Small Holdings

by Nicola Barker

She leaned her elbows on the table. Her small breasts were squeezed together between her arms. ‘Say that again, go on.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘My name.’

  Saleem. Saleem. I couldn’t say it. When I said her name it felt like a mouthful of unripe elderberries. On my palate. In my throat.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I just don’t understand why Nancy . . . I need to have it explained again.’

  Saleem started to smile. She was a different person, suddenly. She cocked her head to one side. ‘I’ve been giving this some thought,’ she said, ‘and I don’t think it’s really a question of understanding, but more an issue of . . . of managing.’

  ‘How?‘

  ‘Because it isn’t such a bad thing that Doug’s out of harm’s way for a while. If Nancy keeps him until Friday then you can go to the meeting and everything can take its course after that. Once we’re secure. The rest doesn’t matter.’

  ‘But what about Nancy?’

  Saleem shrugged. ‘She’ll cope.’

  ‘And Doug?’

  ‘He’ll be fine. He just needs a little time away from this place. A little distance.’

  ‘I can’t go to the meeting.’ I nearly choked saying it. Just saying it was bad enough.

  ‘You have to.’

  ‘I couldn’t do it. Doug handles that kind of thing. That’s the whole point of him.’

  ‘Let me put it this way, ‘ Saleem said, grinning, ‘either you go to the meeting or I’m going to call the police and tell them what I’ve told you and that will fuck up Nancy very badly indeed. And after I fuck up Nancy I’m going to think of a way to fuck you up.’

  ‘Nancy’s in trouble no matter what you do.’

  ‘Who’s in trouble?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nancy. Nancy. Whenever you say her stupid name your cheeks go red.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘That’s fighting talk.’

  ‘It’s not.’

  ‘You’re making me angry, Phil.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m only trying to understand what’s gong on.’

  ‘Some hope, lard-arse.’ Saleem jumped up, tossed the paper over towards me, grinned, and scuttled out.

  I stared down at the paper. Outlined in blue ink, two headlines. My eyes turned immediately to the second headline. The second headline said: 1OO-DAY PROTEST.

  I read it again, re-acquainted myself with the story of how Mr Peter Hawes had locked himself inside his roadside café. As a protest. Surely it was different though, I decided, surely it was very different to lock yourself. Locking yourself was quite the opposite of being locked, forcibly.

  I tried to picture Doug, being locked, in my mind, but I couldn’t picture it. Doug. Where was he? I couldn’t picture him. Not at all. Where was he? Doug? Where was he? Suddenly my brain was empty. I knew it, then. Doug was gone. Yes, Doug was lost. Lost.

  I found Ray in the greenhouse. ‘Ray,’ I said, ‘things are a mess.’

  ‘Let’s go sit on the bench.’

  It was Ray’s favourite bench, under a yellow laburnum. We sat down.

  ‘OK,’ Ray said, ‘what needs to be done?’ He plucked a couple of seeds from the branches overhead and cracked them open.

  ‘Leave those alone, Ray. They’re poisonous.’

  He dropped the seeds and wiped his hands on his overalls. I stared at him for a moment. I wondered what kinds of things were going on in his head. I said, ‘So you know about Nancy and Doug?’ Ray inspected his fingernails. ‘Then why didn’t you tell me earlier?’

  Ray’s jowls descended. He scratched his nose. He said, ‘This never would’ve happened if it wasn’t for Nancy’s eye.’

  ‘Nancy’s eye?’

  Ray nodded. ‘She lost the use of it in a motorcross accident. Before Christmas. Her right eye. That’s why she keeps having accidents. She thinks if she loses this job she won’t ever work again. I kind of knew for a while but I hoped it’d sort itself out. I mean, she was desperate, you know?’

  Things were shifting. Shifting and moving. ‘Ray,’ I said, almost cracking, almost splitting like the laburnum pod between his podgy fingers. ‘Ray,’ I said, ‘don’t tell me anything else. Let’s just concentrate on these three things. One, we need to find Doug. Two, we need to sort things out between Doug and Nancy. Three, we need to make sure that the meeting on Friday passes off all right.’

  ‘And the Chinaman?’

  I blinked. ‘Best leave him well alone.’

  ‘And Saleem?’

