Love Me (5 page)

‘Oh,' I said. ‘Right.'

He carefully adjusted his long, solid body and ended up slightly closer than he was before. I really could touch him and no one would walk in on us. I could lay my face in his neck, run my hands over his chest and his smooth head. I could unzip and unbutton him. We could kiss. Oh God. We could
kiss.
And what do you do when you've
wanted something for so long and finally here it is, and maybe all you have to do now is not mess up and it can be yours?

‘Go on then,' I said.

‘What?'

‘Pass the dutchie, Rasta.'

He spluttered, coughing and laughing at the same time. ‘I was only kidding, E. You can't handle that
Hendrix
, girl . . .'

‘Come on!'

‘Alright,' he said, with a shrug, smiling again on one side of his mouth. ‘But I ain't takin' your ass to no emergency room.'

The first pull made me cough almost hard enough to gag. I looked through my watery eyes at Zed, who was shaking his head and giggling. Actually giggling.

‘Wamore!'

‘You OK?' he asked, very insincerely, and took back the spliff. ‘Drink some Coke, woman. I told you you couldn't handle it.'

‘One more!'

‘You're crazy . . .'

‘Just pass it over.' And this time I managed to hold it down. Smoke seared my throat, fired off a quiet explosion in the back of my head. Suddenly there was s . . . p . . . a . . . c . . . e.

He took a deep inhale of the spliff, held it, then let the smoke out slow and controlled. He held it out to me again with a challenge in his sleepy-lidded eyes. Go on, then. If you're so tough. His lips. My lips.

I did and started to giggle, despite myself. And he smiled, despite himself. We went back and forth for a while, until the room was milky with smoke.

‘Here,' he said. ‘Not much left.'

‘No it's OK. You have it.'

‘Hey . . .' he said, ‘did you leave an earring last time you were here? And your Pharcyde CD?'

‘Is it pink?'

‘What?' he asked, leaning his head back.

‘The earring.'

‘Yeah.'

‘Wow! I've been looking for that for ages,' I giggled. ‘You've gotta stop stealing my shit, you pervert!'

‘What can I say? Pink is my colour, baby.' He stretched over to take my abandoned items from a drawer in a nearby side table. A smooth, deep brown gap appeared between the waistband of his jeans and the hem of his T-shirt and my mouth went dry. He laid the CD and earring on the sofa between us.

‘You always leaving your stuff behind,' he said nasally, mid-toke. The roach gleamed and faded. He put it in the ashtray. ‘Like Gretel with the breadcrumbs or some shit. Lewis now thinks I'm the biggest player since Barry White.'

My things looked out of place there, next to Zed's thigh. So real! Like, the realest things I'd ever seen, the way they stood out against the cream leather. The air was still as a photo. I twitched toward my digital – my faithful little clicker! – panting like a dog in my jacket pocket but then thought better of it. I didn't want to disturb the moment. I drew my knees up and tucked my pink cotton-covered feet in beside me. And in that hot room, only faint noise and no air came in through the open windows. The big lunch I'd had with Dwayne and the heat and the smoke all put a cat-like ease in my limbs. I burned, and stretched, crossed and uncrossed my legs, unwrapped a lollipop, sucked it, wiped the light sweat off my neck.

I stared at Zed's profile, his elegant eyebrows. He reached over and picked up a bulging blue notebook he'd stashed under the coffee table, opened it and began to read.

‘That's a bit anti-social isn't it?' I said.

‘Why, you got a better idea about what I should be doing?'

He looked at me. I was silent.

‘Cat gotcha tongue?'

‘Yeah. No. Course not. Just . . . you know,' I waffled. ‘Guess what? I have an idea for an art installation. It would be, like, a bedroom? But everything in it would indicate that someone was missing . . . the bed left unmade, a half-drunk cup of coffee, make-up and clothes everywhere . . .'

A darkness gathered and spilled out between us, clouds of it, thicker than the weed smoke or the humid air. Immediately I wanted to unsay it all and go back to the giggles and the jokes. Stupid me.

Eventually he said, ‘Didn't one of your British artists already do that? Tracey-something?'

