Ten Storey Love Song (25 page)

£
289.63 including interest for last month’s missed payment, plus a further
£
267.81 for this coming month, Mr Blunt.’ Alan nods gravely, mouth starting to gather white slop in the corners, and he screws his eyes up and snaps, ‘Well I can’t get it.’ Mr Wong keeps staring unsympathetically, desperate to get home to his lovely wife and away from this pathetic bastard. He spits back at Alan, ‘Well then I’m afraid we have no choice but to contact the bailiffs …’ Alan gulps, getting even angrier and shakier. He starts to hear an awful repetitive banging like an out-of-tune snare drum coming from downstairs, and it’s a horrible soundtrack to his suffering. Bang! Bang! Bang!! Fucking hell. Alan feels his ankles and brain vibrate, and the red veins in his temples start bangbangbanging too. He curses Johnnie and Ellen. What the fuck are they doing down there? Uncontrollable twitches begin to sprout about Alan’s face, and all the while Mr Wong just stands there like a passive Buddhist statuette. ‘Get out of my fucking flat, you Chinky shit!’ Alan Blunt the Cunt screams, unable to keep his composure any longer. Mr Wong finally shows a bit of emotion: dropped jaw. Wong tries to say, ‘Well, if you don’t keep up the payments you could easily
lose
this flat,’ but before he knows it Alan’s lunging across the room and gets both slippery hands round the little man’s neck. Fingers stab in like knitting needles. Go for the jugular go for the jugular, the little devil on Alan’s shoulder yelps in his ear. Heart racing, Alan just can’t help himself from beating this person to a pulp. He’s had a very hard couple of weeks. ‘No no no!’ Mr Wong screams, legs and arms kicking out like a woodlouse turned upside down. He tries to guard his precious little head, tucking it into his chest, but Alan’s kicks are much too probing and soon his cheeks and eyeballs are all bruised and he starts weeping out salty blood. The banging keeps on going downstairs, and Alan Blunt the Cunt stops for a second to rub his temples, all wound up and dizzy. Mr Wong takes the opportunity to whip out his company mobile and phone 999, but all he manages to say is ‘Help police’ before Alan takes another swing at him and the phone spins out of his hand and splits open. ‘You daft cunt!’ Alan roars, launching a thousand more boots to the poor noodle-nibbler’s noddle. Mr Wong makes a little gurgle, desperately scrabbling for the door, but then suddenly he’s quiet and still and he goes to sleep facedown on Alan’s filthy underlay. He seeps out a little strawberry sauce. Panting, Mr Blunt gives Mr Wong a nudge on the shoulder, but he doesn’t seem to be moving. Alan bites his lip. Then all in one go he starts panicking and shitting himself, realising the Chinaman might be dead and the police might be on their way too – don’t they have satellites in the sky to track every mobile on earth? Alan glances gingerly at Mr Wong’s phone, all broken there on the carpet like a dead spaceship. He feels a strange sensation of being watched. Shaking manically, Alan Blunt grabs the mobile and takes it up to floor eight and kicks it down one of the corridors (where the Fletchers live), but he doubts if that’ll put the satellites off the scent at all. After all, there’s still a dead Chinese person in his flat. Breaths hovering in his gullet, Alan speedily stumbles back down to 6E, realising his time’s probably up. He’s got no clue how he’s going to save himself. He feels sick looking at Mr Wong now oozing blood along the tatty skirting-board, and he slams the door sharply behind him and deadlocks it and does the chain. Oh God. Next, Alan Blunt the Cunt breaks into tears, staggering aimlessly round and round the messy flat. He stops once or twice at the blurry window, staring down at Cargo Fleet Lane and the tiny bit of Corpus Christi field not blotted out by houses, and he thinks for a second about Tiny Tina. He spites Corpus Christi Carol for not letting him talk to the girl. Such a lovely little girl. Carol doesn’t know anything about him – he’s not a bad man; he’s just lonely, and he needs someone to play with. Sniffing up snot and sobs, Alan steps into his bedroom and sits for a minute on the unmade mattress. He cries hysterically for about fifteen minutes, then he gets over it and starts to breathe a bit more casually. He slides open the top drawer of his bedside cabinet, and for the first time in months he takes out The Photo. The Photo was taken in the living room of 57 Queens Road in 1998, and it was Christmas then too – you can see the prickly Chrimbo tree