by Liam Livings
I’d been telling him how tired me and Paul had been feeling during the week. “Eat, sleep, work, and that’s it. Anything else is too much to think about, never mind do.”
“In the week-ness. That’s what that is, mate.”
It was a sort of midweek blah stretching beyond Wednesday, when you usually got the midweek blahs. The in the week-ness started on Monday and lasted till Thursday. “Funny, though,” he said, “by Friday it’s gone and you’re well up for doing it all over again, innit?”
“And what can you do about it? I don’t think I can cope with it, week after week after week.”
“Stop getting on it every weekend. Stop doing all this wickedness.” He shrugged. “It’s easy. But who’s gonna do that, eh? I’m off for a dance, coming?” Off he went, arms waving in the air as he joined a group of people dancing round a bonfire.
When I mentioned it to Paul while we were both in the grip of in the week-ness the following Wednesday, he said, “It’s fine. It’s not for ever. Something’ll turn up. Let’s plot our escape from it all.”
“Everything?” I asked, while using the will and concentration of my whole being to make beans on toast for us.
“Not you.” He kissed me. “Not each other, obviously.”
And I thought no more of it, until that morning in Walthamstow.
***
I woke up with Paul lying next to me, both of us semi-clothed under some blankets in a room. I looked around at the various other people, sleeping bodies scattered on the floor, sofa, some covered by blankets, some just lying still fully clothed. It was light, so I worked out it was the morning. Which morning? I wasn’t a hundred percent sure; after the club on Saturday night, we’d gone to another club, then to an afterparty at a lock-in in a bar, and then ended up in the house where we were now.
I shook Paul awake. “What day is it?”
Paul rubbed his eyes, leant upwards to kiss me. “Dunno.” He rolled over.
I put my underwear and trousers on under the blankets, picked my way over bodies and reached the kitchen where I found a radio. I switched it on quietly, careful not to wake anyone else, for at this point I was the only person moving in the house.
“Welcome to the breakfast show, it’s Monday and it’s five past nine. And what a show we’ve still got for you, another twenty-five minutes of the best breakfast show…”
He said Monday. He definitely just said Monday. I was due in work five minutes ago, and I was still…actually, where was I? I didn’t even know where this house was.
I ran back to Paul, told him what I’d found out, asked where the hell we were and said we needed to get to work. “No time to pass home, to pass Go, to collect two hundred pounds, it’s straight to work.”
As I shook Paul to life, a woman appeared in a pink dressing gown, hair sticking up and a cigarette in one hand. “All right, love? Do you think you lot could get a shift on? This isn’t a doss house.”
“Is this your place?”
She held her hand for me to shake. “Charmed, I’m sure. Last night, you was my best friend. We were going clubbing next weekend, you were gonna have me round your place and everything.”
“Sorry. It’s just, I’ve…we’ve got to be at work—” I checked my watch “—fifteen minutes ago, and see, the problem is, we’re still here. Actually, err, what’s your name?”
“Nina.”
I shook her hand. “Nina, where is this? It’s not anywhere near Acton is it? Or Ealing maybe?”
“What’s in Acton and Ealing?”
“My work and his work.” I pointed to the Paul-shaped lump under the blanket on the floor.
Nina perched on the arm of the sofa, crossed her legs and lit another cigarette. “Fancy a cuppa? Hoping if I make enough noise, this lot’ll fuck right off. I’ll put a wash-load on in a minute and bang some plates in the sink. That ought’a do it.” A plume of smoke puffed from her mouth as she closed her eyes in pleasure. “Fuck, I thought I weren’t gonna come back to earth last night. And whoever’s idea it was to drop the last pill at six this morning needs their ’ead seeing to.”
“So where is this, please?”
“My sofa. My living room. Well, it’s me and my flatmate’s living room. She’s still in her room with her boyfriend. Least, I think it’s her boyfriend. Anyway.”
