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 your mother think about all this?’
Sam grinned. ‘She likes singing. She’s always played the guitar. In fact she was in a girl group herself as a kid. She came over here from Dublin as a teenager in a band.’
He smiled at her. ‘You’re lucky. My mum has no fashion sense and she listens to Val Doonican.’
Sam laughed. ‘Well, my mum wears Levis and she likes the Ronettes.’
Brera and Sam had always been close. Sam loved Brera because she was tolerant and quiescent and never pushy or judgemental. Brera loved Sam but often worried about her, even though she rarely articulated these worries. Instead she confided to Sam her fears and concerns about Sylvia. Sylvia, her younger daughter, was, after all, her problem child. Sam had her flaws too, and Brera saw them, but she chose to hold her tongue.
In fact Brera thought Sam slept around too much. She couldn’t understand her daughter’s promiscuity. Sam had ideas about things which she was forever discussing. Brera acknowledged the ideas but ignored them. She thought, Sam needs to need a man. She just doesn’t know it yet.
Sam and Connor arrived at the Hackney flat shortly after midday on Sunday. Although Brera sometimes found the situation with Sylvia difficult where strangers were concerned, Sam was entirely devoid of any sense of embarrassment. She had explained the situation fully to Connor shortly after their first night together. He had been confused but intrigued. He remained intrigued as Sam unlocked the door to the flat and invited him inside. The smell was pungent but tolerable. He’d had an aunt who kept chickens. It was comparable.
Brera was sitting on the living-room sofa watching The Waltons. She smiled up at them when they came in. ‘Hi,’ she said, ‘I’ll make you both something to eat when this finishes.’
Connor had been told that Brera was Irish, but, even so, was unprepared for her pinkness, her whiteness, the red of her hair. Sam was so different. And her sister? How many colours in one family? What did it mean? It had to mean something.
Sam linked her arm through Connor’s and led him to her bedroom. She closed the door, pushed him up against it and put her arms around his neck. They kissed. She slid a hand under his T-shirt. He pulled away. ‘The house seems so quiet.’
‘You want some music on?’
Connor could hear someone coughing. He looked around the room, which was small but colourful. Above the bed was a large poster of the Judds. He walked over to it. ‘I guess the Judds must be a big influence on you. The mother-and-daughter thing. The mother is really beautiful. They could be sisters.’
He sat down on Sam’s bed. Sam took off her jumper and her shoes. She put them in a small wardrobe next to the door.
‘I love the Judds, but sometimes I think they’re a little bit too perfect, too polished.’
She