Reversed Forecast (19 page)

She enjoyed this sensation: the coldness of the ice and the warmth of his skin underneath it. She pulled him to her. He still smelled of oranges. She pushed her face on to his neck, into his hair and smelled him properly. What did he really smell of?

She felt his hands on her breasts, her back, but they held no ice now, were simply touching her. She whispered, close to his ear, ‘What do you taste like?’ and took a tentative nibble.

‘Christ!’

He jerked his head away, slapping a hand on to the spot she’d bitten. He checked his fingers to see if she had drawn blood. The expression on her face implied that she had. He frowned at her. ‘That’s dangerous.’

‘You taste like tomatoes.’

He couldn’t help smiling. ‘You’ve still got bean-juice all over your face, it’s probably that you can taste.’

He put out his hand and gently wiped some of the mess from her cheek. She grabbed his fingers and pushed them into her mouth, sucking them, tasting salt and garlic and resin. The feel of her mouth excited him. His trousers felt strange, though, as if prematurely full of creamy semen. He wanted to take them off but was embarrassed by his sudden state of arousal.

She sucked his fingers and then his hand, covering it in speculative licks and nibbles. He was being savaged by an irrepressible toy dog. She ran her nose from his wrist to his armpit, savouring him, chewing at his underarm hair and tasting the nasty bitter taste of his deodorant. She spat and screwed up her face. To quell the taste she grabbed hold of the pat of butter and bit into it. He said, ‘Don’t eat that! It’s butter! Don’t eat butter like that,’ while he tried, at the same time, to pull off his trousers. She watched this and laughed when she saw the head of his penis jutting out from the opening in his boxer shorts. Roughly she shoved him backwards, on to the bed. Her mind was crammed full of buttery things, yellow things, oil and excess.

He lay on the bed, at once hopeful and hopeless. She knocked the remnants of the tray on to the floor, picking up some mushrooms in the process, one of which she pushed into his navel, then straddled him, low down, squatting either side of his knees and staring at his manhood.

She had never seen a penis before and was both fascinated and amused by what she saw. He looked like a pink leek, a radish, a red asparagus. He smelled milky.

His eyes widened as she leaned forward and took the tip of him into her mouth. She said, her mouth now full, ‘You taste like an oyster, like a prawn.’

She was not overly impressed by the taste, but it seemed a natural enough flavour so she pressed down her teeth, ever so slightly. He sat bolt upright - ‘Don’t bite it! Please God!’ - and jerked her head away.

He saw her face, so stupid, so child-like, so full of impulse, and wondered what they were doing, what they could do. At the back of his mind he knew that he would make love with her, if he could, but he didn’t know, couldn’t be sure, that she wouldn’t
change her mind half-way through, get bored or get angry. She wasn’t emotionally consistent.

He pulled her closer to him and touched the redness on her chest and neck, then took her nipple into his mouth as she sat astride him. She pulled it away. ‘That’s my job.’

Is she joking? he wondered.

Her face was serious. ‘If we have sex now …’ she frowned, ‘will it be interesting? Will it taste of anything? I mean, what would we do?’

Even as she spoke, he felt himself diminishing. He said, ‘I suppose the point is that you do it because you want to be close to another person.’

She pulled back slightly and stared at him. His face was covered by his hair, his body was lean. Like the bacon, she thought, not too much fat on it.

She pushed his hair away from his face. Underneath it, his eyes were uncertain. She liked that. She felt herself warming inside, bubbling a little, like milk before it boils. She pushed him gently down again and pulled off his shorts.

This is a real, live, proper man, she thought, delighted.

She pulled the covers over him, as though tucking him up for the night, scooped another mittful of ice-cream from the tub, and then slipped in beside him. She pushed down her creamy hands and took hold of his now somewhat flabby member. He gasped at the coldness of her touch.

‘Where does this go?’ she asked quietly. Then added, ‘Don’t tell me, I’ll guess.’

Where was Sylvia? Out. Already?

Ruby collapsed on the sofa. The dog had been locked inside all day. She’d have to take her out soon. She didn’t move, though.

