Nicola Barker - Darkmans

‘Not too high,’ Beede grouched, unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it off, resentfully.

She returned and stood before him, steadily appraising him, in his vest.

He clasped his hands together, struggling to meet her gaze. He felt ridiculous. He hated being stared at.

‘There’s this slight — almost imperceptible — imbalance,’ she said, ‘it’s evident here …’ she pointed, ‘in your shoulders, in the way you’re holding yourself.’

She described the shape of him, in the air, with her hands.

‘Oh.’

He tried to push his shoulders back, but they were already as far back as they could possibly go.

‘It’s not your posture,’ she emphasised, ‘you’ve got amazing posture for a man of your age.’

‘Oh,’ he said again, stupidly.

‘Wait…I’ll show you…’

She pulled off her jumper — in preparation — and threw it down on to the sofa next to him. Underneath she wore a plain, slim-fitting, long-sleeved vest — in an appealing dove grey colour — and no bra. The soft, brown bulbs of her nipples were partially visible — like two milk chocolate truffles — through the thin, downy fabric. Beede rapidly averted his gaze. Elen walked back around to the rear of him, flexing her hands and her fingers, then leaned forward and carefully locked her arm around his neck. ‘Stay very still,’ she murmured ominously, her breath tickling his ear. ‘Be sure and relax your jaw.’

He felt her small breasts cushioning his head. She seemed very lithe, very strong. He closed his eyes, appalled at her closeness, feeling her other hand slipping under his chin and grasping it, firmly. She paused for a second, inhaled, and then suddenly jerked her arm and her hand — quite violently — in opposite directions. Beede gasped, shocked. There was a loud, cracking sound. He felt a dramatic release of pressure in his throat and upper back.

‘There…’ she stepped away from him again and casually appraised the progress she’d made. ‘That’s better…’

She pushed up her sleeves in a business-like manner, then drew forward again, carefully placed each of her fingers on to different parts of the dome of his skull, and slowly began applying a steady pressure. ‘How’s that feel? Not too uncomfortable, I hope?’

He felt his eyebrows beginning to melt.

‘You trained in Germany?’ he asked. His voice sounded slurred. She began to rotate her fingers, but without moving them, and without any lessening of the pressure.

‘I was there for almost a year. Isidore’s father was dying. Dory insisted on nursing him himself.’

‘I see.’

Beede’s eyes suddenly filled with tears.

‘This can sometimes makes your eyes water,’ she said (although she’d no way of apprehending the effect she was having). ‘It’s these two fingers here…’

She lifted the two fingers in question for a second.

‘Were they close?’ he asked, blinking rapidly.

‘Yes. His father was a lovely man, but rather overbearing. An ideologue. Very stern.’

She relaxed the pressure in her fingers and gently ran her hands though his hair.

‘You have wonderful hair,’ she said. She leaned down and sniffed it, her plait falling across his shoulder again.

‘Isidore never speaks of him,’ Beede moved his head forward, swallowing. His mouth was dry.

‘Pardon?’

‘His father. He never mentions him.’

‘No.’

She straightened up again, firmly repositioning his head to the correct angle, and moving her index fingers to his temples, her thumbs to a position behind his ear. Again, more pressure.

‘Unclench your hands,’ she said.

He promptly unclenched them.

‘Good.’

‘That was very dutiful of him,’ Beede continued vaguely, his eyes scanning the room for any available distractions.

‘Pardon?’

‘To nurse his father like that.’

‘Ah .’

She released the pressure from his temples and then smoothed her fingertips around his jawline, down on to his throat, to the back of his neck and on to his shoulders. She rested them there for a moment, light as two chaffinches.

Beede suddenly shot out of the chair.

‘The cat ,’ he exclaimed.

‘Cat?’ Elen echoed, confused.

‘Didn’t you hear him? In the bedroom? He’s probably anxious to get out.’

‘You have a cat?’

‘Yes.’

Beede strode through the kitchen to his bedroom. He pushed the door open.

‘Manny?’

He peered around him in the gloom. He couldn’t see the cat. Not at first. The curtains were still closed and the room seemed different, somehow. Cavernous. Fuzzy. Airless. He closed his eyes and shuddered. He drew a deep breath.

‘What kind of a cat?’ Elen asked.

Beede started. His eyes sprang open. She was standing directly behind him.

‘Oh look , a Siamese …’ she moved forward, smiling, before he could answer her. ‘He’s on the bed , all curled up.’

Manny lay in the middle of Beede’s counterpane.

‘Hello, boy…’

She bent forward and put out a hand to stroke him. ‘Is he friendly?’

The words had hardly left her mouth before the cat had uncoiled, with a hiss, and had lashed out at her, spitefully, with his claws unsheathed. She gasped and quickly withdrew her hand, instinctively placing it to her lips. The cat sprang from the bed and ran next door, the bell on his throat jangling.

‘Did he scratch you?’

Beede was horrified. Elen turned, removed her hand from her lips and offered it to him, like a child.

Beede resisted taking it for a moment, but she continued to hold it out, plaintively.

‘Here…’ his resolve quickly weakened, ‘let me see…’

He took her hand and inspected it, drawing it close to his face in the half-light, trying his best to be business-like. But the hand was so small and so soft…

‘He’s drawn blut ,’ Beede murmured thickly, his chest tightening as he inhaled the roses on her, then he frowned. ‘Blood,’ he repeated.

She didn’t speak. He continued to inspect her hand, almost hypnotised by it now, following the line of the scratches with his finger like they were the path of a river on a map. She drew a step closer and pressed the back of the injured hand against his cheek. He held the hand there, staring at her, in silence, for what seemed like an age.

‘I’m seeing Dory at ten,’ he murmured, finally, as if uttering the name alone might save them.

‘I have a client to see then,’ she said.

Neither of them moved.

‘What time is it now?’ he wondered.

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

He heard her voice speaking and then echoing, like a trickle of water falling into a deep pool.

‘Do you hear that?’ he asked, tipping his head slightly towards the sound.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I hear it.’

Then he let go of her hand — suddenly — almost like it was some kind of experiment to see if it would stay aloft. If it could stay. The hand remained suspended, quite effortlessly, against his skin.

He reached out and took a hold of her two plaits, running his fingers down them as if they were bell-pulls, then his grip changed and tightened. ‘Braid,’ he murmured softly, thinking of a horse’s tail, sensing the gloss and slide of horse-flesh ‘… Bridle …’

He rapidly twisted the plaits around his knuckles as if they were reins — and yanked them in towards him, cruelly, as if to pull her up short, to bring things to a halt, but this sharp movement had quite the opposite effect. It pulled her still closer. He felt the soft pressure of her body against him. He frowned, confused, his hands dropping to her shoulders. Her own hand flipped around now and her palm caressed his cheek, then slipped down lower, to his mouth where she followed the outline of his parted lips with her index finger. Her touch felt liquid. He felt subsumed in it. He could hardly breathe. He felt dizzy. He closed his eyes.