‘Not that one,’ I say.
He stops laughing and visibly collects himself. ‘Sorry.’
We concentrate on the sink, wiping and stacking. I have never been so aware of him in my life.
Val comes into the kitchen from the back yard. She stops when she sees us, back to rigid back, silently scrubbing the kitchen surfaces.
‘Isn’t Fatima supposed to be doing this?’ she says.
The kitchen door opens. Fatima sweeps her fringe out of her eyes. ‘’Allo,’ she says, sounding a little breathless. Over her shoulder I see Warren sliding out a little unsteadily through the double doors.
Val lobs Fatima her pay packet. ‘Great work. Same time tomorrow?’
Tomorrow? I never work Wednesdays.
‘I will be here,’ Fatima says gaily.
Jem keeps scrubbing surfaces and doesn’t look up as I tow Fatima towards Mr Djembe’s bicycles, still stashed behind the sofa.
‘You are a true piece of work,’ I hiss. ‘Warren? Are you insane?’
We push the bikes through the doors and bump them down the steps. Warren has disappeared. I hope he’s fallen down a drain.
‘I think I will teach Warren many interesting things,’ Fatima says in a contented voice.
The doors clatter open behind us.
‘You’ll want lights for those,’ Jem says.
He tosses me a set, then a second lot for Fatima.
‘Chéri,’ Fatima gasps, examining the lights like they are precious jewels. ‘They are adorable. For us?’
‘Someone left them here last week,’ Jem says shortly. ‘Try not to get run over between now and tomorrow.’
‘He is so pretty,’ Fatima sighs as he closes the doors. ‘It is a shame about his nose.’
Ella’s call takes me by surprise on Thursday.
‘What, the whole cast?’ I say, my canteen sandwich halfway to my mouth.
‘No, just the ugly ones,’ she says, dripping sarcasm like rain off an umbrella. ‘Of course the whole cast. Everyone’s got different faces. Different angles, different elements to work with. We’ve done our designs but we need to practise them. Can you get them here tonight?’
‘Can’t you do it at tomorrow’s dress rehearsal?’
‘Need to know what paints to bring to the theatre. You want this make-up to look good or not?’
Ella is jittery. It strikes me she is just as nervous about this as me.
‘Maybe we can take a portable keyboard and rehearse there,’ Tab says, listening in. ‘Run through the songs while we’re being painted.’
‘Sort it, Delilah,’ says Ella. ‘As close to five as you can. There’s a lot of you to get through.’
The buzzing tone informs me that she’s rung off.
‘Do you think Patricia really will agree to rehearse at Ella’s flat tonight?’ I ask Tab, lowering my phone uncertainly.
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘But the show’s in two days’ time! You need to be on the actual stage, with your props and everything. Don’t you?’
‘Done the staging already,’ Tab says. ‘We’ve all gone up a gear since your brainwave. Call Patricia and give her details. I can’t wait to try my zombie look,’ she adds with enthusiasm. ‘I hope I get flaking skin. Maybe bleeding eyes.’
She taps Ella’s address into her phone, pulling up a map.
‘Hi,’ says Warren, appearing at the end of our table. ‘Is Fatima around? I didn’t get a chance to, er, talk to her last night.’
I left Fatima on her camp-bed mattress this morning, draped like a flamboyant starfish across half my carpet after another full evening behind the Gaslight bar. I haven’t told Tab the full facts of Tuesday. They are too gruesome.
‘Is she working at the theatre again tonight?’ Warren says hopefully. ‘I’d kind of like to see her again.’
‘And I’m sorry to report that she’d kind of like to see you again too,’ I say.
Warren adjusts his face with a transparent attempt at nonchalance. ‘I’ll er . . . do my best to fit her in.’
‘We’re getting painted tonight, Warren,’ Tabby says. ‘I’ll text everyone directions to Ella’s flat. We’re meeting there from five. I guess we’ll all head to the Gaslight afterwards.’
‘Great,’ says Warren. He shifts from foot to foot. ‘Sorry I’ve been a bit of an idiot about the whole lesbian thing.’
‘We’re not lesbians,’ says Tabby patiently.
