Reversed Forecast

by Nicola Barker

  Brera didn’t actually know what she was talking about. This was Sam’s concern. Even so, Sarah gave her comment some consideration. ‘Well, it adds another dimension, certainly.’

  Sam realized - and it came almost as a shock - that she didn’t like justifying herself, only explaining, only … not even discussing. Just talking.

  She didn’t want to think about being different. They were all women, after all. That united them. Colour separated her from Brera, from Sylvia, but gender, that was what connected them. They understood each other. Their breasts, their vaginas. Sarah too. They were all the same.

  Sylvia was escaping. Had to. Get some air. She made it to the door. The front door. They hadn’t locked it. Sarah’s fault. She pulled it open and stared into the hallway.

  Two people were there, on the doorstep, engaged in an argument. They stopped when they saw her. She was wearing only a T-shirt, knickers and socks. Her mask was attached to her nose and mouth, but the wire dangled, unplugged, across her shoulder.

  Two people and a dog.

  Vincent had just told Ruby about Steven’s phone call. Ruby focused on Sylvia and began to say something, Sylvia simply turned her back on them, hopeless now, and started her journey back inside. She put her hand out to the wall to steady herself - everything achingly slow - and found instead Ruby beside her, Ruby’s hand steadying her, Ruby’s arm and Ruby’s shoulder.

  Sylvia caught hold of Ruby’s hand. ‘What’s that?’

  Ruby could barely understand her growl, but said. ‘It’s a bird.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘I did it years ago.’

  They shuffled inside. Vincent followed, like a porter, he thought, with the dog and the case.

  Sylvia maintained her tight grip on Ruby. No one understood her here. She had to find understanding.

  ‘Shall I put the light on?’ Vincent asked in the hallway, and then, on receiving no reply, in the living-room.

  Ruby settled Sylvia on the sofa. ‘Best leave it off.’

  Sylvia’s breathing sounded like the noise a young fledgling might make, a mouse.

  ‘You can’t be either Sam or Brera.’

  Vincent inspected the nebulizer. Sylvia indicated the refill bottle with her foot. He picked it up and tipped some inside where she showed him. She turned it on.

  ‘Why are you doing that?’ Ruby asked, suspicious.

  ‘Air conditioning,’ Vincent said. The smell in the flat was sickening.

  Sylvia started to tell them both about the virus, still wearing her mask. Ruby sat down with her. Vincent squatted next to Ruby, closest to the machine and its expulsions.

  ‘Several … jangles … body-part … layer … transaction … locomotive …’

  They couldn’t understand her. The nebulizer was steaming, producing a vapour, a heady, menthol mix. Their eyes began to stream. They were sniffing, inhaling something spectacular, the weirdest potion. After a while they were all laughing for no particular reason. Ruby was sure that she felt Vincent touching her leg, her tights, feeling her shoes. Was he really doing that? The air was so warm, so warm, and something else … Why was she here? She couldn’t focus. She struggled to remember.

  Sam was on her third glass of wine. Sarah was discussing a trip she’d taken to the Philippines when she was eighteen. Brera felt something soft and moist against her thigh. Wine usually made her feel this way, but inside her chest, her stomach …

  Sam, opposite Brera, sensed something vibrating between her knees. Their eyes met. ‘I think it’s a dog,’ Brera said, bursting out laughing. They peered under the table.

  ‘Where on earth did you come from?’

  Sam listened intently for a moment and thought that she heard mutterings from elsewhere in the flat: chanting, grunting, stifled guffaws.

  In the living-room, the darkness, she found them. The atmosphere had overloaded with the scent of ripe menthol.

  ‘How long have you all been here?’

  She tried to open the door on to the roof, but of course it was locked. Instead she opened the curtains and the window.

  ‘You must be Sam … or Brera.’ Ruby tried to stand up. Failed.

  ‘What are you all doing?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be taking some photographs. Steven sent me.’

  Sam walked over and switched off the nebulizer. She waved her arms around, trying to improve the circulation of air. ‘It’s like an opium den in here. That stuff’s toxic if it isn’t used properly.’

