Ten Storey Love Song (24 page)

few ideas to get you back in the public eye, if you’re interested.’ Bobby the Artist raises a lazy eyebrow. Miles away, stroking an abstract paperweight, Bent Lewis reels off 789 business proposals for Bobby’s next career move. Here’s a small excerpt: ‘#782: Greetings card illustrator. #783: Television presenter, possibly for a hip, edgy modern art programme. #784: Art workshops, preferably for deprived kids in tower blocks like Bobby’s = great PR! #785: Create a range of funky, paint-splatter argyle sweaters, to bring Pringle into the twenty-first century. #786: Hospital murals again, but this time not on acid. #787: Painter/decorator. #788: The person who sits in the corners of galleries and museums, telling visitors not to breathe on the masterpieces. #789: Rent boy?’ Bent Lewis licks his lips, coming to an end. ‘Fuck off,’ Bobby the Artist snaps. And with that he turns off his phone and lodges it under one of the heavy legs of the bed, then he jumps up and down fifteen times on the boingy bronze bedcovers. Cheerio telephone! Gasping for breath, Bobby finds himself in hysterics, wandering back through to the lounge for a fag and a sit down. Maybe being popular just isn’t for him. He preferred his life so much more when him and Georgie made fun on the cheap, for example posing for portraits or flying paper aeroplanes out the window. He wished he could walk into a pub without everyone expecting a drink off him, or calling him a tight twat if he doesn’t automatically buy everyone a round. Perhaps the worst bit of all though was feeling a bit lost, like all being famous is about is getting lots of initial success and then a slow decline into mediocrity and backlash and paranoia. It feels good to knock it on the head for a bit, and he hopes he won’t have to become a total recluse to get his life back to normal again. After that fag, Bobby the Artist tears open all the scattered post left here and there on the side, arranging it into piles of cheques, bills, junk and ‘miscellaneous’. He slips the cheques into his blue Halifax book, slings on an extra jumper, then scurries out of the tower block into the sunny white afternoon. Racing back into town, Bobby clutches the book in his pocket, making it sweaty, imagining with a grin all the cheques going up in flames like the ‘Angels’ one. What a lovely fuck-you it would be to Lewis and co., to throw their money back in their faces! What an incredible publicity stunt! No. No. No. Losing it again, Bobby the Artist wishes fame wasn’t so fucking tantalising. He feels his head getting muddy again. Pacing through town, Bobby the Artist tries his best not to step on any cracks. He skips up Linthorpe Road to the Halifax, smiling at all the lovely passers-by not turning into zombies any more. Waiting in the queue, Bobby catches his breath staring at the ticking clock. It’s 3.34pm. He has a little cough. By 3.39pm Bobby’s cashed the
£
12,000 worth of cheques. He pays back in about
£
5,000 to live on happily the next year or so with Georgie, then he catches the bus back home to Peach House and strolls up to door 5E and calls for Johnnie and hands him an A5 brown envelope with the other
£
7,000 in. Johnnie’s been having trouble recently trying to get a job, especially round these parts, and there’s nothing Bobby the Artist would hate more than to see Johnnie relapse into a life of stinking crime and frustration again. At least
£
7,000 should get him a few Americano pizzas and that. All milky-eyed and shocked, Johnnie leaps out the door and gives his friend an enormous squeeze. Bobby giggles. He’s glad they’re back in each other’s good books again, and weirdly he feels like some sort of born-again Christian, or Father Christmas. Sniffing, Johnnie offers him inside for a smoke and a can of budget lager with Ellen (who’s there sat waving from the brown settee), but Bobby the Artist smiles humbly and shakes his head and says it’s alright. He actually wants to go back downstairs and start painting again. For the first time in donkeys’ he feels like he’s got some stories to tell again – alright, so they’re all probably going to involve skully carpets and goblins and torture chambers, but at least they’ll only be there in paint on canvas, not there in his head and bedroom. Spinning grins this way and that, Johnnie watches the Artist toddle off back downstairs, hands shaking with the money in between them. He turns to Ellen and they both start gawping at each other. They’ve been getting on well again the last couple of weeks, but with a bit of a lack of money it’s been hard to keep each other really entertained. They’re still yet to have sex again, but Ellen likes the new Johnnie – the one who doesn’t wake up in the middle of the night screaming ‘Police! Police?’ any more – and she’s considering getting herself off the dole too, but only if the right job comes along. Professional babysitter would be great, or someone who tests the comfiness of couches in DFS. She saw a poster recently, Sellotaped on the door of Teesside University, advertising drug-testing and a payment of
