“This is what we’ll do. Leave it here, right? Come back for it, end of the week — it’ll be signed, promise you.”
“We have sent many letters—”
“I appreciate that — but — she’s not well, boss. She ain’t in her right… she’s got this agrophobia,” said Felix, an old error no amount of Annie’s eye-rolling had been able to correct, maybe because his portmanteau version expressed a deeper truth: she wasn’t really afraid of open spaces, she was afraid of what might happen between her and the other people in them. “Come back later, it’ll be signed. I’ll get it signed.”
“Well, that was dull,” said Annie, before the door had quite shut. “I’ve been thinking, Felix — ever since the sun came out — let’s spend what’s left of this summer on my roof. We used to love knocking around up there. This weekend, stay over — Monday’s the bank holiday! Long weekend.”
“It’s carnival this weekend.”
But this she didn’t seem to hear: “Not with a lot of people. Just us. We’ll make that chicken thing you like, barbecue up there. Jerk. Jerk chicken. For us two jerks.”
“You eating now as well?”
Annie stopped laughing, flinched, turned her face. She crossed her hands delicately in her lap. “It’s always nice to watch other people eat. I eat mushrooms. We could get some of those legal mushrooms. Do you remember? Just trying to get from here to there”—she pointed from the chair to the chaise—“took about a year. I was convinced this was France, for some reason. I felt I needed a passport to cross the room.”
Felix reached for his tobacco. He would not be drawn into fond reminiscences.
“Can’t buy ’em anymore. Government shut it down. Few months ago.”
“Did they? How boring of them.”
“Some kid in Highgate thought he was a TV and switched himself off. Jumped off that bridge. Hornsey Lane Bridge.”
“Oh, Felix, that one’s as old as I am — I heard that in the playground of Camden School for Girls in about 1985. ‘Suicide Bridge.’ It’s what’s called an urban myth.” She walked over to him, took off his cap and rubbed his shaved head. “Let’s go up there right now, and tan. Well, I’ll tan. You can sweat. Inaugurate the summer.”
“Annie, man: summer’s almost over. I’m working. All the time.”
“You don’t appear to be working now.”
“Usually I’d be working Saturdays.”
“Well let’s do another day then, you choose, make it regular, like,” said Annie, in her idea of a Northern accent.
“Can’t do it.”
“Is it my charms he can’t resist”—an American accent—“or my roof?”
“Annie — sit down, I want to talk to you. Serious.”
“Talk to me on the roof!”
He tried to grab her wrist, but she quickened and passed him. He followed her into the bedroom. She had pulled down the ladder from the trapdoor in the ceiling and was already halfway up.
“No peeking!” But she made her way up in a manner that made it impossible not to, including the little white mouse-tail of a tampon’s string. “Be careful — glass.”
Felix emerged into light — it took a moment to see clearly. He placed his knee carefully — between one broken beer bottle and another — and pulled himself up. His hands came away covered with white flakes of sun-baked, rain-ruined wood. He had helped lay this deck, and painted it, along with a few techies and even one of the producers, because time and the budget were so tight. Everything covered in a thick white gloss to maximize the light. It was done very quickly, to service a fiction. It was never intended for use in the real world. Now she picked up a crushed cigarette packet and an empty bottle of vodka, fastidiously cramming them into an overflowing bin, as if the removal of these two items could make a serious difference to the sea of crap everywhere. Felix stepped over a sodden sleeping bag, heavy with water and filled with something, not a person, thank God. It had rained last night — there was a dewy freshness — but a serious smell was coming, and every minute of the sun made it slightly more serious. Felix headed for the far eastern corner, by the chimney, for its shade and relative unpopularity. The boards under his feet made desperate noises.
“This all needs redoing.”
“Yes. But you just can’t find the help these days. Once upon a time you’d get a lovely young film crew turning up, they’d pay you two thousand pounds a week, lay a deck, paint it, fuck you passionately and tell you they loved you — but that kind of service is a thing of the past, I’m afraid.”
Felix put his head in his hands.
“Annie, man. You give me jokes, for real.”
Annie smiled sadly: “I’m glad I still give you something, at least…” She righted an upturned deckchair. “Looks a bit rough at the moment, I know… But I’ve been entertaining — I had one of my big nights, last Friday, such a nice time, you should have been here. I did send a text. You contrive not to see my texts. Lovely crowd, the sweetest people. Hot as Ibiza up here.”
She made it sound like a society party, filled with the great and good. Felix picked up an empty bottle of Strongbow cider that had been repurposed into a bong.
“You need to stop letting people take advantage.”
Annie snorted: “What nonsense!” She sat wide legged on the little bridge of bricks between the chimney stacks. “That’s what people are for. They take advantage of each other. What else are they for?”
“They’re only hanging round you because you’ve got something they want. Soho liggers. Just want somewhere to crash. And if there’s free shit — bonus.”
“Good. That’s what I’ve got. Why shouldn’t people take advantage of me if what I have is useful to them?” She crossed one leg over the other like a teacher reaching the substance of her lecture. “It happens that in this matter of property and drugs I am strong and they are weak. In other matters it’s the other way round. The weak should take advantage of the strong, don’t you think? Better that than the other way round. I want my friends to take advantage. I want them to feed off me. I want them drinking my blood. Why not? They’re my friends. What else am I to do in this place? Raise a family?”
That line of conversation Felix knew to be a trap. He swerved to avoid it.
“I’m saying they ain’t your friends. They’re users.”
Annie fixed him with a look over her shades: “You sound very sure. Are you speaking from personal experience?”
“Why you trying to mix up my words?” He was easily flustered and it mistranslated as anger. People thought he was on the verge of hitting someone when he was only nervous, or slightly annoyed. Annie lifted a shaky finger into the air.
“Don’t raise your voice at me, Felix. I hope you haven’t come round here for a fight because I’m feeling really quite delicate.”
Felix groaned and sat next to her on the bridge of bricks. He put his hand softly on her knee, meaning it like a father or friend, but she grabbed it and held it tightly in her own.
“Can you see? Over there? Flag’s up. Somebody’s home. Best view in town.”
“Annie—”
“My mother was presented at the palace, you know. And my grandmother.”
“Is it.”
“Yes, Felix, it is. Surely I’ve told you that before.”
“Yeah, you have, as it goes.”
He worked his hand free and stood up again.
“They flee from me that sometime did me seek,” said Annie quietly, removed her robe and lay naked in the sun. “There’s some vodka in the freezer.”
“I told you I don’t drink no more.”
“Still?”
“I told you. That’s why I ain’t been round. Not just that, other reasons, too. I’m clean. You should think about it yourself.”