Ruby and the Stone Age Diet Read online

  ‘Good morning, Ruby. Where have you been? Why are you in my bed? Where is the Great Goddess Astarte?’

  Ruby tells me to stop rambling and says she will make us some tea. I rush out of bed to make the tea myself.

  While the kettle is boiling I have to go and be sick in the toilet and while I am sicking up a little blood I try and think what has been happening the last few days. However, with the vomiting and the kettle boiling over and Ruby screaming will I bring her a bit of toast as well I can’t get much thinking done so I abandon the attempt.

  I wonder what day it is.

  ‘What day is it?’ says Ruby.

  Neither of us have any idea.

  In the mirror I look like a corpse. I am sorry the Great Goddess has gone but pleased Ruby has come back. After a while, when I don’t feel like vomiting anymore, I walk round to the shops for some cigarettes and a bar of chocolate for Ruby. When I’m there I look at a newspaper to find out the date and I find it is Saturday, which is in some ways a pity as we both should have signed on at the Unemployment Office on Wednesday and forgetting to sign on is practically the worst thing you can do when you are on the dole.

  On the way back I think that I see Cis coming towards me with a dog, but when the person gets up close she is nothing at all like Cis, she is an old woman of eighty with a carrier bag containing her week’s shopping and I can see from the way she carries her shopping that she is the loneliest person in the world. Probably all she has to talk to is a cactus.

  ‘Here’s your chocolate, Ruby.’

  Ruby looks distressed and says she does not want any chocolate as chocolate disgusts her.

  ‘But you asked me to buy it.’

  ‘How are the potted plants coming along?’

  ‘Very well. I think mine’s grown with all the food I’ve given it. If Cis was to come back right now she’d be really pleased how well I’ve looked after it. No flowers though. Are you sure you don’t want this chocolate?’

  ‘Yes. What do you know about diaphragms?’

  ‘I know what they are.’

  Ruby is surprised. She does not really expect me to know anything.

  ‘I am having trouble with mine.’

  I make her some tea and Ruby tells me how lonely she feels when Domino is not around, and how good she feels when he brings her little gifts like bars of chocolate.

  Ruby is the most intelligent person I know and also very strong. Why she is bothered by a fool like Domino not being around to bring her chocolate I can’t imagine.

  Cynthia suffers a series of misfortunes, and thinks of home

  ‘Isn’t it nice,’ says Albinia, ‘the way that our periods have started to coincide since we started living together.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Cynthia, the scent of blood in her nostrils.

  The full moon shines through the window.

  Cynthia eats Albinia.

  The neighbours hear screaming and break down the door. Cynthia is forced to flee.

  She finds a rubbish tip and lies down to cry.

  I am cursed in love, she thinks. Why did I do it?

  Later that night she suffers further misfortune when the rubbish tip internally combusts and her leg is burned in the fire. She limps off to nurse her wound. Thunder crashes in the sky above and it starts to rain.

  Soaked, lonely and injured, Cynthia thinks about her comfortable home far away in Scotland, and her mother.

  ‘I do not think it is a very beautiful world, no matter what you say,’ she mutters, and tries to find somewhere dry.

  Ruby and I are sitting quietly. Sometimes we sit quietly for hours. Domino is incapable of this. He talks continually because he has to hear his own voice all the time. I hate him.

  ‘Look.’

  Ruby has made a spaceship out of the chocolate wrapper. We fly it round the room for a while till it is time for me to rehearse with my band. Wrapping my guitar in a black plastic bag I walk down to the studio, but when I arrive only Nigel is there and he says the new drummer we recruited has decided not to play with us after all but to go away for a long holiday in Denmark instead.

  ‘Is it nice in Denmark?’

  Nigel doesn’t know. I offer him some chocolate but he refuses because not having a drummer makes him too depressed to eat. Also the chocolate is not too appetising after resting wrapperless in my guitar case. He departs in silence and I try and visit some people but no one is in so I have to go home.

