Ruby agreed that the money would be useful. ‘But the problem is …’ She cleared her throat. ‘The real problem is that you don’t even know me and I don’t even know Sylvia.’
Brera shrugged. ‘I think we could trust you. Sylvia’s an adult. She doesn’t need constant attention.’
Ruby felt as though Sam and Brera presumed some kind of
awareness on her part about Sylvia’s particular circumstances, but in fact she couldn’t make any sense at all of the situation. Her brain was swamped with images - her own inky, blue tattoo; a retchingly acrid smell that pervaded every corner of the flat; Sylvia herself, white, acerbic, wheezing; the dark rooms; the nebulizer.
‘I don’t know.’
‘We’re near the track,’ Sam offered helpfully.
‘True.’
She didn’t know whether to tell them that she worked full-time, just in case Steven had told them something himself that she’d be obliged to contradict. Eventually she said, ‘How about you discuss this with Steven first?’
Brera nodded. ‘We’d have to ask him for some kind of reference.’
They were still in the kitchen, three of them now, sitting around the table. Ruby stood up and placed her mug in the sink. ‘You could get Steven to ring me later. You could mention the idea to Sylvia as well and see how she reacts.’
Vincent came in, holding the dog by her collar. ‘I just took her out for a pee.’
‘We’re going now, anyway.’
Sam stood up too. ‘Where’s Sarah?’
He grabbed the dog’s lead. ‘I heard her talking to your sister.’
Sam had been smiling, but her smile disappeared. She was starting to wish she’d kept Sarah all to herself. Connor, it turned out, could be right about some things.
Sarah pulled up a chair next to the sofa. Sylvia was under her blanket.
‘Hi. I’m Sarah, Sam’s friend. We haven’t been properly introduced yet. I saw you earlier.’
Sylvia didn’t reply.
‘I heard you chatting to Vincent just now.’
Nothing.
Sarah thought Sylvia was just like a child. If you wanted her to do something, she wouldn’t do it. She was simply contrary. This
was her way of asserting herself. She wouldn’t conform. She was outside things. Sarah understood this, wanted to let Sylvia know that she understood. She started talking. And she talked.
‘I read
The Female Eunuch
years ago, and when I got to the part about feeling pride in your own femininity, I discovered something very disturbing about myself.’
Silence.
‘Greer said that if you aren’t ashamed of being a woman, then it should be possible to dip your finger into your vagina, during your period, to immerse your finger in menstrual blood and then to put that finger into your mouth without any feelings of disgust.’
Nothing.
‘I tried it. I tried it, but I just couldn’t do it. I tried for years, every month, and each time I failed I felt so bloody guilty.’
Sylvia shifted under the blanket. Sarah noticed and took this to be a positive sign.
‘Then it dawned on me that the only reason I felt disgusted was because of a natural fastidiousness. I suddenly thought, How the hell does Greer get off on telling me how to feel about my sense of self? I know how I feel.’
Under the blanket Sylvia put a furtive hand between her legs.
‘Setting tests is a kind of masculine construct. If something doesn’t come naturally, then, quite simply, it isn’t natural.’
Sylvia drew back her blankets and, in the darkness, held something aloft between her finger and thumb. Sarah squinted through the half-light and saw that Sylvia was holding a used tampon, dangling it by its string as though it were a small, live mouse.
Sarah felt her gorge rise. Sylvia stuck the tampon between her teeth - like a short, fat, pink cheroot - closed her lips and sucked.
Sarah could hear the cotton wool squeaking against her teeth.
Ruby was locked in her bathroom, bathed in a red light, developing the photographs. Outside she could hear Vincent clattering around.
They’d begun arguing on the bus during the ride home. She’d
made the mistake of mentioning Brera’s scheme to him. She hadn’t thought it would prove all that contentious. It wasn’t as though he even appeared to have any kind of objection to the scheme itself. At one point, though, when she’d said, ‘Maybe one day I’ll get to rent a proper house with a garden and all that stuff,’ he’d said, ‘You’re a shithead.’
