Reversed Forecast (12 page)

‘Well, it’s not fine now and I’ve only taken one small bet.’

‘Are you sure that’s all you’ve taken?’

‘What?’

She noticed that Jason was blushing. Croft said, ‘You’ve signed on. You should’ve checked the till first. The loss of that money is now your responsibility.’

He pulled on his jacket. ‘I want you properly dressed next time I see you and I want you in on time.’

He strolled out.

As soon as he was gone she turned on Jason. ‘I don’t believe this! He practically called me a thief.’

‘At least he didn’t give you a formal warning.’

‘That isn’t the point. Where’s Dawn?’

‘I dunno. Not here yet.’

‘If I’d been ten minutes later, I’d have missed him too.’

Jason smiled grimly. ‘Knowing your luck, he’d have waited.’

‘Oh yeah?’

She pulled off her sweatshirt and sat down. ‘What bloody luck?’

Already Sarah could smell something strange. Her olfactory senses were incredibly refined. Her gut was stimulated not so much by sight as by sound and by smell. It churned as this new, unexpected aroma entered her nostrils and gained access to her interior. When she inhaled a good or a bad smell she sometimes felt as though she were actually eating it. Aromas were like foods but were less physically complex, like a kind of dispersed matter. When she inhaled them they invaded her, filled her and travelled through her system.

She tried to think of something else. ‘What’s your mother called again?’

‘Brera.’

‘Weird name.’

‘It’s Irish.’

‘Nice name.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Don’t the lifts work?’

‘There aren’t any. It’s only five floors.’

By the fifth floor, Sarah was breathing so heavily that she couldn’t smell anything.

Sam opened the door and ushered Sarah inside. It was dark. They walked down the passageway and into the living-room. Sam was about to switch on the light, but then resisted and strolled over towards the window instead, intending to draw the curtains. She bumped into an armchair. The furniture had been moved around. She grabbed hold of a curtain and was just about to yank it open when she heard Brera’s voice.

‘Leave those.’

She paused.

‘Don’t open the curtains. Sylvia’s on the sofa. She’s had a bad attack.’

Sam squinted around her in the half-light. ‘Well, she’s not there now.’

‘Damn!’

Brera turned and headed towards Sylvia’s bedroom. Earlier she had taken the precaution of locking the door. She tried the handle. It was still locked. She peered into Sam’s bedroom but this room was also empty. She turned towards the bathroom. She tried the door but the bolt inside had been shot across.

‘Sylvia?’

No reply.

‘The window’s jammed in there. You won’t get it open.’

She heard a quiet, scraping noise, like the sound of soft sandpaper against wood. Then she realized that this was actually Sylvia’s voice.

‘I know that.’

‘Come out, then.’

‘Later.’

She could hear the gentle wheezing of Sylvia’s breath.

‘What’re you doing?’

Sylvia’s voice was raw but censorious. ‘I’m having a crap, all right?’

Brera scowled and turned to see Sam and Sarah, standing directly behind her. Sarah was smirking.

‘Who’s this?’

‘Sarah.’

Brera felt ridiculous.

In the kitchen, she filled the kettle, plugged it in and turned it on. ‘She nearly died yesterday.’

This was her excuse.

Sam sat down but said nothing. This irritated Brera, who could still visualize the horror of the day before: Sylvia’s blotchy face and clenched teeth, the
sounds
she made.

Sarah was leaning against the door, one hand on the handle, pushing it up and down. After a while Sam said, ‘She seems fine now.’

Brera dropped her voice: ‘Not really. She can hardly walk. Hardly breathe. I decided it’d be best if we cancelled the photographer. That was all sorted and then Steven phoned last night …’

‘Why are you whispering?’

Brera put a finger to her lips. ‘He phoned last night and said he’d managed to organize a small club tour. Only about ten dates, but it starts almost immediately. Some singer dropped out at the last minute. Irish pubs and clubs. Mainly in the north.’

They all turned as they heard the toilet flush, and, after a short duration, the slow sound of the bathroom door being unbolted.

Sylvia staggered back to the living-room. It took her several minutes. She sat down on the sofa and tried to calm herself. She felt terrible, but this sick feeling, this illness, was paradoxically reassuring. It was simpler than everything else. There was something intimate and familiar about it. She smiled to herself and thought, Sickness is like a boyfriend.

