The Sisters Mao

by Gavin McCrea

  Among the Wherehouse members there existed an assumption — unspoken yet no less real for this — that all the expenses which their own meagre contributions failed to meet were covered by Thurlow family money, in the form of trusts to Iris and Eva. Iris’s drug dealing, far from being the main show, was thought to be a side act. Less to do with generating an income than with keeping the less creative members (Iris) occupied, and maintaining the group’s reputation — for lawlessness, for danger — within the avant-garde arts scene. Despite the inaccuracy of this view (the Thurlows were indeed rich, but Iris and Eva themselves had been cut off from their trusts by reason of their lifestyles) the sisters did not contradict it, because they found that it made for the better running of things. The members were happy to believe themselves part of a system which took from those who had better and gave to those who had worse. There were fewer quarrels. Relations were more fluid. Envy and competition were dampened. With money relegated to a secondary concern, everyone felt free to pursue the greater task of making art — and more and better art was made.

  —Iris? Halle-fucking-lujah. Are you alone?

  —Open the door, Simon.

  —Are. You. Al—

  —It’s just me. Let me in.

  She heard him pushing back his chair. Knocking things over.

  —Simon, for ff—

  The door swung open. His eyebrows were worried, his face bitter. He checked up and down the mezzanine corridor.

  —Get in here, he said, pulling her by the sleeve.

  —Oi, watch the threads.

  He slammed the door behind her. Locked it.

  The room was filled with smoke and reeked of the man who rarely left it. The bricked-up windows meant the only light came from a lamp on the desk. Directly under the beam, on a piece of silver kitchen foil, was a mound of crystal acid.

  The soles of Simon’s old boots squeaked as he walked back to his chair behind the desk. As ever, he was wearing a dressing gown with the stains of previous meals scattered across the flaring lapels. Visible underneath the gown, for he left it untied, were a vest, trousers and braces from a suit made for a few shillings in the fifties, which he kept in use by darning the holes himself with a needle and thread. He sat down and immediately resumed his work: dissolving the crystals in distilled water and dropping the mixture onto sheets of blotting paper to make single trips. Without looking up, he made a gesture to indicate that Iris could sit where she liked, though there were few options, only a stool or the floor. She chose to stand.

  —Simon? she said. What’s going on? Where is every—

  —Shh, he said. Hear that?

  —What?

  He jabbed his ill-fitting artificial arm in the direction of the wireless radio on the shelf:

  —That.

  It was tuned to the war. The volume turned right up.

  —They’re going to lose, you know. Beaten—

  He shook his head, laughed a bit manically.

  —by a bunch of peasants.

  —Simon, listen to me, I need to know where—

  He lurched out of his chair and smashed his prosthesis down on the radio to turn it off.

  —Simon listen? How about Iris listen for a change.

  He pointed the index finger of his good hand, a real shivering finger, between her eyes.

  —You’ve been gone for a week. No word. Not a tinkle.

  The one finger turned into five, hovering over the mound on the table.

  —Look at all of this. I’ve needed your help. I told you to get back as soon as possible. You knew this consignment was due.

  —Sorry, said Iris.

  —Where you been?

  —Out.

  —For a week?

  —For as long as I fucking well want.

  —Oh, I see.

  The monk-like baldness of Simon’s crown made it look as though his worries had worn through. There were scabs where he had tried to scratch these worries away. He stopped scratching now and rested his elbows on the table. Spread his arms out in a V.

  —Did you hear that, ladies and gents? he said, addressing an imaginary audience sitting behind her. The little missy thinks she’s free to do what she likes, for as long as she likes. What do you make of that, hmm?

  A pause while he brought his hands together, skin wrapping over wood, and rested his chin on top.

  —Yes, yes, uh-huh, I quite agree, he said, nodding. I also think it’s time she came back into the world and got real. She has a job to do, and until it’s done, she’s not free to do what she wants, is she? She’s not free at all. She’s the opposite of free.

  Iris joined the game by turning her head to the invisible public by the back wall.

  —That’s right, she said, she’s a slave. Iris here, a slave to this man, and on top of that, to this whole fucking group. A double bloody slave.

  Her eyes flicked across to meet his:

  —And for future reference, Simon, throwing ammonia on the floor isn’t a help to anyone. Picking up the shit would have taken less time and effort.

  Simon did not consume the drugs that he sold, but he did drink, in binges, and when drunk, liked to disparage the Wherehouse collective, its performances, its mission. Most of the communards were frightened of him. They understood that he was necessary somehow, that he had an undeclared function, but his roughness and his belligerence were menacing to them, his right-wing rants were something they had joined the commune to get away from, and so they kept their distance. Even Eva, who was related to him, who understood that his touch of madness did not make him dangerous, even she shrank from being alone in a room with him. Iris, though, was not afraid. In her life there had been no one kinder to her than Simon, and despite everything she loved him.

  He picked a half-smoked cigarette from the ashtray and relit it. He had bitten his fingernails so low that he did not have any left — except, that is, for the nail on the little finger, which he kept long for scratching.