‘Thanks.’
Vincent and the dog were on the sofa together, watching television, when Ruby finally emerged from the bathroom, smelling of chemicals.
‘D’you want to see the pictures?’
He put out his hand. She passed one copy of each of the prints to him.
Something smelled good in the kitchen. She walked over and peered into a pan on the stove. ‘What’s this?’
‘It’s probably ruined by now.’
‘Can I have some?’
Vincent held up one of the prints. ‘I’ve been thinking about money.’
‘What?’ She had expected a comment on the quality of her work.
‘I said …’ He perused the print as he held it aloft. ‘Brera’s eyes are skew.’
‘Are they?’
Ruby walked across and peered at the photo over his shoulder. ‘It’s just that she’s singing and focusing on the camera at the same time. Sam looks fantastic. Those lashes.’
‘She’s like a racehorse.’
‘How’s that?’
‘A painting in the National Gallery.’
She grinned. ‘Very poetic.’
He handed back the pictures. She slid them carefully into an envelope.
‘You could make some money you know, get the money you need for the dog, and you wouldn’t even have to do anything.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Sit down.’
She sat on the sofa, pushing the dog’s legs over, lifting them and arranging them across her lap.
‘Shall I give you some advice?’
Blue, blue eyes, he had. She frowned. ‘Is it sensible to take advice from someone who doesn’t give a damn about anything?’
‘Yes, if it’s good advice.’
And the funny thing is, she thought, I know exactly what kind of advice it will be.
The dog’s nose was touching his thigh. This meant that the two of them were touching, were linked, indirectly.
‘You handle a fortune every day. And if you think about it, it isn’t even as though the money belongs anywhere.’
‘It doesn’t belong to me, that’s for sure.’
‘You owe a fair amount.’
She knew this. And that he owed her.
‘You are owed,’ he said, with great certainty.
‘So what?’
‘Listen to me.’ He leaned closer. ‘Between the two of us we could make money without actually even taking anything.’
She was so tired, all of a sudden.
He outlined his plan.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s stupid.’
‘It’s not stupid.’
‘No.’
He had rejected her, that afternoon, in this very room. She would deny him whatever she could. For any reason. She would deny him.
Sylvia stood by the window. The curtains closed behind her.
Where do thoughts go? she wondered. They travel, in your voice, out of your body, in waves, into other people’s ears. She breathed on the glass. Where do they start? A circuit connecting? With an electric buzz? A chemical reaction?
She pushed at the glass. Still weak. It wouldn’t open. Sam had opened it, the day before, effortlessly. Would she smash it? She thought that she might, she considered doing it, but she didn’t.
A small bird on a telephone wire. Something travelled through his feet. He vibrated. She filled him with her thoughts, and his body contained, so perfectly, the contents of her mind.
Off he flew.
He saw things. He saw the city from above and from below. He saw trees, small, like pieces of broccoli; a blade of grass, big as, bigger than, himself. A worm, on concrete. It would curl up in his stomach.
He saw many things, and many of the things he saw meant nothing: a succession of images, only registered in his tiny brain, photographed but not digested.
Each day - she saw it clearly now - so little could happen. Each day, each person, every person, yearning for only one thing. To own, to love, to keep, to do, to forget, to try.
In Soho. Do it. I will not. Do it. I will not. A pattern, like the beat of a clock, a heart. Tick
tick
, tick
tick
, tick
tick
, tick
tick
.
Sam’s mind, full of Sarah. Connor’s mind, full of Sam. Brera’s mind, full of Sylvia. Sylvia’s mind, contained so easily, flying above the city.
What the hell had happened? A day of nagging, an ugly, pointless, driven, aimless time. He didn’t want to think about it. Solid things. That was better. Something solid. Thursday. Yes. Bateman Street. Yes. Ladbrokes.
He was sitting on a small, red plastic stool. He was watching the television screen. How was he feeling? Defeated? Frustrated? There was no answer to that. He wouldn’t provide an answer.