She stopped smiling and frowned. That morning she had awoken and her mind had been full of one thing, one word. The word was
virus
. She couldn’t stop thinking about it. Virus! The idea of it had stuck with her. She thought, Life is about man
battling with the virus. The virus is like a force, but something so simple, so destructive. And man, in all his complexity, can’t beat it. He can’t beat the virus.

The thought of this made her skin crawl, but it made her feel gratified too and strangely calm.

Ruby’s bad start had infected her entire day. She’d argued with several customers, had broken the printing mechanism on her till before the biggest race of the afternoon, had spilled tea over one of Dawn’s magazines and had dropped the sugar bowl on the floor in the kitchen.

As she climbed the stairs up to her flat, the sugar on the soles of her trainers made an irritating gritty noise against the linoleum.

Almost at the landing, she met a neighbour: a small, mousy-haired girl who wore John Lennon glasses and baggy trousers. She was on her way down. She stopped Ruby as she moved past her, taking hold of the sleeve of her sweatshirt: ‘Ruby, is there an animal of some kind in your flat?’

Ruby almost smiled. Vincent, she thought, but said, ‘A dog.’

‘Terry was sniffing around earlier. You’d best get rid of it.’

Terry was the caretaker.

‘Hell. That’s all I need.’

She took out her keys and unlocked the door to her flat. She could hear music inside. She couldn’t place it, though. As she opened the door she listened more attentively.

Vincent was standing in the kitchen wielding a large bread knife.

‘What’re you doing?’

She walked over to the stereo and turned the volume down.

‘Dinner.’ He grinned at her. ‘Watch this.’

He bent down low, disappearing from sight behind the work surface. After several seconds he raised his arm, bringing his right hand into view. On it, cleverly reassembled in macabre puppet form, was the tattered rabbit skin. He bounced it along the counter, waving the rabbit’s paws and nodding its head.

Ruby covered her mouth with her hand. ‘That’s disgusting.’

The rabbit clapped its paws and then bowed.

She felt queasy. ‘Get rid of it. It’s horrible.’

Vincent stood up, the rabbit still covering his hand, and strolled towards her.

She took a step backwards. ‘Keep it away from me.’

She moved behind the armchair.

‘For God’s sake, it’s only a piece of fur.’

She tried to distract him. ‘Where’s the dog?’

‘The rabbit ate her.’

He moved around the armchair. Ruby continued to back away. ‘Is she in the bedroom?’

‘Might be.’

‘Something’s burning.’

‘Onions. They aren’t burning.’

Ruby stepped up against the sofa and then toppled on to it. Vincent bent over towards her, holding the rabbit only inches from her face and clapping its paws together as if intending to grab hold of her nose. She yelled and tried to escape sideways, but Vincent was too quick for her. He grabbed her arm with his free hand and pushed her flat on to the sofa. She struggled, but he held her hips down with his knee and moved his free hand to her shoulder.

‘Get lost!’

Her face was scarlet. She was perfectly serious. Vincent was laughing.

He said, ‘I won’t put it in your face, honestly.’

Instead he pulled up her sweatshirt and stuck the rabbit between her breasts. This time Ruby screamed. She pushed Vincent’s hand and knee away and ripped at her sweatshirt. Vincent rolled off her and on to the floor, roaring.

Ruby could feel the sticky fur and skin of the rabbit against her bare flesh, but she couldn’t bear to pull it out with her hands. Instead she pulled off her sweatshirt and watched disgustedly as the rabbit fell to the floor. Vincent put out his arm to reach for it, but she kicked it away and then kicked him in the stomach.

‘Fuck!’

He grabbed her foot and twisted it, bringing her down heavily
on top of him. He was winded but still gasping with laughter. Ruby tried to scramble to her feet, but he stuck one of her arms behind her back and held it painfully in this position.

Her face was pressed into his shoulder. She bit him in the soft flesh between his shoulder-blade and his armpit. He swore and then tossed her over on to her back and straddled her stomach.

At this point it dawned on him that she was wearing no shirt, only a black bra. Her pale skin underneath it felt like candle wax.