“Where is this house, please?” I was trying to keep the anger and frustration out of my voice, but failing. I clenched my hands into fists by my sides.
“Walthamstow, love.”
“Fucking shitting wicked.”
In the taxi on the way to West London—where our jobs and the things that paid for the taxi, our food, rent and other wild luxuries like that were—I asked Paul how it had happened. How, after all these months of clubbing, always knowing when we had to return to the real world, this weekend, had we missed the turn off for Monday Morning Normality?
Paul shrugged, staring out of the window. “It’s like I said before. Sometimes I don’t know if you’re a bad influence on me or I’m a bad influence on you.”
“Answer the question.”
“There was the set at the club, which was wicked.”
It had been. I couldn’t deny that.
“And we stayed till the end. Of course.”
Of course.
“Then this club, somewhere south of the river, then it gets a bit hazy. I remember somewhere else, some more taxis. Actually, this weekend, I bet we’ve spent that much on taxis we could’ve bought another car.” He laughed.
I didn’t. “And then where? What happened that we ended up in fucking Walthamstow until Monday morning? Who the fuck is Nina? And who were the others on the floor around us?”
“Nina’s a mate of Rob’s, and she knows Slinky Simon.”
“’Course, all roads lead back to Slinky Simon. And the randoms?”
“Randoms, I suppose. Didn’t Nina know ’em?”
“She wanted everyone out so she could get on with her life, whatever that is.”
“Yeah, wonder what she does. She did tell me. I think. I think she works in fashion, or music, or maybe it was the BBC.”
“I think we’re getting off the point. Aren’t you worried about losing your job?”
He shook his head, staring out the window, then eventually said, “Not really. I’ll get another one, I suppose.”
“In a recession? Good luck with that one. Two million on the dole, and you want to join them as your own choice?”
“We’ll manage.”
“Will we? Will we really? Why’s it always me who does the worrying about things. Why don’t you worry about anything? How comes, in this relationship, I’m doing the worrying for two of us? It’s like being pregnant with your worry as well as mine. Fuck’s sake.” I shook my head, willed the feeling of hopelessness, anticipation of a serious bollocking at work and the beginnings of a monumental comedown to subside. But they didn’t. It was all too much and I started to cry.
Paul comforted me, told me it would be all right, something would turn up, and if all else failed we could always move back in with our parents.
I turned to face him, wiping my eyes with the sleeve of my dirty hoodie that I’d worn for thirty-six hours. “That’s your answer, we move back home? That’s going backwards. What happened to going forward, always moving forward with our lives? You want to be in your early twenties in a relationship, having to worry about when Mummy and Daddy are home so we can have sex without worrying? Well, I’m telling you now, I don’t.”
Quietly, Paul said, “I suppose this isn’t a great time to tell you I got a written warning at work, is it?”
“No, it fucking well isn’t.” I paused, trying to gather my thoughts among the comedown that had moved beyond the horizon and was now sitting next to me, dragging me down into its black jaws of sadness. I cried again.
“Sorry. It’ll be fine. Promise.”
“I can’t have this conversation now. Tonight, we’ll talk about your job. If you still have one by then.
Look at me, look at what you’ve made me do. You’ve turned me into your mother, or my mum. Actually, turning into my mum wouldn’t be so bad. She’d cope with this, she’d deal with it. But your mother…how did I end up turning into her, telling you off? I’m stopping talking now. I think it’s best, before I say something I’ll regret.”
Paul squeezed my arm. “I’ll stop too. I think we’re both a bit sore, you know, mentally, from the weekend.”
***
I’d love to say the day improved from there onwards, but unfortunately it fucking well didn’t. That morning in the taxi was just the starter to a three-course meal of a day of shit.
I arrived at work two hours late, was taken straight into my manager’s office where he formally bollocked me, added a warning on my file and told me if I had two more I would be dismissed. “Same with everyone else. Just because we’re friends, I can’t cut you any slack.”