In the kitchen, Buttercup sat under the table, her nose peeking out between two chairs. Close to the sink was a large puddle of urine. The kitchen smelled strongly of dog.

Ruby surveyed this scene, then squatted down and spoke directly to her: ‘How can I be angry with you?’

The dog stared back at her, blankly.

She pulled out a chair and sat down on it. Her mind was clean and empty.

Steven had booked them into a small hotel within walking distance of the bridge.

At four they’d completed their sound-check in the club. At five they had a light meal in a tiny café, close to the hotel. At six Brera got up to order another pot of tea.

Sam and Steven watched her as she strolled over to the counter.

‘Excited?’

Sam had been staring after Brera, not really concentrating. ‘Pardon?’

‘I asked whether you were excited.’

She shrugged.

‘You’ve been quiet.’

‘Yeah.’ She looked down at her hands.

Sometimes she hated being away from home because things could so easily spin out of proportion. At home everything was balanced by a kind of regularity: possessions, routine, family. But when you were away, stupid, small, tiny impulses, thoughts, notions, could take over and dominate everything. She couldn’t stop thinking about Sarah. About herself and how separate she felt.

Steven was staring at her, as though expecting her to say something.

She said, ‘Did you get to meet my friend Sarah the other day?’

He considered this question for a moment and then shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Why?’

‘No reason.’ Sam focused on his tie - a bright, wide, ugly thing. ‘I just wondered.’

Ruby gazed at the dog.

‘Dog,’ she said eventually, ‘You are not enough.’

She stood up and strolled around the flat. Eventually she arrived outside Sylvia’s door. Inside, when she listened carefully, she could hear a combination of low clucking and cooing, a
deep, meditative humming and a whirring noise. She leaned her body against the door, submerging herself in these sounds. After several minutes she reached inside her jacket pocket and took out a bunch of keys. The metallic jangling that they made and the noise of steel against steel as the key turned in the lock jarred on her nerves. She pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The smell was terrible, but she didn’t mind it. She accepted it. Inside the room were birds, birds, birds. Everywhere, like feathery wallpaper, glued to their perches, silent, watching. In the dusk their faces glowed. It isn’t dusk yet, she told herself; just seems that way.

She walked over to Sylvia’s bed and sat down on it. So many eyes watched her. Why don’t they fly away? she wondered. They should do. But they didn’t.

Something was tickling her. For a moment she thought it was a feather in her nose, in her throat, but then she realized that it was love.
Love
. An infinitely soft fur-ball of enchantment, an amiable, intimate contentment.

She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes. When she’d closed them, she remembered a dream: a bird at her window and the red sky. A thought floated into her head.
All these things go on, and you don’t even notice, but they go on anyway
.

She felt something soft and scratchy on her hand, heard the buzz of tiny wings, the fan of feathers. One by one the birds surrounded her. Some of the smaller ones landed on her arms and chest, balancing on the landscape of her body.

Eventually a small sparrow alighted on her nose. She wanted to laugh and to twitch, but did nothing.

I am so flat, so empty, she thought, and felt suffused with joy.

Connor stroked her cheek, leaning over the bed. She opened her eyes and saw that he was fully dressed. He said, ‘I’m going out now. We’ve got a gig in West London. You’re welcome to come along and listen.’

What is this? she thought. I don’t want anything else from him, apart from what I’ve already had.

She rolled over, sniffing the pillows, appreciating the smell of his hair on the cotton covers. ‘Go. I’ve got things to try.’

He didn’t really want to leave her. Tonight, he decided, I’ll do something by Big Star as an encore, something from
Sister Lovers
.

He said, ‘I’ll dedicate a song to you.’

‘Will you?’ She didn’t sound particularly interested. ‘That’s good.’

She closed her eyes. ‘See you, then.’

What would Sam think of all this? he wondered, and then realized that he didn’t actually care. Sylvia’s indifference amused him. Her passion amazed him. These two things balanced each other.

She heard him leaving the flat. ‘Come and listen’ she thought contemptuously. The fool!

She wanted more than that, and she would have it.

Vincent was icing a cake. Ruby’s tiny kitchen was covered in flour and sugar.

