Eat My Heart Out Page 14

  I let them go on banging and shouting for a while until I heard the buzz of an electric drill. I pulled a towel around myself and opened the door.

  Steph was wielding the drill and wearing a pair of safety goggles. She snapped them off. ‘I hope you weren’t using my Crème de la Mer,’ she said. ‘Come.’

  I followed them downstairs to the swimming pool.

  Raegan was sitting on the tiled floor, reading Antigone.

  Steph grabbed the bin liner from Marge and emptied the dead leaves into the water, walking the length of the pool as she did so, making sure that they were well and truly scattered. Bits of soil and twig and a crisp packet floated on the surface too. The serenity of that luminous blue was ruined.

  ‘Get them out,’ said Steph.

  ‘Go on,’ said Marge. ‘We all had to do it.’

  ‘When did you have to do it?’ I said.

  ‘We all rushed,’ said Marge. ‘We all did the rites of spring, the rites of passage.’

  ‘Kappa Alpha Theta wasn’t officially recognised by the university but we certainly took our responsibilities seriously,’ said Steph.

  ‘But I don’t want to join a sorority,’ I said.

  All three pairs of eyes turned on me.

  ‘You don’t what?’ said Raegan.

  ‘Can I have a net?’ I said.

  ‘Oh no,’ said Marge.

  Steph beckoned me to the shallow end and then pulled my hands roughly behind my back. My towel dropped. She tied my wrists with garden twine.

  ‘Lucky I had some of this hanging around,’ she said. ‘To make sure my roses grow erect.’

  She pushed me into the pool.

  ‘With your mouth,’ said Steph. ‘Your teeth. Use your whole mouth.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Raegan, standing on the side. ‘With your face!’

  I hesitated. ‘But is this instead of rent?’

  ‘If you must think of things in such base materialist terms,’ said Steph.

  I gulped at the leaves, carrying them to the side of the pool, spitting them into the bin liner that Steph held open.

  Now I was standing naked and wet, looking at the toilet that I had just scoured.

  ‘Do you think that’s clean?’ said Steph.

  Marge and Raegan were standing behind her.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘But do you think it’s really clean?’ said Steph.

  ‘Yeah, I do.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t look that clean to me,’ said Raegan. She was holding a Bratz doll.

  ‘Well, it looks sparkly and fresh to me,’ I said.

  ‘Think about the worst thing you’ve ever done,’ said Steph.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Marge. ‘Close your eyes and think about it.’

  I did so.

  ‘Now tell us what it is,’ said Steph.

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  ‘Because the personal is political,’ said Steph, exasperated.

  ‘OK. Let me think. It might be the first time I slept with Jasper. Sebastian stayed in London that weekend. He was at UCL.’

  They nodded.

  ‘There was a house party. There were all these girls everywhere – like girls from Heathers. You know the film?’

  They nodded furtively.

  ‘All perfect and private school and Allegra knew all of them, of course. She had sworn to disavow all of them but she never really did. They came to this performance she did. But that was later. We were all sitting on someone’s bed. I’d done some MDMA. I felt like I was going to kill myself out of love for the whole world. I looked at Allegra and she looked like an angel. All my vision was juddering up and down – the whole fucking room. Then her face changed. Her face looked like a bad omen. Her hair was a bad sign. She was a bat. Suddenly I didn’t believe in her at all, and then Jasper came in and sat on the bed between us and put an arm around each of us. He looked at me and then he looked at her and then he unhooked this mirror off the wall – it was warped, like convex.’

  They nodded.

  ‘It was like the kind of security mirror they have in shops to check if anyone’s stealing. And it was surrounded by goldpainted brambles and thorns – like, baroque or something.’

  Raegan was agog.

  ‘And then Jasper said: Right ladies, who wants a line? And he made loads of fat lines on the mirror. And then he passed the note and the mirror to Allegra first. Not to me.’

  They waited.

  ‘Her first,’ I reiterated. ‘So we did all this – whatever it was. And I could tell that he liked her. Well, yeah, because they were actually going out at the time. She was his girlfriend. So when she went to the toilet, I must have been high as a kite because I said to him: Do you want to fuck me? His face was mean like marble. Like there was nothing in his eyes – only the whites of his eyes, no iris, and no pupil. For a moment, I felt sure that he was the devil himself, that I had done a pact with the devil and there was no going back, but then Jasper just opened his mouth and laughed and laughed. He said: Who are your family, anyway?’

