Steven felt daunted by these two women, both so vibrant and voracious. So different. A black daughter, a white mother. Could you get more different than that? He picked up his coffee and placed it close to his nose so that its steamy aroma would cut out the smell of the flat which was starting to make him feel nauseous. He looked at Brera over the rim of his cup and said, ‘I’m very pleased you agreed to meet up with me like this. When I saw the two of you last week at the Bull and Gate I was bowled over. It’s not often you see two such attractive women on stage together who can actually sing, I mean really sing, let alone write their own music.’

Neither woman seemed especially impressed by this. Sam reached over for the coffee jug, scattering bits of pastry across the table in the process. She said, ‘We’ve got lots of ideas, if that’s what you mean.’

She poured her coffee and then licked her fingers clean. Steven watched her small pink tongue darting in and out of her mouth. It reminded him of a lizard’s tongue or a hamster’s. That’s odd, he thought. I’ve never even seen a hamster’s tongue before. He wondered why she had to talk, why she couldn’t just sit. Just sit.

Brera said, ‘Sam’s in charge of this venture. She imagines everything, how we should be and so forth. She’s fussy.’

Sam nodded. ‘I am.’

Steven laced his fingers together. ‘I can deal with that.’

‘We’ve got a fairly pure vision. It’s complex, but we can discuss all the details later.’ Brera picked up a croissant and then spooned on some jam. ‘We’re bullies. We don’t like being told what to do.’

Sam added, ‘We’ve already decided that we won’t put up with too many changes musically. We like doing some of our own stuff, well, my sister’s stuff. We know it’s eccentric …’

Steven began to look sceptical, but he kept in mind the fact that his latest client, a snooker player, had recently thrown in the towel to go back to his day job. He said, ‘Obviously, the fact that you don’t just do cover versions stands in your favour. Although my ideal image of the two of you is more as a mother-and-daughter soul and country duo. I prefer the country songs to the new-wave stuff.’

Sam mouthed the words ‘new wave’ at Brera and smiled. Steven was insulted. He thought, five years ago the term new wave was perfectly respectable.

Brera frowned at Sam and then said, ‘Of course we’d be willing to consider some new songs for the act, so long as we don’t lose all our own stuff.’

Sam leaned towards him and whispered, ‘You think our own songs are crap, don’t you?’

Before he could think how to respond she added, ‘Well, that’s OK, we think so too, sometimes. The problem is that they aren’t written according to the standard musical scale.’

Brera interrupted. ‘It’s complicated, that’s all.’ Then she added, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll soon get the hang of us.’

Steven was struggling to keep up. He said, ‘So you both want me to manage you?’ They nodded.

He felt as though he was missing out on something crucial, was bemused, but threw caution to the wind and said, ‘Then I’d be delighted to.’

He held out his hand to Brera. Brera hesitated for a moment before taking it. She had the strong yellow nails of a long-time guitar plucker. After pressing his fingers for a second she let go and picked up the plate of croissants. ‘Take one. They’re nearly cold.’

Sam laughed. ‘They are cold.’

Steven was secretly irritated that this courteous gesture on Brera’s part had deprived him of the opportunity of shaking Sam’s hand again. Sam didn’t seem to care though. She was sipping her coffee and looking over at Brera as though they were sharing some kind of private joke. He hoped emphatically that he wasn’t it.

Sylvia had been asked by both Sam and Brera to attend the breakfast meeting. She had agreed to go. ‘After all,’ they’d said, ‘whatever the outcome, it’s bound to affect you.’

She had agreed to go but had never had any real intention of attending, although this didn’t dissuade her from standing outside the kitchen and listening to the on-going conversation inside. Occasionally she was forced to scamper back to her room to stifle her coughing, which was dry, hacking, and came in short bursts every few minutes.

She had watched Steven get out of his car and walk towards their block of flats from her window, and had disliked him, on principle, instantaneously. What she overheard from outside the kitchen didn’t improve this opinion.

She was glad that she had kept out of the way. She was sure that her presence at the breakfast table would have spoilt the success of any joint venture.

Why should I care anyway? she thought furiously. I have my own bloody life.

She sat down on her bed and stared blankly at the carpet. She felt constricted. Things kept changing. Things always changed.

