Three Button Trick and Other Stories

by Nicola Barker

  The pub’s doors swung open. Everybody turned towards them. Jane had earlier been engaged in a heated debate with herself about how to react when the doors opened. Initially she had decided that it was best if she ignored the various comings and goings around her. She had endeavoured to create the impression of calculated indifference, preoccupation, oblivion. Later, however, she had decided that it might be appropriate to look up fleetingly from her book towards the door so that people who might be looking at her would know immediately that the only reason for her continuing presence in the pub was the fact that she was waiting for someone. She was expecting someone. It made her feel less vulnerable, also less approachable.

  On this occasion she was glad she had looked up. Stephanie stood in the doorway, looking ruffled and indecisive. Jane waved at her and smiled. Stephanie caught her eye, smiled back, relieved, then pointed her finger towards the bar. Jane nodded. Stephanie then pointed a finger towards Jane’s drink. Jane shook her head and placed a prim, flat hand over the top of her glass. Stephanie walked to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic.

  Jane watched her, at last relaxing in the pub’s worn, red velvet environs, putting down her book and leaning back in her chair. She watched Stephanie as she waited for her drink and then paid for it. Stephanie was still wearing her uniform—she worked in John Lewis, the Oxford Street branch—and her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She looked young for twenty-four. Jane thought it must be the way that she had tied back her hair. As Stephanie approached her Jane said ironically, ‘I’m surprised the barman served you, Steph, you don’t look eighteen with your hair tied back like that.’

  Stephanie put her spirits glass down and squeezed in between the table and the seat. As she sat down she touched her hair with a free hand and looked unnecessarily self-conscious, then said, ‘I think the barman’d serve a large squirrel if it appeared at the counter and asked for a pint of lager. He doesn’t look too discriminating.’

  Jane shrugged. Stephanie pointed towards Jane’s book. ‘Jilly Cooper. Good?’

  Jane picked up the book and put it into her bag. ‘Something to read. It’s not like you to be late.’

  Stephanie frowned, ‘I know. I’ve had a bit of a strange day. Sorry.’

  Jane raised her eyebrows, professionally interested. ‘Busy?’

  Stephanie shrugged. ‘Not too bad. You?’

  Jane shook her head. ‘So so.’

  They both picked up their drinks and took a sip. On returning her glass to the table Stephanie put her hands to the back of her head and pulled her hairband out. She then shook free her hair which fell about her shoulders in semi-curls. Jane watched her as she did this and couldn’t help thinking that Stephanie was looking particularly well, strangely spruce, as though she had just had a shower, an odd post-swimming clean-washed look. She sniffed the air for a trace of chlorine but could smell none. ‘You haven’t been swimming, have you? Marshall Street pool?’

  Stephanie looked guilty, ‘No. Well, yes. Well, I had a shower, that’s all.’

  Jane frowned. ‘Where’s your towel? Why did you have a shower? That’s odd. Are you wearing any make-up? Why did you have a shower?’

  Stephanie looked overwhelmed, ‘I … I needed a shower. I hired a towel.’

  Jane began to pull a fastidious expression.

  ‘Honestly, it was perfectly clean.’ Stephanie’s face crumpled. Oh God! I feel … I don’t know. I was going to say I feel awful, but in fact I feel almost the opposite.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I feel rather, almost hysterical. Pent up. I’ve done the strangest thing.’

  Jane was frowning. ‘Is everything all right at work?’

  Stephanie nodded wordlessly.

  ‘Chris? Nothing’s happened between you and Chris?’

  Stephanie shook her head, ‘No, Chris is fine.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t feel as if I can tell you …’

  Jane clucked her tongue, exasperated. “What can’t you tell me? You always tell me everything. What’s going on?’

  They had been best friends since primary school. Jane had always been dominant and Stephanie softer, better intentioned but easily swayed. She saw life as a set of rules which she obeyed. Jane saw life as a set of rules which she supported. She thought Stephanie’s passivity occasionally subversive, but knew her well enough to be sure of her back-up and understanding in most situations. They came from the same stock, a simmering, warm if unadventurous stew of suburban values; their schooling the same, parents the same, boyfriends the same, and their ambitions …?