  ‘Saleem?’ I almost choked. Ray leaned back, locked his hands over his belly. The bench creaked.

  And I looked at Ray, and I looked at my shirt, and I looked at my hands and I looked at my feet. And I looked up. This park. This park was my place and now it had been stolen.

  This park, even yesterday, was only soil and plants and weather. A sum of its simple constituent parts. Now it was people and thoughts and concoction. It had been violated. Or else, like Saleem had said, there are events and then there are interpretations of events. I was removed. I was always removed. The park was never mine after all. I was in my head and I was out of it.

  I had been plucked like a weed.

  MY FOOT WAS SORE but I was walking anyway. I needed to re-acquaint myself. Re-acquaint myself. To look. To touch. To reaffirm how it was that I felt about this place. To get it back. I should have talked to Ray, I should have seen what Ray had to say, but I just didn’t, I just couldn’t.

  This is a physical world. Everything’s out there and you can touch it if you want to. You can touch it if you doubt it. Just stretch out your hands and your fingers.

  I was walking around the park’s perimeter. I was going to feel and identify every single object and particle that I had contributed to this place. I was going to see myself, my face and features in every cowering flower, in every bird and every bud.

  In the scented garden where I’d planted the pinks and the jasmine, I swung out my arm and rubbed my hand into lavender. I pinched some mint between my thumb and forefinger, then dabbed my finger on to my tongue. I could taste this place. I could touch it. I could smell this place. I could see it.

  I kept on walking. Through the wild part where the squirrels dart. Through the adventure playground where the children run and bound and kid around.

  Then I doubled back. To the right, past the ornamental pond. I’d filled that pond. I’d emptied it. I’d cleared out the sweet wrappers and the coins and the cans.

  Up and along. The stones I was walking on. The loose gravel. I had laid down that gravel. With these two hands.

  And up and up the hill. The giant oak. I had pruned that oak. A large rose bed near the fence. I had chosen those roses. Yellow roses and apricot roses. I had sprayed those roses, I had watered and fed them.

  At the hill’s crest I found the silver birch and the poplar. I knew how the bark of each tree felt on the calloused palms of my hands and also, and also, on the softer lid of each fist; that bare little space between my fist and my wrist.

  And the grass. I had cut it. And the daisies. I had cut them too. And the weeds. I had plucked them out.

  Where was the sun? I looked up for it, into the sky. I turned on the spot and tried to see it. It was behind the giant cedar, tucked like a lost ball in its branches. How late was it? The sun made me blink, I closed my eyes and it stayed nestled inside my lids, glaring balefully into my head.

  I sat down. My face was damp with sweat. I licked my lips and it was like my tongue had been dipped in the Adriatic. My eyes were still closed but the sun was fading now, flickering inside me.

  I put down my hands flat on to the grass. I could feel the soil through the grass. I dug my nails into it.

  Doug. Why had the feel of this soil stopped meaning enough? Doug wanted things to be bigger. He wanted something universal. He wanted the colour of the peonies, the height of the pampas grass, the smell of the honeysuckle to mean something. And did it mean something? And should it?


  I opened my eyes. Doug had slipped in, into my head. Doug and his doings, Saleem and her words, Nancy and her muddy hands, Ray and his insight, all of these things were pulling me away from what I should be thinking about, from what I should be believing in. The soil. The sun. The shade. The bright glow of the buttercup.

  I turned and looked down at the park below me, all its parts fitting together. And my nose was itching and my eyes were smarting and something or someone was knocking on the inside of my skull. Knock, knock. Knock, knock. Trying to attract my attention.

  And how was I feeling? How was I doing? What was I thinking? Who did I believe? Oh Christ. I’m so sick of this head. So sick of this head. I’m sick of it. I am. Sick.

  I sat on the grass, on the slope. I wanted to be simple, a natural part of the landscape but my mind wouldn’t let me. I stretched out my legs. I pulled up my trouser and inspected my ankle. It had swollen out of the top of my sock. It had swelled like pale, prime dough out of my shoe and was glooping over my laces. It was pale as cooked fish-flesh, though, and felt numb when I pinched it.

