Ten Storey Love Song (7 page)

When she woke up this morning in Johnnie’s bed, there was just a ditch laid next to her instead of a boyfriend. She hopes Johnnie hasn’t flipped again, storming around the town, mutilating young men in his path. She unzips her clingy top, lying back on the sofa while Bobby pervs, memorising her curves for ‘The Angels’ (244x233cm). He thinks Ellen’s quite sound because she takes a lot of heavy-duty drugs and doesn’t seem to give a shit about anything – she’s like a sixties child in an eighties tracksuit, always enjoying herself, getting laid, doing pills, not going to work. She reminds him a bit of himself, except he doesn’t have blonde hair and he’s never shagged two men at once in San Antonio on holiday. He’s not going to make a pass at her – he really couldn’t do that to Georgie, and he doesn’t fancy dining on razor blades either. He asks Ellen if she’s got a spare ciggy, but no smoker ever has a spare cigarette, and she ends up going on her own to the bathroom to spark up the Richmonds Johnnie bought her so Bobby won’t cadge off her. At around 5am Ellen starts getting tired and she figures she’d better get some sleep since she’s at the dole tomorrow, despite Bobby the Artist rambling to her about primary colours and Josef Albers and optical illusions and other shite. He slaps some bright red next to some bright blue on this new painting he’s doing called ‘Bobby’s Favourite Trip’ (120x150cm), based on an afternoon in Spar when Bobby tried to climb into the confectionery counter, thinking all the gaudy chocolate bars were gaudy chocolate cars. He says, ‘See how your eye flickers between the red and blue, like it can’t tell which is nearer? It’s called an illusion I think.’ Ellen yawns and curls into a mollusc shape on the settee, opening one eye then saying, ‘Ah right, well anyway that’s nice but I think I’d best be off to sleep. You gonna stay up much longer?’ Ellen nuzzles her head right into one of the cushions, completely shattered, while Bobby potters about in the living room, scrabbling for change for a two-litre bottle of cider from the shop across the road. When times are hard, he can often rustle
£
1.99 for White Strike and get pissed for a few hours – anything to avoid the boring lifeless ordeal of being sober. He uncovers a few 10 and 20ps from under the settee and round ‘The Angels’ (244x233cm) and ‘Bobby’s Favourite Trip’ (120x150cm) and behind the telly and in Georgie’s tweed purse, then he propels himself shopward. The boys at the Coca-Cola newsagent always sort him out for booze way before they’re licensed, and there’s that faint rock-and-roll scruffy charm buying gutrot cider at daft o’clock in the morning surrounded by paper boys and the dawn yawning. Bobby trundles back into Peach House with bare feet and his arm round the cider, and an hour or so later he’s completely legless and Georgie and Ellen are just waking up with grumpy pale faces. He tries to make them a cup of tea in the kitchen but he just jibbers about like an octopus on downers, flapping his arms and knocking things over but really enjoying it. Georgie’s less impressed, sorting her and Ellen a fried-egg sarnie each and still really pooing herself about the dentist. She’s got on the geisha dressing-gown, and she tells Bobby to go to bed but he just laughs and says to her lighten up and he’s a bit of a nuisance. She gives him a karate chop and makes herself the perfect white-four-sugars cup of tea, then she sits in a huff in front of
GMTV
. It’s funny how you take normal days for granted, normal days where you don’t have to have your teeth drilled out, or you don’t have to look after Bobby, or you don’t have your hay fever. Georgie sniffs and sulks into her teacup, feeling all snotty and red-eyed and nervous. It’s one of those mornings the air stinks and the sun’s a big yellow circle, all the pretty flowers opening their petals to it like slutty vaginas and pissing out ping-pong pollen. Georgie gets hay fever really awful every summer, and just when she thought she’d get through June without a sneeze or a sniffle, she wakes up on the morning of her dentist appointment with sloppy marshmallow eyeballs and a throat full of flames. Poor little blossom. Summer’s a funny time for Georgie in that she loves sunny weather and rolling around in daisy patches, but she gets punished for it so severely. She finishes off her tea and says cheerio to the wobbly wino in the kitchen, then her and Ellen set off into the thick slimy sunlight. There’s a heatwave floating over Cargo Fleet Lane, and her and Ellen sit together on the grassy slope instead of hanging out with the silent cunts at the bus shelter. Georgie and Ellen actually get on quite well – a relationship built on drunken nights round each other’s flats, often talking totally openly about boyfriends’ cum faces, farting, and so-and-so’s (Mandy’s) stinky fanny. The only thing is Georgie really disagrees with people sponging off the dole and being lazy, and she worries people like Ellen will go nowhere in their beautiful massive lives. Having said that, while the two of them sit there constructing a daisy-chain, Georgie wishes she was going to the Jobcentre and getting
£
