conversation and hasn’t quite followed Sheila’s meaning.
‘Um. Aliens.’
‘I think that aliens have been communicating with me through the medium of theatre. I know it sounds strange.’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘I feel so powerless. I feel as if Roy is standing just the other side of a door and I can’t see him. I need someone to help me but when I come up against snotty people like the woman on the Extra Terrestrial Hot Line, all the breath is knocked out of me and I feel as if I can’t get started. It makes me feel very alone. Don’t you ever feel lonely, Alison?’
‘No.’
After she has hung up, Alison walks around the flat for a while, thinking about Sheila, then she takes a poem with a phone number written on it from a notice board on the wall above her computer and goes back to the phone.
‘Jeff?’
‘Ali?’
‘Thanks for the lip gloss. I thought I might come and visit you. I could cook something for you. Everything would be brightly coloured and fragrant.’
‘You said you had a lot of colour in your life.’
‘I’d make a salad and scatter it with flower petals. I’d build a pyramid from scoops of melon soaked in vodka. I’d use watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew – red, yellow and orange. Then I’d add some green from little twists of lime and mint picked from my garden.’
‘And you’d cook them?’
‘I wasn’t actually going to apply heat to them, no. I suppose it isn’t cooking so much as assembling and balancing fruit.’
‘When will you visit me?’
‘I wonder if it would be a good idea or a bad idea if I came to visit you? I don’t think I could sleep next to you. I’d just lie awake listening to you breathing. It’s a habit I’ve got into with Phoebe.’
‘I think it would be a good idea.’
‘I could bring my mobile with me. Taron would be able to tell me.’
It is
2 o’clock
in the afternoon. The bright light outside reaches into the corners of Jane Memory’s bedroom and intensifies the vivid green and blue of the large checks on the expensive cotton covers and pillow cases on the bed, where Jeremy is lying without any clothes on. Jeremy’s tan line stops two inches below his navel, approximately where a pair of hipster trousers would begin, if he ever wore them.
Jane used to bite her nails when she was a teenager and her manicurist uses extensions in natural pink to disguise the damage that remains. Jane uses the acrylic tip of one these nails to tap Jeremy gently on the ribs, signalling that he should roll over. She rests her silver-ringed hand in a fan shape on one white buttock and inspects the rest of Jeremy’s body. It is very lean. She pinches a little bit of skin between her thumb and first finger. He probably has no more than fourteen percent or fifteen percent fat on him.
‘ Ow ’, says Jeremy. Jane puts her mouth to his shoulder and smells the skin before she bites him, sweeping her hand between his thighs. He turns over so that she can sit on top of him, the soles of her feet tucked under the backs of his legs and her hands at either side of him on the blue and green checked pillows under his head.
A shower of shiny, golden pound coins has fallen from the hip pockets of Jeremy’s summer dress into the bed, as if riches have flowed directly from his loins. Every so often Jane or Jeremy rolls on to one of the coins, gasps, and throws it on to the floor where it bounces against the skirting board with a ‘ting’.
There is no part of Jane’s body that she dislikes. She exfoliates her knees and her elbows regularly. Her nipples point up, her buttocks point up, her hips are narrow, her stomach is flat. There is a clear, straight line of vision from her breast bone to her pubic bone, with nothing wobbly in the way. She might get her belly button pierced, but she’s not convinced it won’t hurt. If she got sick of it and removed it, she’d hate for it to leave a scar.
‘Oh,’ says Jeremy. ‘God, Jane.’ Jane leans forward with one
‘Um. Aliens.’
‘I think that aliens have been communicating with me through the medium of theatre. I know it sounds strange.’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘I feel so powerless. I feel as if Roy is standing just the other side of a door and I can’t see him. I need someone to help me but when I come up against snotty people like the woman on the Extra Terrestrial Hot Line, all the breath is knocked out of me and I feel as if I can’t get started. It makes me feel very alone. Don’t you ever feel lonely, Alison?’
‘No.’
After she has hung up, Alison walks around the flat for a while, thinking about Sheila, then she takes a poem with a phone number written on it from a notice board on the wall above her computer and goes back to the phone.
‘Jeff?’
‘Ali?’
‘Thanks for the lip gloss. I thought I might come and visit you. I could cook something for you. Everything would be brightly coloured and fragrant.’
‘You said you had a lot of colour in your life.’
‘I’d make a salad and scatter it with flower petals. I’d build a pyramid from scoops of melon soaked in vodka. I’d use watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew – red, yellow and orange. Then I’d add some green from little twists of lime and mint picked from my garden.’
‘And you’d cook them?’
‘I wasn’t actually going to apply heat to them, no. I suppose it isn’t cooking so much as assembling and balancing fruit.’
‘When will you visit me?’
‘I wonder if it would be a good idea or a bad idea if I came to visit you? I don’t think I could sleep next to you. I’d just lie awake listening to you breathing. It’s a habit I’ve got into with Phoebe.’
‘I think it would be a good idea.’
‘I could bring my mobile with me. Taron would be able to tell me.’
It is
2 o’clock
in the afternoon. The bright light outside reaches into the corners of Jane Memory’s bedroom and intensifies the vivid green and blue of the large checks on the expensive cotton covers and pillow cases on the bed, where Jeremy is lying without any clothes on. Jeremy’s tan line stops two inches below his navel, approximately where a pair of hipster trousers would begin, if he ever wore them.
Jane used to bite her nails when she was a teenager and her manicurist uses extensions in natural pink to disguise the damage that remains. Jane uses the acrylic tip of one these nails to tap Jeremy gently on the ribs, signalling that he should roll over. She rests her silver-ringed hand in a fan shape on one white buttock and inspects the rest of Jeremy’s body. It is very lean. She pinches a little bit of skin between her thumb and first finger. He probably has no more than fourteen percent or fifteen percent fat on him.
‘ Ow ’, says Jeremy. Jane puts her mouth to his shoulder and smells the skin before she bites him, sweeping her hand between his thighs. He turns over so that she can sit on top of him, the soles of her feet tucked under the backs of his legs and her hands at either side of him on the blue and green checked pillows under his head.
A shower of shiny, golden pound coins has fallen from the hip pockets of Jeremy’s summer dress into the bed, as if riches have flowed directly from his loins. Every so often Jane or Jeremy rolls on to one of the coins, gasps, and throws it on to the floor where it bounces against the skirting board with a ‘ting’.
There is no part of Jane’s body that she dislikes. She exfoliates her knees and her elbows regularly. Her nipples point up, her buttocks point up, her hips are narrow, her stomach is flat. There is a clear, straight line of vision from her breast bone to her pubic bone, with nothing wobbly in the way. She might get her belly button pierced, but she’s not convinced it won’t hurt. If she got sick of it and removed it, she’d hate for it to leave a scar.
‘Oh,’ says Jeremy. ‘God, Jane.’ Jane leans forward with one
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