Love Your Enemies

by Nicola Barker

  Eventually he felt strong enough to work again. He had a wash and opened a window for ventilation as it advised on the spray cans he was using. He worked slowly but with infinite care. When he looked at the coffin he felt so proud that a lump came into his throat. It was shaped perfectly in every detail. At either end the edges of the coffin jutted out slightly as they do in that place on tin cans where you fix the tin opener and squeeze. He had sanded a series of rings on the top and bottom of the coffin that radiated into a central circle like those on a real tin. He had even created a seam down the edges, a little exaggeration on one side, where his actual seam was. On the other side the join was virtually invisible. The tin was entirely coherent and faultless. To stop his coffin rolling about like a normal tin does when it is on its side, he had filed a very small part of the base of the coffin flat, but this was hardly visible and didn’t really affect the tin’s radius. He had also made four neat wooden triangles which acted on the same principle as door-stops. If he pressed two in firmly on each side of the coffin they supported it and curtailed any possibility of it rolling. (These he didn’t spray silver.)

  He coated the coffin a few times, and after a couple of layers of paint the essential woody feeling, a sensation of something porous and natural, disappeared completely. He wanted a very smooth finish so that the paint was reflective and glossy and shiny. After spraying the outside of the coffin he opened it up and sprayed the inside edges and parts of the inside so that the movement between the paint and the material would be as gradual and gentle as possible.

  It felt as if he was building a house, and the temptation was great to try and put the material into the coffin before the painting was completed so that it would feel finished and snug straight away. But he resisted temptation and waited for the paint to dry thoroughly while planning and trying out a few letters and colours for the label in rough.

  This was the hardest part. Things were made more difficult because he felt so ill all the time now, not just ill but inexpressibly uncomfortable and tired. He had begun to find it hard to take solid food and was also too exhausted to negotiate a trip to the shops.

  Melissa’s next visit was timely. By the time she arrived again he thought he was probably about to starve to death.

  When he answered the door to her ring, after a perfunctory greeting he asked quickly, ‘Would you mind doing me an enormous favour?’ He told her the location of the nearest chemist (for painkillers) and the nearest shop (for soup), and handed her all the cash he could find, which he hoped would be sufficient.

  Her arrival seemed like part of a continuous dream in his mind. She didn’t seem real, she didn’t correspond with his present reality. He had entirely forgotten about any disagreement that he may have had with her. He was more concerned about getting the job done.

  Steve hadn’t discussed John with Melissa again since their initial conversation. She had tried to cheer herself up and had acted as though nothing could be further from her thoughts. But she continued to think about him and worried about what it would be best to do. Eventually she decided that it would be appropriate to visit him. Two weeks had passed and she wanted to make amends.

  She’d tried to phone him in advance on the off-chance that he had connected his telephone again, but he hadn’t, so she’d decided to arrive on Sunday after lunch and had taken along a small fresh cream cake as a peace offering.

  After she’d rung his bell she waited for several minutes before he answered. She didn’t ring again or hesitate and turn away because she was sure he was in. The house seemed to fester, possessed and vitalized by the spirit within.

  When John answered the door she tried to swallow back an impulse of sheer disgust. He looked like someone she had never met before; a stranger with a strange disease, a beggar on the streets of an alien city. His body looked broken and pathetic. As he greeted her he supported himself against the wall.

  Before she could articulate her surprise he had asked her to go on a trip to the shops for him and to the chemist. He dug around in his pockets and handed her a small amount of money. She nodded, took the money and handed him the cake, for which he thanked her. As she walked away she thought, ‘Presumably he hasn’t remembered that this is Sunday and most shops won’t be open.’

  She headed back towards the Mile End Road where she’d noticed that a small newsagent’s on the way to his house was open ten minutes or so before. The newsagent’s had soup and painkillers in good supply. She bought six tins of soup and a couple of packets of painkillers, hoping this would be enough.

  On returning to the house she knocked on the door instead of ringing the bell again and it pushed inwards under the pressure of her hand. He had left it on the latch. She paused for a moment then entered.

  Initially she headed for the kitchen because the living-room door was pulled to and she knew that this room, his work-room, had a certain sacred quality to John. The kitchen was still dirty and chaotic, and John wasn’t there. She called his name quietly but the house was silent and he didn’t respond.

  She put down her bag of shopping and walked back towards the living room. Knocking quietly on the door and pushing it open, she called his name again. No response. She looked around the room and saw him lying on the sofa, curled up like a cat or a child. The room was – if it was possible – even thicker with dust and wood chips than on her last visit. It reminded her of how the moon looked on TV, everything dead and silent, the air so thick as to make any movement possible only in slow motion.

  She called John’s name again but he was fast asleep. As she drew closer to him she saw that his hair and his heard were dotted with multi-coloured flashes of paint. His hands were mostly silver and white. His entire body seemed to have shrivelled but his hands now seemed incredibly disproportionate to his body. They were large and strong and rough like the hands of an old man.

  After she had stared at John for several minutes Melissa turned away from him and towards the other main occupant of the room; the coffin.