Friends? I wouldn’t have gone that far, but since it was my first, I’d hoped he’d be a bit more lenient. I tried to explain it hadn’t happened before, and it wouldn’t happen again, and it had just been one of those weekends.
He knew about my DJing and had been really supportive, but now he said, “Do what you want, but you’ve got to be here when you’re due. Partying or no partying. That’s the deal. You’re here for the hours we pay you.”
As I walked back to the shop floor, he shouted after me, “I don’t mind you spending the whole day rewinding tapes. Don’t think I’ve not noticed. At least that’s doing something useful.”
That evening, when I’d dragged my sorry sad carcass through the longest day on record—six hours of real time, but for my body it felt like six days—Paul and I tried to have the conversation about his job and his warning.
I said, “That’s two of us. Matching, his and his. Aren’t we the clever couple?”
Paul said, “No need to be glib, it doesn’t suit you.”
“Fuck off.”
“Fuck off yourself.” He picked up a letter I’d left by the door. “What’s this?”
“Must’ve meant to open it when it arrived on Friday, but then…well, then the weekend landed, so…” I smiled. “Sorry.”
“Sorry too.” He smiled at me.
“Open it then, don’t stand on ceremony.”
He opened the letter, read it and said, “It’s the landlord. Giving us a month to pay the rent owed, or we have to leave.”
“How come the rent’s not been paid? I thought that’s what you used your allowance for?”
He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“What have you done? And why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“I used the allowance to pay for the promotion and flyers and things for the last few nights we’ve done. The warehouse party too. Make sure there was a decent crowd, so we’d get booked again.”
“A month’s rent on flyers? That’s a lot of flyers.”
“And the partying too. Where’d you think I got the money for the cabs, the drugs, the everything?”
“Where it usually comes from—your record shop wages.”
“About that.”
I could have killed him. It took all the strength in my body to hold myself back and listen to him explaining what had happened. What had been happening behind my back for weeks—months—it seemed.
He’d lost his job after getting a third and final written warning for being late and falling asleep at work. Yeah, really. And when he was meant to be going to work, he’d been meeting the DJs for lunch and sometimes more, and club promoters, getting us better billing on the flyers, having flyers printed, delivering them all over London and further.
Because it was so organised, and in the pursuit of the goal we’d set ourselves, I couldn’t stay angry with him for long. What really hurt was the lying, the ongoing lying about him going to work at the record shop and instead having a whole different day planned out for himself. That, and spending the rent money, obviously.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I thought I’d get another job so wouldn’t have to worry you. But it wasn’t that easy. That’s why I was putting it all into the clubbing promo. I was sure it would pay off. It still might.”
“Yeah, and in the meantime, we can’t pay the rent.” I took a deep breath.
“I hated lying to you. But it felt like I could justify it, you know? Only now I’m not so sure.” He hung his head.
After working out how much rent we owed, and when I would be paid, it didn’t take long to realise we were, technically speaking, fucked, and not in a good way. “What about your parents?” I offered quietly.
“Mother already thinks this little chapter in my life is a joke. She’ll be expecting me to come running back home, tail between my legs, asking for money. And can you imagine her face when I ask her for money? All the good work I’d done by doing the party for her, undone in one quick mess.”
“Of your own making,” I slipped in.
Paul put his hands up. “I deserved that. Fair enough. My fuck-up—but while I was trying to do the right thing. Come on, admit that at least?”
“As far as fuck-ups are concerned, this is the nicest, most well-meaning fuck-up I’ve seen, or been a part of. So if that’s any consolation, you can feel free to take it. Is that still a no to your parents?”
“It’s still a no. With a side order of massive sorry and I am a naïve idiot and shouldn’t have lied to you. But it’s still a no, I’m afraid.”
“No it is, then. If that’s what we’ve got to work with, that’s what we’ve gotta work with.”
“Could we ask your mum and dad?”
