The Three Button Trick and Other Stories

by Nicola Barker

  ‘No axe,’ Sydney said. ‘I just thought you should know . . .’ She paused. What did she want to say, exactly? Would she tell Jack about Heinz? She looked into Jack’s face and knew that the notion of an eighty-odd-year-old man sleeping with his wife was hardly going to incite him to jealousy.

  ‘Is it Carrie?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Yep.’ Sydney rubbed the corner of her eyes.

  ‘You look washed out,’ he said.

  ‘Tired. Haven’t been sleeping.’

  ‘Really?’

  Sydney uncrossed her legs. ‘Carrie’s got someone new.’

  Jack looked surprised. ‘Already?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Who?’

  Sydney cleared her throat. ‘Someone she’s known for a while.’

  ‘She met them at the gym? Who is it? Do I know them?’

  Sydney shrugged. ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘So I do know them?’

  ‘I didn’t say you knew them.’

  ‘Are they younger than me?’

  Sydney squirmed. ‘I just thought . . .’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  Sydney picked up her briefcase. ‘Not for any reason, really.’ She frowned and then asked out loud, ‘Why am I telling you? I don’t know.’ She stood up. ‘That three button thing you do,’ she said finally, ‘I just wanted to tell you that it’s a real cheap trick.’

  HALF A BOTTLE OF JIM BEAM LATER, it finally clicked. The only thing that made sense. Carrie was having an affair with Sydney. And Sydney was terrified of what exactly his response might be. She was intimidated by him. She was threatened. Naturally. And she’d really wanted to tell him too, to throw it in his face, debilitate him. Only then . . . only then she just didn’t have the nerve. That was it! Had to be. Carrie and Sydney. Sydney and Carrie. Wow.

  ‘YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS, SYDNEY. Something so odd happened . . .’ They were pulling on their leotards and tying up their laces.

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Jack rang. He left a message on the machine. He wants to drop by. On Wednesday.’

  Sydney pulled the bow stiff on her lace. She straightened up.

  ‘But Wednesday!’ she exclaimed. ‘Isn’t that ballet night?’

  Carrie looked uneasy, momentarily, like she didn’t know quite what Sydney was getting at. ‘Uh, yes . . .’

  ‘So you won’t be needing your tickets?’

  ‘I suppose not, unless . . .’

  ‘So I could have them both, maybe?’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yeah. I quite got a taste for it the other night. How about it, huh?’

  HEINZ STARTED WHEN HE SAW HER. He wondered whether Carrie had come with her but had popped to the Ladies for some reason, or to the bar. He squeezed his way over to his seat.

  ‘Hello there.’

  Sydney looked up. ‘Oh, hi. How are you?’

  ‘Not too bad. Not too bad at all.’

  He sat down, adjusted his position, pulled at his little bow tie which constricted him, reached into his jacket pocket and pulled from its depths a Cadbury’s Chocolate Orange. He unwrapped the foil and offered the orange to Sydney.

  ‘Dark chocolate,’ he said.

  Sydney tried to pull off a slice but it wouldn’t come loose. Heinz intervened, knocked at the chocolate orange with the centre of his palm and then offered it to her again.

  ‘Thanks,’ Sydney said, smiling, showing him what fine, straight teeth she had and just how sweet and obliging she could be.

  JACK HAD BROUGHT FLOWERS. Lilies. Her favourites.

  ‘Look, Carrie, I met up with Sydney the other day.’

  Carrie was putting the flowers in water, but preparing each stem first by slicing an inch off the bottom at a sharp angle. That way, she knew, the flower could drink so much more.

  ‘Sydney?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She didn’t mention it.’

  ‘No?’

  Jack was actually relieved. He’d been worried in case Sydney might have blotted his copybook with Carrie by suggesting things about him, by exaggerating or maligning. Sydney could bitch with the best when she felt the urge. She was dangerous.

  ‘Let me tell you something,’ Jack said, leaning his back up against one of the kitchen cupboards.

  ‘What?’ Carrie was wide eyed and restless. What had Sydney said? Had she been indiscreet? Had she mentioned Heinz?

