Glorious

Johnny.

The train journey was long and bloody cold, and my head felt like half a dozen ferrets were burrowing around inside trying to get some tender part of my brain that was still live and well. I put my sunglasses on to soothe the ache in my frazzled eyeballs from the light that kept flickering at me through the window, and leaned my face against the cold glass.

‘It’s Johnny Carpenter,’ some clever arse lad said as he got on, and saw me slumped in my seat. I took my sunglasses off. He blinked at me; as if trying to work it out, then turned and made off down the carriage in the opposite direction.

I thought, how many pop stars have to get the train to their mum’s house on Christmas Eve. Probably not many. I never got the hang of driving though, and even if I had I would have been in no fit state to drive when I think on it. You could have peeled me off that window by the time we reached Stockport; I was sweating now and that mingling with the frozen cold glass made a horrible, guilty glue. I staggered off the train, gazing around me in bewilderment, not even sure if I had the right stop. I hadn’t seen the station since I used to hang around as a kid; and as far as I could tell it had changed. There was now a photo booth, as if that was a necessity at a train station. They could have done with some fucking CCTV, then when you got the shite kicked out of you at night on a dark platform you wouldn’t have to crawl into the photo booth to take pictures of the fucking evidence.

Tacked across a large billboard on the platform was a massive picture of my bloody face, grinning loopily at everyone like a sex offender. I looked at it briefly behind my sunglasses and hurried on, feeling the earth’s pull particularly hard on my temples, calling my sore head towards gravity. Nobody else noticed me, even as I hurried ashamedly past the poster of me. I felt a childish thrill go through me, the feeling of ‘getting away with it.’

