Soft by Rupert Thomson Read Free Book Online Page A

probably have stopped and leaned on the bridge and stared down at the battleship with a look of approval on his face; he would have told Barker what size shells the big guns fired, how many men were in the crew.
    Only Charlton knew where Barker could be found. On spring evenings, just after sunset, Barker would often hear the silver Sierra pull up in the street below. Charlton would take him to Brick Lane where they would eat meat curry and drink beer out of stainless-steel beakers. Or sometimes they would drive to a pub in Bethnal Green. Otherwise, Barker lived on baked potatoes, toast and Hofmeister lager, which was cheap that year. Though he had bought paint wholesale from an ironmonger’s down the road and though he had almost no furniture – he kept his clothes in a filing-cabinet he’d found in a skip and slept on a bed Charlton had lent him – it had still cost him money to turn the flat into a place that was fit to live in, and there were times when he didn’t know how he was going to get by. Only thirty-five pounds remained of the eight hundred he’d arrived with, and he knew Higgs couldn’t afford to pay him any more than he was already paying. In general, Barker could look on his life with a certain satisfaction. It didn’t amount to much, of course, not by other people’s standards, but at least nobody was pushing lit cigarettes through his letter-box in the middle of the night.
    Still, sometimes he felt strange, lying on a borrowed mattress in an empty building, thirty-eight years old. He had dismantled one life, and he had yet to construct another in its place. He did what he could with his limited resources. He knew it was temporary, though, a kind of quarantine, and there was a sense in which he was waiting for the health of his new existence to be recognised, but he couldn’t imagine how exactly that might happen, or when.
    Not long after Barker moved in, a man appeared at his front door. The man was in his middle to late fifties and he wore a dark-green anorak and a scarf. He seemed anxious and ill-at-ease, constantly glancing over his left shoulder, as if he was expecting an ambush.
    â€˜I’m looking for Will Campbell.’
    Barker remembered the two girls, and the boy who’d stood behind them, not saying anything, a skinny white kid with dreadlocks and a ragged sweater.
    â€˜There’s only me here,’ he said.
    The man passed one hand over his forehead and up into his thinning hair. ‘Someone gave me this address.’ He studied the scrap of paper he was holding, then looked up at the building. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘this is the address.’
    â€˜He must have moved.’
    â€˜Oh.’ The man stood on the pavement, unsure what he should do but, at the same time, unwilling to leave. He had reached a dead end and if he left he would be forced to admit that to himself. While he stayed outside the building that matched the address he had been given, he could still feel that he stood on solid ground, that there was hope. ‘You don’t know where he went?’
    â€˜No idea.’
    â€˜I rang up, you see. About a month ago. I was told the phone had been disconnected. So I thought I’d come down …’
    â€˜I live here now.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Nothing I can do. Sorry.’
    â€˜He’s my son.’ Spaces seemed to open in the man’s face, between his features.
    Arms folded, Barker leaned against the door-frame. He was into overtime with this conversation, and yet he didn’t want to be more brutal than he had to be.
    â€˜He was squatting here,’ the man said suddenly. ‘I didn’t approve, of course.’ He was staring at the pavement, frowning. ‘He had a girlfriend. Vicky …’ He looked at Barker hopefully. Barker shook his head.
    After the man had gone, Barker stood in his bedroom and stared out of the window. Rain fell lazily through the lamplight. He