Ten Storey Love Song (23 page)

Marquee Moon
for her and the boy to enjoy. Perhaps it’ll be something to have a conversation about – they haven’t spoken in a long long time. Clutching the yellow/ red bag in her mitts as she sits on the 65 back to Peach House, she tries to replay memories of when the two of them were happy together, but it’s a bit like staring up at stars on a dark night when you’re drowning in a pond. So distant. She remembers her and Bobby taking their bikes up the Eston Hills and watching the chemically sunset when there was supposed to be a meteor shower, but there was too much brown fog to see any shooting stars. She remembers dancing with Bobby to Bardo Pond the night she wore the sailor gear, spinning each other like ships’ compasses. She hopes to God
Marquee Moon
has some songs to boogie to. Georgie feels a new sense of optimism as she charges up the tower block to her boyfriend, but when she gets in the door she realises with a bit of dismay and fear he’s not there. Where is he? Naturally, Bobby’s gone a bit mad after Johnnie left him on that horrible bed of nails. Although the very visual aspect of the trip died down after a short while (the needles turned back into pink thread), Bobby was left with a horrible sense his brain’s been bent and stretched beyond repair. He couldn’t stop thinking about Syd Barrett and Bri Wilson and everyone else who ever lost the plot on acid, and it feels like he’s falling down the same stairs as them. At one point he picked up a bit of fluff from the carpet, examining it between his forefinger and thumb, and he burst out laughing for quarter of an hour, unable to work out what it was or where it had come from. ‘What are you?!’ he yelled at the bit of fluff. Later, Bobby the Artist started sorting frantically through the pile of post mounting on the side, finding on top a letter from Francis Fuller, that poncey art dealer he met all those moons ago in Londres. Frothing at the mouth, Bobby tore open the envelope and out fluttered a fancy perfumed note expressing Francis’s gratitude for having ‘The Angels’ (244x233cm) to hang in his downstairs loo or somewhere like that. Tears in his eyes, Bobby slumped crash bang wallop onto the tough carpet, wishing all his favourite paintings weren’t now in the claws of horrible money-gurgling entrepreneurs. That one, ‘The Angels’ (244x233cm), symbolised all Bobby’s love for the girls in the block – and for people in general – but now they’re all devils. He used to be able to talk to people, without having to give them lots of money to be his friend. In a fit of rage, he grabbed Fuller’s
£
3,600 cheque (still sitting there grinning at him next to the doormat) and stormed into the kitchen and set one of the knobs on full power and burned the cheque to death. The paper went all curly then frazzled into dust on the greasy cooker. Remembering to switch off the hob (after all, he’s not
that
mad!), Bobby the Artist blew the dust into black snowflakes then returned to the lounge. Feeling itchy and claustrophobic in the tiny flat, Bobby wondered if he’d ever face the great outdoors again. All the staying inside has started giving him a yellow face and hands. Sniffing, Bobby glanced out the window, trying to figure out how sinister the town looked at that particular moment. He rated it about 6/10. Gathering up his medication (speedy coke from the Fourth Drawer Down, acid from the freezer), a clove of garlic, and a stake carved from one of his paintbrushes, Bobby decided to go out and face his fears. After all, he needed the fucking fresh air and all. Wrapped in three argyle sweaters (red then yellow then blue), Bobby went scuttling out of the haunted house. Now, unsure where he’s heading, Bobby walks in circles round the estate in some sort of trippy malady. As he passes passers-by along lengthy Marshall Avenue, Bobby can’t even look them in the face for fear they might turn into gargoyles or demons. His uncle’s Transit van bleeps past with a piranha-toothed goblin in the front, and Bobby doesn’t have a clue how to react. He takes a sharpish left down Ferndale Avenue, eyes fixed on the pavement. Safe things to look at are: pavements, houses, skies without clouds, beautiful girls. Dangerous things to look at are: all other people, spindly trees, clouds, shadows, animals, dark corners/blind corners. Bobby walks on, scared of everything. ‘Oh-oh, I hope that witch’s eyes don’t fall out,’ he thinks. ‘Oh God, I hope there’s not a medieval-style lynching round this corner,’ he thinks. As he gets to Corpus Christi, with the sporadic traffic speeding past this way and that, Bobby feels a strange compulsion to throw himself in the middle of the road, just to see what it feels like. Ooh, searing metal slicing flesh! Spluttering, Bobby wishes he wasn’t becoming