Wide Open. Nicola Barker

she took a deep breath and then looked around her at Nathan’s living room, ‘but I didn’t really feel like I had much choice.’

      Nathan was relieved that Margery had gone after breakfast. Sometimes, on Saturdays, they spent the morning in bed together.

      ‘Have a seat.’

      He pointed at the sofa.

      ‘Thank you.’

      She sat down. He saw her eyes take in every detail. She looked like an angel, literally, with short, strawberry blonde, kinky hair and a child’s face. Skin like a macaroon. She was tiny. Barely five foot. Little hands, little feet. Breasts you could fit into an egg-cup.

      But Nathan had no interest in angels. And he mistrusted small people. Especially women. They were usually aggressive, like terriers, yapping for attention. Yet when Connie spoke she did not yap. She leaned forward and slipped her two hands between her knees. ‘So you got my letter after all?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘But you didn’t answer it.’

      ‘I had nothing to answer for.’

      Connie frowned at this. ‘Answer for? Why do you say that?’

      Nathan sat down, stiffly.

      ‘Look,’ he said, after an edgy silence, ‘Ronny was my brother. But I haven’t spoken to him in a long while. Ten years or more. I just can’t help you.’

      Connie didn’t blink. In a flash she said, ‘Well, I suppose if you did know where he was then you’d be breaking the law. You’d be concealing a felon.’

      ‘Exactly.’

      Nathan paused. ‘And the only reason I knew he’d run away from prison was because the police contacted me. Just after. But it’s not even as if I could conceal him. He’s dead to me. It’s as though he’s dead,’ Nathan smiled grimly, ‘and how could I conceal a dead person?’

      Connie’s head jilted. ‘People have managed it. In the past.’

      Nathan thought this comment throwaway – which it was – but also morbid and inappropriate. He grimaced. Connie digested his expression. She was feeding off him, he could tell. He hated that sensation. He resented it, sorely. Without thinking, he covered his mouth with his fingers so that she could not see it. Then he realized what he was doing and uncovered it again. He had nothing to hide.

      Connie wanted to get to grips with Nathan. She needed a handle. There was something so tender about him, something gentle, and yet he behaved so abrasively. Eventually she said, ‘I don’t know what Ronny did. I only have his letters.’

      Nathan cleared his throat. ‘I have no interest in any letters. I have no interest in Ronny. Or in this.’

      Connie sighed, then said softly, ‘He must have done something so terrible …’

      Nathan scratched his neck. Connie noticed a heat rash near his collar.

      ‘Water under the bridge,’ he said.

      After an interval Connie said brightly, ‘I’m an optician, incidentally.’

      Nathan stopped scratching. ‘What was that?’

      ‘I said I’m an optician.’

      Nathan smiled thinly. ‘How does that relate to anything?’

      She was a crazy angel. A crazy angel-optician.

      Connie laughed. ‘You don’t know anything about me. Why the fuck should you want to help a complete stranger?’

      Nathan stared at her intently. He hadn’t expected her to swear. She’d surprised him.

      ‘But you think I might consider helping an optician?’

      In a flash he was flirting. It was out of character.

      ‘I don’t know. Perhaps. It’s been hell for me, too,’ she said, apropos of nothing, not smiling any more, but suddenly tragic. Nathan was taken aback. Tragedy, at this juncture, was the last thing he’d expected. His spine straightened. She was slick.

      And because she was slick she saw how her change in tone had affected him. Nathan withdrew again, into himself. She felt a deep frustration. She didn’t want to manipulate. She simply wanted to come clean. ‘The way I see it, Nathan,’ she said curtly, ‘we’re in pretty much the same position. You don’t want to encounter your brother again and I have no particular desire to see him. I simply have an obligation to fulfil.’

      Nathan nodded, but his voice was tight. ‘You said in your letter that your father had died.’

      Connie winced. She was still raw.

      ‘Five months ago.’

      ‘And he had some kind of a relationship with my brother?’

      ‘He was involved in a committee, a government committee that was drawing up a report on prison reform. He was a barrister, originally. He did all this charitable stuff after he retired. Anyhow, he met a wide selection of prisoners during the enquiry and he must have met your brother at some point, because they became acquainted. They became friends.’

      ‘Why did he do that?’

      Nathan was talking to himself. Connie didn’t understand. ‘Why did he do what?’

      ‘Why did he befriend Ronny? Ronny doesn’t understand …’ Nathan corrected himself. ‘I mean he didn’t understand. About friendship. I still get hate letters. From total strangers. I’ve not seen him for almost ten years. I’ve moved house twice. But still they find me.’

      ‘That’s scary.’

      ‘Yes it is.’

      Connie had stopped glowing. When she’d come in she’d been glowing. But not now. She looked tired. Washed out.

      ‘The point is,’ she said, ‘my father saw fit to leave Ronny a bequest in his will. Money, basically. A nice amount.’

      ‘A nice amount.’ Nathan parroted, aimlessly.

      Connie’s eyes tightened. ‘Do you want to know how he died?’

      She was suddenly vengeful, like she needed to prove something. Her tragedic legitimacy, her righteousness. Nathan said nothing.

      ‘He was waiting on the platform at Gravesend station for my mother. She’d been to Cheltenham races for the day with her lover. He was standing too close to the edge. Someone opened their carriage door before the train had slowed down. It hit him like a hammer. It killed him.’

      ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘We were very close.’

      Connie rubbed her hands together, like her fingers were cold or her knuckles stiff.

      ‘But not close enough …’ she faltered. ‘I wasn’t close enough to know anything about Ronny. Nor did my mother for that matter. And it actually felt kind of creepy. Especially when we found out that he was in prison, and then, shortly after, that he’d absconded. It felt sort of …’

      Her eyes scanned the carpet near her feet, as though she might see the word she sought enmeshed in its fibres. Instead she saw only an empty wine glass, an ashtray, a tea stain and, poking out from under the sofa, a slip of paper. She focused on this as she completed her sentence. ‘It felt almost threatening.’

      For the first time during the interview Nathan felt pity for the girl. He imagined that before this trouble her life had been smooth and shiny as new Tupperware. It was no wonder she was shaken. He cleared his throat. ‘If I were you I’d forget about the money. Ronny was never particularly materialistic.’

      Connie remained unmollified. ‘Unfortunately it’s a legal matter, not a private one. A large portion of the money Dad bequeathed was tied up in my practice, which has left me in a slightly tricky position …’