Small Holdings

‘And the thing is, she said, ‘I know you love this place. It matters to you. You depend on it the same way I do. But you won’t ever act, you won’t ever do anything. You’re dormant, just blind. Turning in on yourself.’

I was surprised to be connected, all of a sudden, in a rush, like this, with Saleem. It was a curious sensation, this connection.

‘Forget it, then,’ she said, sounding defeated and afterwards, almost instantly, sounding defiant. ‘Looks like I’m going to have to be the one,’ she muttered, turning her back, ‘Me. Saleem. I am the one who’ll have to save things. Ray’s too stupid. You’re just a yak, a blob. And Nancy . . .’ She laughed. ‘I am the one,’ she said, darkly, stalking off, ‘just watch me.’

SO THIS IS the problem, I told the exhaust on the back of Nancy’s truck. The Park’s got another four months to run and we’r e almost broke. On Friday Doug’s going to meet Enfield Council’s Park Management Committee to re-assert our tender.

Doug’s been cryptic about his intentions. He’s said he has plans, big plans, but he hasn’t discussed them with me or Ray, he hasn’t told us what he’s up to. Saleem thinks that he doesn’t care any more, that he’s losing it, that he’s liable to do just about anything. Now he’s left his wife. Now he’s left his home. I can’t help thinking, though, somehow, that Doug’s just like me, that he cares too much. But there’s no telling, not with Doug. Doug won’t tell. His lips are zipped. Like Saleem says, he’s private. He’s impenetrable.

And of course we’re all frightened of him, apart from Saleem. Maybe even Saleem. He’s getting bigger and bigger. Sometimes I glance at his eyes and see the whole world in there, streaming in - light and colour and nature and history. Go d only knows what he might do.

My one compensation is that at least I think I know what he’s capable of. I know the perimeters. There are none.

And I love Doug for that very reason. I see my own smallness reflected in his hugeness, and because we are opposite we are almost the same.

I’m thirty-four years old and I can’t even hold a conversation. I’m soggy and I’m limpid and I’ve never truly believed in anything but the things that I do. My work, this park. And I like plants. I can make them grow, and I like the sky, how it goes up and up with no lid, and I’ve never even kissed a girl. And I’m in love with Nancy.

At least I think I am, and for all the wrong reasons. I love Nancy because she never looks me in the eye. That’s her way. She’s too preoccupied. There’s something in her gaze that doesn’t focus, doesn’t invade. I am only a voice in her head, so I’m safe, it’s a safe love. You see, she isn’t like other girls.

Nancy’s our driver. She has two great passions in her life: to drive her truck and the truck itself. (A Leyland Daf Roadrun ner, ‘Truck of the Year,’ she tells me proudly, ‘when it first came out.’ Seven tons of silver and metal and diesel.)

Also, Nancy likes to run. She has a body like a wasp; so clean so neat, so sharp. She can be very mean, potentially, but she often chooses not to be. She’s a man-woman, an Amazon, an outlaw. She has a small, silver pistol in her truck, in the glove compartment, smokes slim cheroots, wears denim jeans ripped off above the knee, and her muscles, smooth like cream, leg muscles, arm muscles, a tan, darker down one side of her body and face, a driving tan.

In summer she’ll wear a short leather halter-top. Her small breasts, like two beige damsons, jutting up, vibrating as she pulls the truck in, struggling in low gear, still when the engine’s off. She’s a reconstructed Suzi Quatro, a Joan Jett of jammed-up junctions. Sticky and tricky.

She is strong. She moves the load, effortlessly, at speed. She likes picking people up, can even pick Ray up, can do basic judo, play football, baseball, basketball. Has broken both arms, both legs, her collar bone in motorbike accidents. She told me so, she did.

She is covered, like a cactus, in tiny blonde hairs: her face, her arms, her legs. And the light shines off her, and the sweat, when she’s hot (always hot), beads on her and transforms her body into a silken web, so ornate, wondrous, one of the wonders of the world, in the world, out of this very, very world.

Nancy.

Nancy switched off her engine.

‘I’m fucked,’ she said, staring past my ear and into the middle distance. ‘My side-light’s gone. I’m gonna have to tell Doug. He’ll blow.’

‘What happened?’

