Nicola Barker - Wide Open

Luke’s cigarettes. Were they still there? He looked closer. Benson & Hedges. Gold box…Nope. No sign. He squinted. Glinting underneath a quantity of other refuse lay not the cigarette packet but another metallic, glimmering object. A watch. The gold watch. “To Big Ron, with love, your Elaine.” Its face all crushed in and smashed.

Jim dumped the plates and pulled open the cutlery drawer. He inspected the selection of knives. One blunt bread knife, a smaller, sharper Kitchen Devil, one steak knife. He scooped them up. He also picked up the knife he’d not used for his own meal and Ronny’s knife which was still on the table. He walked through to the living room, over to the sofa, bent down and retrieved the hunting knife from under it.

He walked to the open doorway and looked outside. The tide was lurching in. Its great, dirty tongue lapped and licked, foam-tipped, about ten foot away from where he stood. He walked down on to the sand, stared briefly at the knives in his hand, and then threw them, with as much force as he could muster, out, out, out into the rumbling belly of the sea.

Back inside the prefab, Jim hunted around for any other potentially hazardous objects. The tooth glass in the bathroom, a small mirror inside the bathroom cabinet and the razor. In the living room he picked up an old black and yellow screwdriver. In the kitchen, a ketchup bottle, half-full, and a glass jar of damson jam. The tin opener. Yes.

Back outside again, he tipped his head slightly and listened. Seagulls, the growl of the tide. He threw the second set of objects into the waves. He returned indoors. He stood next to the cold fire. He picked up the poker and appraised it, frowning, then he placed it back down again. He turned towards the sofa and noticed Ronny’s cardigan. He walked over and grabbed it, plunged his hand into its pocket and withdrew the letter. He sat down and opened it.

♦

Ronny darling ,

We’re still not speaking, Louis and me. He’s slow to forgive. It takes him a while. Each new situation leaves him spinning. He has to dig in his heels hard, hard, take a deep breath and struggle to acclimatize .

So I’m back in the cave. The bat cave. You understand these places, don’t you, Ronny?

♦

Jim blinked.

♦

So I’m back in the cave. The bat cave. You understand these places, don’t you, Ronny?

♦

He shook his head. He turned the letter over.

♦

We both feel around blindly. Like deep water fish. Touching, whispering, bumping, retreating .

♦

Jim screwed the letter up and threw it towards the fireplace. It hit the wall and landed. His shoulders were drawn up so high that they almost touched his ear-lobes. He struggled to stand. He was stiff. His body was stiff. It took a considerable effort to move himself. He was like a little tin robot; no neck, all shoulders.

He began to run. Had anyone seen him they would have laughed. He looked so silly. He looked so funny. He was hunted. His head, his chest, his legs looked as though they were prepared for some kind of extraordinary impact. Something huge. Something massive. No mere body could be big enough, could be tough enough for that kind of an assault. No mere body.

He ran out of the prefab. Stiff, stiff, stiff. Along the beach and then on and on and on and on.

“I never realized before,” Connie whispered, “how terrible the outside could feel.”

Sara was walking several paces behind her. Connie had been perfectly calm at the outset, but then she’d heard the gun being cocked at her back and her entire torso had jolted. A small sound.

“You honestly never realized that?” Sara’s voice was hushed.

They both paused for a moment before shuffling onwards. The giant grey sky seemed to draw everything up into its muffling clouds. Voices, sniffs, footfalls. Sara had been right about the quiet.

They reached the Volvo. The plan was for Sara to walk, in an ever-expanding circle, from the boar enclosures outwards, until she’d reached the furthest boundaries of the farm. She would go alone. She would take the gun. Connie would take Luke’s car. “It’s a Volvo,” Sara reasoned, “it’s got to be tougher than your little city runabout. If you make any sightings you’ll have to come back and fetch me. Everything’s really muddy. The tracks especially. You won’t leave the vehicle, not even for a moment. Promise?”

“Promise.”

Connie had begun feeling like the whole world was threatening. Even the air. Even the mud. Everything. Sara had pulled on her waterproofs.

“Report back every half hour or so.”

“Fine.”

She climbed in. She adjusted the seat and the mirror. Sara handed her the keys. “And hurry,” she said, “the sun’s almost setting. When it gets dark here it’s like pitch. It’s like swimming in black treacle.”

Connie started up the engine. She pulled off. This was a big car. The wide bumpers reassured her.

♦

Sara began walking. She was still skittery. Her eyes were peeled but she could barely concentrate. I must evaluate what this means, she kept thinking. This escape. I must calculate its significance. But she couldn’t. She was moist-eyed and full of wonder. Her lips kept forming the shapes of words. She had no voice left though, no breath. But her lips worked anyway. I’m alone, they said. I’m alone. I am finally alone.

♦

Connie drove slowly, her headlights on already. Twice she pulled up, befuddled by stiles and by hay bales. She drove past a field head-high with maize. And she noticed that there had been some kind of a disturbance among a portion of the stalks which were crushed and broken and pressed down flat. She braked. She peered. It could have been the wind. It could have been a big dog. Or a small cow. Even a tractor. She touched the accelerator for one moment and then lifted her foot again.

No.

Everything seemed so glowy, outside. Like the whole earth was covered in a sweet pink candy. The sun was setting. It had started to rain.

But inside, inside , everything inside seemed so bloody noisy: the engine, the tyres turning, the loose stones hitting the car’s hard underbelly.

She turned off the engine.

Quiet. She glanced down at herself. Pink! I am glowing! I am all-glowing! Her voice sounded strange. Was she thinking? Was she speaking? She tried to focus and to listen but the voice she heard was too distant. Like a memory. Like a muffled sneeze behind somebody’s hand. A seductive whisper through a pane of glass, or a curtain, or a flimsy hardboard partition. There was no air .

She opened the car door and stepped outside. Yes. She could breathe again. It was cool. And the voice was clearer here, too. Something called her. Was it the sea? Or the wind in the top of the maize? Was it the rain? Was it her heart? Her bladder? It could have been anything. She was transgressing. She was outside again and she suddenly felt fearless.

♦

You know when you think that death will come quickly, Ronny, but it doesn’t come quickly? You know? You think death will come quickly but it doesn’t come. It goads you. It strings you along. It presses down on you. It steals the fucking breath from you. It glares at you. It takes the piss out of you. But it won’t come. It won’t come .

You know when you think that death will come quickly, Ronny, but it just won’t come?

Let me die! Let me die! Please God let me die! Release me! Free me! Consume me! Kill me!

But it won’t come .

I waited and I waited for Louis. But like death he would not come. I watched the sun setting and the sun rising. I missed you. I remembered those conversations we’d had. Remember? Those whispered conversations. And that time when you squeezed my hand? Remember?