The Three Button Trick and Other Stories

by Nicola Barker

  Jane was silent for a moment, trying to understand what this situation meant. Stephanie had never been a promiscuous person. She stared at her face across the table and looked for any perceptible signs of distress. There were none. After a while she said, ‘Why did it happen? You’ve never done this sort of thing before. I thought you were faithful to Chris. I don’t understand you.’

  Stephanie sighed. ‘I was trying to explain earlier. Of course I’ve never done anything like this before. It was strange, as though . . . like a compulsion. Inevitable. Dangerous but compulsive. I don’t know. I can’t understand it myself. It’s not as though we were immediately physically attracted. It was more the situation itself, the differences between us . . .’

  Jane interrupted. ‘I suppose it was only a kiss. Maybe it was just mutual attraction.’

  Stephanie looked momentarily indecisive and then said, ‘No, that’s the whole point. It wasn’t just a kiss. We had sex.’

  To fill the following silence she added, ‘The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that it was just a power thing. There was something explosive about the situation, the confrontation, something strangely . . . well, strange. Erotic.’

  Stephanie looked down at her hands. She had never used the word ‘erotic’ before. Especially in front of someone like Jane. Using the word was almost as much fun as the sex had been. She felt like D. H. Lawrence.

  Jane was devastated. She looked at Stephanie and couldn’t understand her, she couldn’t contain what she had done in the relevant compartments of her brain. She wondered whether Stephanie was now a slag. A slut. Finally she said, ‘You behaved like a slut, with some big, ugly skinhead.’

  Stephanie shrugged. ‘If you mean “slut” in a good way, then yes, I did. The shop was so quiet. We made love behind some racks of mohair jumpers. Nobody came.’

  She smiled at her unintentional pun. Jane missed the joke. Her ideas of Stephanie had now been so radically altered that any coherent discussion about motivation and intent seemed entirely fruitless. But she was like a small, common bird, like a sparrow, a pack creature, something that acts on impulse. She wanted to know the details, but this desire compromised her and she knew it. Eventually she said, ‘How was he?’ She had never been able to ask this question about the sexual relations between Stephanie and Chris, but this was different. Stephanie looked for a moment like she wasn’t going to reply, then she said, ‘Good. Strange. Condensed . . .’

  ‘Did he have . . . ?’

  Stephanie frowned. ‘Don’t ask. It wasn’t like that.’

  Jane felt coarse and embarrassed. She snapped defensively, ‘I’m not particularly interested in what it was like. Don’t flatter yourself.’ She was silent for a second and then added, ‘How can we even discuss it? How can we talk about it? There’s nothing to say.’

  Stephanie frowned, trying to understand what Jane meant. She said, ‘I thought I should tell you.’

  Jane raised her eyebrows and tried to look ironic. ‘Tell me? Tell me what? I think you should consider telling Chris. I don’t think he’ll be too sympathetic, though.’

  Stephanie cupped the bowl of her glass in both hands. She was temporarily confused. She had known that Jane would be disapproving, surprised, maybe even shocked, but the coherence and simplicity of what she had experienced . . . She repeated the word silently to herself and felt it to be totally appropriate. Simplicity. That expresses it best. It was so simple, unadulterated, natural and yet unnatural.

  She tried to articulate her thoughts. ‘It wasn’t sordid, just natural and kind of obvious, that’s why it’s so hard to describe . . .’

  Jane shrugged. ‘Just sex. Are you seeing each other again?’

  Stephanie sighed and shook her head. ‘I shouldn’t think so. I hadn’t thought about it like that. It wasn’t like that.’

  Jane seemed unimpressed. ‘So you won’t be seeing him again. But will you have sex with other people at work? When it’s quiet, just before closing?’

  She was smirking. Stephanie felt at once angry and misunderstood. She spoke instead of thinking, before thinking. ‘Maybe this has changed me. I didn’t feel immediately different, but I think that I might actually be. I knew you wouldn’t approve, but I thought you’d be . . .’ She tried to collect her thoughts.

