Ten Storey Love Song (17 page)

relax
. And watch that video – maybe me and Georgie can teach you a thing or two!’ Johnnie smirks. As Bobby speaks, he starts to take on the appearance of some sort of oracle or agony uncle, and there’s something about Bobby’s soothing smoky voice that seeps into Johnnie’s psyche and turns all his raging lava into pink cotton wool. Johnnie realises he’s been a bit of a cunt recently, a bit of a fucking drama queen. Blinking and breathing softer softer, Johnnie stumbles round the flat, picking up a mucky ashtray, putting it back down. He feels embarrassed. ‘Look, I’d better go,’ he murmurs, edging towards the door again. ‘My mam’s off work today,’ he carries on, ‘and I promised I’d pop round. She’s not very well.’ Bobby nods, shut-lipped. Bobby’s met Jean a few times before and, although she suffers from hideous bouts of depression, she can be quite a hoot when she’s on the Teacher’s or the diazepam. Karaoke, Christmas 2006 was a riot! ‘Well, say hello from me, eh,’ Bobby states, touching Johnnie on the back again, ‘and, you know, keep your chin up. Oh, and don’t forget your hammer …’ Bobby giggles, handing over the Estwing, but it’s a sickly sort of laughter tinged with absolute terror. Johnnie nods and gives his friend a very modest hug, then clip-clops out of the flat with feet at ten-to-two. Once the door shuts safely behind the psycho, Bobby the Artist throws himself headfirst at the settee. He lands with a soft crunch. What a fucking day. Six weeks ago everything was alright, but since coming back from London he can feel all the cogs and gears in his head slowly rusting and malfunctioning and falling to bits. He’s not sure if it’s him who’s changed, or everyone else. Rolling off the sofa, Bobby the Artist feels stupid for painting all the girls and feeling like a king and being an absolute dickhead. It’s not 1901, and he’s not Gustav Klimt. He lights a cigarette. He’s smoking Marlboro Lights nowadays, instead of Regals. Blowing out smoke, Bobby the Artist wants to put his fucking head in the oven. In total disgust, he piles all the girly paintings one on top of the other, binds them with string, then wraps them in two layers of brown parcel paper. Bent Lewis loves shit artwork – maybe he might want them. Scribbling the +! Gallery address across the brown paper, Bobby feels a bit better getting those paintings out of his sight, and he has a little sniff of the Magic Marker to celebrate. Wheee, for five seconds he feels light-headed and cheery, then all of a sudden he feels incredibly alone and downcast again. This room used to be full of artwork. Now it’s more like an insane asylum, where boys with skinhead haircuts come round to batter you with hammers, and where girls with tantalising titties come over to pester you, and where your girlfriend can’t stop eating the house down. Bobby’s beginning to find people rather scary. He bangs his chin against the heavy parcel. He’s even begun getting bad press. Or, rather, he’s been getting a mix of good press (
Time Out
described ‘The Angels’ as ‘a joyous flurry of brushstrokes and breasts’) and bad press (
Modern Painters
described Bobby as a ‘juvenile, contrived Basquiat rip-off’), but for some reason human beings can’t help but believe the bad stuff. Bobby doesn’t even want to be in the spotlight; he’d much rather be behind the sofa. Trembling, Bobby the Artist sniffs then plods through to the bedroom, slides open his Fourth Drawer Down, and removes a big swag-bag of Loveheart pills. He downs a couple with another swig of manky Soave, then trundles back through to the lounge and starts to squeeze himself firmly behind the pink settee. Squashed between the backboard and bumpy wallpaper, Bobby thinks he can hear rats scampering through the wall cavity behind him, or perhaps that’s just rats scampering around his brain-pipes. He shudders. In times of crisis, all you can really do is try and block out whatever’s making you feel sad. And with that in mind, Bobby downs another eleven ecstasy pills, then flops down underneath the sofa, making a sad chalky outline of sweat on the bright blue carpet. Bon voyage! Meanwhile, Johnnie sets sail down Cargo Fleet Lane on the good ship Nissan Sunny, sticking it into fifth, which is a bit naughty actually because it’s a 30mph speed limit you know. He’s still in quite a psychotic mood, swerving over Coke cans and bird corpses on the wide, silky tarmac. He glances at ‘Un Hommage de Monsieur Condom, 2005’ and the hammer stuffed in the glove box, trying his best to relax, like he’s been told. He feels like a cock now for kicking off at Bobby over nothing – it’s becoming quite a habit of his lately. Breathing carefully in then carefully out and so on and so on, Johnnie screeches the car to 29mph in time for the speed camera, then back to 45ish once he’s gone round the bend. He wants to get to his mam’s as quick as possible, and just get it over with. She’s going to be a nightmare. Johnnie’s mam got diagnosed with depression back in June, and the hardest thing about it is no one really knows what triggered it off. Alright, so she’s going through the menopause and all her sons are frustrating and Tony the Dad spends more time off-shore or down the Brunnies than with poor Jean, but it’s not like she’s got cancer or she’s got no money or her dog just died. Perhaps it’s genetic – after all, Johnnie can have mood swings now and then, you know. Dissolving on the racing seat, Johnnie smashes his foot further into the accelerator, not really fussed if he kills himself. He’s in such a strange, unexplainable mood. He stares straight ahead as all the gloomy houses whizz past, and it’s quite a shock when he pulls up outside Jean’s house in Ormesby to find his mother in extremely high spirits. She’s been on a new mix of tablets for a week or so, and she gives her son a great big cuddle when he arrives, squeezing the sweat out of him like a bright J-cloth.