Ten Storey Love Song (12 page)

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…’ Ellen opens her flaps so Johnnie can see her inserting a couple slender fingers, but Johnnie’s sure his mind’s all twisted and he’s hearing things, and he just lies back on the bed with a growl. He wants to kill himself. What follows is the sad procedure of Johnnie and Ellen ashamedly putting back on clothes, all furtive and awkward like children in a swimming-pool changing room. They can hardly look at each other, and Johnnie hates how such a promising night can suddenly turn sour, like a delicate vase of flowers falling off a mantelpiece. Falling off a mantelpiece, smashing into a million pieces, and inside that vase there’s not only flowers but a Polaroid of Johnnie’s small floppy penis, and all his friends and family are there to see it and laugh. Gritting his teeth, Johnnie tries to console himself and convince himself the floppy-on was due to the pills or the police mishap earlier on, but anyhow he still feels like a cock. All aggravated, he sits on the edge of the bed with his head in the palms of his hands. He wonders if all that pain and hard work keeping Ellen was just a waste, and he’s absolutely certain in his head they’ll never have sex again. He rolls into the foetal position like a snail going to sleep, his mind completely ravaged, and Ellen pauses there looking at him, not sure whether to hug him or go away. She’s slightly tempted to nip downstairs and see what the party’s like; after all, it’s not the first time Johnnie’s fucked up in bed and there’s no point hanging round with him if he’s going to be in a bad mood. The only confusing thing for her is Johnnie didn’t seem receptive to all her best moves (the wanking worked wonders for Angelo the other week, but let’s not mention that), and Ellen feels a bit deflated and unattractive. Johnnie sinks slowly slowly into the bed-covers. After a large amount of silence, Ellen decides to forget the party and crawls under the duvet with him, next to the ton-weight clamping down one half. She says ‘good night’ and that depresses Johnnie even more – they’ve only been going out about half a year, and they’re lucky if they have sex once a month. Johnnie worries they’ll turn into one of those couples that never have sex; instead they’ll go for nice walks and do the garden instead of each other, and it’ll be all Johnnie’s fault. For another half-hour he stares blankly at the red and white wallpaper, too wired and anxious to sleep, and he wonders what it is that makes him so pathetic in bed. Is his technique really that much shitter than all the other boys Ellen’s nailed? He loves her so much and he really wants to please her, but what can he do? He considers putting on
Slutty Cheerleaders
From Hell Vol. IV
, to double-check how to have sex, but the idea of it makes his tummy gurgle. He rolls over on the bed, but seeing Ellen’s back turned towards him makes him feel even worse. He wonders whether it’s better to be happy and lonely, or sad and married? His brain’s like a melon getting scooped out. It keeps him awake the rest of the night, especially with that song ‘Ganges’ rumbling like a forest fire under the floorboards at a million decibels, and Johnnie prays up to the sky that him and Ellen will have sex again, and that they’ll get to sleep too. Even Alan Blunt the Cunt can hear the dreaded music, one storey higher, and he paces round and round his apartment, making a sort of rain-cloud sound on Johnnie and Ellen’s ceiling. Alan’s been drinking, and even though it’s a relaxant he too can’t sleep what with all that fucking racket. What he hates most about teenagers is their ability to listen to blitzkriegy-loud music without their ears bursting off the sides of their heads. Whenever he puts on Sinatra it has to be at a pleasant volume, otherwise you lose all the subtlety of the strings, the swooping arrangements, and Frank’s voice farts at you instead of showering you with perfume. Alan Blunt the Cunt spent the evening at the Brambles Farm Hotel, opposite Peach House on the whoosh-whoosh nee-naw crossroad, where they happened to have a bit of karaoke on. Alan only intended to go for one glass of McEwan’s 80 – since he feels awkward and depressed drinking there on his own – but he happened upon a fellow ex-copper and sat there sharing stories and dropping more and more pints into