Free Behindlings by Nicola Barker

nothing, but with his knuckles showing white, his lips silently enunciating, his nose gently shining. He was panicked, for some reason.
    Wesley glanced sideways at him and felt a sudden, fierce glow of satisfaction –as if a blow torch had just been lit inside of him. This is how I become powerful, he thought, turning, casually, and glancing back at the girl again.
    She had her jammy thumb in her mouth and she was sucking on it. But she wasn’t –as he’d anticipated –staring after him. Instead she was looking behind her, towards a small, scruffy, ivy-covered bungalow with an inappropriately large wooden verandah to the front of it.
    On the verandah stood a huge, square man, staring straight back at him –eyes like arrows, poison tipped –with the kind of crazy intensity which implied not only dislike –or pique –or bile –or irritation, even, but hatred.
    Hate.
Pure. Clear. 100% proof. Strong as poteen.
    Perhaps it was a mistake to return here, Wesley mused idly. He glanced over at Ted whose lips were still working feverishly.
    He smiled. What shall I give this man, he pondered, his mood instantly lightening; and what, I wonder, shall I extract from him?
    He chuckled to himself, cruelly, then pulled his two hands from his trouser pockets, wiggled his four remaining fingers –it was cold, it was too
damn
cold –puckered his lips, swung out his arms and walked boldly onwards, expertly whistling the chorus to
When the Saints Go Marching In,
while gradually –almost imperceptibly –speeding up his pace, so that he might stride along jauntily, in time.

Six
    She was cycling on the pavement. At worst, Arthur mused tightly, an illegal act, at best, wholly irresponsible. And that, in fact, was the only reason he’d troubled to notice her. He was not, by nature, an observant man when it came to women. In all other respects his observational faculties were keen, although in general, if he looked for things, then it was mainly for the stuff that interested him: roadsigns, landmarks, industrial centres, museums, farm machinery, traditional breeds. He had an inexplicable soft spot for Shetland Ponies.
    She jinked past him. He’d been walking –strongly, cleanly –since sunrise. Her sweet perfume assaulted his olfactory organs as she clattered by. It tickled his nostrils, but crudely. She smelled of cigarettes and dog violets.
    Twenty minutes later he caught up with her again. It was a long road, the A127, north of Basildon. She was on her knees, cursing. The traffic whizzed past them. Its speed and its volume were mentally trying. But he was a veteran.
    ‘Something wrong?’ he asked, his voice (he couldn’t help it) fringed with a facetious edge.
    ‘Nothing earth-shattering,’ she grunted, as if instantly gauging the true nature of his gallantry. ‘Flat tyre.’
    Her voice was so low that he almost started. Husky didn’t do it justice. His mind struggled to think of another canine breed –even more tough, even more northerly –to try and express it with greater accuracy. He could think of none.
    ‘You have a pump?’
    She looked up, took her littlest finger, stuck it into her ear and shook it around vigorously.
    He watched her, frowning, unsure whether this was an insulting gesture of some kind which he –because of his age, perhaps, or his sheltered upbringing –had hitherto yet to encounter. She stared back at him, quizzically. He was all sinew. Grizzled. He reminded her of a dog chew. Tough and yellow and lean and twisted.
    ‘Sorry,’ she said, removing her finger, ‘I’ve got water in my ear.’
    ‘So you
do
have a pump,’ he pointed at the pavement to the right of her. She raised her eyebrows, picked up the pump and gave it a thrust. The air blew out of it like the tail-end of a weak sneeze.
    ‘Yes I do have a pump, but I also have…’ she paused and then spoke with exaggerated emphasis, ‘a
fast puncture.
’
    He pushed his baseball cap back on his head.
    ‘
Cute,
’ she said, pointing at