Ten Storey Love Song (8 page)

Diagnosis Murder
at three in the afternoon and have no worries in the world. The lady purses her lips, clicks the cream keyboard, then snaps at Ellen, ‘Well, you said you’re looking at a job in Morrison’s so I take it you’re not against working in retail … well, what have we here: Sales Assistant, Asda South Bank, meets national minimum wage, full training given. Sounds ideal.’ Ellen grins sour milk, stomach churning. ‘Just give them a ring on this number,’ the crinkly lady continues, printing out a wee slip of details, then, ‘You can use the phone free of charge, over there.’ In her head Ellen sees herself rimming the dole lady while getting whipped by the dole lady’s devilish minions. The lady hands her the slip, then ushers Ellen away to the black tacky phone in a booth sat all on its lonesome. In full view of Mrs Ball Sac, Ellen picks up the receiver. She has a sulk to the sound of the dial tone, even the thought of getting up early for an interview let alone fucking working there bringing a tear to her eye. Why in this world can you not just do what you want? Cavemen got on alright without money and dole ladies and Asda. Ellen sits all tired and grumpy in the MDF booth, stalling for a bit then, in a flash of inspiration, she says to the dead phone, ‘Hi, is that Asda? … Yeah, can I speak to Gloria please? … Oh, hi! Yeah, I hope so … I’d like to apply for the post of sales assistant, please … Oh, really? … Well great, yes, that’d be lovely. Monday. Nine fifty-five. Nice one … Okay, yep, will do … Alright, ta ra.’ Ellen turns and smiles at the dole lady, giving her a dead corny thumbs-up and the lady nods, slightly suspicious but not really giving much of a shit now. She’s got another person to see (girl with the peacock hair), and Ellen swivels in her swivelly chair grinning to herself. There’s a sign above the phone saying NO PERSONAL CALLS, but Ellen decides she might as well give Johnnie a personal call seeing as it’s free and she’s free from the horrible lady too. Her breath crackles on the creaky black plastic. ‘Where are you?’ she asks when Johnnie picks up, and it’s a relief to hear his voice, ‘I’ve been dead worried. What are you up to?’ Johnnie sniffs. ‘I’m just in Lidl,’ he replies, pushing the cagey trolley round the aisles while his Nanna picks up packs of potatoes and orange juices and chopped tomatoes and slings them in. ‘Eh?’ Ellen ehs, twizzling the wire round her little finger. ‘Ah, I’m just helping Nanna out with the shopping, aren’t I,’ Johnnie says, his grandmother suddenly perking up with Choco Rice in one hand and wittering, ‘Ooh is it Eleanor? Tell her hello from me, John, tell her hello from me.’ Nanna stands there for a good minute with the box in her claw like a stone sculpture, staring at her grandson until he finally says, ‘Yeah, Ellen, our Nanna says alright by the way.’ Nanna grins and carries on loading the trolley (it’s brilliant in Lidl, you can get noodles for 13p and eight Excelsiors for
£
4.49), Johnnie breaking his back trying to scoot it round with one hand. It’s been a terrible couple of days for him – he doesn’t mean to get paranoid all the time, but he had to run away after getting all upset about a couple of tissues in his dustbin. Of all the things! Early Tuesday morning, just before he disappeared, Johnnie woke up very proud to have Ellen back and to be feeling like a sort of hardcase Don figure around the block, and he decided to treat himself to his first wank in fifteen days. Ellen was snoring. He got out the uncut video of
Arse Mania VI
(the one where five men practically gang-rape a young girl), but when he reached for the box of mansize Kleenex he was dismayed to find the box empty. Scratching his head in very over-the-top confusion, Johnnie saw the bin next to Ellen’s side of the bed was full of screwed-up tissues, glooped together in what looked like PVA. Shuddering, Johnnie quickly came to the conclusion that either Ellen’s got a cold and a very very runny nose, or she’s been seeping somebody else’s semen. True to form, Johnnie Jealousy decided to believe the latter. After all, Johnnie hadn’t wanked or shot spunk into Ellen for weeks (their last excruciating shag was cut short by the Express pizza boy), and he hadn’t heard her sniffing recently. Johnnie fell to the floor in agony, imagining Angelo’s thick jizz oozing out of Ellen’s fanny bum and mouth. He cried a couple of tears. Getting wound up, Johnnie scrabbled round the carpet like a bull terrier, trying to gather up more clues and evidence. He felt certain Ellen’s lacy blue knickers (the ones she wore not last night but the night before) smelt of another man’s aftershave, and he started to see claw marks in her skinny exposed back, and he even dished the tissues out of the dustbin and took a lungful of their scent, and he felt fairly certain they ponged of semen. Johnnie dropped back down to the ground, feeling insane. He listened silently to Ellen’s breath for twenty-five minutes, dreading her mumbling the word ‘Angeloooo’ in her sleep. But she just kept saying, ‘Snore breath snore breath snore breath.’ Twitching, he crept quietly out of the flat, not wanting to wake Ellen and argue with her, instead driving all the way to his Nanna’s house in Eston with the heavy weight of Ellen and Angelo’s naked bodies on top of his head. He’s not sure if he’s overreacting, or if he’s being made a fool of, but either way it’s been a painful couple of days. And just because of tissues! Occasionally Johnnie wishes he had the guts to just dump Ellen and be done with it, but he’s paranoid too that he’ll never go out with anyone more beautiful than Ellen, especially since he’s no Brad Pitt himself, even though he’s got strange psychotic Fight Club tendencies. Anyhow, after a couple of slap-up meals round Nanna’s and a lonely lonely bed to sleep in last night, Johnnie quickly realised what he was missing. And strangely, he feels quite smug that it’s Ellen phoning him and not the other way round, and he asks her, ‘So, what you been up to, darling?’ Ellen scrapes her foot along the crunchy grey carpet, then replies, ‘Er, I’ve just finished at the doley. I was just wondering if I could come over? When are you done with your Nanna? You having dinner at hers?’ Johnnie dodges a pot of mayonnaise, skidding off one wheel, then says, ‘Naw naw, I’ll come and meet you. That’d be mint. I’ll just drop Nanna off in a bit … what say we meet at the flat in about half an hourish?’ Ellen smiles a big cheesy grin and nods, then remembers to speak, ‘Yeah alright.’ The two of them say all their see you laters, and Johnnie considers saying I love you but he doesn’t want to sound too desperate – in his head he wants to be cool and nonchalant and play hard to get and make Ellen work a little bit, but really in this world if you love someone you should definitely tell them. Oh well. He puts the phone down then carries on wheeling the groceries round Lidl with his nutty old granny, and he really doesn’t feel that cool at all. His Nanna looks a bit like a white-haired Ronald McDonald, corned-beef legs dribbling out of her sensible shoes and her red cardigan slowly turning pale burgundy as the years go by. She smells of hospital beds, but she’s got a great sense of humour and a terrible memory which only adds to the hilarity. ‘Who was that?’ she asks once Johnnie’s off the phone. ‘Ellen. You know, Eleanor or whatever you just …’ he says. He can feel weeny sweat patches sprouting under his armpits – there’s no air-conditioning in Lidl, but it makes up for it with the hazy rays of light beaming through the glass, the sort of sight that makes you realise you were right drawing the sun with blocky yellow stripes coming out when you were young. Johnnie was always a shit drawer at school – his suns were just orange spirals, or he wouldn’t draw suns at all, just black clouds instead. Nanna’s got a picture of his at home; this big dark stormcloud in the middle with an evil frowny face. Some teachers thought Johnnie was a disturbed little child, but then again he did go round at breaktime breaking other kids’ toys. Johnnie gets pissed off and says ‘fuck’ when the trolley-wheel gets caught on a jelly–fishy Lidl bag on the ground and gets all mangled, but his Nanna’s always in a good mood and she releases the jellyfish then says to him, ‘Ho ho, someone got out the wrong side of bed today.’ Johnnie didn’t exactly get out the wrong side of bed, it’s just that he didn’t get out of it with Ellen this morning. In the last aisle Johnnie helps Nanna lift three bottles of cut-price Hock into the trolley then pushes it to the cashiers at top speed, desperate now to get home – it’s only been two days, but he’s forgotten what Ellen kisses like, what she feels like, how she tastes. He’s practically forgotten all about the tissues, and all. Shuddering, Johnnie almost starts getting a slight stiffy as him and Nanna load the shopping on the conveyor belt, but to avoid embarrassment he imagines Nanna all spread-eagled in one of those 50+ magazines you get in Premier, and it soon subsides. It’s strange to think how many newsagents stock that kind of senile smut, but who actually has the nerve to step up to the counter and buy it? Johnnie wonders if, when his granddad was alive, did he prefer to see naked sixty-year-olds, or still get a kick out of shaven, supple Just Eighteens? Sweating, him and Nanna cram all the chunky bags into his Nissan Sunny out in the car park, then the two of them whittle off down the sunny street-stripe to Nanna’s pad, Johnnie driving carefully because he doesn’t want to worry his Nanna and he doesn’t want to kill her either. On the way down Normanby Road, passing those loopy houses with the curvy brown roofies like futuristic farm stables, Nanna puts her hand on Johnnie’s knee and asks softly, ‘Now, love, have you seen your mother recently? You know she’s going through a bit of a bad patch, and I’m sure she’d love to see you.’ Johnnie sighs silently, feeling a bit unnerved by the granny-grip on his leg and the fact she’s brought up his mam while he’s manoeuvring that tricky crossroad down by the post office. Johnnie’s mam’s been suffering a bit of depression since she fell headfirst into the menopause, fluttering violently from hibernating in her dark bedroom for weeks on end to lashing out at family members like a prickly porcupine. She’s never liked the idea of her sons (Barrie, Johnnie and Robbie) growing up to be failures, and with Robbie being the only one at home now (Barrie flew the nest to set up an unsuccessful twenty-four-hour booze delivery service with his ex-missus, and Tony the Dad goes off-shore for periods of three months on, one month off at the oil rigs), he gets most of the spines. Johnnie bites his lip as he swerves down curvy Windsor Road, nodding in certain places while his Nanna says, ‘You see, you don’t want your Robbie getting an earful every time he comes home late, gets his PE kit mucky, that sort of thing. She didn’t even let him see his new girlfriend the other night! She’s just lonely mind – I try my best to see her, but it’s tricky with me not being so mobile now …’ Once they reach Nanna’s, Johnnie lugs all the shopping into her kitchen, saying to her, ‘I dunno, it’s just she just kicks off at me. You know how hard it is finding a job round here, Nanna; it’s rock hard. And I’m really trying; I really am, but last time I went round she just started crying and chucked the plates at me.’ Johnnie does want to see her, but it’s the heartbreak of telling your mam you’re pathetic and penniless and can’t find a job (when in fact you’re pathetic and penniless and punt pills and pilfer people) that puts him off. Johnnie coming round with a big Smiley Face when all he does in life is sell SmileyFaces to idiots is only going to depress her even more. But Johnnie promises his Nanna he’ll give it a go, and she smiles and delves into her purse and hands him a crisp new fiver, to help tide him over. Johnnie kisses her goodbye and walks through her lovely lilac garden, chuffed about the money. He beeps the horn while Nanna waves cheery at the window, gently pulling off the drive then whacking his foot down once he’s completely out of view. If only his mam and Nanna knew how talented he is in the field of criminal behaviour! It’s not easy being a failure, you know. Over the years Johnnie’s really honed his craft; sometimes he makes more money drug-dealing when he doesn’t even have any drugs on him. Genius! Some of his favourite tricks of the trade range from ‘hit-and-run’ (where you literally hit and run away from someone who’s just given you money/unveiled their wallet), ‘lucky cellophane’ (insert any piece of cellophane or other worthless plastic into a cigarette box, then sell to unsuspecting customers as ‘drugs’), the ‘unlucky cell phone’ (advertise yourself as a trendy drug dealer to kids, then snatch their mobile when they go to take your number), and sometimes you’ve just got to be fearless and put your hand in people’s pockets, or your elbow in people’s car windows. Vroom-vroom-vrooming down Cargo Fleet, Johnnie spots a couple of youths in flammable tops who got ganj off him once at a party, and he considers for a second trying the old ‘unlucky cell phone’ on them, but today he’s just not in the mood. It’s 12.30pm and the sun’s at pretty much full force, zapping the town with life – it’s one of those days when all the playing fields are jolly and green and the sky’s a neon sign and all the houses are pink pomegranates; everything looking completely beautiful. Sliding the Nissan Sunny into the Peach/Pear