Nicola Barker - Five Miles from Outer Hope

After fifteen minutes — I’m staring listlessly up at the ceiling all the while — the acupuncturist returns briefly to give the pins a little twizzle. He peers down at my ears with an expression of intense satisfaction. ‘I think everything’s in order,’ he tells me (obviously ludicrously impressed by his own sterling efficiency), then scarpers off again with all the sharp-heeled and officious dispatch of Alice’s White Rabbit.

Some pins hurt much more than others when he moves them. I think they’re in deeper. There are eight of them in total: seven in the left ear, one in the right. As he touches them I bite my tongue, clench my fists and try my damnedest not to whimper.

As he’s leaving me again I turn my head slightly — but very carefully, anxious not to knock the pins into the pale, crochet-covered counterpane — and say, ‘By the way, I really like your dog picture…’

I indicate towards the bedside table, where, taking pride of place, is a black-and-white photo of an unappealing cross-breed: tongue out, head cocked, salivating regally. Impeccably framed. A visibly ancient thing but much beloved. A reproduction. Blown up. Touched up. But in terrible condition.

I don’t know if this evasive acupuncturist hears me. If he does, he doesn’t trouble himself to answer.

I have no business dreaming about Jack Henry Abbott. Yet suddenly this crazy Yank celebrity killer is marching around like an armed guard inside my night-times. He’s lecturing me, at length, about Marx and inequality and perception . He’s ranting and raving and speaking in italics.

Sometimes they drug him and his words are blurred. At these times he drones on endlessly about hope and despair and human weakness. Sometimes he’s pacing silently (These are the worst times. His silence is remorseless ). Sometimes he’s writing poetry. He flirts with haiku: three lines, seventeen syllables. He says he actively enjoys the restriction , the containment of this particular art form. He relishes it. He finds it ironic .

Yeah, Jack Henry. Ha fucking ha .

Sometimes he starves himself. He’s still extremely angry. In fact he’s livid — even though I keep trying to tell him this is my dream and he’s as free as a bird in it. Free . Paroled. Friday the fifth. The very same day on which (I idly mention) that screwball South African first set his two promiscuously cheesy feet on our innocent part-island.

But this professional, hard-edged, handcuffed misanthropist isn’t even remotely interested in the stuff I’m telling him. He says he has a whole fifty-four card pack of his own problems to deal with.

You’re free, you lucky fucker. Get out of my damn head!

But he won’t go. It’s as if he’s waiting for something. Just squatting angrily in a corner, like he’s taking a dump , muttering and scowling and stewing and staring.

Holy Lamb ! My unconscious is running me bloody ragged .

I’m hanging around aimlessly, waiting for Big to dawdle home. It’s already a ridiculous hour: too late to be night, too early to be morning. I guess I feel it’s my daughterly duty (as his oldest remaining nest-bound offspring — I’m his rock, I’m his strength, I’m his staff , I tell you) to keep a keen eye out for his general well-being.

Waking. Dreaming. Book on my lap (no prizes for fingering the criminal who wrote it), propped up in a wicker chair and wrapped in a blanket. No light, just the moon through my domed-glass ceiling. No sound, just the wicker creaking and the stained tiles rattling.

Jack Henry is telling me about his plans to escape. He got out once (1971, if I remember correctly) for an outrageously cheeky six-week vacation. Lay low in a hotel room in Ontario, Canada. And at night — this is the cruellest irony — he dreamed he was back in the hole, back in prison, back in solitary: just pacing and pacing and endlessly pacing.

After six short weeks they caught him and banged him up again.

Born in Michigan: an unwanted baby. Enjoyed a bad run of foster accommodation. Shunted from place to place like an empty fairground dodgem. Turned rotten aged nine. Spent a spell in juvenile detention. Went back at twelve, followed by six long years in some crazy sub-military institution.

Free for a short span at eighteen — age of consent I believe they call it. Issued a cheque against insufficient funds. Was arrested. At which point, at long last, the Big Boys — the real retributionary players — finally got their grubby hands on him (or that’s how he’s telling it).

Killed a man in prison. Self-defence , he hollers. And that was the end. That was when they buried him. Except he had a sister. And a sympathetic bookshop. Who sent him just the kind of stuff he needed to survive it…

Big tomes, slim volumes, hardbacks, softbacks. History, philosophy, politics. Jack Henry got self-educated. Slowly lost his sense of humour. Started a correspondence with famous writer Norman Mailer (then seriously obsessed by legendary death row prisoner/martyr — depending on how you look at it — Gary Gilmore).

Abbott picked him up, when he needed it, on points of ideological and factual accuracy. I mean he was an insider , wasn’t he? He was the man they called The Professor.

Nobody, but nobody, fucked with him.

Footsteps on the parquet. At first I think it’s Big back home (but the more I mull it over, the more I realize the tide’s all wrong for crossing by foot at this particular hour). Through the foyer, the dining-room, out on to the balcony, then back in again, slowly, down the smooth loop of stairs and into the kitchen.

This oddly aimless and arbitrary wandering continues for what feels like an eternity… Back up the stairs, into the snooker room, the foyer, a lengthy pause in front of the part-draped statue of Diana, some utterly inexplicable scratching .

Then finally (and I’m hardly breathing at this stage), a gradual, almost nervy materialization in my doorway. Eight or nine feet away. He hesitates, then shuffles forward like he’s in shackles. The moonlight shines down on him.

La Roux, in his nightwear: a pair of undersized pyjamas, flapping like mainsails above his ankles. And he has something with him, by his heels, in the darkness. I slowly start breathing again. ‘ La Roux! ’ I chastize him in an anxious whisper. ‘Are you trying to scare the living shit out of me?’

He doesn’t answer. He turns and shuffles across the Peacock Lounge, running his hand along the shiny-tiled cocktail bar. He carefully avoids my mattress and bedding. The darker, smudgy creature follows, like a dog, a short distance behind him.

He pauses, briefly (obscured by a parlour palm). I hear some furtive scuffling followed by a gentle tinkle. I think he may well be pissing in the empty fountain.

‘La Roux ! What the fuck are you doing?’

I speak louder this time and clamber to my feet. He strolls around the fountain and directly towards me.

‘I’m walking the dog,’ he answers calmly.

His voice is a dull monotone, and when he speaks it’s into the air directly to the left of where I’m standing.

‘Did you say dog ?’

‘Spookie . Little Spookie. Little ghost. Our tiny puppy.’

And now he’s talking like a baby.

‘What’s the matter with you?’

He shakes his head, frowning. ‘You never liked the dog, did you, Gavin? Not after you found it licking me. But there really was nothing wrong with it. It was simply a matter of two lost souls coming together and…’ he thinks for a moment, ‘… and comforting one another.’