and the star decorations, and all the presents freshly unwrapped on the burgundy carpet. The Photo’s starting to get dog-eared, but you can still make out Alan sat there with sideburns on the sofa and his ex-wife Barbara, and their one and only daughter Tiny Tina perched on his corduroy knee. Tina was only two years old there, back before Alan and Babs got the divorce, back before Barbara got custody over Tina and told Alan never to go near her or the kid ever again. It was only recently Alan realised Tiny Tina was a pupil at Corpus Christi – by chance one September morning he was on his way to the barber’s at Ormesby shops, and he recognised those gorgeous goldilocks a mile off. What joy it was finally to see her again, after all those years! But horrible as well to think she doesn’t even know who he is, and that he scares her, and that Corpus Christi Carol won’t let him come back to the school gates and see her any more. Sniffing again, Alan Blunt puts back The Photo and plods back through to the lounge. Hello, Mr Wong; still there are we? Shuddering, Alan feels absolutely shit and he wishes he hadn’t fucked up his life so spectacularly. It’s almost laughable, how horrific things have ended up. Standing stock-still on the itchy ground, Alan wonders if he could squeeze Mr Wong into the refrigerator. He shrugs, shaking his head. Better still, he wonders if he could squeeze himself out of the living-room window, and sadly he starts to clamber on top of the flaky white windowsill. He unlocks the window handles, slides them outward and open, then gently pushes his head and shoulders through the tight gap. For safety reasons the windows don’t open out very far, but if you put your mind to it you can definitely throw yourself out of one. Alan Blunt puts his head to the breeze. It’s chilly out there. He looks down at all the tree circles and ribbony pavements and matchbox houses, and it seems a hell of a long way down. Alan’s stomach turns over, imagining the bloody crunch of his body smashing to bits on the street. For a second he thinks about that great Chrimbo film
It’s a Wonderful
Life
, and he wonders if he really does want to kill himself or not. But, unlike Jimmy Stewart, who had lots of lovely kids in that film and a stunning wife, Alan’s just got a Toshiba telly and a battered old couch and a corpse for company. Squeezing himself a bit further through the window, Alan glances back into the flat. It’s not a wonderful life. With no more Alan Blunt, Tiny Tina won’t be so scared going to school any more, and Corpus Christi Carol’s job will be much easier and perhaps she’ll be able to teach Tina better, and Barbara won’t have to go through the hell and rigmarole of launching a restraining order against her former husband, and Alan himself won’t have to go through the horrible ordeal of losing his flat and his possessions, landing a life sentence in jail for a murder he committed when pissed, and never talk to anybody ever again anyway. So, weeping hailstones, Alan clambers unsteadily out of the tower, takes a glance at the town spread out before him, then drops himself from the ledge with one last push of courage and devastation. There’s almost a weird rush of ecstasy as he flies through the air, and there might even be a glimpse of Alan’s falling, flailing body as he whizzes past 5E’s bedroom window, but Johnnie’s too busy giving Ellen the ride of her life to notice. The two of them moan with crazed pleasure, Johnnie doing swirly deep strokes with his knob rather than horrible pornographic blam-blam-BLAMs. They writhe about on top of the bed covers, changing into different positions like taking it in turns to ride on top of a beautiful horse. Johnnie smiles to himself, Ellen sliding herself into the doggy position, and he strokes his fingers down her back and hips as he strokes his willy up and down inside her fanny. He feels like a character in
The Joy of Sex