Ruby. She had refused him. He worried that she lacked understanding, and therefore, as a consequence, that she also lacked imagination. She’s deceptive, he thought. She looks like she doesn’t care, she lives like she doesn’t care, but she does care. She does. He couldn’t deny that he liked her strength, but her goodness?
On the screen appeared a list of the runners for the two o’clock at Hackney.
Was it goodness or was it just stupidity? No, not stupidity, worse than that. Conservatism.
He had wanted to go to the track with her, but he wouldn’t admit it. He had been forced to argue with her instead, which, everything considered, was for the best.
He had been hoping for an outside trap for Buttercup: four, five or even six, but he saw immediately that she had been drawn in trap three. He felt around in his pockets and pulled out a handful of notes. He stared at the list of runners, trying to understand the odds. Buttercup was out at twenty-five to one. The favourite, a bitch called Karen’s Special, was the four-to-five odds-on favourite. The commentator for the race was saying how she’d been dropped a grade because she’d just come out of season, so she was running well below her class. She was usually a railer, but was drawn in trap four.
‘Right.’
The notes he was clutching had been removed that morning from Ruby’s coffee jar. This was his revenge. He reached for a pen and was still scribbling on his slip when the commentator introduced a visual survey of the animals in the race. Six small figures led six tiny dogs in coloured jackets out on to the track. He saw Ruby immediately, saw, even from this great distance, that her jacket was ill-fitting - too large, greyish - and that her hair shone out like a clump of flossy white cotton. He found himself grinning.
He watched intently as each dog was paraded in front of the camera. Ruby was third. Her expression was serious as she posed Buttercup and encouraged her to stand straight, side-on, to her best advantage. The dog’s tail, Vincent was pleased to note, wagged cheerily. Ruby did not look at her best on screen. In fact she looked rough - her expression tired, almost grim, and her face heavily made-up, especially her eyes, which looked too dark somehow, too hooded.
Vincent peered around him at the other punters. Most of them were staring into space, writing on their slips or inspecting their papers. He felt a tightness in his chest. This isn’t sex, he told himself, refusing to even consider the word
affection
; not sex, only excitement.
Ruby had moved on and the favourite was now showing: a lean, slight, brindle bitch.
He picked up a pen and completed his slip. Trap four. A practical choice, a sensible gamble, free of sentiment. He visited the counter and returned to his stool.
On the screen the dogs were being loaded. Ruby, he noticed, was chatting to the person handling the dog next to her and smiling. What was she saying? Did she think she’d win? What was she thinking?
He listened to the whistle of the mechanical hare.
‘Hello.’
Toro stood beside him, eating a doughnut.
‘Hang on.’
The hare whizzed past the traps and at that same instant the
traps opened. Vincent’s eyes were glued to the third trap. Buttercup sprang out.
‘Yes!’
She shot out of the trap like a bullet and veered immediately towards the hare, smashing full-on into the dog to her right. This dog (the favourite) rolled twice and pushed into the dog from the fifth trap who had come out more slowly. Buttercup stumbled, found her feet and ran on, but was then cut out of the picture as the camera followed and focused on the leading dogs from traps one, two and six, who had come out unhindered.
Vincent jerked his head sideways as though endeavouring to see beyond the screen, beyond what the camera would show.
Traps one and two were running close to the rails, six was in the picture but running wide. By the third bend, six had fallen back and Buttercup had inched her way into view, running in enormous, exhaustive bounds, on the outside, eventually running close to the six dog and then overtaking him.
‘Yes!’
Vincent bounced up from his stool, forgetting about his bet, thinking only about Buttercup. ‘Go on, you silly bitch!’
He was so intent on watching Buttercup’s progress, her every move, her every stride, that he failed to notice as the number one dog ran across the finishing line, followed closely by trap two.
The race was over. The hare stopped.
He looked down at his slip. ‘That was quick.’
Toro put out his hand for the slip, but Vincent screwed it up and threw it at one of the television screens.
‘Forget it. Come on.’ He took hold of Toro’s arm. ‘Let’s get drunk.’