Warren’s phone beeps. He pulls it out and stares at Tab’s message. ‘Five tonight?’ he says, walking away with his nose to his screen. ‘Cool.’
Tabby gets busy with her list of cast members’ mobile numbers and attaches the map. I picture the directions being fired in thirty different directions from a load of tiny cannons on the tabletop.
‘You’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way with the oldies,’ I remind her. ‘Phone them up. Post them printouts.’
‘Gladys is on Facebook. Dorcas has a iPad. Everyone’s covered.’
At four-thirty I stand shivering at the bottom of the High Street. Despite Tab’s texted directions, a mass of calls from assorted cast members asking for someone to guide them through the scary maze of the poorly lit Watts Estate has resulted in an old-fashioned element after all: me, waiting to escort old ladies Gladys and Dorcas and students Sam, Maria, Warren and Tabby like a tour guide with an umbrella in Piccadilly Circus.
Fatima has come along for the ride. She flaps her arms. ‘English weather,’ she grumbles.
‘Your coat’s too thin,’ I say. ‘You could get one of those long downy ones you see in Grazia with your Gaslight earnings. I can’t believe Val had you working last night. I only got Fridays and Saturdays.’
‘Tonight too. I am popular,’ Fatima says without apology.
‘Everyone ready?’ I ask as Gladys finally turns up.
‘Thunderbirds are go,’ says Dorcas.
‘You will be my ’ot water bottle, chéri,’ Fatima shivers, linking arms with Warren and making his cheeks light up.
‘That girl’s rather obvious, isn’t she?’ Maria says loudly, one gloved hand tucked into Sam’s elbow. ‘She shouldn’t get Warren’s hopes up like that. Anyone can see the poor boy’s developing a crush.’
The road is steep. Dorcas rubs at the panes on a greenhouse and admires the tubs of growing things inside. Fatima sings French marching songs, stamping her booted feet and moving in synch with Warren, as I shepherd and cajole and warn of puddles like a teacher on a school trip.
‘Why aren’t there any posters along here?’ says Dorcas as we climb.
Gladys pushes her sleeves up. ‘Set to, Dorcas.’
Dorcas pulls spare posters from her handbag and sticks them on fences as we pass. Gladys gets industrial with a spray can of yellow paint she has tucked in her rucksack.
‘I’ve got a stitch,’ Tab says. ‘Is it much further?’
We reach the double doors of Ella’s building at around five-fifteen. The lift is too small for all of us, so we go up in two groups. Patricia answers the door in a fug of marijuana smoke and the wall-shaking sound of a boom box at full volume. Her face is red and fleshy and covered in unpleasant welts.
‘You look rotten, Patricia,’ says Dorcas and giggles.
‘Bang on for a first attempt,’ Patricia shouts over the music. ‘Eunice and I got here half an hour ago.’
Eunice waves at us from a chair in the middle of the room, her face half-painted in the same style as Patricia’s.
‘Those with honest jobs are coming after work.’ Patricia is holding something that looks suspiciously like a joint. ‘Pick anyone you like, darlings.’
‘She’s stoned,’ whispers Maria disapprovingly to Sam.
Patricia points the reefer at Maria. ‘I can hold
my smoke better than your boyfriend can hold his drink. Looking ugly’s going to do you the world of good, girl.’
Sam is coaxed away with a lad whose head is half shaved and whose nose looks like it won’t support much more in the way of metalwork.
‘Can you make me a pretty zombie?’ Maria asks plaintively as a willowy jet-haired boy – the one Ella was painting with angel wings the first time we met – leads her towards a stool.
‘I’ll go, shall I?’ I say to no one in particular.
‘Oh, don’t!’ says Tabby at once. ‘Ella, can’t you paint Delilah again?’
‘I’d love to, but I have to make that chick look like a corpse.’ Ella nods at Gladys.
‘Shouldn’t take long,’ says Dorcas naughtily.
I keep meaning to leave, but somehow stay. Maria skulks over to the camera, looking as miserable as a green-faced zombie can, as Kev takes photos and chats her up. Sam is enjoying himself a lot more with Mr Metal, to judge from the gales of laughter sweeping through the room from their corner.
At six, Rich and Henry blow through the door with wine and a twelve-pack bag of crisps.