such a morbid cunt. Head to the ground, he continues strolling the spooky highways and byways, and before long he finds himself lost in a vast maze of boring identical semi-detached housing – it’s called suburbia. Trying to retrace his footsteps to Peach House, all the streets just look the same, and he starts walking round and round in circles getting panicky. Curse those fucking soulless seventies prefabs! Clutching the garlic and stake, Bobby finds himself inadvertently walking out of town, following the road-signs in all the wrong directions. Soon the landscape starts changing from beige cubes and driveways to green carpets and zoomy A-roads, and Bobby’s not sure if it’s all just an elaborate hallucination. He half wishes he was back indoors with the kettle on and Georgie round his neck, but the idea of getting lost for one evening appeals to him too. That fucking tower block’s been making him very reclusive. Thinking back to books he gobbled up in art college like
The Dharma
Bums
or
Siddhartha
(where the protagonists go off to live in isolation and end up all transcendent and purified), Bobby wonders if the countryside might have a similar healing effect on him. Feeling a bit
Withnail&I
ish, clomping through heavy grass in his Adidas trainers, Bobby the Artist veers off the A-road, setting his sights on the big black hill in the distance. He figures the only way he’ll be able to get over his torture is by going to the scariest place in the area (that woodland over there looks pretty sinister …) and swallowing the rest of his drugs in one last fight for his marbles back. He successfully overcame the IKEA torture chamber six hours ago, and he likes the idea of his Ego, Id and Superego going twelve rounds with each other in a spooky venue. He hopes Dracula comes back – he can’t wait to give that daft cunt what-for! He feels ready. Touching the bag of narcotics tucked in his Magic Pocket, Bobby the Artist makes a beeline for the Big Hill, lunging ketamine-legged over tall bushes and down sickly swamps. The weather’s reasonable but it’s damp underfoot, and Bobby feels his feet turn to sticky toffee puddings as he manoeuvres over the whistling farmland. The fields are sleepy patchwork quilts, stitched together with annoying great fences and hedgerows Bobby has to clamber over. He wonders if he’s feeling a bit transcendental already, but no, that’s just the frostbite. Panting, Bobby the Artist holds the stake and garlic aloft whenever a fierce dog barks or a crow caws or a cow says moo. He’s shivering. Plodding onwards, Bobby wishes he’d brought along some booze to warm his cockles, but then again he thinks a sober head might be the order of the day, to ensure a crystal-clear trip. There’s a slight anxiety that his plan might go to pot and he’ll wake up tomorrow in Acid Casualty at James Cook Hospital and he’ll never be the same again, but he’s only going to be battling his own imagination – how hard can that be? Bobby the Artist has always considered himself to be more of a lover than a fighter, but if any hook-noses or piranha-tooths come his way tonight there’s going to be trouble! Psyching himself up, Bobby the Artist clenches his fists together, stamping his feet closer closer to the foot of the hill. He begins to throw ecstasy pills down his throat, in a valiant attempt to stay warm and happy. It’s tricky having to dry-swallow them, Bobby conjuring mouthful after mouthful of gloopy spittle like a knackered old washing machine. Instantly, the placebo effect of whacking a few pills down the chute gives Bobby a spurt of energy over the last of the rickety fences. Breathing heavily, he feels sort of satisfied and stands hands-on-hips for a minute with the Big Hill leaning over him. The sky’s cold and full of stars, like God made up a huge negative dot-to-dot puzzle but forgot to put the numbers on. Bobby scrapes a bit of mud from his trainers onto a spooky-looking bush, but he’s not scared. He’s not scared. He’s just a bit chilly, that’s all. Tucking his hands into his sleeves, Bobby sneezes then begins the ascent up the hill. The Big Hill looks a little like the Matterhorn from this angle, the cap all jagged after the mines in its belly collapsed a hundred years ago. Clouds slink around the peak like slimy puddles. Crackling a few twigs, Bobby the Artist tries to judge a safe route into the pitch black pine forest but it’s far too blinding. He ends up tripping over filthy treestumps, losing his feet in bottomless bogs and crashing headfirst into branches. The owls and bats laugh at him. Sighing, Bobby the Artist wonders if he should’ve turned back ages ago. His trainer falls asleep in another puddle. Bogies waterfall out of his red clown nose. A big gust of icy air shoots up his jumpers. Bobby the Artist growls, panting, working his way up a tricky steep bit. He falls on his backside. If an artist falls in a forest and no one is around to hear, does he make a sound? ‘Fucking
