He stood up. ‘If anywhere’s open,’ he shouted after her, ‘You’re completely out of milk.’
There was a painting in the living-room, a portrait, that Connor especially hated. ‘That’s her,’ he said, when he first showed Sam around his flat, ‘Sarah. I share this place with her.’
Sam liked the painting. It was creepy. A female nude. Lips, russet nipples, ribs.
‘Does she really look like that?’
He laughed. ‘She thinks she does. She’s so vain. You’ll meet her.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Los Angeles for a month. Helping to research a book on the paranormal.’
Sam was fascinated. ‘Para-normal. Not normal.’
‘She’s a researcher.’
‘And you don’t like her?’
The flat, she could tell, was the site, the centre, of subtle guerilla warfare. A picture; a wall-hanging; garish, orange hessian curtains. All Sarah’s contributions. Sam grew accustomed to spotting her in objects. Teapots, candles, cosmetics in the bathroom.
Connor claimed to be an aesthete. He said he hated clutter. But his bedroom, his territory, was full of musical flotsam: a drum-kit, African bongos, symbols, a tambourine. His records, his stereo.
Sam couldn’t learn much here, though. In the living-room, she inspected the bookshelves.
‘Henry James?’
‘Hers.’
‘Kurt Vonnegut?’
‘Mine.’
‘
Psychoanalysis: the Impossible Profession
?’
‘Hers.’
‘
Dead Babies
?’
‘Mine.’
‘
Skinhead Escapes
?’
‘Mine.’
She picked this book up. It was a cheap, trashy novella. She didn’t like it. She found it distasteful. ‘I wouldn’t want to own something like this.’
‘It’ll probably be worth a fair bit in a few years’ time.’
‘It’s exploitative.’
He nodded. ‘But sometimes that kind of stuff can be interesting.’
‘Oh.’
She put the book back on the shelf.
Connor. He was interested in everything. She’d learned this very quickly. He was pragmatic. And what was she? Idealistic. Full of ideals.
Connor’s problem, the way she saw it, was that he was interested in too much. He was funny and gentle, but he was fascinated by stupid, sometimes even bad, things.
‘My parents,’ Connor explained, ‘rented this place to Sarah while I was at college. She’s always been here.’
Sam liked her. I’ve been living with this woman, she thought, learning all about her.
It was early morning. Connor was still asleep. She’d risen to get herself a drink of water. On her way back to bed she paused in front of the painting. Bones, white flesh, red hair, red eyes. It was hung on the wall adjacent to Sarah’s room. Connor, she thought, is still sleeping. She touched the door handle, shuddered, pressed it down. Pushed.
Inside, the curtains were drawn. The bedspread was patchwork. She could smell patchouli oil. On the dressing-table, however, she noticed bottles of what appeared to be more sophisticated scent. She walked over and picked up a bottle of Rive Gauche, tentatively sprayed it into the air and sniffed. Next to the bed - she sat down and inspected it - was a book of women’s erotica. She opened it. Marilyn French. Anaïs Nin. She
started to read, struggling in the half-light to focus on its ant-black print.
‘Hello.’
Samantha gave a start, almost dropping the book and the perfume. A tall, very thin woman stood in the doorway, grinning sardonically. She had bright, hennaed hair and a gaunt, striking face. In her hand she held a suitcase.
‘What are you reading?’
‘You must be Sarah.’
Sam stood up and quickly put the perfume back down on the dresser. ‘I shouldn’t be in here.’
Sarah walked into the room, threw her suitcase down on the bed, strolled over to the window and drew the curtains.
‘What were you reading?’
‘Angela Carter.’
‘Were you enjoying it?’
Sam nodded.
‘You must be Connor’s new friend.’
Sam didn’t much like this description of herself, but nodded again.
Sarah stared at her. Sam wore only a dressing-gown with nothing underneath. She tightened the belt self-consciously.
‘That picture,’ she said, confused and embarrassed, ‘in the living-room. It does look just like you.’
Sarah laughed at this. ‘Connor’s been telling you about my monumental ego.’
‘No. I didn’t mean that.’
‘The print is by Schiele. He’s very famous. He painted male nudes too.’
She opened her suitcase and peered at its jumbled contents.
‘How was Los Angeles?’
‘OK. I was working. Do you work?’
‘I’m a singer.’
‘Not with Connor’s group?’
‘No. I’m in a band with my mother.’
‘That’s a novelty.’
She started to unpack. ‘I’d rather strangle my mother than sing with her.’
