Ruby and the Stone Age Diet (20 page)
Read Ruby and the Stone Age Diet Online
Authors: Martin Millar
‘Well?’ says Ruby. ‘What d’you think?’
‘I like it. What happens next?’
‘Nothing happens next. That’s the end.’
I am shocked.
‘It can’t be. Where is the happy ending?’
Ruby says she doesn’t believe in happy endings. I feel a huge depression creeping towards me.
‘Make a happy ending,’ I say, slightly desperate. ‘I’ll be depressed if Cynthia just sits there being sad for the rest of her life.’
Ruby, however, will not relent, and there is no happy ending for Cynthia Werewolf.
I dream about the old woman who I used to see on the balcony. I dream she is a goddess. She stands before me in the most resplendent jewelled robe that has ever been woven and tells me to stop being stupid and moaning and whining all the time about my girlfriend leaving me.
Then she advises me not to do any more thirteen-hour night-shifts because it will be terrible for my health and I’m not getting any younger. She wishes me good luck for my gig.
On the day of the gig it rains. This week has been continually wet and none of our posters are still on display. Those ones that haven’t slid off the walls or been ripped off the bus shelters have been covered by other posters advertising the meetings of the ever-active local revolutionary parties.
Our friend Matthew arrives with the van and we load up, slightly anxious as always about carrying our instruments off the council estate, anxious as well that nothing should get wet.
Ruby comes with us in the van and we arrive at the pub at six o’clock to wait for the PA to arrive.
‘Ruby, why do all these goddesses you tell me about wear flowing robes? Why don’t they wear trousers or dungarees?’
‘I haven’t been telling you about any goddesses.’
‘Haven’t you?’
‘No.’
I’m sure someone has.
‘Is Izzy coming tonight?’
‘I’m not sure. She told me yesterday she was depressed about being evicted and arrested and her parents nagging her and Dean moaning at her.’
The PA is three minutes late which is three minutes of terrible anxiety. When it arrives I have to pay forty pounds.
The God of Sound Engineers is called Manis. He is a very clever god, always fixing things, but he is also avaricious.
‘Hey,’ says Izzy, striding through the door. ‘You want a hand in with your equipment?’
She takes off her leather jacket and flings it in a corner. The sound man stops connecting leads and stares at her. She is wearing a small vest and underneath her arms ripple with strength. She is burning with health and energy. Her shoulders are sculpted like an artist’s illustration of the perfect anatomy. Ruby and I are awestruck. Beside her we are as weak and sickly as broken twigs.
‘How are Dean and the parents?’ I ask, outside at the van.
‘Who cares?’ says Izzy, hoisting the mixing desk over her shoulder. ‘Who needs them?’
We help carry all the equipment in, large speakers, a
mixing desk, monitors, reels of wire, microphones, more stuff than we really need.
It takes an hour to set up and meanwhile the support band arrives to do their sound-check.
Ruby is on her own in the bar next door.
‘Where’s Domino?’
She shrugs. ‘He hasn’t turned up.’
We share a drink and I look outside for any sign of an audience, but all there is is rain.
‘Don’t worry,’ says Ruby, passing me our drink. ‘It’s early yet.’
We lock one door and set up a table to collect money at the other and Ruby brings in an ashtray to keep it in. She has a rubber stamp to stamp people’s hands once they’ve paid.
‘Dear Helena, Goddess of Electric Guitarists. Please protect me from guitar thieves. Please do not let me forget any of our songs. Please prevent me from breaking a string, particularly in the first number. Please don’t let the lead come out of my guitar when I dance onstage. Please don’t let my fuzzbox become disconnected from my amplifier. Don’t let my amplifier stop working again. Don’t let Nigel cover up everything I’m playing because he has a better amplifier than me. Please distract everyone’s attention when I play some wrong notes. Good luck with your girlfriend.’
Nigel puts the lights down and gives a tape to the sound man to try and create some atmosphere in the empty room.
Me and Nigel and John sit in a corner, making ourselves ready. Ruby sits at the door on her own, trying not to be sad that Domino has not turned up.
I am nervous. Cis might be here. I told her sister about the gig.
Some spacemen appear for a second but they disappear without talking to me. I haven’t talked to any spacemen since my cactus flowered.
I look around, and I realise for the first time what a drab room this is. Drab and lifeless and totally dull. Too dull for anyone to enjoy themselves in.
When the support band plays there is an audience of five. We wait as long as we can before going on in case more people turn up, but when we start playing there are eight people watching us.
In the other bar there are many people but they are not interested in coming in to watch us play.
During our set five more people come in and two leave. That makes an audience of eleven. All eleven clap.
After a while I forget about my nerves. We finish our set and the eleven people drift away.