  I rolled up my sleeve and inspected my arm. It still had its bruises, but now it was bent too, curved in the strangest places like a finely crafted piece of metal piping. Some new, pinky marks were dawdling up near my elbow. My shoulder smarted a little. I picked out some of the dry blood from my nostrils. That, at least, was satisfying.

  While I picked I looked down at the park. Dumbly, dutifully. I looked through the trees, the tall grass, past the roses, the flower beds, the pond. And there, sitting next to the pond, I could have sworn I saw a cat. A big tabby, licking its tail.

  Could I trust my eyes? I clambered up and started to walk, down the hill. The slope made me trot, made me jog. At the bottom of the slope I carried on jogging: through the trees, the flower beds, up to the water.

  Cog rolled on to his back and offered me his belly. I squatted down, panting. I rubbed it. As I rubbed a small sprinkle of mud and dust rose and fell. Then Cog stood up and sauntered off, his little jaunty bollocks to the rear, neat and well balanced like a sprig of cherries.

  It was then that I decided to be someone else. Seeing the cat, like that, resurrected. It was so curious. Could I be someone else? Temporarily? Could I be someone else, altogether?

  I crawled over to the edge of the pond. I saw my face in it. My face looked different. Swollen at its gills, wild-eyed. My cheeks were scratched like I’d had a tangle with a fistful of thorns.

  Who was I? Who could I be? I didn’t care. I’d be anyone. Anyone at all. I’d even forgo the thrill of being someone else so long as I was not my self. Was it possible?

  Yes. I could be. I could be un-Phil. Out-of-Phil. Un-fool-Philled. Yes.

  And the process was a simple one. To scrape out a gap in my gut like the pond. Water in the middle. Rock on the edges. Water flowing. Rock, holding in, containing, not hurting. This sublime pool inside me and a chalk-empty mind. No thought, only pure action. No doubt, only purpose. The three Ps. Park (my heart), Pond (my gut), Purpose (alone).

  Park, pond, purpose.

  Park, pond, purpose.

  Park, pond, porpoise.

  My brain rattled like a chickpea inside my skull.

  THER E WAS BLOOD ON the courtyard. Was it Doug’s or was it mine? Some stains near the privet. An unsightly little brown rivulet. Only sap, I told myself, just red, not green.

  I pushed at the front door but it would not open. It had been locked from inside. I rang the bell. After a short wait, Saleem answered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Can I come inside for a moment?’

  ‘No. I’m busy. I’m cleaning. I’ve washed the kitchen floor. I don’t want your muddy footprints all over it.’

  I didn’t baulk or shirk. I was empty-Phil. She couldn’t touch me. ‘I just saw the cat, Saleem.’

  ‘So?’

  I didn’t hesitate, not for a second, ‘I just saw the cat by the pond, large as life. You said he was dead.’

  ‘So what’s the big deal?’

  ‘We just buried him.’

  Saleem raised her eyebrows. ‘So?’

  ‘You said that the cat was dead and so we buried him.’

  She scratched her nose, ‘As I recall, I never actually said we should bury the cat. That wasn’t my idea.’

  Everything flowing. I told myself, everything flows. ‘Saleem, you said the cat was dead.’

  ‘I might’ve said that the cat was tired. I might conceivably have said that.’

  She was either very funny or she was mad. Or else she was truly evil and she wanted to hurt me. She could kill with one flash of her eye. She smelled of pepper. She was wearing a Wellington boot, a pair of old overalls, the spare leg tied up, fastened with a safety pin but still dangling.

  Pool, pond, purpose, I told myself. That wasn’t right. It didn’t work. It didn’t flow, not properly. The serene lake in my gut began leaking. Saleem was filling my stomach with lies. Her tongue was a spade and she shovelled them out, out of her mouth and into my ears. Her tongue was heaped with falsehood and fallacy.

  Saleem was about to close the door when I stopped her with my hand. And very bravely, very proudly I said, ‘You’re just like an owner with a ball.’

  ‘What?’ She scowled at me.

  ‘You know, when an owner throws a ball for his dog and the dog goes and fetches the ball and brings it back? And after a while the owner gets bored of the throwing and the retrieving so he pretends to throw the ball and he doesn’t actually throw it, but the dog’s so stupid that it runs for what it thinks is the ball anyway . Even though there’s nothing there. Just thin air.’