I finally reached mum’s after a horrible cab journey with a driver who was adamant I looked like ‘that bloke off t’telly; you know, the queer looking lad’ who reasoned that I couldn’t have been him o’ course; because that type always has a couple of Ferrari’s parked in’t garage and wouldn’t be tekkin’ a cab on’t Christmas, and any road, what would someone like that be doing spending Christmas in Stockport?
         ‘Probably stretched out on some yacht somewhere foreign,’ the cabbie said with a sniff, ‘with some tart seeing to his jaffers. Lucky get.’
I mumbled something incoherent and prayed for the journey to be over, and the car to swing round the bend of my old road. I felt terrible, absolutely rotten, my head still bashing away and my limbs felt like they were made of blue-tack. That’s the trouble with cocaine, it’s brilliant when you’re there, doing it, of a night surrounded by stunning women who’ll clamber over hot coals to sit next to you if you’ve got any; when you look cool and everyone is full of bull shit and their own self importance. But the next day, it’s like you’ve been fucked in the sinus with a cucumber and every time you swallow you get a guilty little taste of the night before. I hated feeling so unclean, then. Not in the druggie way, I mean; just unclean, immoral, especially when I finally rolled onto my doorstep staring a jaunty little wreath in the face, and there was mum, suddenly; full of smiles as soon as she opened the door, folding me up in her big jumper-y arms like I was nine.
         ‘Oh, my darling boy,’ she goes in this voice that makes you wish you never did all the bad things you’ve done, and made me think then, in that moment, that I could turn my back on everything, and never do drugs again.
She lipsticked me up the side of my face and ushered me in, fussing like a little bird all the while, unwrapping me from my coat while I just stood there like a fucking idiot not knowing what the hell I was doing and feeling a mite embarrassed because I was wearing my sunglasses in the house I grew up in and it’s not very rock and roll.
My sister appeared in the hallway door, and looked at me scathingly; before ripping them off my face with a derisive comment and smacking me round the head with an affectionate thump that rather fucking hurt. She looked nice; she had tinsel in her hair and she was wearing bright red lipstick, which made her move her mouth very carefully, like she was very aware she had it on.
         ‘You look bloody awful,’ she said, examining me with dark eyes. She sees right through me, always has done, always will.
         ‘London air, bad for my boy,’ Mum says looking at me herself. I feel aware of the purple quality of the skin around my eyes, and I wish I’d had a shower this morning. There’s a film of last night still clinging to my skin.
         ‘You stink of fags,’ Clare says. ‘What the Jesus were you up to last night? Partying like a rock star was it?’ she’s taking the piss. Mum tuts.
         ‘Burning the candle at both ends. You’re pale as anything and your clothes look as though they could do with a wash.’
         ‘It’s the fashion, Mum,’ Clare says with a rescuing smile. She knows. But she won’t tell. That’s the beauty of my sister. I manage a weak grin and feel the earth tilt a little.
         We go through into the sitting room which looks a picture of Christmas; my Mum’s little house always looks it’s best when decked out in it’s seasonal uniform, an amazingly neat tree crammed in the corner, covered in every Christmas decoration the woman has ever owned; including some rather sad efforts that Clare and I made when we were kids. A mouldy looking Christmas pudding bauble; a lumpy angel.
         My mum doesn’t do tinsel, says it’s tacky. That’s probably why my sister has wound some into her hair. She’s so ironic. But the little room is full of nice things that make you think of Christmas; candles in red and gold, that smell like cinnamon, trimmed with holly; bowls of nuts that nobody but my Granddad ever really used to eat, kept there now for tradition. It’s like a little grotto in there and it makes me feel nostalgic. I want to sit down badly, and I do, with a concealed groan. Mum asks me if I want tea, or a beer. I would like a beer, but I say I’ll have tea. No need to get pissed. Clare’s guzzling wine next to me, fiddling with my hair in a way that’s annoying; telling me I need to get it cut.
         ‘Where’s me Dad?’ I ask. He’s not here. He’s always here. My Mum and Dad have been separated for seven years and my Dad still comes round every Christmas. I think neither of them can bear to live without the routine. It is a nice one, after all. They had their arguments, believe me, when they were together, but they never once argued at Christmas. I’m sure it’s meant to be a time when couples who are a bit rocky usually scream and shout and tear the walls down round each other. And I know I’ve seen some bleak adverts on TV, wives cowering after overcooked turkey rows. Christmas dinner and domestic violence. Honestly, who produces things like that? But my mum and dad were never happier with each other than they were at Christmas. I’m glad they are exempt from the horrors of such things.
         Clare drains the dregs of wine from her glass and smacks her lips.
         ‘He’ll be here.’ She says, ominously. The phone rings, it’s Auntie Sylvia, ringing to say happy Christmas Eve.
         ‘Are yiz’ going to Midnoight Mass?’ she asks me when mum proffers the phone in my direction. Clare, who can hear, as she’s sitting right by me and Auntie Sylvia has a reputation for having a mighty gob on her, sniggers.
         ‘Um, I don’t know… maybe. We’re waiting for dad.’
         Sylvia mutters something under her breath that sounds like ‘wait around for that lazy shoite, you’ll die waiting,’ and I swiftly hand the phone to Clare who grimaces and starts making benign conversation. I listen with one ear, as it rapidly turns into a slanging match. The pair of them have never seen eye to eye about a few things. They’re the only people I know who can go from pleasantries like ‘hi, how are you?’ to a screaming row about abortion in under fifteen seconds.
         ‘I’ll drink as much as I like, Auntie Sylv; it’s Christmas! For fecks’ sake,’ Clare grumbles the last bit as she thrusts the phone back at my mother. What amuses me most, is that a conversation with my Auntie will always turn Clare momentarily Irish. They fight like cat and dog, but they’re more alike than anything else, and I think Clare secretly hopes to resemble Sylvia in her twilight years.
         ‘That woman.’

It’s so odd being back home, I feel as if it’s been ages, I can’t get my head round it. It’s easy to forget where I’ve been and what I’ve done in the past three years when I get back in that little time capsule.