  ‘Asshole,’ said Marge.

  ‘I had never cheated on Sebastian before. I had never tried to cheat on him. Jasper got up and left the room. Allegra never did come back from the toilet. I was alone. I tried to call Sebastian but he didn’t answer his phone so then I went into the living room where loads of rich hippies wearing stupid outfits were doing stupid hippy dances and I found Jasper squashed between two other members of the international technocratic elite wearing polo shirts. I wanted him more then, so much more, because he had rejected me.’

  ‘So then what happened?’ said Raegan.

  ‘We went and fucked in the toilet.’

  Marge covered Raegan’s ears. ‘Baby, I’m not sure you should be listening to this.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Steph. ‘She needs to learn about this Sadeian generation, reared on internet pornography. They are just ahead of her.’

  ‘I did wrong,’ I said. ‘Not Jasper.’

  ‘He humiliated you.’ Steph’s voice became harsh. ‘Get down and prove to me that it’s clean, if it’s as clean as you say it is.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get down on your hands and knees, lift up the lid, and lick the goddamn toilet bowl!’

  I stared at her.

  ‘Do it!’ said Marge.

  I got down on my knees, lifted the lid, and licked the bowl.

  I heard the door slam; Raegan had gone.

  A few hours later, Marge and Stephanie were having a screaming argument in the recording studio, which, according to Raegan, was the best place to have a screaming argument because it was soundproof. It was in the basement, next to the swimming pool. Stephanie had never shown it to me.

  I had been ordered to look after Raegan. We did some drawings at the kitchen table – mainly of Miley Cyrus’s on-off boyfriend. Stephanie had bought her a Winsor & Newton pinewood box of art materials.

  ‘Did you know that Aunt Steph introduced my mom to my dad?’ Raegan addressed her sketch pad.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She paused. ‘And Aunt Steph helped Mom to heal – after.’

  ‘After what?’

  ‘After what happened between all of them.’ She turned the page. ‘The Lord hath giveth and the Lord hath taketh away.’ She drew a detailed and highly accomplished pencil portrait of Miley Cyrus. She bit her lip in concentration as she shaded. Then she scrawled over the whole thing so that the paper tore. Over Miley’s face she drew two stick people in thick, aggressive oil pastel. A female stick-person with giant red curls spiralling out of her head was strangling a male stick person with red glasses and black hair.

  ‘Look.’ She showed me a photo of a man on her phone. ‘That’s my dad.’ He did have red glasses. He was Hispaniclooking, bookish.

  ‘He looks nice,’ I said.

  Now she drew a floating entity above the stick people: it was a pink scribble that might have been a rain cloud or a ball of wool. In case there was any doubt, she wrote in spiked black lett
ers across it: Aunt Steph.

  Night was falling when Stephanie appeared in the kitchen, composed. She had changed into what appeared to be a Little Bo Peep outfit. Or maybe it was an old bridesmaid dress? It was satin pink with a puffball skirt. The edges were trimmed with white lace and she wore a white lace veil over her face. She had doused herself in so much tangy Florida Water that I was forced to cover my nose with my sleeve.

  ‘Auntie Steph,’ said Raegan. ‘You look pretty.’

  ‘Why, thank you,’ said Steph. Her accent had switched to Deep South. ‘Now will you two ladies please join the good and long-suffering Marge and I in the den. But, oh – wait.’ She pointed at the red polo neck that I was wearing; it was hers. ‘You have to please take that off.’ She pointed to Raegan’s black jeggings. ‘And those. No red or black.’

  We did as we were told.

  A corner of the den had been transformed into some kind of pink ceremonial altar. Everything matched Steph’s outfit.

  Marge was sitting on the sofa, stony-faced. She looked like she’d been crying. A large picture of a goddess was propped in the centre of the altar, surrounded by looping French writing and the name Erzulie Freda. The goddess wore a more grandiloquent version of Steph’s outfit, and she was black. Two paintings flanked her: one showed a horse, crying. The other showed a horse with wild eyes, gagged. There were other things on the table: a white candle and a pink candle, unlit. Some iced buns, an open tin of rice pudding, a goblet of water, a packet of Virginia Slims cigarettes, and a frosted pink Rimmel lipstick. Three gold rings had been laid out on a white doily. There was the bottle of Florida Water.

  Steph put on The Crystals’ ‘He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)’.

  ‘This was Amy’s favourite song,’ she said. ‘It inspired her.’