his belly, and after a bit he blocked out the embarrassedness with a feeling of being completely smashed. When his partner in crime eventually headed home to his wife and four delinquent children, Alan was seeing stars and he even had the courage to warble ‘Under My Skin’ on the karaoke. Despite lots of slurring, it was a fine performance. When they were younger, Alan and his brother Ronny used to duet on all sorts of Sinatra or Dean Martin standards, getting up at family barbecues or wedding receptions or funerals to croon ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’ or ‘Mambo Italiano’ to wet-eyed nannas and granddads. Thirty years and three hundred thousand Regals later, Alan’s voice has become nothing short of heavenly, and he felt like Frank himself this evening in the Brambles. Pissed as a fanny, he thought he was serenading a caberet concert hall, and all the workmen were cool cats in zoot suits and all the wrinkly wives were Ingrid Bergmans or Kim Novaks. After the karaoke, Alan Blunt scoffed a burger from the shop and waltzed back to the flat in high spirits. It’s only now, coma setting in and his brain rotting like an amp speaker leaking battery fluid, Alan feels sad again and he wishes himself dead. Funny how booze squirts you full of confidence, diluting all your worries and troubles, only to be pissed out of you again, revealing your nightmares like a murky tide going out. It’s called a hangover. Trembling, Alan Blunt wonders what it’d be like to hang over the edge of a ten-storey tower block. He wonders if he can fit through the slightly open window. Shaking his head, he’s not sure why he feels so shitty all of a sudden. He got scolded this morning for turning up to work late, he owes a bottomless amount of money to the Loan Company, he’s forty years old and it’s doubtful he’ll kiss any women again, and he feels all embarrassed now for singing in the local. Fucking hell, why did he have to jump up on that tabletop?? Sniffing, Alan staggers into the rumbling kitchen – the noise is just as loud there too – and he bonks his head off the double-glazing a few times. He’s losing it. Sub-woofers are the worst – you can try drowning out the sound with ‘My Way’ on full-blast but it’s like bouncing two bassy footballs round your flat, the two tempos colliding and making your inner ear all seasick. Sometimes Alan gets so radgy he’ll storm downstairs with a baseball bat or candlestick holder, but then again he hates to get on bad terms with his neighbours, and it’s so much easier (and disappointing) to just hide your head under a pillow until the onslaught stops. At least Bobby the Artist listens to music with real-life vocals and instruments – that boy Johnnie from downstairs puts his robot music on so loud you can only imagine him dancing round his flat with ears bleeding, and when Angelo lived next-door the most awful booom-booom-booom ragga music came on at six like clockwork, heralding his return from working at the tyre factory. God, and those lyrics! Anyone would think black people hated everyone, always referring to ladies as bitches and prozzies (despite wanting to shag them all) and swinging guns around and things. Alan puts on the kettle and scratches his knob. It’s been years since he last had sex, and it was a nauseating affair with a fat bird he used to talk to in the Cargo Fleet Club. She was there tonight at the Brambles, but he didn’t look over and in his heart he’s glad she didn’t come over to talk to him. Sex, to Alan, is a dirty old raindrop now evaporated into the gloomy grey sky. There’s not too much in his life now that makes him happy, except perhaps visiting Tiny Tina at Corpus Christi. Last week a lady came to school to make kites with the kids, and Tiny Tina was a picture of perfection in her little gingham dress, sprinting down the length of the field clutching the lovely smiley-face kite she’d made. Alan thinks he could make her smile. Face pressed between the rungs of the anti-paedophile fence, he gazed at her longingly, wishing he could take her home. Oh, the things he could do with her! Misting over, Alan Blunt the Cunt imagines Tina sat on his lap giving him a big squeeze. On kite day he saw her trip over and graze her knee, and Alan wanted to jump the fence and put a plaster on or kiss her leg better, but he didn’t have the guts. Or the plaster. Pouring a cup of coffee (he