‘Oh God no! I …’ Deborah’s blush deepened. ‘Paul and I have a very … fulfilling private life.’
Now it was Opal’s turn to feel embarrassed, and despite herself, a little bit envious.
‘Well I guess that’s good to hear,’ she managed flatly.
‘Oh God. Sorry, Pol, that was totally … I didn’t mean to …’
‘Please, not the pity, Debbie. It’s mortifying.’ They both chuckled unconvincingly.
After a moment of silence Deborah piped up again. ‘Or of course if you leave him, I mean, it’s not like you’d struggle. All of this, after all, it’s not his.’
Opal sighed. She was half right. The house, Fairfax Manor, had been left to her by her mother, but its upkeep? That was wholly financed by Martin’s income. And it wasn’t cheap.
‘I don’t know, Debs, divorce? That just seems like giving up. I promised myself a long time ago that I’d take my marriage vows seriously.’ She heard herself say these words, in somethinglike a dissociative state. That was what Pol would say. The Pol who was never late for luncheon, the Pol who wouldn’t dream of being found half clothed by her friend and neighbour in a weepy stupor. But already it felt like that Pol didn’t exist anymore. She’d vanished in a puff of smoke at the sound of her husband’s moans as he sank himself into a woman seventeen years her junior.
Chapter 3
Ruby was done with living at home. Mentally speaking of course, in reality she had no other choice. Her mother was never going to let her live in the squat. When she tried to explain this to some of her friends, they rolled their eyes. ‘Ruby, you’re twenty-five. You can do whatever you want. She can’t stop you.’ In theory that was true, but the friends who said things like that did not have Jamaican mothers. The ones who did, for good reason, would simply nod and shrug.
When she had brought it up with her mother, Hortense, once before, she had rolledhereyes dramatically. ‘You want to leave this lovely home, for which I pay my well-earned rent, to live like a rat in a shed? With no running water? And no electricity, and doing your business in a bucket like a prisoner? I did not leave Kingston for you to debase yourself like that.’ She’d tried to explain that the place that her friends had scoped out in Islington did indeed have running water, electricity and a functioning bathroom, but all that Hortense had heard was ‘Islington’.
‘Why do you want to go and live on the other side of the city from your family? Why are you running away from your people?’
Never mind that that particular journey had been made both far shorter and more direct by the opening of the Victoria line’s Brixton extension. It wasn’t about the logistics of being ‘able’ to move out; it was about being able to withstand the constant guilt-tripping of doing so.
What that meant in practical terms, though, was that she’d have to ask the emcee to let her do her reading first, so she didn’t spend the whole night worrying others would run over and she’d either miss her slot or miss her curfew. She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was intrinsically something deeply un-radical about always being the first on stage, invariably facing a cold crowd and their crippling expectations to be warmed up. It didn’t help that her work was, by design, unpalatable. She hadn’t ever tried to categorise herself to her audiences, but inwardly she thought of herself as a feminist punk poet. Sometimes that erred into prose, but most of that stuff was in her diary, explicitly not written for the stage.
Tonight at the Thamesis Tavern she was nervous. It was a new spot and Paula, who had signed her up for the open mic night, had failed to turn up for moral support. The crowd was mixed, too mixed, Ruby worried. This was the problem with newly opened spots – they hadn’t had time to cement themselves in any particular vibe, so you ended up with a level of dilution that left you with nothing.
From where she was standing by the bar she could see a group of blonde white women – whom she’d often noted tended to travel in packs. All three were wearing gingham scrunchies wound around their high ponytails. In the opposite corner, by contrast, a gang of multi-coloured mohawks were chain smoking, almost in synchronicity. Most of the clientelewere on the younger side, apart from the bike leathers hanging out near the back door, but overall Ruby felt increasingly sure that her particular brand of performance was not going to go down well.
And then, to make matters worse, Jude towered into the room. Ruby was slightly alarmed to see he had shaved his head, his luscious auburn curls shorn. For a moment she felt a sudden dread that it might signify some horrific shift in his politics, but then she spotted the beautiful women in tow, and her feelings turned to something more familiar, and spikier: envy. There was no reasoning with a feeling like that, but if she were to try, she would remind herself thatshehad broken up withhim. He had been the one to beg – well not quite, but almost.
Neither of them had cried, though; that was for other sorts of people, the ones who took their personal lives too seriously, and their politics not seriously enough. They were both wordsmiths, but their favoured mode of delivery was different: he preferred to shout them over the clang of a band; Ruby was more of a fan of expectant silence.
They had met at a night just like this, so she shouldn’t have been so surprised to see him.
She’d held her gaze in their direction too long. She understood that with solemn resignation as they made their way towards her. Trying not to look fazed, she leant herself back on the counter, supported by her elbows. When Jude reached her, she opted for a single nod, and heavy dose of eye contact, to avoid any kind of physicality between them.
‘Ruby, I might have guessed I’d find you here.’ He was smirking at her, his eyes glinting. He looked better with longhair, Ruby thought self-satisfyingly, though his face remained as gorgeous as it had ever been – the crook of his broken nose breaking up the otherwise striking symmetry.
‘Here I am,’ was all she said, keeping her tone as flat as possible. She looked good at least. Her hair stood in a column of cascading honey-coloured curls on top of her head, her eyes were heavy with dark kohl and her lips a glossy deep berry. She was wearing her favourite jeans, stonewashed, and sitting high on her waist. The leather jacket perched on her shoulders was a dark burgundy, and it had been Jude’s once, until it was mutually decided that she looked better in it.
‘This is Cindy.’ He gestured to the woman beside him. She was tall, slim with long loose black curls all the way down to her waist. Ruby allowed herself for the first time to look straight into Cindy’s deep dark eyes, and she felt a pinch in the pit of her stomach.
‘Hi.’ Cindy’s voice was lower than Ruby had expected, and it sent a shiver down her spine.
‘Hi, it’s um, nice to meet you.’ Suddenly Ruby felt embarrassed, her attempt at nonchalance falling away as she stumbled over her words. ‘Are you … ? Do you … Are you an artist too?’
Cindy didn’t avert her gaze, and it made Ruby even more aware of the increasing clamminess of her palms. She hoped that the perspiration hadn’t found its way to her upper lip, which she was concentrating very hard on not wiping with the back of her hand.
‘I’m a model,’ Cindy said, before an easy smile spread over her lips. Ruby found herself wondering if it was weird to ask Cindy where her parents were from. She looked like she couldbe half black, but the other half? Ruby couldn’t make it out. Trust Jude to sniff out an ever more – to use his terminology – ‘exotic’ lover to boost his own reputation. Maybe this whole new skinhead look, paired with the racially ambiguous girlfriend, was part of some new provocative performance he’d conceptualised.
The idea of going on stage in front of the two of them, among this unreceptive crowd, felt ever more daunting.
‘Let me get you ladies a drink.’ Jude was smirking again, no doubt thrilled by the proximity of the two women in front of him; how well he must think he’d done for himself.
‘I’ll have a beer.’ Ruby and Cindy spoke at the same time. Jude grinned, winked at neither of them in particular and turned his attention to the barman.
