Small Holdings

by Nicola Barker

  I looked again, still not seeing but vaguely remembering -the park, its constituent parts, every small thing etched in my very heart - I aid, ‘I think it’s a passion flower, growing up in the charcoal and old cinder.’

  ‘What kind of a plant?’

  ‘A creeper. It has a beautiful flower. White and very ornate. In Jamaica they have a variation which they call a grenadilla. Doug might know more about it.’

  ‘I bet it grew from my leg,’ she said. ‘My skin and foot. During the fire, that’s where the burning beam fell, right there.’

  I stared at her. She was warped. She was rubbing the stump of her knee, smiling. I shuddered.

  ‘What does it do?’

  ‘It works like a kind of morphine, affects the circulation and increases the rate of respiration. In homeopathic medicine they use its narcotic properties to treat dysentery. Sleeplessness. Some types are used for treating hysteria and skin inflammation.’

  ‘Yeah? How?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Dry the berry or boil the root. Something like that.’

  Saleem started drawing a pattern in the grey gravel of the path with her stick.

  ‘Let me tell you something, Phil,’ she said. ‘I was talking to Doug this morning, over breakfast. And guess what we talked about?’

  I didn’t turn but I shook my head.

  ‘We talked about the Gaps. ‘

  I carried on smoothing the soil, thinking of softness, soil-softness.

  ‘Are you listening, Phil? The Gaps. Does that mean anything to you?’

  I said quietly, ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘What was that?’

  Saleem. My tormentor. I turned. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, ‘OK, so Doug has this theory, right, about why London doesn’t work. It’s to do with the postal districts. He has this theory about London not working . . . Did he tell you this yet?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Oh, you’ll love it. You’ll love this. Here’s how it goes: Doug says that everything in nature moves in a circle, OK? That’s how nature works, a kind of winter-spring-summer-autumn-winter thing. A kind of sun-follows-moon-and-earth-revolving thing. Sort of oriental. He’s into all this stuff lately. Anyhow , Doug has now decided that the city of London is a life form too, kind of like a complex bacteria, and as such, everything should fit together. But unfortunately . . .’ She stressed this word until it stang with venom. ‘Unfortunately, Phil, London can’t work properly because of the Gaps. Sounding familiar yet?’ I shook my head, although suddenly, strangely, it did begin to sound familiar. Doug. Circles. Doug. The Gaps. It did sound familiar.

  In the gravel Saleem had drawn a circle. ‘That’s London,’ the said, completing it. She drew a horizontal line through the centre of the circle, cutting it in half. ‘And that’s the Thames,’ she added. ‘So that’s London and everything connects to everything else. And these are the postal districts, OK?’ She drew them in. ‘We’ve got plain North London, we’v e got plain West London, we’v e got plain East London . . .’ As she spoke she pointed, and I could hear the gravel kissing and knocking.

  ‘But here’s a problem, right. There’s South-West London postal districts and there’s South-East postal districts, and they, sort of, meet in the middle, which means that there’s no South. No plain South. And Doug’s upset about this. And there’s another problem too, right. There’s North-West and South-West and South-East, but there’s no North-East. Another Gap. No plain South and no North-East. And according to Doug, this is why London doesn’t connect. This is why London doesn’t work. Things aren’t properly linked. See what I’m getting at, Phil?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You see, the city is fucked, Phil, because of this little problem with the postal districts. And Doug is worrying about it, Phil. He’s thinking about it. These Gaps.’

  I stopped feeling the soil. I turned.

  ‘So what’s the problem? Why are you telling me this?’

  Saleem’s eyes popped. ‘Because Doug’s going absolutely rucking crazy. He’s got this meeting on Friday. Our whole fucking future depends on it, and he is going crazy. He’s crazy.’

  I turned away again.

  ‘Say something!’

  ‘He’ll be fine.’

  ‘No he won’t be fine. And that’s the worst part of it. You seem determined to ignore what’s going on right under your nose. He’s gone mad. I know all about it. I’m living in the same house as him. And no one asked me, incidentally, whether I minded or not. He just moved in and that was that. Anyhow , I can see my way around the whole thing but no one wants to know what I’ve seen.’

