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Wide Open
Nicola Barker
The novel for which Nicola Barker, one of our times most original, funny and anarchic writers, won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2000.‘Wide Open’ is set on the strange Isle Of Sheppey, which pokes out into into the estuary of the River Thames. On this forgotten misty island there is a nudist beach, a nature reserve, a wild boar farm and not much else. The landscape is bare, but the characters are brimming with life. There's Luke, who specialises in dot-to-dot pornography, and lippy Lily, just 17 and full of outrageous anger. They are joined by Jim and the 8-year-old, Nathan, as well as the mysterious figure of Ronnie, who though plain has dark, telling eyes.Each one is drifting in turbulent, emotional currents, fighting the rip tide of a past, bleak with secrets and fear. Years later adult Nathan works in a Lost Property department, an irony that is almost brutal in its compassion.A novel about stripping off layers of prejudice and lies, about the possibility of redemption, and laying bare the truth. It is also about coming to terms with the past, and about the fantasies people construct in order to protect their fragile inner selves.
NICOLA BARKER
Wide Open
Dedication
I dreamed I saw you dead in a place by the water.
A ravaged place.
All flat and empty and wide open.
Contents
Cover (#ulink_80f75e67-93bf-500d-b4d3-0cf40da5d80e)
Title page
Dedication
1
Each day Ronny saw the same man waving. The man…
2
Laura had imagined herself to be in love with Nathan…
3
‘The water’s flat and brown. The sand’s made of shells.
4
No one else would do these jobs. It was like…
5
He drove home later than he’d anticipated and hit the…
6
Nathan told Margery before she’d even had the chance to…
7
‘Now here’s the thing,’ Ronny said, appraising Luke and detecting…
8
As far as Lily knew, her father, Ian, had been…
9
Jim found Ronny on the beach. Ronny was surrounded by…
10
Nathan had received three letters and he hadn’t responded to…
11
Lily couldn’t resist.
12
Remember Big Ron?
13
‘I was very surprised by your bathroom cabinet,’ Ronny said,…
14
Connie pressed her nose to the sheets of paper. They…
15
Sara walked the longest possible route for her own cautious…
16
The doctor was a family friend, naturally. And Connie knew,…
17
Ronny had been weaving around in the prefab’s open doorway,…
18
The longer it took for Sara to arrive home, the…
19
He was sick four times. The first time, up against…
20
Connie was sleeping. But not properly. Intermittently. And she was…
21
‘Ronny was sick four times,’ Lily shouted, like she was…
22
Lily was invincible. She placed one foot in front of…
23
Ronny, darling.
24
Nathan was rota’d on for the Sunday shift with Laura…
25
The car was the only thing Connie wasn’t selling. It…
26
The prison was like a set of dirty teeth, and…
27
Jim intended to subtly alter the pattern of his life.
28
Jim saw her – way off at first – from…
29
Margery noticed the change.
30
Lily got up from the kitchen table half way through…
31
Nathan returned the stolen book on Monday morning, but during…
32
Lily arrived in the kitchen dressed and ready for college…
33
Her armpit, her nose, her knees, her in-grown toenail.
34
‘Tell me again how you found it.’
35
‘I got some blood on the carpet. Sorry.’
36
Luke was pacing. He had a sheet of negatives in…
37
Margery pushed the door open and walked inside.
38
‘So did Luke get what he was after?’
39
‘I never realized before,’ Connie whispered, ‘how terrible the outside…
40
Lily refused to put the box into the boot or…
41
Jim approached the prefabs on numb, heavily sodden feet, wearing…
42
‘This was the spot,’ Lily said, interrupting the kind of…
43
To see Nathan like that, completely out of context. Nathan.
44
They faced each other like two spiteful, glimmering starlings across…
