‘Why don’t we get you some nice shoes, Byron?’ Victoria asked me one evening.
We were sitting in front of her television watching a documentary about spiders, and eating popcorn. She’d oversalted the popcorn, and my mouth was already dry from getting stoned. A strong breeze blew almost every evening, and so I was able to smoke out of her bathroom window. I’d wash my mouth out and splash water in my eyes.
‘Why shoes?’ I asked.
‘Because. Well, because we’ve bought you all sorts of other nice things in the last while. So let’s get some shoes too.’
I’d decided to lie to her, and tell her that I’d received the promotion at work. And so, in order to look like a manager, I’d had to start spending like one. The little savings my father had left me when he emigrated had transformed into expensive cocktails – I avoided two-for-one specials, just to enhance the image – and fancy clothes.
‘I don’t know about that,’ I said, and left the room.
I went back to her bathroom. The underside of her freestanding bathtub was overrun with cobwebs. It was the only place in her house that had been neglected, and so I assumed she never looked underneath it. I hid my bankie of weed and Rizzla there and pretended to have diarrhoea as an excuse for constantly returning to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet and rolled myself another joint. I was still stoned from the last one.
The little bathroom window was covered by a lacy curtain with a strange elastic lining which made it difficult to hold open. But I forced the windowpane outwards, and stuck my head outside. The wind was still blowing hard. The building directly behind hers was a single storey, and so from her window I was able to see the flickering lights surrounding the black ocean. The sound of traffic was drowned out by the howling of the wind.
I dropped the roach in the toilet and flushed it away, then sprayed the bathroom with strawberry-and-cream-scented toilet spray.
The following morning, while Victoria was cooking breakfast I went back to the bathroom and got stoned again. But the kitchen window had been open and the wind blowing flat against the building, so all my smoke had blown straight up her nose.
‘You feeling better now?’ she asked me.
‘Why?’
‘Byron. God, you’re such a … Byron!’
We’d only been seeing each other for about ten days, but whenever she knew I was stoned, she started treating me like a ten-year-old child. And for some reason, I’d play right into her scheme and start acting like a fucking moron. A fair number of people had commented on the fact that marijuana and me did not gel too well. It made me a little slow at the best of times. But around her I’d turn into a gibbering fool. I’d become self-conscious, feel like each move was being watched. To avoid total paranoia, I became very quiet and completely withdrawn.
‘We’re taking your car, Byron. Or are you too stoned to drive?’
‘No. No I’m not.’
I sat on her couch eating breakfast with an exaggerated smile on my face. My clothes smelt of weed, I’d forgotten to bring a change with me. When I’d finished scraping the egg yolk up with my fork, Victoria took the plate off my lap.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Very yummy!’
She shook her head and walked out the room.
Sitting in the driver’s seat I looked at my face in the rear-view mirror. My eyes were still red. I unlocked the passenger door for her.
‘We going to Cavendish, Byron. Do you know how to get there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You won’t get lost, will you?’
‘Uh-uh.’
I avoided using my car when Victoria was with me. I’d made a secret compartment under the driver’s seat by slicing a long line across the material and fixing Velcro to either side. I’d taken to visiting her in the evenings after work, and to avoid a trip home I’d hide the skins in the compartment, and seal it up. I didn’t want her to find out that I was really still a translator. Before leaving work I would also lift up the felt that lined the boot of my car, and place the shield and spear on top of the spare tyre, before shutting it down again.
But I was in enough trouble already. If I started dreaming up excuses not to use my car I risked sending her over the edge. So we drove along High Level Road. It was what most people would describe as a glorious day. The sun was up and all the little cunts who like tanning were probably flocking to the beach. Anyway, it was the end of summer, and these happy bright days would soon be behind us.
‘Maybe we should go to the beach later,’ Victoria said, as if reading my thoughts.
‘OK,’ I said.
‘You could get a tan. Maybe then you can get a better job.’
‘What?’
‘I’m only joking.’
‘Oh.’
We stopped at the robots opposite the Waterfront. To our right was the convention centre. It was supposed to look like a ship, but looked more like the back of a boot. It’s surrounded by a collection of exclusive hotels and the handful of high-rise buildings the city has.
I turned left into the Waterfront.
‘What are you doing, Byron?’
‘Oh shit,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot. I thought we were going … ’
‘We meant to be going to Cavendish, Byron!’
‘I forgot.’
‘You’re a pothead moron!’
I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t do stupid things today. I wanted to get some respect from her, but it would never happen if I kept doing things like that. She sighed loudly and made a show of taking her cellphone out of her bag and looking at the time. Then she looked at me again, and smiled.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t mean it, you know, like that.’
I smiled a stupid smile. I really hate myself sometimes.
On the other side of the mountain it was quite a lot colder. I knew this without opening my window, because I was unable to shut the air vents in my car. Victoria also seemed to feel the difference in temperature and put her hands in front of the vents then rubbed them together.
‘Are you still, I mean, you said you might at the beginning, are you getting a car allowance?’
‘What?’
‘You said. From your work, you know, now that you’re a manager.’
‘Oh. It’s in the pipeline. Ja.’
Black