hell
!!’ Bobby screams. Sniffing, he gets up and grabs the nearest conifer, shoes full of pine needles. For fifty yards it’s easier scrabbling along the ground like a mop-haired Dulux dog, Bobby submitting himself to the soggy earth; a caveman in golfwear. Isn’t it bracing!? In actual fact it’s fucking frustrating, and Bobby’s relieved to finally reach a levelled-out bit, and he flops down on a treetrunk with a gasp. Wet bummed, the Artist wipes his schnozzle and figures this is as good a place as any to take silly amounts of drugs and face his fears/death/runny nose. Birds flutter away, leaving him to it. A mole diverts his tunnel. Wood mice scamper off, giving Bobby a bit of privacy. And now, let the festivities begin! Slightly cagey and blue-fingered, Bobby removes his pouch of medicines from his trouser pocket, then divides up the Looney Tunes acid and starts poking it bit by bit down his neck. He gobbles up five more ecstasy tablets, hoping the MDMA will combat any untoward negative thinking. Lastly, he hoovers a huge wedge of speedy cokemix up his left nostril, sniffing the spicy white shite off a groove in his wrist. Then he twiddles his thumbs for a bit, waiting for something to happen. He’s almost tempted to go all tribal, for example ripping all his clothes off and leaping round a campfire, but to be honest he’s quite settled as he is on this treetrunk. He’s got no idea what time it is except sometime round nighttime, and he wonders if Georgie’s noticed he’s gone. He hopes she’s missing him, but he hopes she doesn’t phone the police and send a search party into the woods – he’d fucking shit himself if loads of rozzers turned up with spotlights while he’s tripping his bonce off. The clearing seems pretty secluded though – all he has for company is a bunch of dying Christmas trees and an internal monologue. Shuffling on the crispy trunk, Bobby the Artist gets himself comfortable for an evening in hell. He wonders what ghoulies are going to visit him tonight – strange to think they’re all in his head already, but until recently they’d never really been acquainted with each other. He wonders if every human has these same horrible demons lurking about in the caverns of their brains, or if it’s just those with insecurities or shyness or depression or anxiety. After all, as the saying goes, you’re only ever using ten per cent of your noggin at any one time – perhaps the other ninety per cent is like a dingy waiting room full of monsters and horrid sea creatures and zombies. Or perhaps it’s just useless squidgy pink blubber. Stupid old brain! Sighing, Bobby knocks his knees together, awaiting delirium. At one point a dog wails from the east of the forest, and Bobby thinks the spooky hallucinations are beginning, but don’t worry it’s actually just a dog wailing from the east of the forest. Anticipation! Having a little shiver, Bobby expects the frostiness to play a major part in tonight’s trip – he imagines the trees all dropping fat icicles through his skull, or him becoming encased in ice David Blaine-style and dying. But, to be fair, it’s actually a little warmer in the clearing, and rubbing your hands and legs together works quite well in generating heat. He wishes he had the tools to build a proper campfire, but a couple of hours down the line he’ll probably be in a totally different mindset, and probably end up setting fire to himself or the animals of Farthing Wood. Best just to stick where he is, he concedes. Squirming his arms right into the torso of his jumpers, sleeves flopping dead by his sides, Bobby watches his steamy breath closely for ghosts or skeletons. He wonders what came first: the horror film or the bad trip? Where do these horrible images come from? Any minute now, he expects the whole woodland to turn into some sort of gruesome garden – crawling with lice and dead bodies and owls pecking his eyes out with rusty beaks – but, more than an hour after dropping the acid/E/speed concoction, the forest seems quite the same. Confused, Bobby strains his eyes, then shovels the rest of the drugs into his mouth. Feeling slightly suicidal, Bobby chucks eighteen more Mitsis and eight more blotters down his helter-skelter food pipe. He wants some action! After all, he hasn’t come to the forest to sit on a freezing treetrunk all night. He wants to chase poltergeists, whip lanky Frankensteins red raw, and re-murder the living dead. He wants the demons to fear
him
