Nicola Barker - Wide Open

“Apparently you have black rabbits,” Connie paused between forkfuls of omelette, “I mean wild ones.”

“Yes,” Sara seemed indifferent, “you see them a lot. They’re very common. Down by the reserve especially.”

When Lily stood up and left the table, Sara kept on talking as if she hadn’t noticed. “I imagine a captive one was set free at some point and then the strain survived. We’re all very accustomed to them.”

“I’d love to see one.”

Sara smiled, vaguely amused by Connie’s enthusiasm. “I’m sure you’ll get a chance to if you stay in the area for any length of time.”

“Actually,” Connie put down her fork, “I was wondering whether you might know of any holiday cottages up for rent locally. Or hotels.”

Before Sara had a chance to respond, Connie glanced uneasily over her shoulder and added, “Is anything wrong? With Lily I mean.”

“No. She’s probably just gone to her room.”

Connie pushed a potato around her plate with her knife. “I thought I might have upset her, without realizing.”

Sara stood up to remove Lily’s unfinished meal from the table. She placed the plate on to the draining board. When she next spoke it was with her back to Connie. Her voice was low. “There’s no question of your leaving us. You must stay here for as long as you like.”

Connie smiled. “That’s very kind of you.”

Sara turned around. Her face was bright. She seemed aroused, giddy almost. “But you’re wrong. I’m not being kind at all. It would be useful for me to have another person around. As a distraction. For Lily.”

Connie felt suddenly vulnerable, as though the net was billowing out again and she was seeing inside, into a place where she had no business trespassing.

“I want to show you something…” Sara took several steps forward, lifted the tablecloth and yanked open a small cutlery drawer which was hidden within the main body of the table. From inside the drawer she removed a camera. She held it in both hands like it was something infinitely delicate; some old china or a fledgling.

“I took it,” she said, her voice full of awe.

Connie stared at the camera.

“You took it?”

“Yes. Luke, the man you saw me with this afternoon, he’s a photographer. This belongs to him. He thinks he’s lost it. But I took it.”

She paused, then smiled. “This is his favourite camera.”

Connie frowned. “But didn’t I see you using it earlier?”

“No. That was another one. This one was hidden in my bag all the while.”

Sara put the camera up to her eye. She stared at Connie through its lens, but she didn’t see Connie; instead she saw pink and white and yellow splashes. A dandelion. A marsh-mallow. She lowered the camera from her eye. “I’ve never had one before.”

“Why not?”

Sara sat down. She continued to inspect the camera. She fiddled with the flash and the lens cap and the focus. “Lily was born premature. Did you know that?”

Connie shook her head. “I didn’t.”

“There was some kind of problem with her bladder and her womb. Complications. Her blood doesn’t clot too well. We thought we’d lose her. So we never took photos. We didn’t do all those normal things that parents do with a new baby. Everything seemed so delicate, so fragile. We felt like we didn’t want to tempt fate.” Sara looked up at Connie. “And I never learned to drive, either, which was somehow another part of it. A kind of…” she coughed on the words, “wishful thinking.”

Connie nodded, although she wasn’t exactly sure what it was that she was agreeing to.

“When I first met Luke a couple of days ago, I saw all these photographs in his prefab. And I thought I’d felt some kind of strange connection with him, but the truth is, it was the photographs. The pictures. Time, crystallized. Life. All simple and clear and uninhibited.”

“What kinds of pictures?”

“Dirty.” Sara scratched her cheek. “Pornography, mainly.”

“Right.”

“Are you shocked?”

“No,” Connie shook her head.

Sara rubbed at her nose with the back of her hand, inhaled deeply and then said, “Actually I don’t think Lily’s father is coming home.”

Connie held her tongue. Sara seemed to appreciate it. “It’s only been two months but it feels like he’s been gone forever. In fact,” she inspected her fingers, “it’s begining to feel like he was never even really here.”

Sara’s nails were full of dirt and soil. Ingrained. She continued to inspect them. “We used to farm pigs and grow crops too, but after Lily was born he started farming boar. They’re less time-consuming. I think he thought she’d need him more, because she wasn’t too well. Or maybe that I’d need him more if we lost her. But we didn’t lose her. So I didn’t need him. And Lily’s never really needed anyone. She’s terribly independent…” Sara sighed. “Anyhow, in the end I think he got to feel slightly…redundant. We argued quite a bit. He did a whole lot of campaigning about the nudist beach, which kept him busy for a while, but because of the boar he didn’t really have a leg to stand on.”

Connie frowned. “Why’s that?”

“Local hostility. Lily’s right though, the whole thing was ridiculous. I lost a lot of weight. I’ve a yeast allergy. We got on each other’s nerves. And Lily’s too, probably. Then his mother got sick. So he went to look after her for a while. I imagine she’s better by now but he hasn’t come home. He doesn’t phone. It’s all been…” she shrugged, “well, empty, really. Blank. Boring . Sometimes I feel like my whole life has been a long, long wait for something horrible that never actually happened. Like I’ve been in water, up to my neck, fighting to stay afloat, year after year. But if only I’d felt for the bottom I’d have found it. It was there. The ocean bed, just below where I was treading. It was there.”

Sara pushed her chair back and pulled open the cutlery drawer again. She carefully placed the camera inside it.

“Coffee?” she said, smiling down at Connie, as if absolutely nothing of significance had just passed between them.

♦

Lily inspected Connie’s luggage. In the guest bedroom, open on the bed, lay a small suitcase. Next to it, a vanity case and a little bundle of papers tied up with a ribbon. Lily poked around in the case, lifting out and dropping several items. Then she turned her attention to the vanity case. She inspected a couple of Connie’s lipsticks and pocketed a pink one.

Finally, the papers. She slipped a single letter out of the ribbon and opened it. She began reading.

♦

Oh Ronny! Where were you? I needed you but you were nowhere. I needed you but you were everywhere. Why don’t you write back to me, Ronny?

Where are you?

I cannot speak. My two lips and my tongue are so inflamed that my mouth hangs open and I drool on to my shirt-front. It’s disgusting. And why? And how? Let me tell you. That demon. Louis. Him. Give me time and I’ll draw breath. Give me a moment…

Louis. The smell of him! He’s been drinking lately. In the dark, alone, cramped up inside that tiny shack. His pores ooze and ooze. He is relentlessly wet and hot and stinking. A foetid distillery. There is no escaping him. His eyes follow me. I can go no distance. He is behind me. And there is no private hidey-hole or secluded nook in this entire forest. In this whole giant hot green hell .

I hate him, Ronny. We are going crazy here together. Me with my radar and my fine-tuned hearing. Him with his pen, his finger, his flash and his eyes, all-seeing. Like one person, but fractured, each part pursuing the other. Hunting. Warring. He demands to know of all my movements. I am the enemy. He is under-cover. A spy. He is tracking me .