Ten Storey Love Song (19 page)

vodka to mix with her Coke. She looks at the metal spikes and columns of the ICI factory, like a space-age silver Parthenon. The smoke mingles with clouds, and slowly slowly slowly the dark sky gets riddled with candy floss. Ellen walks to the furthest bin in the car park to dispose of the McDonald’s wrappers, killing time. Her phone says 2.03am and she perches on the brick wall to input the cop shop number into her contacts. It’s too freezing to stay in one place though. She wanders down Wilson Street and watches people leaving the clubs after their brilliant nights out. She scowls at a police car growling past. Ellen ducks under Albert Bridge, which marks the old part of town famously known as Over the Border. For some reason prostitutes and general unsavouries like to station themselves near train stations, and Ellen feels a little unsafe wandering about in her miniskirt in the witching hour, but tonight it’s all pretty quiet and she paces quickly to Ferry Road to look at the fluorescent blue Transporter Bridge in all its lanky glory. All the time she’s thinking about Johnnie, hoping he’s alright. She stares at the prickly lights across the other side of the river, but everyone except the power stations are in bed. She heads back after ten minutes standing there. She goes to a kebab shop on Linthorpe Road and orders a can of Lilt so she can sit inside until it shuts. At half three, she decides to trudge through fancy Captain Cook Square (though it’s a graveyard at this time of night), past all the shops with their grilles down like medieval portcullises, with the intention of falling asleep on a bench in the empty bus station. Her eyes are starting to sag and clam up, and her feet are getting achy. But imagine her dismay to find the station all locked up and – as if that wasn’t enough – an icy gust of wind comes suddenly shooting up her skirt and she has a big horrible shiver. Distress! There’s still a good five hours before she’s allowed to phone the police, and she’s beginning to feel awful and fluey, but in her heart she holds a lot of pride in sticking around for her boyfriend. After all, he’s in a worse position than her right now. But at least he’s got a bed. Sniffling, Ellen considers going back to Eston and sneaking in through the back door to bed, but the taxi costs about six pound to get to suburbia and she’s spent all her pennies on McDonald’s instead. She curses herself. Giving in, she finds a spot to lie down and sleep in the five-storey car park, nestling herself in a manky corner out of the wind and out of the CCTV. She’s so incredibly knackered she falls asleep instantly, but wakes up at half-hourly intervals desperately checking her bag’s still there and what time it is, then Plonk! off to sleep again. She has twisted, meaningful dreams about Johnnie. One, he’s shackled in war-torn Siberia and Ellen comes in dressed as a baddie, but she’s really a goodie and kisses him on the mush and releases him from the clasps of evil with a handy blowtorch. In another, they’re both barking dogs humping each other senseless. She dreams how horrible it’d be for Johnnie to leave the station and nobody being there to greet him, and it’s that image that keeps waking her up clambering for her phone. Finally, it gets to 8.49am and Ellen thinks fuck it and rings the station anyway. A man answers. ‘Hello, just like wondering if my boyfriend Johnnie Hyde’s been released yet?’ Ellen murmurs, the town awful silent around her but beginning to lighten up. She stands, staring off the edge of the Zetland car park, odd worker bees and men in fluorescent jackets stumbling past beneath her. She rubs her crusty eyes, feeling a bit of a sty in the left one, listening carefully as the gadge replies, ‘Yes, he’s in questioning right now. Should be out in about half an hour …’ Ellen pops the phone back in her bag, then tries to do her hair and some lipstick in her free Glamour mirror before heading down the breezeblock steps and through the square again. Shops are starting to open, bread getting delivered, and gradually more and more people start appearing on the streets like blood cells flowing round your system as your body wakes up. Ellen looks like death as she staggers over to the police station, though her heart’s beating quickly and she’s excited to see her boy. When she reaches the cop shop, Johnnie’s already there waiting for her, squatting by the rails outside with a tab hanging out his mouth. Ellen clatters up the pavement and grabs him and gives him a big squeeze, asking how he is and what went on and what’s going to happen. ‘It’s alright, it’s alright,’ Johnnie replies, ‘I only had seven on me, didn’t I, so I got away with a caution like. “Personal use” and all that. Fucking lucky. Thank fuck Bobby’s been buying loads off me, cos I might’ve took them all out with me.’ Johnnie hugs Ellen again, so pleased and relieved she’s here, but also extremely aggravated having spent ten hours in the stinky police station. All that calmness and serenity he’d been working on so hard has gone right out the fucking window. ‘It was mad in there like,’ Johnnie says. ‘Couldn’t really sleep; the bed was sick. And my cell was next-door to this fruitcake prozzy screaming her head off. But … it’s mint being out. Howay, let’s get ourselves a drink.’ Ellen smiles, absolutely delighted she’s not losing her man, and she asks him for a few tokes on that Regal because she’s really gasping. They walk and smoke back into town, arm in arm. How amazing both those arms feel to be linked again! Johnnie feels emotionally shattered, but it’s funny how wonderful and colourful and pleasing the world seems when you’ve had a stint behind bars. He never wants to go back there, despite enjoying a modest English brekkie this morning. The bacon was fucking plastic, mind you. It sounds like such a Hollywood cliché, but after such a great escape he feels like quitting crime altogether. For once in his life he’s got a bit of respect for the zombies going round in their suits and uniforms, with their comfy lives. But before any rash decisions, he really needs a drink. Johnnie and Ellen aim their heels towards Linthorpe Road and the old faithful 24/7 off-licence, and as they cut through the warm Cleveland Centre they spot Georgie and her brutal bob slinking into Bhs, but she’s too far off and too sleepy, and in any case she’s slightly late for work and she tries to duck unnoticed through the scary entrance. She’s in a terrible mood this morning. Ever since she saw that nudie portrait of Ellen in her and Bobby’s bedroom, she’s been in such low spirits and she’s been eating lots more junk food and sweets and crisps, and it depresses her that she’s getting obese. This morning she’s already consumed two Mars bars, one half bag of Haribo, jam on toast and two cups of tea. She feels all shit and bloated. Perhaps, she thinks, sweets are her drug, and every drug seems to come with a downside. Scoffing sugary treats makes her feel brilliant for five minutes then suddenly all downcast and irritable, a bit like crack. Flattening her Bhs shirt down her podgy belly, Georgie scampers behind the sweety counter, feeling Mr Hawkson’s hawky eyes on her, but she doesn’t turn around or say anything. ‘Late again?’ he enquires, trying to inject a bit of humour in his tone but he’s just a cunt. ‘Yeah, sorry. Buses,’ is all Georgie can manage, trying to hide behind her eyelashes and get on with serving customers. Only there’s no one to serve yet, and there’s an awkward bit of silence as her and Mr Hawkson stand amongst the bright candies and glittery packets. Curving his curly eyebrows, Hawkson tries again with her. ‘You know it’s
really important
to get in on time, Georgina,’ he says, ‘I don’t want to be like your headmaster or anything but, ehm, if you’re not careful I might have to issue you with your first official warning.’ Very very biting, Georgie flashes him a look of sheer disgust and says, ‘
Nice one
, cheers.’ And then, the next thing she knows Mr Hawkson’s scuttling back to the office to type her out a lovely posh STATEMENT OF WARNING, and it ruins her day. She keeps her head down after that, seething while she dishes sweets into the boxes and scales, mumbling obscenities while she faces-up the selection boxes and Quality Streets. Serving the schoolkids seems like such a chore this afternoon, and isn’t it just typical they act like such bastards when you’re not having a very good day. They’re not meant to use their fingers in the pick-’n’-mix! ‘Use the tongs! Use the tongs!’ she spits, feeling like an old lady. In the quiet moments, where she gets to enjoy a Crunchie or Boost with Guarana, all Georgie can do is stare lifelessly at Sport&Soccer across the mall thinking about Bobby. He seems like such an idiot now he’s a ‘famous artist’ – so flirty with other girls (what did he get up to with Ellen when she posed starkers for that painting?), so stressed out (alright, so he’s got more paintings to do and more phone calls to answer, but it’s not exactly a nine-to-five slog), and he hardly seems to talk to Georgie any more (little bastard). It’s the not talking part that’s really getting to Georgie – she thinks it’s something to do with him taking drugs and getting skinny, or her not taking any drugs and getting fat. But surely drugs aren’t the be-all and end-all of everything? She thinks they’re pretty boring as a matter of fact. His drug taking is getting incredibly tedious – after all, he seems to be doing it on every single fucking page. Georgie used to have miles more fun with Bobby the Artist on Vat 69 or Londinium Gin, putting records on and painting and going to bed at similar times, before every other little bastard got involved. Now it’s as if Bobby thinks he’s some sort of Old Master or New Romantic, employing prostitutes to sit around his flat all day and paint and sniff coke off them. Georgie nearly sicks up a bit of her Crunchie. She hopes to the Lord Bobby hasn’t been cheating, but then again who wouldn’t cheat on a fat slob like her? After work, Georgie’s still in a bad mood – and she really can’t face going back to the flat when she knows Bobby’ll be there with all his new friends, smoking Es out of a bong or sniffing horse tranquilliser, and getting naked on all the clean work surfaces – so she gets the 63 instead of the 65 and rides through the industrial estates with all their burning frosty flares and
Blade
Runner