I floundered, making it up as I went along. Too far in to retreat. ‘What she did was different. This would have a projection at the back of the room of a face . . . or if I could have a moving projection, like a ghost? And there'd be poetry being read out over the speakers.'

‘What for, Eden? What are you trying to do?' He flicked sightlessly through his notebook, every bone in his face angular with tension. ‘Just take your pictures, man. I don't even get all that modern art bullshit.'

‘It's a way of challenging reality and what you perceive as reality, that's the point,' I said, drowning. ‘It's a way of breaking down all the big ideas about God and man and society and showing how pointless and divisive they are. It shows what our existence really is, that we're all just lost and alienated and . . . um . . . what's the word?' I struggled. ‘Autonomous. I mean photos have their place, but they're a craft that you can learn just like anything else. Art goes beyond craft and into the realm of—'

‘Sounds to me like you're trying to take the real world and make it,' he struggled, ‘cheesy and ridiculous. Life ain't some art installation! It's
real
. Why would you want to put it in a sterile gallery somewhere so folks can pick your life apart?'

‘Well one of us has to deal with reality,' I shouted, burning. ‘'Cause it's certainly not you!'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘I'm
talking
about you coming over here doing bloody
gangster
rap!' I said, fizzy with adrenaline, running my mouth as fast as I could. ‘Are you serious?'

He rose to his feet, jaw set, eyes wild. ‘Oh my God.' He paced to the kitchen and back. ‘You challenging me on my
rhymes
now? You haven't complained
once
at the shows I've done. I look in the crowd and you out there shaking your ass like it's a box of Tic-Tacs! Now 'cause I think your idea . . . your idea is stupid! You wanna start talking shit?'

‘You used to be brave!' I told him, kneeling up on the sofa. ‘You used to be a poet and now you're just a rapper. It's embarrassing, mate! Just punchlines and theatre! What's wrong with you? Isn't there a law somewhere against false advertising?' Something in his face went slack. ‘That's not you, Zed.'

He sat down, hunched forward, elbows on knees. I started to mumble some wordless apology but he threw a hand up in front of my face.
Stop.

‘So I'm a fake, huh?' he smiled. Shook his head.

‘I didn't mean to sound harsh. It's just . . .'

‘Well maybe we both are. You acting like you're dealing with shit but you're not. You're still living in the shock of what happened to us. You haven't moved. You ain't breathed. You just hanged some posters on the wall and filled it up with mouldy plates and glasses and called it home.'

I crashed. ‘You think that's what my life is?'

He gave a laugh so faint it was merely an exhalation of breath. A corner of his pillowy mouth twitched upward. ‘You crack me up, though.'

‘Zed.'

‘You,' he finally looked up, ‘staking out my house with your little boyfriend. What was that? Performance art?'

‘He's not my boyfriend.'

‘Did you tell your boyfriend you have a crush on me?'

‘No . . . no!'

He sat up and leaned toward me, smirking as if rejection were something he had no first-hand experience of.
Crush.
Is that how small he thought it was? His face was flawless and hard. The TV bleated in the background. The weed pounded in my head. I was imploding. He took my chin between his fingers.

‘Are you saying that you don't have a crush on me, or are you saying that your boyfriend doesn't know?'

He leaned in further, our faces almost touching. And it was just too easy for him. I could see that. It was
easy.

‘Both!' I yelled, slapping his hand off my chin. ‘And I told you that he's not my boyfriend. Shit. How could you push up on me like I'm one of your floozies?'

He recoiled. ‘Floozies? This is me you're talking to! After everything . . . Why would you say that?'

‘'Cause I can't believe you, that's why! You're out of order. I told you that I'm . . . I'm celibate and you still come onto me?'

‘You
never
said your ass was celibate.'

‘Yes I did.'

‘I didn't even touch you. Did I tell you I wanted to fuck? Did I try to fuck you?'

I shivered. ‘No but—!'

‘Forget it. I don't have time for this. You're such an idiot.'

‘I'm an idiot 'cause I won't sleep with you?'

Zed shook his head and got up, took the glasses and the bowl of tortillas back into the kitchen.

‘Zed?' He didn't answer. I followed him to the kitchen. ‘Zed?'

‘Look, I really wanna get some writing done tonight, so let's do this some other time, OK?'

