The Three Button Trick and Other Stories

by Nicola Barker

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Preface

  Layla’s Nose Job

  Inside Information

  The Butcher’s Apprentice

  G-String

  The Three Button Trick

  Wesley: Blisters

  Wesley: Braces

  Wesley: Mr. Lippy

  Skin

  Symbiosis: Class Cestoda

  The Piazza Barberini

  Popping Corn

  Dual Balls

  Water Marks

  Back to Front

  Limpets

  Bendy-Linda

  Gifts

  Parker Swells

  About the Author

  Also by Nicola Barker

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Preface

  Whenever I am asked the difference between writing a short story and a novel, I generally say that a short story is like a sneeze. Novels are like the flu. A sneeze can occasionally be catastrophic (I recently heard of someone tearing a hole in the back of their throat by holding one in), and messy, and anti-social. But they are also sudden and uncontrolled and strangely ecstatic. A wonderful expulsion. Climactic. Like a tiny orgasm.

  That’s exactly how the short story feels, to me.

  I haven’t written short stories for many years. I hate to say it, but there generally isn’t any economic incentive. Newspapers and magazines ask me for them, but they don’t pay much—sometimes less than you’d get for scribbling a review or writing a column. And short stories can take a long time to hone—a month, six weeks or even longer. I remember having a serious conversation with an early editor who told me that they simply weren’t economically viable if I wanted to make a living out of writing. He was right. I did. They weren’t.

  The two forms (short and long) are obviously very different. My novels are always fueled by some kind of an agenda (spiritual, political, social, psychological) but my short stories are, by and large, inspired by an incident—something odd and singular which gives me pause for thought and which I mess around with and mangle. The collection you are holding started out as two collections. My first (Love Your Enemies) came about because I was working two jobs, and the only time I could find to write was very early in the morning (4-5am). It was hard to sustain the momentum of a novel in that context. These first stories are plain and innocent—clear-eyed, slightly warped.

  The weirdest ones are all based on true, childhood memories. ‘The Butcher’s Apprentice’ originated in an incident when I was a girl in South Africa. A friend of my father’s lost his engineering job after an attack of yellow jaundice and ended up working as a butcher in Johannesburg. The other butchers tested him by leaving him alone in a room with a big chunk of beef that was being ventriloquised, from within, by a huge, still-living cancer. My angle on the story (as I reinvented it) was to speculate on the idea of life itself and what makes it precious.

  ‘Symbiosis: Class Cestoda’ is a story about a woman who ingests a tapeworm to keep her weight down. As a child my best friend’s mother (and grandmother) used tapeworms as a dieting aid. In the story I use the worm as a metaphor for dysfunctional relationships.

  My second collection was called Heading Inland and these stories are the ones I love best, mainly because three of them (all of them printed here) feature my favourite self-created literary character, Wesley. Wesley is the closest I have ever come to writing about myself (he also possesses some minor, physical traits of someone I knew at college). The story where Wesley inadvertently locks his imaginary friend, Joy, in a classroom, comes directly from an incident in my childhood, where I ‘locked’ my imaginary friend, Wart, in a classroom (it was the end of term, I was nine) and my mother (God bless her) drove me back to school to see if we could get the janitor to let him out again. It was decades later (long after the story was written) before I realized that ‘Joy’ was actually a fractured piece of myself who I had parted ways with, around about that time, because of trauma.

  We still play together, she and I, even now.

  I love the short story form and I have several little notebooks full of ideas, but I feel as if it’s a luxury to write them. I’m actually a Catholic, but a shocking Puritan, too, underneath all those layers of Latin and incense. Maybe one day.

  When asked who I think is my greatest inspiration as a short story writer, I invariably say Angela Carter (who I call my literary mummy) with a generous side-serving of Flannery O’Connor. But the apex of Flannery’s writing, for me, is not a short story, oddly enough, but an essay, called The King of the Birds, which is utter perfection—a perpetual inspiration—and details her life among the peacocks.