thinks it’ll sober him up), Alan plots Tina’s Big Kidnap. He’s so desperate for company, he’d gladly go to jail for twenty-five years just to spend twenty-four glorious hours with the girl. Scratching under his teary glasses, Alan wonders when his life went so tits up. He pounds his feet into the living room in slippers, then sits down to the sound of ‘Despite the Roar’ kicking in with all them distorted guitars. Bloody rock music; it’s a wonder Bobby the Artist doesn’t get a fucking rock in his face sometimes. Alan has a big dramatic groan to himself. He’s still drunk, and with every blink the room shifts leftwards in a sickly, uncontrollable manner. Left. Left. Left. Left. Alan Blunt rarely vomits, but his stomach’s full of lashing waves and rotting old sailboats. He mumbles a swearword, clutching his gut, trying his best to sink into a coma on the sofa. He spills coffee on his trousers. Then one minute later he’s off to sleep, just him and his belly ache and a thousand bad dreams, then in the morning he feels alright again. He gets up and finishes off the cold coffee, totally oblivious to all his evil thoughts the night before. The flat’s silent again (silence is the subtle sound of feet and doors and birds), and he opens the curtains to a bright summery eleven and a half o’clock. Sitting back on the musty couch, Alan vaguely remembers Bobby’s awful cannonball music, and he vaguely remembers being upset about something. Never mind. Hangovers bring a certain cloudy depression, but nothing compared to your lowest shitty pissed maudlin moment. He feels like a dried-up old plant that needs watering, and he runs the cold tap into his mouth for two minutes. Alan hopes to God he didn’t offend anyone last night, or show himself up too much. Although he hates excessive noise and obnoxious bastards, he can’t imagine ever living anywhere else. He loves knowing everyone’s secret business, and he loves sharing his worldly wit and wisdom with everybody. For example, he once had a lovely, heated discussion with Mrs Fletcher in the foyer about government immigration legislation, and just before Bobby the Artist sets sail to London he gives him the advice to ‘steer clear of Brixton – it’s full of blacks and drug dealers’. Racist Cunt Alan feels he’s a sort of father figure to the residents of Peach House (although he’s by no means the oldest), and he’s always there to celebrate people’s birthdays or greet new tenants, whether invited or not. For instance, when Bobby the Artist steps onto the 65A on the first leg of his journey to the capital, Alan’s face is there amongst all the young ones waving him off. Georgie feels uncontrollably upset, getting hugged by Ellen and Pamela, standing there on the gritty pavement as the bus wobbles off down Cargo Fleet. Bobby the Artist waves and waves and waves until Georgie, his friends, and then the tower block itself disintegrate into dots on the blobby horizon. He feels weird and nervous, all his travel and hotel and itinerary prearranged by Bent Lewis, getting pushed into a strange southern city without any brakes or stabilisers on. He stares as the town where he grew up dribbles away, all the beautiful grey maisons and green muddy playing fields and famous bridges and pepperpot cooling towers and the underpass where he first fell off his bike disappearing slowly into specks as well. Goodbye lovely factory town. On the back of his crumpled itinerary (labelled MONDAY to FRIDAY), Bobby scribbles three quick pencil drawings of the town and its funny frowny residents – one last memory of the place to keep in his pocket once he gets munched up by the scary monster called London. He doesn’t want to leave but he does want to be a famous artist, and his stomach puts itself in a knot and then a double-knot as he turns the itinerary over again and re-reads the list. MONDAY: Bobby the Artist loads the six canvases into the boot of the National Express, each one of them carefully bubble-wrapped and tagged by him and Georgie the night before. They got all gluey and stuck to each other, and they couldn’t help popping loads of the bubbles for fun. On the coach, Bobby sits near the back surrounded by Geordies and children scoffing sweets, and he wishes he had some headphones and Merzbow to drown out those silly fuckers. He’s in a bad mood because he doesn’t want to leave home. And he feels like he’s on a fucking