‘You all look like hell,’ says Henry admiringly as Rich uncorks the wine and sloshes it generously into polystyrene cups.
‘Mission accomplished,’ says Patricia, her second joint of the evening drooping between her lips. She has set up a small portable keyboard. ‘Do you mind turning your music off, Ella love? From the top, you half-dead darlings.’
There is something both odd and awesome about hearing old-style musical tracks sung by zombies. A couple of Ella’s team members wrinkle their noses. Sam’s Mr Metal adds a few Be-dooby-dooby-doo’s during ‘Gore in the War’.
‘This music is like Marmite,’ says Ella. She adds a layer of ripped skin to Gladys’s neck. ‘You spend the whole day trying to sponge it off your vest and by teatime the bastard’s still there.’
‘Merde,’ says Fatima suddenly. ‘I am late for my job.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ says Jem, coming through the door as she races past him in a billow of chiffon. ‘Mum will only rip your head off.’
His T-shirt is dark red tonight, and fits his chest like someone has painted it on to his body. Not unlikely, in present company. Our eyes meet. Flick away. Meet again. Kind of like those magnetic dogs that sniff each other’s rear ends but leap apart when you put them nose to nose. The air shrieks with awkwardness.
‘Hey,’ I picture myself saying brightly. ‘You know this whole zombie make-up thing? I came up with it because I’m crazy about you and you like painting blood and bones. Yes, of course you can apologize for getting the wrong idea about the swipe machine and kiss me in your hot red T-shirt until I forget everything you accused me of. Go right ahead.’
‘I should probably . . .’ I say instead, edging towards the door.
‘If you say so,’ he says. He set his paints down beside Dorcas, who is halfway through the soppy ‘Love Eternal’ with the rest of the chorus.
‘Say you love me,’ Dorcas warbles, ‘for my flaws . . .’
‘Oh, I do,’ Jem assures the old lady. Pulling a brush from his pocket, he twirls it between his fingers. ‘Can I make you super-evil?’ he asks her with the kind of smile to floor a girl.
‘Say you’ll hold me,’ Dorcas sings dreamily. She looks a little pink. ‘With your claws . . .’
I open my mouth, shut it again and flee.
‘Wait, Fatima. WAIT!’
I gallop through the double doors and wallop straight into Studs.
‘Watch where you’re going, bitch,’ says Studs, startled, arms up in a defensive position as I bounce him against the bins. I am pleased to see he has a nasty split lip that is only just beginning to heal. Offering a hasty finger in non-apology, I keep running.
‘For God’s sake WAIT FOR ME!’
Fatima stands on the road ahead, arms folded. I fall into step with her, my little legs pumping a bit harder than her great long ones as we negotiate the cracks and tilts in the pavement. A car squeals by, driven by a couple of lads looking way younger than seventeen. I imagine Studs at the wheel with Jem beside him, the crump of metal on man and dog, and shiver.
‘Shouldn’t you call Val?’ I ask as we trot. ‘Remind her you’re late because of the show that will make the Gaslight a fortune this weekend?’
‘She need me,’ Fatima says matter-of-factly. ‘I bring in the customers.’ She looks at me sideways. ‘Why do you do this with the zombies and the show? You don’t like these shows. There are things here that I don’t understand.’
I decide to be honest. ‘Because I’m up to my ears in love with Jem,’ I admit. ‘And I’ve realized it’s no good telling someone you love who thinks you’ve lied that you haven’t lied, because they think you’re lying. Doing is different. I have done something here. Something he can be a part of. It’s mental, but it appeals to my control freakery on pretty much every level.’
I’m hoping for Fatima’s approval. I don’t get it.
‘Don’t do this for him,’ she says.
‘What, like he’s any worse than all the other guys I’ve organized zombie shows for?’ I joke, feeling a prickle of unease.
‘He has a girlfriend, chérie. I see her in the kitchen at the Gaslight.’
I trip over a bit of pavement, banging my shin on the kerb. ‘W . . . what?’ I stammer, shocked almost beyond speech. ‘Who?’
‘I don’t see her face but she is tall, it is all that I know.’
Tall would be right, I think, feeling dazed. No cricked necks or bent knees required, unlike with little flea me. The pain is red-hot, and not just on my shin.