pipes and lattices and cooling towers puffing out nimbostratuses with that tiny layer of black soot collecting in their crevices, and she takes her sadness all the way to the seaside. It’s a funny little sea resort, Redcar, what with its close proximity to such overbearing rusty blast furnaces and black generators and, as Georgie stands on the promenade sucking a lemon top and looking out to sea, she wonders if there’s any three-legged fishies or Siamese crabs in there like people say so. She watches the tankers lining up on the horizon like grey matchsticks, waiting to float down the Tees and dump their gear off. Shivering, Georgie’s a bit annoyed she’s wearing her Bhs outfit when she’s got a perfectly good sailor suit at home. Having said that, she hardly wears the fancy dress any more, since Bobby’s paying so little attention to her. She misses him. Gazing across such a grey, wavy ice rink, frothing at the mouth, she really really misses him. It’s such sad weather, and she’s such a sad sad girl you’d need a painter there anyway just to capture all the perfect melancholy. She dreads to think what Bobby’s doing instead. Daubing pink acrylic across Katey’s cream knockers? Snorting Special K round Pamela’s bum-hole? Shagging Johnnie’s girlfriend between her beautiful bronze bedsheets? Up on saucy, sordid floor four of Peach House, however, Bobby the Artist is actually having a mental breakdown. Look at him chewing up the carpet! Look at him punching down the walls! Poor Bobby’s stressed out – it’s not easy being a famous person, boo hoo hoo. Everyone keeps coming round demanding paintings (Mr and Mrs Fletcher, the ones who got Bobby the London gig, were over earlier asking if they could pose for a personal portrait, but Bobby was all twisted on the CK and frightened and had to slam the door in their faces), or asking him for free money, or threatening him with hammers and big knockers. On top of all that, there’s a point where taking drugs becomes not very fun, for example when the thirteenth ecstasy of the day makes you feel all tired and irritable. He writhes around on the floor. Bobby made a heroic attempt this afternoon to get fucked, ingesting handful after handful of pills and, while he did manage to block out the stresses for a little bit, now he just feels like death. There’s a poltergeisty chill wind coming in through the whistling window, and Bobby considers making some acid-on-cream-crackers in the kitchen, but even that’s too much effort. He’s not even hungry – it’s just he’s getting really ill not eating five or six days on the bounce, and it’d probably be a good idea to poke something down his neck. He chews a handful of salt and vinegar Discos, then spits them back out again. He feels like a little baby. Oh, if only Georgie was here to look after him! His heart feels really sore. He doesn’t even feel like he’s spoken to Georgie for days, despite probably sleeping in the same bed together every night, but he’s not even sure. He wishes he didn’t have to manage a girlfriend who always seems pissed off at him. Yes, she’s getting fatter, but the only bad thing about it is her inability to smile any more because of it. He doesn’t really care if she ends up looking like a Space Hopper – at least then he might be able to ride around on her more. The stresses! Bobby the Artist tumbles back through to the lounge, gritting his teeth anxiously or gurning or a bit of both. He flops onto the sofa, wishing he was a bit of fluff not a human being. The whole reason he got into drugs was to detach himself from horrible, boring Realityland, and for a while he got used to being all happy and bohemian and poor and he felt he’d discovered who he really was, until he accidentally sold some paintings and suddenly everyone else discovered who he was and paid him lots of attention and paid him lots of money, and dragged him out of that fairytale lifestyle. What a drag. Bobby the Artist glances out the window at the sky moving gently from one side to the other. He hopes he hasn’t annoyed Georgie too much, him being quite the dickhead of late. Spluttering, Bobby the Artist stands up from the sunken ship sofa, puts his kangaroo pyjama top on as a coat, then marches out the flat feeling extremely sinister. At the doormat, there’s a cheque from Francis Fuller for
£
3,600 for ‘The Angels’ (244x233cm), but Bobby just kicks it aside and carries on charging out the tower block. He wishes he’d never sold his angels. Bobby goes down to Premier to buy Georgie a lovely Sarah Lee chocolate gateau, and on the way the streets feel really morbid and unfamiliar, like he’s a young explorer lost in the Doldrums or Badlands or Teesside Park or somewhere. It’s crazy to think he hasn’t left Peach House for weeks – sometimes that tower block has the power to become a sort of dreamland for him; a little high-rise town of its own, like nothing else really matters outside the striplit corridors or chicken-coop lodgings. It’s quite unnerving, actually, having to cross roads again and interact with strangers. In Premier, Bobby nervously peruses the skinny aisles for gateau, feeling the laser-beam eyes of the owner drilling into his back, feeling his legs start to spiral and melt like Cornettos. He shakily lifts the