school trip, the driver stressing that no food or drink and especially no drugs are allowed on the bus. Well the chance would be a fine thing. At services somewhere just west of Shitsville, Bobby feels like a right nerd tramping into Burger King with the rest of the National Express goons, and he orders a bacon-double-cheeseburger and munches it all self-consciously on his own on a red squashy seat. He’s on expenses (which means Bent Lewis pays for everything Bobby buys on his arty excursion), and it’s strange getting into the routine of putting receipts in your pocket instead of screwing them up and booting them far as you can down the street. In a way he’s very tempted to exploit getting everything paid for, and he considers getting another burger and chips and Coke and maybe even an ice cream, but he doesn’t want to spew up, does he. Back on the bus, Bobby the Artist tries to sleep for the remaining three hours, but the Geordies are too loud and annoying. He looks out the window, but after a while you get bored of the same old patchwork fields and the odd white pillows floating about in the sky. The view finally starts getting exciting when the coach sneaks through the outskirts of London, Bobby the Artist observing the boulevards of Barnet, then the posh pillared mansions of St John’s Wood, then Victoria Station where the buses go to sleep. Bobby gets off and, although the itinerary says ‘get a cab immediately to the +! Gallery’, he’s far too parched and sits in the Shakespeare instead with all his paintings, and he buys each of them a pint. It’s not a myth – drinks in London are extremely expensive, so thank God he’s on expenses. Bobby the Artist perches at a table in the corner, gurgling lager, staring in awe at all the people running around outside in such a rush! It’s like everyone turned up for the London marathon in suits and casual clothes, and decided to run wherever they wanted, like a caucus-race. Madness. Bobby’s also shocked how many different sorts of people there are – people with faces all the colours of the rainbow, all shapes and sizes, all sorts of straights and gays and inbetweenies. After just one sip of Kronenbourg, he spots a man with a Mohican sporting leopard hotpants and a pink furry coat, strolling the highway. Bobby laughs into his glass. He feels sort of underdressed, but also safe and happy to be just a face in the crowd for once – back home you can get beaten up just for having slightly colourful shoes. After swallowing the rest of the pints, Bobby the Artist bundles the canvases together again and struggles with them out onto the whizzing street. Accidentally he annoys everyone, causing an obstruction on their precious little pavement. Frowning, Bobby hails a taxi then whooshes to the gallery on Clerkenwell Road, under a tepee of bubble-wrap and slight drunkenness. Bent Lewis is stood there waiting, and he welcomes Bobby with a great big cheery hug and then a more civilised shake of the hand. ‘Welcome to London,’ Lewis sings, the sun smashing into his fluorescent teeth. Bent Lewis leads Bobby the Artist into the gallery, which is a huge white box with the aroma of cement and oil paint stuck to the air. Lewis shows him the other works featured in the upcoming exhibition, but Bobby’s not all that interested. There’s a few monochrome prints of flower petals and sex organs (quite commercial, but nice if you like things that are black and white), abstract paintings with 300-word explanations next to them, and a set of lively photographs taken in some crap nightclub or other. Bobby’s not totally impressed, but it warms his heart when Bent Lewis leads him into the vast empty Gallery 2 and says, ‘We reserved the largest space for you.’ Bobby the Artist has a little spin in the big white sugarcube, the yellow argyle sticking to his chest because it’s been sweaty dragging all those paintings across town. Him and Bent Lewis pull the canvases into the chilly space and unwrap them, Lewis yelping at the sight of each one as they get unveiled. ‘Wonderful stuff,’ he says. ‘Gosh, I’d forgotten that one!’ Bent Lewis explains next that time is of the essence since the gallery opens on Thursday, and he wants Bobby to come in early each morning to sort the hanging. Bobby was actually hoping to enjoy a few casual days in London exploring the Big Bens and the drinking dens, but it’s exciting too imagining the