  ‘I know what’s been going on,’ Jack said, ‘and I’m here to tell you that I don’t care. I’ve given it some thought . . .’

  ‘What do you know?’

  ‘About you and Sydney.’

  ‘What about us?’

  He put out both his hands. ‘Just tell me,’ he said, ‘that it’s over. Because my suitcase,’ he couldn’t hide his smile, ‘my suitcase, darling, is lying packed in the boot of my car.’

  ‘I’LL TELL YOU SOMETHING ELSE,’ Sydney said, lounging on Heinz’s sofa and drinking her fourth martini.

  ‘What?’

  Heinz was sitting on his comfy chair sipping a cup of tea.

  ‘I went and saw Jack the other day, right? A private tête à tête, and he came into the café where we’d arranged to meet with the buttons on his coat done up all . . .’ Sydney made a higgledy-piggledy movement with her hands, ‘like so . . .’

  ‘He’s missing her?’ Heinz interjected, almost sympathetic.

  ‘No. Not at all. That’s my point. It’s the three button trick.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Men do it. Some men. To make them look . . .’ she burped, ‘vul-ner-a-ble. And this is the best bit . . .’ She put her hand over her mouth. ‘Pardon me.’

  ‘The best bit?’

  ‘Yeah. Turns out, he only pulled that trick the very first time he ever spoke to Carrie. 1972. Outside the National Portrait Gallery. Took her in completely. Beguiled her, absolutely. And there he was, large as life, trying it on with me!’

  ‘Did you tell her?’

  Sydney knocked back the rest of her drink. ‘Who?’

  ‘Carrie.’

  ‘Nope. Seemed a shame.’

  Heinz nodded.

  ‘Nice flat,’ Sydney said, looking around her.

  ‘It suits me well enough.’

  ‘Come and sit over here.’ Sydney patted the sofa to her left. ‘Come on.’

  Heinz smiled. ‘I am perfectly comfortable where I am, thank you.’

  Sydney stared at him, balefully. ‘What’s wrong?’

  Outside the sound of a faint car horn was just audible.

  ‘Nothing is wrong,’ Heinz said, pushing his great bulk up from his comfy chair and walking over to the window. While his back was turned, Sydney unbuttoned the grey silk shirt she was wearing and took it off. Heinz turned and said, ‘I think that’s your cab.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Outside.’

  ‘What cab?’

  ‘I called for one a little while back.’

  ‘A cab? Can’t I stay here?’

  ‘What for?’

  Sydney started grinning but only half her mouth worked properly. ‘Sex, stupid.’

  Heinz picked up Sydney’s pale silk shirt from the arm of the sofa and handed it to her. ‘I’m eighty-three years old,’ he said gently, ‘and entirely impotent.’

  ‘WHAT’S WRONG?’ CARRIE ASKED, for the umpteenth time. ‘I can tell something’s bothering you. I only wish you’d tell me.’

  Sydney had still not yet quite recovered. It was Thursday night at the gym.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong.’

  She hadn’t been sleeping. Her elbows were hurting. She couldn’t stop thinking . . .

  ‘I only got out of the house tonight because Jack’s at a conference. I swore not to come here any more. He seems to have got the idea into his head that you’re some kind of . . .’ Carrie couldn’t think of the appropriate word.

  Sydney was staring at Carrie with an odd expression. Either Carrie lied, she was thinking, or Heinz lied.

  ‘So Jack d
oesn’t know about Heinz yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, let’s just hope he doesn’t get to find out, either.’

  Carrie shook her head. ‘I spoke to Heinz on the phone. I explained that I didn’t want Jack knowing. He was so good about it.’

  ‘Knowing what?’

  ‘Knowing anything.’

  Sydney smiled at this, and Carrie, for some reason, had cause, she sensed, to feel a sudden dart of disquiet. In her stomach. In her gut.

  ‘I TOLD YOU NOT TO RING ME!’ Carrie exclaimed, terrified at the possibility of discovery.

  ‘Is it safe to talk?’

  ‘Jack’s in the bath. He’s listening to the cricket on the radio.’

  ‘You know I miss you terribly. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Heinz, there’s no point . . .’

  ‘But this isn’t about that. It is about your friend, Sydney.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She keeps calling around and she also keeps writing to me. She phones me . . .’