  —What I gave you to sell wasn’t much. It could have been shifted in a day.

  —What can I say, Simon? Business was slow. There’s a lot of stuff going round. People’s palates are tired. They want new experiences. Tastes are changing.

  —Bollocks. There’s always buyers.

  He sucked in a mouthful of smoke. Funnelled it out his nose. Scratched some more.

  —When you want to be fast, you can be fast.

  —I didn’t think there was a special rush. We’re hardly stuck.

  —We’re always stuck, Thurlow. The fucking phone rental being the latest thing. They cut that off yesterday.

  —The dirty fuck-offs.

  —It was that or the lights. I had to make a choice.

  She shook her head for a moment, disgusted:

  —At least we have the lights. They’re the main thing.

  Simon mumbled something inaudible. As if his words had become caught, he hacked up a glob of phlegm. Released it into a balled-up handkerchief which he produced from his dressing gown pocket. Licking his broken lips, he poured himself some vodka from a bottle on the floor.

  —Huh? he said as an offering.

  —Nah, she said.

  Simon slugged the vodka down:

  —Did you flog everything at least?

  —More or less.

  Jamming her hands into her new jeans, she untied the pouch and tossed it onto the table. The gust of air this created caused some acid crystals to scatter.

  —Ahrk!

  Simon brushed them back onto the silver foil.

  —Mind what you’re fucking doing.

  He crushed his cigarette into the ashtray, opened the pouch, emptied the money out and began to count it.

  She took a seat on the stool and watched him.

  He finished counting and gurgled unhappily.

 
—Before you go off on one, she said, about being short or whatever, I was obliged to give out some complimentaries. It was a quiet weekend. There weren’t many heads about. I had to get in with a new crowd. And you know how that is. Trust has to be won. People like to sample the product.

  —A new crowd, he muttered, taking her off unkindly. Trust had to be won.

  —Oh fuck off, Simon, she said.

  —Oh fuck off, Simon, he said, and twisted round to unlock the cupboard behind him.

  Arranged on the cupboard shelves were lines of tins, each one marked with a number that corresponded to a particular expense: electricity, gas, phone, repairs, plumbing, cleaning, food. He distributed the takings, in an apparently random fashion, though more probably according to a carefully calculated ratio, among three or four of the tins. This done, he scribbled a figure onto a slip of paper and put it into the last tin, the one containing Iris’s IOUs.

  —You’ll get your money back, she said.

  —Damn right I will, he said.

  Before, there had been a trust. When Iris reached eighteen, her grandparents on her mother’s side — the rich ones, the Thurlows — began to give her a monthly allowance, which she had to go in person to collect. At these meetings in her grandparents’ Tudor doll house in Cheam, she was called into the study, where her grandfather would, while slowing making out a cheque, issue a series of softly spoken yet unsubtle warnings. While he did not expect her to want to enter the family’s hotel business — hotels are rough places for women — he would not tolerate her becoming an actress or a communist like her mother, and he did expect her to marry correctly, as her mother had failed so handsomely to do. This meant having a mind with which to make the correct marriage choice, which meant having an education, which meant not ever dropping out. Naturally her grandparents had hoped for Oxbridge, and were disappointed when this did not transpire, though they eventually came round to the merits of an education in the city. Geography at the London King’s was the lie that they had been told. As a matter of fact, Iris was registered at Hornsey College of Art, where she lasted a year and half before leaving to volunteer full time at the Poster Workshop on Camden Road. When the truth of this eventually reached her grandparents — through which channel? it could only have been her mother — they cut her off without ceremony. Now her entire income came from the National Assistance she drew in two different boroughs, and from selling Simon’s acid. It was enough. She could eat. She could buy music and clothes. She could go out whenever she wanted. She remained the single greatest contributor to the commune coffers. Yet this experience of losing her family allowance, of no longer being someone to whom things simply came and instead having to scrounge and to graft without security or guarantees, taught her to despise money as a medium. After reading an article in a newsletter on the idea of a moneyless society, she now wondered whether anarchism might be the appropriate attitude to have. For, according to the anarchist, in the new era money would be of no use.

  —I’m not being funny, said Iris now, but if you actually made a product people wanted to buy, a stronger product, business would pick up, and I’d be able to repay you quicker.

  —The product’s not the problem.

  He was pointing at her again, despite knowing how much she hated that; how easily it could set her off.

  —It’s you. Far as I’m concerned, you’re on your last chance. Any more of this messing and I’ll get someone else.

  She scoffed:

  —Who?

  —I don’t know. Your sister.

  —Leave it out.

  —Or her bloke. What’s his name?

  She laughed:

  —Glorious idea.

  —Or someone from outside. I wouldn’t rule that out.

  —Give it a rest. It’s a shit job you have me doing, and I do it well.

  —Well is a stretch.

  He tapped the table with his single fingernail.

  —Just don’t get complacent, Iris. You’re blood and I care about you, but I won’t be an idiot for you.