“When was the last time you saw anything there that showed they had money? A car that’s not slowly rotting in the front garden, covered in mould and hasn’t moved for years. Or maybe the clothes Mum wears? Homemade or second-hand, the lot of ’em. Trust me, if they had money, they’d lend it to me. But that’s immaterial.”
“I didn’t think… I don’t really think about money, I suppose.” Paul bit his bottom lip.
“That’s because you have it. No one thinks about money if they have it. It’s like, air, it’s like light, it’s just there. But it’s not like that for everyone, babe.”
“Sorry.” He hung his head. “Patronising poor posh lad that I am.”
“Easy, tiger. Don’t go so hard on yourself. Our parents are very different. This isn’t a surprise to either of us, and it’s what makes us who we are. Normally, it’s fine, but it’s times like this, I wish there was a bit more money to spread around.”
“How many days till we have to leave the flat?”
“Ten days. We’re fucked.”
***
I tried to beg work to give me an advance on my wages, but they said it would have taken as long as it was until pay day anyway, so not much point. A few days later, no money on the horizon, another letter from the landlord confirmed what he was going to do. On the day of the eviction, I arrived home to find Mum standing at the front door.
“All right?” I kissed her cheek and hugged her.
“I see the area’s looking up.” She pointed with her eyes to a man rifling through a bin under a lamppost.
“It’s gonna be the next High Street Kensington. It’s on the up. All we have to do is wait forty years.”
“Easy life.” Mum followed me inside and upstairs to our room.
Once settled on the sofa we’d decided to leave in the room, by the window, and with a cigarette and mug of tea in hand, Mum said, “Now, tell me this, are you all right? And what’s with the boxes? You leaving?
“Long story. I’m fine.”
“Really? Cos if I’m honest with you, you look a bit…well, a bit fucked. And not in a good way, do you know what I mean? Burning the candle at both ends, are we?”
“It’s hard, isn’t it?”
“What is, lover?”
“Life.”
“Thought you knew that. Didn’t we bring you up to know that? Isn’t it evident from our ho
use?”
“It is, but it’s not the same as when it’s down to you. When everything’s down to you. Every letter through the door, every phone message, is up to you to deal with.” I sighed.
Mum patted the sofa, indicating for me to sit.
I joined her. “Give us a drag on that, would you?”
“What’s happened?”
I told her about the row with Paul, about his job and his lying to me. “I think this might be the end for us.”
“Really?”
“Really. It was a big row, Mum.”
“This is the beginning for you two.” She tapped the ash from her cigarette into the silver spaceship ashtray we’d stolen from a nightclub.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Do you love him?”
“You know I do.” It was all I ever said to her: how he made me feel, what he did, how he made me laugh every day, how we were so different yet somehow fitted together like two pieces of Lego.
“Well, then.”
“What? Is it a play, or a book, or a show?”
“It would be easy to walk away, but if you really love him, it’ll be harder to leave, won’t it? Imagine not having him. Imagine him not being there when you come home from work. Imagine having to start dating someone else. Imagine having to tell this new man about yourself. Imagine sleeping with someone else.” She paused.
I blinked away a tear.
“Sad, innit?”
I nodded.
“Exactly. And although he’s lied, was he doing it in your best interests?”
“You know he was.”
“Do you trust him? Do you think he’s cheated on you, stuff like that?”
“No. Not for one minute. We hardly leave each other’s side when we’re out. Everyone takes the piss out of us, says we’re, like, stuck together, all night, dancing together, coming up together, coming down together. The lot.”
“That’s sweet. Do you think I’d still be with your dad if I’d chucked him at the first stupid thing he did?”
I shrugged.
“I’m telling you now, if I had, you certainly wouldn’t be here. If you know what I mean.” She tapped the side of her nose. “Look, I’m not saying he’s got open season to treat you like shit, start knocking you around, dipping his wick elsewhere, but this? It ain’t that big of a deal, is it, really? What he’s gone and done?”
