I still felt completely exhausted and crazy, but I got myself dressed somehow and choked down some coffee and left for work. On the way I took a detour in the Honda round the corner of the building. At first I was afraid to look, even though I was safe inside the locked car. At the edge of the woods where the mob of fat people had been there was nothing but some big old spirea bushes blowing and tossing about.
That evening Scott came home, ten pounds overweight. A couple of days later, when he was talking about his trip, he said that Indian food was great, especially the sweets, but the women were hard to talk to and not all that good-looking.
‘A lot of Indians are heavy too, you know,’ he told me.
‘Really?’ I asked. I wondered if Scott had had some spooky experience like mine, which I still hadn’t mentioned: I didn’t want him to think I was going to crack up whenever he left town.
‘It’s a sign of prosperity, actually. You notice them especially in the cities, much more than in this country. I mean, you don’t see many fat people around here for instance, do you?’
‘No,’ I agreed, cutting us both another slice of pineapple upside-down cake. ‘Not lately, anyhow.’
G-String
Nicola Barker
Nicola Barker (b. 1966) is a British novelist and short story writer. Her novel, Wide Open, won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2000, and another, Darkmans, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007.
Ever fallen out with somebody simply because they agreed with you? Well, this is exactly what happened to Gillian and her pudgy but reliable long-term date, Mr Kip.
They lived separately in Canvey Island. Mr Kip ran a small but flourishing insurance business there. Gillian worked for a car-hire firm in Grays Thurrock. She commuted daily.
Mr Kip – he liked to be called that, an affectation, if you will – was an ardent admirer of the great actress Katharine Hepburn. She was skinny and she was elegant and she was sparky and she was intelligent. Everything a girl should be. She was old now, too, Gillian couldn’t help thinking, but naturally she didn’t want to appear a spoilsport so she kept her lips sealed.
Gillian was thirty-four, a nervous size sixteen, had no cheekbones to speak of and hair which she tried to perm. God knows she tried. She was the goddess of frizz. She frizzed but she did not fizz. She was not fizzy like Katharine. At least, that’s what Mr Kip told her.
Bloody typical, isn’t it? When a man chooses to date a woman, long term, who resembles his purported heroine in no way whatsoever? Is it safe? Is it cruel? Is it downright simple-minded?
Gillian did her weekly shopping in Southend. They had everything you needed there. Of course there was the odd exception: fishing tackle, seaside mementos, insurance, underwear. These items she never failed to purchase in Canvey Island itself, just to support local industry.
A big night out was on the cards. Mr Kip kept telling her how big it would be. A local Rotary Club do, and Gillian was to be Mr Kip’s special partner, he was to escort her, in style. He was even taking the cloth off his beloved old Aston Martin for the night to drive them there and back. And he’d never deigned to do that before. Previously he’d only ever taken her places in his H-reg Citroën BX.
Mr Kip told Gillian that she was to buy a new frock for this special occasion. Something, he imagined, like that glorious dress Katharine Hepburn wore during the bar scene in her triumph, Bringing Up Baby.
Dutifully, Gillian bought an expensive dress in white chiffon which didn’t at all suit her. Jeanie – twenty-one with doe eyes, sunbed-brown and weighing in at ninety pounds – told Gillian that the dress made her look like an egg-box. All lumpy-humpy. It was her underwear, Jeanie informed her – If only! Gillian thought – apparently it was much too visible under the dress’s thin fabric. Jeanie and Gillian were conferring in The Lace Bouquet, the lingerie shop on Canvey High Street where Jeanie worked.
‘I tell you what,’ Jeanie offered, ‘all in one lace bodysuit, right? Stretchy stuff. No bra. No knickers. It’ll hold you in an’ everything.’ Jeanie held up the prospective item. Bodysuits, Gillian just knew, would not be Mr Kip’s idea of sophisticated. She shook her head. She looked down at her breasts. ‘I think I’ll need proper support,’ she said, grimacing.
Jeanie screwed up her eyes and chewed at the tip of her thumb. ‘Bra and pants, huh?’
‘I think so.’