£
800 to go with it, but she’s not sure if they’re the drugs she’s thinking of. All they’ve had in the flat is a quickly shrinking block of tac and a twelve-pack of budget lager – it’s been a difficult couple of weeks. ‘Yey yey yey yey!’ Ellen yelps at the sight of all that money. Johnnie considers throwing all the fifty-quid notes up in the air, like a daft Lottery winner in a soap opera, but the flat’s a bit of a tip and it could be difficult collecting them up again. What if one of those fifty quids fell in Ellen’s manky tomato soup!? Breathing in out in out really sharply, Johnnie just dithers about the flat in wibbly ecstasy, unsure what to do with himself. After a while he launches himself panting onto the sofa and gives Ellen a passionate bear hug. It’s as if the Angel Gabriel has come down from Heaven and blessed them! The living room seems much brighter and happier, all the video recorders and thrown leaflets and pizza boxes smiling at one another. That old grey town out the window suddenly looks silver; no, make that gold. All wrapped up on the sofa, Johnnie and Ellen are sort of speechless except for a few ‘Fuck fuck fucks’ or ‘Wheeeees’. To celebrate, they decide to go out on the piss or, better than that, go for a fancy meal somewhere in town. They feel like film-stars, charging round the flat getting spruced up and putting on perfumes, Johnnie checking the money on the mantelpiece every half minute to see if it’s still real. ‘Fucking hell, it’s still reeeeal!’ he yelps for the sixteenth time. Ellen laughs through her teeth through in the bedroom, getting a bit bored of that now. She wiggles her shiny legs through the hole in a miniskirt, puts on lots of slap and the glamorous cowl-necked thing, heart going bang bang bang all the time like an auction mallet auctioning off lots of happiness. Johnnie juggles a Ben Sherman shirt out of his drawer and onto his top half, then swaps tracky bottoms for Burton trousers and pokes
£
150 into one of their pockets. Ellen suddenly has a little moment of ‘Shit, do I look alright??’ but they both look like gods, and their faces are colour-wheels. Passing Alan Blunt the Cunt on the way out, Johnnie and Ellen yelp in unison, ‘Now then, Alan!’ but he’s looking a bit down and dismal in his soggy brown cardy, and he pretty much blanks them. But never mind! Johnnie and Ellen are in a bubble of absolute glee like two happy critters in a hamster-ball, and they race out of the flat giggling and showing their teeth. They decide to get the bus because Johnnie’s not driving drunk any more. He’s gotten used to his new life already – he feels much more easy-going, and even when three cocky youngsters get on at the Buccaneer, chanting, ‘Fat cunt, fat cunt, you fat bastard!’ at perfectly normal people on the street outside, he manages to keep his head. Johnnie and Ellen step off the bus on Linthorpe Road feeling like millionaires, now and then catching their reflections in car mirrors and pizza-shop windows and smiling. The street’s not too busy tonight, just odd people slowly parking their bums on seats in pubs, workers waiting around for buses home and shop assistants starting to put their shops to bed. It’s a foul old drizzly evening, but who gives a shit when you’ve got money in your pocket and your best friend round your waist. ‘I love you,’ Ellen whispers in Johnnie’s ear as they mount the ramp thing into Joe Rigatoni’s, that swanky Italian restaurant opposite Kwik Save car park. The last time she came to Joe’s was after her cousin’s wedding three years back, which ended in tragedy – everyone got pissed and the groom started a fight with the page-boy and, worse than that, they got divorced a few months after, didn’t they. Sitting down with Johnnie at a moody candle-lit table in the corner, Ellen holds his hand with two of hers and she feels absolutely elated to be with him. ‘Look at us,’ she says, ‘two kids from a scruffy old flat in a place like this …’ Johnnie laughs. He doesn’t think it really makes a difference where they’re from though; he just wants to have a laugh and get lashed and stuffed. They stare lovingly into each other’s eyes like the lady and the tramp. The rest of the restaurant’s fairly empty, just lots of waiters waiting around and the odd other couple sat far far away gobbling pasta and shrieking with laughter now and then. Johnnie and Ellen snigger at their