  Jane stared at Stephanie across the table and wondered what it was that she had done. She shoved around a set of geometric boundaries in her mind, a variety of fully contained and containable possibilities. ‘Pregnant?’

  Stephanie grimaced. She looked up at Jane and felt almost helpless; she must tell her because who else could she tell? (God knows, not her mother.) And the notion of saying nothing was virtually inconceivable. She knew that all acts suffered in the doing because of the inevitability of the telling. She must tell her.

  Jane watched, waiting. Stephanie took a further sip of her drink, laced her hands together on her lap and then took a deep breath. ‘I’m downstairs in the Men’s Knitwear Department this week, occasionally on the till, but mainly involved with stock, pricing, you know …’

  Jane nodded, she had a picture of the knitwear department in her mind, and a cardigan that she wanted to buy for Mitch. ‘Knitwear Department. So?’

  Stephanie looked down at her hands. ‘Well, I was … It was dead during the last hour, you know how it can be, hardly anyone about, and I was tidying up, straightening jumpers on hangers and refolding … I don’t know if it’s the same in the bank, but the last hour is always the worst and the best, the way the minute-hand keeps you in but the hour-hand points towards the door …’

  Jane was nonplussed by Stephanie’s attempts to wax lyrical. ‘The last hour. Right.’

  Stephanie took a deep breath. She knew this wasn’t going to be easy. ‘I was folding up some vests and socks when I noticed a man near by, well, I think that initially there were two of them, but the other one wandered off. They were skins, really tall in puffy green jackets and tight, short jeans and boots …’

  Jane frowned. ‘White trash.’

  Stephanie bit her lip and nodded. ‘Really short hair, just like, just really short, soft, like a coloured shadow on the scalp. But smart, not like normal skins, with bleached trousers and tatoos on their necks, like ugly roosters, dirty. This one was smart …’

  Jane reiterated her earlier point, which made a class distinction as opposed to a value judgement. ‘White trash. Yuk. Shoplifting I bet. Pringle jumpers or long socks for under their boots.’

  Stephanie nodded. ‘Socks.’

  She was silent for a moment. In her mind she outlined what she was going to say and felt her stomach contract with the extremity of it. She thought momentarily of not telling and then knew that she must tell. She tried a different approach. ‘Do you ever have that feeling sometimes when everything feels sort of, strong, like soup or evaporated milk, sort of condensed, as though some things just must happen in a specific way, like a recipe …?’

  Jane looked uncomprehending. ‘Like what? No, I don’t think so.’

  Stephanie frowned. ‘Like when you first fell in love with Mitch, like when you first decided to have your hair cut, or the feeling you get when you want to dive into a pool but know that the water is cold, but you want to dive in anyway.’

  Jane sipped her lager and watched as one of the men at the bar walked over and put some money into the juke box. Doris Day started singing ‘Move Over Darling.’ She tapped her foot in time and tried to respond appropriately to what Stephanie was saying.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. Did you go swimming after all? Why all this talk about swimming all of a sudden?’

  Stephanie looked crestfallen. She knew that she was already losing Jane’s sympathy. ‘That was a simile. Remember? Like Gerard Manley Hopkins or s
omeone. I was trying to explain a feeling.’

  Jane rolled her eyes. ‘Just tell me what you mean. What about that skinhead, the shoplifter. Did you catch him?’

  Stephanie nodded. ‘Yes, I caught him.’

  ‘And then?’ Jane drained her glass of lager and placed it decisively down on a beermat. Stephanie studied her own glass, watched the condensation on the exterior of its bowl and around its base. The glass left a ring of moisture on the surface of the table when she picked it up. She took a sip and replaced it, but in a different place so that she could study the damp ring on the table’s surface, moisten her finger in the dampness and then draw on the polished wood. She drew another circle. ‘I walked over to him and told him that I knew he had placed some socks inside his jacket. I asked whether he intended to pay for them.’

  ‘What did he say? Didn’t you try and call the store detective? I would have.’

  Stephanie drew two dots inside the circle and then a straight line. The circle was now a face, a round, rather simple but glum-looking face. ‘No, I didn’t call the store detective. It was almost twenty-to-six. I didn’t want the hassle.’

