got her fingertips to the edge of the frame. She’s shifting her new blue shoes across the pavement as she prepares to find her balance. The old woman’s still stalled in her tracks, dog still sniffing the lolly wrapper, nose right in there, lapping up the raspberry.
‘Here it comes,’ I shout.
‘Here I am,’ she replies and steadies it at both corners, though she’s too tiny to span the full width. It’s the largest piece I’ve ever produced and fuck knows why I’ve said to Myers that I’ll transport it myself. He should have offered some help if you ask me, but he didn’t and I’m beginning to think that he’s a bit of a chancer.
The old woman snags the leash on her dog and moves off. ‘Come on, Reggie,’ she says, and hobbles past Eleni, ducking her head, and Eleni smiles at her and says that we’re sorry. And I think how I’m not, but I know that Eleni is, and how she means it, and how I love her, and howI thank the stars for the day Godfrey Bolton rigged up that bridle from the rafters. ‘I’ve got it,’ she yells, ‘it’s with me now.’ I give the winch a few more turns until she’s eased it over towards the window of the old print works opposite and settled it against their wall.
There’s a red Volkswagen Beetle coming up the road. It’s got black spots painted all over it to look like a ladybird. Just as Eleni’s cleaning off her hands and looking up to see if I’m coming down, a motorbike tears round the corner, leaning over on its side, the way Dad used to show me when he brought out his old photos of him at the TT Races. The ladybird swerves but it’s no use: the motorbike panics and goes right through the middle of my face. Eleni falls back against the truck, and as quick as he’s down the rider’s back on his feet, skipping up and down to show he’s all right. ‘God, that was weird,’ I can hear him say, ‘that was fucking weird.’ He takes off his helmet and he looks at his bike, smoking, still purring, right there, in the middle of my fat oily bubble-wrapped mouth. The canvas is in shreds.
I look down and think about jumping, but I don’t. How could I think about jumping when I have a girl like Eleni? She’s trying to grab hold of the biker to calm him down. He’s in a right state. ‘God, that was weird,’ he keeps saying, over and over again. And then he collapses and I rush to the phone and call for an ambulance.
When I was with Sheba we lived in a small brown flat overlooking Leicester Square. I remember one night lying there on the floor, stoned on skunk, drunk on Tennessee sour mash. Sheba was out somewhere. I didn’t know where. Probably fucking some fucking teenager. Down in the Square there were three buskers. One bloke was singing ‘King of the Swingers’ through a little practice amp, turned right up. Another bloke, in a long drape of burgundy velvet and a maroon dickie bow, was spouting something from Turandot . And in the middle of them both was a Bolivian guitar combo, going at it like they’ve just slaughtered a gram in the toilets of the Equinox. On top of all this you’ve got the hystericjangle of the fair and a premiere of the new Bond film at the Empire and the theme music blasting out of twenty-foot speakers. Five fire engines screaming around Piccadilly. Next thing you know the little pastoral gimmick outside the Swiss Centre kicked in with its silly black bells, chiming out ‘Molly Malone’, though what that’s got to do with Switzerland fuck knows. Anyway, I was lying there on the floor, listening to all this, and I thought, ‘Fuck it. My life’s out of control.’ And it was. It definitely was. So the next morning, since Sheba still hadn’t shown up, I packed a few things together and set off walking across the Square. I didn’t get very far. I booked into the Hampshire between Garfunkel’s and the Odeon. I took a two hundred and forty-nine pound a night room and stayed there for two weeks. When I finally got it together to
‘Here it comes,’ I shout.
‘Here I am,’ she replies and steadies it at both corners, though she’s too tiny to span the full width. It’s the largest piece I’ve ever produced and fuck knows why I’ve said to Myers that I’ll transport it myself. He should have offered some help if you ask me, but he didn’t and I’m beginning to think that he’s a bit of a chancer.
The old woman snags the leash on her dog and moves off. ‘Come on, Reggie,’ she says, and hobbles past Eleni, ducking her head, and Eleni smiles at her and says that we’re sorry. And I think how I’m not, but I know that Eleni is, and how she means it, and how I love her, and howI thank the stars for the day Godfrey Bolton rigged up that bridle from the rafters. ‘I’ve got it,’ she yells, ‘it’s with me now.’ I give the winch a few more turns until she’s eased it over towards the window of the old print works opposite and settled it against their wall.
There’s a red Volkswagen Beetle coming up the road. It’s got black spots painted all over it to look like a ladybird. Just as Eleni’s cleaning off her hands and looking up to see if I’m coming down, a motorbike tears round the corner, leaning over on its side, the way Dad used to show me when he brought out his old photos of him at the TT Races. The ladybird swerves but it’s no use: the motorbike panics and goes right through the middle of my face. Eleni falls back against the truck, and as quick as he’s down the rider’s back on his feet, skipping up and down to show he’s all right. ‘God, that was weird,’ I can hear him say, ‘that was fucking weird.’ He takes off his helmet and he looks at his bike, smoking, still purring, right there, in the middle of my fat oily bubble-wrapped mouth. The canvas is in shreds.
I look down and think about jumping, but I don’t. How could I think about jumping when I have a girl like Eleni? She’s trying to grab hold of the biker to calm him down. He’s in a right state. ‘God, that was weird,’ he keeps saying, over and over again. And then he collapses and I rush to the phone and call for an ambulance.
When I was with Sheba we lived in a small brown flat overlooking Leicester Square. I remember one night lying there on the floor, stoned on skunk, drunk on Tennessee sour mash. Sheba was out somewhere. I didn’t know where. Probably fucking some fucking teenager. Down in the Square there were three buskers. One bloke was singing ‘King of the Swingers’ through a little practice amp, turned right up. Another bloke, in a long drape of burgundy velvet and a maroon dickie bow, was spouting something from Turandot . And in the middle of them both was a Bolivian guitar combo, going at it like they’ve just slaughtered a gram in the toilets of the Equinox. On top of all this you’ve got the hystericjangle of the fair and a premiere of the new Bond film at the Empire and the theme music blasting out of twenty-foot speakers. Five fire engines screaming around Piccadilly. Next thing you know the little pastoral gimmick outside the Swiss Centre kicked in with its silly black bells, chiming out ‘Molly Malone’, though what that’s got to do with Switzerland fuck knows. Anyway, I was lying there on the floor, listening to all this, and I thought, ‘Fuck it. My life’s out of control.’ And it was. It definitely was. So the next morning, since Sheba still hadn’t shown up, I packed a few things together and set off walking across the Square. I didn’t get very far. I booked into the Hampshire between Garfunkel’s and the Odeon. I took a two hundred and forty-nine pound a night room and stayed there for two weeks. When I finally got it together to
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