House car park, Johnnie smiles and spots Ellen impersonating a bright lamp-post by the edge of the road. He waves then parks up, being careful not to stall or crash into the five five-year-olds having a kickabout on the concrete. He gets out the car, then stepping-stones on his own shadow to where Ellen’s parked herself. ‘Hiya,’ he says, all baby deer eyes and jailbird haircut. Ellen smiles, then for twenty-two seconds there’s a sort of awkward silence, friction in the air like the streets and the trees are made of sandpaper. Johnnie looks at Ellen. She’s so gorgeous, he hopes up to the cloudless sky she didn’t sleep with Angelo etc. etc. ‘I missed you!’ she yelps, and she hugs him and Johnnie finally manages to relax. He can be a bit of a pushover and he trips over a big bucket of love and says, ‘I missed you too.’ They have a bit of a kiss and a bit of a grope, then Johnnie scrambles through his pocket for the fiver Nanna gave him, and he says, ‘Here, Ellen, this is for you. I just wanna say sorry for being a dickhead. Soz for scaring you, you know, when I went mad at Angelo. It wasn’t your fault. I’m alright now.’ Ellen’s eyes ping on when she sees the money, and it’s annoying because deep down she’s a right greedy cunt but it’s hard to kick off at a girl when she’s wrapped herself around you. To Johnnie a cuddle from Ellen’s worth at least a fiver anyhow. The two of them squeeze and squeeze until it’s too hot and sweaty, then Ellen pockets the money and says, ‘Aww, Johnnie, I love you.’ Johnnie says ahh he loves her as well and everything else then he says, ‘So what you up to? Wanna nip down the park or something?’ Ellen squints at the sun then covers her eyes with a hand full of rings and goes, ‘Yeah! It’s too nice to stay in the flat, isn’t it …’ After a bit more cuddling the two of them skip off to the adventure playground in Pally Park, linking pinkies rather than holding hands because it’s far too sticky. The world’s revolving like a microwave. Like Dorothy and her daft dog Toto, Ellen and Johnnie meander together down the yellow streets of heatwave; through the enchanted forest of council houses; past scary lads with footballs, tinheads on motorbikes and giant lions on deckchairs in threadbare gardens; down to the Emerald City. Pallister Park is beautiful in sunshine, dismal in winter, and the two of them zip across the crispy green grass with smiles the size of bananas. Firstly, Johnnie and Ellen climb the climbing frame, sitting at the summit with their legs dangling off, the fizz and flutter of birds, barks, cars, screams and ice-cream vans sounding around them. Then they jump off and spin on the roundabout for eighteen rotations, then they see-saw, then Johnnie has a go on the bouncy sheep thing on a spring but there’s threat of him bashing his head on the ground so he gets off. Five minutes are spent having a fag on the park bench, Johnnie and Ellen chatting about the crinkly ball sac at the dole office, his mother’s depression, and the lads over there having a wee against the railings. All the while Johnnie thinks how he’d love to put all thoughts of Angelo behind him and give shagging Ellen another go. He pecks her lemon meringue left cheek, then they stub out their fags and jump on the swings. There’s nowhere he’d rather be than swinging with his girlfriend into the neverending sky. At first they start off gentle, the shiny flats and houses coming and going beneath them then, as the momentum builds, one minute you’re in Pallister Park and the next minute you’re in the Milky Way. Johnnie dangles his feet in a cirrus cloud while Ellen kicks at fluffy aeroplane trails, both of them whizzing at high speed like happy demolition balls. Ellen thinks to herself, ‘I can see my house from here,’ but then again she does live in a big fuck-off tower block. Johnnie begins to show off, kicking harder and harder with every swing, and soon he’s nearly going full-circle with the earth coming back in view over the back of his head. He’s like a ghostly galleon, all pale and skeletal. While her boyfriend zooms back and forth on his back, Ellen starts getting tired and swings a bit less passionately, feeling her tight top stick to her flesh. She checks in the back of her miniskirt the fiver’s still there and it is, then she gradually comes to a halt with a gleeful little face on her head. She glances at Johnnie being a blur next to her, and she thinks to herself everything’s going to be fine and dandy between them. Then she thinks how easy it is to cheat on your boyfriend!