A sparrow flew in and landed on her shoulder. The pigeons cooed.

THREE

‘How long have you been waiting?’

The policeman glanced at his watch. ‘Five minutes.’

Ruby found him moderately attractive, for a policeman. He was tall but thin and had a deep dimple in either cheek and in his chin.

‘I’ve come about the bail,’ he said, stepping out of the doorway so she could get to her door.

‘Why?’ she said. ‘What did I do?’

He smiled at this. While he smiled, it dawned on her. ‘For him? You must be joking. He expects me to pay his bail?’

‘He told me that you were the closest he had to a relative.’

Ruby’s startled expression made him laugh out loud.

‘You’re just a sadist,’ she said, ‘in a bloody police uniform.’

‘In case you wondered, I got your address from your manager. He said this was a company flat.’

Ruby felt around in the pocket of her jacket for her keys. ‘I’m not paying his bail. I don’t even know him.’

‘That’s up to you. He’s got no money of his own.’

She put her key into the lock. ‘I never even met him before today.’

‘You must’ve made a good impression.’

‘How much is it, anyway?’

‘Two hundred.’

She pushed the door open. ‘He can sing for it. You can tell him that.’

‘I will.’

‘Is that all?’

He nodded.

‘Thanks, then.’

She stepped inside, then turned. ‘Where is he exactly?’

‘The local nick.’ He began to grin. ‘You’re going to pay it, aren’t you?’

‘Even I,’ she said firmly, ‘am not quite that stupid,’ and closed the door behind her.

Two hundred, she thought, climbing the stairs. He’s crazy.

She’d almost reached the top when she heard the doorbell chime inside her flat. She swore, turned round, and walked back down again to answer it. Outside, instead of the policeman, whom she’d half-expected, was her friend Pablo. Everyone preferred to call him Toro. She didn’t know why. He was holding two bottles of cheap lemon vodka. Ruby took a bottle from him and inspected the label. ‘What’s wrong with Martini or a crate of lager?’

Toro smiled, his cheeks bunched up and the pressure of them squeezed his eyes into almonds. ‘I saw you at Hackney,’ he said, ‘on television.’

‘Yeah?’ She turned and started to walk upstairs again. ‘Where? In Ladbrokes? How did I look?’

He slammed the front door and followed her. ‘Completely beautiful.’

‘Thanks.’

Once inside, Ruby took off her jacket and slung it over the back of the sofa, then flung herself into an armchair and scraped her heels across the floor to pull off her shoes. She wriggled her stockinged toes and said, ‘Maybe I should grow my toenails and paint them, then I could wear sandals and my feet wouldn’t sweat as much.’

Toro looked slightly disgusted. ‘Why was the shop closed this morning?’

She didn’t answer immediately, so he searched for the volume percentage of alcohol on the label of one of the bottles he was holding.

Ruby’s flat was comfortable but shoddy. It consisted of a small sitting-room and adjoining kitchen, with an old Baby Belling, a sink and a fridge, a tiny bathroom and a small box-shaped bedroom. The walls were painted a uniform creamy yellow which gave the place a distinctly institutional feel. The furniture was old but solid. Ruby had few homely or ornamental possessions, but a lot of clothes and records. The records lined one wall of the sitting-room and items of clothing, clumps of accessories and numerous pairs of boots and shoes had been tossed about with general disregard. The room was dusty.

Toro unscrewed the top of a vodka bottle and asked for some glasses. Ruby picked up a couple of dirty mugs and went to the sink to give them a wash. She couldn’t find a clean tea-towel to dry them with so used a bathroom towel instead. Toro grimaced at them. ‘The mouth of these mugs is too thick.’

‘Not mouth, lip. You should know. You’re the wine waiter.’

She banged the mugs on to the floor next to his feet and sat down again while he poured. He half-filled both mugs and then handed her one. She took a sip, pulled a face, but said nothing. Two hundred quid, she thought.

Toro was over fifty and poorly though smartly dressed in a grey suit and old shirt. He was small and slightly overweight, with dark black hair, greased back, and sallow cheeks. His eyes were hooded, red, but lively. She’d never seen him clean-shaven, but often smelled aftershave on him - a whiff of cinnamon and spearmint. He worked in a restaurant, but spent most of his time gambling.

