Reversed Forecast
Page 5
As she petted the geese Sylvia noticed that the girl was moving towards her. She was small and skinny with wide blue eyes and yellow curls. She sidled up to Sylvia with her sandwich in one hand and a fold of her skirt in the other, which she pulled and twisted with tiny fingers.
Some of the geese turned their heads to stare at her. One or two backed away, but a couple of them noticed the bread in her hand. Sylvia saw the bread too. She stood up and looked down at the child. On her sandwich was a mixture of cheese and luncheon meat. She said, ‘Birds like cheese. It’s full of fat which is good for them.’
The girl gazed at Sylvia and gave a small laugh. She seemed too young to make conversation so Sylvia stood in silence for a few seconds and stared at the geese and the water. The girl let go of her skirt and tossed a piece of cheese from her sandwich on to the ground by her feet. It landed at least half a metre from the edge of the lake. One of the geese stretched out its neck to try to reach the cheese, but it was too far away. Sylvia frowned. ‘If you’re going to feed them, then place the cheese closer. They won’t bite.’
The girl looked up. Her face seemed very tiny to Sylvia, and yet everything about it was adult, especially its expression, which was puffy and petulant. Even so, it was a child’s face. She looked straight into Sylvia’s eyes and said, ‘Why should I?’
Sylvia paused and contemplated this question. ‘Because you have to treat other animals with respect. If you don’t, then they won’t respect you.’
The girl moved forward slightly and pushed the cheese closer to the edge of the lake with her toe. As she did this, the pressure from her shoe covered the cheese with sand and dirt. Nevertheless, the goose reached for it again, stretching its neck thinly across the bank and opening its beak to try to grasp the cheese. But before it could do so, the little girl had lifted up one of her feet and had kicked at the gravel and dirt in front of her, blinding the goose with a spray of soil and stones.
It only took an instant. Before she knew what she was doing, Sylvia had grabbed hold of the girl and had thrown her, arms waving, legs kicking, into the lake. When it was done, she thought, Maybe she can’t swim. What if the lake is deeper than it seems?
But it was too late. She was running.
She didn’t turn back to look at the lake or the geese or the girl. She thought she heard screaming, but by then she was right by the park gates and on her way home. Not a scream, she decided, panting already, struggling to breathe. Not a scream, but the call of a crow.
* * *
EIGHT
Ruby unlocked the door and automatically reached out her hand for the light switch. She stopped herself just in time, feeling the switch with the tip of her finger but applying no pressure. Instead she paused in the doorway for a moment in order to adjust her eyesight to the room’s darkness. After a few seconds she could make out the shape of a figure on the couch - Toro, still snoring - and she could also see, if she stood on tip-toe, beyond the sofa, where Vincent’s blanket was bundled up into a deceptively large pile.
Very gently she closed the door behind her. She fancied a cup of coffee but didn’t want to wake her guests, so she settled for a glass of water and then padded quietly into the bathroom.
It smelled. She closed the door and switched on the light. She was positive that the smell was of vomit, but could see no sign of it. She inspected the toilet bowl, which looked clean, but squirted some bleach down there for good measure.
After completing her ablutions, she switched off the bathroom light and made her way blindly into her bedroom. Before she closed the door she felt under the handle on both sides for the keyholes, located the key on the other side, took it out, pushed it in on her side, pulled the door to and locked it.
The small window in her bedroom let in just enough light. She pulled off her clothes and hunted around on the floor for something suitable to wear. Eventually she found a large T-shirt which she put on and pulled down.
She climbed into bed. Her blankets were rucked up and jumbled. She put out a hand to pull one over and then gasped as she touched something warm and bristly.
There lay Vincent in a state of irritable semi-wakefulness. He opened one eye and stared at her. ‘Get your hands off my neck.’
She sprang out of bed. ‘Christ! I locked myself in here and you’re in here already.’
He pulled himself up on to his elbows, thought about saying something, opened his mouth to say it, but no words came out, only liquid.
Ruby was almost sick herself, but not in sympathy, not exactly.
‘Get out of my bloody bed! You could be anybody!’
‘I am anybody.’
He rolled over, stood up and staggered towards the door clutching his stomach. He pulled at the door handle with his free hand but it wouldn’t open, so he threw up against it, then fell to his knees and inspected his handiwork.
‘That’s my kidney, liquidized.’
Ruby snatched a cardigan from the floor and wrapped it around her.
He groaned, ‘You really think I intend taking advantage of you when I’m crippled by some kind of chronic gastric disorder?’