  The next launch is particularly successful. Crowds cheer ecstatically and in no time at all we are plunging into deep space. I like our spaceship except this time I notice all the daffodils and lilacs are plastic, and I am not at all fond of plastic. Before take-off I strongly request some real daffodils but apparently they are bad for the oxygen supply.

  The President radios his congratulations on the successful launch. I complain to him about the plastic daffodils.

  ‘And where is my guitar?’ I ask, but he pretends not to hear.

  All the crew are busy with scientific experiments. I am busy trying to tidy my little cabin, brushing away a few cobwebs and programming our computer on how to make me a guitar, when suddenly we are bombarded by a ferocious meteor storm.

  ‘Why didn’t the computer warn us?’ cries the Captain.

  ‘Its memory banks are all full of instructions on how to make a guitar and long love poems about some woman called Cis,’ reports the First Mate.

  We are battered mercilessly by the meteors. The door to the airlock is ripped to shreds and only heroic action by some crew members prevents total disaster.

  Eventually we struggle through. Afterwards no one will speak to me because they are all annoyed at me endangering their lives by jamming up the computers. Fortunately by this time the computer has made me a guitar so I sit on my own in my cabin and work out a few songs and when the person in the next cabin bangs on the wall complaining about the noise I just ignore it. They disturb me by exercising, always banging weights around and doing pushups.

  I become quite friendly with our robot.

  Later in the day Ruby appears with Domino and they act like they are the happiest couple in the world. I wait for Cis to appear so we can also act like the happiest couple in the world.

  After a few hours it seems like she is not going to call round today. Maybe she is busy. Possibly she will call first thing in the morning. Suddenly it strikes me that if today is Saturday then it is time for me to get round to the art class where I work one day a week as a model.

  I get washed. I never like to think that I smell bad when people are painting me.

  ‘Hello,’ says the teacher, a woman of about thirty-five with a cultured voice.

  ‘Hello,’ say all the students of all ages also with cultured voices. There is a little screen for me to get undressed behind which always strikes me as strange.

  I have no real idea why the art class needs someone to get undressed to be their model but if they are willing to pay it is fine with me, also they are always very nice to me and sometimes buy me a drink afterwards. In fact, sometimes afterwards they all fall over themselves to talk to me and be pleasant. Possibly they are keen to let me know they do not regard me as being in any way inferior because I have been sitting there for two hours being painted with no clothes on.

  Today the teacher puts lots of boxes beside me. I am disappointed. I was hoping for some daffodils. She piles up the boxes a bit like a robot and tells all the students to make their paintings like boxes. Or robots. Or something like that, I am not too clear about it.

  Sitting being painted I am very lonely. I talk to Cis in my head.

  Only another twenty minutes, I say to her. Then I’ll be finished. What would you like to do tonight? I get the feeling that it is unbearable where I am and I want to walk to the other side of the room to see if it is any better there, but as the one thing the art class requires of me is that I stay still this is not possible. A pity, because the other side of the room looks like it might be better.

  I w
onder if I should tell the art class my problems. Probably they would not like being interrupted in their painting. Everyone always concentrates hard at the class. Also I realise that being left unhappy by your lover is such a common experience that everyone would just be bored by it.

  Cynthia’s uncontrollable appetite brings her to the attention of the Werewolf King

  The Werewolf King is called Lupus. He is immensely rich, and lives regally in Kensington. He has business connections all over and rakes in money from sex magazines and private mailing companies.

  When he hears reports about Cynthia eating people he is furious. He hates for his werewolves to eat anyone. Lupus is very keen for werewolves to integrate fully with society. Eating people is disastrous for their image.

  Lupus is never happy. His wife ran off with a mathematics student from Africa. Since then he has always looked for people or werewolves on whom to take out his anger.

  He summons his werewolf detectives.

  ‘Bring Cynthia to me,’ he instructs them. ‘Preferably alive, although I won’t stretch the point.’

