[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":123},["ShallowReactive",2],{"story-barker":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"body":6,"date":111,"description":112,"edited":111,"extension":113,"meta":114,"navigation":115,"path":116,"seo":117,"stem":119,"tags":120,"__hash__":122},"stories\u002Fstories\u002Fbarker.md","Barker",{"type":7,"value":8,"toc":105},"minimark",[9,13,17,23,26,29,34,37,40,45,48,53,56,59,62,67,76,83,88,93,98,102],[10,11,5],"h1",{"id":12},"barker",[14,15,16],"p",{},"Her mouth moved silently behind the glass then she dropped back into bed, leaving a shapeless patch of breath and grease adhered to the pane. Barker smiled. The engine and the propeller met the muteness of the early morning. Two swans slid towards his stern as if pulled along by a subaqeous line, eyed him spitefully and then tacked away. Barker stroked a strand of tobacco from his lip and held his fag to his mouth, with the filter pinched between a contrived circle of thumb and index like a diver. It was was flawlessly cynlidrical, with no folds in the paper, he tore them apart if they were otherwise. Exhaling, his cloud of smoke and breath briefly held and then swam past him in the breeze. He blew softly and then puckered his lips towards his coffee in its monochrome white mug. Loud suction ensured, breaching the nacreous slick which lay over the surface of the liquid. As the boat moved along he blinked slowly against the morning breeze.",[14,18,19],{},[20,21,22],"em",{},"White hands she had always white since I can remember never caught the sun never red always putting on sunblock and two white rings in the nostrils and the backs of the ears never rubbed in properly, disguisting and then wrinkled when she got old veined deep blue and green sat at the back with the straw hat silent and smiling while I steer and everything, do everything, and never-",[14,24,25],{},"He felt he had gained a point by disturbing those boats. He never missed a chance to with the hired ones. Barker loathed the whole crop of them which began to appear on the Avon and Kennet canal every June. He couldn’t stand their serial, swarming intrusion. They came each year, and each year he never produced a single hello, or word of advice, or even a dumb nod. They held him up, clogged the locks, got stuck at right angles to the canal. He could feel them abrading the green banks and the Cotswold stone with their endless pairs of staring eyes, they cheapened the birdsong with their straining ears. In the mornings, before he saw another boat, or stared down a woman running along the toe-path, he felt preminent. He was safely ensconsed by the buffer of the water, no crowds, no one to brush against him. He felt he owned the deeds and title of the stretch of public waterway he travelled, and couldn’t make terms with being forced to share. Barker had navigated the 90 miles or so for more of less his entire life, and had never been away from the canal for more than a month.",[14,27,28],{},"There are several categories of people who would choose to live permanetly on a canal. There are those who are following a nomadic stirring, or evading urban rents, who opt for a canal boat as an economical way to fill some inner caesura with adventure or purpose. And then a smaller group who are more of a canal born tribe. Their brightly painted signs advertise that they work with boats, operate tarot readings, or take on all repairs, tweaks and tinkerings. Barker was of course in the latter camp, but without any of the stoned cheer. He cruised silently, eyes front, like some dull and toothless fish. Everyone recognised him, with his pedanticly ironed shirts, cord trousers with the rigid fold up at the hem, the cap sunk down to his ears. When you move at three miles an hour up and down a finite stretch of river, everyone becomes a fixture.But he detested the presumption of community, no-one had ever been aboard his home.",[14,30,31],{},[20,32,33],{},"And skin thin like it was stretched but not really stretched because so many wrinkles lines of blue and green and purple swum to the surface, like an old road map, like a reeking nitted map of blood and fluid. And the hair still dyed that red blond faded colour and not coming from the top of the head anymore but going bald like a man with the patches of ashen skin and pale running eyes the colour going fading all over. How is it we look like cadavers long before, long before, we never stop growing always growing into that corpse waiting to be born at the end.",[14,35,36],{},"It was the first of June but cold enough under the heavy cloud, and rolls of mist had only just begun to shift from the woodland along the right bank as Barker steadily plugged along. He revved at his throat and spat a puck of phlegm into the blank water. Its green seemed worryingly bright. Barker was the only name anyone knew him by. Maurice was his first name, so it was Barker that was blazoned along the side of his boat in a dull red. This was a typically egotistical departure from the naming conventions of the canal, where homely kitsch abounded like \"The Peggy Sue\" or \"Snail’s Pace.