  ‘Sydney?’

  ‘I just want you to talk to her. I simply want her to leave me in peace.’

  ‘My God. How odd.’

  ‘I miss you so much.’

  Carrie’s cheeks glowed an unnaturally bright color as she said goodbye and then gently placed down the receiver.

  SHE WAITED UNTIL THE LAST PERSON had left the sauna. ‘Carrie,’ she said, ‘I’ve done something I think you should know about.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I had sex with Heinz.’ She’d expected Carrie to blush or blanch. One or the other.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Straight sex. Nothing fancy.’

  Carrie frowned, ‘I’m afraid I don’t believe you, Sydney.’

  ‘Why not? It’s true.’

  ‘He’s impotent.’

  ‘He isn’t. You slept with him.’

  ‘I didn’t sleep with him.’

  ‘You said you did.’

  ‘He’s impotent.’

  ‘So what . . .’

  ‘He’s in love with me. He’ll do anything.’

  Sydney stared at Carrie, confounded. Carrie was round and soft and lily white. She seemed peculiarly full of herself.

  ‘So let me get this straight . . .’ Sydney said, wanting details so badly.

  ‘He just wants you to leave him in peace.’

  ‘Does Jack know yet?’ Sydney asked, knowing she was routed and turning nasty.

  ‘He doesn’t know.’

  Carrie appeared unperturbed. Sydney shrugged. ‘Better make sure he doesn’t find out, then.’

  Carrie only smiled.

  ‘Jack made a move on me, when we met up recently,’ Sydney said. ‘He tried that old three button trick of his.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘So you don’t even know about that one yet?’ Sydney asked. ‘Oh, you’ll just love it. It’s so cheap.’ And she set about putting Carrie straight on that particular matter.

  HE’D KEPT ON NAGGING so in the end she’d been forced to give in to him. ‘It’s a terrible waste,’ he said, ‘to keep on leaving the seats empty.’

  Anyhow, Carrie was bored of sitting at home every night with nothing to do and no proper conversation. Sometimes he mentioned the name of a new actress. Sometimes he wasn’t too tactful and inadvertently made her feel her age.

  When Heinz finally entered the box, a little late, without his tie, pale-faced, disheveled, Jack muttered, ‘Christ, I’d almost forgotten about him.’

  Carrie said nothing, but she hadn’t forgotten.

  SYDNEY WAS SITTING ON HER BED and in front of her was a pile of scrap books. She opened the first one. Dry red wines from the Perth region. She touched the wine label and wondered about her mummy and her daddy. Her elbows were itchy. She reached for a tub of Vaseline. She dipped in her fingers.

  HEINZ HAD HAD SEVERAL OPTIONS: to forget about her, to confront her and tell her what a bastard Jack was, to be a kind of bastard himself. He was old. If he’d learned anything along the line, he’d learned that the little things didn’t matter, at the end of the day, but the big things mattered, and sometimes you had to compromise yourself, however slightly, to try to maintain that bigger picture.

  IN THE INTERVAL they bumped into one another at the bar. Jack was several feet away ordering drinks. Heinz had given plenty of thought to this moment. He’d had several options available. He’d taken the cheapest. Arriving late, no tie, the business.

  ‘You look terrible,’ she said, glancing over towards Jack, her lips barely moving. She stared at his shirt. ‘And your buttons,’ she added, ‘are done up all wrong.’

  He looked down at himself. ‘Really?’ he said, wheezing, like he’d barely noticed. But when he looked back up again his old heart began pumping.

  Jack was walking over towards them holding two glasses. A whisky, a port and lemon. He was walking over. He was close and he was closer.

  Carrie put out her hand and touched Heinz’s buttons. ‘Oh God,’ she said softly, ‘that stupid three button trick, you old hound,’ and her eyes started sparkling.

  Wesley

  Blisters

  Look,’ Trevor said, ‘you’ve got to serve from the back, see?’

  Wesley dropped the orange he’d just picked up.

  ‘Put it where it was before,’ Trevor said sniffily. ‘Exactly.’

  Wesley adjusted the placement of the orange. There. Just so. It was neat now. The display looked hunky-dory.

