something for the weekend….

I decided that as part of my rehabilitation programme I should go to London to hook up with my Cannes-partner. He knows me well, and knows nothing of the boy.

I stop off at the world’s end co-operative supermarche to buy some plonk and am delighted to be surrounded by other crawling insects ravaging through the reduced ready meals. These chelsea chavs are the best in the world – an eastern european wears a kappa tracksuit with some gang name written on the back, and carries a small wide-eyed human. Out of my spaceship and into the void…..

I crack open the vino immediately. I mix it with soda in the pretence it will err a hangover. I haven’t had a drop since ‘see you next tuesday’ or ‘maundy wednesday’ for that matter. It goes to my head. It goes to my brain. It goes to my legs. A few hours later and I’m in a delirious whirlwind of confusion in a local drinking establishment. You couldn’t write it. The guests at our table are the following:

• Two Glaswegian make up artists and their dog. I tell them about jimmy who was also a Scottish make-up artist. Who hung himself. Cheery.
• Some bald-headed creature blurting out Melinda Messenger at me. Unwise.
• A strange delicate but drunk old lady and her family. Quaint.

Woah, this is a hardcore homecoming. We go back to tim-na-nas for copious random amounts of booze. Colvich and the tonemeister turn up for the craic. We yabber about my party and my blog, and suddenly they’re gone. And some new conscripts stagger in through the front door as colvich and tone disappear out the back. Who’ve we got this time? Extremely drunk people. I vulture on a few of them; and as I have no idea what language is, let alone what I’m saying, my attack is preyless.

And the rest of the night is a bit of a blur, and not of the tender kind. Puking was involved, as were failed acrobatics. Somehow I managed to have a shower, get into my moo moo and half-make the sofa bed. And pass out. That was the easy bit. Some time later I feel my right calf completely seize up into a crampic spasm, and I’m so pissed I don’t wake to sort it out.

I turn to my right and there’s someone on the sofa with me, saying, ‘I shouldn’t stay’, and other various deluded ramblings. Fucked, I opt for the old ‘it’s alright babe, it’s alright’ (last uttered whilst pissing in someone’s doorway delirious on mdma).

And it’s the morning. And my innards break and my womb-lining lunges spurting forth. And I’m not sure of my name or how I got here.

The kings road is a familiar place for me in this state. I love the poshness mixed with the wonkiness of the horse-bred folk that frequent it, and have my own special trot. There’s a juncture with my mother’s maiden name and married names as streets either side. I feel good here.

I canter into boots to buy some compacted cotton wool to stick up my plethora, and go to the till, proud of my soon-purchases. I demand attention. A beautiful dark-skinned creature emerges from out back, beautiful wide smile, big eyes, suit. He doesn’t seem to be able to work the till, but by God, he does a good job of working me.

And I sing to myself in a distracted, ship’s-skivvy kind of way.

‘you’re deep in tune’. He says.

‘you what?’ I say.

‘deep in tune, I’m trying to work out what you’re singing’.

‘Bonnie Raitt, can’t make you love me’, I pipe back.

‘Oh, I thought it was singing in the rain!’

So he’s completely uncultured but willing to have a go. Excellent. A perfect specimen for the job. I educate him on the awesome film, of which all he knows is that ‘it’s old isn’t it?’ and I demonstrate the sloshing tap dance for him excitedly up and down the aisles. Not bad seeing as I was just trying to plug a hole.
This reminds me of the time I cautioned my friend that if she played ‘lord of the dance’ at her wedding I would gallop up and down the pews lifting my hideous lilac skirts. I think we ended up with ‘make me a kennel with your fleas’. Or was it fleece? I don’t remember.

I move onto another establishment where the ladies go to hide their loneliness and spend on credit cards that lurk in their subconsciousness. The shop assistant is a young chav. But a fit one. I force him to help me. He invites me to a special evening. I decline as I’m not a local, but this second booster is making me feel a million miles from my lonely attic by the sea.

People pass by, they’ve got their troubles, I’ve got mine, but we appreciate it’s okay to be a human. In Chelsea. A few art books and a mocha later and I decide it’s time to venture over the river to my beloved Johnny London. I shan’t be having a drink, of course…..