  Jane turned away from Stephanie and looked over her shoulder and towards the juke box. It was silent. She wondered whether she could be bothered to go over and put some money into it. It then struck her that this might in fact be a good idea, a means to walk away from the conversation, to bring about a hiatus, a gap, a space, so that when she returned they could discuss other things. She took her purse from her bag and stood up. She said, ‘I’m going to put some music on the juke box.’

  Stephanie didn’t reply. She nodded. She watched Jane walk over to the juke box and thought, ‘Suddenly we have no common ground. When she comes back to the table she won’t discuss this with me again. It’s as though nothing can be expressed between us which will make sense, which we can both understand. When she comes back to the table she will be assured in her own mind that she is now better than me, that she has something over me, and yet . . .’

  She sighed and pushed a piece of hair that had fallen across her face behind her ear. ‘And yet something so incredible has happened.’ She felt sad, almost bitter, but in her heart she knew that the space that had sprung up between them, the vacuum, had now opened up inside her, and it was a positive space that could be filled with so many things; ideas, possibilities. She thought, ‘Words are like gifts, some people are generous and some frugal.’ She decided to make herself a present by keeping quiet.

  Symbiosis: Class Cestoda

  The first thing they did after saying hello was to move straight into Shelly’s bedroom and have sex. They had been voluntarily apart for five months. During this entire period Sean had seen Shelly on only one single occasion, and that had been at Sainsbury’s where he had been trying to get hold of some Turkish Delight for his mother. He had seen her by the bread counter buying a French stick. She was chatting to the young girl who was serving her. He couldn’t imagine what about. His first impulse was to think, ‘She’s lost so much weight, she seems so cheerful’, as an afterthought, ‘without me.’ His second impulse was to duck behind a stack of soup tins as she turned in his direction and then to scurry away when he was sure that she would not notice him. He didn’t want to see her, to speak to her, but equally he didn’t want her to see him making a quick getaway. That would hardly seem dignified for either party.

  He was twenty-seven and she was twenty-five. They had been ‘seeing’ each other for four years and for the last two of those four years they had been living together. She rented a flat in Wood Green close to the tube station. He had opted to move in with her and initially things had been fine.

  She had never been thin. She was what most dietitians would call pear-shaped, but she was five feet and eight inches tall, which is a good size for a woman, and that height somehow undermined the size of her hips and made her shape seem less obvious. Unfortunately, within a year of their practical union she had begun to gain weight.

  Sean knew that he was hardly the perfect partner, that his idea of faithful was to try and think of her when he was screwing other women. But he firmly believed that in other respects he was an excellent mate. He helped with the housework, he bought her flowers, he told her that she was beautiful.

  It would be a lie to say that when she gained weight he didn’t find her any less attractive. Her eating was perpetual and compulsive. Invariably she had something in her mouth; if not part of a jam tart or a sausage roll then some chewing gum or a boiled sweet. Sometimes he felt that her eating was a way of distancing herself from him; as though the layers of fat were an attempt to keep him away. Even so, she was always saying that she loved him, always saying that she needed him.

  Her doctor had recommended a trial separation, a cooling-off period so that they could both analyze their feelings at a sensib
le distance. By this time she was well over fourteen stone and what the medical profession might describe as clinically depressed. He had been more than willing to accept this new development in their relationship. His mother had clucked her tongue at him when he had arrived home again with a suitcase and several carrier bags, and had told him that he just wasn’t willing to stick things out, to sort things out.

  SHELLY HAD A THEORY about something called Symbiosis. She had learned about this word at school in her biology lessons. It had always been a word with great significance and relevance to her life. She loved the feel of the word in her mouth as she said it out loud. She thought, ‘Everyone has words that are particular to them, that are significant to them, and this word, this idea is the most important factor in my life.’