\" Barker repaired boats with some skill, and cruely overcharged the unwitting, and haggled attritionally with the rest. He could do anything with a canal boat, but did this slowly and expensively, and in addition sold fire wood and coal to the holiday makers. This second stream was at least half of his income.",[14,38,39],{},"As he plugged along Barker's satisfaction was instantly jetisoned in favour of sour irritation over the foreign presence that would soon peak along his waterway.  Coming to a length of canal without any boats he let the engine idle and   took the nose in to moor.   He hadn’t really needed to take the boat out this early, but his sleep had ended abruptly in the early hours and any excuse to cause a petty nuisance he would take. Once he’d hammered the mooring pins into the bank, he began to prepare breakfast. Barker stripped nitrogenous rashers from a plastic sleeve. The liquid from the wrapper gave them a mucous sheen. He lit the gas with his lighter and the footprint shaped slices of flesh spat furiously as they shrank and curled pale lips of fat. The smell of copper rose as white crud sprouted from the bacon and gathered in the pan. He battered some neoprene squares of bread and doused them with sauce from a flatulent bottle. Eggs he carefully broke and then chased a shard of shell around the pan with a knife. The inside of the cabin was meticulously clean, like a show caravan. The walls were always recently painted, the two beds crisply made to await inspection, not a book or a mug out of place. Margerine melted into yellow and white and drained onto the plate from between the slices of bread. Barker moved very carefully down the single corridor of the boat, making no noise even though he was quite alone. He never sang, or hummed, but he had begun to mutter to himself a little in recent weeks. From the pendant silence of the banks, a crow sounded desperately from a tree overhanging his boat, and some unseen bird snapped out of the branches with a blast of wings. Barker paused and lent his head against the cold glass, massaging his chest. He looked very hard down the length of the boat. After several moments in this posture, his body facing the window and his head thrown over one shoulder, staring intently, he dug his spare hand into his pocket and moved out onto the deck with his breakfast. “Calm yerself down, calm yerself down, calm yerself down” Barker annuciates between swallows, his lips moving around the syllables without sound, the mouthfuls going down without taste.",[14,41,42],{},[20,43,44],{},"If she hadn’t stuck at it never dropping it never letting him sit silent at the boat and take her along the water, it was his money anyway he worked he cooked he did it all and if he wanted to put a bet on then that’s his right isn’t it not hers",[14,46,47],{},"The mist among the banks of trees had faded into shreds and was almost gone. The fields were clogged with heavy dew. In the strip of ground where he had hammered in the mooring pins the ferns were stuck at shallow angles smothered in a rosary of beads, waiting for the sun.  This was the time of day where Barker felt the best, these occluded, ingrown hours of summer morning. His primacy on the canal was yet to be threatened.   Free from external points of rebuttal he could construct inner fantasies of mastery. He sat on the rail around the stern of the boat one leg crossed over the other, his foot jacitating.   He observed his sandwich crust intently like it might be gearing up for some sudden manouveur. He had the expression of a person who is very much looking forward to the point at which they have chewed sufficiently that they can dispose of the mouthful with whatever they are drinking. He set his plate aside to roll a cigarette and as he stood he came to stop about three quarters of the way to vertical. In this semi-hunched position he gazed, repeatedly swallowing saliva, at a small knitted key chain which hung inside of the door by the ignition key. It was a light blue, of roughly rectangular shape, with the letters B&M in pink. He flew towards the open doors and badly bent the hook which the innocuous object hung on as he tore the fabric from the key chain, failing to detach it he hurled the