On the face of it, Esmé had rather a lot in common with Jackey. Jackey wore black leather and leggings, was six foot two with pomegranate-coloured hair at least half that length and a drop-dead look that teetered in intensity between the Bride of Dracula and Paddington’s Aunt Lucy. She was also piss-your-pants funny, which was why, with head swollen and knocking drunkenly already, I was pleased to answer the door while Michael dunked chilli powder into his wok, to find Jackey framed there, arms flung wide, teeth bared, ready for a surprise visit.
‘Ha ha ha ha!’
Michael groaned, ‘Oh, fuck!’ and by accident dropped the whole jar of cayenne into Esmé’s supper.
* * *
I sat with Jackey on the park bench we had along one wall of the living room to watch Top of the Pops, and I explained how it had been easier to steal a bench than to clean the heaps of crap off the other chairs.
‘I live with animals,’ I said, and she tutted consolingly.
Michael and Esmé were arguing behind the shut kitchen door. At first it was about Esmé’s dietary prohibitions—she saw broccoli bobbing in the wok and screeched about an aversion to tree vegetables—but now they were arguing about Jackey’s presence. We did our level best to ignore it, for manners’ sake. The family in the two-bedroom flat behind the wall on the other side were rowing also. We could hear them clearly through the bolted door that segregated us. Esmé had nailed one of her black winding sheets to the door to muffle the sound, but it didn’t work.
Jackey was telling me about Leeds; about being part of a theatre company that was a Going Concern.
‘The bastards won’t give you the bookings. If you haven’t been injured on Casualty or something exotic on Blake's Seven you don’t get so much as a sniff of a stage.’
The kitchen door banged open and Michael stormed through, glared at us both, shot upstairs.
‘He can fuck off as well,’ Jackey muttered and rummaged in her pockets for cigarettes.
‘That’s not a vegetarian jacket.’
‘I’ve given that stuff up,’ she said. ‘He tortured me over all that. About all the meat I’d eaten before I had my consciousness raised. He really played with my mind, that fucker. That afternoon we dropped acid in his favourite childhood haunt, when I was staying with his family, he really made me paranoid. Until the effects wore off, after twenty hours, I was plagued everywhere I went by imaginary cows. He loves doing that sort of thing to women.’
I fell silent, deciding not to defend him. We could see Esmé through the half-open kitchen door, sobbing against the freezer unit. We watched some rap artist on Top of the Pops, the third that edition—reiterating herself to a backing track.
Jackey sighed and changed the subject decisively, exclaiming, ‘I hate that music. I bet she’s a bloody American.’
I saw Esmé’s back stiffen. Jackey clamped a hand to her mouth. She smudged lipstick all over the place as she suppressed a dangerous cackle.
After a few tense seconds, a silent Esmé followed Michael upstairs.
Our bathroom was comprehensively filmed with a fine white powder, impossible to remove. When the shower had leaked through crevices onto the noisy family below, the landlord had seen to it by having a tiled, waist-high wall built next to the bath. We assumed the stubborn coating everywhere had something to do with his grouting. The wall was a talking point. The theatre group had organised a party in its honour, during which it was examined, praised and christened (in semi-digested cheesecake, as I remember).
Before going out that evening, I was sitting on our wall, having my make-up seen to by Esmé. I pursed everything, intent on the delicate shovelling of mascara.
‘It’s a pity Michael looked like Frankenstein.’
‘Frankenstein’s monster,’ I corrected, without moving my ‘fuchsia lips.
‘He needn’t have washed it off.’ She glanced at the dead colours streaking the sink.
‘If you’re going somewhere with the intention of looking conspicuous, you have to look fabulous as well.’
‘Be quiet while I retouch your lips.’
‘Can I light a fag?’
‘No.’ She dabbed me with a handkerchief, face held close, already made up and as lifeless in its concentration as the blunt end of a hammer. ‘Both you and Michael have those funny, pretty rosebud lips. Very twenties. Yours are charming because they’re slightly crooked.’
‘That’s where I got punched once.’
‘Cheekbones,’ she reminded us and began to dust me vigorously in grey.
From my room next door there came the muffled thumps and curses of Jackey getting ready. My room had a huge window, three storeys up, overlooking a crossroads on a hill, the whole town spread below it. Jackey would be undressing, flinging clothes around for the benefit of everyone outside. Her motto: If you’ve got it, hang it out the window.
Esmé’s hand trembled, finding a place for a beauty spot.
‘Are you all right?’
Of course I felt hypocritical asking. Ten minutes earlier I had been bursting with silent laughter, with Jackey in my room. We had been taking the piss out of the bald people upstairs. Jackey had made a show of listening to and recognising the sounds of argument; Michael’s gruff incoherence, the shriek of his bookshelves being wrenched out of the wall. The grinding bedsprings of reconciliation had wiped the smile off Jackey’s face and replaced it with an expression of a different kind of memory.
I put Hatful of Hollow on and, minutes later, Esmé was banging on my door.
‘That was quick.’ Jackey was smirking again.
Esmé came humbly to offer her making-up services. Jackey gave her a sickly smile and I just gave myself up.
Now here was Esmé, flicking back tears, lip quivering. ‘It’s really hard for me,’ she said, ‘with Jackey here. I find her so difficult. Michael isn’t
