In fact Brera thought Sam slept around too much. She couldnt understand her daughters promiscuity. Sam had ideas about things which she was forever discussing. Brera acknowledged the ideas but ignored them. She thought, Sam needs to need a man. She just doesnt know it yet.
Sam and Connor arrived at the Hackney flat shortly after midday on Sunday. Although Brera sometimes found the situation with Sylvia difficult where strangers were concerned, Sam was entirely devoid of any sense of embarrassment. She had explained the situation fully to Connor shortly after their first night together. He had been confused but intrigued. He remained intrigued as Sam unlocked the door to the flat and invited him inside. The smell was pungent but tolerable. Hed had an aunt who kept chickens. It was comparable.
Brera was sitting on the living-room sofa watching The Waltons. She smiled up at them when they came in. Hi, she said, Ill make you both something to eat when this finishes.
Connor had been told that Brera was Irish, but, even so, was unprepared for her pinkness, her whiteness, the red of her hair. Sam was so different. And her sister? How many colours in one family? What did it mean? It had to mean something.
Sam linked her arm through Connors and led him to her bedroom. She closed the door, pushed him up against it and put her arms around his neck. They kissed. She slid a hand under his T-shirt. He pulled away. The house seems so quiet.
You want some music on?
Connor could hear someone coughing. He looked around the room, which was small but colourful. Above the bed was a large poster of the Judds. He walked over to it. I guess the Judds must be a big influence on you. The mother-and-daughter thing. The mother is really beautiful. They could be sisters.
He sat down on Sams bed. Sam took off her jumper and her shoes. She put them in a small wardrobe next to the door.
I love the Judds, but sometimes I think theyre a little bit too perfect, too polished.
She bent down and pressed the play button on her tape recorder.
Connor frowned, failing to recognize the music. Who is this?
Before Sam could answer, Brera had pushed open the door and had carried in a tray with two cups of tea and a plate of sandwiches. She said, Its Laverne Baker. Jackie Wilsons in the background. I hope you like garlic cheese.
Connor was too surprised to respond. Sam looked unruffled. She put out her hands to take the tray.
Brera walked back towards the door. Steven phoned. He said hed lined up a photographer for Tuesday.
Sam offered Connor his mug of tea. That was quick.
Brera nodded and closed the door behind her.
Whos Steven?
Sam picked up one of the sandwiches. Our new manager. We only met him yesterday.
You didnt tell me you were getting a manager.
Mum likes him. Hes OK.
Connor put down his mug and lay back on the bed. He stared up at the ceiling. Shes so bloody secretive, he thought. Saves secrets like sweets. Eats them in private.
Sam moved to the end of the bed and pulled off his boots. He looked around the room again from his new vantage point and then held out his arms to her. Lets get this over with before your mother comes back in with lemonade and biscuits.
Brera knocked on Sylvias door and waited for her to answer. After a minute or so and a certain amount of scuffling and fluttering, Sylvia opened the door several inches and peered out.
What?
Brera offered her a mug of tea and a plate of sandwiches. Sylvia slid her hand through the crack and took the tea. Im not hungry.
You should eat. I havent even seen you since yesterday night when you went out. Where did you go?
Nowhere.
Brera resisted the temptation to shove her foot into the crack in the door. Instead she said quickly, Sams got her new friend around. Did you hear them come in?
No.
Hes in a band too. Theyve been on television. Hes called Connor. Sounds a bit American.
Sylvias face disappeared for a moment and then returned. Ill have a sandwich. Only one, though. Thanks.
Her hand darted out and took a sandwich. Brera smiled. Sylvia nodded and then closed the door. Brera swallowed down her irritation. She went into the living-room, picked up her guitar and started to sing A Pair of Brown Eyes, strumming along in time.
Connor was mid-way through removing his trousers when he heard the conversation commence between Brera and Sylvia. He thought, I cant sustain an erection with those two chatting away like theyre in the same room.
He pulled his trousers back on and did up the buttons. Sam groaned, exasperated, from her position on the bed and grabbed hold of her T-shirt. Why dont we go back to your flat? It was you who wanted to come here in the first place.
Connor had half an ear on the conversation in the hallway. He turned down the music on the tape recorder and said, I didnt mean for us to come here for sex. I just wanted to meet everybody.
