Forget Yourself (10 page)

The day before had been a rations day, cool and clear and dry. I went by myself, scanning the crowd as always for familiarity. There had been an excited clamour. When I saw Jay at the centre of the courtyard I’d realised what it was: there was booze again. The word was carried across the crowd.
Vodka.
I liked the way that sounded. I mouthed each syllable. Vod-ka. It was satisfying. I’d imagined it being thick and dark, a heavy heady liquor. Perhaps I would even win some extra rations, when Jay opened his casino again.

When it was my turn in the box my mind had been far from food. I thought of vodka and giant oceans at the edge of the world. I moved my hands and picked the food at random, carbohydrates and proteins and vegetables. There were a lot of apples, bruised and red. My fingers fell on waxy soft skin. I took three. No, I would take six, I’d reasoned, I would gamble them. Who doesn’t like apples? There was no furniture this time. I collected thick milkshake and whispered to myself. Vodka. Vodka.

I lost an apple, one of five.

“I begged him, all throughout the breaking-up sex.”

I watched Burberry with half my focus. She seemed deflated, as though someone had punched her in the stomach, knocking all the life from her, spilling it out her mouth and nostrils. I wanted to say something, something to ease whatever she was going through. I wanted to see Tanned, but I didn’t dare ask where he was.

Instead I looked around the new casino. It was incredible. Not as grand or opulent as the huts of the least, but there were fragments of luxury, pieces of splendour, as well as modest furniture, dark and simple, and cheap rags scattered about the floor. It was as though all corners of our world had collided together to make this place, a little piece of everywhere. There were finely ornate mirrors, curved carvings caressing the glass. There were sturdy tables which already bore the scars of spilled drinks. There were dishcloths scattered about, some soiled some maybe-clean, all lit by a dim lamp. There was no sign of a home there though, and Jay stood as one of the accessories, and probably slept where he stood, filled with enough booze to make the days and night haze together. He was, of course, already drunk, and the game had begun around him. No-one had lost the ability to play.

Pilsner had been at the courtyard when I came out of the box, rations in hand. He hadn’t smiled or greeted me.

“The new casino will be there. Just by that mound.” He’d pointed to the embankment which led to the land of the moderates. “Can’t have people trampling all over the wrong area.”

“Are you looking forward to it again?”

“As much.”

There was a silence between us—he hadn’t been interested in talking, he just wanted to impart information.

“It’s your turn with the book soon enough. No new memories today then?” He’d flashed a cruel smile. A nearby couple chatted noisily.

I’d turned and gone back to my hut, my leaden bags banging against my legs.

I lost an apple, one of four.

“I begged him not to go. We had our problems, true, but I begged him not to go.”

A flurry of cards and another drink of vodka. Murmurs turned to laughter and we went unnoticed, balanced at the edge of the group. She pressed her arm harder to mine. I sipped at the drink clutched firm in my fingers, a taste more raw and bitter as any I’d ever splashed over my tongue.

The new tent had appeared as soon as the rations box was gone. This was the new casino; this was Jay’s new home. I’d listened to the talk of couples as they stalked by. ‘Look at it.’ ‘Look at it.’ ‘When’s our turn? Did you hear yet?’ ‘He gets all the luck, that one.’

Did luck and casinos not go together?

They commented on its form, big and bulky, ‘It even hides that mound’, ‘What mound?’ ‘The one that leads—well, you know, over there’. ‘It’s a strange colour.’

Well, that was true. I had never seen orange canvas before.

It squatted only a few metres from the courtyard. Once or twice I had seen Jay carrying bottles back and forth, dipping in and out of his new sun-coloured home, and I had waved. He had waved back, gently and carefully, the wave of someone who didn’t exactly recognise who it was he was waving to.

I’d stayed at the courtyard that evening and kept my ears open. Least couples strode pair by pair into the orange mouth, held open by Jay, who was already swaying a little. I’d watched for Frederick and I’d watched for Pilsner, but neither Pilsner’s slight-hunched build nor Frederick’s careless form had made their way near.

I lost an apple, one of three.

“I’d wanted someone else,” Burberry muttered.

And there was no game, no game which we were playing, the others were there, vying over our rations and my hands would move and press cards face-down as the pile in the middle grew into several uneven lumps.

I stared at her, trying to read her body for information. She felt me, I was sure of it, but I didn’t stop. There was only her and the dice and mugs, the glug of the vodka being portioned. At first I’d thought it was water. It reminded me of the chlorine-pool. I felt the fraying orange-purple-gold edges of my top.

That morning I’d stitched together some of the spare fabric from the edges of my curtains, lining my shirt with colour. My home had smelt only of my own sweat, a thought which spread the dull ache of loneliness through my stomach. I’d knelt by my bed and inhaled, hoping for the earthy-beetroot scent left behind by Frederick’s body, but there’d been nothing. I’d decided to do the rest of my sewing outdoors. I still hadn’t heard from him. Perhaps he was making buildings.

It was almost dark and I had just placed the needle on the stone before me. I was admiring my jagged work as Burberry appeared. She was wearing shorts I had never seen before, hanging beneath her best shirt.

“You’re going tonight, then?” I asked.

“I am.” Her voice had been heavy. I hadn’t asked where Tanned was. She leant over, neck resting on my shoulder. “Wow, Blondee, that’s wonderful. I didn’t know you could sew anything.”

