Heading Inland by Nicola Barker Read Free Book Online

swallowed the pie he asked Jean – the woman who served part-time behind the counter – for a straw. When she gave him one, he drank a whole mug of tea through it up his left nostril.
    Trevor roared with laughter. He was definitely impressed.
    After a week on the job Wesley started nagging Trevor about the quality of the fruit he was buying from the wholesalers. ‘The way I see it, right,’ Wesley said, ‘if you sell people shit they won’t come back. If you sell them quality, they will.’
    ‘Bollocks,’ Trevor said, ‘this ain’t Marks and fucking Spencer’s.’
    Wesley moaned and wheedled. He told Trevor he’d take a cut in his money if Trevor spent the difference on buying better quality stuff. Eventually Trevor gave in. And he took a cut in his wages too.
    After a month, Wesley used his own money to repaint the stall a bright green and bought some lights to hang on it to make it, as he said, ‘more of a proposition’.
    ‘Thing is,’ Wesley observed, fingering the little string of lights, ‘we have to get one of the shops to let us tap into their electricity supply, otherwise we can’t use them.’
    Trevor didn’t really care about the lights but he was grudgingly impressed by the pride Wesley seemed to take in things. He went to the newsagents and the bakery and then finally into the pie and mash shop. Fred, who ran the shop, agreed to let them use his power if they paid him a tenner a week. Wesley said this seemed a reasonable arrangement.
    Things were going well. Wesley would spend hours juggling apples for old ladies and did a trick which involved sticking the sharpened end of five or six matches between the gaps in his teeth and then lighting the matches up all at once. He’d burned his lips twice that way and had a permanent blister under the tip of his nose. He’d pick at the blister for something to do until the clear plasma covered his fingers and then he’d say, ‘Useful, this, if ever I got lost in a desert. Water on tap.’
    After six weeks things had reached a point where Trevor would have done anything Wesley suggested. The stall was flourishing. Business was good. Wesley worked his whack and more so. He kept everyone amused with his tricks and his silly ideas. The customers loved him. He was always clean.
    What it was that made Wesley so perfect in Trevor’s eyes was the fact that he was a curious combination of immense irresponsibility – he was a mad bastard – and enormous conscientiousness. He wanted to do good but this didn’t mean he had to be good.
    One morning, two months after Wesley had started on the stall, Trevor got a flat tyre on his way back from the wholesalers and Wesley was obliged to set up on his own and do a couple of the early deliveries himself into the bargain.
    He took Fred at the pie and mash shop his regular bundle of fresh parsley and then asked him for the extension cord so that he could put up his lights on the stall. Fred was busy serving. He indicated with his thumb towards the back of the shop. ‘Help yourself, mate. The lead and everything’s just behind the door. That’s where Trevor stashes them each night.’
    Fred liked Wesley and he trusted him. Same as Trevor did and all the others. Wesley, if he’d had any sense, should have realized that he was well set up here.
    Wesley wandered out to the rear of the shop. He pulled back the door and picked up the extension lead. Then he paused. It was cold. He looked around him.
    A big room. Red, polished, concrete floors. Large, silver fridges. And quiet. He could hear the noise from the shop and, further off, the noise from the market. But in here it was still and the stillness and the silence had a special sound . Like water.
    Wesley closed his eyes. He shuddered. He opened his eyes again, tucked the lead under his arm and beat a hasty retreat.
    He was in a world of his own when Trevor finally arrived that morning. On two occasions Trevor said, ‘Penny for them,’ and then snapped his fingers in