Now the Borough is an awesome place. But it’s real, and I’m planning on getting the cranky misfits bus from sloane square to elephant. Which is a bit of a come down. I get to the bus stop and run – it’s a Sunday but the bus is there! Now it’s gone…..No bother, I’ll keep on wanderin like the hobo I am. I wonder if my oyster is loaded, but I can’t face any more transactions today, so chance it.

I keep on walking. Past ‘John King’ antiques in Pimlico to Buckingham Palace Road. To get the other chavvie bus that will drop me at the end of my old road. Plan.

It’s windy, yes even in London it’s windy, and I’m not sure if it’s this that’s making my eyes leak. I decide to take advantage of a bit of weather and turn it into a ‘woe is me’ weep. And after ten minutes or so the bus comes. A girl in a lovely dress gets on, and I think I’ll tell her how lovely she looks. But I’ve got to get past the scary Chinese bus driver first.

I get my oyster card out. I bleek it. The light remains red. I look at mr driver. He’s not budging. I get my wallet out. There’s 31p. I look, imploringly this time, at the driver. He stares at me steelily and shrugs.

‘I, I haven’t got any money’, I stammer. He shrugs again. And before I turn with my tail between my legs and exit the bus, a large glob of boo-snot drips from my nose onto the floor. As I stare at the driver dejectedly. How low can you go?

Undeterred by this should-be humiliating experience, I walk to Victoria, stick some cash on my oyster and waste time waiting for the next bus, whilst the person I’m visiting wheels it up to the backstreets of Shoreditch to score. An epic journey. I cry romantically, staring out of the window as I used to do when I was five and projecting along to sir Clifford. At one point I’m more or less in the lap of the larger lady beside me. Oh how sweet it is to wallow in London where no one knows your name.

And I wonder whether I’ll be morose and emotional for my Johnny tonight?

Not a chance. A bottle of cava and some green later and we’re off. Into a creative carcrash with the wonder that is garageband.

He’s written a song, mock-donna summer, called discoeey7, which we quickly rename discojam. What a godawful name. To match a godawful song. I gratingly wail ‘sexy boy, I want sex boy’ over the top of the 80s uplifting groove as he growls ‘sex on demand, sex on demand’. And then we splutter for a bit and stop recording.

It is a fucking wreck. We delete it, knowing that although we couldn’t face our failure ever again, it would have been priceless in the morning.

After another pass-out it’s bank holiday monday. We spend it flatly, dining on overpriced urban eggs served by a jaundiced bulgarian. We head uptown to soho to look for guitars, finding the shops all shut. We neck a quick vodka in the street and visit noel fielding’s art exhibition at maison berteaux. We came here once before, and left running with a certain kleptomaniac and original canvas to boot.

This time there’s a room full of homage to Bryan Ferry, and protruding from the wall is a painting that stops me dead in my contented tracks. It’s a tiger. The boy loved them. And it’s called ‘tyger with chlamydia’, and the tiger wears boots and says ‘shit off’.

That evening I’ve scored myself a gig. With some amazing irish musicians I used to beatbox with back in the day. We meet at the local pub we’re playing in and after a few buckets of wine it’s my turn to croon. I honk out ‘black is the colour’ in anti-traditional rusps. The audience stare, and ask me who exactly’s version is that? Johnny scarpers. Godiva drinks more port.

And when we’ve warmed up we do well. The old drunk at the bar pipes out ‘where do you go to my lovely’ for the 942nd time this year. The owner joins in. A small midget-like man in a suit strums ingeniously on the ukele and we ooze along with him in glorious celtic technicolour.

And suddenly it’s half-two in the morning. And me and the mighty quinn are standing bedazed waiting for her nightbus that will surely become a minicab without a fairy godmother.

And I’m standing on the corner of my old street, with the lamplights running low and the skyscrapers omitting moody green light over the pavement. And I remember that this is where my lover once left me, smiling and waving, for the last time before he hung himself.

And I stagger off to bed, seeking respite in the warped mattress where me and the boy joyously ejaculated a few months before.

And I ask my saviour, the lord Johnny, to redeem my soul. And he tells me,

‘yes, you did fuck him in that bed, but you also fucked a hell of a lot of other people in that bed’.

And with that, I resolve to not fuck myself up too much more:- a bright, garagebandless morning awaits me and my new life beckons….