He listened to their voices again. Your sisters voice is so hoarse. She sounds like Rod Stewart. Does she sing?
Sam laughed. What do you think? She writes a weird kind of music. Like jazz but less tuneful. Thats her contribution to things. She likes doing it. Its kind of methodical. Shes hardly even got a speaking voice, though, let alone a singing one.
As she spoke, Sam put on her T-shirt and picked up a book from her bedside table.
Connor moved a few steps closer to the door. He heard Brera mention his name.
Sam said tiredly, Its her allergy. If she tries to sing or shout her voice disappears altogether.
It sounds amazing, though, really distinctive.
Sam looked up at him. The only reason she talks that way is because shes gradually choking herself. Its a slow process of strangulation.
Connor felt foolish for being so enthusiastic. He turned towards her and changed the subject. Whats that youre reading?
She turned the page. Something about Hélène Cixous. Shes this brilliant French intellectual. Ive read all her stuff, but its difficult. Shes very controversial. She wont even call herself a feminist because feminisms too bourgeois.
Connor looked down at the plate on the floor. What sort of cheese did your mother say this was?
Sylvia sat on the end of her bed and drank her tea. The weather was turning. The day had started off warm and sticky. Now the sky was clouding over, was grey, heavy, lowering. The birds at least a hundred or so had flown inside as a consequence, in anticipation of the storm to come. They lined the walls of Sylvias room, chattering and bickering. Several bounced to and fro across the carpet, scratching, preening and flapping their wings.
Sylvia thought, Above the bird noise I can hear Sam talking with that man. What are they discussing? What are they doing?
Sometimes she imagined what it would be like to have a male companion, but she couldnt really conceive of herself doing the things that normal women did. She couldnt imagine herself wanting the things that normal women wanted. She tried to feel pride in her abnormality, but she often felt as though her abnormality had become the only normal thing about her, the only relevant thing.
She sat on the end of her bed and drained the cup of its last few drops of tea. As she swallowed her tea, the incident in the park popped into her mind. The tea turned into dirty water in her mouth. She tried to swallow in air as the tea went down but she could not. She gagged on the liquid and it choked her. She imagined herself in the lake, with the mud and the slime and the tin cans. She imagined that she was the young girl and that she could not swim. She did not feel remorse, just fear. She wished that she could tie a tourniquet around her imagination, a piece of strong rope or cloth that could effectively cut off all dangerous ideas and fanciful notions, stop the flow of her thoughts from streaming, frothing, flooding and overwhelming her.
She sat on the end of her bed and drained the cup of its last few drops of tea. As she swallowed her tea, the incident in the park popped into her mind. The tea turned into dirty water in her mouth. She tried to swallow in air as the tea went down but she could not. She gagged on the liquid and it choked her. She imagined herself in the lake, with the mud and the slime and the tin cans. She imagined that she was the young girl and that she could not swim. She did not feel remorse, just fear. She wished that she could tie a tourniquet around her imagination, a piece of strong rope or cloth that could effectively cut off all dangerous ideas and fanciful notions, stop the flow of her thoughts from streaming, frothing, flooding and overwhelming her.
She could hear Brera singing in the living-room with her guitar. She tried to concentrate on this sound and to block out everything else. Then she heard Sams voice. Sam had been laughing and talking before, but now she too had started to sing. Her voice toned in with Breras perfectly. Brera sang in a higher register with a Celtic twang. Sam sounded very low and clear, like a soft, brown thrush intense and lyrical.
She heard Sam emerge from her room and walk towards Breras voice, still singing herself. She rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. They infuriated her. She found them unbearably smug and confident, like nuns or traffic wardens self-assured and immensely self-motivated. Pure.
She inspected the eczema on her hands and wrists. The skin here was bumpy and itchy, some of it moist and shiny. She pulled off a scab which covered the tender flesh that linked the space between her finger and thumb. Her eyes watered. She enjoyed this strum of pain, lost herself in it and savoured its tone.
Suddenly she saw the little girls face in the chafed and pinky pattern of her flesh, imagined for a second how the cold water would have felt entering her nose and throat, covering her eyes.
The sound of Connors hesitant tread in the hallway distracted her. She stopped breathing for a moment and listened out for the slight noises he made, her head to one side, eyes closed. He had a light tread. Must be thin, she thought. His step seemed tentative, well-meaning, self-conscious. She heard him enter the living-room and began breathing again. The air she drew into her lungs felt dry and coarse. It rattled in her throat. She coughed for a short while then swallowed down a mouthful of phlegm.