  She noticed that Sylvia was holding Ruby’s hand and that her mask was unplugged.

  If this girl, Sylvia thought, tells Sam I was trying to escape …

  ‘We knocked on the door and your friend answered,’ Ruby said.

  ‘My sister.’

  This was a mistake everyone made.

  Sylvia grinned, under her mask, victorious.

  ‘I only just found out we weren’t even supposed to come,’ Ruby added, apologetically, ‘which is a pity, really, because the light’s brilliant.’

  She squinted towards the window. Samantha, her back to the sun, glowed with an almost supernatural beauty.

  ‘Are you all OK?’ Sam asked, staring at the three of them. They seemed in a state of collapse, appeared limp and giggly.

  Ruby pulled herself up straight. ‘I feel a bit dizzy.’

  ‘You’re always doing this,’ Sam said, directly to Sylvia, ‘using something good and getting the worst out of it.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Vincent wondered out loud, speaking for the first time, his voice slow and his face groggy.

  Sarah strolled in with the dog trailing behind her. Vincent slapped his thigh and Buttercup trotted over. Sarah smiled at him. ‘Is it yours?’

  ‘She,’ he said, with great deliberation, ‘is a bitch.’

  Sam said, ‘If the light’s so good, then maybe we should do the pictures after all.’

  She didn’t want to waste this opportunity. Ruby looked down, still dazed, and noticed that her dress was all rucked up. She tried to smooth it straight.

  ‘Are you a photographer?’ Sarah asked Vincent, focusing on the cut across his forehead.

  ‘I’m her assistant.’

  ‘What does an assistant do?’

  ‘Assist.’

  ‘Come with me,’ Sam said. ‘We can find Brera and see what she thinks.’

  Ruby let go of Sylvia’s hand. Sylvia’s eyes filled with tears. Sam noticed. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘The light, that’s all.’

  Sarah and Vincent were still talking. Sam closed the window and drew the curtains again.

  In Sam’s bedroom, clothes were strewn across the bed. ‘Something plain is probably best,’ Ruby said.

  Sam felt irritable, but she wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t clothes. Nothing cosmetic.

  ‘My sister really took a shine to you.’

  ‘She liked the tattoo on my hand. She wouldn’t let go of me after she’d seen it.’

  Like something I saw in a dream, Ruby thought, that girl, this smell, this feeling.

  She couldn’t stop staring at Sam. She was like an angel. ‘You’d look good in anything,’ she said. ‘A bin-bag with a piece of string as a belt.’

  Sam smiled as she pulled on a plain white shirt and a black skirt.

  ‘Where have you come from?’

  ‘Soho.’

  ‘A studio?’

  ‘I live there.’

  ‘Sounds glamorous.’

  Ruby laughed. ‘Hardly. I like it here better. It’s near to the track where I race my dog.’

  Sam could hear Sarah laughing in the kitchen. She felt disgruntled, but she wasn’t sure why. She picked up some eye-liner and applied it carefully.

  ‘Well, the light’s still fantastic,’ Ruby said, trying to sound like she knew what this meant. Brera and Sam both held their guitars under their arms like machine guns. Ruby couldn’t be bothered with the tripod. She took out her camera and tried to focus it.

  ‘Sing something
.’

  They began to strum ‘Jesus Don’t Want Me for a Sunbeam’. Connor had taught them this tune on Sunday.

  Ruby felt tipsy. Was the film in? Did she need a flash? The air, at least, was clearer out here. She inhaled deeply and then started to shoot.

  She had no particular talent for photography. She worked on the premise that the more film she used, the more likely it would be that a clutch of snaps would turn out decently. Brera wore a long, grey, smock-like dress, her red hair loose. Ruby focused on her. It was easy. They did a song by Captain Beefheart.

  Where was Vincent? She didn’t care. But where was he?

  Sam said, ‘I’ve half a mind to call Sarah out. She mentioned earlier that she’d like to hear us.’

  Brera began playing again. This time, a strange song, a song without a middle, an end, a chorus. Ruby was dazed by it. She was still frizzy. Her mouth - inside - felt gluey and sticky. The song started up, flew off and didn’t come back. Like modern art, she thought. She’d never been able to understand that either.

