Milena told her again. Nearly one hundred years after the Revolution.
‘You see? I just can’t keep up. I went for a walk last week. And do you know? I saw lights. Electric lights! When the bloody hell did they come back, I asked myself. And then I was never sure if they’d ever been gone. And then I didn’t know if this was before or after the Blackout. You can tell me what year it is until your lips fall off. It still won’t tell me where I am. Anyway, what was I talking about?’
‘You were saying,’ said Milena, who had learnt the art of listening. ‘That it’s like your job in the post office.’
‘Exactly what I was going to say,’ said Lucy. ‘Just like in the post office. You’d be sorting the post, and getting really fed up. But they’d be playing this music. Up-pumpity-uppity-pump-uppity pumpity. Well, I figured it out. They played the happy music just to keep you going. You’d be utterly wrung out and miserable, but the music pulled you along. Your hands would keep throwing the letters into little boxes, all you’d want to do is sit down and have a good moan, but the music would drag you out. That’s what it’s all like now. I just want to stop, but the music keeps playing.’
They came to the kaff. Lucy sparrow-hopped into the dark and tiny space, bouncing, unsteady. The shutters were down against the sunlight and the door and windows were left open. There were candles on the tables and steam was rolling across the ceiling. Men and women looked up from mugs of fruit juice, their faces glistening.
‘Phew,’ said one of the women and covered her nose. Lucy smelled.
But they saw Milena’s new sandals and bag and knew what they meant and said nothing.
A waitress came up to the table. She was as sweaty as the walls. Beads of sweat glistened on her upper lip. She was eight or nine years old, working during the siesta break at school. ‘What would you like?’ she said, looking between Milena and the ancient woman.
‘Oh, terribly high-toned,’ said Lucy, with approval. I would like… lamb chops with mint jelly, and … brussels, lovely, properly cooked, none of this boiled for a week mush, must preserve the vitamin content… and… oh, just mash. With lots of butter and pepper and a bit of bran sprinkled on it for my bowels.’
The waitress, young, painfully thin, looked helpless and limp, like her jumpsuit.
‘We’ll have two Cow Toms,’ said Milena. ‘No squid in it, or anything like that. Do you have any meat?’
The waitress became exasperated. ‘Meat. What do you think this is, the bloody Zoo?’
‘Chicken?’
‘Yeah, we got some of that.’
‘Chicken. No squid. And no hot sauce, no fish sauce.’
Lucy nodded. ‘Lovely grub. Lamb chops. And a nice cup of tea.’
The waitress nodded.
‘Mind you, none of this gnat’s piss. Proper, lovely, strong tea.’
‘You’ve got the same viruses I have,’ said Milena. ‘She wants tea as in a novel from a hundred and fifty years ago.’
‘Well does she?’ said the waitress, angry.
‘I am a Party member,’ said Milena. She wasn’t because she had not been Read but she was treated like one. ‘I can crunch this place like a plate. You use a lot of tea and you let it steep. Now Slide, child. Slide, Slide, Slide.’
The waitress was frightened now, and went back to the kitchen.
I’ve got a lot of freedom, Milena thought. Now that I don’t care if anyone likes me.
‘Rolfa’s written a show,’ she said to Lucy. ‘And I’m putting together a proposal, you know, sell it to some people.’ Have you heard of Dante? Would it mean anything if I told you that you were going to play Beatrice?
‘Oooh,’ said Lucy, and looked pleased. No, thought Milena, Dante wouldn’t mean anything to her.
‘It’s all music. It lasts weeks and weeks.’
‘Rolfa always had a beautiful voice. Beautiful, I always said.’
‘It’s a bit different this show. It will use a lot of holograms.’
‘Holograms,’ said Lucy, unimpressed. ‘Are people still interested in those? My father took me to see them when they first came out. Boring. They just sat there.’
‘We’re beaming them from outer space,’ said Milena. ‘And we don’t want everyone in it to be actors.’
‘No you don’t,’ agreed Lucy. ‘Bloody little snots. We had one of them in here once with Rolfa. Or was it at the Spread? Terrible little thing she was, nose in the air, face that would sour milk. Came in with gloves and a parasol if you please.’ Lucy giggled. ‘She left it behind and we burned it.’
Milena changed the subject. ‘Would you like to be in the show?’
‘What me? Do one of my turns?’ Lucy was so pleased that her cheeks bunched up into pink apples. ‘I couldn’t. Not any more. I’ve lost my figure.’
‘You’re lovely and slim,’ said Milena, looking at the tiny wrists and lumpy blue veins.
‘Good bone structure,’ said Lucy. ‘Put me under strong lights and nobody will know the difference. Er. Do they have good strong lights these days?’
‘They’ve just come back,’ said Milena.
‘You wait long enough, you come back into fashion.’ Lucy bit her lower lip. ‘So I don’t suppose it will be a problem, then, will it?’ She wrinkled her nose, confidingly. ‘My previous, I mean.’
‘Your previous what?’
‘Convictions,’ said Lucy, and waited.
Her previous beliefs and principles? Milena did not understand.
‘I don’t know why everyone made such a fuss really, it was just a little business on the side with credit cards. Quite innocent. It was how you survived in those days, black economy, payment in cash or kind, turning a few tricks…’
‘Lucy!’ exclaimed Milena in wonder. ‘You’re a criminal!’
Lucy looked offended. ‘I was a cabaret artiste. A bit of snide went with the job. I mean we was very Alternative. We used to do scathing political and social satire. Politicians, the Royal Family. I always played the Queen.’ Lucy drew herself up, smoothed her waist with her hands. ‘We had her in fishnet stockings and roller skates.’ She suddenly launched herself back into the previous subject. ‘I mean, these big companies was all insured. It was the voice-printing that got me. I thought I could imitate the voices, you see, on the phone.’
‘Did you go to prison?’
‘No!’ said Lucy scornfully. ‘They could see I wasn’t the criminal type. Six months suspended and a nosy Probation Officer was all I got.’
The Cow Toms arrived. Translucent bags full of rice and broth and bits of chicken. The waitress opened the bags up. Her face was full of hate. She cracked eggs as if they were heads into the broth, stirred them in, and threw in herbs.
‘Is that good enough for you?’ the waitress asked.
‘Porridge,’ sighed Lucy. ‘That’s all anyone eats. Fried veg and porridge.’ Then she remembered her manners. ‘It’s lovely,’ she told the waitress. ‘My niece takes such good care of me, she’s such a good girl.’ She patted Milena’s hand. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she assured Milena, her face twitching. ‘Raw egg.’
‘It will cook in the broth,’ Milena told her.
‘Thank you, darling,’ Lucy said to the waitress, who was already walking away, her shoulders slightly hunched.
The natives are restless, thought Milena. She suddenly missed the beautiful calm that been the very stuff of London life only two summers before.
‘I know you’re not my niece,’ confided Lucy. ‘But you’re so good to me. And I don’t know who you are.’
‘Neither do I,’ said Milena. ‘Let’s eat it while it’s hot, while we can, before it gets cold.’