The Girl With Pink Hair: Pt. 03

Squinting through the gloom to avoid the myriad hazards to the cyclist, she could feel the general tenor of those around her, a sort of resigned grey hum. Sometimes it took the Folk all their defences to stave off being crushed by the cumulative mundane emotional load.

Gritting her teeth, she aimed for the sanctity of the park. There were far fewer people and the psychic despondency diminished in intensity. The remaining hazard would be the occasional dog walker. On the plus side, dogs were often relentless happy whatever the weather.

Arriving in Somerset Street, she quickly locked the bike in the alley between the houses and fled for the front door, cursing as she forced her numb fingers into the pocket of her sodden jeans for her keys. Slipping into the loft, still dripping from the journey home, she stood for a moment to breathe in the rich aroma wafting from the kitchen.

Her girlfriend was standing by the hob, idly poking things in a saucepan. Garlic and onion and other doubtless tasty things. The loft was too big to be cosy but now Elena was here, there was a wonderful domesticity that made Jess feel as if she was wrapped in a big blanket. She pushed her jacket from her shoulders and skinned off her wet trousers. Elena gave her a look.

"Go away, you're all cold and clammy."

"What'cha got there, Deagol, my love?" Jess said, resting her head on Elena's shoulder.

"Tomato soup. You're dripping in it."

"Probably needs some fresh rainwater. That won't have come out of a tin, will it? Is nothing simple for you?"

Elena looked at her sideways. "There's nothing complicated about roasting tomatoes."

"I'm amazed that Sylvie and Shawna aren't beating the door down."

"They're out at some exhibition."

"Sooo ... it's just you and me alone in the house, liebchen." Jess murmured, trailing her hand across Elena's shoulders. "Ow!" she squawked as Elena rapped her on the back of the knuckles with the wooden spoon.

"Not when I'm cooking," Elena said severely.

"Cow!" Jess pouted.

"Go and shower and warm up. There's wine in the fridge. Pour me a glass when you get out, would you? Everything should be ready by then."

Jess did as she was told, stripping off her wet things and standing under the drencher, revelling in the flood of hot water, and hissing through her teeth from time to time as her chilled extremities stuttered back to life. Her big toes were the worst, pins and needles making her hop from one foot to the other.

Afterwards wrapped in a thick towelling dressing gown, she wrested the cork from the bottle and set out two glasses. They perched on the sofa in front of two bowls full of warming broth and some warm crusty bread. The glasses of white wine had frosted slightly and the whole ensemble looked like something out of a photo shoot for a food magazine. It was so perfect that Jess found herself tearing up.

"You alright?" Elena asked as Jess dabbed her eyes.

"You're so lovely, you know that?"

Elena hugged her and whispered in her ear, "It's the least I can do."

They ate in companionable silence, Jess savouring the soup. Elena was bringing light and colour into her life, and she was profoundly grateful.

***

After the food, they sat, Jess's feet in Elena's lap, the rain hammering white noise on the roof of the loft. The outside gloom faded to true dark, and Jess turned on some music and dimmed the lights. Elena loved the effect, little pools of illumination from lots of different sources but nothing direct, the music seemingly appearing from thin air.

She turned to look at Jess and waved her glass at her. "I've been wanting to ask you, why the waitressing? How's that fit with being a spy?"

Jess shrugged. "Well, first off, I must be able to blend in. That means drawing as little attention to myself as possible and being across as much as possible. You? You're virtually - pun intended - invisible. You don't even have a LinkedIn account. It was really hard to find out anything about you, except from your publications online. And sweet talking the receptionist at the library."

"You sweet-talked Janice!"

"I just dialled down her hostility. Hostility and friendliness are like a seesaw. Lighten the load on one end and things will naturally gravitate to the other."

"You are trying to put more physics into your similes. Don't think I haven't noticed!"

Jess widened her eyes and Elena threw a cushion at her.

"Anyway ... I'm a pretty lowly spy, so I get grunt work. Second, a train station is a terrific place to monitor large numbers of people coming into the city. And third, this is a place with international importance. Future leaders and captains of industry are trained here. A little nudge here and a little nudge there, and we're in the business of the building of empires.

Of course, we don't know who's been nudged or if it's a good nudge i.e. in line with our objectives, or a bad nudge. In fact, we don't know much for certain. It's like the worst game of Fumble you've ever played."

"Fumble?"

