Life by Gwyneth Jones Read Free Book Online

that wiring job.”
    “How much did he eat? Should we take him to a hospital?”
    “I’m fine,” mumbled Spence, sitting up and holding his head. “I’m fine.”
    Ramone dropped on her haunches beside him. She was cuddling the black and white rat, her eyes were shining, she was completely uninterested in Spence’s sufferings. “Isn’t he great? He’s called Keefer. The iguana’s called Betty. They let her out to eat cockroaches at night. And there’s a red-kneed tarantula. Hey, Flynn says there’s another spare room. I think I’m going to move in!”
    Spence groaned aloud.
    “If anyone’s got any money I could go out and fetch some beers?” offered Alice Flynn, sensing a party atmosphere.
    Nobody took her up. They repaired in a body to the pub and drank pints of Fullers’ London Pride while the shadows lengthened. Anna stuck with Spence—no doubt because like a good Girl Scout she was waiting to see if he would fall down bleeding at the ears. The dose of current that he’d eaten had left the inside of his mouth bruised and peculiar-feeling, and the erection incident lurked, adding to his mortification. But she was sitting there, talking to him across the grubby wooden table—
    The way Anna wore makeup reminded him of Japanese girls: specifically one Japanese girl at his High School, whose delicately penciled eyes and burnished lids had held his attention. Anna’s work was less obsessive but had the same quality: a graceful, unswerving acquiescence to the social norms. If a naked female face (such as Ramone’s) was a challenge, and full war-paint a provocative display, Anna’s message was that she wasn’t trying to pick a fight. He had noticed that she never wore lipstick. He wanted to ask her why not. So her parents smoked dope. By some asinine standards they were evil radicals, but they’d trained her to tell the difference between unconventional and dangerous. She’d been raised to mind her manners, pick up after herself, think for others, share the chores—and take no shit about other classes of restriction. He knew the feeling. He had a deep sense that they’d arrived here, in this south coast Brit university, on matching trajectories. Was that good or bad for him? It is opposites that attract. What lived behind that demure reserve? Maybe she was a lesbian.
    “Are you a feminist?”
    “No, not at all. Why do you ask?”
    “Well, the way you dress, always real quietly, uh, just wondered—” He was behaving like Martin Judge. He would not have known that Judge was unendurable, until Ramone started snarling, but he trusted the rabid one’s reactions: and now hated himself. She would think he was a lout.
    “I don’t think it’s fair,” explained Anna, “to dress and makeup as if you’re cruising for sex, unless you are. You can’t go around signaling don’t you wish you could have some? and then get angry if that’s what people respond to. It doesn’t make sense.”
    “You think women shouldn’t try to look sexy?”
    Anna frowned. “I don’t know about shouldn’t. I don’t think you can do ‘should, shouldn’t’ for other people. It’s something I’ve decided for myself.”
    “But that still means you think it’s wrong—” He was tying himself in knots. The pub was filling up with folks enjoying a pre-club aperitif. A glorious form at that moment brushed by Spence’s shoulder: high heels, huge eyes, liquid red lips, black Basque and lacy thong under a sheer violet shift. “To dress up like her. Or him,” he corrected himself, because the form was tall and you never could tell.
    “Can’t tell ’em apart, these days,” she agreed, giggling. “That’s different,” she added. “Girl or boy, if you are cruising why not say so? Nothing wrong with that.”
    “Perfectly logical, Captain.”
    He recalled Craft’s “Spock” jeer and could have bitten his bruised tongue out.
    Anna sighed and gazed into her pint.
    “Actually, I was thinking of Ramone.” God bless