‘ Come in, come in,’ she says, scarpering through to the living room in her odd Snoopy and Bugs Bunny slippers. Jean’s looking well – she had her hair cut-and-coloured rosy black at Classy Cutz last Tuesday, plus she’s been going to aromatherapy in her best mate’s garage four weeks running. She feels like a new woman. ‘I’m just in the middle of something, John Boy,’ she explains, ‘but howay in, sit down, sit down.’ Johnnie plods gently into the sitting room, to see the PlayStation 2 hooked up to the telly and Dance Dance Revolution paused on the screen; that game you see in arcades where gayboys and pre-pubescent girls bop around on the metal pads with the arrows going in synch with the cartoon person on TV. Jean bought the DVD thing and the metal floorpad off the internet, and since it arrived last weekend she’s been on it non-stop. Her GP at James Cook told her exercise can help combat depression, but instead of self-consciously jogging round Albert Park on rainy afternoons she decided to plump for the dancing. Johnnie glances at his trainers as Jean kicks off her slippers and hops back on the pads, standing poised in front of the butch bloke with the Afro on the screen. She unpauses the action, then suddenly jumps back to life as the awful cheesy Eurotrance starts up, leap-frogging about and jiggling her arse. She’s actually pretty good. Johnnie giggles into his chest, pretending to stare at the carpet but seeing his mother make a tit out of herself is much more captivating. She seems so different from the miserable woman of stone he saw at his aunty’s birthday barbecue back in May, though it still makes him cringe a bit. Jean grunts and pants as she criss-crosses, kicks, and stamps her feet to the thumping soundtrack, and she does really well to keep in time with the funky fella on TV. She looks a right picture in pink leggings and white crusty cardigan, sweat patches spiralling out of her armpits. It’s been so important for her having the DVD, after all it’s kept her mind off feeling down and wanting to die and other sad things like that. On Prozac she feels a bit like a cheery zombie, but at least it gives her a kick up the arse now and then. She bops about like a little girl at her first school disco. At the end of this particular dance, Jean’s totted up lots of points but it’s not a TOP SCORE, and she says to Johnnie, ‘Ah, bloody hell, I could’ve done better if the door hadn’t gone.’ Johnnie feels compelled to say sorry, but before his lips hinge open Jean’s through in the kitchen brewing teas and chattering to him all out of breath. ‘I’m getting good at it now … but it’s tricky – I could do with the handrail, cos when the steps speed up I get all off-balance. But it’s more expensive … and it looks like a fucking Zimmer frame – I’m not that old
yet
!’ Jean comes back into the lounge with hands made of cups of tea, then collapses onto the settee next to her son, totally pooped. She pats his bony knee, then flops her head backwards into the cushions, smiling constantly. The side-effects of the tablets haven’t been too nasty or horrific, unless you count the weird dreams she had three nights in a row where she was a nun stapled to a cross in the town centre, with all these horrible peasants chucking huge carrots at her. Terrible stuff. ‘So, how are you, then?’ she asks, much more willing and able to talk now she’s on the new medication. ‘You’re a bit quiet,’ she adds, then she slurps a gobful of tea. ‘Ah, I’m alright,’ Johnnie mumbles. ‘Well I hope so,’ Jean says. ‘You’re looking a bit gaunt. Are you eating? Do you want owt to eat, son?’ Johnnie hugs his mug of tea, shaking his head, and he replies, ‘Nah, I’m fine. Just a bit knackered. Anyway, you must be too … you’re a bit of a whizz on the old dance game, eh?’ Jean snorts up a laugh, then offers Johnnie a go on it but he politely says no fucking way mate. He glances round the room at the old familiar wallpaper and Sylvanian Family ornaments and butter-wouldn’t-melt school photos of himself, as well as the ones they got done in Whitby where you have to dress as Victorian dandies or military men or old waistcoated wallies. Johnnie hides a snigger in the tubes of his belly. He’s starting to lighten up. He shuffles his trainers on the flower pattern, leaving behind vaguely muddy footprints, then asks his mam, ‘So you’ve been alright, then?’ Jean turns her head 180 degrees like an owl spotting a delicious mouse, but instead of devouring her own son she replies, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve been great. Back to my old self. These pills are a breath of fresh air. Never felt better. It’s like, ooh, it’s like I’m all in love with life again!’ Jean’s voice rings in his ears and tingles his fingers and toes, like someone playing a wonderful miniature piano on his mother’s tongue. How amazing it is to hear your mother’s back to normal, after months and months of wobbling on the railings of Suicide Mountain. Johnnie remembers the onset of her menopause well, Jean spending every evening in floods of tears, scolding Johnnie for not having a job, Robbie for getting under her feet and banging his new girlfriend too loudly in the bedroom next door, and even Barrie got the brunt of it despite being the blessed first son, making it to business college in Stockton but happening to phone her for a
