Green Girl (18 page)

I am miserable, Ruth. This weather—so bad. I hate it so much. Quick gulp of smoke and blow out of air. It’s so fucking dark and cold. This shit cold is killing me. I miss the beach I miss the sun I miss light and life, you know?

It hasn’t even snowed, Ruth sighs the chorus.

Snow? No, that would be beautiful. That would be white and it would settle somewhere and would be beautiful. No, this is just gray. His face twists elegantly digesting the smoke. This is death. I am going to die here, Ruth. A twist more of pathos. Ruth laughs. You are so melodramatic, she tells him.

He flutters his hand against his forehead. I miss Italy so much. Like a lover.

Do you miss the States? The Italian asks her.

What a question. No. Too quick an answer. Then she thinks about it, licking the tip of her browning filter. Not really. Not the country. Maybe some people inside the country. But the mass of land, no, I do not miss.

But your president you miss? He could just never forgive her for being an American. She would always be to him his American friend. Like an exotic pet.

Oh yes, desperately. She shoots him daggers punctuated by a sigh. He laughs. He continues to goad her. This was his favorite routine.

But you voted for him, no?

No, I told you, I didn’t vote. They had had this same conversation many times.

But that is unforgivable, no? That is the same as inviting him into your bed.

I’ve invited worse. She is playing tough-talker. A modern-day Veronica Lake.

Ugghh. That’s disgusting. I would not fuck your monkey of a president for one million pounds. Such a macho cowboy murderer. The Italian got as heated talking about politics as talking about the weather. Now your Bill Clinton, that’s another story.

How about Blair? The Italian thinks about it, shrugging, a reluctant, teasing smile. Maybe. For one million.

Ewww. Those ears. Ruth erupts into giggles.

The horrible head pops his head out, a tanned mask of disgust. He hated the smokers. Thought their need for breaks a weakness not fitting of the Horrids employ. As he turned his head around The Italian flicks his dead cigarette in his direction, an impotent gesture of revolt.

How about him? She nods at the back of the horrible head, while hurriedly finishing her cigarette, twisting her foot on its broken back.

The Italian groans. Not for all the money in the world. You?

Ruth mock-considers this. I don’t know. There’s something about a powerful man that’s very sexy.

You find him sexy? The Italian, incredulous.

I didn’t say that. But people are quite different when they’ve taken off their business suit.

You would have to be on top. The Italian mimes his large stomach.

Are you kidding? I would insist on it.

Strutting in like they own the place, still in hysterics, much to the puzzlement of the wooden English everyone else around them.

She began to work the till more. She enjoyed working the till, although that meant she had to interact with people more often. It was easier if she played a part.

Next please. Next please.

She liked handling the bank notes, almost like playing with pastel paper money. At the cling of the cash drawer the Queens staring haughtily in succession. Blue-green queen, orange, pink-purple. Ringlets, tiara and stern expression. Once in a while Ruth would turn one over as if to disobey.

She enjoyed watching customers sign their names on their credit card slips. Those carefully rehearsed scrawls of identity. Some pens swoop in from the left, thick fingers clutching on. Some signatures look as mysterious as writing in the air before the smoke clears and the outline can be deciphered. Others reveal the subconscious cement of elementary school, the careful curlicue unable to be freed, even if the writer of the childish signature has taken drugs, gone to bed with numerous people, entertained generally illicit and immoral thoughts, all to rid themselves of the spectre of good penmanship.

She admired the women’s handsome leather wallets, metal clasps sprung open to reveal credit cards and coins of gold. Their glossy nails made her embarrassed of her rough palms, her now ragged edges.

After an eternal shift Ruth walks home in gloom. The busker with the kung-fu mustache played an off-key “Auld Lang Syne.” May all acquaintance be forgot, and never come to mind.

She thinks about HIM, HE who always occupies her thoughts in the complex of her mind, HE who has ruined her for all men who might come after, HE whom she obsesses over.

I need to forget you. I need you to release me. We’ll be shadows to each other from now on, shadows of a former life. A shadow bears no scars.

The way home, the night is so clear, Ruth can see the tops of buildings she didn’t know existed. So clear she can almost make out the smooth ornament of the Gherkin off in the distance when exiting the station, a glistening window-paned egg. 40p man still nowhere to be seen. Turning towards the market, snow began to fall, thin belts of fluff. It’s snowing! A girl yells into her mobile. Spitalfields Church glowed like a phantom dog on its haunches.