44 a week for nowt rather than going to the dentist then a six-hour shift at Bhs on minimum wage. The bad thing about work today is she won’t be in the mood for scoffing sweets after getting her mouth carved out, and sitting amongst the posters of rotten teeth and cartoon kids saying NO! to sugary treats puts you on such a fucking guilt trip. Slapping dark hair and bright sun out of her eyes, Georgie positions herself in some lamp-post shadow and asks Ellen, ‘You and Johnnie aren’t on the rocks, are you?’ Ellen sits in the buttercups with her top rolled up to her turtle-green bra and shellsuit bottoms turned up, and she squints at Georgie and goes, ‘Naw, I don’t think so. I just want to give him space, know what I mean? Give him some space and that. I think he’s just pissed off about Angelo, something to do with drugs or something.’ Georgie nods, thinking she’s lucky in a way that Bobby’s not that violent or temperamental; he’s just plain mental. She stabs another daisy with her pink nail and attaches it to their metre-long chain, and as the 65 bus comes wibbling into view from over the hill she says, ‘Here’s the bus.’ They jump on, Ellen hanging the dainty chain round her neck and borrowing the fare off Georgie, which she says she’ll ‘definitely get back’. Georgie says it’s okay with a blank face, sitting down and worrying more about her left eye than a wee bit of money. She’s leaking all this yellow gooey stuff, probably because Georgie’s rubbing her eyes with the same hand she’s been rubbing her nose with, but she can’t help it. She stares sadly at the backs of people’s heads. Keeping themselves occupied on the white-hot bus, her and Ellen chatter a bit longer about boys and troubles, Ellen asking things like, ‘So is Bobby a good shag and that?’ and Georgie replying things like, ‘Aw yeah, it’s the best. I mean, I haven’t shagged loads of lads, but Bobby’s incredible. Only sometimes he can get carried away, you know, like wanting to get tied up or wanting me to put a finger up his bum …’ Ellen laughs and nods, but really she thinks Georgie’s probably pretty frigid – or at least not very outgoing in bed – when really sex is like a blank page and you can either leave it pretty blank or you can squirt a thousand colours over it. Sometimes Ellen thinks of herself as being artistic like Bobby, but only when it comes to being a good shag – she’s no good with a paintbrush, but incredibly creative with a man’s hard penis. She smiles wistfully, remembering all the many willies squirting semen left right and centre like squeezy mayonnaise bottles, and she also thinks slightly about Angelo in hospital, unable to shag him because he’s all bandaged up but she might’ve wanted to again. As the bus grumbles and drops everyone outside the Crown, Ellen guesses it’s probably for the best Angelo’s gone. She doesn’t want her head caved in either. Ellen scuttles off towards the Jobcentre, feeling the sun melting drab brown Legoland, and she waves Georgie off lighting her last Richmond Superking. Georgie gives her a lonely little nod, pacing with her head down to the dental practice. The word ‘practice’ always makes her nervous – she hopes they’ve practised well enough by now not to make any mistakes. Georgie walks into the crinkly white surgery, the smell of mouthwash and plastic gloves sending a shiver down her spine, and she feels dismal telling the receptionist her name and that she’s in for two fillings. The receptionist smiles but not with any sympathy, and tells Georgie to sit in the waiting room for ten minutes in between kids’ toys and out-of-date women’s magazines and the stereo chirping out CDs full of whale noises or the rainforest or a marmoset dying. Georgie knocks her knees together, waiting with her heart in her mouth on the ripped school-staff-roomy chairs. She’d much rather be at work, but it’s funny how she always whinges about going to Bhs too, and she wonders to herself if she’s got a fairly shitty life. Ellen and Bobby the Artist have it soooooo easy, being able to do what they want – they don’t know what it’s like working nine-to-five; what a way to make a living. It’s fucking shite. It’s just that Georgie has no choice – she figures you’ve got to make money to stay alive, and there’s people out there doing much worse jobs and they might not even have a partner and they might eat ready-meals-for-one every night crying into the pasta or the shepherd’s pie and then just go to bed. At least Georgie’s life is exciting – what with living with complete nutcases – and she tries to hold her head high when the nurse in blue calls her name, leading her up the tight grubby staircase. But in the operating room it’s torture – for starters Mr West aggravates her with lots of small-talk (nice weather today eh, see the footy, going anywhere nice this summer?), then he leans her right back in the grey leather seat and blinds poor Georgie with the rectangle light. Georgie’s pulse is battering as the dentist cleans her molars with that cold sucky machine, the sound of it going through her like nails down a blackboard but much much worse. It’s the fact Mr West never informs her what he’s doing that gets to Georgie; he concentrates closed-mouthed