Ruby and the Stone Age Diet (19 page)

On the day my cactus flowers I am offered a job in Brixton dole office. If there is a connection here I can’t see it. The cactus grows a wonderful flower, radiant yellow, a little desert oasis in my damp bedroom.

In the dole office I have to take fresh claims, people signing on for the first time or people signing on after finishing work.

I do not want to work here but as one of the criteria for signing on is that I am available for employment, I cannot refuse the offer. At least it is only temporary. Another of the clerks in my section knows Cis and sometimes he tells me news about her.

Izzy and Marilyn have to move house when their short-life tenancy comes to an end. They move into a new squat with three other people because they cannot find anywhere decent otherwise.

Ruby visits them and later she tells me that it is a nice place and Izzy is still lifting her weights, without any visible results.

‘But it keeps her happy. I told her they should ask Tilka the Goddess of Squatters to look after them, but they didn’t seem to think it was necessary.’

John, Ruby’s new lover, is a good drummer and easy to get on with. He joins the band and we organise our gig.

‘My cactus has bloomed. When will Cis knock at the door?’

‘Any day,’ says Ruby. ‘Of course she might just wait till
your gig. Probably she will want to see you onstage. Make us some tea.’

‘Do you want to eat? I bought a bag full of healthy Stone Age things.’

Ruby shakes her head.

‘Eating disgusts me.’

She must feel bad about Domino. She is still sleeping with John the drummer.

We are evicted and move to a squat in Bengeworth Road. There is no electricity and we find out after we’ve moved that it is disconnected in a way that means we cannot put it back on. By coincidence Bengeworth Road is the site of the main electricity offices in Brixton.

‘Strange,’ says Ruby, in the gloom. ‘They have plenty of electricity up there but they won’t give us any. I’d better find us somewhere else to live.’

I meet Jane who is selling socialist newspapers outside the tube station.

‘We can’t find anywhere to live.’

‘Of course not. The government won’t provide houses for poor people. They don’t give local councils any money to build council houses. They are only interested in rich people buying property.’

A strange accusation, it seems to me. Everyone knows that if you can’t find somewhere to live it is because you have offended Ixanbarg, the Bad Housing Demon. I’m sure the government is doing its best.

Some people in the government introduce a bill to
restrict abortion rights. Ruby, outraged, decides to join the local campaign against this bill and I join along with her. Every Tuesday we go to a meeting in the Town Hall and every Saturday we hand out leaflets in the street and get people to sign our petition.

I am good in this campaign because I am a reliable person for handing out leaflets and I never try to make any decisions or decide policy.

Ruby is slightly more vocal but I am happier just being told where I have to go and what leaflets I have to hand out.

At the same time the government introduces more legislation which is anti-homosexual and there is a large campaign against this and sometimes our whole pro-abortion group goes on demonstrations for gay rights. I help carry our banner.

My cactus is in full flower and the gig is next week. John finds a PA. I can play all our songs. Ruby stops sleeping with John and finds us a place to live, a council flat that we can stay in for three months till the tenant comes back from her holiday in Vietnam.

‘Will we say a prayer to Tilka?’ I ask, when all our belongings are moved in.

‘Tilka only looks after squatters,’ Ruby tells me.

‘Who is the god of council tenants?’

‘There is no god for council tenants.’

It is December and I hand out leaflets in the snow. Ruby strides through the snow barefoot and still wears
her sunglasses and we live on chocolate biscuits and bananas, which is a satisfying diet. I worry about her feet but they seem to be tough enough for any weather conditions. She does put a donkey jacket over her dress, though, and sometimes she has to stop and wipe the snow off her sunglasses.

In the dole office I take hundreds of fresh claims every day and sometimes people ask me when they will get their first Giro because they are desperate for money. I tell them that it will probably be soon even though I know that it won’t be. If I don’t say this they will shout and argue at me and I am just the lowest clerk and I can’t do anything about it. I don’t even want to be here.

When anyone needs to find the papers relating to a client they are always missing. The dole office has clerks whose only job is to try and link up missing papers. Sometimes among the long depressing queues there is shouting and scuffling and angry people pleading for money, and when a middle-aged man bursts into tears in front of me because he has forgotten to bring his P45 I start to think that maybe it is all my fault after all.

In the snow I hand an abortion leaflet to Cis.

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I have never seen you do anything useful before.’

Ruby and I have been petitioning for two hours and we are frozen.