whole thing into the water, sending the plate with the remains of his breakfast spinning after it. The two swans which had been following him coalesced immediately around the central point of the spreading ripples. Dissapointed, they hissed bitterly and headed for the bank.",[14,49,50],{},[20,51,52],{},"And he knew she had some stashed away she’d always be on about it on about it “don’t you think I can’t manage without you, don’t you think I don’t have any of my own” looking at him trying to put on as if she wasn’t his mother, as is if they weren’t just the same why did she stay why did she stay.",[14,54,55],{},"Barker killed the engine as the gates of the lock came into view around the corner. He had been terrified of the going through locks as a child. Two slabs of sodden wood grew above the boat. When he used to stand by his father watching their slow torturous opening, the growing smell of canal water and reeking weeds smothered him completely. The huge timbers of aging wood produced dungeons, jailers, smoking brands. And inside the lock itself, as the water poured in, hissed and rocked and leveled, Barker the boy had once been struck with a ridiculous terror, that he was trapped in the centre of some huge black heart.  He gently reversed as he had edged two close to the gate. The two Waterways Association lock keepers automatically raised a hand and then dropped it in recognition.",[14,57,58],{},"“Morning Barker!” Shouted one and smiled at his companion, faux good humour and solicitous accommodation was a long standing approach agreed on for dealing with Barker. Screaming at in-competant or sluggish lock keepers was very much part of his signature unpleasantnesses. They began to open the gates. Barker sat at the tiller with his back to them, staring intently down the canal, the way he had come. Without looking at his work he began to coil the length of black mooring rope around his arm, holding the end in one hand with his forearm straight then wrapping the rope in loops around the bottom of his elbow in tight circles. Once the gates of the lock had opened he took the boat slowly into the space of the lock. Fibrous mosses stained the black bricks on both sides, all was damp, sprouting, jurassic. The gates touched closed behind Barker. Fifteen feet above him one of the elderly keepers silently extended a hand and Barker hurled the precisely coiled rope up to him.  The man drew the boat into the side of the lock and with some venom lashed it tightly round the metal fixture sunk into the top of the lock. Barker hurled the front and end ropes up as well. The boat bobbed in the bottom of the lock and touched up against the side of the lock walls. The keeper began to crank open the sluices of the front gate with the metal key, white water shouldered through insistently. The smell of the canal was strongest here with thousands of stagnant litres churning through and throwing up spray, sousing the walls of the lock. The June sun faltered suddenly and looking up Barker saw a great expanse of cloud, moving along in state like a frigate to bar its warmth. The rush of the water echoed from the stone walls. The two keepers, when asked later, had said two things which the investigating officer thought warrented inclusion in his notes. That they heard such a scream from Barker that they had dropped their lock keys and leapt to the top of the walls, like someone had been badly hurt they said. They saw him fallen backwards into the cabin   with his legs protruding outside   and a shaking finger extended towards some thin scratches through dingy slime of the lock walls which exposed the grey stone against black rottted vegetation, almost as if someone had been trying to pull themselves up from the water with only their fingernails. And that they had gotten a faint impression, when he had righted himself and refused their questions and sailed quickly on, that there was some swaying of the curtains against the window, or quick movement past them perhaps, as if there was more than one person on the boat.",[14,60,61],{},"Barker’s morning disposition had gone the way of the mist. He took off painful slivers of his thumb nail with probing teeth, sat with his head with his thrown over his shoulder to interrogate the way he had come. He was felt bitten short himself, the red quick exposed to the wind. When the wash from a passing cruiser caused a mug to clatter from the table inside the cabin he sat up like a shot rabbit. The aging passengers of the passing vessel pondered this odd figure, his chest and shoulders heaving, pendant tears in twin paths down his cheeks, sobs reaching through the glass as slowly he left the square vista of their