Ruth regards him woozily. Is that, like, some sort of pick-up line?
He shrugs. She does not know if he is trying to flirt with her or be antagonistic. She sways back and forth slowly. She is annoyed. She doesn’t answer him.
Now Jimorsomething from Cookery seems irritated. It is your president, you know. You voted for him.
Oh, okay. My green girl blinks. Blink, blink. Up, down the lashes.
She is frozen to the spot on the floor. She looks like one of those wax celebrities at Madame Tussauds. She eyes the bottom of her glass and ignores him, wishing him away. Someone has hit the mute button.
Hey, no worries. Cheers. And Jimorsomething from Cookery leaves her frame of vision.
She senses someone watching her from far away. The boy with the enflamed face. It embarrasses her, him seeing her drunk, but at least she won’t remember tomorrow. For the rest of the evening the picture only worked in gasps and bursts. All faces blurred, racing. At some point a joint was offered. She accepted it, even though she was always a wreck when she drank and smoked at the same time. She accepted it all the same. Maybe she didn’t know how to refuse. Or maybe it was that nihilist streak inside of herself that she could never understand, that impulse to ruin everything, to grind everything into its death. Or maybe it was Agnes? Maybe Agnes was the grand instigator of this entire collision? It was easier to blame Agnes. Yes, blame Agnes. Blame Agnes.
Such a gentleman to take us two unchaperoned ladies home. Agnes was doing all of the talking. Ruth was half-asleep, her head fallen into Agnes’ scarlet lap. Agnes’ cold pink fingers stroked her hair. The train’s teeth grinded. Blame Agnes. Blame Agnes. This was a train crash waiting to happen. Above her she could make out slurping sounds. He doesn’t know what he signed on for, Ruth thought. Do I? She drifted away into fuzziness.
And then she was on Agnes’ bed, propped against the pillows. Her dress crumpled up on the floor. Her stockings had been ripped. She could just cry about those stockings. Agnes was kissing her, her tongue jetting in and out. Ruth kept gagging and pushing away. She couldn’t breathe. The two girls were stripped down to their bra and panties. Ruth felt embarrassed by her cotton underwear against Agnes’ red lace. Agnes was wearing Olly’s red tie hooked loosely around her neck. Ruth craned her neck and saw Olly at the foot of the bed, dressed except with his penis in his hand. They were performing for him. He had said something about never having seen two girls together. Shooting two birds with one stone, something like that. It was all fun and games, all fun and games.
Agnes was struggling to remove Ruth’s bra. No, no, please, Ruth whispered. Everything was spinning, spinning, spinning. She was on the ceiling, looking at the scene with a sort of horror, like slowing down mesmerized at the intimacy of a car crash, bodies torn, thrown against each other, their blood pooled together. Bodies and bodies.
They were all sprawled on the bed, the sheets twisted around their bodies. Allfunandgamesallfunandgames. Olly and Ruth were now kissing. Now Agnes was at the foot of her bed, on her knees, her lips gripped decidedly around Olly’s penis, her face smeared with red like a rash.
And then Ruth was asleep on her mattress on the ground. She had begged off somehow. A brief flicker: Agnes and Olly still on the bed, above her, going at it, silently, as if not to wake the uninvited. Agnes is doubled over, as if praying, her hands grabbing the bedpost.
She wakes up with the entire world inside her mouth. She has the day off. That’s the switch she’d like to push. Olly and Agnes are still asleep on Agnes’ bed. The hurly-burly done. On tiptoes, Ruth quickly puts on yesterday’s dress and, tying her coat around her waist, hurries downstairs, her chest about to explode, a nut of something in her throat choking her. She wore bare legs. Her stockings were ripped. She could just cry about those stockings. As she opens the door she looks up to see a sleepy Agnes peering down from the banister. Her mascara splattered around her eyes, her hair knotted.
Where are you going? Agnes whispers hoarsely.
Out. Ruth whispers back. Fresh air.
Are you mad?
Pause. The nut loosens its hold in her throat. Why would I be mad?
Wait. Agnes tightens the sash of her satiny red robe and walks down the stairs so that she is inches away from Ruth. The bottoms of her feet black. What’s wrong? she peers at her face closely.
Nothing. Ruth felt calm. She performs her magic trick of going dead inside.
Last night was pretty BIZ-arre…. Agnes surveys the ball of a sooty foot.
Yeah. They both half-smile. Ruth’s face feels sore.
So, you and Olly…. Ruth breathes in. Is that what was bothering her?
Him? Her head snaps upstairs. She shrugs.
Oh. Well. I’m going to take off.
All right. Agnes yawns. Movie tonight?
Yeah. Maybe.
Agnes presses one finger to her lips, cracked with red, then touches Ruth’s cheek.
Later, darling.
Ruth lifts her smirk weakly. Later.
— Listen…you know those days when you get the mean reds?
— The mean reds? You mean like the blues?
— No…the blues are because you’re getting fat or because it’s been raining too long. You’re just sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid and you don’t know what you’re afraid of.
