Waving Not Drowning Part III

I methodically pushed each chair under the table to the soundtrack of ‘Bossanova Beats Volume Seven’ then picked up a sponge and quickly ran over the surfaces which had gathered London grime after just one night.

Before I’d even got my green and white stripy apron on with badge attached saying 'Jess, Head Barista, Certification of Excellence from The Café Jingo Academy', the first moon faced customers came bustling in. Muttering into their mobiles, tip tapping on their Blackberries, some didn’t even bother taking their IPods off and shouted their orders over the counter unaware how strange and disconnected they sounded. I gave them nicknames to keep myself amused. Here came Droopy Shoulders, behind him was Crazy Eyed Beardman and then bringing up the end of the line was Permanent Hangover. The customers returned my gaze with looks a mixture of pity and puzzlement. How could someone with an English accent end up working in a coffee shop? Was I simple? Perhaps it made them feel better that the eight and a half hours a day they spent staring into the glowing abyss of their computer screen was worthwhile compared to frothing up endless silver jugs of milk. By half eleven I needed a break and left Frankie in charge.

In the staff room one of the area managers had stuck a poster next to the kettle which said ‘Don’t let our children choke on plastic bags. Make sure you recycle!’ Of course I was happy for this reminder as I was completely oblivious to global warming and never spent time worrying about mountains of plastic bags filling up the sea and choking all sea life.

I slumped on the only seat, a piece of old foam balanced on a muffin crate. Then decided to call Phil which was a bad idea.
‘Tonight I’ve got me practice,’ he said, ‘Gotta do sum sounds. Wot ya say we do summit later this week?’
‘Can you stop talking like that?’ I asked.
He carried on regardless.
‘I’m channelling somefink serious darlin’. I really fink this song is gonna make us.’
‘We could see each other for an hour couldn’t we?’ I asked, my voice horribly whiney and needy.
‘Don’t get all heavy, maybe ya can come to the gig this weekend.’
‘Can you stop it with the accent?’
‘Awight precious.’
I hung up.

Sadly things hadn’t moved on dramatically since the Bobby Kinnear days. Phil was basically a 2007 version but with more structured tailoring. His band were called Man O’ War and on a good day they sounded a bit like a man coming out of a coma only to discover that his bed was on fire. Phil didn’t like me being in the audience because he said it put him off his singing/screaming. I suspected it was because I was the only one who knew that he wasn’t from Bethnal Green and had actually been to Harrow and then got a first in English Literature at Cambridge.

After talking to Phil I wondered, as I had wondered many times before, why I was going out with him and if what we were doing could even be judged as going out with one another as we never went out. Usually I went over to his place, we exchanged general pleasantries and then had sex. The sex was okay and was certainly better than spending another evening watching reality TV.

Eight o’ clock that evening and I’d finished tea and discovered there wasn’t even any reality TV worth watching so I went to bed and started reading a novel which seemed to be all about a lonely woman who lived on her own and spent every waking moment planning her suicide. By Chapter Three I had become despondent and picked my 1975 Womble Annual off the shelf and looked at the pictures for a while.

I felt a fleeting happiness remembering my fourth birthday and ‘Remember You’re a Womble’ blaring out of the speakers. I’d had awful mumps, was feeling very sorry for myself and had been forced to wear a hideous thick cream polo neck that made me hot and itchy. But jumping up and down to The Wombles song had had a miraculous effect on my mood, making me completely delirious and ecstatic and I’d insisted we play it over and over until all the other kids got bored and went outside to hunt for next door’s tortoise.

Life was so simple then.

At about nine o’ clock, almost on cue, I heard shouting which seemed to be coming from the corridor. Feeling strangely emboldened (backed up by the public spiritedness of The Wombles perhaps), I pushed my keys into my cardigan pocket and ran down the stairs two at a time. It was only when I was on the second floor that I realised I was actually quite scared and had no idea what I might find at the bottom of the stairs and I wasn’t armed with anything. The noise continued and sounded a bit like an eerie moan, a bit like someone was injured and calling for help.

