Small Holdings

‘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.’

‘Fuck you, Doug,’ Saleem said, calmly. ‘D’you know what a grenadilla is?’ she asked, not sounding in the least bit ruffled.

‘I know what a grenadilla is, yes.’

‘I gave my own flesh for this place,’ she whispered. ‘What can you give?’

Doug said nothing. He watched her and then he said, ‘Go away. ‘

Saleem laughed. I moved the paper up closer to my face as she swung past me. ‘And what’re you doing?’ she asked, saucily. ‘Eating that thing?’ Close up she smelled like a bunch of watercress. A peppery smell. I folded the paper, my face tingling. ‘If you don’t mind,’ she added, ‘I’ll borrow that.’

She snatched the paper and swung out.

Doug filled the kitchen. Ray’s fatter - twice as fat - and I’m big enough and hairy enough, but Doug has personality. Doug has backbone, is a true vertebrate. Ray and I are rheumy, watery creatures that ride the wave s but Doug’s already clambered on shore.

‘Where’s Nancy?’ Doug asked.

‘I dunno. Phil?’ Ray looked to me.

‘Outside. Unloading.’

Doug leaned against the sink. ‘Nancy’s got to go, ‘ he said, i just got a call from our insurance. She had another accident this morning. Almost killed two people. Her fault.’

Ray and I stared at each other.

‘We can’t afford the insurance premiums any more,’ Doug said. ‘They keep on going up and up. It’s out of control. We’ve got to tidy this stuff away. Nothing will work until we tidy this stuff away. That’s all I’m saying.’

‘And just hear this,’ he added, warming to his subject now. ‘She only went and contacted the insurance people from the services on her way back and said she’d pay the difference herself and something extra if they didn’t tell us. If they didn’t tell me. That’s what the man just told me on the phone.’

‘I can’t see why she shouldn’t do that,’ Ray said, boldly.

Doug ignored this, ‘She wouldn’t even have mentioned it, not a word, not a single word.’

I almost said something, but when I opened my mouth I was only coughing.

That’ s deception,’ Doug said. ‘We can’t trust her. She’s a liability.’

‘I like her,’ Ray said cheerfully. ‘She’s OK.’

Doug focused on Ray. ‘Ray,’ he said, ‘you have all the business sense of a Savoy cabbage.’

Ray smiled. ‘True,’ he said, ‘I see your point, Doug.’

After a short pause, I said, ‘I think we should wait a while before we make any decisions. Give it some thought. Take a vote, later on. And maybe we should think about the meeting on Friday before all this other business.’

‘It’s under control,’ Doug said, haughty. ‘I want Nancy out. I can’t operate, I can’t deal with that kind of deception. I’ll tell her to her face when she crawls in here. No problem.’

‘It’s just . . .’ I said, ‘It’s only . . .’

‘First things first, Phil,’ Doug said, calmly. ‘We’ll lance her like a boil. Tidy things up a bit.’

Ray’s face began to move, to curdle, like he was having a thought which was germinating in his big, fat cheeks, swelling, expanding, filling him up.

‘Doug,’ he said, his thought at last finding a voice, a small voice, ‘Doug, we were all thinking that maybe you should take things a bit easy for a while . . .’

Doug stared calmly at Ray, his eyes taking in Ray’s pink lips and his yellow beard, his several chins, the dimple in his cheek.

‘You’re going crazy, fat boy, you’re crazy if you think I need to take things slow. I’m only just starting. I’m taking stock, fat boy. I’m seeing things big and I’m seeing them better than I’ve ever seen them. Better than ever.’

Ray looked at his hands. Ten fingers, all in good working order. ‘Uh, fine,’ he said. ‘It’s just that Phil . . .’

Doug turned, ‘Phil?’

I scratched my neck, my brain fizzy and empty. The kitchen is only a small room and it hasn’t been decorated in years. Above the oven, grease has stained the wallpaper a steamy yellow. The grey floor tiles are full of prints, footprints and mud-prints and cat-prints.

‘Is there something you’re wanting to say to me Phil? Anything? The meeting on Friday? Anything you think I can’t handle? Want to tell me?’

It’s not exactly that I couldn’t say anything, more that I didn’t really have anything to say. What was my evidence, after all? Doug was being strange, but thinking about it, he’d always been irascible, changeable, unpredictable. It wasn’t so much anything in particular, any special fact or detail I was burdened with, more a feeling, a sensation.