  After they’d finished, Sam said, ‘Sylvia wrote it.’

  Sarah popped her head out, around the door, and shaded her eyes against the sunlight. ‘I could hear you all the way through in the kitchen just then,’ she said. ‘I thought it was a cat fight.’

  ‘Things can still be interesting,’ Ruby interjected quickly, ‘even if you don’t understand them.’

  Sam started playing something else. Sarah stepped outside and lounged against the brickwork.

  Inside, Sylvia prepared a mental salad with all the voices in the flat. Sarah, she decided, was a radish. A small, round, purple thing; fibrous. She took out a sharp knife and sliced Sarah in half and then into quarters. She poked the knife into her again and again and again. Until, eventually, she was only pulp.

  Back in the kitchen, Brera volunteered to make Ruby some coffee. Ruby sat at the table, putting film into containers, removing lenses and packing things away. The others were still outside. Vincent had been helping himself to the wine and had become, unexpectedly, positively garrulous.

  ‘You must have photographed lots of people,’ Brera said, smiling.

  ‘Some.’

  ‘It wasn’t too formal, which was great.’

  The dog trotted in and sat down next to Ruby. Ruby stroked her. Brera leaned against the sink. ‘Sam said she’d never seen Sylvia so friendly with a stranger before. She’s not generally so tactile.’

  ‘She seems very weak.’

  ‘She’s ill.’

  ‘I like her.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Sam asked me that. In Soho. In a flat. It’s much smaller than this.’

  ‘Is it nice?’

  Ruby shrugged and continued stroking.

  ‘Does Steven pay you much for taking pictures?’

  ‘If he likes them. I hope he will. I need the money.’

  ‘Sam said you raced the dog.’

  ‘At Hackney Wick. Just down the road.’

  ‘Do you like this flat?’

  Ruby frowned. ‘It’s nice.’

  ‘The dog likes it.’

  Brera, Ruby decided, was barking mad.

  ‘You must think I’m mad,’ Brera said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. ‘I’m not mad, but I’ve just had a mad idea.’

  That’s how it starts, though, Ruby thought. Mad ideas, doing mad things, being mad.

  In the pub, facing an interviewer, a small tape recorder and a bottle of Newcastle Brown, Connor had felt the need to blow his nose. He put his hand in his pocket to pull out a handkerchief but instead, accidentally, pulled out Sam’s brassière.

  Small, white, soft.

  This, he thought, is a real rock cliché.

  Afterwards, though, whenever he spoke, whatever he said, he could think only of Sam. His mind was full of her. Where she was going. What she was doing.

  Brera’s idea was that Ruby should move into Jubilee Road with the dog for an initial period of two weeks while the Goldhawk Girls went on tour. Brera assured her that she would keep in constant contact and that Ruby would receive a percentage of their earnings for her services. Sam strolled in to get a clean glass and Brera filled her in. She was enthusiastic. She said, ‘We could give you twenty-five per cent. Sylvia would have to get her cut too. It should end up being a reasonable amount.’

  Ruby agreed that the money would be useful. ‘But the problem is …’ She cleared her throat. ‘The real problem is that you don’t even know me and I don’t even know Sylvia.’

  Brera shrugged. ‘I think we could trust you. Sylvia’s an adult. She doesn’t need constant attention.’

  Ruby felt as though Sam and Brera presumed some kind of awareness on her part about Sylvia’s particular circumstances, but in fact she couldn’t make any sense at all of the situation. Her brain was swamped with images - her own inky, blue tattoo; a retchingly acrid smell that pervaded every corner of the flat; Sylvia herself, white, acerbic, wheezing; the dark rooms; the nebulizer.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We’re near the track,’ Sam offered helpfully.

  ‘True.’

  She didn’t know whether to tell them that she worked full-time, just in case Steven had told them something himself that she’d be obliged to contradict. Eventually she said, ‘How about you discuss this with Steven first?’

  Brera nodded. ‘We’d have to ask him for some kind of reference.’