                                                        [another random excerpt]


And it’s fucking awful because I’m looking at Dylan, and I’m thinking, I used to love you, once. I used to really fucking love you, and now we fight each other for the same girl and hate everything about each other. This boy, who used to go round before me in nightclubs begging people not to give me drugs, Who used to drag me away from impending hellish situations and pour water, coffee and cooked breakfasts down my throat when I couldn’t be bothered to get up and look after myself. This boy, who’d punched me in the head for getting off with the girl he liked when we were both fourteen; only he didn’t do that any more. Now, when it was important he just sat there and watched while I got the girl he wanted. Before sliding the knife in behind my back and turning her against me.
         I hate that it’s changed; I really do. I needed Dylan more than any other living person at one point; I needed him and I didn’t always appreciate him. He used to get on my nerves bleating on about me and drugs when I’d sat with him like the ghost of Christmas past in my mind’s eye, recalling nights when he racked up lines like a pro on my coffee table and we spent a whole night talking about Phil Collins. I was touched that he cared; it was like having your mum around sometimes; but a mum you could expose that awful side of yourself to; a nice warm friendly face who cleaned you up and sent you on your way. ‘Have a lollipop instead, mate.’
         Dylan in the old days; a maternal, terrible hybrid, with sincere eyes and phrases like ‘Come on now, mate, you know this isn’t what you want to do. You’re being a silly bollocks.’
         I didn’t hate him, even when I hated him. I told him to fuck off often enough, and he just gently propelled me in the direction of the door, foot firmly up backside, ear properly tweaked. I always woke up feeling guilty as hell, full of remorse and grateful to him, because even though he complained he never stopped doing it. He really gave a shit about me. Not like now. I don’t even know what he thinks now; even when I look right at him, I can see he’s thinking, cogs whirring away behind his eyes and yet I have no idea what it is. He could be mind-fucking Leo for all I know. They’re close, I know that. And I know it’s my fault. In a drunken row with her one night when we were hurling words at one another, I accused her. I shouldn’t have done it, it’s not like that, not for her, anyway. She looked at me, her eyes all liquid and disbelieving. It was like I’d punched her in the stomach.
         ‘Dylan’s my friend,’ she said. ‘You introduced us, you can’t expect us not to be friends. It’s a good job; I’d be completely alone sometimes if it weren’t for him. I need someone to talk to when you’re being a fucking wanker.’
         I deserved it really. She was right. And I’d visibly wounded her, she couldn’t believe I’d even think it. Naïve. She couldn’t believe that a guy like Dylan would want someone like her; the way she is, the way everybody just glows to her. Sometimes I want to scream at her for being so bloody naïve. But I love that sheer absence of ugly conceit in her. She thinks because she’s trusting and faithful the rest of the world will be. She can’t see the hungry look I’ve seen come over Dylan’s face when he looks at her.
         I used to think he wouldn’t have the balls to do anything, now I’m not so sure. They shared a bed once, and I didn’t care at all; I quite enjoyed the idea. There was something perversely delicious about my girlfriend sleeping in the same space as my best mate. My two closest people, so close together, so unattainable to each other. I liked the idea of his little schoolboy crush on her, it made me feel rich and lucky. I liked the idea of her not even knowing. The safety of it thrilled me, made me feel powerful. Stupid self-important prick that I was then, I didn’t believe they’d ever have anything but love and loyalty for me. It didn’t really occur to me that she might love him for being a better person that I am.
         ‘Why do you love me?’ I asked her that night, sky rocketed off my face, eyes rushed out to the moon. A big black hole in my heart. Self pity rife in my thoughts.
         ‘I’m not going to talk to you like that.’ She said. I was hurt.
         ‘All I want to know is what you love me for? Please. Please tell me why you love me, Lee; I need to know.’
         ‘Oh, for your money of course.’
         Always the same. She deflects when I’m drunk.
         ‘You’d be better off if you did. I think I’d be better off if you did.’
         ‘Oh shut the fuck up, seriously, Johnny. How dare you. I think I’d like you more if you were poor, maybe you wouldn’t be such a paranoid wreck.’
         ‘That’s really low, Lee.’
         ‘You accusing me of wanting your stupid money is low. You accusing me of having some secret thing with Dylan is low. You blaming me for everything you don’t like about your own life, is low. It’s not my fault you don’t trust me, I’m the only one in this relationship who hasn’t cheated! And it’s not Dylan’s fault you don’t trust him; it’s only because you know you take him for granted and you cant quite believe that he’s still stuck around, hasn’t turned on you yet! It’s almost like you want him to! And even better if it was with me, you’d love that. You could sulk then, and cut yourself off, and get off your face and moan about how unkind the world is to you, how lonely it is to be you. It’s not fucking lonely to be you, J. You wish it was, then you’d have something to write songs about. You create loneliness, you push us away, you push us together then you get jealous. You’re a child. You’re a fucking boy. Of course I love Dylan, he’s the only person I can talk to about you, nobody else wants to listen any more, they’re bored of the subject. You’ve a nerve accusing him of anything; he’s got the patience of a bloody saint with you. And he loves you. I think he loves you more than anything else in the world, he certainly loves you more than you love him, and you don’t deserve him. You don’t love him back properly, you don’t give, it’s always what do you get, how much do we love you. Why do I love you? Why do I love you? I would love an answer to that question that didn’t make me sound like a fucking fool.’