Sam closed the book she was holding and put it down on the dressing-table.
‘You can borrow that if you like.’
‘Thanks.’ She picked it up again.
‘Angela Carter,’ Sarah said, frowning. ‘You like her?’
Sam nodded.
‘The way I see it,’ Sarah said, pulling out some clothes and shoving them into a wicker washing-basket at the foot of her bed, ‘there are two types of women. Those who think we’re the same as men, and those who think we’re different. Equal, obviously, but different.’
Sam was delighted. A proper conversation! Connor’s idea of animated chat was a discussion of the intricacies of Gram Parson’s fretwork.
‘Which type are you?’ she asked.
‘The first. But I don’t know about Angela Carter, and that makes me suspicious.’
‘I like her,’ Sam said, ‘I like that difference. Whatever it is.’
Sarah considered this for a moment and then said, ‘Maybe because you’re culturally different, you have a looser approach to questions of gender.’
‘Culture doesn’t come into it,’ Sam said, vaguely defensive. ‘I might be a different colour, but I still know that sex is more complicated than race.’
Sarah continued to unpack. She took some magazines from her case, some papers and a notepad.
‘Connor,’ she said, smiling, ‘must find you a challenge.’
‘How?’
‘Politically.’
Sam tried to understand this. ‘It’s not politics I’m interested in. It’s something more subtle.’
‘Subtle?’ She laughed. ‘You think Connor’s up to that?’
Sam stared at her. How could she respond?
Connor appeared in the doorway and saved her. ‘Hello,’ he said, nodding at Sarah. ‘So you got back in one piece?’
‘I landed at five.’
He turned to Sam. ‘I wondered where you’d got to.’
He hitched up the sheet he was holding around his hips.
Sam moved towards the door. ‘I suppose I’d better leave you to it.’
Sarah nodded. ‘But keep the book as long as you like.’
Sam thanked her, tucking the book under her arm.
Back in his room, Connor yanked off the sheet and climbed into bed. ‘I heard what she was saying. She’d have eaten you alive.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘No?’
‘But I felt really stupid.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
Sam paused for a moment and then said, ‘Why don’t you like her?’
He puffed up his pillow. ‘I wouldn’t mind her if I didn’t have to live with her.’
‘She’s abrasive.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Threatening.’
‘What?’
‘Maybe because she’s clever.’
‘Opinionated.’
‘Because she’s a feminist.’
He rubbed his face with his hands. ‘So are you.’
‘You just don’t like aggressive women.’
‘That’s stupid.’
‘If she was a man, you wouldn’t mind her.’
‘I don’t like aggressive men either.’
He turned over, on to his side, making room for her in the bed. She hadn’t yet decided whether she wanted to join him when the doorbell rang. He sat up. ‘We’re rehearsing this morning.’
‘But what about Sarah?’
He frowned. ‘What about her?’
‘She’s been awake half the night. You can’t practise now.’
He smiled. ‘Can’t I?’
‘Bastard.’
He stood up. Unexpectedly, the sight of his thin, naked body aroused her. She put out her hand and touched his back. He turned, smiled, moved closer. She whispered, ‘Let’s have sex.’
Outside she could hear Sarah answering the door, sounds in the living-room, male voices.
He stroked her hair. ‘No rubbers. You wouldn’t want me to reuse one.’
He bent over to pick up some shorts. She hit him across his rump with a tambourine and said tartly, ‘You don’t need a condom to give head.’
As she reached consciousness, Brera rolled over and focused dozily on her alarm clock. Nine-thirty. It was Monday. She signed on every Monday. Every Monday at nine. She sat up. She was late. Something was wrong. Something was missing. Suddenly she knew. Sylvia! Sylvia always wakes me!
She sprang out of bed, then froze, barely breathing, listening intently. At first she could hear nothing. Then she heard a noise, the faintest of sounds: a desperate, rattling, guttural wheezing.
She sprinted into the hallway. Sylvia’s bedroom door was closed. She didn’t knock, she flew in. Sylvia was on the floor, clutching her throat, in her own stranglehold, tossing and turning.
The room was full of birds. When Brera ran in they left their perches and filled the air - there must have been sixty of them - aiming upwards, towards the ceiling, in a feathery whirlwind. She found them terrifying, but she kept her wits, fell to her knees and grabbed hold of Sylvia, whose face was a whitey-purple colour, her lips flecked with foam. She took hold of her shoulders, slid her hands firmly under her armpits and dragged her out.