  They set off on the hunt. It will not take them long to find Cynthia because werewolves are supernaturally good at tracking.

  After his agents depart Lupus relaxes with a bottle of wine and a copy of Voltaire’s complete works.

  The goddess responsible for people whose lovers have left them is called Jasmine and she is always very busy. Sometimes she gets out her flaming sword and battles with Afreet the God of Broken Relationships when she sees that he is about to strike. She is hugely compassionate but she has a high failure rate. Her difficult job sometimes makes her turn to drink, and then there are broken hearts everywhere.

  At the end of the art class I get dressed and the teacher brings out some wine. This is not normal but it seems to be a little celebration for something or other and they all drink wine out of paper cups. When the teacher pours some for me she makes a little wine joke and everybody smiles, but as I have no idea whatsoever what the wine joke is about I just look vacant. Later I have the vague notion that I am pretty dumb compared to these artists who can go around making paintings and wine jokes.

  Afterwards I have to go to Stepney to meet a violent sadist who advertised for me in a contact magazine. He is terrible to me and after he beats and fucks me I am half-dead and have blood all down my back. I do not approve of violent sex.

  ‘I don’t fit in with the art class.’

  ‘You don’t have to fit in,’ says Ruby. ‘You are only the model.’

  ‘Still, I am pretty dumb compared to them. I used to like it better there but since Cis left me I feel stupid. Also I think my soul has gone missing.’

  ‘Yes,’ says Ruby. ‘That is possible. You could well have lost it.’

  ‘Where could it be?’

  But Ruby is too busy reading her giant reference book of myths and fables. This book is an endless source of wonderment.

  I shuffle round the flat trying to find a space where I do not feel bad about Cis. I have bought a little yellow cloth to brush the dust off my cactus. After cleaning it I study it closely for any sign of a flower. I wonder if Cis will reappear as soon as it buds or will she wait till the whole flower appears?

  It is now March and there is no sign of a flower.

  Cynthia has many unpleasant experiences

  Cynthia is evicted from her squat.

  She tries eating the bailiffs but some policemen arrive and there are too many of them to fight.

  Not for the first time she is left homeless, with only her guitar for company.

  Where oh where is a young werewolf to find happiness, she asks herself, and can’t think of an answer.

  Out busking she is run over by a bus. Fortunately werewolves are very tough and she is not seriously injured, but it is still a bad experience.

  Later two men try to mug her and take her day’s earnings.

  Cynthia turns into wolf-form and eats them angrily. She gets back to busking. A policeman moves her on. It starts to rain. Her guitar breaks a string.

  Two werewolf detectives appear.

  ‘We’ve come to arrest you,’ they say.

  This is a fucking lousy day, thinks the young werewolf. Everyone is against me. I haven’t a friend in the world and I’ve nowhere to live and I’ve no one to fuck. The only things I feel are hunger and loneliness. This is far from being a beautiful world. It isn’t even pleasant.

  Hardened by living rough, she kills and eats the detectives without much trouble, but in the process she loses her earnings down a manhole and finds herself penniless even after a hard day’s busking.

  The old woman is still waiting on her balcony. I wish she had someone to talk to. She reminds me of a woman called Sylvia I used to see in Battersea. Sylvia was around sixty and her Spanish accent was too thick for anyone to ever understand what she said. She lived with a man called Victor who had a cleft palate and no one could understand him either. They could understand each other.

  No one ever wanted to see them because they were so filthy and shabby and difficult to understand. Sometimes, for companionship, they would hang around with the local Socialist Workers Party and sell papers for them.

  No one cared anything about them and no one ever visited although they lived in a squat in a street full of squats. Just them, sick and old, and a horrible sick dog and not a visitor for months and months. I used to wish that someone would go and visit them.

  ‘Did you ever?’ asks Ruby.

  ‘No. I could never understand what they were saying.’