“I can’t, but as long as it stays on for tonight.”

It was Ketamine who had taught me to sew after she had watched Rings at work. It had been a long time since I had seen either Ketamine or the jagged shards of her recipes. She had slipped into memory like a dream.

“You’ll look great,” she’d said.

We’d left for the casino together.

I lost an apple, one of two.

“I said I wanted both of you, Blondee. I did. I wanted you. I’d heard the rumours, I heard them from Ketamine herself—you loved more than one person. It’s possible for you. What if it’s possible for me? That’s what I told him.”

And with her words falling softly into my ear the room fell silent and mouths pressed words through booze-dripped lips and cups chinked and dice rumbled but all inaudible.

There were only her words, and her skin—and her leg pressing into mine.

I didn’t tell her that nothing was deliberate, that I wasn’t even sure how I’d felt. I didn’t tell her because I rarely told anyone anything—there had always been other people to do that for me.

My last apple vanished into one of the larger piles. I dropped my cards. The distraction was gone. I turned to face her, to see her staring at me.

“He left. He called me all sorts of things. I hate him.” She looked thoughtful. “I think it’s really sad that you can hate more than one person but not love more than one person.”

I turned the words over in my mind as her lips met mine, full and thick and heavy. Her hands grasped at my arms as she pressed her body into me, her tongue further into my mouth. I ran my hand over her back, unsure of what to do.

Sound returned to the room

a flurry of gasps

and whispers

and a cheer.

I pulled my lips from hers, twenty faces watching us, some surprised and shocked, some looking to others to see what the fuss was all about. Somewhere I heard a voice, ‘They broke up this afternoon,’ and there were more grunts and hushes which fizzled all about us.

“If you want another drink, just give me your cup,” Jay called to all from somewhere unseen.

And her words echoed through my head as she took my hand and led me from the moist grasp of the casino-tent. Hand-in-hand we wandered to my triangle home, where I lit a small candle and she watched me, until she spoke, as softly as she had amongst the clatter of dice and cards and drinks and gossip.

“He said you only love one person. Just one at a time. It’s not true, Blondee, it’s not true, I swear. I love you, Blondee—I have for ages. And I love—or loved—I love Tanned.” Her words were soft but they were quick, and brushed over me like shreds of velvet. “It doesn’t matter what it says in the book. We don’t know that’s right,
he
doesn’t know that’s right—perhaps some people do love two, or even three people, on the outside. He knew how I felt about you. He said that I should stay away from you and it would go away. That it was a crush and it would go away. But it didn’t, over all this time it just never went. And I wanted to see you but he said I shouldn’t.”

She leant forward and kissed me again. I tried to untangle her words, to make sense of them as they still scattered about the air. She pulled back and continued.

“He told me to leave. He just told me to leave.”

And I reached over and pulled her to me. Her head rested on my breast and I felt her. It was more than despair, it was a desperate mix of despair and desire that had built in her and flowed into me. She kissed me again, and this time there was no interruption, just a phrase which stuck to my mind:

You love one person.

And it was so early on in the book that it hardly mattered now.

THE NIGHT AT THE CASINO WAS OVER
. Daylight clawed through the window. Our corner was vacant, a mass of bodies sleeping away the drink and dice and the dizzying air. It was cold and I was frozen, waiting for them to wake up and begin talking, tongues lashing tales of Burberry and Blondee, who had pressed their lips together and ran away, away into the emptiness of the night. The news would thaw and feed drip-drip-drip, until it built and welled, it would flood across our corner and over into the rest of the world, flowing over Tanned, flowing over Frederick. What explanation did I have? She loved me, and she loved Tanned, and doing so she had broken the rules of the world. There she lay, sleeping next to me. Grief and pleasure both infected her dreams and both made me lie back down and hold her.

The world would have to wait.

We were both naked, our skin smooth against rough blankets. Her breath was light and even, lightly stale, her arm slung beneath my neck. I ran my fingertips over her, from her face down the dark sweep of her neck, down further, down over her breasts, lightly over the soft circle of nipple, from there to her stomach, over the furry trail from her stomach to her tangle of pubic hair, through its coarseness, over the warmth of her—she mumbled and moved, turning over onto her front, pulling her arm free. I ran my fingers over the mount of her buttocks, down the back of her thigh, the light fuzz of her calf, to her ankle.

Did I think? I must have thought. I must have thought of her, not only of her skin but her heartbreak, her pain, its intermingling with her desire for me. Love. Did she feel love—or hard, driving, exhaustible lust? She had abandoned Tanned for me, however unwillingly. I wouldn’t want her to regret that.

And how did I feel about her? She had always been an accessory to Tanned, an extra, an adornment—one which needed the other to function. But I wanted her. My body wanted her.

I don’t believe I really thought of Tanned. At that moment he will have been intangible, a theory—unreal in the presence of Burberry’s bare skin.

I will have thought of Frederick. If Frederick was unhappy that would be a problem—I needed his soft skin and simple thoughts. To hurt or anger him, to turn warm embraces cold—that would be too painful.

In truth, however, I don’t really remember if I thought at all. I simply remember the dream of her, in the dusky light filtered through the curtains.

She slept, so I slept.

The tring of notes bounced about my hut. The little music player was on, knocking me awake.

“Blondee.” Burberry was smiling. I sat up.