— Blake Edwards’
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Everyone eventually disappoints me, thinks Ruth, escaping into the dirty streets. She doesn’t feel equipped for outside, life streaming past in a palette of browns and grays, dotted with doomy rain, gloomy drain. The cold air baptizes her. Eyes squint against the sharp slap of wind, her face frozen with the harsh spit. She splashes through puddles, peering down alleys to make sure a moving vehicle does not rush out at her. The melancholy swoops down and lays on her flat. She feels exposed, like her skin has been torn off. No armor on today. Her legs are icicles. She feels furious at Agnes, furious at herself, that she allowed herself to be led a lamb to the slaughter. And also this sort of burning shame, of the horrors of last night, of how she behaved, of everything she let inside, of everything she had ever let inside.
She glares at single strollers who dare to look at her as they walk by. The world lay suspended in fog, along with the insides of her head. She journeys invisible through the fog. She puts on her sunglasses, masking melancholia. Crossing the road, a black cab looms out at her. She fixes her eyes on it. She intones out loud with the solemnity of a televangelist: Do Not Kill.
Will she cry in public? Is that a tear? We want to see her break down. We want to see her crack.
My icon of ruin. No hairline chips or cracks.
Is that a tear hurrying down her face? I taste it. I taste the salt of Ruth’s tears. I confirm their veracity.
Heading into central London. Almost no passengers, a phantom train. A homeless man in a long filthy coat stands right in front of her, swaying on the silver pole. Ruth sits there with a ball of rage forming. I refuse to pay any attention to you. She fixes her gaze on the only other passengers, a couple in identical puffy white jackets folded into each other like hibernating bears. They are asleep, no witness to this attack on her privacy. The crazy man leans into her, muttering non-words. She knows what he is doing. She knows that everyone needs their own audience. But she refuses to play along, to act shocked or indignant or lash out at him. I refuse to look at you. She remains there frozen like a stone. I refuse to give you any attention, any crazy attention. Finally, he moves away, spluttering in frustration. She doesn’t see him. He is not there. She keeps on playing back that scene from
The Big Sleep
. Did I hurt you much, sugar? The retort: You and every other man I’ve ever met. You and every other man I’ve ever met. Moans the train. You are every other man I’ve ever met.
A naked Olly looking through her at Agnes. Only at Agnes.
Roaming up and down the Tottenham Court beast, around and around, cheap Chinese and Indian buffets, banks, bus shelters advertising the latest Hollywood movie, the Scientology Center. Free Stress Tests reads the sign. Followers of L. Ron Hubbard stand outside, beckoning people in. They don’t bother Ruth, which today mildly offends her. Maybe they don’t think she is worthy of being saved. Maybe they see a girl who wants to fall.
Olly doubled over Agnes, silently, not wanting to wake the ghost asleep on the mattress. The ghost who was never there. Never really there.
I was never anything to you, was I? Nothing, nothing at all.
Veering around empty side streets. She smokes to avoid being alone.
Gagging at cruel-sounding food posted on placards outside pubs sounds of body parts innards intestines photographs of pale plates of food Sausage Rolls BangersandMash SteakandKidneyPie BloodPudding ScotchEggs PickledEggs. Up back the belly of the beast. Charcoal of chestnuts, metal-boxed vendors. She walks into the Odeon to see what film was playing. She is greeted by a giantess with a prickly beard, who reminds Ruth of one of the monsters on
The Muppet Show
. A pang of guilt once the thought has settled somewhere. A Hollywood film began in thirty minutes, the bearded lady informs her. It is a romantic comedy with two comely attractive stars who fell in love with each other while filming and left their respective partners.
Do you talk of me to her? I beg you: not one word about us to those who come after me.
To fill time, she slips in and out of electronics shops on the street, walking by fast moving images conjured up on large screens, not making eye contact with any of the salesman whose eyes settle on her with desperation, canines dripping, a heart-thumping deer amidst a drought. She walks into grocery stores and flips through celebrity magazines and tabloids, IS SHE PREGGERS I LOST TEN STONE THE WEDDING PICTURES YOU HAVEN’T SEEN ignoring the watchful eye of the security guards.
Other names other faces. She’ll put those on. She can take off her own and breathe.
Ruth wanders back into the theater, past the smell of burnt popcorn in the lobby. The bearded lady breaks her ticket in half. She sits in the center in the dark, staring at the wrinkled turquoise curtain. She touches her hand to her nose. It comes away dotted with a sticky red. Her nose is slightly bleeding. She wipes it with the back of her hand, a scarlet smear. There are two French children with their father in front of her, adult-sized popcorn bags the size of their insect-like torsos. They are a little young to be watching the movie. A little girl in knotty dishwater hair, a dirty white sweater with candy-colored hearts. Her brother starts sobbing. His father has refused him something. Ruth tries to drown out his childish gulps, fixating on the turquoise curtain. The adverts come on, the same for every movie she has seen in that theater. She laughs too hard at the automobile ads and mobile phone commercials, a tick of loneliness. She is advertising her own isolation.