Nicola Barker - Behindlings

And there was his picture. Ahhh.

She tossed the book and the azalea onto the sofa, slipped the dice and the coin into her jacket pocket, turned, no longer smiling, her eyes scouring the room.

It was then that she saw it.

Huh?

She quickly circumnavigated the sofa and padded towards it. This thing on her work table. This thing unfamiliar. She drew closer. Her eyes nicked off to the left, instinctively (her sand, the neat heap, depleted. Pressed flat. Something…)

Lamb’s tail.

Wuh?

Good God — out of nowhere — and then there, in the sand (the two things interrelating, corresponding, unifying, merging, with a brainstorming rapidity), the word, the scribbling…

Now what…?

The word … a… n…

No (She adjusted her angle, squinting)…

… a…

No…

c… u…

Uh…

c… u… n…

C-u-n-t? In a strange joined-up style of writing.

Cuntí Could it be?

In sand?

A lamb’s tail?

Katherine Turpin grabbed the tail, marched smartly through the bungalow and into the rear lean-to to check up on her chinchilla — Phew

— she breathed a sharp sigh of relief. Bron was fine. He was asleep in the corner, nose twitching. Apparently none the worse for anything. She picked up the cage, anyway (not without some difficulty — it was as wide as it was heavy), lugged it through to the kitchen and placed it squarely onto the free-standing butcher’s block — for security — stepped back and inspected it (was as satisfied as she could be), then went and ransacked one of the cupboards in search of liquor.

Ah yes,

The comfort of the…

She located a Special Edition litre bottle (perfect for this kind of emergency), twisted her hands around it, shuddered. Unscrewed the top and took a huge, deep glug (tossing the lid with furious aplomb over her shoulder so that it hit the wall and landed — rotating, maddeningly — on the counter), then stalked back towards the front door, swishing the tail rhythmically in her right hand like a cheerleader’s baton (or a magician’s wand, or a duellist’s sword, or a long cheese finger at a tediously second-rate social occasion), the schnapps bottle still in her other, the wave of warm air in her wake creaking with profanities as she slammed the heavy door emphatically shut — whack! — behind her.

Poor Dewi, clumping heavily down his verandah steps, toolbag in hand, head in the clouds, planning the quickest and most efficient route for his upcoming journey (he’d missed one job already — he was late for another — but she was home now, wasn’t she?) glancing up, distractedly, to observe Katherine Turpin — the focus of all his concern, the core of his being, the centre of everything — quietly incandescent with… with… (was it rage? Could it possibly be?) standing in his pathway. She was blocking him. She was tiny.

‘You have been in my garden again,’ she murmured, her deep voice purring like a lawn-mower. Dewi considered responding (but how? To deny? To affirm?) then didn’t bother. Katherine was plainly not in the mood for listening (was she ever, honestly? Did she ever listen?). She was waving something at him. Something white and yielding.

He focussed in on it, frowning slightly. Then she swatted him with it, savagely. She hit his chin. It didn’t hurt. It was woolly.

‘Just leave, ’ she spoke slowly and quietly, enunciating cleanly, ‘my damn hydrangea alone Dewi Edwards. Do you hear me? You mad, you monolithic, you fucking crazy wooden-hearted fool? You dust creature. You maniac. Do you hear? Stay out of my garden! Do you understand? Stay out of it you stupid, lumpen, snail-trail-leaving piece of crap, damn you. You pest. You silly… you soft-brained, huge-handed, imbecilic, interfering, tomato-munching simple-minded clod of a man…’

She paused. ‘… damn you, ’ she repeated, slightly losing her thrust, in conclusion, but not caring.

She took a step back, took another swig of schnapps, swallowed, blew hard on the tail (dust floated off, and up, and away into the ether) then turned, still harrumphing, and sped out of the garden.

Dewi gazed after her.

Lamb’s tail, he meditated, scratching his huge chin with his big fingers, softly, gently, perturbedly. A tail of lamb.

She caught Ted on the trot. He’d just pulled his jacket on, was primed to go, standing — for a second — behind the door, and refilling some perspex property-detail holders with a bunch of brand new, freshly-printed photocopies. He’d only just that minute finished producing them — his final job of the morning. He was almost out of there — for lunch — it was almost lunchtime

— it was very nearly — he had…

Bugger

Pathfinder — thankfully — was busy on the phone arranging a viewing when Katherine burst in, smacking the door purposefully —forcefully — into Ted’s pliant and unassuming buttocks. He yelped. He was living on his nerves and his nerves were still jangling.

‘ You! ’ Katherine growled warningly through the glass door, leaving a hot puff of condensation on the glass (obscuring her angry mouth, momentarily), brandishing the bottle at him. Then she side-stepped and let go — allowing the door to close with its own momentum — and stood before him, breathing heavily.

Ted turned to face her, still managing to retain the air of a man behind glass — a specimen — pinned-flat, stiff, dumb. He was frightened. Katherine hung like a white moth before him; tiny, fragile, sheeny, but ineluctably befanged. A biter.

‘It’s just… it’s only…’ he began limply.

‘Oh no you don’t, ’ Katherine grabbed his lapel and menaced him with the bottle again, ‘not with Dumbo sitting over there like a big, fat fart at a fucking wedding. Outside. ’

She yanked him through the door with her, then pushed him hard against the window.

‘Where the hell, ’ she asked coolly (her breath steaming in the cold again), ‘is my middle mango animal? What have you done with him? And why did you stroke Mr Angry Tiger? I told you never to stroke him, didn’t I? Didn’t I tell you never to stroke him?’

‘You told me,’ Ted managed, nodding, ‘you did tell me, yes, on more than one occasion, Katherine.’

‘Don’t use my name in that patronising way, Ted, ’ she snapped, ‘and another thing,’ she held up the lamb’s tail, menacingly. She waggled it at him, almost comically. But she wasn’t smiling.

‘Lamb’s fucking tail.’

‘You’ve been drinking,’ Ted said.

‘So do you really think I’m a cunt, Teddy? Is that honestly what you think of me?’

Ted’s eyes widened. ‘A drunk?’ he asked, horrified, honestly mis-hearing, ‘do I really think you’re a drunk? ’

‘Read my lips, Ted. Do you really think I -am-a-cunt? Do you honestly think I -am-a-whore? ’

Ted stared at Katherine, open-mouthed. ‘A cunt? ’

He whispered the word, plainly appalled by it. ‘I don’t think I… I don’t…’

Katherine’s pale eyes tightened. She grew thoughtful for a moment.

‘No. No it’s not really you, is it? It’s not Ted. The cunt thing. It’s not a Ted thing. You’re right. So it was somebody else? Then who was it? Who was in my house? Who did you take there? Was it the journalist? Was it him again? Was it the tennis champion? Has he been bugging you? Has he been threatening you? Did he force you to take him over? Has he been up to his mischief in my house? Did he stroke Mr Angry Tiger? Was it him?’