Nicola Barker - Behindlings

Where is he?

‘I’d have to be able to walk in the damn thing,’ Eileen suddenly declared, a hint of irritation hijacking her voice as she tried to wipe wet snow from the lenses of her glasses.

‘Pardon?’

She’d caught him off-guard.

‘The dress, Ted. The honey-coloured dress.’

‘Of course, ’ he quickly reassured her, ‘a tiny split at the back. And lined — so it doesn’t cling — in the thickest, richest, bloodiest blood-orange.’

He paused.

Have I gone too far?

Eileen gazed up at him, her eyes illuminating.

‘ Blood orange,’ she smiled, ‘in shot-silk? I love the sound of that.’

‘Good, ’ he nodded — a kind of courteous dismissal, a tender fullstop — then he turned his attention back to the river.

It was impossible to see far in the soft sleet, the half-light. Perhaps God was masquerading — Ted thought, scowling — for fun or out of sheer viciousness, as some kind of cack-handed amateur artist; roped in to paint the scenery for a bad school drama; working for nothing and — by the shoddy calibre of his output — without enthusiasm; wholly intent upon making the whole damn world into a heavy-handed caricature; a sketch; a border, a wing, a back-drop.

Ted marked it a clumsy effort. Failed him for it.

In the distance –

Ah, that endless thirst for refinement…

— the ghostly flare of the oil terminal; its eternally mischievous, up-all-hours industrious twinkle.

His eyes moved in closer again as the mist briefly shifted and he could suddenly just about decipher…

Tiny details

A precious little water-colour

Finding its definition inside the wider picture…

Eileen grabbed his arm and pointed: towards an ornately-stricken craft, a piebald horse, a dead… a dead fox —

Was it?

— and a familiar figure clambering unsteadily across a nauseatingly temporary-looking make-piece walkway.

For a moment Ted’s starved aesthetic sense was gratified –

Pleasured

— and then –

Shit

— he thrust the eggs into Eileen’s hands, ‘That’s Wes. He’s… Oh Damnation… ’

And he ran –

But why?

— to lend a hand — to prompt — to prop — to light — to ham… to… to… to…

What?

— as ticket collector — as previewer — reviewer — enthusiastic

applauder…

Witness

Audience

Fan

He didn’t care. So long as it was him, and so long as he was there.

Arthur couldn’t quite believe Wesley’d made it over. He’d been preparing for a catastrophe –

Hoping…

— and yet here he was, looming solidly above him — all old rope and hard puff and new sweat and vigour — and here Arthur still was –

Still

— down on his knees; frozen, inept, the girl clinging to his foot and… the… the… the deer skulking around aromatically in the background somewhere…

Laughable

It was almost as if –

Almost

— he’d actually started believing –

And how ridiculous

— in a moment’s weakness, or foolishness — that this was actually his story, his drama… but suddenly –

Cruelly

In a flash

— he knew much better. This was Wesley’s story (this was always Wesley’s story). It bore all the familiar hallmarks. It was too complicated, too unlikely, too intense, too lovely…

The blood

The pain

The fear

The beauty

Wesley’s story

Arthur cursed his own gullibility. Because at some point during that long night — that awful night — their curiously potent little threesome (their troika, their trinity) had actually started to mean something to him…

To signify…

He’d honestly started to think of them –

Oh God

— as… as immutable in some… in some…

As unified, as united, as destined to… to…

He had actually begun to believe — to focus, to fixate — on some kind of vital, rooted, essential equilibrium –

A balance

— something loosely –

Very loosely

— uh… spiritual. A twisted sort of divinity (the nativity on stilts. The nativity on ice, on water…)

That sense of encroaching peril rendering everything so… so…

Clear

Hello?

Hello?

Is this Arthur Young?

Mr Arthur Anthony Young?

Is it?

Could it…?

Nah

Am I…?

Am I…?

Am I cr… cr…?

Is this some kind of falsely retroac-ac-active…

Hy… hypothermic…

Blood-loss-related…

Pharmaceu… ceutically engendered…

Eh?

And yet –

Sure as eggs is fucking eggs

— to get back to the point, to get back to the reality; here was bloody

Wesley –

Tah-dah!

— to mess it all up again, to move things on, to make things happen, to tinker with the balance, to save, to relish, to implode, to conquer, to appropriate to… to… to… Christ I hate him

‘ Shit, man,’ Wesley said, clinging to the doorframe, waiting a second for the craft to stop swaying, ‘it’s no wonder your catching skills were so fucking abject, Art, — you’ve lost a ton of blood, there.’

He sounded concerned –

Fibber

‘I smashed my hand through the stupid window,’ Art sullenly explained, ‘in the dark.’ Wesley began to try and tie a rope around him, but Arthur pushed him firmly back. ‘I want the girl off before me,’ he chattered, peering up into his face to try and find evidence of the sound beating he’d received the previous evening. But there was nothing. A slight rash on his left cheek, like a strawberry birthmark –

Is he…

Is he real?

Wesley glanced into the boat and saw the girl gazing benignly up at him from the floor. His face stiffened at the sight of her; as if he’d received a sudden sharp jab to his lower intestine –

Christopher

‘ Fine, ’ he grated (almost short of breath), his former ebullience totally evaporating, ‘if that’s how you want to play it.’

‘But when I go,’ the girl immediately began wheedling, ‘the deer will come after me, so we should really try and get Brion off before… ’

‘Shut up,’ Wesley snapped, forming some of his spare rope into a lassoo.

‘You don’t understand, ’ the girl persisted, ‘if I go the deer will…’

‘Bollocks,’ he snarled, ‘that deer has much more sense than you do.’

He tossed the looped rope down at her. It landed on her head, slipped onto the brim of Arthur’s cap, stuck there. She released one hand from Art’s foot — gasping with the exertion — pulled the rope loose and then over her shoulder. She was breathing heavily.

‘My fingers… ’ she panted, pausing for a moment.

It was the first time Arthur had heard a word of complaint from her in all the time they’d been together. He twisted around, concerned.

‘Cut the whining, ’ Wesley interrupted.

Arthur glared up at him, furiously.

The girl yanked the rope fairly laboriously, first under one armpit, then under the other. The boat protested.