  It was in two pieces on the woodwork table. It was a gorgeous, glossy silver and had a white label with the beginnings of some lettering. It was perfect and intricate, very beautiful. It was impressive but also intimidating. She knew what power it had as an object, what (so far as she could see) it had done to John. It had worn him out and smothered him. She turned away from it with a superstitious shudder and headed towards the kitchen again.

  Given that John was asleep, she decided that it would be a kind gesture to tidy up the kitchen, in order to make it a bit more habitable. She rolled up the sleeves of her yellow shirt, which was patched all over with bursting pink hearts, and turned on the taps in the sink.

  As Melissa worked in the kitchen John slept on the couch and dreamed about his coffin, which was on a long conveyor belt heading towards an enormous oven filled with fire. Although he was a short distance away from the fire he felt it burn his face and blister the paintwork on his coffin. The coffin was initially moving fairly slowly on the conveyor belt but its speed increased with each second. He was trying to hold it back and away from the fire but it kept moving on and on, closer to the flames. As he clung on to its edges he shouted, ‘You can’t burn it yet, it’s not finished and I’m not in it. I’ve got to get in it first. I don’t want to go into the fire after it. I don’t want to go into the fire without it.’

  But the coffin moved towards the fire at a relentless speed and he could not stop it or climb in. Pulling at the lid he tried to tip the coffin from the conveyor belt, but it was as if it was stuck to the base with glue; his nails snapped and still it would not open. He jumped away from the coffin as it entered the flames and it felt as though he was falling and that he would fall for ever, as though he had jumped from a cliff and was falling, falling.

  It took Melissa a good hour to neaten the kitchen superficially, but she was pleased with her work and full of a sense of self-satisfaction and piety. She really believed that she had now made a difference to the quality of John’s life.<
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  She made two cups of coffee – black because she had not thought to buy any milk – and took them back through to the living room with the cake. John remained fast asleep. She didn’t know whether to wake him or not. His eyes were darting around under the skin of his eyelids as though he was a dog dreaming of rabbits. She smiled to herself and sipped her coffee. The house seemed very quiet even though the radio was playing at high volume. She helped herself to a slice of cake and ate it slowly and carefully. John seemed no closer to waking now than he had when she’d arrived back from the shops. His face was so thin, though, and his eyes ringed with grey.

  She looked at her watch and decided that it was probably best to go. After finishing her coffee she searched around for a pencil and found a piece of paper that was blank on one side. On it she wrote: Dear John, I didn’t like to wake you when I got back from the shops. Your soup and tablets are in the kitchen. I did a bit of tidying, hope that’s all right. Please phone me at work tomorrow. She wrote the number in big, bold letters. I’d like a proper chat with you. Love, Melissa. She pinned the letter to the wall next to John’s other diagrams and illustrations and then left the house as quietly as possible.

  John awoke and staggered to the kitchen for a glass of water. He saw the painkillers on the sideboard and grabbed them, hurriedly placing several into his mouth at once and chewing them before swigging them down with a mouthful of water. He was indifferent to the unpleasant sour taste that they had left in his mouth.

  Every sensation in his body and brain on wakening had been immediate. Increasingly he was fuelled and energized only by desperate cravings and sheer necessity. He just had to keep his body moving, to satisfy it, to quell its pain. He could not think beyond these needs, these basic urges.

  After swallowing the tablets he tried to open a can of soup but he did not have the strength to grip the tin opener and turn its handle at the same time. He also knew that when the strength in his body returned it would have to be conserved for more important work. Painting was now a priority over eating, completion was his only real desire. He slumped against the kitchen cabinets and slid slowly down on to the kitchen floor where he lay on his side and stared at the tiles, tracing each line, each square into infinite patterns and diagrams, into apartment blocks and fairgrounds and Meccano sets. The floor was very clean. He thought of Melissa for a moment before pain drove him back into a state like sleep.

  Melissa keenly awaited John’s telephone call the following day at work but he did not phone. Nor on Tuesday, nor on Wednesday. For some reason this lack of contact made her feel unbearably sad. She knew that her options were open to go and see him again, but felt that her welcome could not be guaranteed since he had made no effort to get into contact with her. She wondered if she had offended him in some way, or whether he still hadn’t forgiven her for her frank behaviour on her previous visit.

  Steve watched Melissa becoming increasingly depressed and listless as the week progressed. It didn’t take much intelligence to guess why she was so down.

  On Thursday he decided to broach the subject directly. She was folding up some T-shirts that a customer had unfolded a few minutes before. He was at the till putting in a new till roll. As he wound the paper up tightly and pressed it into the till he said, ‘You haven’t mentioned that guy John in a while, have you seen him?’

  She turned from her task and stared at him. ‘Why do you ask? Did he phone earlier while I was out getting lunch?’

  Steve shook his head. ‘Were you expecting to hear from him today?’

  Melissa sighed and completed what she was doing. Then she straightened up and leaned against the shelves, tucking a stray piece of dark hair behind her ear. ‘I don’t think he’s very well. Every time I go and see him he looks worse. I went on Sunday and he looked like an Auschwitz survivor.’