  I am not an author who enjoys looking back. It makes me restive and maudlin. I am always thinking about what is to come—the impossible challenges that lie ahead and how (dammit!) I will engage with them. But I am proud of these stories. They are of a different time. They hail from a fractured, irritable, passionate, heartfelt epoch. They are sharp and straightforward and without finesse, almost owlish in their naiveté.

  Ah, God bless the young! God bless the spiky, troubled girl I once was. Innocence is sometimes like a dreadful light that indiscriminately scorches everything around it.

  Layla’s Nose Job

  Layla Carter was just about as happy as it was possible for a sixteen-year-old North London girl to be who possessed a nose at least two centimetres longer than any nose among those of her contemporaries. As with all subjects of a sensitive nature, the length of Layla’s nose was an issue of great topicality and contention. Common clichés such as ‘Don’t be nosy’ or ‘You’re getting up my nose,’ even everyday phrases like ‘Who knows?’—especially when uttered by an errant younger brother with a meaningful glance at the relevant part of Layla’s physiognomy—would cause an atmosphere of hysterical teenage uproar in the Carter’s semi-detached in the leafy suburbs of Winchmore Hill.

  Layla sensed that the source of her problem was genetic, but neither of her parents, Rose and Larry Carter, possessed noses of any note. Her three siblings were blessed with lovely, truffling pink snouts with snub ends and tiny nostrils. They had nothing to complain about.

  Her nose had always been big. On family occasions like Christmas or Easter when her grandparents and great aunts descended on the Carter household for a roast lunch and a glass of Safeways own-brand port, the family photo albums would be dragged out of the cabinet under the television and all tied by blood and name would pore over them and sigh.

  No one sighed louder than Layla. Her odyssey of agony and self-consciousness began with her christening snaps and continued well after the visitors had gone home, the washing-up had been done and the living-room carpet hoovered.

  As far as she could tell, her nose had always been disproportionate. She had often had recourse to see other people’s christening photographs, and in none of them that she could remember had so many profile shots been taken to so much ill effect. Her nose emerged like a shark’s fin from between the delicate folds of her fine, pearly-white shawl, and the sight of it cut into her stomach like a blade.

  She struggled to remember a time when the size of her nose hadn’t been a full-time preoccupation. As a young child in her first weeks at school, after a particularly violent spate of playground jousting—little boys shouting ‘big nose’ at her for a period in excess of fifteen minutes—her class teacher had bustled her, howling, into the staff-room and had dried her eyes, saying softly, ‘When you grow older you’ll study the Romans. They were the people who built all the best, long, straight roads in Britain, many, many years ago. Now just you guess what all of the Romans had in comm
on? They all had fine aquiline noses. Long, straight, proud noses like yours. One day you’ll learn to be proud of your nose too. You’ll learn that all the best people have strong, bold, expressive faces and strong, proud, dignified noses.’ She offered Layla a tissue and said, ‘Now go on, blow.’ Layla pushed her face forward and then felt a pang of intense misery as her nose poked a hole through the centre of the tissue; like a dog jumping through a paper hoop. Nothing could console her.

  People are so cruel, children are so cruel. In the school playground as she grew older, worse humiliations were in store. Her nose became her central signifier. Whenever her best friend Marcy was deputized to approach a handsome young buck for whom Layla had developed a girlish passion, she would always see him turn to Marcy with a frown and say, ‘Layla? Who’s she?’

  By way of explanation Marcy would invariably point her out as she stood skulking in the corner of the playground closest to the girls’ toilets and say, ‘That’s her there. You know, the one with the big nose.’

  Marcy always apologized for her indiscretions. She was a sympathetic girl, but she came from a big family where sensitivity and tact often had to be abandoned in the arena of attention-grabbing. She would say to Layla, ‘I’d much rather have a big nose than no nose at all.’

