Nicola Barker - Behindlings

She took out two further T-shirts, both short-sleeved. One had a picture of a cockroach on its front and the address of an exterminating firm in Hoboken, New Jersey. The other was blue and bore a cartoon of a camel’s face with the word Palace inscribed underneath it in fancy white lettering. This T-shirt was well-worn and had a small tear under the armpit.

A pair of jeans. Extremely scruffy. Some baggy shorts — brown corduroy. Some combat trousers (German, apparently). Another pair of combats cut down to knee-length. Another jumper. Brown. Heavy wool. Slightly ragged.

A plastic bag containing several animal pelts. Some still fairly aromatic. Katherine carefully removed two rabbit skins, a badger skin, three rat pelts. Even the skin of a tiny field mouse.

She stared at the field-mouse skin for a long time, flattened it out between her fingers, uncrossed her legs from around the rucksack and bounced off her bed, still holding it. She walked over to her doll’s house, gently unclipped the latch on the right-hand-side, opened the front, peeked into the living room (on the ground floor), shoved a couple of pieces of furniture aside — leaving a space before the hearth — then pushed the little mouse-skin inside, placed it next to the fire, adjusted it, drew a rocking chair in close again, pulled back, smiling.

She returned to her bed, and to Wesley’s rucksack. Next she found a scarf. Hand knitted. Grey. White skull and crossbones at either end. Matching gloves. Fingerless.

At the bottom of the central section she discovered a home-made (yet rather lovely) wooden box. Inside this (she opened it cautiously; it was hinged and squeaked a little) were two improvised wooden banjo picks and one in imitation tortoiseshell, several fragments of ancient-seeming pottery — all unpatterned — burned. An envelope with what seemed to be — but couldn’t be, surely? — gunpowder inside of it.

About ten old buttons. A cotton reel and needle. A ball of string. Several rubber bands. A comb with most of its teeth missing. A strip of velcro. Three hypo-allergenic plasters. Five thick black marker pens. Two small HB pencils. A rubber. A packet of condoms ( Durex, half used). A pack of playing cards (hailing from Jamaica). A small tin of Germolene. An even smaller tin of Tiger Balm. Some Rizla papers –

Ah-ha

Two tiny fossils. An owl dropping made out of hair (this made her shiver a little). A photo of two young boys sitting on two swings, both smiling wildly. The one slightly older, the other… it had to be Wesley: green eyes, a mop of brown hair, a striped jumper, flares. Gappy teeth.

Katherine stared at this picture for a long while. She turned it over. On the back was written — but very faded — Wes and Chris, Portmeirion, 1973.

She drew a deep breath, and — for the first time in a good while — looked over towards the door, uneasily, then replaced the picture back inside the box, very carefully.

Three postcards; two from the British Museum. One depicting a simple-seeming Egyptian-style tapestry, the other an old jug shaped like an owl. She turned them over. The first was addressed simply to King’s Lynn, Norfolk, and said Wes you fucking cunt! Marty. The other had just an address in Barnstaple (Three Chimneys, Pembury Road) but no message. The third was a picture of ‘The New Penguin Enclosure at London Zoo’, was very dog-eared, had a foreign stamp on the back — postmark … uh… somewhere in Japan?

To Wes, it said, Wish you were here, son. Dad

Katherine frowned at this, confused. The address it’d been sent to was somewhere in Gloucester.

A small locket — a woman’s locket, by the look of things; gold, tiny — with… (Katherine struggled to open it. Her clumsy nail seemed so huge by comparison to the clasp of the thing)… a tiny lock of hair inside and a photo of a man and woman — the man in some kind of military uniform — sitting on the deck of a ship, their arms wrapped around each other, smiling, perhaps slightly uncomfortably.

Katherine closed this locket, carefully.

Last of all, and perhaps most eerily: two plaster casts — joined together by wire — of the teeth of a mouth; a child’s mouth. The kind of cast dentists made when they were moulding the jaw for braces (maybe) or a cap, or some kind of serious dental surgery.

A curiously tiny but neat set of teeth. Not particularly gappy. The top front two slightly overlapping.

Katherine shuddered. She put the mould away. She sat still for a while, deep in thought, frowning.

Finally she closed the box and placed it back into the rucksack, followed by every other item, refolded and put back in meticulous order. Last of all — and most regretfully — the banjo.

Next she started in on the side pockets. On the left-hand side she found a tartan Thermos, three spoons, a fork and a knife inside a plastic tupperware sandwich box. A small pale blue enamel plate with dark blue trim. A matching bowl. Some strange metal prongs which seemed darkened at their tips by — she sniffed — meat juices. Old blood. A very small saucepan. Very battered. Stained black.

A wooden spoon. A strange — this was hard to pull out, there was obviously a special technique — metal rack thing like you’d have in a grill pan, which unfolded, from its centre, so was pretty handy (for cooking fish or fillets over a fire, she presumed).

Matches, matches, matches. Tiny boxes, from all over the place. Pubs and bars mainly. A tiny tin of — she opened it — gravy browning? Cocoa? Coffee?

Hard to tell.

Dozens of sugar sachets.

The other side. Mainly cosmetics. There was an old tube of smoker’s toothpaste. A toothbrush — so ancient its bristles were flat and yellow. A half-used bottle of Rescue Remedy (she raised her brows at this). A damp brown towel. A small bottle of cardamom oil (an amateur pressing; on the front was written; CARDAMOM, FOR INDIGESTION. DO NOT APPLY DIRECT TO SKIN OR SWALLOW (two exclamation marks).

Katherine unscrewed the lid and inhaled. She smiled. It was a good smell. It reminded her of Wesley (that moment when he’d leaned forward to kiss her. She closed her eyes. Remembered that moment, her lips moving, unconsciously. She opened her eyes again. Cleared her throat. Twitched her shoulder).

An old fashioned razor — bone handled — wrapped up in a small off-white face towel (Katherine almost cut herself upon it. She squeaked. Gazed. Tested its sharpness on her thumb. Was impressed. Wrapped it carefully back up again). A whole pile of –

Urgh

— goo (how else to describe it?). In an old shaving tin. Bits of stringy green stuff and some kind of cactusy foamy…

She closed the tin, rapidly.

A pill bottle containing a series of odd-looking tablets. Several kinds. Homeopathic. An ancient — very battered — hip flask –

Yip yip!

— containing (Katherine unscrewed it) bourbon or sour mash whiskey. She put it to her lips, swigged, coughed, grinned.

A cream fabric bag with a draw-string top containing (she thought it’d be dope or something) grass, but of the seed variety, poppy seeds, too, and countless other kinds –

Sweet

She had a vision of Wesley strolling along in high summer, haphazardly scattering seed into the hedgerows, out of pure… pure…

Altruism

Or was that just naive of her?

Three books. One called (deep breath) Famous Utopias; an omnibus containing the complete texts of More’s Utopia, Campanella’s City of the Sun, Rousseau’s Social Contract, Bacon’s New Atlantis.

Katherine scowled tiredly as she paged through it. It seemed ancient — so old, in fact, that the pages were raw and uncut. But the cover was beautiful — black and white, with freaky lettering — of several different styles and all just sort of shoved up together, willy-nilly.