Nicola Barker - Wide Open

Surely. Yet Margery didn’t think to enquire about the box. She simply let it ride. There are no secrets here, Nathan thought, righteously. No secrets. It ]ust fitted . The box.

And inside? Inside?

Nathan had retrieved Connie’s card from the top of it. Then he’d paused for a moment, slipped the card into his pocket and kneeled down to touch the box, carefully exploring the texture of the smooth brown tape which sealed it so well and protected its corners. Slippery. He felt it with his finger. His index finger.

Then he found himself doing something stranger still. He leaned forward and applied his tongue, his tongue to the tape. He licked it. He withdrew again. Salty. Synthetic. Soapy. He discovered — there was no denying it — that he’d developed a powerful erection. A. Powerful. Erection. What? He blinked. He found himself thinking — couldn’t stop it, couldn’t — how beautiful this closed tight thing was. This sealed thing. This secret. This hidden. This sticky tape. How beautiful this closed tight thing. Was.

No. He gasped. Oh no. He drank four stiff brandies. One, two, three, four. All in a row. Then he steadied himself and didn’t look at the box again.

Connie was sleeping. But not properly. Intermittently. And she was dreaming. She was dreaming of a journey, of an island, of a place on the edge of everything. Kitty, her mother, tucked the clean blue duvet under Connie’s chin. She picked up the empty teacup from the bedside table, straightened the rug, returned the doctor’s chair to its niche under the desk. On the desk were some papers, and letters.

♦

Ronny ,

Everything’s fruity. Fruity and plush and flowery. I am well. I am celebrating. Here’s what happened. Louis and I went on a trip with Monty and two of Monty’s friends to see the world’s largest flower, Rafflesia arnoldii. It’s something of a botanical celebrity in these parts and Louis was taking his camera to get a few shots of it in bloom. It blooms in August. In July it ripens and clusters and glistens. In August it blares like a trumpet .

And I would stand next to it, Louis said, to give his shots a sense of proportion. I had no choice in the matter. We desperately need the money he raises from these bread and butter jobs to keep the whole investigative kit and caboodle on track. Anyway, Louis was determined that I should come along. I’ve been hanging around in the bat cave — but more of that later — so was slightly niggled at the neccessity of spoiling my routine. “Won’t Monty do?” I asked. “I mean if it’s only proportion you’re after? ”

But no. Louis was emphatic. In fact he even demanded that I bring a hairbrush and some lipstick along for the ride. We would be two bright flowers together, he chuckled. But there would be no competition. I would be the lesser flower. I would be the unripe bloom, the pale imitation, the pansy, the wallflower, the weed .

Well, you know me, Ronny .

We travelled by bus, initially. It was packed at first but then it emptied, until finally just our foursome and the driver remained on board. Whole segments of road had been washed away in the floods. We bumped and gyrated. We shuddered and bucked. I was too hot. It was hell. I opened my knapsack to dredge up an aspirin and pulled my hand out puce. The lipstick had melted. My bag’s interior was like the skewed belly of a calf half ravaged by some wild beast. And my arm was a vulture, dip, dip, dipping. Pecking and schmoozing in its ruby guts .

The road was peppered with pot-holes, some so large the bus could hardly have filled them. At one particularly giant one, our driver slowed down and then ground to a halt .

“ What is it? ”

I clambered to the front. It was no mere hole, but a crater, and way too deep to negotiate. We needed to sidestep it. But in the measly straggle of road that remained lay a snake. A small python. And he was writhing, but not naturally .

“ Oh my God, did we hit it? ”

Louis, already at the front, merely shrugged. He was thinking about the flower and how the light wouldn’t be with us for an infinite duration. The snake arced and fell, arced and fell. Its neck was cock-angled, its jaw slack .

“ Did we hit it?” I asked the driver. He only frowned. Louis cleared his throat and suggested, quite calmly, that we drive on over it .

“ We could get over easy,” he said, “if we steer with care. The wheels are widely spaced .”

I couldn’t abide the idea. I couldn’t tolerate even the slightest possibility of damaging it further. “Can’t we just move it instead?” I asked, “away from the road with a stick or something? ”

Monty laughed .

The snake kept dancing its gruesome dance. I spoke to Louis again. “We should shoot it. Monty has a gun. Let him kill it .”

“ No. It’s protected .”

“ But he’s killed protected creatures before, hasn’t he? ”

Louis gave me a bad look. He turned to Monty. “Tell the driver to go over it .”

He put his hand in his wallet and jangled. Money .

“ No,” I said, “let me at least try to move it .”

Louis caught hold of my arm. He had the snake’s grip. He would squeeze me and devour me. And just for a photo. The driver started up the engine. Coins rattled a little tattoo in his pocket. I closed my eyes tightly, feeling every bump and judder. And once we were over, I ran to the back of the bus .

Louis didn’t twitch a whisker. He had his light detector out. “The light’s all fucked,” he kept saying. And through the dusty back window I saw the snake, on the road, but not dancing, its tail now crushed but still living. Only its middle moving, like a skipping rope. Kind of scything. Either-ended. A terrible, mud-stuck, tyre-tracked U-bend. And my hands were red as blood, like I’d dipped them in his injury, Ronny. Like I’d washed them in him .

We got to the spot. The flower was one great, big love-in. Its white horn, its giant throat, the focus of a thousand insects, marching and buzzing and jumping and swanking. I stood next to the bloom. It dwarfed me. I was its ugly little sister. A rat to its sex-kitten. My throat was still tight, like that python was draped right around it. I would have my revenge. I would, I would. I made a vicious little promise to myself in that flower’s dark shadow .

Louis was suddenly very obliging. Did he feel bad? Monty and his chums had disappeared for a while. They had other fish to fry. He asked me to tuck my red hands behind my back. He took a shot. He took several. One at each and every angle. “You know what?” I said eventually, having timed it, having bided my time, “maybe it would be nice if you took a snap or two of yourself. You could send them to your wife and to Lucy.” (his daughter )

He wanted to oblige me. I said, “Should I take the picture?” (My own camera still moist and scarlet, so I’d have to use his.) I knew he would refuse me. “No,” he said, “there’s the tripod and the timer. I’ll do it that way .”

He set up under the giant spread of a durian tree. Every delicate adjustment to his camera and the tripod a kind of mute tribute to me. An apology. I said a little prayer. Where did I direct it? I don’t know .

“ Are you sure,” Louis asked, “that this is really the best possible angle? ”

I nodded. He blinked back his chauvinism. Because it wasn’t the best angled shot, by any means. And he came to stand next to the flower. He reached out his arm to me. He wanted us shoulder to shoulder. Like comrades. I obliged him .