  They were still in the kitchen, three of them now, sitting around the table. Ruby stood up and placed her mug in the sink. ‘You could get Steven to ring me later. You could mention the idea to Sylvia as well and see how she reacts.’

  Vincent came in, holding the dog by her collar. ‘I just took her out for a pee.’

  ‘We’re going now, anyway.’

  Sam stood up too. ‘Where’s Sarah?’

  He grabbed the dog’s lead. ‘I heard her talking to your sister.’

  Sam had been smiling, but her smile disappeared. She was starting to wish she’d kept Sarah all to herself. Connor, it turned out, could be right about some things.

  Sarah pulled up a chair next to the sofa. Sylvia was under her blanket.

  ‘Hi. I’m Sarah, Sam’s friend. We haven’t been properly introduced yet. I saw you earlier.’

  Sylvia didn’t reply.

  ‘I heard you chatting to Vincent just now.’

  Nothing.

  Sarah thought Sylvia was just like a child. If you wanted her to do something, she wouldn’t do it. She was simply contrary. This was her way of asserting herself. She wouldn’t conform. She was outside things. Sarah understood this, wanted to let Sylvia know that she understood. She started talking. And she talked.

  ‘I read The Female Eunuch years ago, and when I got to the part about feeling pride in your own femininity, I discovered something very disturbing about myself.’

  Silence.

  ‘Greer said that if you aren’t ashamed of being a woman, then it should be possible to dip your finger into your vagina, during your period, to immerse your finger in menstrual blood and then to put that finger into your mouth without any feelings of disgust.’

  Nothing.

  ‘I tried it. I tried it, but I just couldn’t do it. I tried for years, every month, and each time I failed I felt so bloody guilty.’

  Sylvia shifted under the blanket. Sarah noticed and took this to be a positive sign.

  ‘Then it dawned on me that the only reason I felt disgusted was because of a natural fastidiousness. I suddenly thought, How the hell does Greer get off on telling me how to feel about my sense of self? I know how I feel.’

  Under the blanket Sylvia put a furtive hand between her legs.

  ‘Setting tests is a kind of masculine construct. If something doesn’t come naturally, then, quite simply, it isn’t natural.’

  Sylvia drew back her blankets and, in the darkness, held something aloft between her finger and thumb. Sarah squinted through the half-light and saw that Sylvia was hold
ing a used tampon, dangling it by its string as though it were a small, live mouse.

  Sarah felt her gorge rise. Sylvia stuck the tampon between her teeth - like a short, fat, pink cheroot - closed her lips and sucked.

  Sarah could hear the cotton wool squeaking against her teeth.

  Ruby was locked in her bathroom, bathed in a red light, developing the photographs. Outside she could hear Vincent clattering around.

  They’d begun arguing on the bus during the ride home. She’d made the mistake of mentioning Brera’s scheme to him. She hadn’t thought it would prove all that contentious. It wasn’t as though he even appeared to have any kind of objection to the scheme itself. At one point, though, when she’d said, ‘Maybe one day I’ll get to rent a proper house with a garden and all that stuff,’ he’d said, ‘You’re a shithead.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Vincent and the dog were on the sofa together, watching television, when Ruby finally emerged from the bathroom, smelling of chemicals.

  ‘D’you want to see the pictures?’

  He put out his hand. She passed one copy of each of the prints to him.

  Something smelled good in the kitchen. She walked over and peered into a pan on the stove. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s probably ruined by now.’

  ‘Can I have some?’

  Vincent held up one of the prints. ‘I’ve been thinking about money.’

  ‘What?’ She had expected a comment on the quality of her work.

  ‘I said …’ He perused the print as he held it aloft. ‘Brera’s eyes are skew.’

  ‘Are they?’

  Ruby walked across and peered at the photo over his shoulder. ‘It’s just that she’s singing and focusing on the camera at the same time. Sam looks fantastic. Those lashes.’

  ‘She’s like a racehorse.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘A painting in the National Gallery.’

  She grinned. ‘Very poetic.’

  He handed back the pictures. She slid them carefully into an envelope.

  ‘You could make some money you know, get the money you need for the dog, and you wouldn’t even have to do anything.’