Saleem had said that we were connected in some way, she and I, the two of us, connected together, against Doug, because Doug was thinking about Gaps, and thinking about making Gaps. And Nancy . . . and Nancy . . . And I was contemplating all these things when I suddenly heard a voice and the voice was saying, ‘I love this place, Doug. I love this place.’ It was my voice. Blood rushed into my cheeks. I felt a stabbing sensation in my chest.

Doug’s face broke into a broad grin. His teeth were tombstones.

‘Phil,’ he said, laughing, ‘I’m going to the greenhouse. Gonna have a little talk to my big vegetables.’

And off he went.

As soon as Doug had gone, Saleem bounced back in. She put her stick down on the table, pulled out a chair and sat down.

‘Now what? Nancy’s in some kind of trouble?’

Ray nodded. His expression was so mournful and forlorn that it looked like his cheeks were in danger of melting and dripping and dribbling down on to the table. ‘Oh God,’ he said, ‘her timing’s less than perfect.’ I couldn’t think of anything to add. Eventually I said, ‘Let’s not get this all out of proportion.’

‘No?’ Ray glanced up, hopeful, ‘You think it’ll work itself out?’

‘More than likely.’

‘Oh shut up, Phil,’ Saleem snapped. ‘What the fuck do you know? ‘

My skin felt tight. I looked at my watch, ‘It’s nearly time to knock off.’

‘I need a drink,’ Ray said, ‘and a few packets of crisps. Want to come to The Fox for a while?’

Before I could answer the kitchen door opened slightly and Cog wandered in. Cog was the park’s cat who behaved like a dog, was dogged and doggish, ran for sticks and didn’t mind a cuff and a wrestle. Nancy was two paces behind him.

‘Me and Cog are going for a run together,’ she announced. Her voice was just a fraction too loud.

‘Did you see Doug?’ Ray asked nervously.

‘Doug? I saw him.’

She walked to the sink and rinsed her hands. She seemed calm.

‘Did Doug say anything?’ Ray asked, even more nervously.

‘Doug says a lot of things, Doug’s a sandwich short of a picnic ‘

‘Doug’s elevator,’ Ray grinned, ‘doesn’t stop at all floors.’

‘That’s as maybe,’ I said, ‘but above all else, it’s Doug who holds this place together.’

Saleem cocked her head at this. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘It’s you that holds this place together, and Ray, and even Nancy. Doug holds the business together.’

‘It’s the same thing,’ I said, confident of this fact.

‘Not at all.’

Nancy dried her hands on a tea towel. ‘I’m going for a run,’ she said, ‘Come on, Cog. ‘ She slapped her thigh. Cog came to heel.

‘Didn’t Doug say anything?’ Ray asked, for the second time. Nancy started jogging gently on the spot, warming up. ‘Did Phil tell you,’ she asked Ray, still very loud, ‘that I had another knock in the truck?’

Saleem intervened on my behalf. She said, ‘Doug already knew. The insurance people rang him.’

‘I was unloading the privet from the van,’ Nancy said, ‘and Doug came over and asked me to load it up again.’

Saleem, I noticed, was watching Nancy closely, staring at her, and she had a smile on her lips but her eyes were full of something else, an intensity, a fixity, a cruelty.

‘Privet?’ I asked, unable to stop myself. ‘You were unloading privet?’

Nancy nodded, distracted. ‘Neat bushes with small, dark green leaves. A ton of them.’

‘You don’t need to tell Phil what privet is,’ Ray said, smiling glumly. ‘He’s the Plant King.’

‘Come off it.’ My cheeks tightened a fraction more and I started to glow.

‘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 but nothing else. My fingers were purple, the joints were white. The whole hand was burning. I ran over to the lake and dipped my fist in it. But the water didn’t help to cool me. It was warm as saliva at its edges. I took my hand out, held it in front of me like a trophy, and went to find Doug.

Doug was watering some tomatoes in his greenhouse. The house was warm and had that rich smell of damp compost which always makes me feel like sneezing: a fine, ripe smell.

Doug watered his tomatoes with enormous tenderness. He didn’t take his eyes off them as he spoke.

‘So he got you, did he?’

I stood next to his marrows and his radishes, both of which seemed to be coming on well. The radishes were already the size of tennis balls. ‘I think he broke my hand.’

‘Wu. He’s a devil.’ Doug chuckled to himself before adding, ‘I can’t take my eyes of him. My fault he destroyed the bed. I can’t stop myself from watching him and he’s warned me. He gets irritable.’ He chuckled again.