Ruby and the Stone Age Diet (17 page)

‘Now we just wait for the van to take all the stuff down to Izzy’s. Then we get a big cut of the fake insurance claim.’

The van doesn’t arrive. After waiting for two hours Ruby says we had better just set off on foot. At one in the morning I have to walk the streets of Brixton with a rucksack full of stereo equipment and a video recorder in a black plastic bag, trying to protect them from the thick cold rain.

There seems to be a policeman on one corner and a gang on the next. At any moment I will be arrested or robbed.

Ruby strides confidently on, however, and we deliver the goods safely to Izzy’s house.

‘I’ll help you carry them upstairs,’ says Izzy. ‘These days I’m pretty strong.’

‘Now we have money,’ says Ruby. ‘And the rain has stopped. The pub round the corner is still open because there are bands playing. Let’s get a drink.’

We overindulge in drink, relieved that we have not been arrested or robbed in the street.

The toilet in the pub has no glass in the window but still smells bad.

‘Stop killing Irish children with plastic bullets’ says some graffiti on the wall.

Two men in the pub make a comment about Ruby’s bare feet and she tells them to go and fuck themselves. The band plays and they are quite good, which is a surprise.

‘Do you know anyone with a chequebook and cheque card?’ asks Ruby. ‘I know where we can sell them for a good profit.’

‘How is my cactus? It is August. It should have flowered.’

‘Yes, it should. And so should mine. But they haven’t. Perhaps something is holding them up. Did you notice Izzy had been crying?’

‘No. What’s wrong with her?’

‘Dean hates her for having an abortion and so do her parents. She told me the whole world is against her. Would you like to hear a story I just wrote?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sit down comfortably, then.’

‘Where did she get a helicopter?’

‘She stole it,’ says Ruby.

‘How did she learn to fly it?’

She shrugs.

‘Are you going to write any more about Millie Molly Mandy and Betty Lou Marvel?’

‘No. They belong to another story. Now stop interrupting or I won’t finish before dinner.’

‘We don’t have any food. You burned it all.’

‘Good. Food disgusts me. Now listen.’

I wake up with Cis wrapped round me. A tiny bug walks over the quilt. I brush it off, taking care not to kill it.

When I sit up it wakes Cis.

‘I have an idea for a new song.’

I get out of bed and drag my guitar out of its case, a good case, second-hand from the music shop in Coldharbour Lane, and start strumming. Cis joins me on the floor and works the tape recorder because it is fun to record a few chords and listen to them later.

Crawling around we are soon all wrapped up in guitar
leads and tape recorders and when Ruby comes into the room to see if she can borrow some money she laughs at us naked on the floor with musical instruments draped around us. Then we laugh too because it seems funny, although before we had just been having a good time and had not considered the fact that we hadn’t got dressed.

My guitar lead stretches round Cis’s thigh and between her legs, black against her very white skin. Beside her I look a grubby sort of light brown colour. Cis says that today she would like to buy some new earrings, small silver pendants with fake ruby stones she has seen in the market.

We play my new song, sit next to each other’s bodies and think about making tea and buying earrings.

At four in the morning I walk past Cis’s window. I stop and stare for a while, wondering what she is doing. Standing looking at her window is a ludicrous thing to do.

A policeman cycles up. I have never seen a policeman on a bicycle before. Bicycles are bad for the knees. After working in the private mailing warehouse my knee hurt for months.

‘Ruby, do you know what I can do about my—’

‘My knee is sore,’ said Ruby. ‘Can you go out and get me an elastic bandage?’

She had stolen my injury.

I walked round to the chemist but it was shut so I had to walk on further. At the next chemist I met Izzy.

‘I’m just buying a bandage,’ she told me. ‘I hurt my knee doing exercises.’

It was an epidemic.

‘What are you standing here for in the rain?’ asks the policeman on the bicycle.

‘Staring at my ex-girlfriend’s window.’

He takes my name and date of birth and radios it in to the police station to see if I am a wanted criminal. I am not.

‘You look bad,’ he says. ‘Try and get more exercise. Sleep with the window open. And good luck with your staring. I often stare at my ex-girlfriend’s window myself. She left me for a guitar player.’

‘Acoustic or electric?’

He doesn’t know. He cycles off. It is still raining.

The stairs up to our flat make my knee hurt. My leg shakes inside as the muscles try to pull away from the cartilage.

Some time ago I bought Ruby an elastic bandage but I can’t find it. I make straight for her bedroom, a room that, as is quite normal for Ruby’s various bedrooms, has one wall painted black and the other three whatever colour they originally were, because Ruby’s feeling that a black bedroom would be nice never extends beyond her first tin of paint.

I wake her up.

‘Ruby, my knee is sore, remember you said I should see an osteopath, how do I find an osteopath?’

‘Why do you want to know at five in the morning?’

‘Because I’m feeling bad about Cis leaving me. I’ve just been staring at her window.’

‘Never stare at someone’s window in the middle of the night. It is a creepy thing to do. Also, you’ll get arrested.’

‘I almost was.’

Ruby struggles into her dress and brings a towel to dry my hair. Then I make us some tea and we talk about things and switch on the television.

An American comedy actress is being interviewed in front of an audience of fans.

‘What is your inspiration for working?’

‘The Big Guy in the sky.’

She says what a wonder and a privilege it is to be a mother, particularly in America. The audience applauds and Ruby says she is starting to feel sick.

I am a little hungry and offer to try and make breakfast, something I can do because yesterday we imposed some iron discipline on ourselves and went shopping.

Ruby declines the offer.

‘The act of eating has started to repel me.’

‘Has it? OK, I’ll just get something myself.’

Ruby tells me I can’t because she has burned all the food.

In the bin there is an unbelievable mess.

I was wondering what the bad smell was. It reminds me of the bad smell in the biology class where me and Cis first met, dissecting frogs.

She defied the teacher and refused to dissect a frog. She
said that dissecting frogs was a wicked thing to do. Naturally I went along with this and both of us refusing to dissect frogs in the face of strong opposition brought us together.

The local paper wrote a story about us, underneath a small article on flower arranging.

Ruby says that she would like some more sleep now, so I go and strum my guitar and walk around the room looking at the damp patches on the walls. The damp patches will be bad for my sore knee. I wish Ruby hadn’t chosen last night to carry on her crusade against food. I feel better for talking to her.

Suddenly I have a good idea. I will look at Ruby’s book.

Depressed, I put down Ruby’s book of myths and fables. It is hopeless. I always wondered why everything went wrong all the time but now I realise it is because of all the powerful spirits ranged against me.

Before I go to bed I make sure the window is open.

My next job is as a temporary clerk for Securicor in an office with a coffee machine on the wall and a sign in the bathroom: IF YOU ARE LONELY THEN GOD WILL HELP YOU.

Will he? Good. Please send me Cis.

I wait all day but she doesn’t appear.

There are pages and pages of numbers in fractions. I have to convert them to decimals in the morning and file my results in the afternoon.

Every minute I am expecting bank robbers to arrive but they never do. I only stay there two days and later the agency tells me that I was not well enough dressed to work in the Securicor office.

Watching television with Ruby a man comes on and makes a joke about not being able to tell if the light in the fridge really goes out when you shut the door.

Ruby is outraged.

‘What a boring tedious thing to say. I must have heard a hundred people say that.’

I am busy putting a patch on some jeans and do not pay much attention till some time later Ruby shouts at me from the kitchen.

‘Come here a minute.’

She is staring at the fridge.