Ruby and the Stone Age Diet (15 page)

Clio also looks after painters so she is interested in the art class. I tell her that all the exhibits in the British Museum were fine and also they serve good tea although
it is quite expensive, and I confide that I am a little worried because I have heard that there is no money to keep museums open and they might have to introduce an admission charge.

‘My friend Jane who sells communist newspapers tells me that the government hates giving money for things like art.’

Clio frowns.

‘A strange accusation,’ she says. ‘I would have thought they were doing their best.’

‘Well, she’s not really my friend. I just run into her now and then.’

My feet are dirty. I hope no one at the class notices. I do not want them to talk about me afterwards and say to each other that I had dirty feet.

Back home with my six pounds I am very bored. Ruby wanders through.

‘I’m bored,’ she says. ‘Let’s buy a new can-opener.’

‘A new can-opener?’ I say, a little surprised.

‘Yes, I saw a brilliant new kind of can-opener on television, the advert had hundreds of them all dancing round doing the can-can. We have to get one, it will be wonderful.’

We spend a while getting properly dressed and wondering whether it will rain, then we hunt the shops for the radical new can-opener. I am dubious of course that it is really going to improve my life but I trust Ruby’s judgement.

We find the new can-opener in Tesco. I am interested to be in Tesco. I have not been here since Cis and I were thrown out for shoplifting.

Seconds after slipping some bright yellow electric plugs and a packet of coleslaw into our pockets we were surrounded by security guards. We were surprised how quickly they came. We were also surprised to be merely thrown out and not arrested.

But I was not surprised to be caught. Tesco is full of bad demons and evil spirits.

It was no fun at the time but now it seems like quite a good memory. Except it reminds me of Cis.

Depressed by the memory of Cis I am unable to move.

‘Come on,’ says Ruby. ‘I don’t like it out here, I want to get home.’

‘This new can-opener, please,’ she says at the check-out. She does not want to steal it. I am relieved. Barefoot with sunglasses, Ruby is not inconspicuous.

‘And twenty tins of beans and a loaf of bread.’

‘Why did you get a loaf? Does the new can-opener slice bread as well? It must be a wonderful machine.’

Ruby says no, it doesn’t slice bread, but as we are going to be opening lots of beans we can make toast and eat them. Sometimes I am lost in admiration for Ruby. I cannot think ahead like she can.

Walking home there is a man taking photographs in the street so we have to sneak past him because we do not want our souls to be stolen. Ruby has told me that when a
stranger takes your picture the camera sucks up your soul and gives it to bad spirits like the ones in Tesco. I am anxious that this should not happen.

‘Look at that boy’s hair,’ says Ruby. ‘Isn’t it nice?’

Tied up with plaits and white dreadlocks it is indeed very impressive.

‘Get him to be your drummer.’

‘But he might not play the drums.’

‘Of course he does,’ says Ruby, ‘I can feel it in my feet.’

He says he will be pleased to audition.

Ruby tells me she is stuck. She is not sure how to rescue Cynthia from prison.

I think about it while I’m helping her with her hair.

‘Can’t you just have her eat all the guards in a savage fury and burst out through a window?’

‘I was hoping for something more subtle.’

She ponders it for a while.

‘You were right,’ says Ruby. ‘A savage fury and an escape through the window was the best thing to do. Do we have any brandy left?’

‘No. But I could get some. Is Cynthia still suffering the psychic appetite?’

Ruby shakes her head.

‘No, I’m bored with that now. She can eat who she likes and it doesn’t affect her.’

Halfway across another desolate plain we come across a ruined building. The robot forces in the door but there is nothing inside.

‘Back on Earth I once had to force a door so I could get into bed with a young woman I met at a bus stop.’

I wait for some sign that the robot would like to hear the rest of the story but it does not give me one.

The robot does not think that I am a good storyteller. When I tried to interest it in a tale of some hippopotamuses it just looked at me with contempt.

Also it is busy compiling the encyclopaedia of machine myths and occasionally worshipping the Motorcycle God.

Everywhere on the planet it is raining. As a Rain God, Cis has been a spectacular success. I have given up hope of ever finding a home here and am resigned to trudging round for ever with a mad machine.

My only comforts are some ruby earrings that the robot synthesised for me to keep me quiet. Unfettered by any stylistic conventions I am wearing seven earrings in each ear. If there is room to pierce any more holes, I might put in some more.

I know that I will never have any fun again, and I wish that I was back on Earth.

*

Sure enough the new design can-opener is immense fun. It takes the whole tops off cans, and Ruby and I take it in turns to take the tops off and stare admiringly at the results because neither of us has ever had a good can-opener before, only the very cheapest one that you buy from a stall in a market and you have to wrestle with it for twenty minutes to open your beans and even then you still get your fingers ripped to shreds on the tin.

After all the tins are opened we pour all the beans into the sink and start on the other ends of the cans. By this time we are becoming hysterical and when there aren’t any cans left we try it on the loaf and cover the room with crumbs and then we ask the people next door if they’d like any cans opened and when they say no, not right now, we ask them to be sure to bear us in mind when they do.

I have a few minutes’ sadness when I think how much fun I could have had if Cis was here to see the new can-opener, but when Ruby gathers up all the tops from the cans and starts frisbeeing them down the hall I cheer up again and join in and all in all the new can-opener is probably the most fun I have had all year.

Afterwards, when the entire house is a slithering swamp of beans, breadcrumbs and mangled aluminium cans, I think that possibly life is not so appalling after all. Ruby gets me to massage her shoulders and she says I am easily among the best shoulder-massagers she has ever come across. I am pleased at this compliment.

I am not pleased to learn that she is back with Domino and he is coming round this evening to borrow a little money.

Out my window I can see the old woman on her balcony. She is looking lonely so I try and communicate with her telepathically, but she does not seem to be very adept at it and her replies are too weak for me to make out properly. I do get the strong impression, however, that her son is in prison for repeated chequebook fraud and that she disapproves of the Pope for being inconsiderate to the needs of women.

My next job is as Assistant Head Storeman in a large hotel in Knightsbridge. There are two porters there who know the job already, but the hotel does not want to make either of them Assistant Head because they are both Indian.

I am embarrassed to be put in charge of them. I never once tell them to do anything.

‘I think that story is worse than the last one,’ says Ruby, who is dyeing a leather wristband.

‘What story?’

‘The one about Cis being a Rain God.’

‘I don’t have any story about her being a Rain God.’

‘Yes you do.’

I don’t have any story about Cis being a Rain God.
Ruby is getting crazier and crazier. It is probably Domino’s fault, he is an awful boyfriend. I have known thousands of nice girls with terrible boyfriends.

Domino knocks on the door and when Ruby eagerly shows him her newly dyed wristband he says it is a mess.

‘But wear it if you like.’

Ruby tries to hide her disappointment and quietly throws it away. It sinks down into the plastic bag full of yesterday’s beans.