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?
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.
Sam linked her arm through Connor’s 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 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.’
Connor put down his mug and lay back on the bed. He stared up at the ceiling. She’s 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. ‘Let’s get this over with before your mother comes back in with lemonade and biscuits.’
Brera knocked on Sylvia’s 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. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘You should eat. I haven’t 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, ‘Sam’s got her new friend around. Did you hear them come in?’
‘No.’
‘He’s in a band too. They’ve been on television. He’s called Connor. Sounds a bit American.’
Sylvia’s face disappeared for a moment and then returned. ‘I’ll 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 can’t sustain an erection with those two chatting away like they’re 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 don’t 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 didn’t mean for us to come here for sex. I just wanted to meet everybody.’
He listened to their voices again. ‘Your sister’s 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. That’s her contribution to things. She likes doing it. It’s kind of methodical. She’s 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, ‘It’s 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 she’s gradually choking herself. It’s a slow process of strangulation.’
Connor felt foolish for being so enthusiastic. He turned towards her and changed the subject. ‘What’s that you’re reading?’
She turned the page. ‘Something about Hélène Cixous. She’s this brilliant French intellectual. I’ve read all her stuff, but it’s difficult. She’s very controversial. She won’t even call herself a feminist because feminism’s 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 Sylvia’s 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 couldn’t really conceive of herself doing the things that normal women did. She couldn’t 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 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 Sam’s voice. Sam had been laughing and talking before, but now she too had started to sing. Her voice toned in with Brera’s 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.