Nicola Barker - Five Miles from Outer Hope

Mo says the results are nothing short of fantastic. During a trial run in Idaho’s main female prison one woman was apprehended with six razor blades lodged inside her vagina, all neatly wrapped in a small, neat sheath of protective plastic (some indication — if any were needed — of the sheer lengths these girls will go to to avoid unsightly stubble).

Not only an absolute boon for the prison authorities, a smart innovation and a serious time-saver, the Probe also — in real terms — means a serious reduction in rubber-glove expenditure ( Lord! To hear me flog this pony you’d think I was on commission). And last, but certainly not least, it’s a huge potential money-spinner for my dear mother Mo and her shifty, lily-livered, liberally inclined, financial and ideological partner, Bob Ranger.

(I’d rather not dwell, if you don’t mind, on the tough early days of this fine device’s preparatory testing regimen. Just whisper the dread words metal pessary within earshot and my eyes begin watering — although, on the upside, my powerful vaginal muscles could choke a weasel.)

And that, as they say, is basically the sum of it. So how’s about we all try and set our sordid minds to finally putting this whole damn Probe thing behind us?

Ah-hah- hem . If you get my meaning.

Talk about a whole host of weird shit . I’ve hardly set a well-turned toe back inside the hotel foyer again before Little Big Man lunges out unexpectedly from behind a ludicrously monumental translucent pink glass statue of Diana the Huntress (a goddess with huskies. For some reason they seemed to dote on this crazy broad way back in the thirties. I’m uncertain of her eighties status, but whenever we’re engulfed by a spot of DIY chaos, Diana’s always the first thing to split the scene on a series of specially-adapted squeaky castors. The girl’s an ancient, godly, dog-infested, iced-glass absconder ).

He grabs a tight hold of me and spirits me off into a quiet corner. He has a deranged air, Polyfilla-coated fingers and is clutching a telegram from our dear mother Mo. He hands it over (there’s hardly any sticky residue) and kindly but firmly obliges me to read it.

Here’s what it says:

Oh my sweet darling I need more money. Please, please strong-arm the lovely S. African. To hell with principle! Am on the cusp of reforming greatness! Clever Bob R. has made serious contacts with a major international security manufacturer. Wahhh! Still prison visiting. Tell kids J. H. got parole last week June 5. God Bless Norman Mailer! All is madness. Mo

‘J. H.? Who’s that, then?’ I ask stupidly, once I’ve carefully completed my scrupulous re-reading.

Big scowls. ‘Abbott. The mass murderer. The writer .’

I make the connection. ‘Ah, you mean…’

‘Yes. And that’s another thing,’ Big rapidly continues (having failed to tell me the first thing first), ‘I don’t need Patch filling her silly head with a pointless heap of anti-establishment propaganda. I need you to get that book off her.’

‘And then what?’ I chortle. ‘ Burn it?’

He’s so pent-up, he can’t even tell I’m joking. He just nods his agreement and then suddenly stiffens. ‘Just do something for once,’ he yells, ‘without bloody arguing .’

I stare down at him for a moment. He seems barely recognizable.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say plaintively, ‘but I can’t help feeling like I’m not getting something.’

(I mean, either the man’s displacing for some reason or his fuse has sparked out and short-circuited his sanity.) He frowns for a minute, then shrugs, then shakes his head. ‘I miss Barge,’ he mutters weakly, touching his hands to his temples and inadvertently war-painting them. ‘And I miss Poodle. It’s nothing against you, nothing personal , they’re just that tiny little bit older and, well, wiser .’

He indicates a short inch between his thumb and his index finger (This is Barge we’re talking about: a twenty-three-year-old man wholly incapable of expressing himself artistically in anything even loosely amounting to 3D, an atheist pumpkin , a salivating ninny ).

Yeah. Thanks a bunch. So I’m sixteen years young, criminally undervalued and hurting , but I still take the requisite time out to carefully re-inspect that unenlightening telegram.

‘I don’t quite understand the South African thing. Strong arm who for money? Does she mean La Roux? Is he loaded or something?’

Big takes a deep breath. ‘Not La Roux. She means his father.’

‘Uh…’ I frown. ‘Sorry. I’m still not following.’

He snatches the telegram and carefully refolds it. ‘La Roux’s staying here illegally,’ he whispers, all sotto. ‘ He’s meant to be fighting in a war with Angola. He’s AWOL. He’s done a runner.’

‘La Roux fighting a war ?’ I bellow, and then instantly start sniggering. ‘ La Roux? Perhaps it’s just me, but I find it rather difficult to picture a big…’ (I pause, and scrabble) ‘… a big goose like him engaged in violent hand to hand conflict with anybody , let alone the marshalled armed forces of an entire British colony.’

(In my mind I have a sudden vision of La Roux in his strangely structured trousers and Appaloosan pony sweater thumbing his nose idly at ten thousand well-armed Angolan warriors. It’s a huge joke. It must be.)

Big waves his hand. ‘It’s an ex- German colony, if you must know, and more in the style of a guerilla conflict,’ he says airily, as if this explains everything.

‘Wow,’ I muse. ‘Real guerillas? How wonderfully African .’

Big spends a difficult thirty seconds struggling to comprehend my position. And then, when he thinks he’s finally got it (I’m just a scab he’s idly peeling), the tight set of his expression implies that it’s a standpoint hardly worth comprehending.

‘Perhaps you might bear in mind’, he snipes meanly, ‘that there’s nothing remotely wonderful about evading your duties, bludging off complete strangers, masturbating at will and strong-arming miniature guitars from defenceless children.’

‘ Bludging? ’ I blink anxiously at Big’s ferocity. ‘I thought you just said his dad was paying.’

‘And another thing,’ Big adds, ignoring my sneaky intervention, ‘and it’s something you might do well to try and remember…’ (I hold my breath and listen, appalled, as always, to be in the direct firing line of a parental pronouncement.) ‘There’s nothing more sickening ’, he growls emphatically, ‘than the spectre of science parading as morality.’

He pauses dramatically. ‘Remember the nuclear bomb?’

I nod.

‘Remember the electric chair?’

I kick the wall, gently.

‘When you start combining ethics and science, no matter how clever you are or how worthy your intentions, you invariably end up sharing an agenda with the likes of Doctor Mengele.’

I widen my eyes, coquettishly. ‘And is that a good thing?’

He stares at me, briefly, then puts his hand to his stomach, winces, and heads, at speed, towards the downstairs toilet.

Uh- oh. The ulcer.

As soon as Big’s off barfing, I start sniffing around for my little sister. Because y ou know and I know that every demon twelve year old that ever yet filled their mean lungs with free oxygen on God’s Great Earth has a set of ears on them like a radar-rigged, sound-sensitive hyena.

And that scurrilous Patch is truly no exception (put it this way: if ever you’re having a private conversation — if confidences are quietly being exchanged — then that fat brat will almost certainly be skulking somewhere within earshot).