Ruby and the Stone Age Diet (2 page)

Ruby must be across in the next block with her boyfriend Domino. I wish she was here to talk to.

I don’t like Domino. Ruby is very smart. He is dumb.

Ruby is writing a book. Domino can hardly read.

Outside the window is a pathetic little window-box with a dead weed and five cigarette ends. I think about planting some flowers in it then taking them to Cis. Looking out the window I see her go past. I walk back to the other side of the room but nothing has changed there.

The next day I am captured by a spaceship. It swoops down on me when I am walking through Trafalgar Square and takes me away for some tests. The aliens look quite normal but I am worried they might be wearing masks and underneath they are really horrible and scaly. Still, I am not one
of these people who is totally paranoid about space aliens. After all, there is no real reason for them to be unfriendly.

So I try and co-operate the best I can with their tests and after a while, when I have taught them some English, we get on quite well and they show me round. Their spaceship is full of luxuriant flowers, all lilac and yellow and bursting with life. They try bringing me some tea as they read in my thoughts that I am very fond of tea but the machine that makes it gets it a little wrong. Still, I appreciate the thought.

Ruby arrives back. I go for a talk with her but she is busy writing a letter.

‘Who are you writing to?’

‘I’m writing to my genitals.’

I borrow her book of myths and fables and sit beside her, reading.

‘Where do you want to go now?’ asks the Captain of the space aliens.

‘Just back to Trafalgar Square,’ I say, and they drop me off.

I wander round for a while thinking about the aliens and wondering if I should tell anyone about it but just down the road at Charing Cross I lose concentration when I suffer a dreadful hallucination that there are rows and rows of people living in cardboard boxes, so I hurry on past and catch the bus back to Brixton. It is raining and this makes my knee
hurt and I wish I had remembered to ask the space aliens if they could cure it, because my knee is often sore.

Back on Earth I start missing Cis again. I cannot think of any reason that she would have left me. Disappointingly, Ruby is unable to explain the joke the man told on the building site.

I show her the potted plant that Cis gave me as a leaving present. Two tears dribble from my eyes.

‘Never mind,’ says Ruby. ‘At least it is a nice cactus.’

Afreet
, says Ruby’s book,
is the evil God of Broken Relationships. If you offend him your lover will leave you
.

‘I met Izzy today,’ says Ruby. ‘She is having terrible problems with her boyfriend and she has bought two weights to build up her body.’

‘What sort of weights?’

‘Little ones. She wanted something bigger but the woman in the shop told her that she had to start off small. Apparently it is the repetition that counts. Her boyfriend is secretly fucking someone else.’

I would like to phone Cis but I know she doesn’t want to hear from me.

I can never find a reliable drummer for my band. This is on my mind while I am patching my jeans and feeling hungry. My jeans are a shambles and we can’t afford any food.

‘I think we should become Buddhists,’ says Ruby.

‘I am busy patching my jeans.’

‘See? You are too concerned with the material world. Once we are Buddhists you won’t worry about patching your jeans or stuff like that.’

‘Are you religious about your drumming?’ I once asked a drummer, in a shabby all-night café in Soho.

‘Not really. There is no god of drumming. But I do follow the way of the Tao.’

‘What will Domino say if you became a Buddhist? Will you still be able to fuck him?’

‘Domino can fuck himself,’ says Ruby.

They have been arguing again. I think about Ruby’s suggestion.

‘If I become a Buddhist will I stop being sad about Cis?’

‘Right away.’

Next day, in heavy rain and very hungry, we go up into town to join a Buddhist temple.

They give us a vegetarian meal which tastes very good and we sit around banging tambourines for a while. I pretend I am banging a tambourine in tribute to the God of Drumming so he will send my band a good drummer.

‘I am enjoying this,’ I say to Ruby, and she seems quite enthusiastic as well.

Everyone has shaven heads and we wonder if we will have to have this done. Ruby says she doesn’t mind, even though she has lots of meticulously cared-for hair, because spiritual people don’t bother about this sort of thing. Also we will get nice orange robes.

