Heading Inland. Nicola Barker

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      Dedication

      For my mother

      Contents

       Cover

       Title page

      Dedication

      Inside Information

      G-String

      The Three Button Trick

      Wesley:

      Blisters

      Braces

      Mr Lippy

      The Piazza Barberini

      Popping Corn

      Water Marks

      Back to Front

      Limpets

      Bendy-Linda

      Gifts

      Parker Swells

      By the same author

      Praise

      Thanks

      Copyright

       About the publisher

      Inside Information

      Martha’s social worker was under the impression that by getting herself pregnant, Martha was looking for an out from a life of crime.

      She couldn’t have been more wrong.

      ‘First thing I ever nicked,’ Martha bragged, when her social worker was initially assigned to her, ‘very first thing I ever stole was a packet of Lil-lets. I told the store detective I took them as a kind of protest. You pay 17½ per cent VAT on every single box. Men don’t pay it on razors, you know, which is absolutely bloody typical.’

      ‘But you stole other things, too, on that occasion, Martha.’

      ‘Fags and a bottle of Scotch. So what?’ she grinned. ‘Pay VAT on those too, don’t you?’

      Martha’s embryo was unhappy about its assignment to Martha. Early on, just after conception, it appealed to the higher body responsible for its selection and placement. This caused something of a scandal in the After-Life. The World-Soul was consulted – a democratic body of pin-pricks of light, an enormous institution – which came, unusually enough, to a rapid decision.

      ‘Tell the embryo,’ they said, ‘hard cheese.’

      The embryo’s social worker relayed this information through a system of vibrations – a language which embryos alone in the Living World can produce and receive. Martha felt these conversations only as tiny spasms and contractions.

      Being pregnant was good, Martha decided, because store detectives were much more sympathetic when she got caught. Increasingly, they let her off with a caution after she blamed her bad behaviour on dodgy hormones.

      The embryo’s social worker reasoned with the embryo that all memories of the After-Life and feelings of uncertainty about placement were customarily eradicated during the trauma of birth. This was a useful expedient. ‘Naturally,’ he added, ‘the nine-month wait is always difficult, especially if you’ve drawn the short straw in allocation terms, but at least by the time you’ve battled your way through the cervix, you won’t remember a thing.’

      The embryo replied, snappily, that it had never believed in the maxim that Ignorance is Bliss. But the social worker (a corgi in its previous incarnation) re-stated that the World Soul’s decision was final.

      As a consequence, the embryo decided to take things into its own hands. It would communicate with Martha while it still had the chance and offer her, if not an incentive, at the very least a moral imperative.

      Martha grew larger during a short stint in Wormwood Scrubs. She was seven months gone on her day of release. The embryo was now a well-formed foetus, and, if its penis was any indication, it was a boy. He calculated that he had, all things being well, eight weeks to change the course of Martha’s life.

      You see, the foetus was special. He had an advantage over other, similarly situated, disadvantaged foetuses. This foetus had Inside Information.

      In the After-Life, after his sixth or seventh incarnation, the foetus had worked for a short spate as a troubleshooter for a large pharmaceutical company. During the course of his work and research, he had stumbled across something so enormous, something so terrible about the World-Soul, that he’d been compelled to keep this information to himself, for fear of retribution.

      The rapidity of his assignment as Martha’s future baby was, in part, he was convinced, an indication that the World-Soul was aware of his discoveries. His soul had been snatched and implanted in Martha’s belly before he’d even had a chance to discuss the matter rationally. In the womb, however, the foetus had plenty of time to analyse his predicament. It was a cover-up! He was being gagged, brainwashed and railroaded into another life sentence on earth.

      In prison, Martha had been put on a sensible diet and was unable to partake of the fags and the sherry and the Jaffa cakes which were her normal dietary staples. The foetus took this opportunity to consume as many vital calories and nutrients as possible. He grew at a considerable rate, exercised his knees, his feet, his elbows, ballooned out Martha’s belly with nudges and pokes.

      In his seventh month, on their return home, the foetus put his plan into action. He angled himself in Martha’s womb, at just the right angle, and with his foot, gave the area behind Martha’s belly button a hefty kick. On the outside, Martha’s belly was already a considerable size. Her stomach was about as round as it could be, and her navel, which usually stuck inwards, had popped outwards, like a nipple.

      By kicking the inside of her navel at just the correct angle, the foetus – using his Inside Information – had successfully popped open the lid of Martha’s belly button like it was an old-fashioned pill-box.

      Martha noticed that her belly button was ajar while she was taking a shower. She opened its lid and peered inside. She couldn’t have been more surprised. Under her belly button was a small, neat zipper, constructed out of delicate bones. She turned off the shower, grabbed hold of the zipper and pulled it. It unzipped vertically, from the middle of her belly to the top. Inside, she saw her foetus, floating in brine. ‘Hello,’ the foetus said. ‘Could I have a quick word with you, please?’

      ‘This is incredible!’ Martha exclaimed, closing the zipper and opening it again. The foetus put out a restraining hand. ‘If you’d just hang on a minute I could tell you how this was possible . . .’

      ‘It’s so weird!’ Martha said, closing the zipper and getting dressed.