  ‘Erzulie Freda is the vodou Iwa spirit of love,’ explained Marge. ‘Aunt Steph worked with and observed a lot of houngan priests and priestesses when she was in Haiti.’

  ‘Back in ’86,’ Steph said to me over her shoulder. She was busy sprinkling the Florida Water over the altar. She lay a pink cloth over the coffee table.

  ‘Erzulie is a very complex goddess,’ said Marge, looking pointedly at Steph. ‘She is very flirtatious and full of love and affection. She is one of the most powerful goddesses going. But she wants you to spoil her – and you mustn’t spoil her.’

  ‘And she sees other women as rivals,’ said Steph, lighting the candles. ‘She greets women by waving her little pinkie at them but she greets men with a lot of hugs and kisses. Now.’ She gave us each a printout from the internet. ‘Let’s say together: Maitresse Mambo Erzulie Freda Dahomey! Beautiful woman! Woman of luck! Woman of my house! Come here I beg you and accept these offerings!’ Steph repeated the lines several times; the rest of us trailed off.

  Steph began to sway. She danced over to me and put her hand on my head. Marge lifted Raegan off her lap and put her hand on my head too.

  ‘Free this child, please, Erzulie,’ said Steph. Her speech was cracked and warped. ‘Free this child from the spell of love cast by The Symbolic. Free her from the neo-liberal patriarchal web of incitements to fall in love.’ I could feel the animal heat of their hands pulsing into my brain. ‘Free her from the masochistic need to wait. Free her from false consciousness and awaken her and make her see that true freedom does not consist in happiness which too often means being at rest. No!’

  Steph reeled back as though struck by lightning.

  Marge gripped Steph’s hand and put it back on my head. ‘Go on!’ shouted Marge.

  Raegan had backed to the far end of the room.

  ‘True freedom consists in overcoming one’s fallen state, not to fall some more, true freedom—’ Steph fell back. She whacked her head on the corner of the coffee table.

  The fire continued to roar behind her.

  She was out cold.

  Marge threw the goblet of water over her face. Steph woke up and castigated Marge for expending a gift to Erzulie so disrespectfully.

  The music had stopped.

  Steph staggered upwards, her veil askew, and opened a bottle of pink champagne; likewise a gift to Erzulie. She became frantic when she thought one of the candles had blown out. She cupped it, desperately. The candle burned back to life. ‘Thank god,’ she breathed.

  There was stillness.

  ‘Those horse paintings are done by Gabriella,’ she told me. ‘Can you feel the transition?’

  ‘What transition?’ I said.

  ‘I can,’ said Marge.

  Steph lifted the painting of Erzulie and revealed another painting behind it. This one was Catholic. It showed a saint, crying. There was a sword through the saint’s exposed and bleeding heart.

  Now Steph seemed properly drugged. She pointed one woozy hand at the saint and fluttered her fingers. Her smile was inexact. ‘When you’ve given Erzulie all you’ve got and you don’t have any more to give her, she changes into Mater Dolorosa,’ she slurred. ‘Erzulie always leaves crying. She is the spirit who can never achieve her desires, that is her tragedy.’ Steph traced the outline of the sword with her finger. ‘Mater Dolorosa holds the weapon calmly in place with her own hands. She accepts her fate.’ She shook her head, muddled. ‘That’s why things can never go forward.’ Now Stephanie looked like she would cry. She was talking to herself. ‘That’s why things haven’t gone forward enough.’ She turned to me. ‘For you. For your generation. You’re caught between the housewife and the whore.’ She shook her head savagely. The veil fell off. She twisted it between her fingers. ‘That bloody Nigella Lawson has got a lot to answer for.’

  Steph slumped on the floor by the fire. I went over and put my arm around her.

  We sat like that for a long time.

  Eventually, she said: ‘We must wait until the candles have burned all the way down, on their own.’ Her eyes looked young. ‘Did you feel something, Ann-Marie?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘What did you feel?’

  ‘I felt – better.’

  ‘I’m doing it for you.’ She gripped my hand. ‘You must believe that. I’m doing this to help you.’

  I got up and lay down on the sofa facing the fire.

  ‘I want you to go through all the stages.’ Steph was talking to the fire. ‘Knitting, stripping, cleaning, gathering, degradation, child-caring – hyper-feminine actions.’ She seemed unsure of herself. ‘To see.’

  ‘I don’t know what you wanted me to see,’ I said.

  The fire roared and roared.

  ‘To see that you’re strong,’ said Stephanie.