  She dreamed a lot about love. She wanted to be in a situation in the future where she could literally not survive without the love, kindness and care of a man and he, similarly, would feel the same way about her. Symbiosis (sim-bi-ō’sis) n. the living together of two kinds of organisms to their mutual advantage.

  Shelly believed that men were altogether a different kind of organism to women. She had tried to make things work out with Sean but he had wanted everything his own way. He still told her that he found her attractive, but he also still told her that he found other women attractive too. After sex he would regularly disappear off into the bathroom with a girlie magazine and she would lie alone in bed and try to think of something else. She didn’t say anything because she wanted it to work out, she wanted him to need her and she knew that she needed him, someone, something, anyone, him.

  She hated dieting so much. Since early puberty she had been on diets of one kind or another. After a while it became clear to her that her metabolism was so slow that eating a peanut added several inches to her hips, thighs and stomach. Her relationship with food, with that which could be consumed, was passionate, impetuous, exotic, erotic. She loved eating, she loved to swallow, she loved to taste sweetness on her tongue and her mouth. She would happily have given a month of her life for a mouthful of sherbet or a meaty rib in barbeque sauce.

  When Sean proved too much for her she didn’t sulk or argue, instead she ate, and the food appeared palpably on her body, each meal became a dimple in her thigh or a part of the warm tyre around her waist.

  Underneath all the bullshit she knew that the weight was also her way of trying to make Sean find her less physically attractive. She wanted him to need her for herself, she wanted security. Instead he would stare at her as she lay in the bath or as she tried to get dressed and undressed and he would say, ‘You’ve put on so much weight lately that when we make love it’s like fucking a barrel of lard.’ Invariably as an afterthought he’d add, ‘It’s a good job that I like barrels of lard.’

  She’d try to smile.

  A LOT CAN HAPPEN IN FIVE MONTHS. The first thing they did after saying hello was to move into Shelly’s bedroom and have sex. After sex Shelly got up immediately and went to the bathroom. She had a wash and then came back into the bedroom and started to get dressed.

  Sean lay in bed and watched her. He said, ‘I’ve really missed you.’ It was almost true; he was sick of living at home and her flat was convenient and she cooked well and he didn’t have to try so hard with her as he did with other women.

  She smiled as she hooked up her bra and adjusted the material over her breasts. She said, ‘I suppose I’ve missed you.’

  He said, ‘Why are you getting dressed?’

  She grinned. ‘I thought you could take me out to dinner. I fancy an Italian or a Chinese.’

  He sat up straight in bed and surveyed her thoroughly. Then he said, ‘You’re looking great, Shelly, do you know that? You’ve lost a load of weight and it really suits you.’

  She nodded, ‘I know.’

  He was surprised by this new confidence, this calm assurance. In five months she seemed to have changed incalculably. He felt rather piqued by this but also attracted. She seemed so happy.

  Suddenly it struck him that she was seeing another man; there was something about her that was so serene and fulfilled. The idea of her with another man made his stomach churn. He said, ‘Have you been seeing someone else?’

  She laughed. ‘Why?’

  She was pulling on some jeans which five months ago wouldn’t have gone beyond her knees. He shrugged. ‘I dunno. You seem different. You’ve lost weight. Before you’d have never got dressed like this, straight away.’

  She went into the bathroom to fix her make-up and brush her hair. As she left the bedroom she looked over her shoulder and said, ‘Let’s go and eat, Sean, I’m starving.’

  IN THE END THEY CHOSE CHINESE. On their way to the restaurant—along the High Road, next to the Shopping City—Sean noticed how other men stared at Shelly as she walked. She seemed aloof and oblivious. He wanted to hold her hand as they strolled along but she held her handbag in the hand closest to him which made this difficult.

  They chatted about work and Shelly asked how his mum was. He said she was fine. It all felt rather odd and unnatural. He had imagined that she would be tense when she saw him but in fact she seemed perfectly relaxed and at her ease. If anything he was the one who felt uncomfortable. His previous role in their relationship had been one of indispensability. The whole point of him had been the fact that she needed him. He knew that she needed someone. He felt nosy and jealous but he said nothing until they were seated at a table in the restaurant.