Ruby told him about Vincent and he listened intently. She concluded, ‘I’ve never even met him before, but now he expects me to fork out two hundred in bail money.’

‘That Dawn’s a bitch.’

Ruby wasn’t receptive to this. She didn’t want to feel implicated. Even so, she said, ‘I’ve still got the money I won on the National. I’ve got at least two hundred left. I wanted to use it for something sensible, to invest it … I dunno.’

Toro bent over and screwed the top back on the bottle. ‘You were lucky for me this morning. I bet on the two dogs you were with at Hackney. Won both times.’

He indicated the two bottles with a smile. Ruby smiled too; not at him, but to herself.

‘They were Donald Sheldon’s dogs,’ she said. ‘He came over and had a chat. He said he’d offer me a job full-time if he got the chance. Took my number and everything. I told him I’d sooner be a trainer than a kennel-girl. Lots of women do it, you know.’

Toro chuckled. He said, ‘A big dog in a place like this?’

She scowled. He offered her the bottle again. She gulped down her vodka in one go and passed him her cup. While he poured she visualized Donald Sheldon. Top trainer at Hackney, she thought, remembering how he’d put his hand on her arm as he’d spoken to her. Creepy. Sexy. Too old for me, and too flash.

Toro was watching her face. ‘Don’t pay that bail,’ he said, misinterpreting her thoughtful expression.

‘What?’

‘He’s taking you for a fool.’

She stood up and went into the kitchen, took a coffee jar out of the cupboard, opened it and removed a bundle of notes.

‘Toro,’ she said, suddenly feeling lively and quite purposeful.

‘What?’

‘You’re full of bull.’

In the bathroom, she applied a thick coat of bright red lipstick, licked her teeth to ensure it hadn’t smudged on them, stared into the mirror at her own simple, stupid face, and mouthed the word moron.

FOUR

Sam was peering through the kitchen window, trying to see if Steven was outside yet and what kind of car he drove. Brera was clearing the table. Sam said, ‘He drives an old Jag. I wonder what that means.’

Brera piled a cup on to a plate, a cup on to a plate, a cup on to a plate. Spinal column, she thought, vertebra, disc, vertebra, disc. She carried them carefully over to the sink, slipped them into the soapy water and then peered out too. ‘Your problem,’ she said curtly, ‘is that everything always has to mean something. I like him.’

‘That’s simple enough,’ Sam said, wondering what Brera meant exactly.

Steven was debating whether it would be possible to get an old girlfriend of his to do some promotional shots of the Goldhawk Girls. (Bad name, he thought. That’ll be the first thing to go.) She wasn’t professional, but she was cheap.

As he drew closer to his car, he noticed that the side mirrors had been pulled off and that the aerial had been twisted into a heart shape. ‘Curse the bastard,’ he muttered. ‘Curse the bastard that did this.’ He grabbed the aerial and tried to straighten it.

Sylvia walked out of her room and into the kitchen. ‘He makes me want to spew,’ she announced.

Sam and Brera were doing the washing up. They both turned to look at her.

‘He liked your songs,’ Sam lied. ‘You should’ve come in and said hello.’

Sylvia removed a strand of her hair from the confines of the pony-tail she was wearing and twisted it around her finger. ‘He hated the songs. I heard him.’

Brera pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘He thought they were good but unusual.’

‘Don’t make me laugh.’

Brera crossed her arms and stared at Sylvia as she stood in the doorway. ‘Grow up.’

‘I’m nineteen. That’s old enough.’

For what? She didn’t look nineteen. She looked twelve. Like a scruffy, ill-adapted pre-teen.

‘And by the way,’ she added, ‘I vandalized his car.’

Brera continued to stare at her. ‘You appal me.’

Sam leaned on the window-sill and peered out again. Steven was still there, yanking at his aerial.

‘It’s only the aerial,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it’s an old car.’

Sylvia glared at her. ‘Who asked you?’

Brera threw herself forward on to the table and banged her forehead against it. Thump. She did it again. Thump.

Sylvia was furious. ‘Stop it!’

Brera stopped and straightened up. ‘Are you happy now?’

‘Yes!’ Sylvia shouted, and the shout turned instantly into a cough, into several coughs, whooping coughs.