  ‘Weren’t you frightened?’

  She nodded. ‘I suppose so. He was tall. At first he just stared at me. Then he turned, as if he was going to walk away’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I put out my hand and grabbed his arm. He had one of those weird jackets on, a puffy green jacket. He must’ve been almost six feet tall. Mean-looking.’

  Jane stopped tapping her foot as the Doris Day song finished on the juke box. She looked over to see if the two young men at the bar were going to put another song on but they had recently been joined by a third man and were deep in conversation. Stephanie smiled at her. ‘Can I get you another drink yet?’

  Jane shook her head. ‘Not yet. Wait a while. So what happened then?’

  Stephanie looked down at the table again, at the face she had drawn, which was already evaporating. She picked up some more moistness from the ring left by the glass and cut across the face with several rapid strokes. ‘I took hold of his arm and said, “You can’t leave here until you put those socks back.” He grinned at me and said, “Which socks? I haven’t got any.” ’

  ‘Did he pull his arm away?’

  Stephanie looked disconcerted. ‘Um. No. I don’t think he pulled his arm away. It was all very quick. The aisle was empty. The whole shop seemed empty.’

  ‘What did you say then?’

  Stephanie took another sip of her drink. ‘I said, “You have got socks there, I saw you pick them up. I’m not stupid. Please just put them back and I’ll leave you alone.” ’

  ‘And did he?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. He looked down at my hand on his arm and started to smile. He said, “I haven’t got any socks, only on my feet.” I said, “I know you’ve got them,” and indicated with my other hand towards a bulge in his jacket where I’d seen him put the socks.’

  ‘Why didn’t you call one of the store detectives? I’m surprised they didn’t notice him come in. Probably on a tea break.’

  Jane created her own scenarios; scrupulous and disapproving. Stephanie shrugged. ‘I don’t know where they were. Anyway, I could handle it. He didn’t turn nasty. I think he was surprised. I wouldn’t let him go.’

  Jane smiled. ‘You’re small but ferocious, like a terrier. Did he give you the socks?’

  Stephanie tried to smile back. ‘After a while, yes. He put his hand inside his jacket and produced the socks. He threw them on to the nearest shelf. The shop seemed so quiet. He was still smiling at me.’

  Jane wrinkled up her nose. ‘Yuk. Creepy.’

  Stephanie continued, ‘And then he started to apologize. I don’t know why. I hadn’t expected him to. He started to apologize like he’d offended me somehow. It was strange.’

  Jane nodded. ‘At least he had some manners. Did you let him go? I would’ve called the store detectives. I suppose it was too late by then though, but he shouldn’t have got away with it. Did he just leave?’

  Stephanie took a deep breath. ‘Well, while he was apologizing I realized that I still had my hand on his arm. We sort of realized at the same time. And then, and then …’

  Jane raised her eyebrows, ‘And then?’

  Stephanie bit her lip. ‘Then we, sort of, kissed.’

  Jane looked so shocked that Stephanie wanted to laugh, but couldn’t quite bring herself to.

  ‘What? A proper kiss? A kiss?’

  Stephanie nodded. ‘It just happened.’

  Jane fought down two competing impulses in her gut, the first of total disapproval, the second of total fascination. Stephanie watched this conflict translate itself on to Jane’s face and said, ‘It didn’t mean anything.’

  Finally Jane asked, ‘What sort of a kiss? A French kiss? What did you say after?’

  Stephanie blushed. ‘A French kiss. His mouth tasted of cough sweets and smoke. We didn’t really say anything. If he did say something, it was only to apologize about the socks again.’

  Jane frowned. ‘So what did you do? After?’

  Stephanie shrugged. ‘I … I suppose I put my hand under his shirt. He was wearing a T-shirt.’

  ‘You were looking for more socks? You were, weren’t you?’

  Stephanie burst out laughing. She had recovered from her earlier embarrassment. ‘No. By then I had forgotten about the socks. I was feeling his stomach and his chest. His chest was hairless, but surprisingly firm.’

  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 fro
wned. ‘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.’