Ruby and the Stone Age Diet (14 page)

‘Give us the rights to the new oil well or you’ll never see your friends again,’ says the leader, a small man of Italian extraction with an Uzi sub-machine-gun and a suit of violet that is brilliantly coloured although not as attractive as Ruby’s dress.

‘I don’t have any rights to oil wells,’ I protest. ‘All I have is fourteen pounds a week and six pounds from the art class. Also, I don’t have any friends.’

‘You’re lying. We’ll cut your ear off and send it to your mother.’

The car is thundering down through Brixton. Too wide for the narrow streets we crash into the Ritzy Cinema, where this week they are showing a series of Marlon Brando films.

I am catapulted out just before the car explodes. Uzi machine-gun bullets hail in every direction as the survivors
battle it out with riot police. Bystanders everywhere are mown down in puddles of blood.

I scramble for safety into the Ritzy.

‘The film has already started,’ says the woman in the kiosk.

‘Damn. And I really wanted to see
The Wild One
.’

I decide to catch it later and shamble down into the market to see if anyone will buy me a pizza.

Izzy is there at the pizza stall. Although she has no money to buy me one, she tears me off a good chunk and I sit beside her and chew away at it. She tells me about a party tonight.

‘I am feeling a little sad about Cis leaving me,’ I tell her. ‘How about you?’

‘Dean is mad at me because I’m having an abortion.’

‘I thought he had left you anyway?’

‘He had. But he’s decided it’s his business if I have an abortion or not. Well he can go fuck himself.’

She pulls up her jacket a little way.

‘Can you see an improvement in my trunk rotators?’ she asks.

‘Yes,’ I say, although I do not know what a trunk rotator is. ‘They are looking much better.’

‘Marilyn borrowed me two hundred pounds off her parents to get me an abortion. Have you got everything ready for your gig?’

Immediately I am gloomy and can’t finish my pizza fragments. Izzy reclaims them, saying she has to eat to develop
muscles, although really it should be steaks and not pizzas. But she supposes every little helps.

Next to the pizza stall a few people hang around the door of a reggae shack and slightly shake to the music.

The robot and I trudge on across the blackened plain. I am fed up trudging. We have stopped communicating and the robot is entirely concerned with completing its life’s work, a huge encyclopaedia of mythological mechanical deities.

Suddenly there is a total eclipse of the sun and the robot falls to its knees.

‘Come on, make some light so we can keep trudging.’

There is a small whirring noise and a print-out appears from its side.

Silence
, it says.
It is time for me to pray to the deity
.

It brings out a picture of Marlon Brando on a motorbike.

‘You like Marlon Brando too?’

Who is Marlon Brando?
it prints.
I am praying to the Harley-Davidson
.

The party Izzy told me about is in a squat in Kennington. The street, full of licensed squats, is buzzing with three parties, two black and one white.

At the kerb there are a few old cars and three majestic-looking
motorbikes. Underneath the motorbikes a few shards of glass glisten in a small pool of oil.

Downstairs in the white party it is too full to move. There is a smoke-machine and beer on sale for a pound a can and one light shining horizontally across the ceiling. I stand around and talk for a while and I meet my friend James and his girlfriend Maz, who have a plastic bag full of drink which they share with me.

‘Every time I meet Izzy she is always going on about her muscles,’ says James. ‘But they don’t look any different to me.’ I have a good conversation with Maz about caring for cacti.

It is bitterly cold on this planet. While the robot prays I shake and shiver and wonder how you go about building a new spacecraft. Suddenly I come across a small cactus, the only green thing I have seen on this world. It is small and beautiful and I stare at it for a long time.

Next morning I wake up in bed with Maz. This is a surprise. These days my life is full of surprises.

I hunt for my clothes, Maz gives me a nice smile.

‘Don’t worry about last night,’ she says. ‘It happens to everyone sometimes.’

‘What,’ I say. ‘Having sex with your friends’ girlfriends?’

‘No. Getting drunk, being unable to have sex with your
friends’ girlfriends because the drink has made you impotent, being sick over the bedclothes and screaming out that the cat is a demon out to drag you to hell.’

I have a terrible headache.

Walking home I see Cis right outside Brixton Town Hall doing an exotic dance with a bowl of fruit in front of a TV camera but I don’t stop to watch because it is starting to rain and water is running into my eyes and making it hard to see.

Despite the rain the woman is still sitting lonely on her balcony so I wave to her and she waves back.

‘What day is it?’ says Ruby.

‘I don’t know. Should I go and get a paper?’

‘No,’ she says. ‘Don’t bother.’

My first contact is called Steve. He is forty and interested in films. We meet in a wine bar in Camden and he takes me back to his flat where he tells me his theories about discipline. On Ruby’s instructions I try and remember all the details and everything he says. He ties me onto his bed and whips me with a leather thong a friend brought him back as a present from Surinam, and then he puts a gag in my mouth and fucks me.

