Ruby and the Stone Age Diet (16 page)

‘We have a brilliant new can-opener,’ I say, trying to cover the slight embarrassment caused by Domino’s disregard for Ruby’s endeavours.

Domino is not interested in any can-openers so I decide to go out and walk around. It starts to rain, which reminds me of Ruby’s strange accusation that I have been telling Rain God stories.

At the next corner I meet Shamash the Sun God.

‘I see Cis has been busy today making all this rain,’ he says. ‘I am lonely up there in the sky by myself. I could do with a friend. I am on my way to buy a book of mythical history that will tell me who the sun is meant to be friends with.’

‘How will you get in touch?’

‘I might place an advert. I think I would like to go out with a moon worshipper. Maybe even a werewolf. It’s a long time since I had any excitement.’

‘Hello.’

‘Hello Izzy, what you doing?’

‘I’ve just come back from having my abortion and now I’m going to eat a pizza in the market then I’m going home to exercise the muscles round my knees and thighs, what are you doing?’

I explain I have just been talking to Shamash the Sun God and Izzy says really, was it nice, and I shrug my shoulders because I don’t want to make too much of it.

‘Do you think if Cis was to walk along here with her little sister and her little sister was suddenly to run out into the road and then a massive truck was about to run her down because its brakes had failed and I rushed out and saved her then Cis would start going out with me again?’

‘No,’ replies Izzy. ‘And anyway, Cis’s little sister is seventeen and could dodge the truck herself.’

‘Suppose she was drunk?’

‘Is this likely to happen?’

‘Well, yes, her little sister cannot hold her drink.’

‘I mean, is the whole scenario likely to happen?’

‘It was just a thought. I miss Cis terribly.’

Izzy says that she has noticed. When we reach the market she offers me some pizza but I don’t enjoy it very much.

I do not last long as Assistant Head Storeman. The Head Chef, a very pompous man, is annoyed when he walks into the underground food store and catches me juggling oranges. I am reported to the Head Storeman. He gives me a terrible row and I resign in disgust. My benefit is suspended
because the DHSS does not think that resigning in disgust is a reasonable thing to do.

‘Ruby, why am I condemned to doing terrible jobs all the time?’

‘Because the country is in the grip of evil demons.’

‘Jane who sells communist newspapers blames the economy.’

‘What would she know about anything?’

During my few weeks at the hotel I am, however, very well fed. Smoked salmon hang in the fridge and I eat strips off them and drink from gallon cartons of cream and devour boxes of expensive chocolates and every day I take a big peach home for Ruby.

When I get home after the pizza, I find that Ruby has moved house. This is a terrible shock. She has left without telling me.

But when I rack my brains I eventually remember that today was the day that we were due to move because our eviction notice arrived last week, in fact now I think about it I was meant to be out buying bin-liners to pack our clothes in.

The council have been and boarded up the door with a huge iron anti-squatting device.

Ruby has gone and our flat is boarded up. I am alone in the world. I am engulfed in a huge flood of self-pity.

One of the many things I have in common with Ruby is that we are both expert self-pityists. We regard it as a good positive emotion. If I can’t find her again I know I will never meet anyone as good for sitting round being miserable with.

Homeless, I stare at it, a little perplexed. I shake it but it won’t let me in. Where has Ruby gone?

She is my only real friend. If she has gone away and left me I don’t know what I will do.

I wonder if she took my belongings. I wonder if she took good care of my potted plant. I wonder if I was meant to help us move. It seems almost certain I would have been. Ruby will be furious. I have to spend five days sleeping on the floor of a slight acquaintance’s flat and wearing the same clothes, and after I get rained on I am wet and shivering all the time.

Ascanazl appears, resplendent in his lilac-and-yellow feathered cloak. I ask him for help because now, without even Ruby to talk to, I am as lonely as I can possibly be.

‘I’m afraid I am too busy to help,’ he says. ‘And my girlfriend has left me.’

My next contact refuses to fuck me because I am too dirty. Ruby will be furious.

‘Please,’ I say.

‘No. You are too filthy for me to abuse. I have a horror of cold shivering bodies.’

Eventually I bump into Ruby in the street when she is out buying some margarine and she says where the hell have you been and why did you disappear when it was time for us to move? She seems quite annoyed about the whole thing and really I am stuck for a good explanation.

Eventually I have to claim that I was kidnapped by a spaceship and Ruby seems to accept this as a reasonable story.

She takes me to our new home, a squatted flat on the Aylesbury Estate. Having arrived five days before me Ruby has taken the best room, but I would have let her have it anyway. I notice she is looking a little fatigued. No doubt it was hard work moving all our things. Also she will have had to make all her own cups of tea and go round to the shops herself. Her dress is badly stained because she can never remember to buy soap powder.

I am a little sorry about all this so for the next week I try and make up for it by making continual cups of tea and helping her in every way possible. Soon she is feeling better and her dress is clean again. I buy her three new pairs of sunglasses and everything is fine.

We postpone our gig again. I rehearse with Nigel but we still don’t have a drummer. The boy with attractive white dreadlocks turns up for the audition and he is quite good but he says he doesn’t like our music and the weather turns colder and it rains everywhere and Cis’s mother is living next door.

‘Cis’s mother is living next door,’ I say to Ruby.

‘No she isn’t,’ says Ruby, pulling down the top of her dress. ‘Feel this lump, I think I have breast cancer.’

‘Yes she is, I saw her.’ I feel Ruby’s breast but it doesn’t seem like cancer to me, although I am not an expert.

‘No you didn’t,’ says Ruby. ‘You’re imagining it. Do you think it is a malignant tumour?’

‘No, I don’t think so, but maybe if you’re worried you should see a doctor. You’re breasts are very white, you have skin the same colour as Cis’s and I’m sure her mother is living next door.’

Ruby prods at the lump for a little while more and I can see she is worried, although she does take the time to tell me that the flats on either side of us are occupied by black families and as she seems to remember that Cis is white then it is not likely that any of the people there are her mother.

Reassured I go and look for a clinic of some sort and when I find one I ask for a booklet on how to check for breast cancer and the receptionist is very nice about it and loads me up with leaflets and pamphlets about all sorts of things. I am impressed by her efficiency.

‘Would you like to be the drummer in my band?’

‘No,’ she replies. ‘I am already a drummer in someone else’s band and I wouldn’t like to take on any more work because I am really involved in our music.’

‘Oh well, thanks for the leaflets.’

‘Be sure and have the young lady come in if she’s still worried.’

‘Right,’ says Ruby. ‘If I’m not going to die of breast cancer then we can get on with the insurance fraud.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Come with me,’ says Ruby. ‘Mind the door when you leave, it’s still weak after I jemmied it in.’

Ruby takes me round to the house of some friend of hers who I have never met and we immediately start loading up rucksacks with stereo equipment and videos.

The house is full of potted plants and flowers in vases.

‘Will I take the flowers?’ I ask, but Ruby says you cannot claim insurance for stolen flowers.

The pretended robbery continues until everything is packed into bags.