window. After an hour he took the boat in to moor. There wasn’t any use continuing any further today.",[14,63,64],{},[20,65,66],{},"Not that deep a canal not really and nothing all that heavy at hand nothing really heavy enough had to get off the canal with it still there and warm and get over into the field for a few rocks and then god oh god the fucking rocks dumping them into the sack with it in there and hearing it crack as they dropped and still recent enough that the sack ran with it ran with it all up the boat and then over the side and then not enough fucking bleach in the world for that is there not enough in the world",[14,68,69,70,75],{},"Barker sat on the bench at the stern, bent over with his torso between the v of his legs, both calves jogging. The afternoon sun weakened into twilight, then the insects and birds traced their half circuits until dusk. His ash tray had become a sloppy ziggaurat, his hands quivered. Finally, Barker oiled the engine and took himself into the cabin, taking great care with padlock. He was nearly into bed when he saw the front door was open still and he had to rest his head against the cold glass once he had cravenly forced each bolt home, slicing through the inside of his thumb in haste. Blood traced the inside of his palm and dotted the floor. He closed his eyes. Blankly he fled into bed. Cocooning himself fetally in the sheets, prayers, smiles, half voiced whispers trickled from his lips. Something like sleep settled on him for a few hours. He lay just under the surface of consciousness, no rest, no repair, just a blank canvas for bloody dreams to play out on. Towards midnight Barker was spat back into the dark, more tired than when he had gone to bed. The slice of window which the curtains didn’t cover let the bland moonlight in. It washed the walls and the other empty bed across the cabin with a limpid slick of light. He turned over and closed his eyes and the movement of the body caused the boat to rock, swinging the illuminated area up to the ceiling. During the brief moment when the bed opposite him was effaced by dark, Barker sat straight up in bed and whirled round with his palms flat against he wall, taking huge gulping breaths. There had been a familiar voice from the other bed, saying his name very softly at first and then louder and louder, a broken voice, speaking from sodden lungs. He sat like this very still, the bed was empty, the bed clothes undisturbed. He smiled and tried and failed to laugh. Pulling the bed clothes tighter around him Barker pressed himself tightly to the wall. He managed about a minute of this before the rising sensation over his back caused him to whirl round just to be sure. A rotten, perforated face met his, lip to lip and eye to eye. The emetic reek of rancid flesh and canal water poured through his nose and mouth. Two hands sought his throat and insistent fingers of exposed bone seized the root of his tongue. Had anyone been observing the boat, they might have caught in the darkness a terribly thin figure, with long broken nails and matted hair, slip over the side and slink without a ripple into the waters of the canal. ",[71,72,74],"a",{"href":73},"#note-1","1"," ",[14,77,78,79],{},"Two events were naturally connected but without a posthumous conviction. The first, the eventual removal of Barker’s corpse from his boat after several weeks without anyone noticing, a period during which he freshened up considerably. He seemed to have bitten clean through his tongue and asphixiated on the resultant flesh and flow. The second was, when the canal was unusually low after a particularly hot period during the next year’s August, a woman’s badly decomposed remains were removed from the base of a clump of reeds. They had been weighed down in a sack with several large rocks. Dental records identified her as Mrs Angela Barker. ",[71,80,82],{"href":81},"#note-2","2",[84,85,87],"h3",{"id":86},"footnotes","Footnotes",[89,90,92],"h4",{"id":91},"note-1","Note 1",[14,94,95],{},[20,96,97],{},"This is to show the footnote.",[89,99,101],{"id":100},"note-2","Note 2",[14,103,104],{},"The way to make footnotes is to use the \"link\" feature in the editor then have a  hashtag whatever at the bottom. e.g this one is 2 linked to #note-2",{"title":106,"searchDepth":107,"depth":107,"links":108},"",2,[109],{"id":86,"depth":110,"text":87},3,null,"Barker took the turn much too fast as usual and the wash from his propelller rocked the two boats moored up by the side of the canal. ","md",{},true,"\u002Fstories\u002Fbarker",{"title":118,"description":112},"Barker  file","stories\u002Fbarker",[121],"Spooky","eR95djJUOv_RmBLXj9WNP60f99op9lKVTtwbB8rPHYg",1793724018841]