Connor was singing now too. He was doing a comic version of Dolly Partons Love is like a Butterfly, in a low, brash voice. She could hear the two women laughing. She put her hands over her ears, imagined that her hands were like shells, and the noise of the blood, the compressed air in her ears, the wail in her head, was really the sea. She stood on a bone-pale beach. It was an airless place.
Ten
Ruby awoke to the sound of the telephone ringing. She opened her eyes and tried to pull herself up straight. Shed been slumped over sideways on to her bedside table. Her face felt strange, like warm wax that had set overnight into a distorted, lopsided shape. Her neck ached, even her tongue ached and her body felt, in its entirety, distinctly askew.
Vincent was there. Ugh! She looked at him. A horrible face. Dirty. Phlegm, mucus, special smells. Blood, dried. Everything inside spilling out.
His face was a solid bruise. He was a car accident, still jumbled. She had no clear impression of him. Not mentally, not visually. It was bright in her room, a yellow-white brightness, reflecting unkindly off him.
She sprang out of bed to answer the ringing. She was still wearing her cardigan, which she pulled close around her, and her T-shirt, which she noticed had coffee stains down the front.
The telephone it had a long extension cord was situated in the centre of the draining-board next to the sink. She picked up the receiver. Yeah? Ruby here.
She licked a finger and applied it, somewhat hopelessly, to the stain.
You sound rough.
She didnt recognize the voice. Hold on.
She put down the receiver, turned on the cold tap and stuck her head under it, inhaling sharply as the water gushed over her hair, into her ears and down her neck. She turned it off and shook her head, like a dog after a dip, then picked up the receiver again. Hi.
She felt the water dripping down her back and her face. Eventually a voice said, Hello, Ruby?
Yeah.
Donald Sheldon. Is it too early?
Ive been up ages, she lied. Hed never phoned her before.
He said, Actually, Id like to see you. This afternoon if its possible.
Oh. OK.
Theres a café near Seven Sisters tube. He described its precise location. We could meet twelve-ish.
Twelve was too early.
Yeah, thats fine. Seven Sisters. Twelve-ish.
See you then.
She put down the receiver and walked into the bathroom to look for a towel. She found one slung over the edge of the bath and wrapped up her dripping hair in it before putting the plug in the bath and turning on the taps.
Back in her bedroom, she rooted out a pair of jeans, a black vest and some clean underwear. Vincent lay across the bed, his legs spread, his feet dangling off the end. His arms, she noticed, now held a pillow over his face. She said, I wouldnt do that. Someone might be tempted to press down on it.
He said nothing.
She returned to the bathroom. While she undressed, she debated how soon it would be acceptable to ask him to leave. She tested the water with her hand, climbed in, then lay back and relaxed, staring abstractly beyond her breasts, her knees, her toes, at the taps and the steam from the water.
Vincent felt like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly. That inbetween stage. A pupa. His skin, hard, semi-impervious; himself, inside, withered and formless.
He was not himself. His head bumped and pumped. The light, the morning, scorched him.
During the night he had awoken, he didnt know what time, and had found a girl, a stranger, next to him. Her hip near his chin. Wool, scratching; cold skin. He had pressed his forehead against her thigh. It had cooled him.
And now it was morning. He needed something. Had to stretch his body that crumpled thing his mind, his tongue.
Ruby picked up a bar of soap and started to build up a lather. What does Sheldon want? she wondered. What does he want from me? Her toes curled at the prospect. She stared at them and thought, Why am I doing that with my feet?
Vincent stood on the other side of the bathroom door with his hand on the handle. He shouted, You couldve told me you were having a bath.
Ruby dropped the soap and covered her breasts. Dont you dare come in.
I have no intention of coming in, he said scathingly. After a pause he added, Why the hell did you bring me here? Ive had the worst time.
She gasped at this, her expression a picture, and shouted, I didnt bring you here.
Well, I didnt get here on my own.
His voice sounded muffled, further away now. Do you always live like this?
She stood up, indignant, and stepped out of the bath. Like what?
Silence, then, Forget it.
Like what?
She grabbed a towel, wrapped it around her and pulled open the door. Live like what?