  Saleem scratched out her Postal District London and prepared the gravel for another design: a large phallus. Medieval. A two-foot phallus pointing west to her north and east to my south. Pointing, I decided, towards Ray, far away, digging his pit.

  ‘Doug’s OK.‘

  ‘OK? Jesus! You don’t know anything,’ she said, slitting her eyes, angry now, ‘You’re so in on yourself. There’s stuff going on here that you don’t know anything about. Private stuff. Everything’s a secret with Doug. You don’t know about Mercy and the diarrhoea. You don’t know about that mad man, that Chinaman, slinking about the place, poisoning everything. You don’t see anything through all that fucking hair. You don’t see anything.’

  Saleem pushed herself up, used her stick to pull herself up by. She works well without her leg, admittedly, is lithe when she wants to be.

  ‘And the thing is, she said, ‘I know you love this place. It matters to you. You depend on it the same way I do. But you won’t ever act, you won’t ever do anything. You’re dormant, just blind. Turning in on yourself.’

  I was surprised to be connected, all of a sudden, in a rush, like this, with Saleem. It was a curious sensation, this connection.

  ‘Forget it, then,’ she said, sounding defeated and afterwards, almost instantly, sounding defiant. ‘Looks like I’m going to have to be the one,’ she muttered, turning her back, ‘Me. Saleem. I am the one who’ll have to save things. Ray’s too stupid. You’re just a yak, a blob. And Nancy . . .’ She laughed. ‘I am the one,’ she said, darkly, stalking off, ‘just watch me.’

  SO THIS IS the problem, I told the exhaust on the back of Nancy’s truck. The Park’s got another four months to run and we’r e almost broke. On Friday Doug’s going to meet Enfield Council’s Park Management Committee to re-assert our tender.

  Doug’s been cryptic about his intentions. He’s said he has plans, big plans, but he hasn’t discussed them with me or Ray, he hasn’t told us what he’s up to. Saleem thinks that he doesn’t care any more, that he’s losing it, that he’s liable to do just about anything. Now he’s left his wife. Now he’s left his home. I can’t help thinking, though, somehow, that Doug’s just like me, that he cares too much. But there’s no telling, not with Doug. Doug won’t tell. His lips are zipped. Like Saleem says, he’s private. He’s impenetrable.

  And of course we’re all frightened of him, apart from Saleem. Maybe even Saleem. He’s getting bigger and bigger. Sometimes I glance at his eyes and see the whole world in there, streaming in - light and colour and nature and history. Go d only knows what he might do.

  My one compensation is that at least I think I know what he’s capable of. I know the perimeters. There are none.

  And I love Doug for that very reason. I see my own smallness reflected in his hugeness, and because we are opposite we are almost the same.

  I’m thirty-four years old and I can’t even hold a conversation. I’m soggy and I’m limpid and I’ve never truly believed in anything but the things that I do. My work, this park. And I like plants. I can make them grow, and I like the sky, how it goes up and up with no lid, and I’ve never even kissed a girl. And I’m in love with Nancy.

  At least I think I am, and for all the wrong reasons. I love Nancy because she never looks me in the eye. That’s her way. She’s too preoccupied. There’s something in her gaze that
doesn’t focus, doesn’t invade. I am only a voice in her head, so I’m safe, it’s a safe love. You see, she isn’t like other girls.

  Nancy’s our driver. She has two great passions in her life: to drive her truck and the truck itself. (A Leyland Daf Roadrun ner, ‘Truck of the Year,’ she tells me proudly, ‘when it first came out.’ Seven tons of silver and metal and diesel.)

  Also, Nancy likes to run. She has a body like a wasp; so clean so neat, so sharp. She can be very mean, potentially, but she often chooses not to be. She’s a man-woman, an Amazon, an outlaw. She has a small, silver pistol in her truck, in the glove compartment, smokes slim cheroots, wears denim jeans ripped off above the knee, and her muscles, smooth like cream, leg muscles, arm muscles, a tan, darker down one side of her body and face, a driving tan.

  In summer she’ll wear a short leather halter-top. Her small breasts, like two beige damsons, jutting up, vibrating as she pulls the truck in, struggling in low gear, still when the engine’s off. She’s a reconstructed Suzi Quatro, a Joan Jett of jammed-up junctions. Sticky and tricky.