Jess looked at her, "Have you been living under a rock? Maybe you're a species of cave mould that just recently became intelligent."

She shrieked as Elena deposited her glass on the table and bore her down on the cushions. They struggled until Jess lay panting and submissive under her. She stared up, all big eyed.

Elena's eyes snapped shut. "No cheating! You put those orbs of death away!"

"Honestly, you mundanes are so dull!"

"I can still tickle you; you know!"

"I give in! What more can I say?"

"You can explain what Fumble is without any more sarcastic remarks about what a loner I am."

Jess sat up and laced her fingers behind Elena's neck. "Seeing as it's your mission to civilise me, I've decided it's my mission to drag you - discreetly of course, seeing as I'm a spy - kicking and screaming back into the bosom of humanity. Besides, it's payback for the food. And the foot rubs."

"Oh, so now we're humanity, are we?"

"Whether we could interbreed was one of the first things you asked me."

"Fumble?"

Jess's shoulders slumped. "No wonder you became a scientist, you never let anything go."

"Fumble!" Elena shrieked. "Or I kill you!"

Jess leaned in to kiss her. "You're so sweet. Fumble is a parlour game. Objects are placed under a blanket and the players have to work out what they are by feeling them."

"And that's so relevant."

Jess sighed melodramatically, "I try, and I try. Anyway, the waitressing gets results. I can usually spot others of my kind without them noticing me. It's a bit like passive radar. We often unconsciously reach out to see if there's anyone nearby that harbours ill will. It's how we think it first evolved, one more way of getting ahead in such a social species."

"I wondered about that," Elena murmured.

"But the waitressing is a pain in the arse. It works, so I'm stuck with it. I thought it was a stroke of genius to come up with the magical girl outfit. It meant I didn't have to keep up a glamour. But the customers! I didn't realise how brazen they could get. The women were worse than the men once they'd had a few. One of them was virtually fisting me!"

"Fisting?"

"Um, yeah. You know. Well, obviously not. But, think about the word, yeah?"

Elena's eyes became like saucers. "You couldn't!"

"Rule 34, love."

***

The following day was a day off for both and they took their time getting up, ambling down the mezzanine stairs in knickers and baggy tee shirts. Elena shooed her away when Jess came into the little kitchen.

"Oh, let me do something!" she complained.

Elena looked at her sideways from where she was frying some bacon and relented. "Okay, make the coffee. The kettle's on."

Jess winced slightly as she set the coffee grinder going. The noise filled the loft with its abrasive howl, but thankfully its duration was measured in seconds. As she filled the press with hot water, the grounds foamed, and she took care to settle the plunger into the jug lest hot liquid fountain everywhere.

As she set the press and the cups on the table, Elena materialised beside her with two plates on which sat large soft white baps with bacon and lettuce and tomato peeping from the middle.

They sat and Jess took a swig from her mug. The combination of a cup of fresh black coffee - which was apparently the only way to drink it - with the warm smoky bacon and cool lettuce and tomato was a near nirvana. She took a large bite and hoped the tomatoes wouldn't squirt over her clothes.

She pointed the half-eaten roll at Elena. "The other useful thing to learn is the X-Men."

"X-Men?"

Jess shook her head. "Your education has been sadly lacking. Marvel comics in which the leaders of a group of humans with mutant abilities are Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr or Magneto as he's more commonly known.

Originally Xavier and Magneto were brothers in arms, but they split over their attitude towards normal humans. Magneto saw the brutality of the death camps of the Nazis and decided that you needed controlling, if not for the safety of mutants, then for your own.

Xavier believed that peaceful co-operation was not only possible but necessary. Unfortunately, that didn't work out too well for him when it came to the military. And we're not nearly as strong as the X-Men, our powers are far weaker than that and much more limited. None of us is a Jean Grey."

"Jean Grey?"

"Phoenix. Go and watch the films, they're pretty awful but some of the themes are relevant. I should make you go and read the comic books ..." Jess faltered to a stop as she saw Elena's expression.

She put down her food and took Elena's hands, gazing earnestly into her eyes.

"I would never do anything like that, I couldn't do anything like that. I can't implant thoughts or beliefs; I can only tilt your feelings either towards or away from what you're already feeling. If I plonked raw desire in your head, it would feel fake, and you already know how that feels. However, if you already desire me," she caught Elena's eye, paused and blushed, "if you already desire me, then I can increase that desire; or cause it to lessen. Not that I ever would."

