Small Holdings. Nicola Barker

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      ‘Yeah, well,’ Nancy tucked her T-shirt into her running shorts. ‘I’m going for a run,’ she said, and before anyone could respond, she’d slammed her way out and sprinted off.

      Saleem turned to me. ‘He’s gone and sacked her,’ she said. ‘So what are you two going to do about it?’

      Ray stared towards the door, after Nancy, his expression inscrutable.

      ‘Let’s just sit this one out,’ I said. ‘Doug won’t actually get rid of Nancy. He’s just letting off steam.’

      ‘I don’t know.’ Ray looked uncertain. ‘I mean, I like Nancy and I respect Doug. I like them both. But they’ve both done things and they’ve both said things . . . I dunno.’ Ray picked up the packet of ginger-nuts and ate another one.

      ‘What’s Nancy said?’ Saleem asked, suddenly sounding interested. I turned too, focused on Ray, slightly daunted by his apparent overview.

      ‘Huh?’ Ray stopped chewing.

      ‘What kind of things?’ Saleem persisted.

      ‘Stuff.’

      Saleem looked towards me and said tartly, ‘Maybe you should go and catch up with her. Tell her you and Ray’ll sort something out. The way I see it, if Doug can get rid of her that easily and you’re both too spineless to do anything about it, then he can also dispense with your services too, if and when the fancy takes him.’

      ‘She’s running.’

      ‘Catch up with her. See that she’s OK.’

      ‘Maybe Ray should go?’

      ‘Not me,’ Ray said, ‘I’m not nimble enough.’

      Saleem smiled at Ray. ‘Anyhow , me and Ray,’ she said, ‘need to have a quiet little chat.’

      Ray’s eyes bulged nervously at this prospect. I smiled to myself and slunk out.

      Ten minutes later, after a cursory stroll around the sections of the park in which I was least likely to find Nancy - Christ, she would have been half way up Alderman’s Hill by the time I’d left the house, and anyway , what could I have said to her if I did catch up with her? What could I promise? And how could I be sure that the words would come? I couldn’t be sure - I found myself travelling past the main lake, past the ducks and clambering on to the bandstand and settling myself in a shady corner where I fully intended to dawdle for ten minutes before returning to the house, back to Ray and Saleem.

      It was cool and green here, and the water sloshed to my left, and in the distance I could hear a spaniel barking as it ran for a ball, and the thwuck and the swish as it caught the ball and returned it. To my right, I could see one of the tennis courts, and one of the greenhouses, and I could also see, if I stretched my neck, a small man in a white shirt who was limbering up, bending and stretching and bending and stretching.

      And I found a fuzzy rhythm in this corner. A wooziness. And as the lids on my eyes descended, cutting my view in half, I felt a terrible certainty, in my gut, in my soul, that nothing could change the way things were, it wasn’t possible, because nature didn’t work in jerks and starts, but in a rhythm, a cycle, a circle, and Doug, of all people, was aware of that fact. And so was I.

      Then out of the blue, out of the sky, a fistful of sand landed in my face. I blinked, shook myself, and then a clod of soil landed to my left followed by a small geranium plant, then a further clod of soil.

      I stood up and saw for the first time that the innocuous little man in the white shirt was bending and stretching in the middle of my newly planted flower bed, plum in the middle of my freshly planted flower bed, and he was yanking up plants and tossing them. My new geraniums, the spider plants, other things. This way and that. An arc of soil flew over him.

      I jumped off the bandstand and made my way over to him. As I drew closer I saw that he was Chinese and wearing kungfu robes and he was older than I’d initially thought - sixty or so - but his hair was black and his face was hooded, and something in it was scary, was withered, was fundamentally unpleasant.

      And yet his expression was in such direct contrast to his body, his movements, which even in his present task were as fluid and beautiful as a seal’s. I appraised his body as I approached, calculating my chances in the likelihood of any kind of physical confrontation.

      He was small but he was also solid and thorough and focused; clenched like a little nugget, a meteorite. Plain like a stone. I drew closer to him, but he ignored me. I drew closer still. I said, ‘Excuse me. I think you’d better stop what you’re doing.’

      His head turned, a fraction. ‘You fuck off.’

      He wasn’t nice. His voice was like a dry cork twisting in the neck of a bottle. A tight voice.

      I said, again, ‘I’d like you to stop what you’re doing, immediately, please.’

      He plucked a geranium, and weighed it in his hand, looked straight at me, took aim, and thwack! He hit me with it, in the centre of my chest. It had quite some clout, for a geranium. I stepped back slightly, and it was then that I thought I saw Doug, in the doorway of his greenhouse, and even from a distance it looked like Doug was smiling.

      ‘You know him?’

      Squeaking voice. I turned back. ‘Pardon?’

      He pointed towards Doug, ‘You know him?’

      ‘Who? Doug?’

      ‘I have a message for him.’

      ‘For Doug?’

      ‘D’you know me?’

      I glanced over towards Doug again, but Doug had disappeared, had gone. I guessed he’d withdrawn, back to his tomatoes.

      ‘Do I know you? No . I don’t know you.’

      ‘I am Wu.’ He offered me a small, slightly muddy hand. ‘Shake.’

      Gingerly, I offered him my hand. He took it and squeezed it and his grip was like steel.

      ‘Wu! Wu!’ he barked softly. ‘Like a dog, huh?’ And my hand was crumbling and grinding and liquidizing.

      ‘Let go of my hand, please.’

      Wu pulled me close to him, so close I could feel little sprays of his saliva on my neck as he spoke.

      ‘Your friend,’ he said, ‘I don’t like him and I don’t want him near me. I don’t want him watching me, see? All the time I feel his eyes on me. And you can tell him, from me, that a frog cannot turn into a green leaf.’

      ‘I’ll tell him. Let go of my hand.’

      He lessened his grip a fraction, pulled me even closer, stood on his tip-toes and whispered directly into my ear, ‘I hope I didn’t break your knuckle.’ Finally, after one more, gentle squeeze, he let go. He wiped his hands clean on his robes and walked off. Slowly, calmly, treading softly.

      I looked down at my hand. I tried to wiggle my fingers. I could move my thumb СКАЧАТЬ