Читать книгу In the Approaches - Nicola Barker - Страница 15

I am going to speak to Mr Huff.

I am going to speak to Mr Huff.

I am going to speak to Mr Huff.

I am. I am.

Apologize. Confess. Apologize. I am. I will. Yes. I will. It’s just that … that after all the drama with the landslip I simply haven’t had the … the … you know … the wherewithal … the nerve … the will … uh … no … the opportunity. Then I was scheduled on, last minute, for three, consecutive shifts at Mallydams: reception desk, cleaning out cages, hand feeding that snappy young vixen with the broken jaw etc. (they’re short-staffed – poor Amy Burrell contracted Rat-bite Fever from a weasel. It’s been all the talk in Guestling this week), and of course poor Dad’s foot medication ran out yesterday (he forgot to warn me in advance) so I was obliged to charge on over to the Ore Surgery just before closing (ditched the bike, got the bus). Then there was a queue twenty deep at the pharmacy …

But I am going to speak to Mr Huff. Yes. It’s an absolute priority.

I am going to speak to Mr Huff.

Confess. Confess all.

Yes.

Although … Although no word as yet from Mrs Barrow (and this is a scheduled cleaning day at the cottage, so … uh …), so perhaps it didn’t all pan out quite so badly as I … uh …

Hoped?

Anticipated?

Feared?

No. No. It must’ve … It must’ve been terrible. Awful. The bin hidden in plain view. The little stone through the window (but only a little stone, and it’s my window after all), the stolen bulb (although – again – it’s my bulb to steal). And … and the shark. The dead shark. There’s no … I mean there’s no excusing … no arguing my way out of … Under the bed! The dead shark! The shark with its guts full of vile, writhing, rapidly pupating …

Oh Lord!

I am going to speak to Mr Huff.

Although (in my defence – I know I don’t actually have a leg to stand on) he left all the doors wide open! Really! What else did he expect? Honestly!

And he insulted Rogue! Yes! Mortally! And Dad!

And he’s an awful, supercilious snoop! He ran over Mum’s cat, for heaven’s sake!

(That was actually his wife, though, wasn’t it? Before she left?)

And then, to compound the injury, he pretty much accused me of lying! To my face! About the poor old boy’s age! Followed by the letter! That awful, vain, self-aggrandizing … Urgh! Just thinking about it makes my … makes my blood … urgh … boil.

Such a rude man.

And the subtle way he’s gone about ingratiating himself with everyone. Oh lovely, charming, creative Mr Huff with his curly hair and his clever, hazel eyes and his cheekbones and his braces and his cosmopolitan life and his artistic hands and his winning ways and his extraordinary sensitivity (Please!) and his shrunken heads and his social conscience and … and his amazing gift – his deep empathy – with macaws!

Urgh.

When I so much as … as think about the way he’s lied and connived and conned and … and charmed people. How he’s ingratiated himself (did I say that before?). Ingratiated himself with everyone. Everyone. Even Mrs Barrow! Everyone. Everyone but … well, but me. Obviously.

The way he’s …

Urgh. Urgh.

I am going to speak to Mr Huff. I am. Confess. Apologize. Although before I can head on over there – here we are … Phew! Quick left turn. Avoid the puddle. Apply the brake. Clamber off. Throw down my bike. Remove my rucksack. Peek inside: tin of pilchards, check; pork pie, check; iron supplements, check; Deep Heat, check; aniseed balls, check – before I can head over there I’m obliged to pop in on Shimmy to drop off his Dopamine and some other stuff he’s asked for.

Of course (nothing’s ever as simple as it should be in this life) when I arrive it’s utterly impossible to gain access to the cottage. Rogue has fallen asleep – as is his perfectly maddening habit – directly behind the front door. The sheer weight of that animal, the heft, is equivalent (and this is absolutely no exaggeration) to a large chaise-longue or a small settee. I smack the door into him, repeatedly (Sorry, Rogue!). I have a full three inches leeway (Oh lucky me!). But he refuses, point-blank, to budge. I know – I just know – that he’s blocking my access on purpose – I’m certain of it – purely to avoid the distinct likelihood of his being dragged out for a spot of brisk exercise.

And I can’t get in through the back, either! Dammit! Dammit! Security-obsessed Shimmy has bolted the tall side gate. I knock (obviously – doors, windows), I sit on the bell, I yell, but all to no avail. Shimmy is listening – at quite extraordinary volume – to a home-taped recording (off the TV) of Fraggle Rock, his favourite programme. I can hear him singing along to the theme tune, bless him. Damn him.

Dance your cares away!

Worry’s for another day –

Let the music play,

Down at Fraggle Rock!

Again it plays, and again and again and again. Can he have made himself two separate recordings so he doesn’t have to wait to rewind? Has he even got two functional tape recorders? Does he possess the technological know-how for such pointless shenanigans?

I try the back gate for a second time. I return to the front door and smack it into Rogue. Thud.

We’re Gobo, Mokey, Wembley, Boober, Red!

I return to the gate. I’ve climbed over it before, but only under extreme duress. There’s very little purchase for hand or foot. After scrabbling around for a while I have the brilliant idea of fetching my bike, leaning it up against the gate and using it (the pedal, then the seat) as a kind of portable stepladder.