this time! But, two hours and much thumb-twiddling later, the sun’s beginning to come up and still no sign of any monsters. It’s a miracle! It only took a few tabs to send him potty during The Scary Incident with the Acid, so why then have fifteen of the blighters not touched him in the slightest? He hasn’t had a single gurn all night. Scratching his chin, Bobby shifts his weight on the trunk, all the trees becoming gold and tangerine as the sun yawns and wakes up. It’s going to be a beautiful day. Bobby the Artist has a bit of a stretch himself, feeling quite knackered now and confused. There’s a vague disappointment at having such an abnormally high tolerance for drugs all of a sudden, but ultimately happiness for not having another Cosmic Trip from Hell. He takes three attempts at chucking the empty drug wrappers up the nearest conifer, then has one last look round the clearing for demonic strangers and wanders off. He drops the smelly garlic and stake down a rabbit-hole. The descent from the Big Hill is a lot easier, Bobby gathering speed as he makes ski-trails in the pine needles. He kicks cones out of his path. Rubbing his eyes, Bobby the Artist traces a safe route back to the A-road from such a high vantage point, avoiding muddy fallow fields and hazardous spiky hedgerows. A farmer’s out on his tractor in one of the green fields, chasing sheep, and Bobby gives him a big cheesy ‘Hello’ as he clambers over the last fence and onto the hard shoulder. The farmer ignores him though. There’s not many cars zooming around at this time in the morning, and Bobby collapses on the skinny lay-by all pooped. He considers for a second hitchhiking back to Peach House, but he’s got two pound fifty in his pocket and before long the 65A Arriva comes jetting past. Bobby gives a thumbs-up to the driver, handing over the money, then he sits at the back casually brushing leaves and dirt off his golf outfit. The driver glances occasionally at Bobby as he pulls back onto the dual carriageway, wondering if he’s homeless. The driver’s got saggy eyelids, squinting at the road, trundling at a snail’s pace towards the roundabout on this bitterest of glittery mornings. He’s pretty shattered himself. He and his wife were up till two last night after a few drinkies down the Golden Lion in Loftus, and he’s dreading facing the schoolkids in a couple of hours. Little shits. Although he was a fairly lippy youngster himself, back in the seventies you at least used to respect your elders, and the police, and the bus driver. Huffing out air, the driver glances again at Bobby the Artist dozing in his mirror. You don’t half get some scruffy characters on the bus, he thinks to himself. He glares at Bobby’s mud-crusted argyle sweater. It seems like such an undignified job sometimes, driving the bus, dealing with gobby youths and smack addicts not paying their fares, doils fighting at the back, tracksuits swerving in front of you on their bikes. He sighs. He wonders what Bobby’s story is. It looks like he’s been sleeping in a ditch, dirty bugger. Sliding gracefully down Ormesby Bank, the driver stares blue-eyed at the fuzzy panoramic view of the town stretching its arms out for a big hug. He wishes he was a skydiving instructor. There’d be none of this unglamorous chauffeuring old ladies and scabby adolescents; just vast blue sky and a parachute and some counting. He scratches his eyeballs. In his mirror, Bobby the Artist slowly starts turning green, crushed in a heap on the left-hand seat. Unwittingly he drops off to sleep halfway down Cargo Fleet, unaware of the bus steaming past Peach Plum and Pear Houses. Further into town, the driver picks up a few more passengers: mostly young professionals starting work at 8am and the lovely Mrs Turner from North Ormesby who always says good morning and coughs like a metronome on the lonesome seat near the front. Gaining speed, the bus kerplunks heavily round Borough Road, all the windows and handrails and seat-fittings buzzing like rattlesnakes. Once in sight of the bus station, the driver has a nervous shiver, knowing the return journey entails picking up lots of grumpy lads and feisty young lasses in school uniforms. He grudgingly twizzles the fluorescent destination to read mirror-image LOFTUS, pulling into the parking bay. He whooshes open the front door, letting out Mrs Turner and the professional zombies. Yawning into his hand, the driver’s just about to press the doors shut when suddenly he realises somebody’s missing. Bobby’s completely disappeared from his rear-view mirror. He leans his head out of the glass cabin, hoping the little shit hasn’t been sick or OD’d or fallen into a coma. Such lowlifes! Such an annoyance! Perhaps Monsieur Driver just got out the wrong side of bed this morning, but he scowls and grumbles as he trudges down the aisle to sort out the golfer. ‘Hang on hang on hang on,’ he shouts at the rowdy kids waiting to get on, with candy fags and Astrobangers hanging out their mouths. Reaching the end of the bus, the driver plonks himself down on the back seat to find Bobby the Artist laid in a ball on the furry, grubby floor. He must’ve dropped off. ‘Wakey wakey!’ he yells, turning his nose up at the Artist’s brown soggy trousers. Has the bastard shit himself? All Vaseline-eyed, Bobby returns from Dreamworld to find a big hefty man towering over him. Spluttering, Bobby scrabbles back onto his seat, feeling a bit embarrassed and awkward, and he asks, ‘Where are we? Bus station? Shite … you can’t drive me back to Cargo Fleet, can you?’ The driver glares at him with dismal disgust. He shakes his head. ‘Get off the bus,’ he snaps, all moody eyebrows. ‘What are you, on drugs or something?’ Bobby the Artist wipes a bit of crispy sleep out of his eyes. ‘Erm, I don’t know … I think so …’ he replies, confused, getting ushered back down the aisle with the driver’s hand clamped round his elbow. Bobby tries to say sorry and see you later to the man but his mouth’s full of gunge, and he nearly trips up when he hits the bus station tiles. He sucks in air. It’s cold. He wishes he had money to get back home, and he wishes he didn’t snap all his bank cards up. Hmming to himself, Bobby the Artist staggers out of the station in a daze. Outside, the morning’s all frosty and bright like a big blue icepop, and all the streets seem incredibly sober as Bobby waltzes round the shops with their shutters shut. He coughs clouds into the sky. He’s still vaguely waiting for his trip to begin, but being straight on such a beautiful morning feels quite uplifting too. The sunshine makes all the colours more vibrant than any sunshine acid ever could. Feeling happier but still incredibly knacked, Bobby the Artist begins a slow, meandering stroll back to Peach House. His flat lives about two miles away, past threatening flyovers and treacherous supermarket car parks, but it’s pleasant being out at such an early hour, everything silent and cold and fairytale-ish. En route to Peach House Bobby’s legs start turning to jelly, but that’s tiredness, not drugs. He feels content getting his first bit of exercise in months, although by the time he reaches Longlands crossroads he’s suffering from dizzy spells and weak knees. He slumps for two seconds on the edge of the pavement, getting his breath back, dreading the four-storey ascent to his bed. It’s been such an ordeal getting home, it’s already 11.15 when Bobby finally peels himself from the kerb, and he decides to pop in the Brambles Farm for a nice refreshing glass of tapwater. The hardcore locals snigger at Bobby – what with his long buoyant hair and drink of water – but the Artist guzzles it down proudly, sat just to the left of the bar between the bar-heater and Sky Sports News. He stays there for the duration of the tapwater and one of the landlord’s Regals, then he returns to the great outdoors all rejuvenated and wet-lipped. He feels like he might’ve detoxed all those shitty useless drugs out of his system, and he makes a vow to have a poo and a wee when he gets in, just to make sure. He sits on the toilet singing along to the water pipes. Then he stumbles into the bedroom, strips off the three argyle sweaters, mucky trousers and stinking argyle socks, and falls into bed like a scuba diver. Splish!! Straight away he’s asleep, churning the bedcovers and snoring and dreaming of empty spaces, and that’s how Georgie finds him five hours later, face down in the pillows. She has a great big watermelon smile to herself. She’s been worried sick about Bobby since he disappeared last night, although she imagined he was probably just round Johnnie’s getting forced to do lots of drugs again. Slipping out of her skirt and sticky blouse, Georgie gently jumps on top of the lump in the bed. She plants a few kisses on his lips, reviving the sleeping beauty. She frowns at the crispy mud pasted on one of his cheeks, like he’s been using a very wrong colour foundation. Blinking, Bobby the Artist rolls over, rising from the Black Sea. ‘Yawn,’ he says, smiling at Georgie. She looks particularly angelic this evening, what with her head in the way of the lamp-shade, causing a halo. ‘How are you feeling?’ she asks, stroking Bob’s chin. ‘Alright,’ he replies. Georgie sprawls out on the remaining bit of mattress, staring at the ceiling. She’s feeling healthier now she’s eating more vegetables than sweets – today at work she gobbled a tuna salad from M&S, and she feels surprisingly energised despite swallowing only leaves all day. She realises sweets just give you that superficial sugar buzz for half an hour, then they knacker you out. She feels like an ex-addict herself – thank God she’s discovered slow-burning carbohydrates! Moving a hand over Bobby’s hip, all she wants now is her boyfriend to be happy again. ‘Bobbbbeeey?’ she enquires, ‘what do drugs do for you again?’ Bobby the Artist scrabbles in the covers, trying to sit upright. He feels a bit groggy, having just woken out of a coma, and he takes a minute untangling his thoughts, sniffing loudly. ‘Nothing, apparently,’ he murmurs, taking a big gulp of air then submerging himself in pillows again. ‘I did something silly last night,’ Bobby continues, ‘I went into the woods, like, to do all the drugs like and sort my head out. It didn’t work though. Well, I mean, the drugs didn’t work anyway – it’s like I’ve got a massive tolerance all of a sudden. I don’t know if it’s really doing it for me any more, you know, drugs and that …’ Georgie smiles. ‘Ooh, that’s weird,’ she says, biting her lip. She decides not to tell Bobby the Artist she replaced all his Class A drugs with sweets. Instead, she rolls on top of him and gives him a squeeze. And, for the first time in weeks, Bobby goes ‘mmmm!’ and strokes her back, and they have a lovely lingering kiss even though he hasn’t brushed his teeth in a while. What a strange couple of months. Georgie’s glad she’s hung on, and she’s glad Bobby’s giving up drugs ‘of his own accord’. She has a grin to herself, then the two of them turn to jigsaws, sticking to each other perfectly in the warm double-bed. It’s only about six but it’s delightful not to move from that spot, and soon their eyes start caving in and they drop into dreams. ‘Night night, darling,’ Georgie whispers, unaware she’s about to have the happiest dreams of her life. She wakes up the next morning full of beans, and she has a really fun day at work, chatting to all the customers and nibbling rabbit food and thinking about Bobby. Her boyfriend, way up high in the tower block, wakes up at about noon with a crushing headache like his skull’s been replaced with a rusty cannonball. He swings one leg after the other off the mattress, then puts on some clothes and coughs up some fluorescent bile into a glass. Georgie’s made him a salt and vinegar crisp sarnie, and on top of it there’s a note: HOPE YOU’RE OK. RING ME IF YOU NEED ANYTHING. LOVE XX. Smiling a pink banana, Bobby scratches his head and thanks the Lord he’s got Georgie. He yawns. He’s feeling fucking groggy this morning, suffering the greatest comedown in a long time, but it’s good to be sober at least. He feels like he can look at lampshades and carrier bags and pencils again without overanalysing them or turning them into monsters. He can even look at himself in the mirror again without seeing Dracula, although he is still pretty dishevelled and his hair’s all over the place. He’s feeling a lot better though, mentally, and he downs the crisp sarnie with a glass of cool water. It’s weird being on a detox diet all of a sudden, like some sort of fanny or supermodel, but to be honest towards the end all the rock-and-rollness has been getting a bit laboured and depressing. It’s nice being on planet Earth again. Right on cue, the sun gets a teeny bit brighter and the one cloud Bobby can see out the bedroom window seems to be a smiling bunny-rabbit. Clouds, you’re not even scary any more! Heart jumping with glee, Bobby darts into the lounge and he rings Georgie off the house phone and he has to say he loves her. ‘I love you!’ he says. After that, Bobby the Artist gets out his Crayola crayon set from Georgie’s perfectly stacked pile by the TV, and he sketches his girlfriend with a great big heart and not one ounce of fat either. He’s just about to add long wavy mascara when suddenly he’s disturbed by his phone going off in a crumpled pair of old trousers. ‘Now then!’ he ping-pongs, expecting it to be Georgie again. But in fact it’s just that daft cunt from London. Bent Lewis puts on his trendy-with-the-kids voice and says to Bobby, ‘Hello, mate! Long time no speak … how’s it going, mate?’ Bobby the Artist flops back onto his bed like a grey ribbon getting dropped. ‘Oh, I’m alright,’ he answers. ‘Good, good,’ Lewis says, eyeing up the sexy headshot Bobby shot in the tower block car park. ‘Have you managed to do any more painting?’ he continues. ‘See, I’ve had lots of offers for commissions and suchlike …’ Bobby the Artist creases his face up. It’s been a while since he last thought about putting paint to paper/canvas/carpet. ‘Not really,’ he replies. ‘Like, I dunno if I’m gonna be able to paint anything for a bit … I feel all under pressure, know what I mean? … My head’s been a bit of a mess, and you didn’t like those nudie paintings I did recently, did you, so …’ Over in Clerkenwell, Bent Lewis spins back and forth on his spinny chair like a record trying to start. Creak creak! ‘Hmm,’ he hmms, ‘well, I don’t know what to say. You had such potential, Bobby! But, I guess there’s other things you could do. You’ve got a very saleable personality; in fact I’ve come up with a