Stan bent over and ran his hands down the dog’s back, her rump and hocks. ‘Seems OK. We’re in seven kinds of shit, though.’
Ruby was patting Buttercup, was so proud of her. The dog was still jerky, panting, trembling.
‘Did one of the other dogs get hurt in the tumble?’
He shrugged. ‘I dunno. That’s not our main problem. Our problem is the racing manager. He’ll have to explain why an
obvious wide runner got drawn in trap three. It’s his responsibility. The punters’ll be fuming, and if it looks bad for him, then it looks bad for you.’
‘But it’s …’
‘His fault. Yeah, but that won’t make him feel any better. It’s not as though he’s had any indication from her previous form.’
‘No.’
‘He might scratch her.’
Ruby’s jaw dropped. ‘He can’t do that. She came third.’
She towered above Stan. He was a withered four foot nine, hunched and red-nosed. She waited for him to say something. The dog was sitting down now, panting, her paws still hot.
‘Don lost a lot of money recently.’
‘What?’
‘Gambling. He lost a load gambling, so he sold a good dog from the kennels, and unloaded this bitch on you.’
‘Well, he can’t have been that desperate. I haven’t even paid him yet.’
‘Exactly.’
He gazed down at the dog.
Connor was in his bedroom practising on his drums and keeping up a frenetic, repetitive, hardcore beat. He stopped for an instant, flipped a drumstick into the air, caught it, and then commenced with another song. He laughed out loud, relishing the noise he was making, the tension he was releasing.
Tension?
Am I tense? Just thinking about it made him stiffen up even further, although his arms kept on banging and tapping and whipping.
Am I tense?
He was desperate to communicate with Sam. She’d been out of contact for … he counted the hours in time with each beat … fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, fifty-four hours. He continued drumming, noticing how his heart had started to pump in time. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Too quick, too
speedy, too swift. He was warm, not warm, hot, not hot, wet. His head was wet.
I want to stop drumming but I can’t. It was too loud, too fast. Sarah will think … two, three, four. What would Sarah think? He didn’t give a damn what Sarah thought.
He felt as though his heart was beating so rapidly now that it was actually faster than the drums: double-time. His head began to feel light, soft and airy.
Calm down, calm down, two, three, four.
Sarah flung open his bedroom door. She had knocked twice but he hadn’t heard.
‘Would you give it a rest for a while? My head’s splitting.’
He stopped immediately, was almost grateful to her.
She glanced at his face. ‘You look terrible. As white as a sheet.’
He said nothing. She disappeared. He sat still, stared at the drumsticks in his hands, debated whether to start up again, but couldn’t face it. He was wound up like a watch. His palms were damp. He needed to unwind.
He stood up, stepped carefully away from the kit and walked into the living-room. Sarah was in her bedroom. He could hear her hairdrier. She can’t listen, he thought. He picked up the phone.
Sylvia never answered the phone. She lay on the sofa as it rang. She didn’t even bother considering who it could be. She didn’t know anybody.
Brera and Sam were out shopping. Again. She stared around the dark room. So this is how it’s going to be from now on? She smiled to herself.
The telephone continued to ring. She sucked her teeth.
Connor was so shocked when someone answered that he actually dropped the receiver. He picked it up in time to hear a voice say, ‘No one rings for this long.’
‘It’s me, Connor.’
‘Who?’ She knew perfectly well who he was.
‘I’m a friend of Sam’s. Is she there?’
Sylvia put down the phone and walked to the bathroom. She washed her hands, noting how much her eczema had improved over the past couple of days. She returned to the living-room and sat down on the sofa. Connor’s voice vibrated in tiny soundwaves through the air. Eventually she stood up and strolled back over.
‘Look, I’m tired.’
‘Where have you been?’
‘Why?’
‘I just wondered.’
Sylvia debated whether to answer this and then said, ‘I’m locked in.’
‘You are?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you all right?’
She grinned to herself. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
Connor scowled. ‘What are you doing?’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Look, this is silly.’