Although keen not to incur Jeanie’s wrath, Gillian picked out the kind of bra she always wore, in bright, new white, and a pair of matching briefs.
Jeanie ignored the bra. It was functional. Fair enough. But the briefs she held aloft and proclaimed, ‘Passion killers.’
‘They’re tangas,’ Gillian said, defensively, proud of knowing the modern technical term for the cut-away pant. ‘They’re brief briefs.’
Jeanie snorted. ‘No one wears these things any more, Gillian. There’s enough material here to launch a sailboat.’
Jeanie picked up something that resembled an obscenely elongated garter and proffered it to Gillian. Gillian took hold of the scrap.
‘What’s this?’
‘G-string.’
‘My God, girls wear these in Dave Lee Roth videos.’
‘Who’s that?’ Jeanie asked, sucking in her cheeks, insouciant.
‘They aren’t practical,’ Gillian said.
Jeanie’s eyes narrowed. ‘These are truly modern knickers,’ she said. ‘These are what everyone wears now. And I’ll tell you for why. No visible pantie line!’
Gillian didn’t dare inform her that material was the whole point of a pantie. Wasn’t it?
Oh hell, Gillian thought shifting on Mr Kip’s Aston Martin’s leather seats, ‘maybe I should’ve worn it in for a few days first.’ It felt like her G-string was making headway from between her buttocks up into her throat. She felt like a leg of lamb, trussed up with cheese wire. Now she knew how a horse felt when offered a new bit and bridle for the first time.
‘Wearing hairspray?’ Mr Kip asked, out of the blue.
‘What?’
‘If you are,’ he said, ever careful, ‘then don’t lean your head back on to the seat. It’s real leather and you may leave a stain.’
Gillian bit her lip and stopped wriggling.
‘Hope it doesn’t rain,’ Mr Kip added, keeping his hand on the gearstick in a very male way, ‘the wipers aren’t quite one hundred per cent.’
Oh, the G-string was a modern thing, but it looked so horrid! Gillian wanted to be a modern girl but when she espied her rear-end engulfing the sliver of string like a piece of dental floss entering the gap between two great white molars, her heart sank down into her strappy sandals. It tormented her. Like the pain of an old bunion, it quite took off her social edge.
When Mr Kip didn’t remark favourably on her new dress; when, in fact he drew a comparison between Gillian and the cone-shaped upstanding white napkins on the fancily made-up Rotary tables, she almost didn’t try to smile. He drank claret. He smoked a cigar and tipped ash on her. He didn’t introduce her to any of his Rotary friends. Normally, Gillian might have grimaced on through. But tonight she was a modern girl in torment and this kind of behaviour quite simply would not do.
Of course she didn’t actually say anything. Mr Kip finally noticed Gillian’s distress during liqueurs.
‘What’s got into you?’
‘Headache,’ Gillian grumbled, fighting to keep her hands on her lap.
Two hours later, Mr Kip deigned to drive them home. It was raining. Gillian fastened her seatbelt. Mr Kip switched on the windscreen wipers. They drove in silence. Then all of a sudden, wheeeu-woing! One of the wipers flew off the windscreen and into a ditch. Mr Kip stopped the car. He reversed. He clambered out to look for the wiper, but because he wore glasses, drops of rain impaired his vision.
It was a quiet road. What the hell. Mr Kip told Gillian to get out and look for it.
‘In my white dress?’ Gillian asked, quite taken aback.
Fifteen minutes later, damp, mussed,
muddy, Gillian finally located the wiper. Mr Kip fixed it back on, but when he turned the relevant switch on the dash, neither of the wipers moved. He cursed like crazy.
‘Well, that’s that,’ he said, and glared at Gillian like it was her fault completely. They sat and sat. It kept right on raining.
Finally Gillian couldn’t stand it a minute longer. ‘Give me your tie,’ she ordered. Mr Kip grumbled but did as she’d asked. Gillian clambered out of the car and attached the tie to one of the wipers.
‘OK,’ she said, trailing the rest of the tie in through Mr Kip’s window. ‘Now we need something else. Are you wearing a belt?’