bellissimo
lives. They order the half pasta half pizza (Pasta: lasagne for him, spag bol for her. Pizza: Americano!), and Johnnie gets a pint of Kronenbourg and Ellen gets a bottle of Chardonnay. They’re not foolish enough to guzzle down the Krug or Moët & Chandon; they’re not fucking
that
loaded. Waiting for their food, Johnnie and Ellen start bouncing up and down on their seats, banging their cutlery like Oliver Twists at the China Buffet King. ‘God, this is amazing!’ Johnnie mutters, all dreamy and puff-cheeked, ‘What a … Bobby’s an absolute star!’ He looks at Ellen, her face all radiant in the wee candles like she’s been cast out of gold, and his teeth almost fall out he’s smiling so much. But then suddenly it all turns a bit sour, and his jaw drops. The food gets served, which is marvellous, but who should be carrying the steamy plates but Angelo Bashini, Ellen’s old flame. Angelo was supposed to move back to Sardinia, but instead he’s living in Acklam now in a flat with his new girlfriend, and he’s got a great job in a fancy restaurant (this one), and he stands there handing out the pizza/pasta with an arrogant grin and a much smarter shirt on than Johnnie’s. ‘Hello, Ellen,’ Angelo drawls all Conneryish, one big hairy hand on her cream-cake shoulder. He knows Johnnie won’t have the gall to lash out at him in such a high-profile location, and he takes sly glances at his arch adversary to see if he’s riling him up. Angelo raises a curly eyebrow, staring down Ellen’s top and pouting really exaggerated, wearing such tight tailored trousers you can tell he’s got a big knob. Usually this sort of behaviour would rot Johnnie’s insides, make him completely insane, and Angelo knows he’s pushing his luck if he wants to go home in one piece. But today Johnnie just looks at him all nonchalant, scratches his chin and spouts, ‘Waiter, be a darling and get us that bottle of Krug.’ Angelo cackles, partly because Johnnie pronounces it wrong, and partly because Ben Sherman and champagne simply do not mix. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to ask for the money in advance, sir,’ Angelo says deadpan, wanting to embarrass Johnnie and inside his tummy’s all knotted with excitement. Johnnie whips two of the fifty-pound notes onto the tablecloth. ‘Run along then,’ he spits, and Angelo has no choice but to toddle off, desperately trying to check those notes in the dim light but they’re genuine anyhow. ‘Bravo,’ Ellen smiles, and the two of them spend the rest of the night glugging champers out of the bottle and burping ha-ha-ha and hee-hee-hee and all the other sorts of laughs. Angelo spends the rest of the night lurking in the kitchen, mortified. He tries to console himself that his life’s better than Johnnie’s, that Ellen wasn’t a good shag anyway, but if he’s honest he’s not happy at all working horrific hours at Joe’s, and the flat at Acklam has no hot water, and that bird he’s with snogged another man last weekend and although she says it means nothing he knows it probably does. Isn’t life cruel sometimes! Back on table
undici
, Johnnie and Ellen are falling arse over tit in love all over again. Johnnie’s so fun and laid-back and wealthy, he’s falling in love with himself a little bit too. It’s as if he scribbled all his fears and secrets and doubts onto tiny bits of paper and tied them to the legs of seagulls, and let them whizz off in every direction. Never before has he felt so free and cheery. It’s taken this long to realise Angelo’s just a fucking wanker, not a threat. The same goes for all other hot-blooded, sleazy macho men. Wankers; all of you, wankers! Absolutely beaming (and full up), Johnnie pays
£
27.90 for the meal, leaving no tip for the waiters just in case Angelo gets a slice. Then, striding out into the baby blue night, Johnnie and Ellen stroke fingers and make jokes about Angelo, and they think up ways to spend seven thousand pounds. Holidays! Food! Booze! Sky telly! New curtains! Oh, it’s all too much for them as they wander back to the bus station, delirious. Not even a few specks and spots of rain can dampen their mood – they duck under cover into the Dairy Milk depot, traipsing round the tiled aisles without a care in the world. It’s one of those many days in your life where you say this is the best day of your life. Smirking at each other, Johnnie and Ellen smoke a tab outside queue