Jess looked so adorably vulnerable, that Elena drew her in. She rested her forehead against Jess's. "I think if you dialled it up, I'd never leave your side," she murmured. "Not that I want to, anyway."

Jess's eyes grew very bright. "I don't know which good fairy waved her wand over my life, but I'm very grateful." she sniffed, and Elena held her tight.

"You got mayonnaise on my clothes," Elena murmured and felt Jess laugh.

***

The Green

They walked hand in hand in the park in the sunshine. Jess was wearing the big sun hat and Elena looked up at it from time to time and smiled.

"Still my Floppy Hat Girl," she murmured.

Jess gave her hand a squeeze. "Always."

The bench by the river had become their special place. Seated with a white cloth between them and a picnic hamper on the ground, they watched the antics on the river.

Elena reached into the hamper and brought out cold meats and olives, followed by bread and a bottle of wine.

"You spoil me."

Elena looked sideways at her. "I want to spoil you."

Jess blushed prettily. "You're very soppy for a scientist."

"I'm not just a scientist."

"Yeah, you're a queen in the kitchen."

Even as the words came out of her mouth, Jess felt it was quite an odd thing to say. Elena tilted her head to one side and frowned slightly. Then she shrugged, her puzzlement fading, and the moment was past. However, Jess could feel analytical brain lurking underneath, gathering data.

***

Back at home, they made cups of tea and ambled about the loft doing minor domestic chores in companionable silence until Elena turned to Jess and asked, "So, who are the other side?"

"You think there's only one? The lesson here is Vietnam."

"Vietnam?" Elena replied, baffled, as she absently misted the orchids.

"The lesson the Americans learned in Vietnam is that it's hard to fight an enemy when you don't know who they are. That's doubly true for us seeing as we all look like mundanes. Oops, that's very naughty of me, mustn't refer to your lot as mundanes. Aiee!"

Jess shrieked as Elena chased her round the room with the water spray.

"I'll give you mundane, you pointy-eared deviant!"

***

August-September

Somerset Street

As the leaves on the trees started to turn from green to gold, Elena made herself at home in the large kitchen, cooking meals for the household two to three times a week. Things went so well that other urchins, such as Mike and Stacy from the co-op and the Unholy Trinity started to drop by, purely accidentally of course, and then suddenly they were having small low key parties.

One evening, as Merry and Alison were recounting one of their more salacious anecdotes to an amused trio of Shawna's friends, Sylvie left Shawna's side to come and envelop Elena in an enormous hug.

"Whoa! What's that for?" Elena said, laughing.

"For this," Sylvie whispered, opening her hand to encompass the room where, in the warm candlelight, their friends cradled glasses of wine and plates of food, as they joked and gossiped, the very essence of community.

Elena kissed her on the cheek. "My pleasure."

***

Shawna lost her suspicion of the clever blonde and took to looking over Elena's shoulder as she made the next delight to grace their palates.

"Where did you learn to cook like this?" Shawna asked, dipping a finger into a rosé paste. She liked hummus anyway but when it was warm and freshly made, it was something else. Elena would grill wholemeal pitta bread and tear it into pieces for dipping.

"Dad cooks at home and I hung around in the kitchen a lot. He started to give me jobs to do, and I learned like that." Elena said. She smiled at the memory as she tossed chunks of bread in oil, garlic, and red wine vinegar, before adding onion, tomatoes, and basil.

She gave Shawna a look. "Like you will if you keep haunting me."

Shawna considered the idea. 'Young, hip, Black girl makes wicked food. Hmm ...'

"What's this?"

"This is an Italian bread salad called panzanella. It's a great way to use up stale bread. Go on, use your fingers. You get to lick them afterwards." She looked sideways at Shawna. "Or you could get someone else to lick them."

Shawna had a big laugh, and it filled the house. "Oh man! Sylvie! Sylvie, come here! The cook just made a pass at me!"

Elena grinned at her.

***

Meets & Greets

Jess inspected Elena over the top of the letter she'd received in the morning's post.

"What?" said Elena.

Her normally verbally adroit girlfriend seemed to be choosing her words carefully. "My mother's invited me to tea."

"And?"

"Along with anyone else I might care to bring."

There was a pregnant pause. "Do you want me to come?"

"Of course! What was all that about 'never leaving my side'? Do you want to come?"