She said, ‘I could really hurt you if I chose to, but I choose not to.’

He laughed. ‘You think so?’

He touched the place where she had bitten him. ‘I bet you pierced the skin.’

She stared at his hand. It was caked with dry blood from the rabbit. He looked at it and smiled. ‘Rabbit blood.’

She wondered whether he intended to lean over and kiss her. She thought, It’d take so little effort to kiss me now. He will kiss me.

But he didn’t. He put his hands on the floor, either side of her, and pushed himself up. She thought, He doesn’t even want to.

She lifted her foot and kicked him squarely between the thighs.

He yelled. His legs buckled and his expression lost all traces of merriment. She scrambled to her feet, pushed him over sideways and used all her weight and strength to hold him down.

His face was pale. She smiled dryly to herself, pinning his arms to the floor with her knees.

Gradually he regained some of his colour. She leaned over him. He opened his eyes and looked into her face. She stared back at him, still holding him down firmly, although he offered no opposition. She moved slowly and deliberately closer to his face and then kissed his nose, his lips. These were small kisses, soft kisses, her lips puckered loosely as though she were about to suck a lychee.

He turned his head away. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t touch me.’

She pulled back.

‘Where’s the dog?’

‘In the bedroom.’

‘Right.’

She stood up and looked around for her sweatshirt. It was slung over the arm of the sofa. She grabbed it and held it to her chest as she walked over to her bedroom. Opening the door, she said, ‘Those onions still smell like they’re burning.’

He sat up. ‘How was work?’

‘I had a terrible day.’

She went into her room. ‘And I’ve got to go out now.’

‘Where?’

He scrambled to his feet and went into the kitchen.

‘To take some photos. I won’t have time to eat.’

‘It’ll keep.’

Scowling, he turned off the oven.

Ruby closed her bedroom door and leaned up against it. She felt sick.

The dog was stretched out on her bed. She opened a lazy eye and perused Ruby with it. Her tail thumped gently against the pillow. Ruby walked to her cupboard and searched for something special to wear. She wanted to look good. She had been insulted.

At the back of her wardrobe was a cotton dress, plainly cut, flattering but not too short. She took it out and inspected it. It was black with a thin white band around the neck and hem.

She pulled it over her head and put her arms through the armholes, but before she pulled it down, she yanked off her trainers and stepped out of her jeans, spat on her hand and rubbed it between her breasts to eliminate any final traces of the rabbit, then adjusted the dress and looked around for a pair of sheer black tights. She found some, checked them for holes and then sat down on the bed to pull them on. As she eased them over her feet and stretched them up her calves she thought, Does he hate me now? Does he think I’m easy?

She hated that word.

Did she like him? She remembered Sunday and the incident with Donald Sheldon. On Sunday I convinced myself that I liked Don Sheldon and I’ve never fancied him.

She stood up and pulled the tights over her bottom and thighs, settling the elastic comfortably around her waist. Would I have had sex with Vincent? Yes? What did he mean, ‘Don’t touch me’? What does that mean?

Shoes.

She searched for a specific pair of high-heeled black shoes. She found them under her bed and slipped them on, then stared down at her feet and thought, How can I fancy him?

All she could think of was that moment, on Saturday, when she had walked into the burger bar and he had been standing by the counter. It was a random moment, but the thought of it seemed to satisfy her in some way - nothing specific about the moment, but the moment itself.

She liked his carelessness.

She marched to the door and opened it. Vincent was leaning against the oven. He hadn’t moved. He stared at her. She felt her insides swelling.

‘What’s up?’ He asked this aggressively, defensively.

She glared at him, not understanding what he meant. She said, ‘I’m in a hurry.’

She turned and went into the bathroom, inspected her face in the mirror and picked up her make-up bag.

Vincent called through from outside. ‘I’ll get the dog ready.’

‘Why?’

‘We’ll come too.’

She didn’t want him to come, but said, ‘The camera stuff is under my bed, in a black case. It’s all there. Get the dog muzzled.’

He popped his head around the bathroom door. ‘I like that dress.’

‘You’re welcome to borrow it.’

She turned back to the mirror and reapplied her lipstick. She thought,
Don’t touch me
? Jesus.