‘But I brought that movie I wanted to show you.'

‘Yeah well, I'm not even really in the mood for that right now.'

‘Alright,' I said, going cold all over. Ruining everything. ‘Alright.'

I didn't say anything else and neither did he. Not even goodbye.

I picked up my stuff and left.

I walked by his death toy, up to the main road and round to the bus stop. I sat there for a long time, letting them pass. Thinking about the bed on a platform, the running and the shock. And what do you do when you've wanted something for so long and finally here it is, and maybe all you have to do now is not mess up and it can be yours?

You mess it up, that's what.

And the next time I'd see him, he'd be injured, concave, with bruises and scratches climbing one arm, and Max hanging off the other.

‘MUMMY!'

Ridley market. Saturday morning. The green and blue print on her long gypsy dress. Her red-painted nails. The sky was blue and very far away. Only slightly closer was her face up there, curls loose and shiny about her cheeks. She carried on talking to a man in brown leather shoes and a woman in trainers.

‘Mummy.'

I wanted to pee! Wanted chips and a juice and to sit down and if not I might cry. I might scream. But I was a big girl now. She'd told me I was a big girl and would have to wait for the toilet.

‘Mum! Wee-wee!'

‘Just a minute, sweetheart.'

‘Mum!' I'd forgotten all my other words. ‘Mum Mum Mum Mum!'

I hated the market smell. I was out of the buggy and standing low to the wet, slimy ground. It was thousands of legs like a forest, and old, soft fruit and fishy puddles everywhere. And I wanted to pee! As usual, we'd spent most of our ‘shopping' trip standing around while stupid Mum spoke to stupid people about other stupid people. And sometimes they'd squeak at me and try to touch my head or hold my hands but I didn't like touching people I didn't know.

On and on she went. She was gonna make me wet myself like a baby and then she'd be cross! Why couldn't she just shut up? I kept tugging at her hand but she'd shake me off
and not even come down to me with her sweet-smelling hair and smooth face and high voice.

I bit her as hard as I could.

‘Ow!'

It was a funny taste, her skin through the green and blue print dress. I didn't stop until she shrieked with pain, dragged me off of her and came down to eye level. She shook me hard, bit me on the arm with her clean, sharp teeth. I screamed.

‘You see how that feels? It hurts, Eden!' she said. ‘You trying to make me look bad, eh? You don't love your mummy?'

I cried and cried and couldn't answer her.

‘Wow, that's a real handful you've got there, Marie!' said the stupid brown-shoed man.

‘This chile has a demon, trust me!' she said to him. ‘Eden, that's not how nice girls behave, you understand? You don't love your mummy?'

My legs were itchy with urine. I didn't say anything, just screamed louder. I didn't want to love anyone if it meant I had to stand out in the nasty, cold market peeing on myself. I didn't want love.

I TRY TO
stretch my legs out and meet an obstruction. Where am I? Bits of music split and regroup in my mind, Cody Chesnutt singing ‘Beautiful Shame'. Open my crusty eyes and I'm instantly rewarded with a headache.

‘You OK, darlin'?'

Max. Sitting at the bottom half of the couch so I'm left in an awkward foetal position. She's blindingly pale, in a scrap of white cotton. Her hair is bright enough to stain my retinas. I blink slowly. The scene goes in, out, and finally back into focus.

‘No,' I croak, trying to untangle myself from a blue bed sheet. ‘I'm very
not
OK.'

‘God! Sorry . . . Am I hurtin' ya?' she asks, moving so that my feet and ankles are free.

I sit up and the room hurtles forward, my belly trying to jump through my neck. Flashback to last night's downward spiral, vomit and tears, and a tumble outside the club. A bruise right on the funniest part of my elbow. Zed's dismissive eyes and strong, kind hands guiding me into their cab, making sure I didn't hit my head on the roof. But he should have sent me home. ‘What your liver ever do to you, huh?' he joked. It wasn't funny.

‘Zed's just gone out to the supermarket and stuff,' Max volunteers. She's watching a cartoon at low volume. I'm horrified to see that her skin looks even better unadorned. I touch my body tentatively and I'm wearing an oversized man's T-shirt, my underwear and cheek drool. Ugh.