Contents
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About Feminist Press
Also Available from Feminist Press
Published in 2015 by the Feminist Press at the City University of New York
The Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, Suite 5406
New York, NY 10016
First Feminist Press edition 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5586-1892-3
Text copyright © 2014 Zoe Pilger
Originally published in Britain by Serpent’s Tail in 2014.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, used, or stored in any information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First printing May 2015
Cover and text design by Suki Boynton
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
For Joe Silk
1977–2003
Too bad I’m not stronger. I’d be worse.
ARIANA REINES, Cœur de Lion
ONE
THE SKY WAS still black when the butchers began unloading the pigs from their vans at Smithfield Market. It was five in the morning. I had been to a party nearby. There he was, loitering across the road. He was watching the meat with terror and awe.
His black hair was lank, and, as I approached, I could see that a military medal of some kind was pinned to his beige crochet sweater. He was freakishly tall, about six foot seven. He wore a red hat and he was shaking with cold.
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Ann-Marie. I’m twenty-three. How old are you?”
He seemed shocked that I was talking to him. “Thirty-six.”
“That’s a good age.” I shoved my hands deeper into my vintage structured tweed and asked him if he wanted to go for a coffee. “Maybe we’ve got something in common,” I suggested.
“I doubt it.”
“I adopt loads of pussies from a refuge,” I said. “Yeah, and I love to feed the pussies condensed milk in tiny china dishes. I lounge around on my chaise longue in my red silk kimono and I watch their pink tongues lap it up.” I paused for effect. “They love to lap it up.”
Vic gave me his email address.
That was yesterday.
Dear Vic,
It was lovely to meet you! What are you up to later? I’ll come to where you are.
Ann-Marie X
Today I was waiting at the window on the first floor of a waxing salon across the road from Chalk Farm station, where Vic had chosen to meet. The manager had told me that they were nearly closing, but I’d made my eyes look beseeching like a spaniel and the drowned aesthetic must have helped because she let me in. I could hear a panpipe rendition of “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” emitting from a closed door; I couldn’t smell the floral notes of wax. I waited.
And waited.
To wait is a woman’s prerogative, according to Stephanie Haight, whose book Falling Out of Fate had recently been short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. To wait is a woman’s raison d’être. To wait and see what a man will do for you. Do to you. I hadn’t bought the book yet because I had no money, but I’d heard her speak on Start the Week. Her accent had a twang; I couldn’t tell if she was American or English. “Waiting for the call,” she’d said. “Waiting for that fateful ring of the telephone