  It rains outside and the little balcony floods and we have to bail it out with a bucket and a pot and this is quite fun because we can pretend we are pirates. Ruby would be a good pirate captain, I think, because she would never have to leave the ship and she could just order the crew about all the time.

  Ruby goes to lie down after her exertions and I go downstairs where I meet the postman, the woman from the ground floor and Ascanazl, an ancient and powerful Inca spirit who looks after lonely people. He is drying his feathers after the rain. His feathers are magnificent.

  I tell him about Cis leaving me. Almost immediately he makes a polite excuse and flies off.

  ‘You are in a sorry state,’ says the woman downstairs. ‘Even the powerful Inca spirit dedicated to looking after lonely people is bored with your company.’

  I ask the postman if he has any letters for us. We hardly ever get letters. Ruby emerges from her room flushed and annoyed.

  ‘Help me with my diaphragm,’ she says.

  ‘What sort of help do you need?’

  ‘I can’t fit it. I am going to see Domino tonight and I have this diaphragm from a doctor because I don’t want to take the pill anymore but I can’t get it fitted right.’

  Ruby brings out a tube of spermicide and squeezes some onto her finger, then rubs it all over the round piece of plastic.

  ‘I’ll have one last try.’

  She lifts up her dress and squats on the floor and squeezes the diaphragm in halfway and tries to fit it but somehow she can’t. It keeps slipping out.

  ‘Stupid fucking thing,’ she rages.

  I try and help. Ruby lies on the floor and opens her legs wide and I insert it.

  ‘Make sure it is stationed securely behind the pubic bone.’

  Her vagina is slippery from spermicide but when I fit it, it stays inside.

  ‘There,’ I say, always pleased to do Ruby a favour.

  ‘It’s not right.’

  ‘How not?’

  ‘It’s not covering my cervix,’ says Ruby, glowering, feeling inside her with her fingers. ‘Do you have any cigarettes?’

  I light some cigarettes although this takes several tries as the matchbox also becomes slippery with spermicide.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. Don’t you think I know when my cervix is covered?’

  She takes my hand and puts my fingers up her vagina.

  ‘See?’

 
; ‘Not really.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, I’m not really sure what a cervix is.’

  ‘You must know what a cervix is.’

  ‘Well I do, in general terms. Just not exactly.’

  Ruby frowns some more and removes the diaphragm, then she shows me exactly which bit is the cervix.

  ‘This little bit in here that sticks out.’

  Ruby tells me it moves around. I am fascinated.

  ‘Does it move around fast? I mean, do you have to wait till it stays still for a minute, then try and get the diaphragm over it quickly?’

  Apparently it doesn’t. I try again and this time I am successful.

  ‘Thank you,’ says Ruby, standing up and adjusting her dress.

  The room is covered in spermicide. Any sperm that comes in will have no chance of survival whatsoever.

  I tell Ruby that I like her new sunglasses and remind her that my band is looking for a new drummer, just in case she comes across one on her travels. She leaves to visit Domino.

  Cynthia, pursued by detectives, meets her true love

  After a few days sleeping rough Cynthia meets some punks who live with some hippies in a huge old vicarage near King’s Cross. She makes friends and moves in with them.

  One night the hippies annoy her by banging drums when she is trying to sleep. Cynthia stares out of the window. A full moon stares back at her. She goes and eats the hippies.

  My my, she thinks. That was a good meal. Something between brown rice and a lentil casserole.

  Werewolf detectives surround the house. They are armed with machine-guns loaded with deadly silver bullets.

  Cynthia is forced to flee. Tumbling down the stairs she meets Paris, a young newcomer to the commune. She falls in love with him on sight.

  But she only has time to brush her lips against his before the detectives pound down the stairs after her, and she flies off into the night.

  Sometimes I work for an industrial agency that gets me casual work in factories.

  Ruby phones them up for me because I am not very coherent on the phone. When she does this she tells them she is my wife.