  The waiter flirted with Shelly as they ordered their meal. He noticed their eye contact and it made his stomach contract. After the waiter had left their table with the order (Shelly was hungry and had ordered a substantial meal), he played with his cutlery, making his finger into a flat, straight scale and trying to balance his knife on the finger so that it didn’t tip off, then his fork, then his spoon. Shelly watched him with a half smile flickering around the corners of her lips.

  Eventually he said, ‘Is there someone else?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t have another man in my life at the moment, Sean, no. That was part of the deal, remember? It was a trial separation but our view in the short term was to getting back together.’

  He nodded. ‘I know that, it’s just that you seem so different. You’re a different person to the girl I left five months back. You seem above it all now, like someone in love.’

  Secretly he wondered if she was just in love with him and he had never really noticed before, had never really seen her before tonight. She shook her head. ‘I’ve already told you that I’m not in love, I’m just happy. If I’m in love with anything then it’s food.’

  He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  His voice was rough and unsympathetic. She smiled at this roughness. ‘I mean that I’m happy because I’m using new sources in my life to find satisfaction and contentment. For some people it’s drink, for others it’s sex, for others it’s drugs. Well for me it’s food. Eating makes me happy. Before I thought that I only ate because I was unlucky in love but now I know that I eat because I like it.’

  He had never been able to understand her delight in large spoonfuls of raspberry and rum mousse, the condensed glee in a packet of plain chocolate digestives. He said, ‘The doctor told you that compulsive behaviour always leads to unhappiness.’

  She smirked. ‘Fuck the doctor.’

  He frowned. ‘Are you?’

  She laughed. ‘Be serious Sean!’

  He smiled, but it was the smile of someone who thinks that they understand something when really they understand nothing. She said, ‘Compulsive behaviour is to a large extent something that people rely upon to get out of bed in the morning. It’s what makes the world go around.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, that’s habit. If something is compulsive it’s usually bad for you.’

  She smiled at him icily. ‘Like sex?’

  He smiled back. ‘That’s pleasure.’

  The waiter arrived at the table with the starters, some spring rolls and
prawn crackers. Shelly ate a couple of the crackers and then started on a spring roll. He looked down at his plate but didn’t feel hungry. She said, ‘The more I indulge my compulsions, the less I feel them ruling my life. It’s weird. You’d think it would be the other way around but it isn’t. Eat up, it’s delicious.’

  He tried a mouthful and it did taste good.

  Her voracious appetite, which had developed two or three years into their relationship, had always violently irritated him. When they had first started going out she ate virtually nothing. When they went to restaurants he would joke about how little she ate as she ordered the salad option and ate very slowly, chewing each mouthful with great restraint and discipline. He thought it appropriate that women should behave this way; women who gained too much enjoyment from food, greedy women, were usually too demanding in bed. They made him nervous.

  He stared nervously at Shelly as she chewed and swallowed with great finesse and rapidity. After several minutes the waiter came to take their plates away. Sean had left most of his starter but Shelly’s plate was clean.

  The waiter smiled at her as he took her plate. ‘You enjoyed that?’ Shelly nodded. ‘It was delicious, but don’t worry, I’ve still got room for the main course.’

  The waiter pulled a face which implied that he found it hard to believe that someone who looked as good as Shelly didn’t have to starve themselves to keep in trim. Sean was sure that he was staring at her breasts. He nodded curtly and dismissed the waiter with a brisk thank you.

  Shelly touched her napkin to both corners of her mouth. She looked around her and studied the other people in the restaurant. Sean stared at her face; her green eyes, her strong nose, her dark black eyebrows and her curling fringe. He said, ‘Your hair suits you in that short bob style.’

  She dragged her eyes from the couple sitting by the door and focused them dreamily on Sean’s face. ‘Does it?’