She lay her down flat, in the hallway, and dashed back into the bedroom. She searched around on the floor for a few seconds, then looked on the bed and finally found what she was hunting for on top of Sylvia’s grey trunk: her inhaler. She snatched hold of it, kept her head low (the birds were still flying, calling, panicking) and ran out, slamming the door behind her.
Sylvia had begun to jerk and convulse. Brera pushed the inhaler between her lips. ‘Exhale and then breathe this in. Exhale!’
Sylvia turned her face away. Brera jammed Sylvia’s head between her knees and forced the inhaler into her mouth again, even deeper this time. She pressed it, and it pumped its fumes into her.
‘Breathe it in! Breathe it in, you stupid thing!’
The inhaler had little or no effect. Brera began to panic.
‘Sam? Where is she?’
She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to think what Sam would do, then pulled Sylvia along the hallway and into the living-room. This was an airy room. She dragged her towards the door that led out on to the roof, wrenched the door open. ‘It’s fresh air. Breathe it in. Go on!’
Sylvia’s body was shuddering and gyrating. Brera hauled her on to the roof, out into the open air. She felt the cold tarmac on her bare feet and knees. She opened Sylvia’s lips, inhaled deeply herself and then attempted mouth to mouth, placing her hands on Sylvia’s ribs to see whether they expanded with the air she was providing. Nothing happened. Her convulsions had lessened, but this wasn’t necessarily a good sign. Brera noticed that Sylvia’s face was wet and thought, Why is she sweating so much?, then realized that she had soaked Sylvia’s face with her own tears.
‘The inhaler!’
She ran back into the house, through the living-room and into the hall. It was still on the floor. She picked it up and headed outside again. As she passed through the door on to the roof she shrieked.
Sylvia’s body was seething and twitching. Twenty or thirty birds were sitting on her, covering her, smothering her. Brera threw herself at them, shouting, crying, and they ascended, together, like a funeral shroud, a brown feather blanket.
Sylvia’s face was marked with large, red blotches. Brera took hold of her head and rammed the inhaler between her lips, but her teeth were clenched together now and grinding. She tried to
prise her jaw open but she wasn’t strong enough. Instead she gathered her up in her arms, lifted her and, staggering, carried her through to the living-room. She dumped her on the couch, picked up the phone, dialled 999 and waited.
‘Ambulance. Emergency. Jubilee Road, Hackney. Flat 9. Asthma. Please, quickly.’
She slammed down the receiver. What if they took too long? She had to get Sam.
She scrabbled among the pieces of paper next to the phone, hoping Sam had written Connor’s number down. She saw a number written in Sam’s hand and dialled it.
‘Hello?’
It was Steven’s number.
‘Hi. Steven here.’
She thought her head was about to explode. She couldn’t stop crying.
‘Have you got a car? Where are you?’
‘Who is this?’
‘Brera. Please! Where are you?’
‘I’m …’
‘Are you near here? Are you near Hackney?’
‘I … not far away. I’m at Liverpool Street. This is my mobile phone.’
Brera could hardly speak. ‘Please come here. My daughter … I’ve phoned an ambulance but it might take too long. Please come.’
She dropped the receiver and ran back over to Sylvia. Sylvia was now limp, her eyes were closed and her head was lolling to one side. Brera lifted up her T-shirt and started to rub her chest. Sylvia’s eyes opened slightly. She whispered, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
Brera felt as if a firework had gone off inside her mouth. ‘You can bloody talk! You can bloody talk you little vixen and that’s all you can say! You can talk and that’s all you can say! Christ! Say something. No. Don’t say anything. Just breathe!’
She stopped rubbing, ran out on to the roof, picked up the inhaler and sprinted back inside with it. She rammed it between
Sylvia’s lips and pressed it three or four times. Most of the gas escaped through the sides of her mouth. Her head lolled. Brera tried it several more times and then, once again, attempted mouth to mouth.
It seemed like an age before she heard the buzzer sound. She ran to the entry-phone and pressed the button next to it, shoved the front door wide open to ease access and then ran to get Sylvia. She pulled down her T-shirt and tried to pick her up.
There was no ambulance, only Steven. He jogged up the stairs, through the flat, into the living-room. He was breathless and frightened, not so much by the possibility of facing something horrible (like a bloody injury, for example, a broken limb) as by the fear that he might not prove up to coping with it. He was prepared to see Sam, cut, bruised, maimed, electrocuted, but instead all he saw as he ran in was Brera, her face red, her hair red, wearing only a blue and white striped night-shirt, trying to pick up the prostrate body of a girl he had never seen before.