  She is strong. She moves the load, effortlessly, at speed. She likes picking people up, can even pick Ray up, can do basic judo, play football, baseball, basketball. Has broken both arms, both legs, her collar bone in motorbike accidents. She told me so, she did.

  She is covered, like a cactus, in tiny blonde hairs: her face, her arms, her legs. And the light shines off her, and the sweat, when she’s hot (always hot), beads on her and transforms her body into a silken web, so ornate, wondrous, one of the wonders of the world, in the world, out of this very, very world.

  Nancy.

  Nancy switched off her engine.

  ‘I’m fucked,’ she said, staring past my ear and into the middle distance. ‘My side-light’s gone. I’m gonna have to tell Doug. He’ll blow.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I dunno. Some guy pulled out and I didn’t see him. Halfway to Southend. I was too uptight, too stressed. Just stupid. It’s been churning in my stomach all the way home. Third claim in two months. Here’s the paper,’ she slung me a copy of the Guardian, ‘that’s all they had left at the services.’

  ‘Anything in it?’

  ‘Nah.’

  I rolled up the paper and stuck it in my back pocket, then said, ‘We’re having a meeting in a minute, in the kitchen. D’you need a hand unloading?’

  ‘Nope. I’ll be fine. Better start without me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Doug’ll blow when I tell him about the bump I had. I can’t face it right now.’

  ‘D’you want me to tell him?’

  She climbed out of her cab. ‘Would you? If the moment’s right? If he’s in a good mood. Don’t mention it otherwise.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Thanks. You’re a gem.’

  She rolled up her sleeves and went to let down the truck’s tail.

  Ray was in the kitchen devouring a packet of ginger-nuts. He offered me the packet.

  ‘No thanks. Seen Doug?’

  ‘He’s on the phone.’

  I started preparing a pot of tea. Saleem appeared in the doorway, That’ s fine, Ray, those are mine but just help yourself.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He put down the biscuits and furtively brushed some crumbs from his beard.

  ‘Let me do that.’ Saleem pushed past me and picked up the teapot, took off the lid and peered inside. ‘Doug never rinses this properly.’

  I took the paper from my pocket, opened it, held it high and started turning the pages. On the third page, in the Reuters column, two small items had been outlined in blue ink. I peered more closely at them. The first had the heading THUMB SALAD. It said:

  A nurse who found the tip of a thumb in a take-away salad was awarded £200 compensation. Rebecca Pothecary, who bought the food from Anthony’s Take-Away on Tottenham Street, central London, ‘felt something resist her bite’, Clerkenwell magistrates were told. The sandwich bar was ordered to pay £600 in fines and costs for breaching health regulations.

  Outside my paper-wall I could hear Ray reaching quietly again, gently, for the ginger-nuts; the crackle of the packet, his fingers prodding inside, his nail catching the rim of a biscuit and easing it out. Saleem had her back to him, engrossed in the task of filling the kettle, fitting on its lid. I heard the water slosh inside it.

  The second item in the paper, underlined, directly below the first, had the headline, 1OO-DAY PROTEST. It said:

  Peter Hawes yesterday spent his 100th day welded inside his roadside café. Mr Hawes, 48, is fighting a government decision to close down the lay-by at Guyhirn in Cambridgeshire, where he has cooked for travellers for years.

  Ray had the ginger-nut between his teeth now, bit down softly. I heard the sugar snap and then an unobtrusive crunching, a short silence, another snap, more crunching. Saleem pushed the kettle’s plug into the wall and then turned on the power switch. I waited to hear the water in the kettle starting to gurgle, I waited for Saleem to notice Ray’s chewing, I waited for Ray to gag and swallow, but all I heard, suddenly, was silence, like each sound had been extracted, sucked out, expunged. I tried to turn a page of my paper but it didn’t move. My eyes focused in front of me, on the words felt something resist her bite, the words felt something resist, the words felt . . . resist the word felt felt . . . felt. Doug was standing in the doorway. Doug was standing next to me.

  ‘Phil.’

  Feel. All the sounds returned in a rush. At once. Doug was standing there and he was smaller than I’d remembered and he had his hands in his pockets and he was smiling.

  ‘If this is our meeting,’ Doug said, ‘our business meeting, then what is she doing in here?’