Izzy sees us in the street and she signs our petition and then brings us some pizza from the market and cups of coffee in polystyrene beakers.

‘I do not feel the cold so much anymore,’ she says, ‘because I am more muscular than I used to be. Do you want to see my biceps?’

‘Not right now,’ says Ruby, a little harshly.

‘We were all arrested yesterday,’ Izzy tells us. ‘The police broke down the door of our new squat and took us to the police station. They kept us in overnight. We’ve been charged with stealing electricity and they’ve boarded up the house.’

We sympathise with Izzy. She is having a hard time.

Back home Ruby puts her feet in my lap to warm them. I massage her toes and rub her calves till the blood starts to flow again.

We have chocolate biscuits and bananas and with my wages from the dole office we are well off for a while.

Every day Cis and her new boyfriend drive past the window on their new motorbike, but I am not worried anymore now that my cactus has flowered.

The cold weather makes my knee hurt. My knee is damaged and badly scarred from an inglorious motorbike accident. I fell off when I was learning to ride it. The scar looks like it has been sewed up with a fish-hook.

‘I think your stories are getting worse,’ says Ruby.

‘What stories?’

‘The ones where you are trapped on a foreign planet.
The ones where you say you are resigned to walking round with a stupid robot and never having fun anymore.’

‘Ruby, I never told you any story like that.’

‘Yes you did and it is a very obvious image. You’ll have to start either living in the real world or writing better stories.’

Ruby is slightly upset. I know why. Last week I could not get into work because I was waylaid by a pack of snow-wolves in Coldharbour Lane. When I went home Ruby had been crying because she had seen Domino walking along with another woman. Now she won’t eat.

If any of Ruby’s friends stopped eating and acted sad because of a fool like Domino, Ruby would give them a severe talking to.

I apologise to my supervisor about not coming in to work and tell her that I could not get past the pack of snow-wolves.

‘Werewolves? In Brixton?’

‘Not werewolves. Snow-wolves.’

While I am working in the dole office the old woman who sits on the balcony throws a little party. She invites Ascanazl, Spirit Friend of Lonely People, Shamash the Sun God, Tilka the Goddess of Squatters, Jasmine the Divine Protectress of Broken Hearts, Daita, Vietnamese Tree Goddess and Friend of Poor Labourers everywhere, and a few others.

They have a good time together. Helena, Goddess of Electric Guitarists, turns up. She is still upset about her
girlfriend leaving her and Jasmine does her best to cheer her up. Helena tells everyone that she is keeping herself busy so as to not think about her personal problems. She has started lifting weights to improve her body and she has helped my band organise our gig at last.

‘Good,’ says Daita. ‘He needs some help, he is having a hard time. Last month I got him two days’ wages for only one day’s work.’

‘Good party,’ says Ascanazl. ‘Any more wine?’

The day after I make the excuse about snow-wolves making me late for work my supervisor tells me that I will not be taken on as a permanent clerk at the dole office. This is such good news I feel like partying.

One time I went to a sauna party where everyone took off their clothes and had saunas, then draped themselves in towels and drank wine. But on the wasted planet there are no good parties. There is not even anyone to talk to, now the robot has disappeared.

People hammer on the door of the dole office but the door won’t open. We are on strike because one of the union representatives has been victimised.

I hand out leaflets telling people what the strike is about. Many policemen come down to watch over our picket and they make most of us stand on the patch of grass on the other side of the road. One superintendent is particularly unfriendly and he tells us that anyone who
even says the word scab will be arrested and charged with threatening behaviour.

This strike covers my last few days at the dole office and I had already booked these last few days as holiday, so I get paid while everyone else doesn’t. I offer to give all my pay to the strike fund but the union representative says I should not because now I am unemployed again and will need the money myself. I keep my wages but I always feel guilty about it.

The abortion bill is defeated so our campaign is a success and Ruby says that Domino is going to meet her at the gig tomorrow and this makes her happy. I am also happy. My cactus is in full flower. Cis is going to come and see me play my new song about her.

‘Things are looking good,’ I say to Ruby.

It is bitterly cold outside and we have wrapped ourselves in one quilt in front of the fire to keep warm.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘They always get better in time.’

Ruby says that being wrapped up in a quilt like this reminds her of being a child. I see what she means, although I have no memories of being a child. Ruby claims that she can remember sitting in her pram but, no matter how I try, I cannot recall anything at all before I was sixteen.