Nicola Barker - Darkmans

‘Hey…’

He leaned down towards her to try and calm her. She continued to growl. Not at him , he soon realised…

‘Is it the scarf?’ he asked, proffering it to her. She backed off, still growling.

Kane threw down the scarf and stood up. His chair squeaked against the tiles. He felt strange, almost intoxicated. He thought about having a smoke to calm his nerves. He gazed down at the dog. The dog seemed perfectly fine again. She was dragging herself over towards her water bowl.

Okay…

He took a quick turn around the table to burn off some energy. After two or three steps, though, he stopped. He stared at his feet, at his Blundstones…

Ow!

He was sure there was something…

He squatted down, untied a lace on one boot and pulled it off. He stared inside the boot–

Nothing

He tipped the boot upside down–

Nothing

He frowned. He inspected his sock–

Nothing

He slowly and suspiciously put the boot back on. He stood up. He stamped his foot. It felt fine.

Hmmn.

He began walking around the table again. On his way around he noticed a large, dark-blue, faux -military-style jacket hung up on a peg on the back door. He stared at it, scowling, then he walked over and quickly slipped his hand into one of the jacket pockets. He withdrew a small, brown pill bottle without a label on it and a neatly rolled-up length of bandage. He shook the bottle. He unscrewed the lid, frowning, and peered inside of it. The bottle was half-full of large, unwieldy-looking white pills. He tipped one out on to the palm of his hand and stared at it, still frowning, then he gently touched the tip of his tongue to it–

Eh?

He touched his tongue to it again–

Chalk—

Just chalk.

He tipped the tablet back into the bottle (his head cocked, nonplussed), replaced the lid and returned the bottle and the bandages to the pocket. He reached into the second pocket. This pocket was full of plastic…

Rubbish

He withdrew a small piece of packaging and was just set to push it straight back inside again when he paused and took a second look…

What?!

It was the packaging for a cat collar — but a special cat collar: a collar for a cat, with a bell on it. And shoved in alongside that? A Polaroid. A crumpled-up Polaroid. He carefully straightened it out. It was a photograph of a cat. A cat wearing a collar. A cat wearing a collar without a bell attached. And not just any cat, either–

Oh no…

It was Beede’s cat. Beede’s Siamese cat–

Manny?

Is that his…?

A door suddenly slammed shut in another part of the house. Kane quickly returned the photo and the packaging to the coat pocket and turned around, panicked, grabbing his cigarettes from his jacket–

I was just gonna pop outside for a quick…

Elen looked dazed — dreamy, distracted , even — as she drifted back into the kitchen. She’d changed her clothes and her hair was now wet — newly washed — falling in thick, dark tangles across her shoulders. She was wearing a dressing gown (a plain, brown dressing gown) which was loosely fastened with a belt. And under that? Nothing but a short, thin, pale grey slip.

As she entered the room she was dabbing at her face (her eyes, at least) with the sleeve of the dressing gown–

Crying?

Was she…?

And because her arm was lifted the dressing-gown belt had come loose. Kane could see the lean lines of her body beneath it, the slope and lift of her small breasts, the jut of her hip-bone, the neat angularity of her knees…

She didn’t immediately acknowledge him. She simply walked over to the table, picked up the grey scarf and buried her face in it. Her shoulders shook a little. Kane almost moved towards her then, but still, something stopped him.

Elen drew a deep breath, threw down the scarf (almost in disgust), turned and walked over to the sink. She stared into it for a while, blankly. She sniffed, forlornly and clumsily scratched at the back of her calf with the toes of her other foot. Kane stared, his lips parting, at the pale, soft flesh behind her knees.

Then he dropped his cigarettes. They landed on the tiles with a clatter.

‘John?’

She spun around, terrified, almost losing her balance, grabbing on to the cabinets behind her, her eyes wide, her nostrils flaring. She stared at him, wildly, almost blind — it seemed — with fear. Then she began blinking, very rapidly, as if not entirely sure…

‘Kane?’

At first she seemed astonished by his presence, and then (almost in the same instant) just as astonished that she’d somehow connived to forget that he was there.

‘Oh God . I just…I didn’t…’

She grabbed at her dressing gown and pulled it tightly around her.

Kane bent down to retrieve his cigarettes in a brave attempt to mask his dismay.

‘You were gone for so long…’ he murmured, straightening up again, ‘I was just going to…’

‘How stupid of me…’

She looked around her, confused.

‘What was I thinking ?’

She slapped the side of her head, with frustration, slightly harder — perhaps — than she should have.

‘Don’t worry about it.’

He didn’t like to see her slap herself.

‘No. It’s just…I went upstairs to check on Fleet,’ she paused, frowning, ‘didn’t I? And then…Then I must’ve dozed off. I was sitting on the bed…’

She scratched at her head and felt her wet hair…‘Yes. Then I went to have a shower. I washed my…I was just feeling so…’ she shuddered. ‘Isn’t it cold? Is the heating on? It feels so cold.’ She quickly walked over to a heater and felt it with her hand. Her hand was shaking, he noticed. It had almost a blueish pallor.

‘I should go,’ Kane said, feeling mortified. ‘In fact I must go…I’ve got…’

He turned and tried the back door. It was locked. He looked for a key. He saw one. He twisted it and tried the door again. It remained tightly shut. He glanced up. There was a bolt, at the top. He unfastened it and pulled the door wide. He stepped outside.

‘You did the washing up…’ he heard her, still babbling, still anxious. ‘That was so…’

He began striding across the patio tiles towards the side-gate. ‘Kane?’

He glanced over his shoulder.

She was standing on the back step, her arms wrapped around her. She looked tiny. Her feet were bare.

‘Kane?’

She stepped down on to the patio tiles.

‘Go back inside,’ he said irritably. ‘You’ll freeze.’

‘Please don’t leave.’

‘Go back inside,’ he repeated firmly.

‘No.’

She was shivering. Her teeth started chattering. But she didn’t move.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said, almost angry now. ‘Go back inside.’

‘Don’t leave,’ she said, ‘I’m very sorry…I wasn’t…’ Her voice was almost inaudible. He closed his eyes for a moment. He clenched his hands into fists. He was infuriated by her.

‘You’re tired,’ he said.

‘I just want to speak to you,’ she said. ‘I just need to tell you something.’

‘Tell me what?’ He turned. She didn’t answer. She just continued to stand, as before.

‘Tell me what?’ he repeated.

She held out her hand, plaintively.

‘I should go,’ he said, but then he took a tentative step towards her.

‘Just one second,’ she promised.

‘Fine.’

He walked straight up to her. He stood in front of her, almost too close. He stared down at her, intimidatingly. But she wasn’t intimidated. Instead she reached up, with both hands, and gently grabbed the white hood on either side of his face, then slowly, very deliberately, she stood up on to her tip-toes and pulled his head down towards her. Soon both of their faces were obscured by the hood’s dense fabric. Their noses were almost touching, and their lips.