She pushed past him and switched on the light. They both blinked. Ruby’s eyes adjusted. Vincent’s wouldn’t focus. He removed a hand from his gut long enough to touch his forehead and then clutched his stomach again, leaning forward. Ruby, fearing more mess, looked around for something he could vomit into, but didn’t have a rubbish bin in the room or anything like a bowl or bag. Instead she grabbed hold of an old broken guitar without strings that was leaning against the wall. She thrust it towards him. ‘Don’t you dare be sick on the floor again.’
Vincent stared at the guitar. ‘If you’re expecting me to vomit into a musical instrument, I’d prefer a trumpet.’
He leaned even further forward and put a hand across his mouth, speaking through his fingers, ‘Just open the door.’
She dumped the guitar, turned the key in the lock and pulled the door wide. He crawled through, and, after a moment’s hesitation, dragged himself into the bathroom. Ruby glanced over at her bed and saw that his vomit was a particularly strange colour: a harsh taramasalata pink.
When Vincent crawled back out of the bathroom a short while later, he paused in the doorway and watched as Ruby stuffed all affected linen into a refuse bag. She scowled at him. ‘This pink stuff is like something you’d serve with crackers.’
She went and found a cloth in the kitchen and began to scrub at the door and the carpet. Vincent made no attempt to help her or to arrange himself comfortably. Instead he lay in a clumsy heap next to the wall.
She walked over to inspect him. He looked pale and sweaty. She prodded him with her toe.
‘Are you asleep? The floor’s rock hard.’
She touched his hand. It was wet.
She went into the living-room and leaned over the back of the sofa. ‘Toro? Wake up.’
He grunted. ‘You think I could sleep through that?’
She kicked at the back of the sofa. ‘You got him pissed in the first place. Come and give me a hand.’
He sat up, rubbed his eyes. ‘It smells like a hospital.’
She picked up the blanket from the floor and moved back towards the bedroom. ‘Dettol. I cleaned everything.’
He followed her, lounged in the doorway and stared down at Vincent. ‘Leave him. He’s OK.’
She remade her bed. ‘Lift him up. I’ve half a mind to call a doctor.’
Toro bent over and grabbed hold of Vincent’s shoulders, then dragged him towards the bed, rucking up the carpet. They lifted him together and dumped him down on the blankets. He emitted a loud groan as his head hit the pillow. She arranged a couple of sheets over him, then perched on the edge of the bed and felt his forehead. Soaking. His lips were dry though. She peered up at Toro who was standing, looking bleary, feeling his own forehead.
‘What’s your game?’ she said.
‘What’s the time?’
‘Eleven-ish.’ She looked down at Vincent
. ‘He couldn’t throw up while he was asleep could he, and choke on it?’
Toro shrugged and went to find his coat. She heard the kitchen tap running, and then, a few seconds later, the front door closing. She looked down at Vincent. ‘Fancy joining him?’
The room seemed very bright. She stood up, strolled into the living-room to check that the latch was down on the front door, then returned to the bedroom and switched off the light. The darkness soothed her eyes. She sat next to Vincent on the edge of her bed and stared at him. His eyes were flitting around under his eyelids. She said quietly, ‘Are you dreaming? Do you want some tea? An ambulance?’
She yawned and looked over towards the window, bringing her legs up on to the bed and leaning her back against the headboard. The streets were still lively. Outside she could hear people talking and laughing. Inside everything was silent. She pulled one of the blankets over slightly so that it covered the top of her knees and thought, Isn’t it strange how a place can be both noisy and quiet at the same time?
* * *
NINE
Samantha stayed out all Saturday night and returned to the flat shortly after midday on Sunday. The intervening time had been spent with her latest flame, Connor, who was tall, with a curtain of long brown hair that swung across his face, a slim body and smooth skin. They had known each other for several weeks. They had met at a charity benefit in Kentish Town. Connor had been performing with the main band, his own band, Stirsign. He was a drummer, and he sang too, in a scrappy, scraping, tuneless voice.
Sam had laughed at him from the side of the stage. She thought he looked ridiculous, smashing away at his drum-kit, bare-chested, his hair a mess, flying everywhere, his neck craning upwards towards an artfully placed microphone.
He spotted her immediately. She was the only girl there who found him funny. Girls didn’t usually. When he’d introduced himself, later on, she’d said that she’d never come across a drummer who also sang. Connor had then proceeded to list every singing drummer he could think of. The way he saw it, the longer the list was, the longer she’d stay and talk.
‘I just remembered, the drummer with Teenage Fanclub sings sometimes, and there was a band called Blyth Power a while ago whose drummer was the main vocalist, like me.’