After we’ve banged our tambourines and chanted and had some more vegetarian food a man comes and sits with us.

‘I am your instructor,’ he says.

‘How long have you been a Buddhist?’ asks Ruby.

‘We’re not Buddhists,’ says the man. ‘We’re Hare Krishna.’

We pick up our shoes on the way out.

‘What a disappointment,’ says Ruby.

‘How come we picked the wrong temple?’

‘At least it was nice food.’

‘The act of eating disgusts me,’ says Ruby. ‘Do you think I am putting on weight?’

‘No.’

Ruby worries about her weight. It is stupid. She is not overweight.

A string of shaven-haired devotees marches past, chanting and banging drums.

‘Don’t ask them to join your band,’ advises Ruby. ‘You’ll be wasting your time.’

‘Is that—’

‘No it isn’t. Cis isn’t here. And it doesn’t look anything like her.’

‘Why did you write a letter to your genitals?’

‘I was just telling them how much I dislike them. It is a procedure recommended in my new book. Next I have to write them another letter telling them how much I like them.’

On the way home we meet Izzy who is eating a pizza in the street and carrying a small weight.

‘I have to screw this onto my dumbbells,’ she tells us. ‘It’s time to make them slightly heavier.’

She is wearing a leather waistcoat. She flexes her bicep.

‘Do you notice any difference?’

Ruby and I say yes although actually we don’t.

‘How are you getting on with Dean?’ asks Ruby. Dean is Izzy’s boyfriend.

Izzy shrugs. There is a definite kind of shrug that means you are not getting on too well with your boyfriend.

Back home I go through to look at my cactus.

Ruby follows me into my room.

‘Let me have a look at that cactus.’

She studies it for a while.

‘This is sensational.’

‘What?’

‘This cactus. According to my book of myths and fables it is the sacred Aphrodite Cactus. Once it flowers your love is sealed forever with the person that gave it to you.’

‘When will it flower?’

‘Any time.’

It is February. Any time cannot be far away. I am pleased to have Aphrodite on my side.

Ruby comes back from Domino’s, slamming the door, holding a cactus and forcing a smile.

‘Domino bought me a sacred Aphrodite Cactus. I made him do it. He wanted to spend the money on beer instead. Look after it till it flowers.’ She storms off, apparently unhappy despite the cactus.

I put it next to mine and feed them both some plant food. Outside it is thundering and lightning and lashing down rain.

One time around midnight I met a girl called Anastasia at a bus stop in the rain at Clapham Common. This sticks in my mind because Anastasia is an unusual name. No buses came so we started walking together. At this time I was still in the Army Careers Office.

‘It would be nice to control the weather,’ said Anastasia, pulling her collar tight against the rain. ‘Like a rain god. I’d walk around in sunshine all day long. Maybe I might have a little bit of rain so I could make some rainbows.’

I go through to Ruby’s room and ask her what is wrong and she says that Domino is a complete moron who wants to drink beer all the time and he reminds her of her father.

I try being sympathetic but I am not a very convincing liar and Ruby sees through me. We disappear into our separate rooms and I get back to staring at my potted plant. I had considered writing a poem but now I don’t feel much like it because with Ruby in such a bad mood I will have no one to show it to. But this is probably just as well, because I am a terrible poet.

It rained till the gutters overflowed onto the pavements. At the corner of Battersea High Street Anastasia quoted me three lines of a poem by Byron and told me she would like to come home with me. This was a surprise, but fine.

Possibly I am massively attractive that night. Possibly she is dreadfully lonely. Probably she is just fed up with getting rained on.

At my front door I find I have lost the keys.

‘I have lost the keys.’

We look at the front door. It is barricaded like a good squat should be, with a rough sketch of Tilka, Guardian Goddess of Squatters, protecting the entrance. Hammering on it produces no results. No one is home.

‘Never mind,’ I say. ‘I’ll get in the back.’