style="font-size:15px;"> He followed her, lounged in the doorway and stared down at Vincent. ‘Leave him. He’s OK.’
She remade her bed. ‘Lift him up. I’ve half a mind to call a doctor.’
Toro bent over and grabbed hold of Vincent’s shoulders, then dragged him towards the bed, rucking up the carpet. They lifted him together and dumped him down on the blankets. He emitted a loud groan as his head hit the pillow. She arranged a couple of sheets over him, then perched on the edge of the bed and felt his forehead. Soaking. His lips were dry though. She peered up at Toro who was standing, looking bleary, feeling his own forehead.
‘What’s your game?’ she said.
‘What’s the time?’
‘Eleven-ish.’ She looked down at Vincent. ‘He couldn’t throw up while he was asleep could he, and choke on it?’
Toro shrugged and went to find his coat. She heard the kitchen tap running, and then, a few seconds later, the front door closing. She looked down at Vincent. ‘Fancy joining him?’
The room seemed very bright. She stood up, strolled into the living-room to check that the latch was down on the front door, then returned to the bedroom and switched off the light. The darkness soothed her eyes. She sat next to Vincent on the edge of her bed and stared at him. His eyes were flitting around under his eyelids. She said quietly, ‘Are you dreaming? Do you want some tea? An ambulance?’
She yawned and looked over towards the window, bringing her legs up on to the bed and leaning her back against the headboard. The streets were still lively. Outside she could hear people talking and laughing. Inside everything was silent. She pulled one of the blankets over slightly so that it covered the top of her knees and thought, Isn’t it strange how a place can be both noisy and quiet at the same time?
Samantha stayed out all Saturday night and returned to the flat shortly after midday on Sunday. The intervening time had been spent with her latest flame, Connor, who was tall, with a curtain of long brown hair that swung across his face, a slim body and smooth skin. They had known each other for several weeks. They had met at a charity benefit in Kentish Town. Connor had been performing with the main band, his own band, Stirsign. He was a drummer, and he sang too, in a scrappy, scraping, tuneless voice.
Sam had laughed at him from the side of the stage. She thought he looked ridiculous, smashing away at his drum-kit, bare-chested, his hair a mess, flying everywhere, his neck craning upwards towards an artfully placed microphone.
He spotted her immediately. She was the only girl there who found him funny. Girls didn’t usually. When he’d introduced himself, later on, she’d said that she’d never come across a drummer who also sang. Connor had then proceeded to list every singing drummer he could think of. The way he saw it, the longer the list was, the longer she’d stay and talk.
‘I just remembered, the drummer with Teenage Fanclub sings sometimes, and there was a band called Blyth Power a while ago whose drummer was the main vocalist, like me.’
Sam had smiled up at him, taking in every visible detail of his face through the silk-screen of her lashes. His voice was sexy, she decided, vaguely American, his tongue embracing a kind of cultured Southern twang. She appreciated the fact that he was self-assured. Confident men were the only kind she ever bothered with. Less brash, less aggressive men took one look and ran a mile.
She had been a late developer in the game of love. It was a game. Love was a diversion, but not an interest.
Men had never been at a premium in the Hackney flat. Her father, a Somalian student, a law student, had left home when she was three. In the long term she’d decided that this was a good thing. She had no silly expectations or preconceptions. She was beyond all that. Men couldn’t disappoint her and they couldn’t rule her.
Initially she had been too shy to push herself forward, preferring instead to think about things, to theorize and rationalize. But eventually she had learned to assert, if not herself, then a good approximation of herself – she always saved something, kept something back, which was the secret with men – and had learned how to flatter and to flirt. Love could be fun. You could get something out of it: sex or attention or ideas.
Connor had stared down at Sam’s lips as he spoke to her, focusing on these instead of her eyes. ‘What do you do? I don’t want to bore you to death with talk of singing drummers all night.’
Sam smiled. ‘I’m a singer too. A different kind of singer.’
An exotic singer, he thought, her hair drawn back, scraped back like a seal’s. ‘How different?’
‘I sing in a band with my mother. We played the Bull and Gate last week.’
He grinned when she mentioned the venue, then said, ‘I’ve never met anyone who played in a band with their mother before.’
‘You have now.’
He asked her what kind of music they played but she didn’t answer.
‘It’s more than that,’ she said, finishing her drink. ‘It’s more complicated.’
‘How?’
He liked her. But he only wanted small talk. That was his way. That was the whole point of flirting. He had a suspicion, though, that she was the kind of girl who didn’t need to flirt.
She cleared her throat. ‘Language is symbolic.’ He flinched. She didn’t notice. ‘In other words, language represents things. And the way I see it, sexual representations work in the same way. I’ll give you an example …’
He was watching her lips, not her eyes, watching how her teeth appeared and disappeared. Her teeth, the white crest of her mouth’s pink wave. Rolling and rolling.
‘Father and son. If I say that, it has positive associations. Hierarchy, order, calm, a kind of quiet power …’
He didn’t care what she said. She was exquisite. He would agree and agree.
‘But mother and daughter. I can say it, over and over, but it doesn’t work as a symbol. It has no power.’ She looked up at him. ‘Are you following me?’
He nodded.
‘Freud said daughters hate their mothers because all a daughter really wants is to have sex with her father. Mothers get in the way.’
Connor laughed. ‘He really thought that?’
She nodded. ‘But I’m not very interested in why symbols work the way they do, only in subverting them. I want to change them. I mean, there’s such power between women. Mother and daughter. It should mean something. It does mean something, it just doesn’t work at a symbolic level. And that’s what I want to do, with the band. To help to create a new, positive, popular stereotype.’
As she spoke she saw Connor’s face sag. She thought, I’ve blown my chances. He thinks I’m boring or strident or both.
When her lips stopped moving, Connor pushed his hair out of his eyes and asked, ‘What does
