Thames Gateway 01; Wide Open

by Nicola Barker

  “Perhaps you’d better leave this place,” she said.

  “No,” Jim held the two shoes to his chest, “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Ronny’s dead,” she said, “and now you’re free.”

  Jim stared at her as if for the very first time, his face taut with incredulity. “But I am Ronny,” he said.

  Connie stared back at him for a while. “Yes,” she replied eventually, “I know perfectly well who you are.”

  Jim’s eyes returned to the muddy ground again. He slowly began walking towards the beach.

  “I realized the very first day I ever met you,” Connie called after him, “I always hnew it was you.”

  He walked on. Connie glared after him, blinking angrily, clenching her fingers tightly around the little foil-wrapped square.

  ♦

  Luke told himself that he had been injured irreparably by Sara’s comments about the dot-to-dots. He found it hard to believe that anybody, least of all Sara, could seriously imagine that another person might be so dramatically altered by love. Love? What could be more ridiculous than that? Or more insulting?

  Even so, on the drive back to his prefab the night before, something extraordinary had occurred to him. Something momentous. And it was actually connected to the dot-to-dots. It tied in.

  You see, in some ways, he conceded, Sara had been right, and Ronny too, when they’d said that he should not reject the dot-to-dots so absolutely. He had come to this godforsaken hole to try and discover something complete and absolute and significant in his work, in himself even, something total and real and true. Something more.

  It had been a mistake. Now it seemed so clear to him. He should never have left what he knew, he should merely have explored it a little better. He should have exploited it. All he’d ever needed was a stronger nerve and a new angle.

  Suddenly, now, out of the blue, he had one. An exhibition, he told himself, a real exhibition of the dot-to-dots. But proper pictures this time, giant prints, all bold and brassy and blown up. And some would be his way around (all sex, no love) and some would be Sara’s way, the silly way. Now that was an idea. Photography was only about images, after all, but ideas? Well! Those were about art.

  Yes. He chuckled. Art.

  ♦

  All the way along the beach, just below the high tideline, Lily found a strange collection of knives. The sea had spewed them out on to the low dimes. It seemed to have had no use for them. Lily picked them up, one after the other and clutched them against her bare chest. One of the knives, she noted, actually belonged to her. But while she was tickled by its reappearance, she had no intention of keeping it. Instead she took the knives to Jim’s prefab and knocked on the door.

  “Ronny?”

  She waited then knocked again. “Ronny!”

  After a while, Jim pulled the door open. He was partially covered in mud.

  “Where’s Ronny?” she asked.

  Jim paused. “Sleeping,” he said softly. He seemed calm but preoccupied.

  “Look what I found…” Lily showed him the knives.

  Jim nodded.

  “On the beach!”

  He smiled weakly and nodded again.

  “Do you want them?”

  She offered him the bundle.

  Jim hesitated and considered her offer. He decided that it would be churlish to reject a gift so freely given. He took the knives from her. All of them.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “I’m going swimming,” Lily confided, “will you join me?”

  Jim shook his head.

  “Suit yourself.”

  She grinned and then ran off down the beach, yelping like a pup at the feel of broken shells against the bare fleshy soles of her feet.

  Jim took the knives inside with him and closed the door. He inspected his muddy trousers. He walked into his bedroom in search of clean clothes. He put the bundle of knives down on his bed and began to undress. He pulled off his trousers, then his T-shirt. As he pulled off his T-shirt he noticed something unexpected on the inside of his arm. A series of white marks. Neat plaster fingerprints. He stared at them, then swallowed hard.

  He looked around for some clean clothes. He quickly located a shirt and some jeans. He pulled them on. He inspected the clutch of knives on the bed again. Among them he saw his father’s razor. He picked it up and took it into the kitchen. Under the sink he found a plastic carrier bag. He took it back through to the living room and laid it out flat on the floor. He sat down. He rested his two feet on top of it. He inspected the blade. It was sharp as an angry word in a gentle ear.

  ♦

  Connie saw the fire burning from halfway down the drive. Sara was running backwards and forwards with buckets of water.

  “What happened?”

  “I have a bad feeling,” Sara said grimly, “that Lily is intent on re-inventing herself.”

  “Oh.”

  “What smoulders before you is the former Lily.”

  “Right.”

  “The new Lily is running naked through the fields.”

  Connie didn’t smile, although Sara had intended her to. She was still holding Ronny’s white spacesuit and visor. She bundled it all together in her hands and threw it down on to the flames, happy, at last, to be rid of it.

  “Thanks,” Sara muttered.

  “What?” Connie glanced at her.

  “I’m trying to put it out,” Sara said drily, “not feeding it.”

  She returned to a tap by one of the outhouses, filled the bucket and brought it back again. She tossed it on to the flames. The fire hissed.

  Close to the smouldering edge of it, Connie noticed something domed and smoke-stained. It cracked as the water made contact with it, and the dome split in two. There was a little brief spurt of steam but it quickly evaporated. Connie stared impassively into the fire. She could have sworn she saw a tiny, brown-furred puppy-like creature, but many limbed. Standing on its hind legs, with eyes as sweet as cane sugar. She leaned forward. The wind changed direction. Smoke billowed out and the little beast was gone.

  “You’re too close,” Sara said.

  “What?”

  “Step back a bit. You’re too close. You’re dripping.”

  “Dripping?”

  Connie took a step backwards. She looked down at herself. Oil slid from her fist and on to the gravel driveway. When she opened her hand, all it contained was a small, thin strip of gold foil.

  “I have to go now, Sara,” she said quietly, only pausing to rub the oil from her fingers deep and hard into the surrounding skin.