as he starts drilling into Georgie’s soft tooth, as if it’s worse to actually say the word ‘drill’ to her than to just dive in with it completely unexpectedly. Georgie flinches, a weeny tear plopping out of her eye – at first the pain’s not so bad, but then Mr West pushes down a bit harder and the drill goes whizz and bits of mouldy white gravel start flying out of her mouth. All the while the blue nurse still has that sicky sucky thing shoved in her gob like Georgie’s giving a blow-job to all these metal instruments, and she starts crying like a little girl, wishing her mammy was here or at least Bobby the Artist to tell the surgeons to push off. Soon the pain’s unbearable, and Mr West even has the nerve to poke into the cavity with this skinny spike, sending an electric shock round Georgie’s skull and out through her eyeballs. She cries sloppy tears and makes the odd moan, trying to be a big girl but she’s positive Mr West’s hurting her on purpose, the sadistic little rotter. She clutches the arms of the leathery seat, wishing all the dentists of the world dead but at least she’s forgotten about her hay fever. Her molars feel like big lightning-struck rocks, and even when Mr West fills the nerves in with white glob her mouth still kills and all she can think of is Ellen at the dole office, doing two minutes’ work a fortnight then going out and getting pissed and not giving a shit for the next two weeks. Even Ellen’s healthcare’s free because she’s signing on; Georgie has to pay the surgery forty-odd pound for the pleasure of having her teethies hurt. She pays up with a sour face and a fat lip, then trundles out of the surgery with a little bit of relief but mostly antagonism and numbness. It’s eleven o’clock and she picks up the pace on her way to Bhs, not bearing to look at the Jobcentre as she scuttles past. Ellen’s probably down the pub by now, with a cocktail in one hand. Lucky bitch. However, in actual fact Ellen’s still sitting on the plaggy seats with her white giro booklet in hand, waiting very impatiently to get her name called by one of the grotesque blouse-mad JC assistants. It’s shit weather in the Jobcentre – mostly grey and humid, some scattered fans about doing nowt. Ellen watches the plastic clock not moving in the corner of her eye, desperately wanting to get back outside and out of this fucking depressing zoo. They’re funny old creatures, dole scum: man and wife with zebra tattoos probably been signing on for years, girl with peacock hair and little baby joey, bloke in grey seal suit probably got made redundant, little teenage cheetahs cheating the dole like Ellen. She feels a weird bond with all these people – the ones who sign on every first and third Thursday of the month around the half-ten mark. Johnnie used to be one. Ellen’s got no intention of finding a job what with her leeching off her boyfriend and enjoying herself so much – she thinks people who work are absolute mugs. The dole people are mugs and all – when Ellen finally gets called to Desk Number One, the lady behind it asks her what she’s been doing this week to find a job and Ellen says with a serious face, ‘Aw loads … Been looking in the
Evening Gazette
but there was nowt suitable, came in the Jobcentre a few times to look for … vacancies, is it? … yeah, and my uncle Gary reckons he can get me a job at Morrison’s, so I’m just waiting to hear from him really … oh yeah, and I checked the
Herald and Post
and all.’ The lady nods, quite skeletal from years of hearing bullshit – Ellen doesn’t really have an uncle Gary; she’s got an aunty Diana, but she’s a lesbian and works at the dog-track in Sunderland and Ellen doesn’t think she could be fucked with that. She taps her feet up and down on the grey carpet tiles, signing her name under all her other signatures on the slip the lady hands her, seeing jackpot signs whizz round her eyeballs like her head’s a one-armed bandit. ‘Have you checked the vacancies today?’ the lady asks, every bit of her creased like a hairless old ball sac. ‘Yeah,’ Ellen lies, but the ball sac still has a check through the database for her just in case. Ellen cringes, wishing very bad things on the dole lady and the dole lady’s family. Blowing into a tissue, the lady glances at Ellen’s details and spouts, ‘So I see you’re looking for jobs in either animal care, engineering, or computer management? Well what about this = Veterinarian Nurse, five days a week in Redcar, two years’ experience minimum, ten pounds fifty an hour?’ Ellen’s belly smiles. She goes, ‘Ah, I don’t have the experience, sorry.’ To be a professional dole merchant, you’ve got to have good qualifications in Excuse Making – the only subject Ellen really excelled at in school. The ball-sac lady gazes at her with a bit of contempt, but there’s nothing she can say really and she stares at her computer again feeling shitty and annoyed – it’s not like she loves working at the Jobcentre; all she wants herself is an easy life. The lady’s had a million awful jobs (on the till at Netto, parking attendant, human filing cabinet at the Inland Revenue, school bog cleaner), and she doesn’t see why some people (her) have to go through murder while others (Ellen) wake up to