Reversed Forecast / Small Holdings

‘You must be Connor’s new friend.’

Sam didn’t much like this description of herself, but nodded again.

Sarah stared at her. Sam wore only a dressing-gown with nothing underneath. She tightened the belt self-consciously.

‘That picture,’ she said, confused and embarrassed, ‘in the living-room. It does look just like you.’

Sarah laughed at this. ‘Connor’s been telling you about my monumental ego.’

‘No. I didn’t mean that.’

‘The print is by Schiele. He’s very famous. He painted male nudes too.’

She opened her suitcase and peered at its jumbled contents.

‘How was Los Angeles?’

‘OK. I was working. Do you work?’

‘I’m a singer.’

‘Not with Connor’s group?’

‘No. I’m in a band with my mother.’

That’s a novelty.’

She started to unpack. ‘I’d rather strangle my mother than sing with her.’

Sam closed the book she was holding and put it down on the dressing-table.

‘You can borrow that if you like.’

‘Thanks.’ She picked it up again.

‘Angela Carter,’ Sarah said, frowning. ‘You like her?’

Sam nodded.

‘The way I see it,’ Sarah said, pulling out some clothes and shoving them into a wicker washing-basket at the foot of her bed, ‘there are two types of women. Those who think we’re the same as men, and those who think we’re different. Equal, obviously, but different.’

Sam was delighted. A proper conversation! Connor’s idea of animated chat was a discussion of the intricacies of Gram Parson’s fretwork.

‘Which type are you?’ she asked.

The first. But I don’t know about Angela Carter, and that makes me suspicious.’

‘I like her,’ Sam said, ‘I like that difference. Whatever it is.’

Sarah considered this for a moment and then said, ‘Maybe because you’re culturally different, you have a looser approach to questions of gender.’

‘Culture doesn’t come into it,’ Sam said, vaguely defensive. ‘I might be a different colour, but I still know that sex is more complicated than race.’

Sarah continued to unpack. She took some magazines from her case, some papers and a notepad.