- guardian.co.uk, Sunday August 14 1994 04.36 BST
- The Observer, Sunday August 14 1994
(Faber, £9.99 paperback)
The tale of Bird Woman and Dog Woman, Reserved Forecast, has the ingredients of a capital fairy tale. Pale, anarchic creatures rattle around hung-over patches of London, staking their all in a series of dubious wagers.
Sylvia nests with the pigeons in Hackney, composing fluttery, tuneless songs for her mother Breda and sister Sam's variety act, but unable to follow them into the outside world.
Ruby, earth-bound in the armpit of Soho, slaves in a betting shop and longs to be a grande dame of the dog track. A softer touch than any devoted mongrel, she insists on rescuing drunks in shop doorways, sinks her life savings into a loser and goes into the red to buy a greyhound that doesn't like racing.
The story's like the animal: a slow starter, its humour, playfulness and mystical qualities muzzled by over-explanation. There's a lecture on the mechanics of dog racing, but none of the flavour of the track, although Barker obviously knows and loves the races as well as she knows Hackney. Fortunately, her first novel is capable of winning spurts with flights of fantasy that make the best use of her weird characters. This London is well trodden in, lit up in quirky miracles like Ruby's 'glorious plague' of horses in early-morning Oxford Street and the gorgeous Sam's erotic gambles at the seedier music venues.
Dog Woman and Bird Woman are linked by more than the number 6 bus. Rugby's ex-lover Steven is Breda and Sam's manager, desperate to remove the taint of pigeon shit from the 'Goldhawk Girls' and keep Sylvia's performance as a citified canary the family secret.
Bird Woman's role is hampered by a chronic allergy to feathers but she incorporates physical collapse into her act, helping it along by denying herself food and fresh air. Barker elevates asthma and ezcema to art forms, monitoring every gasp, wheeze, blotch and twitch with more excitement than she ever lavishes on Dog Woman, who knows no health hazards except compulsive caring and dodgy takeaways.
When Bird Woman breaks out of the cage, the results are more explosive than any of Sam's antics. But over-explanation intrudes again - surely we don't need to be told '(Sylvia) wasn't emotionally consistent'? The next runner should be let off the leash earlier.