Agnes is not home again. Ruth lies on her mattress. She plays dead and tries to ignore the sounds outside, the terribleness and teem of holiday-makers pouring down the street, loose with drink and an arrogant conviction that there is nothing else going on in that corner of the world besides their celebrations, no one trying to sleep, no dark nights of the soul.

Will you please just give me 40 bloody p? 40 p man was back like a vengeful ghost. Lately he had become irate, a wildly circulating dirt storm. Ruth didn’t know what propelled this suddenly violent need (or maybe she did) but she began walking down other side streets when she glimpsed his shadow.

I’m talking to you.

Don’t you dare ignore me.

Don’t you dare ignore me.

We’d often go to the movies. We’d shiver as the screen lit up. But more often, Madeleine and I would be disappointed. More often we’d be disappointed. The images flickered. Marilyn Monroe looked terribly old. It saddened us. It wasn’t the film we had dreamed, the film we all carried in our hearts, the film we wanted to make...and secretly wanted to live.

— Jean-Luc Godard’s
Masculin féminin

A celebrity was coming to preside over the Horrids after-holiday sale. It had been announced in all of the papers. SHE is an American television actress. The show SHE is on is popular over here too.

Ruth had often seen HER face peering at her from newsagents, along with the rest of HER body, clothed only in lingerie and arranged in a seductive manner on the covers of lads’ magazines. With a look that reads
I want you but you can’t afford me.

Of course one cannot touch HER because she is a celebrity, a distant deity, a star. Stars are meant to show us how dull and dirty our lives are by comparison. And yet we want to be near THEM, be near their glowing light, their solar power. We are invisible yet THEY are highly visible. THEY are a known known, and we are an unknown unknown, sometimes even to ourselves.

All are waiting breathless with anticipation for HER arrival. It will be fan-demonium. It is like royalty is coming. Royalty IS coming—for SHE is a star, and SHE was gracing them with her presence.

It was all anyone could talk about for the preceding days. Oh, I just love HER says The Italian. They gossip about HER personal life, which they know intimately, after reading HER life story spelled out in all of the tabloids, who SHE dated, who SHE bedded, what kind of lipstick SHE uses.

They cleaned and cleaned for HER arrival. They made everything sparkly and shiny and bright.

They lay in wait. There are cameras and press salivating to document HER every rehearsed move. It is a feeding frenzy. They feed on celebrity. Everyone is beside themselves. Celebrity is a drug we take, only afterwards we realize we are ugly and no one loves us. We are deadened by these images, flattened into insignificance. Yet we will get down on our knees and worship HER, for SHE is beautiful and famous and hence very special in the universe.

There is a different feeling to the room. SHE is about to arrive. SHE has arrived. SHE does not disappoint, unlike ourselves and other people in our lives, who disappoint us all the time. SHE arrives in a horse and carriage. All the accompanying livery. SHE is wearing an all-white pantsuit, a very expensive designer no doubt. SHE is tinier than she appears on TV yet has a large head, which is the key to telegenic success. SHE is a vision, a vision of perfection, HER hair out of a shampoo commercial, HER face out of a cosmetics ad. We see HER face when SHE takes off HER designer Gucci sunglasses. Which are very different from Ruth’s sunglasses, which look like movie star sunglasses but are cheap and plastic and from Topshop. It is hot in the sun of celebrity, what with all of the adoring eyes and the camera flashes. That is why so many Hollywood celebrities are tan.

SHE enters with HER arm tucked into the arm of the horrible head. Everyone parts for HER, for the white orb of light. SHE waves, SHE giggles something indistinct into the horrible head’s ear, he pats HER hand reassuringly. SHE poses for a few pictures. SHE leaves. That is all. And when SHE leaves everyone sighs and goes back to their ordinary lives and feels somewhat emptier, slinking past their mirror images, unsure of how to put together the puzzle pieces to make themselves feel whole.

When Ruth witnesses the grand entrance of the television actress, for just a brief flicker she imagines herself amidst the spectacle. It is RUTH who is on the arm of the horrible head. RUTH graciously signing her name to a row of grasping hands, nameless faces. It is RUTH who is wanted. RUTH who is adored. It is the curve of RUTH’s face that is memorized, that is known.

The world diagnoses her as being young and lovely and a tad mysterious. She is elusive, playful, a cipher. She knows how to be stared at. She sits in cafes, in trains, and lets the gaze of the world bathe her. She turns her neck from side to side for a different view.