Nicola Barker - Five Miles from Outer Hope

‘Sorry,’ I finally manage again, ‘you said balaclava ?’

‘Then not ten minutes since,’ he continues, ‘I saw him carrying a shitload of chicken wire…’

He points to the hazy summit — past the old croquet lawn, towards the Herring Cove — a sumptuous grass-strewn rise glimmering with an obscene verdancy in the early summer shine (the cliffs crash beyond it, all chalk and shag).

‘That way.’

Jesus, the man is almost trippy .

He peers again, ‘And there he goes…’

I walk back towards him, up the hill. Once I reach his level I stretch my neck. Sure enough, I see a black-headed creature processing regally along the horizon, arms full of silver.

‘Chicken wire? Where’d he get that from?’

‘And he’s got some old lavender,’ Jack observes almost squinting, ‘and a fucking tonne of blue grass… Still in his balaclava, note. The twat .’

You know what? He’s been here all of three hours or something and already the bastard’s appropriating . He’s re-inventing . He’s running bloody riot. Collecting chicken wire for no known reason, and gathering lavender. Wearing a balaclava .

Oh, so he’s softened you already with the chin thing, has he? You think I didn’t notice? You have a handsome chin. You think that didn’t impact ? This man is clever, certainly. But I am single-minded, oestrogen-fuelled and cunning .

Right. So he sees me coming from way off and is courteous enough to stand waiting. As I draw closer — I am panting a little and wet-legged from the dew (I’m resolutely bare-footed — my soles are like emery boards. You can strike matches off them. We do it all the time in winter), I see that the balaclava has no nose or mouth holes, although the wool’s much darker where the mouth and nose should be. Wet. Sweaty.

‘And the chicken wire?’

He stares at me, hazel-eyed. My words hang in the air a while. Soon they’re flapping like old underwear on a windy washing line.

And the chicken wire?

He blinks.

‘Oh. Was that a question you just asked me?’

(Imagine his words, all tight and clipped and southern hemispherical, but completely ensnared by woollen weave — Uh. Gnah, gnah, gnah, gnah, gnah, gnah, gnah, gnah hi ?)

‘Sorry,’ I lie. ‘I cannot understand what you’re saying through your mouth.’

He still looks quizzical.

‘Sorry,’ he answers eventually, ‘I cannot hear what you’re saying through my ears.’

He proffers me the bunch of blue grass. I stare at it, impassively.

‘Are you offering that grass to me?’

He nods.

‘And the chicken wire?’

‘No. That’s mine. I have need of it.’

I take the grass. He grunts his satisfaction at our transaction then strolls away.

‘Thank you,’ I finally yell, but he’s already twelve steps down the hill. I inspect the bunch then look up.

Four foot off, perched on the clifftops, two jackdaws are quietly watching. Heads cocked, beaks glinting. I tickle my nose self-consciously with the grass’s silver, whispy flower-heads, my eyes still fixed upon them.

Suddenly they lift and plummet, peeling like bells. I stiffen. Perhaps I’m paranoid, but I honestly get the impression they might be laughing at me. I drop the grass that very instant (well, almost immediately), and calmly kick it over the cliff and down and down and down, into the sea.

The mean-beaked, dirty-vented, scraggy-feathered sods .

I corner Patch in the Ganges Room. She likes to hang out there sometimes with Feely. It’s actually the front half of an old ship (the Ganges , circa 1821, you nerd ), the captain’s cabin, to be precise, but sawed off and just kind of tacked on to the hotel dining-room, with a steering-wheel (not period) dug into the dark timber floor, and portholes and old wooden benches and ancient photos on the walls and everything. A view out to sea.

Patch props Feely on a box and he steers. She stands right beside him, daydreaming. I creep up behind them, minutely galled by their gentle companionability.

‘Where’s he taking you?’ I whisper, over her shoulder.

Patch jumps from her deep reverie. ‘ What? ’ she almost pants.

‘Tobago,’ Feely answers curtly.

‘And then what? Swordplay? Pillaging? Piracy?’

He turns and gives me a serious look. ‘You’re making too much of things,’ he says gently. ‘It’s only imaginary.’

(Who the hell made this child so snotty ?)

Patch sniggers and Feely steers onward, rather smugly.

After a canny minute’s silence (as if in quiet tribute to Feely’s considerable skills as navigator and helmsman), I clear my throat, then let the little shit have it. ‘This isn’t Tobago, you dunce,’ I pronounce firmly. ‘It’s Newfoundland. What the heck is up with your geography?’

‘Geography?’ He echoes, blinking repeatedly. I have entered his world.

‘It’s Newfoundland!’ I repeat, then gasp, as if only now fully comprehending the shimmering blue-green vista which unfolds right before me.

Feely shakes his head. He’s seeing orange skies and sandy shores and parrots in flocks and pine trees. ‘It’s Tobago.’

‘Nope.’

‘It’s Tobago.’

‘Nope.’

‘It’s Tobago.’

‘Whatever you say.’

He pauses. He turns.

‘It’s Tobago !’

I smile pityingly, ‘Of course it is, Feely.’

He jumps from the box, his face stricken. ‘It’s Tobago !’

‘Whatever you think, little man.’

(Little man is, of course, the final blow.)

He runs off, screaming.

Proud at having done my sisterly duty, I kick the box aside, grab the wheel and steer Patch and me straight into the heart of the tropics.

‘Ah, Tobago!’ I croon.

(Ever seen it? Me neither.)

Patch has sat down, meanwhile, on a bench beneath a port-hole and is gnawing at her thumbnail. She clearly has much on her twelve-year-old mind.

I glance over. ‘You look exceptionally porcine,’ I inform her.

‘I hate you,’ she answers cheerfully. She doesn’t exactly know what porcine means. But she’s probably in the area. She’s a bright kid. Reads far more than is properly healthy.

‘You hate my hormones, not me,’ I enlighten her, ‘and in one year’s time, you too will be a monster.’

‘Balls.’

I let go of the wheel and slither over.

‘So tell me all about the new man,’ I whisper. ‘The interloper .’

She shrugs. She’s not having any of it.

‘Jack says when he arrived this morning Big was spitting fucking tacks . I quote directly.’

Patch wriggles her toes. ‘I don’t know about that,’ she says, then pauses, ‘but I do know…’ (The child wants my tall teen approval so desperately ) ‘… that he’s bedding down way up on the top floor. And when Big showed him a room, he double-checked the cupboard space, but insisted there wasn’t sufficient reach , so strode next door and claimed the neighbouring suite instead. The big one at the end with the hole in the roof.’

I’m impressed. ‘The man is saucy.’

‘Yes.’

‘Has he much baggage?’

‘Psychologically, perhaps — I mean he’s a white South African — but literally , none. A tiny suitcase and a very small guitar.’

(This chubby pup is facetious beyond belief.) ‘Was he wearing the balaclava?’

‘Initially.’

‘Any reason given as to why?’

‘None.’

I mull a while. ‘And did he mention his name?’