£
500 loan at a very very wrong wrong time. Jean used to smash plates in disgust at having to wash up after ‘useless pricks’. Tony the Dad got slapped once for calling her a bossy boots, and she threw his favourite ELO record out the back door. Time after time, she’d come home from her job at Sainsbury’s with bags of fish and tartar sauce and potatoes and frozen peas (or beans for Robbie), only to chuck them all in the flip-top bin in a huff and run upstairs crying hysterically after someone says ‘hello’ to her the wrong way or if someone looks at her a certain way. It seems so unbelievable and far-fetched to think a couple of teeny weeny tablets could suck out all Jean’s negativeness, but here she is slapping her son’s thigh in joy and smiling like a loony escapee from the Heartbreak Hotel. ‘So, what’ve you been up to, John Boy?’ Jean asks as she rises and totters back to Dance Dance Revolution. She loads up a new game, then stands poised on the metal pads with her bum all exposed in tight trousers. She looks idiotic, but the fact she’s been so depressed and now she’s standing there all carefree and exuberant makes Johnnie hold her in his heart as an absolute heroine. He looks up to her with wet, wobbly eyes as she bursts into dance – this time it’s a Macarena-ish salsa with lots of daft lunges and sort of star-jumps and general bottom shaking. Johnnie doesn’t know what to say. Yes he’s been feeling depressed as well, but it’s nothing compared to the sad murky swamp his mother’s had to swim out of. What the hell’s even wrong with him! It’s only that he’s getting a hard time off Ellen he’s so tetchy, and he shouldn’t have kicked off at Bobby or taken money off him. He spends a moment staring at his knees, feeling like a right dumb wanker. ‘Ah, I haven’t been up to much really …’ he eventually replies, scratching himself. After a few more spectacular dances on the telly screen, Jean racking up TOP SCORE after TOP SCORE what with her son’s encouragement, Johnnie decides to say his goodbyes and, instead of the usual awkward creeping out the door with Jean bawling blue murder, they have a huge sweaty cuddle and a kiss. Standing halfway in and out of the house, Johnnie wipes his eyes, and Jean takes his shaky hand and says, ‘Thanks so much for coming, love. You sure you’re feeling alright? Here, swear down, have a couple of these Prozac things. They’ll sort you right out – I can get you some more from Angie next door, if you want.’ And she presses two white circles into Johnnie’s palm, and it’s only when he gets out in the garden and sees the crisp Mitsubishi logo stamped into the sides he realises Jean’s been taking ecstasy all this time, not Prozac. Johnnie laughs in his ribcage. He drives through the falling fog in the grumbling Sunny, Jean waving frantically at the door and giving him phone-me signals with her hand and beaming teethy grins at him. Johnnie watches her shrink in the rear-view mirror, tossing mist here and there as he slips down Allendale Road. Bobby the Artist went to primary school round here, where he began to develop himself as an artist, finger-painting foldy butterflies and stamping cut-off potatoes into food colouring. Experimental little bastard. Turning the corner onto Cargo Fleet Lane, waiting ages for the roundabout to stop spinning, Johnnie opens and shuts his mouth a number of times, gazing in the direction of the beautiful beautiful tower blocks. Jean’s luxury madness has really put things in perspective for him; for ages and ages he’s felt like the saddest boy on the planet and his life’s a disaster and everything’s crap, but in fact there’s a lot of people in the world worse off than him and they get on with it a lot better than he does. So he promises he’ll try and relax more, like Bobby told him to. And he promises to take more ecstasy. Good old Jean. Parking the Nissan again in the pigeon-grey car park, Johnnie sneezes, then removes the car keys and ‘Un Hommage de Monsieur Condom, 2005,’ and heads towards Peach House. Brr! It’s chilly all of a sudden. He’s only got on the thin Henri Lloyd jacket, and it’s that time of year already where the earth starts to slant away from the sun and summertime gets shipped off to Australia and South America on frosty little speedboats. Shivering, Johnnie darts up the spiral staircase, desperate for a long, loving embrace from his girlfriend on a day of such violence. Johnnie whips open the door of 5E, kicking off his shoes and scampering into the bedroom, only to find Ellen’s disappeared from beneath the Boro quilt. Panicking, he checks the