  Simon did not go out, and, except drinking, he did not do anything that cost. In everything, money was his motivation. Far from living in Wherehouse out of a love of art, or a desire for an alternative style of life, or an allegiance to family, he was here because there was no rent to pay and it gave him access to a cheap and willing labour force (again, Iris). Everything he earned off her back — a seventy/thirty split in his favour — that did not go on vodka went into one of those tins. Which tin? She was not sure. What she was sure of was that one day he would disappear with it, his savings box, and she would never see him again. She hated having this presentiment, but this was not the same as hating him.

  —Paris, he said now, out of nothing.

  —What?

  —You wanted to know where everyone is. They’re in Paris.

  —You’re joking.

  —That’s where they are.

  —All of them?

  —In a van. Guess who had to stump up for the rental.

  —When?

  —Thursday. Or was it Friday? Before the weekend. They looked for you. Not very hard, mind, but they did a sweep round.

  —Just like that?

  —Just like that.

  —Why Paris?

  —If they were to go anywhere, it’d be there, wouldn’t it?

  The anxiety was already there, a toxicant in her veins. Information. She needed information. Only that would protect her against the nothingness which was vast about her.

  —What’re you on about? What’s happening in Paris?

  —Where’ve you been stuck? Under a rock?

  —Can’t you just tell me, please, what’s going on? So I can get your face out of mine and—

  A knock on the door. Instinctively Simon wrapped his arms around the drugs, and folded his body over them, as a shield. Iris jumped to her feet and put herself in front of the desk, a second wall.

  —Is that you, Keith? she said.

  —I heard voices, Keith said.

  —Go downstairs. Wait for me there.

  —Everything all right, thing?

  —Yeah. Just wait downstairs.

  —I can’t find a tap that works.

  —Okay, I’ll be down in a minute.

  Footsteps.

  Silence.

  —Who the fuck is that? Simon rasped.

  —A mate.

  —What fucking mate? You said you were alone.

  —He’s just a friend.

  —Did you have him selling with you?

  —No. He’s outside of this.

  —He better be. Check to see he’s gone.

  —Chill out. He’s cool.

  —Check.

  She unlocked the door and looked out. Keith was on his way down the stairs. He turned to look up at her.

  —Everything all right, Keith? she said.

  —I picked up the shit.

  —You’re a pet. I owe you.

  —I put it in a plastic bag I found. Left it out the back by the other bins.

  He showed her the cat’s bowl that he was holding.

  —I couldn’t find the tap, though.

  —The tap is where I told you it was. You were checking up on me.

  —I heard voices.

  —I’m here with my uncle. Everything’s fine. Go back to the auditorium and I’ll see you there in a sec.

  Back in the room, Simon had come round to the front of the desk, and was leaning against it uncomfortably, his left leg planted on the ground, his right leg bent and resting on the edge, his foot dangling.

  —Fuck’s sake, Iris, he said.

  —Don’t worry about him.

  —Don’t worry about him.

  Something switched in her then.

  —Right, that’s it.


  She stormed over to him, reached around, and between a finger and thumb grasped a corner of the silver foil:

  —If you don’t tell me right now what’s going on, what the deal is with Paris, I’ll—

  —Calm the fuck down.

  He grabbed her arm. Glad to see that he knew her — the nervous impulse to pursue a goal at any price that overtook her in moments of frustration — she released the foil and sat back down on the stool.

  There had been a telegram.

  —That was what started it. The what-you-call-it, the exodus.

  —A telegram from who?

  She already knew the answer. From Max. Max whom the sisters also called uncle, even though he was not in fact a relative, merely their parents’ best friend from Cambridge.

  —Max is in Paris?

  —There’s some kind of rebellion going on.

  —God, the faggot never misses a thing.

  —It’s all over the newspapers.

  —First I’ve heard of it.

  Max’s telegram had been sent to their father’s second wife, Doris. Doris was a body artist, and Max was her collaborator. COME IMMEDIATELY, the telegram had said. YOUR MOMENT HAS ARRIVED.

  —Great. Another one of Doris’s moments. Did she go?

  —Does the Pope shit?

  —And Papa?

  —Not your father’s game any more, is it?

  —So Doris went without him?

  —Ahuhn, and now I’d say he’s terrified she’s not coming back.

  —She’s forever not coming back. Then she always does.

  —One of these times, she won’t. Mark me.

  As soon as Doris had left for Paris, Iris’s father made a rare visit to Wherehouse in order to urge the group to follow her there. The youth revolution was happening, he told them. The spirit of Mao had arrived in Europe. This was their moment.

  —For fuck’s sake. He doesn’t give a fuck about Mao. The slime-bag just wants them to find Doris and make sure she comes home.

  —He didn’t say as much, said Simon, but that’s my guess too.

  Iris pulled her cheeks down with the palm of her hands:

  —And the group just did what he said?

  No delay; as if complying with orders, they had left. And now who knew when they would return and for how long Iris would have to suffer the offence of solitude.