pulled me away to the top of the stairs. Doug was still raging in that small, square room with all the conviction of a wild boar in a balsa-wood crate.

‘Ignore him,’ Saleem said, calmly, ‘Here’s the plan. You go home Now and get yourself something to eat and have a wash. Get changed into your suit. Catch the number 29 bus into Enfield. The Council offices are a short walk from the market place. You’ve been there before, haven’t you? You know the address?’

I nodded.

‘Good. Get there for nine and don’t be late. Tell them that Doug’s got flu and we didn’t want to cancel again. Tell them you’ve got a roundworm and that’s why you’ve lost some hair and your face is such a mess. Bullshit them about the privet. Don’t forget the files and the accounts.’

Doug was still banging against the door and yelling now.

‘What if I screw up?’

She grinned. ‘If you screw up, I’ll tell Doug that you locked him in there on purpose. When he gets out he’ll hunt you down and kill you.’

‘He knows I locked him in there,’ I said, trembling. ‘He came out while I was shifting the drawers and I had to speak to him. He knows I locked him in. Oh Christ,’ I said desperately, ‘why did I do it?’

Saleem’s grin slipped for a moment and then rose up again and regained control of her face. ‘We’ll tell him he dreamed it. I’ll say I was moving my room around and halfway through I went out to buy a bottle of furniture polish so I didn’t hear him yelling.’

‘D’you think that’ll work?’

‘No. Sod him, though. Keeping this place going is our top priority.’

I stared at her, sweating and frantic and suddenly suspicious. I said, ‘I thought we were doing this for Doug.’

Saleem scowled. ‘We have a whole series of priorities, Phil. Like a set of balls which you have to keep juggling. You can only keep a certain number in the air at any one time.’

Doug was baying at the bathroom door. It sounded like he was biting at the paintwork. I was frightened.

‘And afterwards,’ I said, terrified, ‘who’s going to let him out of there?’

Saleem sniffed, put her head to one side, thought for a moment. ‘We’ll toss for it. Now fuck off.’

BY RIGHTS I should have expected him, but it still came as a surprise to come across him standing on one small foot next to the giant yellow broom. Wu. I wished he’d stay in one place and then I could have been sure to avoid that area. A quiet corner where no one would see him and he, in turn, could see no one.

He was in his own world. I stood, out of sight, behind a silver birch, and I watched him. Just like Doug had. He was so beautiful. I couldn’t help myself. Doug was right, of course. He was so much a part of the landscape. Taking what he wanted from his surroundings. Digesting the good things, rejecting the bad things. A part of the universe and yet entirely himself. Flowing. Needing nothing, owning everything.

Was that what Doug craved? Was that what I wanted? And Saleem? I didn’t think so. We were all smaller. Wanted to hold something. A small space. A small holding. And the smaller the holding, the harder to hold. The smaller, the harder.

I slipped my arms around the tree and clung to it, until it was time to let go.

MY FUNERAL SUIT. The files. Enfield. An office. Four men and me.

It was hard, to start off with, so instead of evading and avoiding — my normal course of action — I embarrassed myself on purpose. Straight away. Up front. I gave myself a proper reason. I said, ‘Sorry about the way I look. I developed an allergy to a new type of weedkiller we’re using.’

They stared at me, smiled, and then they stopped staring.