We help the PA people out with their equipment. I have to give them another forty pounds, so on the night we have lost fifty-four pounds, and another ten for the posters plus five pounds to Matthew for driving us.
Izzy wishes us a cheery goodbye and strides away confidently into the night, a very powerful presence. Every eye follows her as she leaves.
As a gig it is a total failure and I am completely depressed. So are Nigel and John. We are all silent as Matthew drops us home.
Enough human suffering
Enough human suffering, I think, wandering aimlessly round my room. I hunt out some paper and a pencil.
Cynthia Werewolf places an advert for musicians in a music paper. She is surprisingly successful with this advert because werewolves sometimes do get lucky breaks. A guitarist she likes answers right away and he knows a good bass guitarist. They have no trouble at all in finding a drummer, in fact they have several to choose from
.They practise downstairs in the basement of a squat and soon Cynthia’s demented love-crazed genius begins to produce powerful results. They develop into the most violently beautiful country punk band ever to see the light of day, sounding somewhere between Extreme Noise Terror and Loretta Lynn
.Soon they are playing local gigs and making a name for themselves. Cynthia, verging on success, has friends and admirers everywhere. Almost happy, she no longer feels the urge to rip people apart and eat them, even on the brightest of full moons. Standing onstage, singing and playing, with feedback whining all around and her Stetson perched on top
of her head, she is as contented as she has ever been. When the band play the song she has written about Paris the audience riot in appreciation
.Only her lingering heartache over Paris prevents her from being completely satisfied. But while in the real world lovers never return, and stories about people who go out and win back their lovers are all lies, Cynthia, being a mythical being, is not strictly bound by these rules
.One night, after a gig in which representatives from several record companies are seen enjoying themselves in the audience, Paris walks into the dressing room
.‘
I heard your song about me,’ he tells her. ‘It was wonderful. I realise now that I have always loved you. Please take me back
.’Cynthia is overjoyed. Really she should hate Paris for all the misery he has caused her, and certainly she should at least give him a hard time about the whole thing, but she is in fact too happy to bother. She embraces him passionately, and takes him home
.Back in her flat she slips the soul necklace round his neck again and they go to bed. They fuck for hours on end. Paris is still not all that good a lover, but Cynthia knows she can improve things, given time
.And ever afterwards, Cynthia and Paris are famous for being a happy couple, immune to the stupidity and misery of the world around them. The band goes from strength to strength, and Cynthia is never ever lonely again
.
‘What do you think?’ I ask Ruby. She says she doesn’t really think much of it, but she doesn’t mind if it makes me happy. It seems like a big improvement to me.
‘We have lost sixty-nine pounds,’ I say, back in the flat.
‘Never mind,’ says Ruby. ‘I’ll think of some way to get money.’
We have a long silence.
‘Cis never came.’
‘There wasn’t any chance she would.’
‘I know. But I would have liked her to hear my song.’
Ruby makes me some tea.
‘My life has seemed strange recently.’
Ruby says she has noticed.
‘You remember you said you always feel better in time?’
‘Yes.’
‘I feel worse.’
‘That can happen as well.’
Right.
Ruby shrugs. I am empty-headed. My whole body is hollow and without feeling. No, I am lying. There are little bits here that don’t feel too good. I imagine that Ruby is feeling immense pain inside about Domino, messing her around all the time. I’m not entirely sure if she is. I do not know if it is really possible to know what anyone else is feeling. Maybe she is just hollow as well.
‘Ruby, could you tell me something optimistic and cheerful before I go to bed?’
‘My knee is feeling better.’
‘So is mine.’
I am a little cheered.
‘And we are good friends,’ says Ruby, smiling.
‘Yes. You are the best friend I ever had.’
‘Do you remember the can-opener? And all those beans?’
We start to laugh. We laugh and laugh till Ruby starts to roll on the floor and complain about her sides hurting. We laugh about nothing till we are completely worn out.
Then we kiss and go to bed. Ruby has the best bedroom, because she got here first, but I would have let her have it anyway. A friend like Ruby is hard to find.
My cactus thrives although Ruby’s never flowers. Despite this she later moves out to live with Domino. After a while they have a terminal argument and she goes back to live with her parents. We lose touch.
I find a job as a library assistant in a college and I am quite well suited to this, sitting quietly behind a counter stamping books, watching the students. Without Ruby’s support I stop squatting and start paying rent. I miss Ruby terribly. And I miss the spaceman and Tilka and Ascanazl and the flowers and the old woman who is never on the balcony anymore and the mad schemes for making
money and the robots and the art class and everything else. Most of all I miss Cis. I see her sometimes walking in the street and sometimes on her bicycle, but I never talk to her.
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