                                                                  [and another excerpt]


Dylan.

And so it was, the three of us, the self-dubbed ‘Trio Elite’. It was fun. I enjoyed it. We were exclusive, we had other friends but it was our inner circle that no one else could really penetrate that meant the most, and we were the control.
         We became a talking point, a mystery; we were darlings of society to everybody but to each other we laughed about it and were merely ourselves. We suddenly had this glamour, this effortless sense of the bohemian and the romantic; and I put it all down to Leo. She exuded brilliance from every pore. She couldn’t even help it if she tried. The way she smoked her occasional cigarettes, the way she laughed, so raucous and filthy; the way she moved her divine legs, the way her hair was so gloriously unkempt, and the way that Johnny adored her in a way he had no other woman before. And she was lasting. Weeks and months rolled past and she was lasting, she would stay at his place for weeks on end and I’d roll in on a Sunday morning and she’d be there in socks and an ice hockey shirt; barefaced and grinning, noisily making a fry up while Johnny watched her dart about his kitchen with a look of something childishly happy on his face, and forcing her to let him help. And then we’d all sit on the balcony drinking coffee with a cigarette and the Sunday papers, making bacon butties with the remains of breakfast, Leo with her beautiful legs draped across Johnny’s knee and his heart in her hand.
         I knew he was falling in love with her. He couldn’t help the clichés; every time someone entered the room he’d look up expectantly, as if hoping it was her. And whenever she was around he just seemed to fall in sync with her body, mirroring her hand on hip or tilted face, and I’d watch him watching her- for ages- doing the littlest thing; winding a honey-coloured spiral of hair round her fingers; transfixed and intent. He was so aware of her, and so unaware of himself; I think unaware even that he was falling in love with her. I’d never seen him lie this with a woman, ever; they never seemed to last long enough to prance around his flat in a Redwings shirt to the Bhangra channel just to make him laugh. And if any of the others had lasted that long, I could never see any of them doing it anyway. I remembered how apprehensive I had been at first of this little flower child at first; how wary I had been of her beauty and her youth, and how such characteristics had before so often lead my easily distracted friend into scary situations with suppressed fanatics and big time gold diggers. But oh how wrong I was. She liked to ignore Johnny’s money altogether, preferring to sit in greasy cafés and shabby little pubs where the music was live and loud; or lounge at home playing cards, drinking tea and smoking too much; and talking about anything and everything until three in the morning. The occasions we went to clubs were events of a darkly glamorous and spectacular variety, for which we dressed as decadently and as close to resembling the Great Gatsby as possible. It was not a decision we actively made, it somehow just came about as a bit of a joke, when Leo decided that going to a club required a holder for her cigarette; and from then on she would sit at a dark exotic corner behind a large cocktail smoking through a long, slim black holder she picked up in a fancy dress shop, and looking for all the world like an Agatha Christie heroin. Or Villain. The theme was one that we liked and subsequently adopted, and the fun of going to a club became the fun of trying to top each ridiculous outfit.
         Leo was not interested in real extravagance, you see, it was all a costume. She liked junk jewellery, fake eyelashes and cheap drinks. She was vaguely uncomfortable with Johnny’s wealth I think, not having ever really had money herself. She certainly didn’t seem attracted to it. Her concern was pleasure. Earthly girl that she was. And I loved her for it.