Small Holdings
Page 13
Doug’s eyes were very gentle, suddenly. I was almost sick with fear. He said, ‘I’ve had the worst head-cold, Phil. And it’s been hanging around above my nose for a good while now. And I’ve been waiting for it to break. Just waiting . . .’ Doug paused and stared at me for what seemed like an eternity. ‘And then finally it broke.’
I nodded.
‘It broke.’
‘Right.’
‘Still feel rough, though, Phil. Phil?’
‘Yes?’
‘Still feel rough.’
It was then that I noticed that Doug had a pair of shears on the table, right next to him, and he had been sharpening them. The blades were a bright silver. Doug took hold of the shears. He passed them from one hand to the other. He stood up, still holding them.
‘Phil?’
‘Yes?’
‘Want a cuddle, Phil?’
He was saccharine-voiced. He was smiling. He never smiled, not Doug, not ever. He was going to kill me. I was certain. He would kill me. The shears were sharp enough. I deserved it. He held out his arms. The shears were high and steady in his right hand.
Slowly, stiffly, I approached him. I drew close and then closer. I tucked myself, wincing, into his arms. He chuckled and clucked and then he patted me on the back. He held me.
‘The tractor,’ he said eventually, ‘is it still in the barn?’
I choked as I spoke. ‘The tractor? I think so.’
‘Good. Good.’
He was as gentle as snow. He squeezed me. I waited for the stab of the blade. He squeezed me again and then let go. Without another word, he drained his Lemsip and then calmly padded out. Out of the kitchen, out of the house.
I was shaking. I took a deep breath and I followed him. Saleem was on the doorstep. She grinned. ‘You’re pale as pastry. How was he?’
I shuddered, ‘I don’t really know.’
‘And the meeting?’
‘The meeting?’ I struggled to remember.
The tractor’s engine burst into life, its roar reverberated inside the barn. The gears were hacked from neutral and into reverse. Saleem, I realized, was staring up at me. My mind was in the barn. My brain was vibrating.
‘You won’t shake him, Phil,’ she said, gently, ‘And you won’t shake me.’
What did she mean? She always meant something. She didn’t waste words. She was purposeful.
The tractor swung out of the barn, indicated right and then left, straight after.
I said, ‘He had some shears on him and I think he picked up a length of hose. Maybe he’s thinking about cutting back the big border on the east side.’
‘Nah. ‘
We followed behind at a slow pace. There seemed no reason to rush. As we walked I said, ‘You know, I think Doug’s right after all about everything going in a circle.’
‘Bollocks.’
We walked down and past the burnt-out museum.
‘He is right,’ I said, growing ever more certain, watching as the tractor turned right and picked up speed.
‘Ten pounds,’ Saleem whispered, reverently, ‘ten pounds says he goes straight into the ornamental pond.’
I put my hand into my pocket. ‘Ten pounds he doesn’t.’
The tractor veered boldly towards the pond.
‘He’s my hero,’ Saleem said. ‘He’s off his fucking head.’
And the tractor drew closer to the pond. And the ducks and the geese were waggling their tails and getting nervous. Some stood up. A couple honked and hissed. Doug’s hand waved regally from the tractor. He applied his brakes.
‘Told you,’ I said, cheering up suddenly, forgetting about the crazy golf and the litter and the dog mess and all that other business. ‘Told you,’ I said, ‘he’s slowing right down.’
Doug slowed down to a trundle but he didn’t stop. Not quite. Instead, very slowly, very carefully, he eased the tractor into the pond: front wheels, back wheels, drove for a few seconds and then stalled.
Saleem showed me the palm of her hand. ‘What did I tell you?’
Doug climbed out of the cab, holding his shears and with a length of green hose curled around his arm like a python. He waded through the pond, climbed up and out the other side, turned, waved again, holding the shears aloft, and then carried straight on walking.
Just for an instant, less than a second, Saleem’s outstretched palm sagged. ‘What’s he doing?’
‘More to the point,’ I said, ‘what’s he thinking?’
‘Easy enough,’ Saleem smirked, her palm coming back up and flattening out again. ‘He’s thinking about how badly and how thoroughly he’s going to fuck us all over.’
Her face sagged and then it tightened. She cackled. I turned, amazed, and watched her laughing. Then I found myself laughing. She made me laugh. The simple way she sliced through things. The wonderful way that she hissed and she slithered.
And up until that point, I’ll admit it, I had been wound up, halted, blocked, but then my mind did something so curious. It flew backwards, it turned, it clicked over - like one of those calendars that each day clicks over a page - and I saw Doug, in that instant, so clearly, so thoroughly.
I saw Doug as many things; pure and bright and full of light. I saw Doug as many things, in all his incarnations; and he was an insect, an egg, a pearl, an onion, a giant onion, many-layered. He was a jewel and a flower and a beautiful, bright yellow bird. He was all these things. He was everything. Doug was God and God was do G and Evil was dEvil and Devil was liveD, was livid, red, angry, emergent, emergency, was 999, was 666. I saw them, so clearly. I saw all these things.
And the park was my soul. And I would not leave this place. Soul. Soil. I would not. I could not. I could not leave this place.
It was then that the eye was like the ear, and the ear like the nose, and the nose like the mouth: for they were all one and the same. The mind was in rapture, the form dissolved, and the bones and flesh all thawed away; and I did not know how the frame supported itself and what the feet were treading upon. I gave myself away to the wind, eastward or westward, like leaves of a tree.
Lieh-tzu
Praise
NICOLA BARKER’S eight novels include Darkmans (short-listed for the 2007 Man Booker and Ondaatje prizes, and winner of the Hawthornden prize), and Wide Open (winner of the 2000 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award). She has also written two prize-winning collections of short stories, and her work has been translated into more than twenty languages. She lives in east London.
From the reviews of Small Holdings:
‘This marvellous short novel explodes into action, with Barker letting off fireworks and flares in all directions, performing dazzling verbal gymnastics. She has a great talent for the creation of eccentric characters, and the assorted misfits in Small Holdings fizz with playfulness and the author’s obvious delight at her own powers of invention. A hilarious and remarkably assured novel’
ALEX CLARK, TLS
‘Funny and intelligent. Barker’s sense of plot and comic timing is faultless: she goes for big effects, which resound brilliantly within the small space her narrative describes, and holds the whole thing together with writing that is resolved down to the last detail. Small Holdings paints the big picture on a small canvas, cap -turing in it the universality that is the essence of good writing’
RACHEL CUSK, The Times
‘Edgy and comic, it succeeds by virtue of Barker’s flamboyant sense of the absurd’
Elle magazine
By the Same Author
Love Your Enemies
Reversed Forecast
Heading Inland
Wide Open
Five Miles from Outer Hope
Behindlings
Clear
Darkmans
Burley Cross Postbox Theft
Three Button Trick
Copyright
Copyright © Nicola Barker 1995
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the requir
ed fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Nicola Barker asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-00-743604-0
EPub Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007435913
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Epigraph
Three Days
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Praise
By the Same Author
Copyright
About the Publisher