  She carried on scowling, ‘You’ve got it wrong,’ she said. ‘You mean the boy who cried wolf. That’s the fable.’

  I shook my head. My brain rattled. ‘No. Not that story. This is a different one. In this story, the next time the owner throws the ball he does actually throw it and the dog still appears to have faith in him because he runs just as readily, except, this time, when the dog returns with the ball and the owner reaches out his hand to take the ball away, this time, the dog won’t hand it over. He clamps his jaws together. He won’t give it up. He’s making his feelings clear about the little deception of earlier. That’s all.’

  Saleem’s expression turned from derision to perplexity. ‘Phil,’ she said, ‘I think you might be a little concussed. You’re babbling.’

  I was sad again and vulnerable again but I was still determined. ‘No . I’m making perfect sense.’

  ‘You’re talking shit, Phil. It sounds like perfect sense to you because your head has taken a knocking, but in fact it’s only drivel. Trust me on this one. Wait a minute.’

  Saleem closed the door and left me on the doorstep for a short duration. When she reappeared she was clutching a couple of folders, a carrier bag and her front door keys.

  ‘I’m going to take you home.’

  ‘I don’t want to go home. I want to talk to Ray.’

  ‘I can’t think Ray’ll want to talk to you right now. You’re nonsensical. Come on. Home. Walk with me.’

  Saleem grabbed hold of my bad arm and she yanked it. It felt like it might snap. It groaned, the way a big ship groans and whines when it’s being launched for the very first time. I gave in and staggered along beside her.

  ‘We’ve got to calm that brain of yours down a little bit,’ she said, as she walked. “This place is like a sodding war zone.’

  ‘You don’t see the plants and the grass and the trees fighting,’ I said, trying to get back my previous state of equilibrium, ‘only people.’

  ‘Say another stupid thing like that,’ Saleem whispered, ‘and I’ll put my fucking fist in your mouth.’

  I’d imagined things would feel better horizontal but I was wrong. I was flat on my back, on my sofa. My feet and ankles were slung up and over the arm. Saleem had insisted that I lie this way. It was extremely uncomfortable. Saleem herself was in my kitchen, cooking.

  ‘I’m going to
feed you and feed you,’ she yelled through the kitchen’s open doorway, ‘till your stuffed up like a rooster.’

  After ten minutes she came through holding a tray. On the tray was a plate which was full of a brown, glutinous substance, slightly fried. ‘Sit up and eat this shit.’

  I sat up, dutifully. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s brain food.’

  ‘Aren’t you having any?’

  ‘Only enough there for one serving, you lucky devil.’

  Saleem handed me the plate and a fork. I sliced into the brown stuff and swallowed a mouthful. It had a meaty, metallic taste to it. I ate another mouthful. I chewed briefly and swallowed, i s this liver?’ I asked, forking up some more.

  Saleem grinned, ‘Nope.’

  ‘I tastes like liver.’

  Saleem scratched the tip of her stump and hopped over to peruse a photograph on the mantelpiece of my dead aunt with my dead grandparents posing on the beach at Southend.

  ‘Remember this morning?’ she asked, her back to me, ‘when you got dragged in by Nancy and your nose started bleeding?’

  ‘Yes.‘

  ‘Remember when Doug came down and you had that giant piece of jelly dangling from your nose?’

  ‘Yes.‘

  ‘At the time if kind of reminded me of black pudding. While I watched you pull it out I wondered how it would taste if it was gently fried.’

  I stopped chewing. I put down my plate and hobbled into the kitchen. I threw up into the sink. I turned on the tap and washed the mush I’d produced down the plug-hole. I poured myself a glass of water and returned to the living room.

  Saleem was still staring at the picture. ‘But then it dawned on me,’ she said, as though there hadn’t been any hiatus in our conversation, ‘that black pudding is a mixture of pig’s blood and fat. Plain blood, if heated, would probably just disintegrate. The fat’d be the thing that would hold it together.’

  I stared at her. I said, ‘You are a very sick, very cruel person.’

  She turned and smiled. ‘Cool, calm, confident,’ she said. ‘The three Cs, remember?’

  I sat down and pressed my glass of water up against my hot head.