  ‘Let me quickly say something,’ Wesley said, as Trevor turned to go and unload some more boxes from the van.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s just that if you serve people from the back of the stall they immediately start thinking that what you’re giving them isn’t as good as what’s on display.’

  Trevor said nothing.

  ‘See what I mean?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Well, I’m just saying that if you want to build up customer confidence then it’s a better idea to give them the fruit they can see.’

  ‘It’s more work that way,’ Trevor said, shoving his hands into his pockets.

  ‘Well, I don’t care about that,’ Wesley responded. ‘I’m the one who’ll end up having to do most of the serving while you’re running the deliveries and I don’t mind.’

  Trevor gave Wesley a deep look and then shrugged and walked off to the van.

  Another new job. Selling fruit off a stall on the Roman Road. Wesley was handsome and intelligent and twenty-three years old and he’d had a run of bad luck so now he was working the markets. No references needed. Actually, on the markets a bad temper was considered something of a bonus. Nobody messed you around. If they did, though, then you had to look out for yourself.

  Trevor had red hair and a pierced nose. Wesley looked very strait-laced to him in his clean corduroy trousers and polo-neck jumper, and his hands were soft and he spoke too posh. What Trevor didn’t realize, however, was that Wesley had been spoilt rotten as a child so was used to getting his own way and could manipulate and wheedle like a champion if the urge took him. Wesley had yet to display to Trevor the full and somewhat questionable force of his personality.

  Wesley pulled his weight. That, at least, was something, Trevor decided. After they’d packed up on their first night he invited Wesley to the pub for a drink as a sign of his good faith. Wesley said he wanted something to eat instead. So they went for pie and mash together.

  Trevor had some eels and a mug of tea. Wesley ate a couple of meat pies. Wesley liked the old-fashioned tiles and the tables in the pie and mash shop. He remarked on this to Trevor. Trevor grunted.

  ‘My dad was in the navy,’ Wesley said, out of the blue.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘He taught me how to box.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Last job I had, I punched my boss in the face. He was up a ladder. I was on a roof. Broke his collar bone.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’ Trevor was impressed.


  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Tried to prosecute.’

  ‘What!?’

  ‘I buggered off. I live my life,’ Wesley said plainly, ‘by certain rules. I’ll do my whack, but when push comes to shove, I want to be treated decent and to keep my mind free. See?’

  Trevor was mystified. He ate his eels, silently.

  ‘I had a brother,’ Wesley said, ‘and I killed him when I was a kid. An accident and everything. But that’s made me think about things in a different way.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Trevor was hostile now. ‘How did you kill him?’

  ‘Playing.’

  ‘Playing what?’

  ‘None of your fucking business.’

  Trevor’s eyebrows rose and he returned to his meal.

  ‘I want to do the decent thing,’ Wesley said. ‘You know? And sometimes that’ll get you into all kinds of grief.’

  Trevor didn’t say anything.

  ‘Watch this.’

  Trevor looked up. Wesley had hold of one of the meat pies. He opened his mouth as wide as he could and then pushed the pie in whole. Every last crumb. Trevor snorted. He couldn’t help it. Once Wesley had swallowed the pie he asked Jean—the woman who served part-time behind the counter—for a straw. When she gave him one, he drank a whole mug of tea through it up his left nostril.

  Trevor roared with laughter. He was definitely impressed.

  After a week on the job Wesley started nagging Trevor about the quality of the fruit he was buying from the wholesalers. ‘The way I see it, right,’ Wesley said, ‘if you sell people shit they won’t come back. If you sell them quality, they will.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Trevor said, ‘this ain’t Marks and fucking Spencer’s.’

  Wesley moaned and wheedled. He told Trevor he’d take a cut in his money if Trevor spent the difference on buying better quality stuff. Eventually Trevor gave in. And he took a cut in his wages too.

  After a month, Wesley used his own money to repaint the stall a bright green and bought some lights to hang on it to make it, as he said, ‘more of a proposition.’

  ‘Thing is,’ Wesley observed, fingering the little string of lights, ‘we have to get one of the shops to let us tap into their electricity supply, otherwise we can’t use them.’