Sam had smiled up at him, taking in every visible detail of his face through the silk-screen of her lashes. His voice was sexy, she decided, vaguely American, his tongue embracing a kind of cultured Southern twang. She appreciated the fact that he was self-assured. Confident men were the only kind she ever bothered with. Less brash, less aggressive men took one look and ran a mile.
She had been a late developer in the game of love. It was a game. Love was a diversion, but not an interest.
Men had never been at a premium in the Hackney flat. Her father, a Somalian student, a law student, had left home when she was three. In the long term she’d decided that this was a good thing. She had no silly expectations or preconceptions. She was beyond all that. Men couldn’t disappoint her and they couldn’t rule her.
Initially she had been too shy to push herself forward, preferring instead to think about things, to theorize and rationalize. But eventually she had learned to assert, if not herself, then a good approximation of herself - she always saved something, kept something back, which was the secret with men - and had learned how to flatter and to flirt. Love could be fun. You could get something out of it: sex or attention or ideas.
Connor had stared down at Sam’s lips as he spoke to her, focusing on these instead of her eyes. ‘What do you do? I don’t want to bore you to death with talk of singing drummers all night.’
Sam smiled. ‘I’m a singer too. A different kind of singer.’
An exotic singer, he thought, her hair drawn back, scraped back like a seal’s. ‘How different?’
‘I sing in a band with my mother. We played the Bull and Gate last week.’
He grinned when she mentioned the venue, then said, ‘I’ve never met anyone who played in a band with their mother before.’
‘You have now.’
He asked her what kind of music they played but she didn’t answer.
‘It’s more than that,’ she said, finishing her drink. ‘It’s more complicated.’
‘How?’
He liked her. But he only wanted small talk. That was his way. That was the whole point of flirting. He had a suspicion, though, that she was the kind of girl who didn’t need to flirt.
She cleared her throat. ‘Language is symbolic.’ He flinched. She didn’t notice. ‘In other words, language represents things. And the way I see it, sexual representations work in the same way. I’ll give you an example …’
He was watching her lips, not her eyes, watching how her teeth appeared and disappeared. Her teeth, the white crest of her mouth’s pink wave. Rolling and rolling.
‘Father and son. If I say that, it has positive associations. Hierarchy, order, calm, a kind of quiet power …’
He didn’t care what she said. She was exquisite. He would agree and agree.
‘But mother and daughter. I can say it, over and over, but it doesn’t work as a symbol. It has no power.’ She looked up at him. ‘Are you following me?’
He nodded.
‘Freud said daughters hate their mothers because all a daughter really wants is to have sex with her father. Mothers get in the way.’
Connor laughed. ‘He really thought that?’
She nodded. ‘But I’m not very interested in why symbols work the way they do, only in subverting them. I want to change them. I mean, there’s such power between women. Mother and daughter. It should mean something. It does mean something, it just doesn’t work at a symbolic level. And that’s what I want to do, with the band. To help to create a new, positive, popular stereotype.’
As she spoke she saw Connor’s face sag. She thought, I’ve blown my chances. He thinks I’m boring or strident or both.
When her lips stopped moving, Connor pushed his hair out of his eyes and asked, ‘What does your mother think about all this?’
Sam grinned. ‘She likes singing. She’s always played the guitar. In fact she was in a girl group herself as a kid. She came over here from Dublin as a teenager in a band.’
He smiled at her. ‘You’re lucky. My mum has no fashion sense and she listens to Val Doonican.’
Sam laughed. ‘Well, my mum wears Levis and she likes the Ronettes.’
Brera and Sam had always been close. Sam loved Brera because she was tolerant and quiescent and never pushy or judgemental. Brera loved Sam but often worried about her, even though she rarely articulated these worries. Instead she confided to Sam her fears and concerns about Sylvia. Sylvia, her younger daughter, was, after all, her problem child. Sam had her flaws too, and Brera saw them, but she chose to hold her tongue.
In fact Brera thought Sam slept around too much. She couldn’t understand her daughter’s 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 doesn’t 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. He’d 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, ‘I’ll 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.
‘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 Sam’s 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 they’re 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, ‘It’s Laverne Baker. Jackie Wilson’s 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 he’d lined up a photographer for Tuesday.’
Sam offered Connor his mug of tea. ‘That was quick.’
Brera nodded and closed the door behind her.
‘Who’s Steven?’
Sam picked up one of the sandwiches. ‘Our new manager. We only met him yesterday.’
‘You didn’t tell me you were getting a manager.’
‘Mum likes him. He’s OK.’