Nicola Barker - Five Miles from Outer Hope

‘Until?’ (The man’s virtually salivating.)

‘Well, I had some silly idea about maybe going down to the Mermaid Cove — where those strange fishes hang out that wriggle against your shins — the kind of environment you might feel at ease in, and then perhaps I could…’ I frown. ‘Now what is it that they do with new statues at formal public openings? For some reason the word temporarily escapes me…’

‘Disrobing?’ he gabbles.

‘No.’

‘Unsheathing?’

‘No.’

La Roux’s bad-skinned visage breaks into a grin. ‘I don’t care what the word is,’ he crows, ‘it’s a fucking marvellous idea.’

Easy . See? One. Two. Three. And I’ve sunk him.

Nobody ever pretended Operation Vagina (that’s currently what I’m calling it) would be an easy action. And Lord knows it isn’t. But surely — I tell a slightly bemused Feely as he helps me with some crucial military drawings — even fools appreciate that trapping a wild and wily animal while it’s still alive and kicking always takes infinitely greater time and patience than going out with a firearm and simply shooting it to pieces (Even if, as in La Roux’s case, the use of random fire-power might prove — pound for pound — significantly more gratifying, I’m afraid guns aren’t really a serious option. Why? Because I’m sixteen years young , God-dammit, and unable to get a fucking licence ).

I don’t know who I’m trying to convince exactly, him or me. ‘Whatever you say, Medve,’ Feely belches indulgently. ‘I agree completely…’, then he grabs a red crayon and applies it with focused gusto to my pen-and-ink efforts (Yes, the child’s an absolute buttress and still burping, bless him).

If, by any chance, you happen to be interested in my canny Operation’s essential timing, well, all in all, and everything considered, the full and frenzied climax to my major manipulative masterwork takes one dark night and two long days to come into its mature and mellow fruition.

The initial pace is deceptively slow and leisurely, but this does nothing to diminish the unhealthy satisfaction gleaned from each and every well-timed step in my foul and wicked perambulation. The loose scenario runs as follows:

1. The Whitewash

(I believe we’ve been here already.) With a feisty mixture of guano and lies, Sister Patch gets La Roux and the others to think I’m deeply ignorant and guilt-ridden.

2. The Baiting

(Ditto) I masterfully — if I say so myself — convince La Roux that I’m willing to sacrifice my girlie privacy to improve his mental, emotional and sexual well-being.

3. The Drawing

Oooh . Now that’s more like it…

The self-same evening of the fishing trip, I welcome La Roux into the ping-pong room and show him a series of badly penned sketches (This is 1981, remember, and pre-Milan Kundera’s shameless sexual shenanigans with mirrors, so every-thing’s looking pretty damn perfunctory down there, even to begin with, and — to make matters worse — I never really paid much attention during school biology lessons, on the brief occasions I ever had them).

La Roux pulls out a chair and sits down next to me. I notice idly that he has greased back his hair and is wearing his favourite pony jumper. Ah. How touching .

I have borrowed one of Barge’s old artist’s sketch pads for my amateurish doodlings.

‘Okay, La Roux,’ I say calmly, placing the sketch pad before him. ‘I’m going to show you some intimate pictures, and if at any point you sense yourself becoming agitated or unhappy, or if you feel your finger-pads tingling, just tell me about it and I’ll stop what I’m doing and we can play a game of ping-pong or darts or arm wrestle or something, to try and keep the mood as unthreatening and tranquil as possible.’

La Roux takes a deep breath and grabs a hold of my hand. He squeezes it gently. ‘Right,’ he says, nodding twice. ‘I think I’m about as ready as I’ll ever be.’

(Obviously it’s difficult for me to turn the pages or to point at my diagrams effectively now that La Roux has taken my spare paw prisoner. But so be it.)

Page one. The Female Torso, in all its glorious totality (I have traced around the outline of one of Patch’s old Sindy dolls for this full-body illustration, but I’ve given the lady in question a pair of nipples, a friendly smile and a well-defined pubic area).

La Roux stares at the drawing with an air of great satisfaction (nothing to worry about here, presumably).

‘So,’ I smile brightly, ‘I think this is all fairly self-explanatory… Uh…’ I do some pointing. ‘Head, thorax, abdomen. Just the same, I think you’ll find, as with insects and horses. But slightly different from fishes. Right…’

I’m about to turn over when La Roux says, ‘Here’s a question for you…’

‘What?’ I ask anxiously.

‘I’ve long wondered’, he ruminates, ‘whether women pee through their vaginas. It’s just that’s one of the things I’ve always found slightly off-putting about them, sexually.’

He casually twitches his fingers as he stares at me. I take a deep breath, clamp my jaw together and then shake my head.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I grind (that terrible mixture of enraged and giggly). ‘Of course women don’t pee through their sexual organs. That would be disgusting . They urinate through an extra hole just below their bottoms. I’ll show you exactly where, later, in the more detailed illustration, if you’ll bear with me.’

I turn over.

Page Two. The Genital Region.

La Roux clenches my hand a little tighter.

‘I feel nauseous,’ he confides, blinking repeatedly.

Fine . We play two games of ping-pong and I cheerfully wipe the floor with him (21–6, 21–4). Then we sit down again. Slightly out of breath and perspiring gently.

La Roux slowly sets about inspecting the illustration properly. He starts at the top end and then works his way downwards, frowning. ‘Two things,’ he mutters, after a while.

‘Fire away.’

‘First off, for a woman who paints china for a living you seem to have no real, discernible artistic ability. This female genital looks like an angry moose, yawning. Secondly, there’s far more activity here than I ever remember learning about in biology. There are so many cavities it’s like a shower-head…’ he points. ‘I mean, what’s that , to start off with?’

I look closer. ‘That’s…’ I turn the drawing up the other way. ‘I think that’s a nipple. No. No. It’s a belly button, stupid .’

La Roux stares harder. ‘And below it?’

‘Clitoris. The girl penis.’

His eyes widen. ‘You’re kidding me?’

‘Nope.’

‘The girl penis ,’ La Roux repeats, softly, committing it to memory.

He stares some more. ‘And there?’

‘Oh… no…’ I chuckle, ‘that’s something Feely put in when I wasn’t looking. I think it’s supposed to be a revolutionary standard. Like a flag. Simply try and ignore it.’

La Roux’s brow wrinkles. ‘It’s just the particular colour he’s chosen is giving me a bad feeling… You know… Red. Infection .’

I quickly put my hand over it.

‘Just think a little harder about the cervix instead,’ I tell him brightly (incidentally, not featured in this diagram — internal bits and pieces are better illustrated on page three).

La Roux points again. ‘The moose’s jowls,’ he mutters, ‘is that the thing you just mentioned?’