Free Behindlings by Nicola Barker Page A

the little, squidgy koala-like creature smiling out from the front of it.
    He stared at her, blankly. Then something registered.
    ‘I lost my…’ he scowled, defensively. ‘It’s new.’
    She half-shrugged.
    As her shoulder shifted he noticed –and it was difficult not to –that instead of a dress she seemed to be wearing some kind of long, antique undergarment. Not see-through. But fragile. An apricot colour. Over that, two pastel-coloured silky pearl buttoned cardigans, half-fastened, and over these, a thin brown coat featuring a tiny but anatomically complete fox-fur collar.
    As he watched, she shoved her hand into the pocket of her flimsy coat and withdrew some Marlboros. She offered him the packet.
    ‘Smoke?’
    Arthur shook his head. She shrugged, knocked one out and stuck it between her lips, feeling around deep inside her other pocket for a light. She withdrew a large box of kitchen matches, opened the box and carefully removed one. It was at least three inches in length. She struck it and applied its bold flame to her cigarette, inhaling gratefully, then blew it out while still keeping the cigarette in place. A complex manoeuvre.
    Arthur continued to gaze at her. For some reason he found the blowing pleasurable. He watched closely as she replaced the remainder of the match back inside the box again.
    She was possibly the palest woman he had ever seen. Her hair was bright white. Shoulder-length. Thin. Straight. Most ofit shoved under a small, round hat fashioned from what looked like dark raffia. With cherries. The kind of hat old women wore in fairytales.
    But she was still young, if jaded; crinkling gently at her corners, like a random, well-worn page of an ancient love letter. She had disconcertingly pale blue eyes. Eyes the colour of the exact spot where the winter sky brushed the sea. Eyes the colour of the horizon, he supposed. Trimmed with white lashes, and topped by two haughty brows. A phantasm’s brows; cold and high and light and spectral. Barely there. Just a suggestion of hair.
    Puffy underneath… the eyes. He thinly smiled his recognition. Oh yes. A drinker. He knew the signs. And he warmed to her, then, but it was a warmth imbued with a profound contempt.
    ‘It’s portable,’ he noted.
    She nodded, and spoke with the cigarette still dangling, ‘Yes. An absolute bloody miracle of engineering.’
    Her tone troubled him. ‘How far?’ he asked.
    ‘What?’
    Smoke trickled ineluctably into her right eye. The eye filled with water. She blinked it away.
    ‘I said how far?’ he repeated, pointing ahead of them. ‘Canvey.’
    ‘Oh. Far enough.’
    He nodded sympathetically, looking down the road again, then he checked his watch. It was only eleven-fifty.
    ‘Second hand?’ she asked curtly. ‘Pardon?’
    ‘Do you have a second hand?’
    ‘Uh…’ he finally caught up with her, ‘ yes… ’ he blinked, ‘yes I do.’
    ‘Give me the exact time.’
    He checked his watch again then paused for a moment. ‘It’s now eleven fifty-one,’ he said, ‘ precisely. ’
    ‘Right.’ She began to fold up the bike. Her hands flew from wheel to seat to crossbar, inverting, twisting, unscrewing. She knew what she was doing. Her hands were small and bony and chalky, but she was impressively adroit. It was quickly done.
    ‘ Finished, ’ she exclaimed, slamming the seat down and tapping it smugly, ‘and the time now?’
    He inspected his watch. ‘Eleven fifty-one and twelve seconds,’ he said.
    She smiled, then stopped smiling. ‘Dammit,’ she cursed, ‘I forgot the sodding pump.’
    She grabbed the pump and clipped it into position.
    ‘The manufacturers say it should take twenty seconds,’ she explained, standing up and dusting off her knees, ‘but I can halve it.’
    ‘Right. Good. I’m actually heading towards Canvey myself,’ Arthur informed her, deigning not to comment further on the fold-up phenomenon but staring down the road fixedly. He loved the road. He loved roads.
    ‘On