Eat My Heart Out by Zoe Pilger Page B

again. She was making me chase her down to the other end of the pool. She launched her shimmering body onto the side. ‘You must make your own myth. Make a myth of yourself . That’s what I did.’
    Later, wrapped in towels, we were sitting on loungers by the pool and drinking double Jameson’s on ice because Steph said it reminded her of her New York days. I was telling her about Samuel and how he desperately wanted to be from Williamsburg. ‘Why?’ she groaned. ‘What’s interesting about self-regarding hipsters with nothing to say?’
    I told her about Samuel’s fixation with The Little Mermaid .
    She got excited. ‘Read a chapter called “The Woman in Love” in The Second Sex by de Beauvoir. Have you read it?’
    I shook my head.
    â€˜You must,’ she said. ‘She talks about why love shouldn’t be sacrifice. Because the mermaid sacrifices her tail for legs and leaves everything behind. But when she goes on land, she feels there are hot knives stabbing into the soles of her feet with every step that she takes. It is torture.’
    â€˜But they’re happy in the end?’ I said, dumbly. ‘Her and Eric?’
    â€˜Who’s Eric?’ laughed Steph. ‘I’m talking about the original, the Hans Christian Andersen version. There’s no Eric . The prince falls in love with someone else. He rejects the mermaid. And then she dies.’
    Steph and I were back in the kitchen.
    The front door opened. There was the sound of a child, an American. The prim ballerina from the restaurant appeared, along with Marge Perez. They were weighed down with bags.
    â€˜Oh,’ said Marge. She held her key aloft, as though ready to open another door. ‘You have a visitor.’
    Steph stood up. ‘Don’t be like that, Marge. How was shopping? Get everything you need?’
    â€˜Yeah!’ chirruped ballerina. She pulled out a packet of marshmallows.
    Marge sat down heavily at the breakfast bar and said to me: ‘So. Are you seduced?’

Eight
    Stephanie had promised that I could return, soon.
    It was Sunday night. I had relented and gone to Samuel’s party at the peanut factory in Hackney Wick. My poetry slot was at 11.30.
    From the podium, I read to a crowd of fools dressed like creatures from the deep:
    â€˜ I can’t love you if you kill me.
    Lover, I am ransacked. ’
    Freddie and Samuel waited for me to continue.
    â€˜That’s it,’ I said into the microphone. It screeched – an amplified gull.
    Mirages of mermaids flew across the room. The crowd ignored my poem and continued to dance to no music.
    Freddie looked at Samuel, who shrugged. He fiddled with his decks. The noise returned: Siren, siren, siren SONG .
    I got out of the papier-mâché seashell, climbed down from the podium, and pushed through people and pissstained corridors until I found an exit. It opened onto a back alley. There was a rotting mattress, a green dreadlock. A giant cartoon peanut waved to me from the roof. Its white-gloved hand looked like a cloud against the black sky.
    Freddie appeared. ‘What the fuck was that?!’
    â€˜I’m sorry.’ I lit a cigarette. ‘I couldn’t think of any mermaidthemed stuff at the last minute so I just used something old. Do you remember when I wrote that poem?’
    â€˜Your self-obsession is no longer amusing,’ said Freddie. ‘It’s become vulgar.’
    â€˜Freddie, when you’ve done loads of drugs you look like a frightened horse.’
    â€˜How sweet.’ He attempted to run up the brick wall, which didn’t work. He crouched before me. ‘Why don’t you write a poem like that for me?’
    I stared at him.
    He stood up and brushed his harem pants. His face was smeared with blue. ‘That wasn’t even a poem, anyway,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t even a haiku. That was more like a song lyric. A fucking schmaltzy R&B