‘Would you like to go and see a film next time?’ he asks as I leave.

‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘Is
The Wild One
showing anywhere locally?’

Ruby is fascinated by my tale of the night’s events and goes so far as to leave the house to bring back some antiseptic cream from the chemist’s. When she rubs it into my wounds she says she is surprised that such a violent person would advertise in a left-wing magazine like
City Limits
, but it just goes to show, you never can tell.

‘Nigel phoned. He has found a good drummer and wants you to go and meet him tonight. Tomorrow I am going to see my first contact. Some man who wants to be dominated.’

I tell her about waking up in bed with Maz and also about how I had apparently drunk too much to be able to have sex.

‘That happened to Domino last night,’ says Ruby.

‘Maybe we could form a club.’

Eventually me and the robot become bored hanging round the valley and we strike out boldly for the next continent.

On the whole planet there are no animals.

The robot converts into a boat and we sail across a dead sea.

The next continent is much the same, dead plains, small groups of shambling humanoids.

Unexpectedly, one village gives us a warm welcome.

‘The great Rain-Singing God,’ they say, and bring us some food.

I eat the food and sit around for a few days. Everyone treats me well. I seem to be some sort of star. They are friendly to the robot as well and I can tell it is happy.

After a few days, however, I notice they seem to be expecting something.

The headman approaches me respectfully with a bowl of fruit.

‘Thank you.’

‘When can we expect the rain?’ he asks.

‘What rain?’

‘The rain to end our terrible drought. The rain that follows the Rain-Singing God.’

I admit frankly that I have no idea.

‘But you are the Rain-Singing God?’

‘No, I am a lost spaceman.’

He grabs the bowl of fruit off me and I am ejected from the village.

‘You can’t sing for rain,’ I protest. ‘Rain is the scientific result of certain meteorological conditions.’

Cis appears in a tattered spacesuit, singing happily. It starts to rain. Immediately she is bombarded with presents of fruit.

In her tattered spacesuit she looks immensely stylish.

I trudge away with the robot.

‘Oh, fuck it,’ it says, the only time I ever hear it speak.

The robot is becoming less and less inclined to synthesise food for me and I am becoming increasingly hungry.

Ruby has promised to cook me a meal because I have done all the cooking for the past month.

‘What is that awful smell?’

‘I have burned all the food you bought at Sainsbury’s,’ she says, ‘and thrown it in the bin because it is all so unhealthy. From now on we are going to go on a Stone Age diet.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means we only eat the sort of healthy things our Stone Age ancestors would have eaten. Raw grains and fruit and stuff like that. That’s what our bodies are made for.’

‘OK, what healthy grains and fruits are we eating tonight?’

‘None.’

‘Why not?’

‘We don’t have any.’

‘But I’m hungry.’

‘Fasting is good for you.’

Right.

It is time to tend to our cacti. Now that it is July I am sure there should be some sign of a flower but there is not. Looking at my cactus, I start to feel some dislike for it. I suspect it is deliberately refusing to flower. It is unwilling to mend my rift with Cis.

‘I am beginning to think this is all your fault,’ I say, quite harshly. Ruby is watching television.

‘I’m hungry,’ she says.

I look in the fridge. I have never seen an emptier fridge. I think Ruby is only happy when all she has in the world is her dress and her sunglasses.

‘You know, when I was being whipped with that leather thong I forgot all about Cis.’

‘That’s good. Something positive came out of the occasion. Also, I will be able to work it into a terrific magazine article. If Domino calls, tell him to go away. We had an argument and I never want to see him again.’

‘What happened?’

‘I took him some flowers and he spat on them. He threw my book of myths and fables down the stairs.’

She strokes her book protectively.

‘He is upset because he drank too much to fuck. Did you know the Spirit of Evil Zoroastrism is called Ahriman?’

‘No. But I’m pleased you told me.’

It seems that it is Clio, the Muse of History, who looks after museums. I tell her how much I enjoyed visiting the British Museum and I compliment her on her earrings, which are silver and gold with rubies and opals dancing at the ends. She tells me they are made by her brother Andryion who, as well as making jewelry, builds houses and always tries to help people who have no proper place to live. But often he is busy with his boyfriend Marsatz who is a painter. They are very happy together, always bringing each other little presents, but it sometimes means that housing does not get as much attention as it should.

Ruby hustles me out the house. It is time for the art class.

Today all the students have to do a series of fast drawings so that every few minutes the teacher shifts me into a different position. This is better than the normal two hours of motionless cramp. As some sort of prop the teacher puts a cactus next to me and she makes another little joke about hoping the cactus will not sting my naked skin.