  Neither of them had ever seen anyone without a nose before, but as the years dragged by Layla regularly stood in front of her bedroom mirror with her hand covering this offending part of her face in an attempt to perceive herself, and her other features, without its overwhelming presence. The result was often quite gratifying. Whenever she tried moaning to her mother, Rose would say, ‘Just be grateful for what you have got. You’ve got pretty blue eyes and lovely soft, brown, curly hair. You’ve got a good figure too. Be grateful. Try not to be so negative.’ In return, Layla would grimace and shout, ‘God! It’s bad enough having a nose like Mount Everest—I’d hardly tolerate being fat as well. I have to make the best of myself, but that doesn’t make things any better. In some ways that makes things worse. If I was truly ugly, what would I care if I had a big nose?’

  She wished she could chop it off. When she was twelve, a short burst of appointments with the school therapist brought more light to this preoccupation. The therapist told Rose and Larry that Layla’s regular association in her conscious and unconscious mind with chopping and removal implied a rather unusual and boyish adherence to what is commonly called the castration complex. He said, ‘Layla wants to be a man. She wants to rival her father, Larry, for Rose’s love and attention. Unfortunately she has no penis. This makes the penis a hate object. She wants to castrate Larry’s penis because she is jealous of it. She feels guilty about her aggressive impulses towards Larry and so turns these feelings of violence on to herself. To Layla, her nose is a penis. Her hatred of her nose is symbolic of her hatred of her own sexuality. When she comes to terms with that, she’ll be a happier and more complete person.’

  After their appointment the Carters took Layla for a hamburger at the McDonalds in Enfield’s town centre as a treat. She sipped her milkshake and frowned. She said, ‘What difference does all this make to me? Talking won’t change the size of my nose, will it? Why does everyone have to pretend that my nose isn’t the problem but that I am? It’s as if everyone who wants to help me is determined to believe that my nose isn’t all that big at all. But it is. It is!’

  She had made her point. The family paid no heed to the therapist’s recommendations. Except Larry, who took to locking the bedroom and the bathroom doors whenever he happened to undress; especially when shaving. He must have felt guilty about something.

  By the time that she was fifteen, Layla knew everything conceivable about dealing with an outsize nose. She knew how to react when boys got on to the school bus in the afternoons and laughed at her and gesticulated, she knew how to comb and style her hair in a way that helped to accentuate her better features as opposed to her worse, she knew how to avoid having her photograph taken on family occasions (on holiday and at home), she knew how to spend hours every morning with a make-up brush and facial foundation, shading the sides of her nose and lightening its centre in a way she’d seen depicted in hundreds of teenage girls’ magazines. Most of all she knew how to focus on this one, single thing. She made herself into a nose on legs.

  She could not read a magazine without studying the nose of every model on its waxy, paper pages. If a model had a slightly larger nose than usual she would tear out the picture and put it into a scrapbook or stuff it in the drawer of her desk. At night she would list in her mind successful people who had big noses. She counted them like sheep in her pre-dream state; Chryssie Hynde, Margaret Thatcher, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Dustin Hoffman, Rowan Atkinson, Cher. She thought about Cher quite a bit, because Cher had had her nose fixed.

  In her dreams she visualized a scalpel, and its sharp edge touched her face like a kiss. It sliced her nose away so that her face felt light and radiant. But when she tried to bring her hand to her face to feel her new nose, her arms felt terribly heavy and could not be lifted. She used all her energy and willpower to attempt to lift them but they would not move. At this point she would awake from her dream and discover that she was actually trying to lift her arms, her real arms. In an instant she could then lift them to her face, and feel her face, and feel that everything was still the same. Even in her dreams, wish-fulfilment had its limits. Nothing ever went all the way.

  LAYLA’S PROBLEMS WERE more than just cosmetic when she was fifteen. At this time Marcy began going out with her first serious boyfriend. Although they remained best friends this meant that Marcy grew less supportive towards Layla and increasingly preoccupied with her new relationship. She also became enthusiastic about the idea of Layla becoming involved in a relationship herself. Layla had very high standards. All the boys who supposedly found her attractive did so (she firmly believed, with some grounds), because they were universally unattractive themselves.

