Ruby and the Stone Age Diet (4 page)

I wonder what day it is.

‘What day is it?’ says Ruby.

Neither of us have any idea.

In the mirror I look like a corpse. I am sorry the Great Goddess has gone but pleased Ruby has come back. After a while, when I don’t feel like vomiting anymore, I walk round to the shops for some cigarettes and a bar of chocolate for Ruby. When I’m there I look at a newspaper to find out the date and I find it is Saturday, which is in some ways a pity as we both should have signed on at the Unemployment Office on Wednesday and forgetting to sign on is practically the worst thing you can do when you are on the dole.

On the way back I think that I see Cis coming towards me with a dog, but when the person gets up close she is nothing at all like Cis, she is an old woman of eighty with a carrier bag containing her week’s shopping and I can see from the way she carries her shopping that she is the loneliest person in the world. Probably all she has to talk to is a cactus.

‘Here’s your chocolate, Ruby.’

Ruby looks distressed and says she does not want any chocolate as chocolate disgusts her.

‘But you asked me to buy it.’

‘How are the potted plants coming along?’

‘Very well. I think mine’s grown with all the food I’ve given it. If Cis was to come back right now she’d be really pleased how well I’ve looked after it. No flowers though. Are you sure you don’t want this chocolate?’

‘Yes. What do you know about diaphragms?’

‘I know what they are.’

Ruby is surprised. She does not really expect me to know anything.

‘I am having trouble with mine.’

I make her some tea and Ruby tells me how lonely she feels when Domino is not around, and how good she feels when he brings her little gifts like bars of chocolate.

Ruby is the most intelligent person I know and also very strong. Why she is bothered by a fool like Domino not being around to bring her chocolate I can’t imagine.

Ruby and I are sitting quietly. Sometimes we sit quietly for hours. Domino is incapable of this. He talks continually because he has to hear his own voice all the time. I hate him.

‘Look.’

Ruby has made a spaceship out of the chocolate wrapper. We fly it round the room for a while till it is time for me to rehearse with my band. Wrapping my guitar in a black plastic bag I walk down to the studio, but when I arrive only Nigel is there and he says the new drummer we recruited has decided not to play with us after all but to go away for a long holiday in Denmark instead.

‘Is it nice in Denmark?’

Nigel doesn’t know. I offer him some chocolate but he refuses because not having a drummer makes him too depressed to eat. Also the chocolate is not too appetising after resting wrapperless in my guitar case. He departs in silence and I try and visit some people but no one is in so I have to go home.

The next launch is particularly successful. Crowds cheer ecstatically and in no time at all we are plunging into
deep space. I like our spaceship except this time I notice all the daffodils and lilacs are plastic, and I am not at all fond of plastic. Before take-off I strongly request some real daffodils but apparently they are bad for the oxygen supply.

The President radios his congratulations on the successful launch. I complain to him about the plastic daffodils.

‘And where is my guitar?’ I ask, but he pretends not to hear.

All the crew are busy with scientific experiments. I am busy trying to tidy my little cabin, brushing away a few cobwebs and programming our computer on how to make me a guitar, when suddenly we are bombarded by a ferocious meteor storm.

‘Why didn’t the computer warn us?’ cries the Captain.

‘Its memory banks are all full of instructions on how to make a guitar and long love poems about some woman called Cis,’ reports the First Mate.

We are battered mercilessly by the meteors. The door to the airlock is ripped to shreds and only heroic action by some crew members prevents total disaster.

Eventually we struggle through. Afterwards no one will speak to me because they are all annoyed at me endangering their lives by jamming up the computers. Fortunately by this time the computer has made me a guitar so I sit on my own in my cabin and work out a few songs and when the person in the next cabin bangs on the wall complaining about the noise I just ignore it. They disturb me by
exercising, always banging weights around and doing pushups.

I become quite friendly with our robot.

Later in the day Ruby appears with Domino and they act like they are the happiest couple in the world. I wait for Cis to appear so we can also act like the happiest couple in the world.

After a few hours it seems like she is not going to call round today. Maybe she is busy. Possibly she will call first thing in the morning. Suddenly it strikes me that if today is Saturday then it is time for me to get round to the art class where I work one day a week as a model.

I get washed. I never like to think that I smell bad when people are painting me.

‘Hello,’ says the teacher, a woman of about thirty-five with a cultured voice.

‘Hello,’ say all the students of all ages also with cultured voices. There is a little screen for me to get undressed behind which always strikes me as strange.

I have no real idea why the art class needs someone to get undressed to be their model but if they are willing to pay it is fine with me, also they are always very nice to me and sometimes buy me a drink afterwards. In fact, sometimes afterwards they all fall over themselves to talk to me and be pleasant. Possibly they are keen to let me know they do not regard me as being in any way inferior because I
have been sitting there for two hours being painted with no clothes on.

Today the teacher puts lots of boxes beside me. I am disappointed. I was hoping for some daffodils. She piles up the boxes a bit like a robot and tells all the students to make their paintings like boxes. Or robots. Or something like that, I am not too clear about it.

Sitting being painted I am very lonely. I talk to Cis in my head.

Only another twenty minutes
, I say to her.
Then I’ll be finished. What would you like to do tonight?
I get the feeling that it is unbearable where I am and I want to walk to the other side of the room to see if it is any better there, but as the one thing the art class requires of me is that I stay still this is not possible. A pity, because the other side of the room looks like it might be better.

I wonder if I should tell the art class my problems. Probably they would not like being interrupted in their painting. Everyone always concentrates hard at the class. Also I realise that being left unhappy by your lover is such a common experience that everyone would just be bored by it.

The goddess responsible for people whose lovers have left them is called Jasmine and she is always very busy. Sometimes she gets out her flaming sword and battles with Afreet the God of Broken Relationships when she sees that he is about to strike. She is hugely compassionate but she has a high failure rate. Her difficult job sometimes makes her turn to drink, and then there are broken hearts everywhere.

At the end of the art class I get dressed and the teacher
brings out some wine. This is not normal but it seems to be a little celebration for something or other and they all drink wine out of paper cups. When the teacher pours some for me she makes a little wine joke and everybody smiles, but as I have no idea whatsoever what the wine joke is about I just look vacant. Later I have the vague notion that I am pretty dumb compared to these artists who can go around making paintings and wine jokes.

Afterwards I have to go to Stepney to meet a violent sadist who advertised for me in a contact magazine. He is terrible to me and after he beats and fucks me I am half-dead and have blood all down my back. I do not approve of violent sex.

‘I don’t fit in with the art class.’

‘You don’t have to fit in,’ says Ruby. ‘You are only the model.’

‘Still, I am pretty dumb compared to them. I used to like it better there but since Cis left me I feel stupid. Also I think my soul has gone missing.’

‘Yes,’ says Ruby. ‘That is possible. You could well have lost it.’

‘Where could it be?’

But Ruby is too busy reading her giant reference book of myths and fables. This book is an endless source of wonderment.

I shuffle round the flat trying to find a space where I do not feel bad about Cis. I have bought a little yellow cloth
to brush the dust off my cactus. After cleaning it I study it closely for any sign of a flower. I wonder if Cis will reappear as soon as it buds or will she wait till the whole flower appears?

It is now March and there is no sign of a flower.