  ♦

  Lily was leaping about in the waves. Connie parked her car, climbed out of it and walked around to the front of the prefab. She knocked. There was no answer. She knocked again and walked in. The living room was empty, the kitchen. She went into the bedroom. Jim lay on the bed, sleeping, covered in a sheet and a blanket.

  “Jim?”

  Connie walked over to the edge of the bed.

  “Are you sleeping?”

  His face was so pale. There were tears still wet on his cheeks. She knelt down and kissed them. “Your face feels so cold,” she said, “Jim?”

  She leaned over to adjust his blanket which was slithering off the end of the bed. As she lifted it, she saw that the bottom of his sheet was drenched with blood. She dropped the blanket.

  “Jim?”

  She lifted the sheet and saw his two mutilated feet.

  “Jim!”

  He opened his eyes.

  “Look,” he mumbled, “my arm.” He pointed to his arm. “Those white marks are where he touched me.”

  “What have you done?”

  Connie did not look at the white marks.

  “I said what have you done?”

  “I’m wide open,” Jim said, smiling, “like a stinking can of worms.”

  “Sit up,” Connie spoke calmly.

  He considered her request for a moment but then obliged her clumsily.

  “I kn
ow a doctor,” she said, “I’ll take you there.”

  “No doctors.” Jim shook his head.

  “It’s all right,” Connie said firmly, “can you walk?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Connie went into the bathroom and returned with a roll of toilet paper. She began to unwind it, then crouched down and rewound it around the ends of each of Jim’s feet.

  “You were never even in a rain forest, were you?” she asked, almost conversationally.

  “Never.”

  Jim inspected his wadded-up feet bemusedly. Connie gathered the bloody sheets and stuck them into the fireplace. She found the carrier bag and its grizzly contents. She swallowed hard, picked them up, and added them to the sheets. She put some logs on to the fire and lit them. Her hands were shaking. On the sofa she saw the letters. She took them and burned them, one by one. Then she picked up the razor from the place where it lay on the carpet, ran it under a tap and put it back into the bathroom cabinet.

  Through the front window she saw Lily, still swimming about in the sea. She walked back to the bedroom again. Jim sat where she’d left him. He was rubbing his eyes.

  “Lily’s outside,” she said, “but she’s in the sea. Do you need anything?”

  “My hat,” he said. She found a woollen cap and threw it over to him. He pulled it on. “My shoes,” he said, and pointed. Connie went and picked up Ronny’s white shoes. She stared at them, scowling, then handed them over. Jim put them down on to the floor and slowly pushed his two feet into them. Even with the tissues, the shoes almost fitted. He winced, then frowned.

  “These aren’t my shoes,” he said. And his mind turned back to the bridge and the wasp and the sting. Connie put out her arm to help him up. He let her. His balance was all gone. “Do you need anything else?” she asked, as they staggered, with difficulty, towards the door. He shook his head. “No. Nothing.”

  She pulled the door open. The wind hit them. Jim grabbed her arm even harder for support. They stepped outside. Lily was swimming far out in the waves. At first she didn’t see them. They made their way back, quietly, towards the road and the car.

  “Ronny!”

  A distant voice, but insistent.

  “Ronny!”

  Connie let go of Jim’s arm. He was suddenly on his own. He looked down at himself for a moment. He wobbled slightly. But he kept his balance. He turned. He saw Lily, waving at him, jumping around in the surf.

  “Wave at her, Ronny,” Constance said, her eyes steady and calm on him. Ronny paused, he thought for a moment, then he slowly raised his right hand and waved at Lily with it. Lily waved back at him. Then he smiled, turned, and they both staggered on again.

  ♦

  “Don’t you think it’s beautiful?” Lily said, inspecting the half-completed back wall of shells. Luke frowned. He was loading stuff into the boot of his car. “It’s just shells,” he said, “isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so,” Lily shivered. “Do you have a shirt I could borrow?”

  “You need one,” Luke said drily, “you’re way out of the nudist section. I should call the police. I should have you arrested.”

  “Good,” Lily said, “you’d be doing me a favour.”

  Her moon-face split into a grin.

  “You have strong teeth,” Luke said, “but very gappy.”

  “You stink like a kipper,” Lily said.

  “That’s only sex you smell on me,” Luke said, undaunted, “and it frightens the hell out of you.”

  “If that’s sex I smell,” Lily said sweetly, “then take me to a fucking nunnery.”

  Luke noticed that she was slowly turning purple. He headed back towards his prefab.

  There was a nip in the air. Lily wrapped her arms around herself. When Luke re-emerged with a spare shirt and saw her, she reminded him of her mother. Of Sara. There was an icy wind blowing. A winter wind. She was facing right into it.

  “Do you need anything else?” he asked. “Because I’m actually very busy…”

  “Ssshhhhhh!”

  Lily pressed her finger to her lips, and turned into the wind again, her eyes glowing.

  “What?” he scowled at her. She shook her head and kept her finger where it was.

  “What?” he repeated.

  ♦

  I dreamed I saw you dead in a place by the water. A ravaged place. All flat and empty and wide open. And you were covered in some kind of binding. Like a mummy. Something white and reflective, from head to toe.

  And the light shone on you. Oh, how it shone on you! It glanced off you, and it was like a pure, bright silver.

  The wind was singing. It sang: you have suffered enough. You have suffered enough.

  Then death came and he kissed you. Lightly. Gently. Upon the lips. There is nothing beyond, he whispered, only me, only me.

  There is nothing beyond.

  Only me.

  EOF