She couldn’t breathe. She clutched her stomach and leaned against the side of the door, bent double.

Good, she thought. Punishment for everybody.

She coughed carelessly, loosely, so that the unrestrained force of her hacking might rip up her throat and bring out blood. She visualized the cough as two tiny beings playing volleyball inside her throat, passing the tickle back and forth, catching it, returning it, blocking it, holding it. If only, she thought desperately, seeing their impassive faces through her streaming eyes, if only they could enjoy my illness as much as I do.

She turned, still coughing, and staggered back down the corridor.

‘Go!’ Brera shouted after her. ‘I’m sick of the sight of you!’

Sam began washing up again. After a minute or so she said, ‘I think she feels left out.’

Brera rubbed her eyes. ‘She’s such a little bitch. She never does anything for herself and she resents everything we do.’

Sam ran a finger across the bubbles in the sink, watched them burst on her skin. ‘She’s bound to feel threatened by Steven. She might feel like she’s losing us. Losing something.’

Brera’s lips tightened. ‘To hell with what she thinks.’

Sam glanced towards the open door and then walked over to shut it. As she turned back she said, ‘Perhaps we should’ve explained about her to Steven. I’m sure he would’ve understood, and if he hadn’t, then we wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with him anyway.’

‘You think I’m ashamed of her?’

Brera’s eyes filled. Sam found the sight of her mother’s imminent tears disagreeable and unsettling. I shouldn’t feel that way though, she decided, and tried not to. She pulled off a piece of kitchen roll and handed it to her. Brera blew her nose and then looked up. Her eyes were bloodshot.

‘I’m frightened, that’s all. I want to protect her.’ Her eyes exuded tears: large, fat tears like transparent slugs, slithering down her face. ‘She’s such a little shit.’

Sam watched the tears. If I taste one, she thought, then everything will be all right. She put out her hand and brushed a tear from Brera’s chin on to her finger, then let it fall from her finger on to the end of her tongue.

‘She’ll be fine,’ she said.

FIVE

Vincent had been staring at his hands with unswerving concentration for almost five hours. During this time there had been no perceptible change in their appearance.

After his initial statement to the two police officers - ‘I fell over. I banged my head’ - a short period of speculation about bail payments and a perfunctory medical check, he had refused to involve himself in any further interaction. This hadn’t really worked to his advantage, but he hadn’t honestly expected it to.

Within the previous couple of weeks he had been detained on two occasions and charged on one of these for breach of the peace. He was hardly a novice in the cells, and, as such, no one paid him much attention.

While he stared at his hands his mind ran over a variety of subjects. Larson. Arson. Willie Carson. Occasionally he slumped into an unthinking daze, but when he came to and refocused on his dirty nails, fingers and the pale hair on the back of his knuckles, his mind raced on with as much enthusiasm as if it had never paused. Blood in my nostrils, dried blood, like paint.

He often lost all track of time. His life was a strange mixture of time-using (demonstration) and time-wasting (remonstration).

He has many opinions, his own opinions, and he has many faults. The chief one is intolerance. He sees himself as an anarchic bob-a-job man - doing favours, splitting hairs, trading down. Always down. He is unusual in that his intolerance and his pureness of vision haven’t made him into boot-boy, a Tory or a fascist. He is the opposite of these things; is ceaselessly, peacelessly contrary.

My life. What fucking life? No life. Low life.

He has a terror of involvement, of commitment - to places, to things. He won’t be held culpable or responsible, will only represent one view: his own view. He thinks the world, everything, is stupid.

Stupid!

During the course of his twenty-nine years, he has never seen any purpose in dedicating himself to traditionally worthy or helpful occupations. He refuses to give over his considerable powers to anything specifically useful. His prime, twin attributes of determination and energy have never been expressed constructively. If they are - and of course he thinks that they are - he has a definition of ‘constructive’ which is all his own.

He survives on a diet of grand gestures, obnoxiousness and guile.

Only one thing blots his anarchic copy-book. It is a simple thing. He is full of love. So full of love - indiscriminate, luminous, pulsating, unremitting - that it threatens to make him weak, to make him burst, to make him give in, completely. To what, though? He doesn’t know.