‘I dunno. Some guy pulled out and I didn’t see him. Halfway to Southend. I was too uptight, too stressed. Just stupid. It’s been churning in my stomach all the way home. Third claim in two months. Here’s the paper,’ she slung me a copy of the Guardian, ‘that’s all they had left at the services.’

‘Anything in it?’

‘Nah.’

I rolled up the paper and stuck it in my back pocket, then said, ‘We’re having a meeting in a minute, in the kitchen. D’you need a hand unloading?’

‘Nope. I’ll be fine. Better start without me.’

‘Why?’

‘Doug’ll blow when I tell him about the bump I had. I can’t face it right now.’

‘D’you want me to tell him?’

She climbed out of her cab. ‘Would you? If the moment’s right? If he’s in a good mood. Don’t mention it otherwise.’

‘Fine.’

‘Would you?’

‘Sure.’

‘Thanks. You’re a gem.’

She rolled up her sleeves and went to let down the truck’s tail.

Ray was in the kitchen devouring a packet of ginger-nuts. He offered me the packet.

‘No thanks. Seen Doug?’

‘He’s on the phone.’

I started preparing a pot of tea. Saleem appeared in the doorway, That’ s fine, Ray, those are mine but just help yourself.’

‘Sorry.’ He put down the biscuits and furtively brushed some crumbs from his beard.

‘Let me do that.’ Saleem pushed past me and picked up the teapot, took off the lid and peered inside. ‘Doug never rinses this properly.’

I took the paper from my pocket, opened it, held it high and started turning the pages. On the third page, in the Reuters column, two small items had been outlined in blue ink. I peered more closely at them. The first had the heading THUMB SALAD. It said:

A nurse who found the tip of a thumb in a take-away salad was awarded £200 compensation. Rebecca Pothecary, who bought the food from Anthony’s Take-Away on Tottenham Street, central London, ‘felt something resist her bite’, Clerkenwell magistrates were told. The sandwich bar was ordered to pay £600 in fines and costs for breaching health regulations.

Outside my paper-wall I could hear Ray reaching quietly again, gently, for the ginger-nuts; the crackle of the packet, his fingers prodding inside, his nail catching the rim of a biscuit and easing it out. Saleem had her back to him, engrossed in the task of filling the kettle, fitting on its lid. I heard the water slosh inside it.

The second item in the paper, underlined, directly below the first, had the headline, 1OO-DAY PROTEST. It said:

Peter Hawes yesterday spent his 100th day welded inside his roadside café. Mr Hawes, 48, is fighting a government decision to close down the lay-by at Guyhirn in Cambridgeshire, where he has cooked for travellers for years.

Ray had the ginger-nut between his teeth now, bit down softly. I heard the sugar snap and then an unobtrusive crunching, a short silence, another snap, more crunching. Saleem pushed the kettle’s plug into the wall and then turned on the power switch. I waited to hear the water in the kettle starting to gurgle, I waited for Saleem to notice Ray’s chewing, I waited for Ray to gag and swallow, but all I heard, suddenly, was silence, like each sound had been extracted, sucked out, expunged. I tried to turn a page of my paper but it didn’t move. My eyes focused in front of me, on the words felt something resist her bite, the words felt something resist, the words felt . . . resist the word felt felt . . . felt. Doug was standing in the doorway. Doug was standing next to me.

‘Phil.’

Feel. All the sounds returned in a rush. At once. Doug was standing there and he was smaller than I’d remembered and he had his hands in his pockets and he was smiling.

‘If this is our meeting,’ Doug said, ‘our business meeting, then what is she doing in here?’

Doug tipped his head towards Saleem. Saleem bridled, ‘Aren’t I even allowed in my own kitchen now?’

Doug continued to smile. ‘This is not your kitchen, Saleem. It is our kitchen. This house belongs to the business. You used to work here, yes. You used to have some right to live in this place. When you were a curator. But now the museum is gone, you have no function. You stay here on sufferance, you have stayed here for years, on sufferance, because you have one leg and you lost the other one in a fire, and I feel sorry for you and Ray feels sorry for you and Phil, too, feels sorry for you. But this is not your kitchen. This is our kitchen and we let you borrow it. And you should remember that fact. Now would you get out, please.’