  Thirteen

  Dear Ann-Marie,

  I can’t pretend that what you said the other day about it being a nice dream didn’t cut me like a knife. I told myself to man up Victor, and remember that you’re a victor in life.

  Love is eternal. I knew you were a slut but when I watched every single one of my pornos, you weren’t there on the screen. None of the actresses had your face.

  The sound of thunder that’s not thunder. It’s only what man is doing to man. Yes, I’ve become deep.

  But when I went round to yours and Freddie’s flat in the night, you and he wasn’t there. No one was there. I waited for you to ring my bell at the crack of dawn like you did right before you humiliated me yet again but I hear only silence. I’ve quit my job.

  If you don’t show yourself to me soon in a film or a message on the internet or even the stars, I want to do it.

  Vic

  Steph had finally granted me internet access so I was able to read the deluge of emails from Vic. A pair of pink pyjamas scented with that nauseating Florida Water had been left on my bed after the possession.

  I heard groaning and banging in the night.

  Marge shook me awake at 7.30. She was wearing the same pink pyjamas as me. She said. She said that Stephanie had gone into a trance and wouldn’t come out of it. Apparently Erzulie Freda had accused Stephanie of sleeping with one of her three husbands. Erzulie threatened to tu
rn into a red-eye. Marge’s hands were shaking.

  The curtains were closed against the cold sun.

  Steph looked like a Victorian hysteric. She had soaked the bed with sweat. Her teeth were chattering. Her eyes were rolling all over the place. Her skin was a sick yellow. She was wheeling around the mattress in a circular motion, thrashing her legs. Great handfuls of books had been torn from the shelves.

  Marge tried to make Steph take Xanax but Steph screeched about Marge working in the service of The Symbolic, drugging her to nullify the radical implications of her insight. She screamed about Marge wanting revenge. She screamed about the sistahood wanting revenge. She screamed that guilt was just a neurosis concocted by Christians and mainstream psychoanalysts to punish people who were keen to selfactualise. She screeched about The Symbolic being like a whirly-pool that one must never look directly at. Like the sun. She whimpered that if one stares into the abyss for too long one becomes part of it. Then she seemed to fall asleep but her eyes remained open.

  When Raegan appeared in the same pink pyjamas, Steph arched her back like a cobra and lunged. She got a fistful of Raegan’s pyjama shirt.

  Raegan screamed, but Steph wouldn’t let her go. Steph seemed to be hugging her and hurting her at once.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Steph. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’

  Raegan seemed to know what Steph was talking about. ‘Sorry for what?’ she said, sarcastically.

  ‘Sorry for what happened with your mom and dad. Sorry for what I did. For hurting you, baby.’

  Then Steph curled up like a satisfied kitten.

  Marge decided that some chicken soup for the soul was in order so would I mind popping over to the Hampstead Butcher where I could pick out a nice well brought-up cornfed bird for the pot? She only had a £50 note.

  ‘Will you run away?’ she asked me.

  ‘Do you want me to run away, Marge?’

  ‘Steph doesn’t.’

  I told her that I’d bring back the change.

  Then I headed over to Tottenham Hale, where the chickens were cheaper.

  I couldn’t see any butchers in the vicinity of the tube but I had already checked the route to Walthamstow Reservoir online. I walked up a motorway that inclined into a frigid blue sky. A white cloud hung, broken. I passed a street cleaner in an orange vest and she told me that yes I was going in the right direction but it wasn’t the season for chub. She said her friend’s husband had caught a mirror carp that weighed 45 lb. I asked her if she’d seen a man who looked like a German Idealist with a savage blond beard and piercing Nordic-esque blue eyes but she said no. I went through an opening in a fence and entered a vast marshland. There was nothing and no one. The tourist information board listed the names of birds for birdwatching but nothing flew above. There was supposed to be various insect life, meaning stocked fish very quickly turn into firmfleshed, fighting wild fish, but I couldn’t see any water, let alone fish, let alone insects. There was a car park. A man with a brown leather briefcase who wasn’t Sebastian was hurrying into the bushes. I followed him. He turned right onto a canal. There were houseboats, laden with smashed furniture and flower pots. The windows were close to the water. The water ruffled against itself. The wind blew. The man turned right again. There was a river, shielded by trees, but no one was fishing. Warnings of electrocution and toxic shock. The river ran the wrong colour. The surface reflected the white sky. Birds flew up but no one was watching. There was nothing to watch. There was nothing here. There was nothing.