“But darling, I am clean. Two years clean.”
“Cept the coke, weed, drink, pills…”
“I said I’m clean, not a bloody Mormon!”
“I’m talking about doing it properly.”
Annie got up on her elbows and pushed her shades into her hair: “And spend every day listening to people bang on about the time they found themselves in a bin covered with vomit? And pretend that every good time I’ve ever had in my life was some kind of extended adolescent delusion?” She lay back down and replaced the shades. “No thank you. Could you fetch me a vodka please? With lemon, if you can find it.”
Diagonally across the street from them, on another roof terrace, a severely dressed Japanese woman — narrow black trousers and black V-neck — dropped a tray she was carrying. A glass smashed and one plate of food went flying; the other she somehow managed to hold on to. She had been heading for a small wrought-iron table at which sat a lanky Frenchman, in parodic red braces with his jeans rolled up to the calf. Now he jumped up. At the same moment a little girl ran out, looked at this domestic tragedy and put her hand over her mouth. They were all three familiar to Felix; he’d seen them many times over the years. First her alone; then he moved in. Then the baby turned up, who looked now to be four or five years old. Where had the time gone? Quite often, in good weather, he had watched the woman take pictures of her family on a proper camera set atop a tripod base.
“Oops,” said Annie, “trouble in paradise.”
“Annie, listen: remember that girl I was telling you about. The serious one.”
“I’m afraid it really does serve them right. They couldn’t just eat in their flat. That would be too much of a hardship. Instead they have to bring up each piece of individually miso-stained balsamic glaze cod fillet up on a tray, so they can eat them on the sodding terrace, all the time no doubt saying to themselves: how lucky we are to be eating on the terrace! Why, we could be in Tuscany! Have you tried these, darling? They’re tempura zucchini flowers. Japanese-Italian fusion! My own invention. Shall I photograph it? We can put it on our blog.”
“Annie.”
“Our blog called Jules et Kim.”
“Me and that girl. Grace. It’s serious. I’m not going to be coming round here no more.”
Annie held a hand up in the air and seemed to examine her nails, though each one was lower than the finger’s tip, with skin torn from either side and old blood-tracks all round the cuticles. “I see. Didn’t she have another lover, too?”
“That’s done with.”
“I see,” said Annie again, rolled onto her stomach and kicked her feet with their extraordinary arches into the air. “Age?”
Felix couldn’t help but smile: “Twenty-four, coming up, I think. In November. But it ain’t even about that.”
“And still no vodka.”
Felix sighed and started walking back to the trapdoor.
“I shall think of the other lover!” he heard Annie call after him as he descended. “I shall pity him! It’s so important that we pity each other!”
Marlon. It was done with finally on a Sunday in February while Felix sat on Grace’s stairwell, rolling a fag and shivering, peeking through the net curtain. The man had watched the other man as he trudged through the flat, collecting a bike lock, some ugly clothes, a music dock for an iPod, a pair of hair clippers. He was heavy, Marlon, not fat exactly, but soft and ungainly. He was a long time in the bathroom, re-emerging with several jars of wax and tubes of cream, at least one of which was Felix’s — but Felix had won the woman and considered he could live without his Dax. After Marlon was done retrieving his things, Felix watched him as he took Grace’s hands in his own like a man about to perform a religious ritual and said, “I’m thankful for the time we spent together.” Poor Marlon. He really didn’t have a fucking clue. He even turned up a few times after that — with mix-tapes of soca music, and handwritten notes, and tears. None of which helped his case. In the end, all the things Grace claimed to like about Marlon — that he was not a “playa,” that he was gentle and awkward and not interested in money — were all the reasons she left him. Being so gentle, it was a while before he got the message. Finally he had taken his “I’m-a-male-nurse-I-find-hip-hop-too-negative-I-can-cook-curried-goat-I-want-to-move-to-Nigeria” routine back to South London where, in Felix’s opinion, it belonged.
“Fridge,” said Felix to himself now and opened it — two family-sized bottles of Diet Coke, three lemons and a can of mackerel — and then remembered, and opened the freezer instead. He lifted out the bottle of vodka. He returned to the fridge and removed the least white lemon. He looked about him. The kitchen was a tiny cupboard with a cracked Belfast sink and no space to store anything and no bin. The sink was full; there were no clean glasses. A curtain-rag fluttered at the half-open window. A line of ants processed from the sink to the window and back, carrying little specks of food on their backs, with a confidence that suggested they did not expect to see tap water here in their lifetimes. Felix found a mug. He sawed at the lemon with a blunt knife. He poured the vodka. He put the top back on, replaced the bottle in the freezer and thought of how he would describe this scene of sobriety on Tuesday at seven pm to a group of fellow travellers who would appreciate its heroic quality.
Back up on the roof Annie had changed position — a cross-legged yoga pose, eyes closed — and was now wearing a green bikini. He placed the mug in front of her and she nodded, like a goddess accepting an offering.
“Where’d you get that bikini?”
“Questions, questions.”
Without opening her eyes she pointed at the family on the terrace. “Now all that’s left to them is to pick up the pieces. Lunch has been ruined, the Sancerre runs dry, but somehow, somehow, they’ll find a way to carry on.”
“Annie—”
“And what else? I’ve no idea what’s up with you anymore. Any movement on the film front? How’s your brother?”
“I left that place time ago. I’m apprenticed at this garage now, I told you.”
“Vintage cars are a nice hobby. “
“Not a hobby — it’s my work.”
“Felix: you’re a very talented filmmaker.”
“Come on, man. What was my job? Getting the coffees, getting the coke. That was my job. That was it. They weren’t gonna let me get no further than that, believe. Why you always going on about shit that ain’t even real?”
“I just happen to feel you’re very talented, that’s all. And that you criminally undersell yourself.”
“Leave it, man!”
Annie sighed and took the clip out of her hair. She separated the hair into sections and started working on two long, childish plaits. “How’s poor Devon doing?”
“Fine.”
“You’re mistaking me for one of those people who ask questions out of politeness.”
“He’s fine. He’s got a provisional release date: 16th June.”
“But that’s wonderful!” cried Annie, and Felix felt a great, impractical warmth toward her. In Grace’s company Devon was rarely mentioned. He was one of the “negative sources of energy” they were meant to be cleansing from their lives.
“Why ‘provisional?’”
“Depends on how he acts. He has to not piss anyone off between now and then.”
“If you ask me, he seems to have somewhat overpaid his debt to society for a little stick-em-up with a toy shooter.”
“It weren’t a toy. It was unloaded. They still call it armed robbery.”
“Oh, but someone on Friday told me the funniest joke — you’d like it. Oh gosh: wording. Something like: do you know what poor people…? No. Sorry, start again. Poor people — Oh God: ‘In poor areas people steal your phone. In rich areas the people steal your pension.’” Felix smiled minutely. “Only, it was much better done than that.”