Nicola Barker - Darkmans

Beede,

Sorry you had to leave so early — hope you’re feeling a little livelier by now. After you’d gone we took a vote on the contentious issue of Chairman (Tom didn’t let me stand in the end. Think it was for the best, but Sarah Howarth did, and Jack Cowper(!!)). Isidore nominated you (in your absence) and I took the liberty of seconding him. The vote was all-but unanimous. So we dearly hope you’ll do us the great honour of accepting this pivotal role in our small organisation!

All details etc will be ironed out at our next meeting — Wed. 24th. 8pm. Our place again, I’m afraid (Hope the new Chair won’t mind — I’ve heard he runs a tight ship!).

Yours…

As he read, Beede’s jaw slowly stiffened. His eye returned to the line ‘Isidore nominated you (in your absence)…’ ‘Damn him!’ he gasped. ‘But why ?!’

He screwed up the letter and smashed it down, hard , on to the counter, then stood — stock still, eyes unfocussed, thinking deeply. The cat mimicked his reverie, his slim tail kinking, then sprang back, alarmed, as Beede exploded into life again: grabbing his helmet and his jacket, rummaging around inside his pockets for his keys and slamming his way, violently, out of the flat.

Once he’d gone, the cat jumped up, soundlessly, on to the counter and sat there, head cocked, listening intently to the Douglas’s old engine (turning, cutting out, turning, cutting out, turning, catching, and then noisily accelerating).

As its clamour gradually faded he reached out a dainty paw and gave the contentious note a gentle tap with it, then watched — eyes narrowing, whiskers a-quiver — as it slid, seductively, across the counter-top.

‘I’m sorry it’s such a mess in here,’ she murmured, bundling his sweater into the machine, yanking out the small detergent drawer, pouring in some washing liquid and adding a tiny drop of fabric conditioner, ‘but our electricity cut out this morning — half-way through a washload…’

She gestured, wearily, towards all the chair-backs and the radiators which were currently festooned in towels, t-shirts and underwear–

Kane glanced around him–

Oh God, yes—

Her underwear…

Elen deftly programmed the machine and pressed the start button. As he stood there–

Stop staring at her bra, you twat

— his phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. It made him start–

Fuck—

Still feeling the after-effects of that crazy sensimillia…

‘So,’ Elen straightened up, smoothing down her skirt, ‘shall I take a proper look?’

Her eye moved to his pocket where the phone quietly shuddered.

‘Pardon?’

‘The foot.’

‘Oh. Yeah…’ he frowned, glancing down, suddenly embarrassed by the notion of actual physical contact.

She observed his sudden reticence and smiled at him, teasingly. ‘I thought you said you were in agony.’

‘Yes. Well, no …’ he back-pedalled, ‘not agony exactly…’

As he spoke the dog trundled past him (her rear-end now attached — by a series of tiny, silver-buckled leather harnesses — to a jaunty red cart). Kane gazed on — somewhat startled — as she made her stately progress across the floor, her wooden wheels bumping and rattling against the reproduction slate tiling. She stationed herself, with a heavy sigh, directly in front of the washer-dryer.

Elen glanced down at the dog, fondly. ‘The machine seems to mesmerise her. She’ll stand there for hours, just watching the clothes turning.’

Wow

Kane put his hand to his head. He still felt slightly woozy. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ she asked him. Her voice sounding distant, then very near. He blinked.

‘Do you have any spirits?’ he asked, sitting down, heavily, on a chair, ‘whisky, maybe, or brandy?’

She leaned over and grabbed a hold of the vest which he’d inadvertently knocked down on to the floor. As she leaned her hair fell against his shoulder. He inhaled it. The blackness of her clothing creaked. He felt a powerful urge to touch her.

‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’ she asked. ‘What?’

To touch?

‘Perhaps a coffee would be better. Or some sweet tea? You look a little pale.’

Kane shrugged. ‘Sure. Coffee — or tea, even…’ he murmured, ‘…if you feel that’s more appropriate.’

She gazed at him for a second — quite blankly — then she turned, opened the freezer and pulled out a bottle of frozen Stolichnaya. The bottle was so cold that it stuck to her fingers. She removed a tiny, highly decorated antique thumb glass from a cupboard, filled it and passed it over.

Kane took the glass and held it aloft, staring at it, in a kind of dreamy stupor.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked, rolling the cap between her fingers. ‘Are you familiar with the story of the Moscow Hotel?’ he wondered. ‘Pardon?’

He glanced up, distractedly. ‘The label. On the bottle. It’s a picture of the Moscow Hotel.’

She peered down at the bottle. She saw an uncontentious line drawing of a plain-looking building.

‘Won’t you join me?’ he suddenly asked, with a slight smirk, saluting her with his shot.

‘It’s a little early,’ she said.

He shrugged, knocked his drink back, swallowed, then shuddered.

‘You were always such a sober little creature…’ she murmured gently ‘…as I remember.’

Was it gentle?

Truly?

Or was it regretful?

‘I wasn’t little,’ he snapped, ‘I was fourteen — fifteen — a teenager.’ ‘Yes,’ she tipped her head, thoughtfully, ‘I suppose you were…’ ‘And as I remember,’ he interjected, almost harshly (determined to defend the honour of that once virulently hormonal adolescent monkey), ‘I thought you were…’ he frowned ‘…quite magnificent.’

Magnificent?!

She chuckled, wryly. ‘You didn’t get out much, huh ?’

He grinned back at her.

‘Although…’ her expression grew serious, ‘in retrospect…’ she looked at him, almost pityingly, ‘you can’t’ve got out much. Weren’t you your mother’s principal carer?’

The smile died on his lips.

‘So they needed to build this new hotel in Moscow,’ he returned, somewhat sullenly, to his former subject–

Why’d she insist on doing that?

On ruining things?

–‘and because the building was to be so close to the Kremlin, in the centre of town — a landmark building — they commissioned two top architects to come up with designs for it. When they’d completed their plans, they sent them to Comrade Stalin so that he could tell them which one he preferred…’

He offered her the glass back.

She didn’t take it at once. She gazed at him, intently, then smiled, took it, poured another large shot and downed it. ‘ Nasdravye ,’ she murmured.

He gave her a sour — almost withering — look. She promptly poured and downed a second shot, then a third, before covering her mouth with the back of her hand, leaning forward and coughing, hoarsely, her hair swinging darkly across her cheeks, her eyes tearing up, like some kind of wildly romantic girl consumptive–

No.

Stop that .

She cleared her throat. ‘It’s been a wretched day,’ she croaked.

‘So anyway…’ he glanced down, unnerved, absolutely determined–

Damn it

— not to engage with her emotionally ‘…the architect — or apparatchik, or whatever — takes the two designs to Stalin, to see which one he likes better. And Stalin’s not really paying attention. Perhaps it’s too early in the morning, or he’s got a hangover, or he’s still thinking about that pretty young girl in the shiny-white underwear who he watched in the gymnastics display the day before…‘