“You’re well shot of him, if you ask me,” said Robin, who all day had pursued a cautious policy of trying to prize Flick free of the loyalty she clearly felt she owed the faithless Jimmy, in the hope of extracting confidences.
“Wish it were that easy,” said Flick, lapsing into the cod-Yorkshire she had adopted towards the end of the day. “It’s not like I wanna be married or anything—” she laughed at the very idea, “—he can sleep with who he likes and so can I. That’s the deal and I’m fine with it.”
She had already explained to Robin at the shop that she identified as both genderqueer and pansexual, while monogamy, properly looked at, was a tool of patriarchal oppression, a line that Robin suspected had been originally Jimmy’s. They walked in silence for a while. In the denser darkness they entered an underpass, when Flick said with a flicker of spirit:
“I mean, I’ve had my own fun.”
“Glad to hear it,” said Robin.
“Jimmy wouldn’t like it if he knew all of them, either.”
The pigeon-toed Marxist walking ahead of them turned his head at that and Robin saw, by the light of a streetlamp, his little smirk as he glanced back at Flick, whose words he had clearly caught. The latter, being engaged in trying to dig her door keys out of the bottom of her cluttered messenger bag, seemed not to notice.
“We’re up there,” Flick said, pointing at three lit windows above a small sports shop. “Hayley’s back already. Shit, I hope she remembered to hide my laptop.”
The flat was reached from a back entrance, up a cold, narrow stairwell. Even from the bottom of the stairs, they could hear the persistent bass of “Niggas in Paris,” and on reaching the landing, they found the flimsy door standing open and a number of people leaning up against the walls outside, sharing an enormous joint.
“What’s fifty grand to a muh-fucka like me,” rapped Kanye West, from the dimly lit interior.
The dozen or so newcomers met a substantial number of people already inside. It was astonishing how many people could fit into such a small flat, which evidently comprised only two bedrooms, a minuscule shower room and a cupboard-sized kitchenette.
“We’re using Hayley’s room to dance in, it’s the biggest, the one you’ll share,” Flick shouted in Robin’s ear as they forced their way towards the dark room.
Lit only by two strings of fairy lights, and the small rectangles of lights emanating from the phones of those checking their texts and social media, the room was already thick with the smell of cannabis and lined with people. Four young women and a man were managing to dance in the middle of the floor. Her eyes growing gradually accustomed to the darkness, Robin saw the skeletal frame of a bunk bed, already supporting a few people sharing a joint on the top mattress. She could just make out an LGBT rainbow flag and a poster of True Blood’s Tara Thornton on the wall behind them.
Jimmy and Barclay had already combed this flat for the piece of paper Flick had stolen from Chiswell and not found it, Robin reminded herself, peering through the darkness for likely hiding places. Robin wondered whether Flick kept it permanently on her person, but Jimmy would surely have thought of that, and in spite of Flick’s avowed pansexuality, Robin thought Jimmy better placed than herself to persuade Flick to strip. Meanwhile, the darkness might be Robin’s friend as she slid her hand beneath mattresses and rugs, but the party was so densely packed that she doubted it would be possible to do without alerting somebody to her odd behavior.
“… find Hayley,” Flick bellowed in Robin’s ear, pressing a can of lager into her hand, and they edged out of the room again into Flick’s own bedroom, which seemed even smaller than it really was because every inch of the walls and ceiling had been covered in political flyers and posters, the orange of CORE and the black and red of the Real Socialist Party predominating. A gigantic Palestinian flag was pinned over the mattress on the floor.
Five people were already inside this room, which was lit by a solitary lamp. A pair of young women, one black, one white, lay entwined on the mattress on the floor, while podgy, bearded Digby had taken up a position on the floor, talking to them. Two teenage boys stood awkwardly against the wall, furtively watching the girls on the bed, their heads close together as they rolled a joint.
“Hayley, this is Bobbi,” said Flick. “She’s interested in Laura’s half of the room.”
Both girls on the bed looked around: the tall, shaven-headed, sleepy-eyed peroxide blonde answered.
“I’ve already said Shanice can move in,” said the blonde, sounding stoned, and the petite black girl in her arms kissed her on the neck.
“Oh,” said Flick, turning in consternation to Robin. “Shit. Sorry.”
“You’re all right,” said Robin, feigning bravery in the face of disappointment.
“Flick,” someone called from the hall, “it’s Jimmy downstairs.”
“Oh, fuck,” said Flick, flustered, but Robin saw the pleasure flare in her face. “Wait there,” she said to Robin, and left for the press of bodies in the hall.
“Bougie girl, grab her hand,” rapped Jay-Z from the other room.
Pretending to be interested in the conversation between the girls on the bed and Digby, Robin slid down the wall to sit on the laminate floor, sipping her lager while she covertly surveyed Flick’s bedroom. It had evidently been tidied for the party. There was no wardrobe, but a clothes rail holding coats and the occasional dress, while T-shirts and sweaters were halfheartedly folded in a dark corner. A small number of Beanie Babies sat on top of the chest of drawers, along with a clutter of makeup, while various placards stood jumbled in a corner. Jimmy and Barclay must surely have been thoroughly through this room. Robin wondered whether they had thought of searching behind all these flyers. Unfortunately, even if they hadn’t, she could hardly start unpinning them now.
“Look, this is basic stuff,” said Digby, addressing the girls on the bed. “You’ll agree that capitalism depends in part on the poorly paid labor of women, right? So feminism, if it’s to be effective, must also be Marxist, the one implies the other.”
“Patriarchy is about more than capitalism,” said Shanice.
Out of the corner of her eye, Robin saw Jimmy fighting his way through the narrow hall, his arm around Flick’s neck. The latter appeared happier than she had all evening.
“Women’s oppression is inextricably linked to their inability to enter the labor force,” announced Digby.
The drowsy-eyed Hayley disentangled herself from Shanice to extend her hand towards the black-clad teenagers in a silent request. Their joint passed over Robin’s head.
“Sorry ’bout the room,” Hayley said vaguely to Robin, after taking a long toke. “Bastard getting a place in London, innit?”
“Total bastard,” said Robin.
“—because you want to subsume feminism within the larger ideology of Marxism.”
“There’s no subsuming, the aims are identical!” said Digby, with an incredulous little laugh.
Hayley tried to give Shanice the joint, but the impassioned Shanice waved it away.
“Where are you Marxists when we’re challenging the ideal of the heteronormative family?” she demanded of Digby.
“Hear, hear,” said Hayley vaguely, snuggling closer to Shanice and shoving the teenagers’ joint at Robin, who passed it straight back to the boys. Interested though they had been in the lesbians, they promptly left the bedroom before anybody else could offer their meager supply of drugs around.