‘Silly?’ She smirked. ‘Well, you’re paying, stupid.’
‘Will he be gone all night?’ Ruby asked, feeling relieved, but also defeated.
Toro was drunk, leaning against Ruby’s doorframe and emitting yeasty belches. He shrugged.
‘Where is he?’
He shrugged.
‘Fine.’
She slammed the door and then opened it again. ‘Don’t you have any idea?’
He shook his head.
‘Didn’t he even give you a message for me?’
‘I gave it to you.’
Ruby watched as he turned and staggered downstairs, hanging on to the banister for support. She closed the door and sat
down on the sofa again. The dog was asleep in her bedroom, but the flat still felt empty.
‘Bastard.’ Her voice sounded ludicrously small.
She wanted a drink. A lager. She was peckish. A kebab. She stood up, went into the kitchen, opened the cupboard and took out her coffee jar. She took off the lid and peered inside. No money. What had he done with it?
She wasn’t so much angry as hungry. She put down the jar and looked around for Vincent’s rucksack. It was still on the floor next to the sofa. She frowned. Did I really think he’d gone? He wouldn’t go like that.
She picked some mould off a piece of bread and put it in the toaster.
Two hours later they were still on the phone. Nothing real or significant, in conversational terms, had been achieved during this time. Connor had tried, on several occasions, to turn the subject of their conversation around to topics closer to his heart, but such attempts had proved futile. He said, ‘About Sam …’
Sylvia cleared her throat and then cleared it again. Her throat never felt fully clear. After clearing her throat for a third time she said, ‘My sister.’
‘Yes.’
Connor hoped that Sylvia wouldn’t go off at a tangent again. He was sick of the virus. She’d told him all about it. At inordinate length. Having a conversation with Sylvia was like blowing an egg. All the time you did it you could only think what a waste of energy it was, and sometimes the pin holes at either end would collapse and the overall effect would be entirely ruined.
Sylvia knew perfectly well that Connor only wanted to speak to her because he couldn’t speak to Sam. She was obstructing him. It has also occurred to her that it was possible to do just about anything on the phone without the person at the other end having the slightest inkling. She considered some of the things that it would be possible to do and tried a few of them.
‘About Sam …’
Sylvia didn’t respond. She was inspecting the hair under her right arm while holding the phone slackly in her left.
‘Is she busy at the moment?’
‘How should I know?’
‘Sarah told me …’
‘Fuck her.’
‘Who, Sarah?’
‘Fuck her.’
‘Sarah?’
‘Fuck her.’
‘I was told that Sam and Brera had several gigs lined up.’ He’d tried to inject some enthusiasm into his voice.
‘Ha!’ Sylvia laughed and then coughed.
‘What’s so funny?’
She had just been sniffing the hair under her arm. She sniffed it again - deeply, fully - and inhaled the strong, pungent smell of old sweat. It was a horrible and yet a delicious smell.
Connor was still talking: ‘I don’t suppose you’d mind mentioning to her …’
Sylvia said, half to herself, ‘Why did I put my nose there?’
‘What?’
‘Smell. I never noticed.’
‘What?’
She stared around the room, looking for things that were aromatic. She put down the phone and muttered, ‘If I didn’t notice, maybe I couldn’t. If I couldn’t, then why did I put my nose under my arm?’
Connor sensed that all was not well at the other end. He could hear a selection of distant squawks and muffled thumps. He debated whether to hang up. Why am I speaking to this girl? Am I that fucked up over Sam?
On Tuesday when Sarah had returned home from Hackney she’d asked, ‘Have you met Sylvia before?’
‘Why?’
‘Because she’s a barbarian.’
‘You don’t like her?’
‘She’s like a big, brown, hairy man. She even speaks like a man.’
Connor had tried to imagine Sylvia as a man. He imagined Sam, but masculine. He liked the idea. Yet when he spoke to Sylvia, she didn’t sound like a man at all, more like an old woman: stroppy, strained, dithering.
He wouldn’t hang up. No. He held on.