"Am I going to be a problem? For them?"

"A little," Jess admitted.

"Because I'm a girl or because I'm Sapiens?"

"Our kind don't have an issue with being gay. With our abilities you can't hide that from anyone and besides, males being thin on the ground, female partnerships are common."

"So ... does your mum have a wife?"

"No, I have a mum and a dad."

"That must be quite rare."

"It is. Mum had to agree to rent Dad out." Jess giggled at Elena's expression. "Well, how do you think we keep the species going?"

"I guess I hadn't really thought it through," Elena admitted. "So, the problem is me being a mundane?"

"I don't think it will be for Mum and Dad. But you, love, you'll be in a gathering where everyone else can tell how you're feeling, and you'll be blind."

***

October

The day dawned and Elena was feeling more nervous than if she was about to sit her viva. Dithering over her meagre wardrobe, she settled on a white linen blouse and pale fawn coloured jeans.

Jess nodded as she appraised the outfit. "Virginal, I like it!"

"Don't take the piss!" Elena snarled, "I'm wound tighter than a watch spring!"

Jess took her lover's arm and squeezed it gently. "Fret not, love, they'll adore you." She smiled and involuntarily reached out to dial down Elena's nervousness.

Elena frowned. "Thanks but it's not necessary. I'm a big girl now."

"Would you like me to dial it up again?"

"Um ... no."

***

Jess had rented a two seater sports for the drive down and Elena gawked at it. "I didn't know you could drive!"

Jess had practiced Elena's severe expression. "I have a very special set of skills," and Elena laughed out loud. "You'll have to work on the accent!"

The drive down was near perfect: the weather dry and bright, the sun coming and going behind slow moving clouds as they headed south. Jess had insisted on having the top down and wore a pair of aviators while Elena secured her hair with a scarf.

A minibus of football supporters heading to a match honked appreciatively and the girls waved back. Elena chuckled and picked up Jess' hand to ostentatiously kiss her wrist. Jess smirked at the minibus, generating a burst of wolf whistles and blown kisses as she gave the car its head.

***

Everley House

Jess's parents lived in an impressive, detached manor house in the Home Counties south of London. Elena thought it said 'money' in an understated RP accent. How did Jess justify her lifestyle to her parents? They surely didn't know about her clandestine activities.

The car came to a stop on the gravel in front of the smooth cream stone façade. The green front door opened to reveal a tall slim woman and a shorter, wider man, both in well preserved middle age. Mrs Calamar was wearing a floaty Laura Ashley print dress and her husband sported a showy dark green silk waistcoat over his flannel shirt and brown corduroy trousers. Outfits to match the house, Elena thought.

"You must be Doctor Kowalski," exclaimed Jess's mother.

"Please, call me Elena, and I'm not a doctor yet," she begged.

"Well then, I'm Joan and this is my husband, George."

Jess's father stepped forward and offered his hand. "Delighted to meet you. Are you a medical doctor?"

"No, my PhD is in astrophysics."

He looked chidingly at Jess. "See? This is what you can do when you apply yourself."

"Waitressing is just a stopgap, Dad."

So Jess obviously hadn't told them what she really did. As George's eyes flicked to her, she cursed herself for being anything other than bland. Of course Jess's dad didn't know what had made her curious, just that she had been. Then he said slyly, "Didn't Jessica tell you about her achievements?"

"No, she didn't!" And what the hell did that mean?

"Dad! This isn't a Q&A!" Jess took Elena's hand and kissed the knuckles.

Elena realised with a slight sinking feeling that maintaining a coherent account was going to be ten times more difficult than conventional fibbing.

***

After the initial slightly rocky introductions, George and Joan were very welcoming and seemingly delighted in their daughter's choice of partner, the Folk having a much firmer idea of the nature of interpersonal relationships. The next awkward moment came during the evening when a selection of relatives came by to inspect the new arrival.

Up to then it had been like any regular meet and greet with the potential in-laws, but the sex ratio of the Folk was heavily skewed towards women, so she was suddenly swarmed with Jessica's fearsome range of aunts and an array of mostly female cousins, a lot of whom had been sired by George Calamar ("excellent genes" confided Joan, proudly) making them Jess' half brothers and sisters. Elena blinked at this piece of information, realising that the Folk had some very different customs from Sapiens. None of them had Jess' hair though so Elena wondered if Jess was special in other ways too.