  But the pressure was on. Marcy visualized the ‘double date’ as the height of teenage sophistication and sociability. ‘Imagine how much fun we could have if you and someone else could come out with me and Craig,’ she’d say.

  One warm summer Wednesday afternoon after school, Layla and Marcy went for a brisk stroll around the precinct in the town centre, looking at clothes, talking about teachers and drinking root beer. They ended up at Waitrose, where they bought a packet of Yum-Yum doughnut twists. Marcy suggested that they eat them on a bench in the park.

  It was a set-up. Layla had barely taken the first bite of her doughnut when Craig turned up with one of his friends, Elvis. Her heart plummeted. After mumbling hello she walked a short distance to feed the rest of her Yum-Yum to a wayward duck. After a minute or so Marcy came over to her. She took her arm and said, ‘Don’t you like Elvis? Craig and I thought you’d get along.’

  Layla baulked at this. She said, ‘You thought we’d get along because we both have big noses, is that it?’

  Marcy laughed nervously. ‘Of course not. He’s Jewish. Lots of Jewish men have big noses, it’s natural.’

  Layla forgot herself and wiped her sticky hands on her school dress. When she spoke again, her voice was dangerously calm. ‘Of all the boys in the school you choose the one with the biggest nose to match me up with. You’re supposed to be my best friend.’

  ‘Lots of women think that Jewish men are very sexy, that their big noses are sexy,’ Marcy interrupted.

  Layla exploded, ‘I hate big noses. I hate my nose. Why the hell should I want to go out with someone with an enormous nose?’

  The two boys had turned to face them from their position by the bench. Elvis looked flush and irritated. Craig was laughing. He called over, ‘You know what they say about men with big noses, don’t you, Layla? They’ve got the biggest pricks.’ He turned to Elvis. ‘You’ll vouch for that, won’t you?’

  Elvis was extremely angry. He said, ‘You know what they say about girls with big noses, don’t you, Layla? They say that they
’re very, very, very ugly, and that no one wants to go out with them.’ He showed her one finger.

  Her face went crimson. Marcy tried to defuse the situation. She rubbed Layla’s arm apologetically. ‘He’s normally quite nice. I think he overheard us. He was upset, he didn’t mean what he said.’

  Layla pulled her arm away with great violence, the force of which pushed her a step backwards and sent the duck skittering off. ‘Thanks a lot. Thanks for really humiliating me. I thought you were my friend. I suppose you and Craig had a real laugh planning this.’

  Elvis had marched off in disgust, but Craig had made his way over to Marcy’s side and put his arm protectively around her shoulders. ‘Marcy was only trying to be nice. You make a mistake in thinking that everyone else is as interested in your stupid nose as you are. Elvis would’ve been a fool to want to go out with you, anyway. You’re too self-obsessed.’

  Layla strode over to the bench where she had left her school bag, and picked it up by its strap. Then she turned and said, ‘Just because I have a big nose you all feel you’ve got the right to look down on me. I can just imagine Elvis and I going out on a date. Everyone who saw us would say, “Isn’t it nice that two such strangely deformed people have found each other.” I suppose it’s like two dwarves going out together or two blind people, or two people with terrible speech impediments who could spit and stutter at each other over Wimpy milkshakes. Well, I want better than that. I’m more than just a big nose. I thought I was your best friend, Marcy, but in fact I’m just your big-nosed friend. That’s all I am.’

  Marcy said nothing as Layla sped away across the park.

  THAT NIGHT WHEN SHE GOT HOME Layla went straight to her bedroom. She locked the door and wouldn’t come out. Rose left her a dinner-tray outside the door. She was concerned for Layla. The previous week she had seen a program on teenage suicide. Layla was so volatile. Larry told her not to worry.

  Layla sat alone and did a lot of thinking. She tried to analyze her world view. She tried to get outside herself and to see her situation from all angles. One central problem faced her: had other people made her self-conscious about her nose, or was she just vain, as Craig had implied? Had she created the problem for herself, or had society made her nose into a monster? Obviously her nose had always been in the centre of her face and it had always been big, but was that in itself enough to destroy her life?