Nicola Barker - Behindlings

‘There’s a spare stool here if you want it,’ she said, then added, a little embarrassedly, ‘I mean for your rucksack.’

He wasn’t half as grateful as she might’ve expected him to be (if she’d had expectations, but she didn’t, really). He gazed at her, frowning. She moved her coat from the stool, her skin goose-pimpling at his hostility, ‘Take it.’

She tried to sharpen her tone.

He nodded and pulled off his rucksack. He placed it onto the stool, yanked off his jacket and slung it over, finally his cap, then rapidly pushed his way — side-stepping the painful duty of thanking her — to the bar.

It was a tight squeeze. He soon facilitated his easier access (his foot — she later observed, after some poor soul had tripped over it — still carefully looped around the leg of the stool), by unleashing a gigantic sneeze. This cunning expedient cleared the decks impressively.

He leaned across the counter, caught the barman’s eye and ordered himself a tomato juice with a squeeze of lemon, a pinch of salt and tiny dash of Worcester Sauce in it –

Alcoholic

Nurse’s instinct

He was very meticulous about the exact proportions –

Confirmation

If any were needed

This exactitude would not — Jo idly calculated — particularly endear him to the barman.

She stared fixedly at her beer bottle, peeling the corner off the main label with her clean nail and listening distractedly as the thin man endeavoured to engage the now-truculent barhand in conversation –

The cheek of it

‘Keep the change.’

‘Thanks,’ the barman responded. By the dryness of his tone Jo deduced that the amount proffered was by no means excessive.

‘In fact if you wouldn’t mind…’ the thin man continued, then paused, before adding, ‘I’m looking for somebody…’ he paused again, ‘hang on…’

He removed something from his waistcoat pocket. A palm or a phone, inspected it for a moment (by which stage the barman was almost stamping with frustration — a furious queue rapidly forming behind him) but the man continued, unperturbedly, ‘I’m actually looking for a woman called… called Katherine. Katherine Turpin. I believe she’s well known around here, has a… how to express it? A reputation. ’

Jo looked up –

Is he crazy?

Doesn’t he…?

Doesn’t…?

‘Never heard of her,’ the barman interrupted coldly.

Did the thin man notice? That coldness? Josephine gazed at him pointedly through her down-turned lashes. Behindling. No doubt about it.

The man returned to his stool, grumbling under his breath. He held his drink — she noticed — with a certain show of awkwardness, the way you might hold a large cockroach, a used syringe or a disgustingly ripe nappy.

‘Excuse me…’

He’d placed his rucksack onto the floor and was perched on the stool now, inches from her (his knees turned politely in the opposite direction to forestall her getting — God forbid — the wrong impression).

‘Do you happen to live locally by any chance?’

From his tone — how embarrassing — he seemed to be presuming that she’d been listening in on his previous conversation –

Military training?

Jo glanced up. Her face must’ve registered some kind of surprise, because he apologised. Very formally. He was… He was… Older

‘I’m sorry. I was just wondering if you might be… well, local, ’ he repeated.

Jo gave this question a moment’s consideration. She was about to answer. (‘No, I’m from Southend,’), but before she could, his thin face broke into a disarming smile, ‘I’m soaking.’ He shook off his arm, droplets of moisture splashing down onto the wooden floor, ‘and I can’t help feeling a little…’

Jo put a clumsy hand to her forehead where a tiny pool of liquid still balanced invisibly across the thin line of her brow. Her fingers released it.

‘… self conscious,’ he finished humbly.

The human face

Just a facade

‘Yes. I was… I was walking myself,’ she mumbled, shaking a fresh concatenation of rivulets from her cheeks, her colour rising.

‘Pardon?’

Slightly hard of hearing

‘I was… walking,’ she repeated, ‘and got a little… Well, I mean I got very…’

‘It’s a filthy night,’ he smiled again, this time rather more creakily. ‘My feet are absolutely…’

His phone rang. Volume turned high. He almost spilled his drink.

Jo dropped her coat again. He scooped down to pick it up, then looked around for somewhere to rest his glass. The bar was too far — bodies already crushing in and around the counter. Jo put out her hand and took her coat, then removed the drink from him, grimacing submissively.

‘I’ll just hold…’ she said.

‘Thank you. Sorry.’ He clutched at his waistcoat –

That waistcoat

Worn as the skin of a Chinese pensioner

In the pocket she noticed…

Can’t be

… an old, well-thumbed copy of Louis L’Amour’s…

Fuck me

… Silver …

Huh?

… Silver C …

Huh?

… Sil …

What the…?

The thin man drew the phone from his pocket. He pressed a button and placed it to his ear. Jo turned modestly towards the bar, ending up with an eyeful of a woman’s cigarette (held — ever so politely — behind her back) and the top of her companion’s bedenimed rear.

Silver Canyon

Good God

‘Yes?’ Arthur spat, irritably.

Jo looked up at the ceiling –

Silver Canyon

— then down at the floor again.

‘No,’ his tone sweetened dramatically, once he’d identified his interlocutor, ‘no, I’m in town, I’m…’

But he had a harsh accent just the same. Not a local accent. Not Kentish. Maybe a Londoner. A Cockney. But posh. And a strange voice, too; like a shallow wave washing over shingle.

‘I left the craft… No… I walked back under the flyover. I had…’

His voice suddenly grew softer, ‘Several people came. One of them an Ombudsman. Two others. Someone from — well I think it was English Nature or the National Trust — something charitable at any rate. They didn’t discuss…’ he placed a careful hand over both his mouth and the receiver, ‘they didn’t discuss exact amounts, but I got the impression that you could pretty much dictate… ’ he was quiet for a moment, ‘but that doesn’t… It can’t be my decision. They’re offering money to you, for services ren… ren… rendered…’

A very long silence. ‘But that’s ridiculous. You expect me to negotiate and then to… to… to keep …? That’s…’

Now he sounded furious, ‘I’m not interested in playing a moral game. I’m not interested in implicating myself. I’m simply doing you a…’

Short pause, ‘Do you always do this?’

Shorter pause, ‘So you actually never…’

Stunned silence.

‘Yes… Yes. But they were very… terribly hush-hush. Another guy who… No. No. The ombudsman seemed extremely keen to…’

He paused, ‘I realise they have no actual restraining powers as… as… as such, but he was…’

The thin man stopped sharp, mid-sentence and cleared his throat. When next he spoke his voice was italicised by indignance, ‘Of course he didn’t shit me up. I merely thought…’

He paused.

‘I’m in a bar. No. No, not the Lobster Smack. That’s too… I came the other way, I already said, under the flyover. This place… It’s on the High Street. It’s called…’