Nicola Barker - Wide Open

Nathan shook his head.

“No,” he said.

“And the angel,” Connie continued, “he seems very upset. He’s been crying. Perhaps he’s just sad or perhaps he’s feeling guilty about something.”

Nathan’s eyes were suddenly fully focused upon the angel.

“He?”

“Angels are always boys,” Connie said, “aren’t they?”

Nathan stood up. His face was red.

“What’s wrong?” Connie didn’t understand this dramatic mood change.

“I thought it was a girl,” Nathan muttered, and then began rubbing his hand across his chest as if trying to wipe something from it.

“I think it’s one of the weirdest, crudest, rudest paintings I’ve ever seen,” Connie said, “and I’m glad you brought it to show me. But I also think you’ve come here to forgive Ronny. This was just your roundabout way of doing so.”

She sat back and watched as a whole herd of expressions trampled over Nathan’s face. For a second he was full of an inexpressible agony, and then fear kicked it out and took up a cold residency in his lips and in his eyes.

And for some reason — although she gave no outward sign of it — Connie found herself enjoying the sight of Nathan’s misery, she celebrated it, quietly, deeply, inside herself. Because on some strange level, it all felt so neat, so complete, so necessary .

♦

“Can I do anything else for you?”

Luke had pushed the boar’s carcass into an outhouse and then had helped to secure the door with a padlock.

“I don’t think so,” Sara put the key back into her pocket, “but thanks anyway.”

They were standing close together in the darkness, facing each other.

“Feel my hands,” Luke said, and touched the back of his fingers to Sara’s cheek.

“Cold,” she smiled.

“Extremely.”

“I’d invite you in,” she said, “but I don’t think it’s a good idea under the circumstances.”

“No.”

“Your car’s over there.”

Sara pointed. Luke took this opportunity to kiss her on the nose, and then on the lips. She was moderately responsive, but her face was wet with rain and her skin was slightly red and numb. The waterproof fabric of their coats made a little scraping noise as they clashed.

“Friction,” Sara said, once he’d finally withdrawn.

“Will I see you again?” Luke asked.

“If you must know,” Sara said, “I’ve actually been thinking a good deal about your dot-to-dots.”

Luke found her timing inappropriate. He straightened up a fraction. “Really?”

The dot-to-dots were absolutely the last thing on his mind.

“Yes. I decided that it was very interesting how the thing you found most fascinating about the dot-to-dots was actually the part which was missing…”

He frowned. He was confused.

“Because when I really thought about it,” Sara continued, “I actually found the least fascinating part the bit which was missing.”

Luke smiled, Sara felt, somewhat patronizingly. “Men and women, huh?” he intoned carelessly.

“One day,” Sara said, “and hopefully it’ll be one day soon, somebody will come along who’ll manage to make the other bits seem fascinating to you. But she isn’t me. She just isn’t,” she smiled kindly, “and that’s really all I wanted to say on the subject.”

Luke nodded. “Good,” he took several steps back, “you said my car was where?”

Sara pointed again.

“Thank you.”

He smiled back at her, but his cheeks were clenched.

That’s probably the cold, Sara reasoned, then put her hands up to her own cheeks, feeling vaguely corny but as smug as hell.

♦

“What’s going on?”

Connie walked over to the window and tried to peer out through it, but the glass was steamy. She tried to wipe clear a peep-hole with her hand. Outside she saw the tail-lights of the Volvo disappearing, and, closer by, Sara and Lily in the midst of an extremely heated confrontation.

“Oh dear,” she moved back a fraction, “I think all hell just broke loose.”

Nathan had closed his book. He looked up.

“There were four of them,” he said, “our father, Little Ronny and two others. They kept her in the flat for almost a week. She was sedated to keep the noise down.”

Connie turned away from the window. “They kept who?”

“The girl. She came from a local estate. She was two years younger than Ronny. He might have seen her at school sometimes. At first nobody missed her.”

Connie put her hand up to her throat. “Monica?”

“No,” Nathan shook his head, frowning, “she had a different name. One of the others was a lab assistant at the school. That’s how the connection was made. My father preferred boys, actually,” Nathan said, and as he said it, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Connie’s heart twisted for him. “So where were you while all this was happening?” she asked softly.

“I had a flat. I’d left by then. I escaped.”

“And Ronny?”

“Seventeen. But he seemed much younger.”

“He could have escaped too.”

“I begged him. He wouldn’t leave. He wanted me to force him.”

Connie considered this for a while. “To force him? Why?”

“Because he was frightened. Because that’s what he was used to. That was all he understood.”

“But you didn’t force him.”

“No,” Nathan shook his head, “I couldn’t.”

“So they killed her.”

“Yes. Eventually.”

Connie pulled out a chair. “I didn’t ever want to know what he’d done,” she said, “and now that I do know…”

But she couldn’t complete what she’d wanted to say. She sat down. “Poor Monica,” she muttered eventually, “now I realize what she meant. Death came so slowly.”

She looked up at Nathan. He seemed perfectly composed again. Her eye slipped down to his shirt pocket. It was full of something white and had a kind of sticky-looking stain on it which had spread down from the pocket and into a couple of square inches of the fabric below.

“There’s a leak or something…” Connie indicated. Nathan glanced down at himself. “Oh. It’s just honey,” he said, and drew out Lily’s sandwich. Connie went to the sink and picked up a cloth, squeezed it firmly and then ran it under the warm tap.

♦

“I saw you!” Lily screamed. “I saw him with his hands all over you!”

She’d sprung from the car with all the momentum of a jackrabbit as soon as Luke had driven out and on to the road. She’d bided her time, this time.

Sara hadn’t bargained on a witness, or, for that matter, a confrontation.

“It was nothing,” she said airily, “and it was none of your business. Where’s Nathan? Why were you sitting out here all alone in the dark?”

“He’s a monster!” Lily bellowed. “He stinks of fish! How could you let him touch you? You’re disgusting!”

“No.” Sara shook her head. “No, I am not disgusting.”

“And what about Dad?”

“Dad?” Sara’s eyes widened. “Don’t pretend you give a damn about his feelings. You haven’t mentioned him once since he left this house. Not one word in two whole months. Your dad doesn’t even enter into it.”

“You don’t know what I’m thinking!” Lily screamed. “You’ve never known what I was thinking!”

Sara stared bemusedly at Lily’s rage-torn face. “No. Sometimes I don’t know what you’re thinking. You never tell me what you’re thinking. I’m not a mind-reader, Lily. I’m your mother. That’s all.”

“You’re not my mother,” Lily snarled. “You wanted me dead. You always wanted me dead. You both did.”

Sara choked down a laugh. “You’re being stupid. You’re just hysterical. Luke and I had a brief…” she struggled to find an inoffensive, unincrirninating word, “a brief understanding.”