He had decided around lunch-time, in a moment of boredom, that baking Ruby a cake would be almost as good as apologizing. Easier, certainly. He couldn’t really understand what it was that he should apologize for, so the cake served a dual purpose, was an evasion, of sorts.

He told himself, as he baked, that any sort of relationship between himself and Ruby was impossible. The main problem was that he liked her too much. She deserves worse, he decided, someone who cares more about stupid things. Someone who isn’t independent, and who doesn’t respect her.

The stage was small and cramped. As they plugged in their guitars and adjusted their microphones, Sam thought wryly, The problem with being a middle-of-the-road band is that your audiences are middle-of-the-road. She considered this for a second and then decided that a short while ago it wouldn’t have bothered her, but now it did.

They started their first song after a perfunctory introduction from Brera and an even more perfunctory round of applause from the audience.

Sam squinted out, beyond the lights, at the crowd. How many people altogether? she wondered. Sixty? Seventy? Some sat at tables, but the majority milled around over by the bar. Mainly men.

Sam was glad that they had dressed down. She looked over at Brera, who seemed cheerful enough, her cheeks slightly pink, her mouth singing and smiling. The light that shone on them - two spotlights from above - was filled by swirls of cigarette smoke, as though all the cigarette smoke in the entire place was funnelled into these two bright tunnels. Sam tried to make this halo of light, this nimbus, the edge of her consciousness. She didn’t want to see beyond it. She felt as though her mind was programmed to transfer everything before her into nastiness, obscenity and ugliness. She tried to tell herself, But it’s my mind that does that. It isn’t actually the case, it’s only me.

She strummed vigorously on her guitar and harmonized.

The next song started. What we’re doing … she thought, it
is
right.

She glanced over at Brera again and Brera caught her eye and grinned. But in glancing, she caught several other eyes. Some people, close to the front, were watching her intently, their eyes cutting into her.

She peered down at her guitar, focusing on her fingers, imagining for an instant that her hands were strumming not the instrument but her own body: calming her, relaxing her.

I’ve never been afraid of performing before, she thought, and then, seconds later: At least, not of being watched. I don’t mind people staring. People always stare.

She looked up and out at these people, stared back, but it didn’t feel right. It felt as if she were offering an invitation. It felt promiscuous, like responding cheaply to a cheap proposition. She focused on the stage, at a space just in front of her feet.

The point of a performance, she told herself, is that you have to be secure in your own world. You have to show the audience your world, your confidence, your self-containment, and they should appreciate it. They should respect it.

But what was her world? Who was she? She was different. No wonder they stared. The only black woman here.

The song ended and several people clapped. Brera leaned over and said, ‘Let’s do something light, something funny. This lot could do with cheering up.’

‘No.’ Sam pointed with her foot at their song list, which was stuck to the bottom of an amp. ‘Let’s stick with it.’

After a short pause they started to play again.

She’s really trying, Sam thought desperately; I can’t let her down.

She looked up, focused her eyes and tried to smile. She caught the gaze of one man, standing close to the bar, and realized that he was staring at her breasts. Only at her breasts.

He knows that I’m here with my mother, she thought primly, and it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference.

In that instant she doubted everything that she had previously established, in her mind, about the two of them: the show, the act - two women, a mother and a child, taking a stand. Ideas don’t translate into life, she thought. Marxism, monetarism, conservatism, communism, feminism. Things can’t translate because people are stupid. They won’t believe.

She stared at the man by the bar and tried to communicate her anger, her sudden hatred. But he didn’t notice
her
, only her body. She sang automatically, she played automatically, but all the while, inside her, a private mantra repeated itself.
I have to carry on. I have to carry on
.

This was Sarah’s fault. She knew it. Why am I so bloody suggestible all of a sudden? How can I let her get the better of me?

I have to carry on
.

It felt to Sam as though her mind had opened up, like a flower. It was a strange and terrifying sensation. Usually her mind was closed, had one small door and a door-keeper who carefully selected the things that would be let in and the things that would be left out. But suddenly the door was wide open, and the supporting frames were cracking, crumbling, letting in more and more light, more and more air. And
people
.