number eight, watching all the buses splishing and splashing around the courtyard. By the time they hop on the right one (Johnnie feels like a knob paying with a tenner, but luckily the driver doesn’t have a go at him), the rain’s wandered off elsewhere, and the two of them sit at the back kissing passionately, the raindrops all sliding sideways off the windows as the bus steams forward. They get to Peach House at about half six, swinging each other round and round the car park all giddy and merry. At the fortified front door they spot a soggy Chinese man standing there solemnly in a navy blue suit, though it could’ve been pale blue to start with. Johnnie and Ellen can’t help sniggering at how desperate and minuscule he looks, bashing his fingers into the metal keypad and getting annoyed. ‘Are you trying to get in, mate?’ Johnnie asks, suppressing the laughter for a bit. The Chinese man nods, his straight black hair even straighter and blacker in the rain. ‘Here, then,’ Johnnie goes, whacking in the code then holding the door open for him. Still in fits of giggles, him and Ellen charge upstairs frantically, leaving the man to wait forever and ever for the cranky lift (it’s finally fixed, but it’s making quite curious sounds nowadays as it travels at tortoise-speed up and down the shaft). ‘God, we haven’t had a Chinese for fucking ages, have we,’ Johnnie states, quarter way up the tower block, bursting into hysterics again. He burps bubbles. The rumble of the lift going down passes them as they reach fourth floor, then it quietly clunks to the ground and the aluminium doors shunt open. Shaking drippy drops from his hair, the Chinese man sighs then steps into the dank lift. He’s feeling shattered after being at work since 9.30am, and it hasn’t really helped getting soaked in the process. He’s dying to get home and see his new wife – him and Lily got hitched two months back, had a two-week honeymoon in Hong Kong which was rampant and beautiful, and he still gets dragonflies in his tummy whenever he thinks about her. At least this is his last job of the day – it would be a bloody block of flats though, wouldn’t it. He finds people who live in flats much ruder and harder to cope with than ordinary people like him who live in ordinary houses. Sniffing, the Chinese man gets out on floor six, hoping to Buddha he isn’t getting a cold. Holding his briefcase close to his chest, he takes a bit of a breath then knocks twice on the door marked 6E, except the E’s fallen off. He waits, glancing up and down the corridor. After a couple more knocks, Alan Blunt the Cunt finally comes to the door, dressed in his brown cardigan and beige cords and slippers. He peers at the little man through thick tortoiseshell glasses. ‘Yeah?’ Alan says. ‘Hello, Alan Blunt? I’m Mr Wong from the Loan Company. I’m here to talk about your current payment plan. Can I come in, please?’ Alan’s stomach does a full loop-the-loop and his chin drops like a bowling ball down a mountain. At first he considers slamming the door in the man’s face, but then he thinks it might not be completely bad news and he’s only a little Chink and he’s not exactly going to cause Alan much harm. Mr Wong strides into the bare living room, straight away clocking the racy tabloids glued to the walls, but he tries to remain calm. It does feel a bit like walking into Hell, though. And, as if the cuttings aren’t bad enough, Alan’s just been cooking scrambled eggs and that happens to be Mr Wong’s least favourite food too. Standing erect rather than plonking himself on the battered couch, Mr Wong explains to Alan, ‘We’ve noticed you haven’t been keeping up to date with your payments, Mr Blunt, and that cheque you sent last week bounced, I’m afraid. Now, I know this time of year can be a little tough on the pockets – what with Christmas coming up – but I’m afraid we’re going to need last month’s payment in full before the tenth, or else you could face court action, or risk having your belongings repossessed …’ Alan Blunt listens to the words fall like bird droppings out of Mr Wong’s mouth. The Chinaman stands really cold and stiff while he talks, which only adds to Alan’s antagonism. As the horror of the situation dawns on him, Alan’s whole skeleton starts shuddering and his veins all turn to ropes. His forehead gets sweaty. ‘Well, I dunno like, because see I got laid off by ICI so I might just have to like wait and see …’ Alan blurts, wishing he’d figured out a better excuse in his head and not nailed those three Super Tennents earlier. Mr Wong glares at him blankly, then speaks like a computer, ‘You owe the Loan Company