  Steve pulled a rather cynical expression and her eyes widened. ‘No, honestly, I’m not exaggerating. He looks all thin and he’s growing this awful beard. He’s really unkempt and the house is in a terrible state.’

  Steve thought for a moment and then said, ‘Have you spoken to him about it?’

  She sighed. ‘What am I supposed to say? “Hello, God you look awful?” I don’t think he’d even pay any attention if I did. Last time I went to see him he sent me off to the shops to buy some soup and painkillers then when I got back he was fast asleep, really deeply asleep. He didn’t look too good.’

  Steve shrugged. ‘Maybe he is unwell. I thought he was a diabetic or something. Did you wake him up?’

  Melissa shook her head. ‘I didn’t like to. I hardly know him. I cleaned the place up a bit – it’s really messy and dusty and dirty now – then I went home. But I left a note for him asking him to contact me here.’

  ‘But he hasn’t?’

  ‘No, he hasn’t.’

  John had not seen Melissa’s message because everything had been unfocused all week. It had taken several hours on Sunday night to drag himself into the living room from his position on the kitchen floor. He had almost lost all feeling in his feet but his hands were still clumsily movable which, he told himself, was all that really mattered. Standing was virtually impossible. Any fast movement was now entirely out of the question and everyday tasks like getting food and drink, washing or going to the toilet were now arduous and exhausting.

  Using his initiative, he managed to rig up a bucket and washing bowl system in the living room so that he hardly had to move from that room any more. The bucket was full of drinking water and he used the bowl as a chamber pot. Most of his time was spent on the floor. He had pulled his coffin down off the bench and now lay across it as he painted it. After several attempts, he had managed to drag the central Warhol illustration from the wall, ripping it in the corners where the drawing pins stayed fixed into position. Melissa’s note was now out of his range.

  One of the windows in the room was still open for ventilation which meant that he felt very cold a lot of the time. But he saw the cold as a kind of blessing because it prevented him from sleeping and forced him to work, although his hand shook so much as he held the brush that he had to hold it still with his other shaking hand.

  The radio was always on, day and night, and the tunes flew around the room like brightly coloured birds which he could not grasp, but he watched them and was dazzled by them. In all his pain he felt so happy and so righteous. He had never felt as happy before and he welcomed this feeling as if it were a stranger and shook its hand with great formality and offered it a cup of tea. But he only had water now, and after a few days the bucket was nearly empty and he had difficulty telling the bucket from the bowl until he sipped a mouthful of his own urine; but after a while his urine tasted only of water.

  And so his time passed, everything in close-up, each letter, each colour, each movement of the brush the only thing, everything, his only concern. He had nothing else left to think about and that was tantamount to bliss.

  Eventually he was numb to the hips and he smiled and pretended that he was a snail. It was nearly done.

  Steve was really quite concerned about John and told Melissa that she should go and see him again, and soon, but she wouldn’t go. She kept saying – and with increasing insistence and irritation – ‘If he wanted to see me he’d contact me. I don’t want to get involved and find that I’m out of my depth. He’ll phone eventually, and if not, well, then not. The end.’

  Steve kept saying, ‘But what if he’s ill and hasn’t seen your note?’ She didn’t answer.

  He also asked her about John’s work. He felt an unaccountable concern for John and was interested in what he was doing; he respected it, he understood it. After their initial discussion about John on the Thursday he’d asked, ‘How is his work progressing? How’s the coffin? Is it nearly completed yet?’

  Melissa shuddered. He smiled, ‘A sensitive subject?’

  She shook her head, ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I hate it. I think it’s evil, I know it sounds stupid …’

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p; Steve nodded, ‘You’re right. It does. It is.’

  Seven days went by, uneventful days. Then a woman phoned the shop while Melissa was out getting lunch and asked for her in an uncertain voice. The shop was empty. Steve said, ‘I’m afraid that she’s not here at the moment. Can I take a message?’ ‘I’m John’s mother. John is dead. I want to find out how it happened. I read her note on the wall.’

  Her voice shook. Steve closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them again. He said, ‘I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. I’ll tell her to call you back.’

  She provided her number – it was John’s old number – and said goodbye.

  Steve waited for Melissa to return and felt sick at the idea of telling her. He served several people before she got back. She said, ‘Sorry I’ve been so long, but I got distracted on Berwick Street. I found this lacy stuff in red and green which is really gorgeous.’

  Steve smiled his response and then said, ‘Melissa I’ve got a bit of news for you which I think you might find upsetting.’

  She put down her bag at the back of the shop where they kept their private belongings, then returned to him. He said, ‘John’s mother rang and she said that he’s dead.’

  Melissa shrugged. ‘I knew this would happen, I knew it. I really did.’

  Steve felt angry. ‘Of course you didn’t fucking know. If you knew you could have done something.’

  She was flushed and her eyes seemed very round. ‘Don’t you start trying to blame me for anything now Steve, that would be bloody typical. Don’t make it look like I could have stopped this. I didn’t do anything, so don’t try and make me feel bad.’

  Steve grabbed her hand, which felt dry, ‘I’m not blaming you. Do you think I’m really as horrible as that? I’m just telling you what’s happened, that’s all.’