The strange thing about love, Vincent decided, studying the white flecks on the pink moons of his nails, is that it starts off as one thing, and comes out as something altogether different.

His arresting officer pushed open the cell door and walked in. ‘Your bail’s been settled.’

I love this man, Vincent thought, but it’ll come out some other way.

He looked up from his hands. ‘Fucking bail. What a joke.’

‘Yeah, very funny.’

He stood up. ‘Can I go?’

‘Sign a couple of papers and you’re a free man, for the time being, anyway. So long as you don’t behave like a lunatic again before your court case.’

Vincent smiled. ‘Well, that’s hardly too much to ask for, is it now?’

When he caught sight of Ruby she was leaning against the reception desk reading a pamphlet about the police cadets. She looked up as the door swung back and slammed behind him. He thought, My God, she’s a push-over. The best kind of girl.

He pulled on his canvas jacket and said, ‘You can get me something to eat if you like.’

Ruby picked up the pamphlet and stuffed it into her pocket. ‘I don’t think so.’

His eyes, she noticed, were like two blue marbles. He adjusted the collar on his jacket, grinned at her and strolled outside. Ruby nodded to the constable behind the reception desk and followed him.

She stepped into the afternoon sunlight and saw him disappearing into a burger bar over the road. She crossed cautiously and followed him in. He beckoned to her from the counter. ‘How about buying me a burger and a drink?’

‘Why should I?’

‘Because you’re loaded.’

She scowled at him. ‘How did you work that one out?’

‘I want a burger, a Coke and some chips.’

The counter girl flinched at the mention of the word ‘chip’ and then looked to Ruby for her order. Ruby sighed. ‘I’ll have a medium coffee please, with cream.’

Vincent sauntered off and took possession of a plastic table next to the window. Ruby paid, and while she waited for the order, counted the remaining small coins in her purse. Vincent was sitting at the table and running his fingers over the cut on his hairline. The cut stretched across a bluish lump and glimmered like a red mouth. Ruby supposed that he must have been given a stitch, although it didn’t look like it from where she was standing.

Her order arrived. She picked up her tray and made her way to the table. Vincent looked up at her. ‘I haven’t eaten all day.’

She sat down, removed her coffee and then pushed the tray towards him. She felt light-headed.

‘Your hands aren’t very clean. I don’t think you should touch that cut. It might get infected.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve had worse. It’s given me one hell of a headache, though. I could do with a proper drink.’

‘Maybe you’re concussed. What did the doctor say?’

‘I don’t know. Some crap. I might get gangrene of the brain.’

He was joking. Ruby gently removed the lid from her polystyrene cup. You’ve already got it, mate, she thought.

He noticed the tattoo on her hand. ‘What’s that? A name? A bird?’

‘A swallow. I did it when I was seventeen.’

He wiped some ketchup from the side of his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Let’s see.’

She opened her palm and showed him.

‘You did it yourself?’

She nodded. ‘Pen and a pin.’

‘Ouch.’

She sipped her coffee. ‘What did you tell the police?’

‘I told them I tripped.’

‘Did they believe you?’

‘No.’

‘Was your friend all right? The epileptic.’

‘I only met him once before.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He wasn’t my friend.’

Ruby tried to understand this, but had trouble doing so.

‘Was he an epileptic?’

‘Might be. He didn’t say he wasn’t.’

‘He was unconscious.’

‘Exactly.’

She said, ‘You’re not from London, are you?’

‘Why?’

‘You don’t sound like you are.’

‘Nope.’

‘Where are you staying?’

He thought for a while. ‘Wembley.’

‘Really?’

‘On someone’s floor. Before that I was in Amsterdam. Squatting.’

She visualized him, squatting, in a field full of tulips. A windmill.

He was eating his fries and his fingers were greasy. He said, ‘In case you’re wondering, I’m not naturally a violent person.’

She smiled at this. She could see no reason to deny being violent unless you actually were violent. He noticed her smile and was indignant. ‘Give me some credit.’

‘Two hundred quid,’ she answered, ‘that should do you.’

He continued to eat in silence. Eventually she said, ‘Will I get it back?’

He thought about this for a while. ‘You shouldn’t have paid it.’

‘I thought I’d get it back.’

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