Mr Kip shook his head.
‘Something long and thin,’ Gillian said, ‘like a rope.’
Mr Kip couldn’t think of anything.
‘Shut your eyes,’ Gillian said. Mr Kip shut his eyes, but after a moment, naturally, he peeped.
And what a sight! Gillian laboriously freeing herself from some panties which looked as bare and sparse and confoundedly stringy as a pirate’s eye patch.
‘Good gracious!’ Mr Kip exclaimed. ‘You could at least have worn some French knickers or cami-knickers or something proper. Those are preposterous!’
Gillian turned on him. ‘I’ve really had it with you, Colin,’ she snarled, ‘with your silly affected, old-fashioned car and clothes and everything.’
From her bag Gillian drew out her Swiss Army Knife and applied it with gusto to the plentiful elastic on her G-string. Then she tied one end to the second wiper and pulled the rest around and through her window. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘start up the engine.’
Colin Kip did as he was told. Gillian manipulated the wipers manually; left, right, left, right. All superior and rhythmical and practical and dour-faced.
Mr Kip was very impressed. He couldn’t help himself. After several minutes of driving in silence he took his hand off the gearstick and slid it on to Gillian’s lap.
‘Watch it,’ Gillian said harshly. ‘Don’t you dare provoke me, Colin. I haven’t put my Swiss Army Knife away yet.’
She felt the pressure of his hand leave her thigh. She was knickerless. She was victorious. She was a truly modern female.
Wesley: Blisters
Nicola Barker
Nicola Barker (b. 1966) is a British novelist and short story writer. Her novel, Wide Open, won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2000, and another, Darkmans, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2007.
‘Look,’ Trevor said, ‘you’ve got to serve from the back, see?’
Wesley dropped the orange he’d just picked up.
‘Put it where it was before,’ Trevor said sniffily. ‘Exactly.’
Wesley adjusted the placement of the orange. There. Just so. It was neat now. The display looked hunky-dory.
‘Let me quickly say something,’ Wesley said, as Trevor turned to go and unload some more boxes from the van.
‘What?’
‘It’s just that if you serve people from the back of the stall they immediately start thinking that what you’re giving them isn’t as good as what’s on display.’
Trevor said nothing.
‘See what I mean?’
‘So what?’
‘Well, I’m just saying that if you want to build up customer confidence then it’s a better idea to give them the fruit they can see.’
‘It’s more work that way,’ Trevor said, shoving his hands into his pockets.
‘Well, I don’t care about that,’ Wesley responded. ‘I’m the one who’ll end up having to do most of the serving while you’re running the deliveries and I don’t mind.’
Trevor gave Wesley a deep look and then shrugged and walked off to the van.
Another new job. Selling fruit off a stall on the Roman Road. Wesley was handsome and intelligent and twenty-three years old and he’d had a run of bad luck so now he was working the markets. No references needed. Actually, on the markets a bad temper was considered something of a bonus. Nobody messed you around. If they did, though, then you had to look out for yourself.
Trevor had red hair and a pierced nose. Wesley looked very strait-laced to him in his clean corduroy trousers and polo-neck jumper, and his hands were soft and he spoke too posh. What Trevor didn’t realize however, was that Wesley had been spoilt rotten as a child so was used to getting his own way and could manipulate and wheedle like a champion if the urge took him. Wesley had yet to display to Trevor the full and somewhat questionable force of his personality.
Wesley pulled his weight. That, at least, was something, Trevor decided. After they’d packed up on their first night he invited Wesley to the pub for a drink as a sign of his good faith. Wesley said he wanted something to eat instead. So they went for pie and mash together.
Trevor had some eels and a mug of tea. Wesley ate a couple of meat pies. Wesley liked the old-fashioned tiles and the tables in the pie and mash shop. He remarked on this to Trevor. Trevor grunted.
‘My dad was in the navy,’ Wesley said, out of the blue.
‘Yeah?’
‘He taught me how to box.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Last job I had, I punched my boss in the face. He was up a ladder. I was on a roof. Broke his collar bone.’