. He tries to remember all the subtle tips and techniques from ‘Un Hommage de Monsieur Condom, 2005’, but when it comes down to it all he has to remember is to enjoy himself, and remain calm, and he breathes blissfully in time with the sexual intercoursing. For the first time since he’s been shagging Ellen, he’s not worried about spurting early, drying up, getting a floppy dangle-on, hurting his girlfriend, or hurting himself. He doesn’t have to watch the door any more or watch his back; instead he just watches Ellen’s back as the two of them squeak the springs of the mattress. ‘Bang bang bang,’ the bedhead says against the wall – it’s enough to drive the neighbours insane. Changing into spoons (the most underrated of all the sex positions), Ellen shuts her eyes in heavenly flutters as she guides Johnnie up her hole again. She’s amazed by Johnnie’s sudden expertise in bed – rather than being skewered on a stick and shot to death, it’s like she’s sliding up and down a six-inch rainbow. Or maybe it’s just that Johnnie’s got money now that turns her on so much. She eeeeees with glee. Her fanny’s absolutely soaking, and she groans as Johnnie reaches for it with his fingers. For five minutes he rips off Bobby and Georgie’s sex vid, searching out Ellen’s clit and rubbing it round-round-round like they do 22 mins 46 secs into the film. Johnnie carries on thrusting, and concentrating so hard on twirling Ellen’s little joystick helps him from springing a leak too early. The rush is incredible, much better than ecstasy or stealing somebody’s telephone. Kissing Ellen’s neck, he continues getting her off with his fingers, and he feels the earth rumble as she starts writhing like an epilepsy victim, moaning very seriously. After half a minute of gyrating, Ellen starts to convulse and she has a great orchestral orgasm, kicking her legs and squawking like a cockatoo. At first Johnnie’s not sure what she’s doing, then slowly he begins to smile and two seconds later he’s shutting his eyes and squirting hot white sperm into Ellen’s belly. The two of them roll off each other giggling and wheezing. ‘Wowee,’ Ellen breathes, a wonderful pink grin felt-tipped across her face. She gives Johnnie a hug and kisses him on the lips, and she thanks the lord she’s got the most bestest boyfriend in the world. Blinking sweaty blinks, Johnnie grins back at her. He feels proud of himself, and slightly surprised how easy it is to get a girl off and how incredibly wrong he’s been trying to do it in the past. It’s dusk and the room feels frosty now without all the shagging in it, so Johnnie and Ellen jump under the duvet and continue the kissing and smiling down there. They both say ‘I love you,’ then they laugh for saying it at the same time. Ellen snakes an arm out of the bed, pulling a few tissues out of the Kleenex tub to mop up Johnnie’s slime from inside her. Johnnie manages not to lose his rag over them this time. Panting, Ellen tries to slam-dunk the tissues into the waste basket but misses, then she turns back round in the bed and swings her arms round Johnnie and double-knots them. It feels so perfect and gorgeous to be just lingering amongst the bed covers, not like the old days after an awkward fuck where one of them would have to leave the room or fall straight asleep to avoid an argument. Getting her breath back, Ellen can’t believe how brilliant her relationship’s just got. She does feel awful about shagging Angelo and lying about it to Johnnie, but that’s all history now; back then Johnnie wasn’t half the man he is now. She bites into the duvet cover, absolutely ecstatic. There’s no reason to cheat on him ever again – that sex was womb-blowing! She hugs Johnnie round the neck, then the two of them just lie there kissing and staring and breathing on each other. ‘Let’s do it again!’ Ellen suddenly yelps, and they both fall about the double mattress in fits of laughter. Meanwhile, Alan Blunt the Cunt carries on falling falling falling off the tower block. After that initial burst of excitement and panic, Alan enters a new phase: absolutely shitting his pants. He braces himself for the inevitable smash of bones and brains and guts splashing across the tarmac and his skull getting crushed. Screams and tears are all traffic-jammed in his throat. He starts to slip out of his woolly brown cardigan, and there might even be a glimpse of Alan’s falling, flailing body as he whizzes past 4E’s living-room window, but Bobby the Artist’s too busy making a salad in the kitchen with Georgie to notice. Weirdly, Bobby and Georgie can’t help giggling and enjoying themselves, chopping up lettuce leaves and grinding black pepper and pouring on Caesar dressing (but not too much, mind you). Georgie’s been eating incredibly healthy, and somehow she’s got Bobby hooked on it too. Salad seems to keep the monsters away. Bobby watches his girlfriend tossing the leaves in a Greek-goddess outfit, grinning to himself. She’s finally dressing up for him again. Georgie sprinkles on a bit more dressing, then twirls round and gives him a great big smooch, asking him softly, ‘So you’re feeling better now then, honey?’ Bobby the Artist nods silently, showing his dimples. He wishes he could tell Georgie all the terrible things that have been happening to him, but he doesn’t want to depress her. Georgie’s just relieved it all seems to be over for him, whatever it was. Grabbing his skinny biceps, she plants a big snog on the Artist’s lips, then spins him a bit too fiercely in the miniature kitchen. Whizzing off in different directions, Georgie has to steady herself on the edge of the breakfast bar. She pulls a stretch of clingfilm over the Caesar salad, then glances at Bobby and speaks a bit slower, ‘Er, I’ve got something to tell you, by the way, Bobby.’ Georgie’s breathing gets a bit staggered. She’s been keeping a little secret from him for the past few months, and she’s been desperate to get it off her chest but – until now – Bobby never seemed capable of listening. Today, the Artist looks at her with a deadly serious white face, ears open. ‘Maybe we’d best go in the living room,’ Georgie says, and the two of them trundle nervously into the lounge and park themselves on the two sofa arms. She hopes to God it doesn’t split them up. She takes two lungfuls of air and flicks her dark bob behind one ear. Holding his clean hands, Georgie asks Bobby if he remembers the last time they had sex (about two and a half months ago), which was a bit rampant after Bobby got back from London and ate some speed and Georgie ate some sweets. It was great sex, but Georgie had a weird feeling that night that Mr Condom had been sick in her tummy, and when she woke the next morning she felt a little bit queasy herself. She rummaged through the rubbish bin, but she couldn’t find Mr Condom anywhere. She decided to forget about it. But three or four weeks later she didn’t get her period, and she went to Boots for a pregnancy test and lo and behold she’s got a baby inside her. It turns out Mr Condom must’ve split while they were having sex, and Mr Sperm must’ve kissed Mrs Egg in Georgie’s womb. It’s weird because for a month or so Georgie’s been getting heavier and heavier, and it never occurred to her it could be a baby. All hunched on the sofa, Bobby the Artist’s jaw flops open and his eyes fall out. Georgie says she’s not even sure if she wants to keep it or not (although secretly she definitely does), and she strokes Bobby’s hand and adds, ‘I mean, there’s no need to worry. I can get an abortion and that …’ Bobby the Artist mumbles two empty speech marks. At first his eyes are slightly glazed with terror, but then he shuts his lids and imagines a baby in a nappy gargling happily, and really a little person isn’t that scary at all. He’s seen worse things in his life. The beaming grin on his face lets Georgie know he’s okay, then suddenly Bobby’s off scuttling round the flat in absolute delight. Big hefty tears start jumping out of his diving-board eyes. He gives Georgie a gigantic squeeze, but then he eases off, not wanting to squash the little one. He’s totally buzzing, and Georgie can’t help chasing him round the carpet, showing off all her teeth. Eventually they dive on top of each other, giggling hysterically. ‘That’s mint news!’ Bobby the Artist yells. ‘I mean, it can’t be that hard looking after a kid, can it?’ Laughing, Georgie clutches her stomach, then replies, ‘Well, it hasn’t been that hard so far …’ Rolling over, Bobby gives her a big cheesy grin and kisses her earhole. Then, he puts his head against her belly, listening for kicks and gurgles. ‘Maybe we could move out of this place,’ he suggests, coming up for air. ‘I mean, we’ll need extra room for the baby and that … We might have to get that fucking money back off Johnnie, though …’ Bobby has a nervous twitch. Georgie shrugs, smiling at her boyfriend being all funny and over the top, although she likes the idea of getting a new place together and getting back on planet Earth again. Breathing deeply, she rubs Bobby’s knee, absolutely over the moon that he wants to keep the baby. No more need to feel guilty having that little tadpole in there! Sniffing and snortling, Bobby matches his palms up with Georgie’s, then gives the Greek goddess a big kiss and a cuddle. ‘It’s dead exciting!’ he yelps, panting like a lunatic. Georgie sniggers, stroking Bobby’s kneecaps and she whispers, ‘I know!’ They kiss again, then for a minute there’s a special bit of hush between them, and Georgie bites her chewy pink lip. She blinks, wiping her streaming nose on her sleeve, then adds softly, ‘I might even have a wedding dress in the cupboard, you know!’ Meanwhile, Alan Blunt the Cunt carries on falling falling falling off the tower block, eyes full of tears like swelled-up clouds, and he starts really gaining speed and then he