  Doug tipped his head towards Saleem. Saleem bridled, ‘Aren’t I even allowed in my own kitchen now?’

  Doug continued to smile. ‘This is not your kitchen, Saleem. It is our kitchen. This house belongs to the business. You used to work here, yes. You used to have some right to live in this place. When you were a curator. But now the museum is gone, you have no function. You stay here on sufferance, you have stayed here for years, on sufferance, because you have one leg and you lost the other one in a fire, and I feel sorry for you and Ray feels sorry for you and Phil, too, feels sorry for you. But this is not your kitchen. This is our kitchen and we let you borrow it. And you should remember that fact. Now would you get out, please.’

  ‘Fuck you, Doug,’ Saleem said, calmly. ‘D’you know what a grenadilla is?’ she asked, not sounding in the least bit ruffled.

  ‘I know what a grenadilla is, yes.’

  ‘I gave my own flesh for this place,’ she whispered. ‘What can you give?’

  Doug said nothing. He watched her and then he said, ‘Go away. ‘

  Saleem laughed. I moved the paper up closer to my face as she swung past me. ‘And what’re you doing?’ she asked, saucily. ‘Eating that thing?’ Close up she smelled like a bunch of watercress. A peppery smell. I folded the paper, my face tingling. ‘If you don’t mind,’ she added, ‘I’ll borrow that.’

  She snatched the paper and swung out.

  Doug filled the kitchen. Ray’s fatter - twice as fat - and I’m big enough and hairy enough, but Doug has personality. Doug has backbone, is a true vertebrate. Ray and I are rheumy, watery creatures that ride the wave s but Doug’s already clambered on shore.

  ‘Where’s Nancy?’ Doug asked.

  ‘I dunno. Phil?’ Ray looked to me.

  ‘Outside. Unloading.’

  Doug leaned against the sink. ‘Nancy’s got to go, ‘ he said, i just got a call from our insurance. She had another accident this morning. Almost killed two people. Her fault.’

  Ray and I stared at each other.

  ‘We can’t afford the insurance premiums any more,’ Doug said. ‘They keep on going up and up. It’s out of control. We’ve got to tidy this stuff away. Nothing will work until we tidy this stuff away. That’s all I’m saying.
’

  ‘And just hear this,’ he added, warming to his subject now. ‘She only went and contacted the insurance people from the services on her way back and said she’d pay the difference herself and something extra if they didn’t tell us. If they didn’t tell me. That’s what the man just told me on the phone.’

  ‘I can’t see why she shouldn’t do that,’ Ray said, boldly.

  Doug ignored this, ‘She wouldn’t even have mentioned it, not a word, not a single word.’

  I almost said something, but when I opened my mouth I was only coughing.

  That’ s deception,’ Doug said. ‘We can’t trust her. She’s a liability.’

  ‘I like her,’ Ray said cheerfully. ‘She’s OK.’

  Doug focused on Ray. ‘Ray,’ he said, ‘you have all the business sense of a Savoy cabbage.’

  Ray smiled. ‘True,’ he said, ‘I see your point, Doug.’

  After a short pause, I said, ‘I think we should wait a while before we make any decisions. Give it some thought. Take a vote, later on. And maybe we should think about the meeting on Friday before all this other business.’

  ‘It’s under control,’ Doug said, haughty. ‘I want Nancy out. I can’t operate, I can’t deal with that kind of deception. I’ll tell her to her face when she crawls in here. No problem.’

  ‘It’s just . . .’ I said, ‘It’s only . . .’

  ‘First things first, Phil,’ Doug said, calmly. ‘We’ll lance her like a boil. Tidy things up a bit.’

  Ray’s face began to move, to curdle, like he was having a thought which was germinating in his big, fat cheeks, swelling, expanding, filling him up.

  ‘Doug,’ he said, his thought at last finding a voice, a small voice, ‘Doug, we were all thinking that maybe you should take things a bit easy for a while . . .’

  Doug stared calmly at Ray, his eyes taking in Ray’s pink lips and his yellow beard, his several chins, the dimple in his cheek.

  ‘You’re going crazy, fat boy, you’re crazy if you think I need to take things slow. I’m only just starting. I’m taking stock, fat boy. I’m seeing things big and I’m seeing them better than I’ve ever seen them. Better than ever.’