Nicola Barker - Behindlings

‘From what?’

Katherine paused, wavering.

‘Brouwer.’

She pronounced it softly but with faultless inflections.

‘Oh yes,’ Wesley nodded, ‘yes, the phonetic link’s very explicit.’

Katherine poked out her tongue at him. Her tongue was long and deliciously pink.

‘ Ouch, ’ Wesley suddenly shoved his thumb into his mouth (as if her spiteful tongue had pricked him there), ‘this thing’s a tough old pluck…’ he sucked at it, thoughtfully, ‘although you’d think I’d be used to it; I’ve been living on seabirds since late November.’ He drew the reddened thumb from his lips and studied the pad, critically. ‘I was camping down in Camber,’ he looked up. ‘Ever been there?’

‘Never.’

Katherine shrugged her shoulders and lifted her jaw (projecting a steadfast impression of mulish obduracy). But there was a twinkle — he could sense it — lost in the ivory lamina of her skin, somewhere; the base of her throat, the tiny, fleshy pleats in the crook of her arm, or wedged tightly under a dirty finger nail, maybe (she had capable hands — the finger-pads criminally printed with thick slicks of black bike oil, the cuticles ragged and cygnet-grey).

When Wesley pulled his thumb free, a small piece of down remained just above his lip.

‘The Dutch have…’ he returned to his former subject, readjusting the heron expertly on his knee, ‘an extremely…’ he felt the tickle under his nose and scratched at it; the feather shifted a couple of millimetres, ‘a very troubled history in this area, don’t they?’

‘Do they?’

Katherine focussed in on the feather, pointedly. He caught a sidelong glimpse of her face, ‘Brought over to save this joyless crap-hole from the ravages of the sea — to build dykes — seventeenth century, or thereabouts. But were slightly too good at it, so — in the true spirit of British Hospitality — got treated like absolute shit ever after…’

He gave her a significant look, ‘I can only guess it must be he… hered…’ he sneezed, ‘… irary.’

He shook his head, snorting brazenly.

Katherine merely scowled (the Dutch stuff held no interest for her. Why should it? She was the mistress of her own destiny) and picked up her glass of liquor. But before she could sip at it, she sniffed (a lean white rabbit cordially inspecting a juicy sprig of peppery chard), put the glass down, pulled an old tissue from the cuff of her sleeve, and dabbed softly at her nose with it.

Wesley observed this apparently commonplace act with a quiet but still palpable satisfaction. Ah yes. She was duplicating. He was inveigling.

Katherine quickly shoved the tissue away and then defiantly topped up her drink. She took a large mouthful of it, tossed it back and swallowed, her ash-smoke eyes watering as she straightened her head again.

In the furthest reaches of the kitchen, meanwhile, a subterranean rustling — prompted, perhaps, by the glass and the bottle’s tinkling — made Wesley abandon his plucking for a moment and twist around on his stool.

Where did that spring from, exactly?

In a roomy cage balanced precariously on a butcher’s block in the far corner, he saw a large grey rodent lazily emerging from a pile of loose wood shavings, peering around him (eyes like immaculate cobs of smokeless coal), blinking, then yawning (one of those long, unimaginably thin-mouthed rodent yawns). Scratching his ear. Grooming.

Bron. Katherine’s chinchilla.

Wesley inspected this creature with the cool, level gaze of an experienced butcher. Plump, but mainly fur. Large eared. Betailed. Exquisitely bewhiskered; stark, white antenna, straight as power lines, centred on his nose, dynamically oscillating.

He chuckled, picked up the heron’s slack neck, supported its head in his bad hand and waggled it provocatively at the sleepy rodent. The chinchilla stared back at the heron, blankly, its two front legs held delicately poised in the air.

‘Would a heron predate on him out in the wild d’you reckon?’ Wesley queried, mischievously.

‘There’s only one merciless predator in this kitchen,’ Katherine countered sharply, ‘and it certainly isn’t lying dead across your knee.’

Wesley stopped his idle waggling to inspect the rodent more closely. The rodent, in turn, inspected Wesley. ‘Is that a male rodent you have there?’

‘Why?’

‘Because he seems to be…’

The rodent was masturbating.

‘Bron likes to touch himself,’ Katherine interrupted defensively, ‘it’s no big deal. He finds it comforting.’

‘Not an unusual predeliction,’ Wesley concurred, ‘but Good God woman,’ he pointed at the creature accusingly, ‘in the fucking kitchen? ’

The chinchilla (as though chastened by Wesley’s finger) released his genitalia and bounded over to a small plastic tray in the corner of his enclosure. There he began digging — sand flew violently in every direction — and finally, rolling.

‘Now what’s he doing?’

‘He’s digging, you fool. He has a sand tray. He’s South American.’

‘And you think South Americans like to dig, as a broad generalisation?’

‘The Aztecs:’ Katherine didn’t falter, ‘legendary excavators.’

‘Infamous,’ Wesley conceded.

The rodent shook himself clean and then dutifully recommenced his self-abusing.

‘Bron,’ Wesley muttered, mulling the name over, trying but failing to make a connection.

Katherine began hunting around for her cigarettes. She eventually located a packet in the cutlery drawer. She tore it open and drew one out.

‘Smoke?’

‘Thanks.’

She stuck two cigarettes into her mouth, strolled over to the gas oven, pressed the ignition button, fiddled with a knob on the hob and bent over.

Wesley watched her, with interest, plucking on, blindly; two thirds of the heron’s chest area now all but bare. Katherine lit both cigarettes, took one out of her mouth, padded over and placed it between Wesley’s lips.

‘You have…’ she leaned in close to him –

Violets

‘… a little piece of fluff…’

She plucked it off.

‘There.’

She returned to her place by the kitchen cupboards and lounged against the worksurface. Wesley dangled the cigarette loosely on his lip, barely inhaling on it. He glanced over towards the cage again. ‘Did you think to light one up for the little fella?’ he enquired, ‘I think he’ll be needing one shortly.’

‘I am…’ Katherine spoke with an especial languor, banging her rump sharply against the cutlery drawer, ‘I am killed by your wit.’ She thought quietly for a while, then added, ‘… and I’m certain there’s something Biblical about not eating predators. In Leviticus or somewhere…’

Wesley refused to rise to her.

‘Flesh is flesh,’ he pronounced flatly, ‘there can be no moral hierarchy when it comes to murder. But if you insist on such a thing — if there has to be — then this lovely creature would surely be at the top of it.’

‘You reckon?’

‘Of course: ancient, almost starving, very nearly dead from the cold already…’ He fingered the puny bare flesh on the chest, ‘no meat here to speak of.’

‘Had I only known…’ Katherine drew deeply on her cigarette, ‘I could’ve killed us a robin or a goldfinch or a rare species of woodpecker — fried it up in batter, for a tasty little starter…’

Wesley lifted the heron’s wing, took out his knife and cut firmly into it. He sawed for a few seconds until it came free (the cruel sound of bone shattering), then he opened it out, like a fan. ‘Goldfinches migrate in the winter,’ he informed her. ‘What do you think?’