Everything is proceeding apace. The bike is carefully positioned – a brick wedged under the front wheel, the back wheel pushed against the wall of the house. I climb up. It’s a little unstable (a little ungainly, come to that) but everything’s going perfectly to plan, until …

It’s difficult to describe what happens next. I am almost half-straddling the gate – climbing over boldly, assuredly, very confident – when something catches at my waist, I fall forward, inadvertently – violently – kick out both my feet, and the bike tips sideways, crashing on to the gravel path. I am left hanging over the gate, bent at the hip, a fleshy, top-heavy U-bend, a human peg. To fall back would be difficult – even dangerous (the bike is just below. I’d hate to land on the spokes and potentially injure my foot, my ankle, my leg). I can only move forward. It’s just … uh … a question of … of using my hands to … to … And then I find that I’m … that I’m … that somehow I’ve become … no! I’m stuck! The piece of cord in my old jeans (they’re drawstring, tautened at the waist with a gentle bow) has somehow become hooked over an irregular piece of … a little wooden chip, a knot. And so I’m … I’m utterly, irrevocably, undisputedly stuck! I simply can’t …

I struggle. I struggle for what feels like an age to get my hand under my … to loosen the … but it’s too taut. In fact it’s … it’s almost cutting into me. And it’s hard to breathe with all this weight – my weight – on my gut. So I hang forward, to rest, to inhale, but then – once rested – I find it almost impossible to straighten back up. All the strength has leaked out of me.

I am stuck! Bottom in the air. Legs kicking. Wheezing. Groaning. I am stuck! I am stuck!

The vestiges of my womanly pride restrain me from calling out for help for a full five minutes. Who will come, anyway? It’s mid-afternoon on a quiet, unmade road. But after five – or ten – or seven (time loses all significance under such circumstances) minutes, I begin to yell.

At first an informal, undemanding, ‘Hello?’

Hello? Hello? Anyone? Hello? Hello?

Eventually a less formal, more desperate, ‘Help!’

Help! Help! Help me! Hello? Help! I’m stuck! Is there anyone there? Hello? Hello?

HELLO? HELLO? HELLO?

Oh my bladder, my poor bladder with the gate cutting into it! The chafing. The mortification! The redness of face. The nausea. Hands scrabbling. Feet kicking.

Aaaargh!

I am wailing. I can hear myself. A little, poignant wail. How long has it been now? The wail appears to be coming from the other side of the gate. Although my head is here. And my mouth. How odd! Could it be the cat mewing?

In my mind I am singing that silly song by Bananarama. The chorus goes ‘Robert De Niro’s waiting, talking Italian – talking Ital-i-an. Robert De Niro’s waiting, talk-king It-al-lian!’

I hang in silence for a while, bemused. Singing in my head. I yell for help only every minute or so to preserve my voice for the long haul.

Help!

Help!

Help!

I might be here all afternoon.

In fact I must’ve yelled this strange word (help – such a strange word! And the more I yell it, the stranger it seems; the hoarser, the darker, the more absurd and despairing) several hundred times when … now this is odd (because my head is hung forward – the blood pounding in my ears, I am almost faint – almost fainting) … I hear sudden footsteps on the gravel and something that seems like a human voice but all muffled and jumbled: like Aow-aow-aow-aow wah!

So curious!

Then comes a powerful smell of clementines (I’m not making this up!). An attempt to open the gate. A tentative yank on my foot, a hand on my bottom …

Oi!

And then, pow!

The bow on my trousers is untied (how’d he/she/it do that?) and before I know better (or am able to ready/steady/adjust myself) I’m tumbling forward over the gate and landing – Crump! (trouserless!) – on my hand/elbow/face/head/back ow! on the gravel ow! path ow! to the other side.

I lie for a few seconds, breathless and winded.

Aow-aow aow-aow? the strange voice asks, evidently concerned, trying the gate again.

I slowly sit up. Anything broken? Not sure. What I do know is that several pieces of gravel are embedded in my forehead. My legs feel okay … and … oooh … my spine … but my … ow! … my right thumb is hanging loose.

I’ve dislocated it! I’ve dislocated my thumb! Just look at that! How perfectly ghastly!

‘Oy vey, bubbellah! Ve Gates? Vat in God’s good name are you doing vith yourself down zere?’

Shimmy appears at the back door with his typical, slapstick timing.

‘I’ve dislocated my thumb, Tatteh!’ I wail, holding it out to him.

‘Zat’ll have to wait, Nebekh!’ Shimmy interrupts. ‘We got us bigger fish to fry here. Look at your poor dad! I’m plotzing! Zat damn dog has had hisself another heart attack! Za putz is blocking the front door! I called you a cab already. You gotta take him to the vet’s.’

As Shimmy is speaking I hear footsteps rapidly retreating in the gravel on the other side of the gate. I try to stand up, but it takes me slightly longer to find my feet than I’d anticipated.

‘Call the vet out, Tatteh!’ I’m grumbling. ‘How’re we meant to lift him into a cab? He’s huge. I’ve dislocated my thumb! Look! I’ve got bits of gravel stuck in my forehead!’

‘You crazy?!’ Shimmy exclaims. ‘You know how much zey charge to call zem out?! It’s a disgrace! Be serious, meine Carla! Get inside! Put your trousers on! We gotta do him a heart massage! Shlof gikher, men darf di ki kishn, girl! Stop your shmying about!’

I gaze at him, disbelieving.

‘Sleep faster, bubbellah,’ he repeats, sharply, as a concession (of sorts), but in English this time. ‘We need za pillows!’

Oh – thanks so much for the translation, Tatteh.

I click my thumb back into position (gritting my teeth), grab my trousers with my good hand and follow him inside, quietly marvelling at his apparently effortless recourse to poetic sarcasm.