‘Men are simple,’ Fatima reminds me, and pats my hand.
Everything is blowing around me like dust. Smashed and irretrievable, a priceless vase in a food processor. I thought I had developed a girlfriend-o-meter after Dave, but the gauge has failed me just when I needed it most. Maybe Jem started dating this girl after we broke up, or maybe he’s been dating her all along. However you look at it, I am the stupidest girl in the universe.
I walk beside Fatima in silent hell, torturing myself as far as the High Street.
‘I won’t come to the Gaslight tonight.’ My voice sounds rusty when I finally use it again, the squeal of a key in a badly oiled lock. ‘I have a load of college work that won’t do itself.’
‘If I see this tall girlfriend in the bar I will pour beer on to her,’ Fatima promises. She kisses me on both cheeks and sways across the road towards the theatre. A lone car drifts sideways, a slack-jawed man at the wheel, then rights itself just before striking the traffic island in the middle.
It’s amazing how soothing it can be, learning Newton’s laws of motion by heart. And Lenz’s law, and Kirchoff’s. And every other law of physics ever proved. Their worlds are ordered and devoid of pain.
‘Did you know,’ I say, the minute Fatima comes through my bedroom door at ten past midnight, ‘that at any junction in a circuit, the sum of currents arriving at the junction is exactly the same as the sum of currents leaving the junction?’
‘She don’t come in the bar tonight,’ Fatima says.
I lift up a finger. ‘In other words, charge is conserved. If this didn’t happen, you’d either get a massive build-up of electrons at a junction in a circuit or you’d be creating charge from nowhere. Nowhere. Of course, it makes perfect sense. All science makes perfect sense.’
‘I said—’
I shut my Physics book with a bang. ‘I heard. Did the others reach the bar with their zombie faces on?’
Fatima kicks off her shoes. ‘They look so terrible that some girls do screams. Then it was like rock stars, you know? Everyone love them, talk to them. The old ladies too. Your friend Oz can sell all the tickets, maybe two times if he want to cheat.’
The
word ‘cheat’ makes me think of Dave. I toy with calling him up, to check whether the shadowy beings behind his pathetic fraud attempt have done terrible things to him. Then I remember I don’t have his number any more.
‘I already buy your ticket before they all sell,’ Fatima adds. ‘I will be working but my tips tonight buy you a very good seat.’
‘Cheers,’ I say, trying to smile. ‘You’re back early, did you hitch a ride?’
‘With Val. They live not so far from here.’
‘And Jem was . . .?’
‘Somewhere else.’
Meeting the tall girl. Kissing the tall girl. Going somewhere private with the tall girl. I haul myself back from the edge of paralysis. ‘I hope Maria and Sam had a massive slanging match.’
‘Slanging, no. But Maria spend a long time in the bathroom tonight. I don’t think she like her green face
so much.’
‘And I hope Tab was chatting up Sam in Maria’s absence?’
‘If you are so interested to know everything, you must come next time,’ says Fatima, wagging her finger at me. ‘Sam and Tabitha, they are so English.’ She unclips her back, wriggles a bit and pulls a huge black lacy bra out of her sleeve like a transparent rabbit. ‘They skip around each other like lambs. I want to say to them, “Go and have the sex, little lambs.” But no. Instead it is “Do you want . . .” “Is it OK if . . .” This look super strange when they are zombies. So polite. “Could possibly I drain your blood and eat your brains?” “By all means. Be my gusset.”’
Fatima climbs out of the rest of her clothes and wanders in supremely unconcerned nakedness into the unlocked yet occupied bathroom.
‘Bloody hell!’ Dad yowls.
I speed to the bathroom with a blanket I’ve snatched off my bed. Dad is leaning against the wall behind the bog, shielding his eyes and hyperventilating as Fatima makes a vague attempt to cover herself with the blanket.
‘Sorry, Dad,’ I choke, tugging her back to my bedroom. ‘Sorry . . .’
‘Desolée,’ Fatima adds helpfully.
I slam the bedroom door behind us and wipe the tears from my eyes. ‘Fatima, you . . . Don’t you have a dressing gown or PJs or something?’
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