‘You’re kidding!’ Trevor was impressed.
‘Nope.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What did he do?’
‘Tried to prosecute.’
‘What!?’
‘I buggered off. I live my life,’ Wesley said plainly, ‘by certain rules. I’ll do my whack, but when push comes to shove, I want to be treated decent and to keep my mind free. See?’
Trevor was mystified. He ate his eels, silently.
‘I had a brother,’ Wesley said, ‘and I killed him when I was a kid. An accident and everything. But that’s made me think about things in a different way.’
‘Yeah?’ Trevor was hostile now. ‘How did you kill him?’
‘Playing.’
‘Playing what?’
‘None of your fucking business.’
Trevor’s eyebrows rose and he returned to his meal.
‘I want to do the decent thing,’ Wesley said. ‘You know? And sometimes that’ll get you into all kinds of grief.’
Trevor didn’t say anything.
‘Watch this.’
Trevor looked up. Wesley had hold of one of the meat pies. He opened his mouth as wide as he could and then pushed the pie in whole. Every last crumb. Trevor snorted. He couldn’t help it. Once Wesley had swallowed the pie he asked Jean – the woman who served part-time behind the counter – for a straw. When she gave him one, he drank a whole mug of tea through it up his left nostril.
Trevor roared with laughter. He was definitely impressed.
After a week on the job Wesley started nagging Trevor about the quality of the fruit he was buying from the wholesalers. ‘The way I see it, right,’ Wesley said, ‘if you sell people shit they won’t come back. If you sell them quality, they will.’
‘Bollocks,’ Trevor said, ‘this ain’t Marks and fucking Spencer’s.’
Wesley moaned and wheedled. He told Trevor he’d take a cut in his money if Trevor spent the difference on buying better quality stuff. Eventually Trevor gave in. And he took a cut in his wages too.
After a month, Wesley used his own money to repaint the stall a bright green and bought some lights to hang on it to make it, as he said, ‘more of a proposition.’
‘Thing is,’ Wesley observed, fingering the little string of lights, ‘we have to get one of the shops to let us tap into their electricity supply, otherwise we can’t use them.’
Trevor didn’t really care about the lights but he was grudgingly impressed by the pride Wesley seemed to take in things. He went to the newsagents and the bakery and then finally into the pie and mash shop. Fred, who ran the shop, agreed to let them use his power if they paid him a tenner a week. Wesley said this seemed a reasonable arrangement.
&nb
sp; Things were going well. Wesley would spend hours juggling apples for old ladies and did a trick which involved sticking the sharpened end of five or six matches between the gaps in his teeth and then lighting the matches up all at once. He’d burned his lips twice that way and had a permanent blister under the tip of his nose. He’d pick at the blister for something to do until the clear plasma covered his fingers and then he’d say, ‘Useful, this, if ever I got lost in a desert. Water on tap.’
After six weeks things had reached a point where Trevor would have done anything Wesley suggested. The stall was flourishing. Business was good. Wesley worked his whack and more so. He kept everyone amused with his tricks and his silly ideas. The customers loved him. He was always clean.
What it was that made Wesley so perfect in Trevor’s eyes was the fact that he was a curious combination of immense irresponsibility – he was a mad bastard – and enormous conscientiousness. He wanted to do good but this didn’t mean he had to be good.
One morning, two months after Wesley had started on the stall, Trevor got a flat tyre on his way back from the wholesalers and Wesley was obliged to set up on his own and do a couple of the early deliveries himself into the bargain.
He took Fred at the pie and mash shop his regular bundle of fresh parsley and then asked him for the extension cord so that he could put up his lights on the stall. Fred was busy serving. He indicated with his thumb towards the back of the shop. ‘Help yourself, mate. The lead and everything’s just behind the door. ‘That’s where Trevor stashes them each night.’
Fred liked Wesley and he trusted him. Same as Trevor did and all the others. Wesley, if he’d had any sense, should have realized that he was well set up here.
Wesley wandered out to the rear of the shop. He pulled back the door and picked up the extension lead. Then he paused. It was cold. He looked around him.
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