Nicola Barker - Wide Open

“But I don’t even remember saying that pornography thing.”

“Of course you don’t.”

“No, truly.”

Sara felt a slight glow inside her. That she might have said something so impulsive and profound and deeply affecting, all in the heat of the moment, without even thinking! But what had she meant? A real pornographer? And how could she wriggle her way out of it now?

“I was talking rubbish,” she said, “just off the top of my head. What the hell do I know about pornography?”

“It’s a cold thing,” Luke said, almost to himself, “but your pictures were cold too. They were colder.”

Sara stiffened. She remained sensitive. His rejection was still new and raw.

Luke sniffed. His face was streaming. The rain hurt his skin. It felt like he was being trampled by a swarm of damp ants in army boots.

“I don’t think I like it here,” he announced soulfully.

“What?”

Sara had heard him, but she couldn’t take him seriously. She was out of breath and had begun to worry that the rain might get into the gun and jam its mechanism.

“It isn’t like the moon after all,” Luke continued, “it’s like hell. Or purgatory.”

“It’s beautiful here in the summer,” she said, lifting the gun up and inspecting its barrel, “with the clear light and everything. But you missed the summer.”

“The sea’s freezing cold, and it isn’t even the sea.”

“Of course it is. What else could you call it?”

Luke didn’t respond.

“What else could you call it, Luke?”

Again. No response.

“Fine,” Sara muttered, “if that’s the way you want to play it.” She stopped walking, waited for the car to catch up with her and climbed back inside.

“Right,” she said, carefully supporting the gun between her knees, “just follow him.”

“And I’ll pay for the petrol,” she added, registering Nathan’s expression of mute disgruntlement as she slicked back her wet hair until it stuck to her skull and glistened like it was oiled.

To see Nathan like that, completely out of context. Nathan . It had shaken her. Because at some basic level she’d found his previous performance convincing. He’d been gentle. He’d had this quality…a naivety, an innocence. A detachment. And she’d believed in him, somehow, when he’d said that Ronny was no longer any part of his life. Even after discovering the lost property form with the Sheppey connection. Even then.

She was sitting, slumped at the kitchen table, exhausted, cradling one of the cauliflowers in her hands and waiting. How long before they returned? And would Nathan be with them? What did he want? From her? From Ronny?

Just an hour ago she’d been lost in the maize and Jim had saved her. Jim. She touched the head of the cauliflower with her fingertips, then absentmindedly pulled back the green fronds which sheltered its heart, pushed her fingers underneath its neck, yanked a small floret free and inspected it. She sniffed. The smell reminded her of the letters. That first extraordinary moment when she’d discovered them gone.

She tried to spur herself on, mentally, to investigate her position, her needs, her options, but it was too difficult. She was too tired. She glanced down at herself. She wore only an old robe which she’d found hung on the back of the bathroom door. Green, made of towelling. It swamped her and draped on the floor around her ankles. Her feet were uncovered though, and her toes tingled against the kitchen flags.

Jim. She touched the small cauliflower floret to her lips then popped it into her mouth. The belt of the robe was slack and the front section fell open as she moved her arm to her mouth.

She looked down at herself as she chewed, at her chest and her belly. Corpse-white. And the green of the robe? She felt hard and cold like a vegetable, with her soft towelling leaves pulling loose. She watched blankly as her skin tightened up into goose-bumps. She swallowed, closed her eyes and saw Jim’s face. His skin looked so bright. It glowed like a light bulb. Or was the brightness she imagined, in fact, just the fluorescent kitchen strip peeking in through her lashes?

For three seconds she contemplated this possibility, too exhausted to consider opening her eyes to find out conclusively. She felt her jaw loosening, her mouth falling open. Her brain was all flashes and crackles. I am asleep, she told herself, I am finally asleep, but then a chill began creeping, up her fingers, through her toes. Death is sudden, she found herself thinking. Sudden. It was not always as gradual as Monica had described it.

Her father; he was there and then he was gone. One door opened, another closed. She tried to picture him in her mind’s eye but she couldn’t. Every time she thought she’d got him cornered, turned him around to face her, tried to focus, to identify, he was sucked down and out from the space behind her eyes like a slick of oily water being dragged through a plughole.

Connie opened her eyes. My father was a good man, she told herself, tearfully, a good man. Ronny knew. Jim knew. Maybe even Nathan knew. Soon they would confirm everything. Soon. Soon they would confirm.

Yes. Yes. She kept repeating.

♦

The lights were still off. Ronny remained by the window, obscured by the nets, cocooned, like a giant pallid chrysalis. Jim’s eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. He was crouching next to the fireplace, debating whether he could risk burning something. His clothes were damp. He was beginning to feel the cold.

“He’s back again,” Ronny whispered, “that’s his seventh circuit.”

“Where does he go?” Jim asked idly.

“Luke’s prefab. Something’s attracting him to it. Do you think Luke’s inside there? The lights are all off.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps not.”

“So where is he?”

“Luke? The pub. He was planning to walk there if he grew desperate enough.”

“It’s the smell,” Ronny intoned softly, “don’t you think?”

“The smell?”

“That fishy smell. It’s like his calling card.”

Jim half-smiled. “You really think that’s why the boar’s here?”

“Why not? He senses a rival.”

“I thought we’d decided he’d come to see the sea.”

“He came to find Luke and then ended up seeing the sea. The sea was an added bonus.”

Jim stretched out his hand and tentatively ran it along the wall next to the fireplace. He was feeling for the ball of paper he’d thrown there earlier.

“I have the letter,” Ronny said quietly, “if that’s what you’re after.”

Jim paused.

“I’ve been watching you,” Ronny smiled, “through the nets.”

He moved away from the window, towards the sofa, felt his way around it and then sat down. Jim remained crouched where he was.

“Can you see me?” Ronny asked.

“Yes. I can see your hands and your face.”

“Good.”

Ronny bent over and took hold of one of his white shoes. Jim could see that his hands were shaking.

“Remember on the bridge, when you asked me about my shoes?”

Jim nodded. Ronny pulled off his shoe.

“Look.”

Jim squinted in the darkness. He saw the pale outline of Ronny’s foot. It was a long foot and delicately boned, but it was not like other feet he’d seen. It tapered.

“No big toe,” Ronny said, his voice expressionless, “on either foot.”

Jim’s mouth went dry.

“What happened?” he managed.

Ronny smiled. “Nothing. I never had any.”

Jim continued to stare at Ronny’s foot. “It must be difficult to balance,” he said eventually.

“You have no face, Jim,” Ronny observed fondly, “not this close up. Just a red glow.”