Nicola Barker - Darkmans

The circumstances of his own death had been profoundly unsatisfactory. He’d been one of countless casualties in the Marchioness Pleasure Boat Disaster (a small Thames cruise ship, pole-axed, in the dark, by an unlit dredger).

‘But what was he doing on the boat in the first place?’ people constantly asked. Try as Elen might, she could never provide an adequate answer.

It’d all been so very sudden (so abrupt, so random, so incredibly unfair ). He’d faced eternity so many times: head on, with such unfathomable bravery; had gambled with life so fearlessly, only to be grabbed— snatched —from the rear; no chance to ‘take stock’ or ‘make his peace’. Denied, at the last — and this was the cruellest part — that pious mantle of ‘a noble sacrifice’.

Her mother (who’d long found the role of serviceman’s wife an uneasy one) promptly remarried a dairy farmer and now lived a life of bucolic bliss in rural North Yorkshire.

Anxiety over the welfare of her father had glued Elen and her mother tight at certain points during her child-and teen-hood, but with his unexpected demise, the bond had slackened. And there’d been some ill-feeling over her mother’s lack of involvement in the hard-fought campaign for a proper inquest (‘You think if some random judge finds the cruise-ship company negligent it’ll bring your father back to me?’ she’d griped. And then, later — when things got really nasty—‘They don’t decorate the wives, Elen. Sometimes, when a man risks everything so easily you have to stop and wonder what “everything” actually means to him…’).

To cut things short: they were not so close now as they once had been.

Talking of fathers–

Yes

Good—

Moving swiftly on…

Franklin Charlesworth was the don. He was chiropody’s Big Daddy. His absolute classic Chiropody: Theory and Practice , Elen had owned in hardback (in its 5th edition) just about as long as she could remember (it’d got to the point, in Germany, during school holidays — she was ten — when she’d read virtually every tome in the Base’s library. So she’d borrowed this one. Pored over the pictures–

Oh my God!

What is that?!

— and had never troubled to take it back).

It was her Bible (that so-familiar frontispiece illustration of a septic bunion was her spiritual equivalent of Genesis — it was where everything first began). Charlesworth was definitely Moses (who else?). He delivered chiropody (or podiatry, as the Americans were so determined to call it) from the Dark Ages. He brought the tablets down from the mountain.

It was chiefly through his dedication, generosity, lateral thinking and hard endeavour that chiropody finally came to be recognised as a Medical Auxiliary (and won the Holy Grail: State Registration). It was the same text-book she’d used at college (her grades so superlative, they’d pushed her towards Surgery, but she’d resisted, for some reason).

Elen rarely dreamed, but when she did, Charlesworth provided her with the Foreword, the Contents, the Index, the Appendices. He represented so much for her (stuck a career-based band-aid over her emotional tribulations — such as they were), fulfilled all her wishes…

Uh…

Yes.

Skin diseases:

Count them off…

Primary Lesions: The Macule,

The Papule,

The Tubercule,

The Vesicle,

The Pustule,

The Bulla,

The Wheal,

The Squames…

That’s all eight.

Good.

Secondary Lesions:

Crusts,

Ulcers,

Scars,

Fissures.

Just the four…

Count them…

Uh…

Charlesworth was her guide, her inspiration and her mentor. He was her role model; the parent who was never absent. He was her constant, her anchor. He’d given so much, for so long; was so painstaking, so fastidious …

Sometimes she’d lie in bed at night and consider the many years he’d spent embroiled in the careful manufacture of corrective, protective and palliative foot appliances–

Oh those magnificent, one-off, hand-stitched surgical boots — With the ‘Charlesworth’ splint, nestling softly inside…

Love could be rather like shoe-making, she’d quietly reason–

All in the finish—

And in the detailing…

For maximum comfort and minimum wear, your basic raw materials — be they plastic, synthetic, fabric or leather — had to be carefully — nay scrupulously —manipulated to fit. Over-the-counter, made-to-measure; it didn’t really matter. There was definitely a craft in it.

218.

No, seriously…

That’s Two Hundred (one, two, three, four, five–

Go on,

Count them )

— and Eighteen (one, eight) faults–

Yes, faults—

ie

Problems,

Botch-ups

— on your average New Build property.

218.

She’d seen it on a television report. Some houses fared slightly better, they’d claimed, and some fared slightly worse. But 218 was the average–

Can that really be right?

They’d also maintained — during this same incendiary broadcast–

Why oh why did I insist on staying up late?

Why didn’t I just go to bed early, like Isidore said?

— that the sensible buyer should at no costs–

Under Strictly No Circumstances

— consider purchasing a New Build property situated either in, or around, a notable dip. This was because most New Builds were sited on meadowland — bogs — flood plains; on the outskirts of town; the left-over bits of land; bits that nobody had ever bothered with before–

But hang on…

— Which inevitably begs the question, ‘Why?’

Exactly!

Hmmn…

Remote control—

Volume…uh…

Up

Were our ancestors all just thoroughly unadventurous? Were they obstinately— neurotically , even — attached to mounds and to hillocks? Was it merely a question of safety (of finding the best site to defend against the marauding invader)? Or was the population so tiny back then that they never felt the urge (there was simply no call) to build in these left-over places?

Finally (and here’s the rub) did they perhaps know something about the kinds of environments best suited for human habitation? Had they worked out this equation themselves, over time, through a system of trial and error? Did they have more respect for the pitfalls of nature? Did they understand the land? And then did we–

Those damn politicians—

And those evil-bastard, money-grabbing contractors—

— just conveniently resolve not to understand? To forget all the lessons they’d learned, and to build on these marginalised sites anyway (while offering a swift–

arrogant

— but mechanical nod to that delightfully infallible modern double-act of ‘progress’ and ‘technology’?

Infallible, that is, until they’ve got your damn money).

The bottom line (the programme stated) was that available sites were often empty for perfectly good reasons. If there wasn’t landfill somewhere in the general vicinity (oozing a terrifying cocktail of poisonous gases out into the stratosphere), then there would definitely be water.

That horrible, interminable drip, drip, drip…

Elen and Isidore lived in a New Build. It was set in a slight dip (a little saucer), and she absolutely hated it. She’d always loathed New Builds (she’d never made any bones about this fact. At root — Isidore carped — she was a snob. ‘So are you,’ she’d say, ‘but just of a different kind.’).