As soon as I got to the ground floor I saw the source of the noise, the elderly man from downstairs was desperately trying to push his walker past two giant traffic cones that had been placed in front of our communal doorway. Behind him I could see the shadows of the kids, I recognised at least three of them and they appeared to be laughing at the man. Nice Eyes was clutching his stomach he was laughing so hard. I felt my stomach churn and quickly pushed open the door. The poor old fella stopped moaning and looked up.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked though it was obvious he wasn’t.
He didn’t answer so I pushed the cones to one side and made quite a meal out of doing this, as if I was doing a demonstration on how to move large unwieldy traffic cones for some government training video. I then held the door open.

The kids were silent except every now and then one of them made a strange clicking noise between his clenched teeth. It was something I remembered Sally Dobbs doing at school just before she hit me over the head with her A4 folder. Suddenly I felt a swell of anger and before I could Remember I was a Womble I was shouting at them.
‘What’s wrong with you? Why did you do this,’ I gestured at the cones, ‘ This poor man can’t even get inside his flat!’ I screeched.
I sounded like a complete toff.
The old man had picked up speed once he got past and had already disappeared inside his flat. I was on my own. Nice eyes looked up and then looked away again. Grey just stared. He looked like he hadn’t had a hot meal in a very long time. A third one, I’ll call him Battery Stoner for obvious reasons just giggled into his hand. Then my mouth went totally off.
‘You just need to…’ I hesitated, unsure of the best terminology to use in this context with these types of boys and without offending the old man who probably couldn’t hear anyway because he’d put the kettle on and was settling down to watch a re-run of Inspector Morse.
‘…CHECK YO’SELF’ I burst out with a sudden surge of great confidence.

Then immediately I shut my mouth and the cringing began. The inside of my stomach lining curled in on itself which set off my outer lining, the fat around my stomach and then the skin which protected the fat tried to curl in on itself and when that didn’t work the cardigan I was wearing began to work itself up around my waist and disappear under my bra somewhere so it couldn’t be subject to such extreme embarrassment.

Check Yo’Self? Who did I think I was? Luckily Grey seemed to see the funny side of it and laughed. Then a piece of gum flew out of his mouth and hit the pavement with such velocity that I felt sure it would leave a dent.
Nice Eyes jumped up and down and shouted,‘ CHECK YO’SELF! Check Yo’Self !’
Grey had got some colour in his pallid little face and looked almost healthy. Battery Stoner did a thing with his hand that looked like he was trying to shake off a bit of snot from the end of his finger. The others quickly copied him and then much to my relief they quickly sloped off and disappeared into the courtyard. Grey shot me a look over his shoulder which could have been pity but it was difficult to tell.
‘Check Yo’Self,’ I muttered under my breath, just making absolutely certain that it sounded completely ridiculous. I quickly ran up the stairs two at a time. I picked up my mobile and punched Ruth’s number in. It kept ringing but no one picked up. How dare she not answer when it was such an emergency? I paced up and down the kitchen, wishing that I drank. Eventually I calmed a little and made myself an Earl Grey tea and then tried to pick up on Orinoco’s adventures where I’d left off.
Ruth called back about half an hour later.
‘What’s wrong?,’ she said sounding flustered.
‘Why didn’t you answer?’ I said feeling myself growing angry again.
‘We were having an early night,’ Ruth said.
‘At nine o’ clock?’ I asked indignantly.
‘Well we were…nevermind, what’s wrong anyway? You sound upset.’
‘Those kids, you know the kids I told you about, well anyway, they’d put these enormous traffic cones in front of our doorway so the poor old bloke from downstairs couldn’t get in,’ I said.
‘God, is everything okay?’ Ruth asked.
‘I scared them,’ I said confidently, ‘they’re not used to someone giving them what for.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I told them to grow up and be responsible. They looked like they were listening.’
I hadn’t tried youth-speak and got it horribly wrong.
‘Hey Jim,’ Ruth shouted, ‘Jess took on some hoodies. She gave them a good telling off apparently.’
I could hear him breathing close to the receiver.
I was already feeling happier with my new version of events where I was some sort of Charles Bronson and the kids were cowering scaredy cats who’d run away with their tails between their legs.
‘Don’t go down there again will you?’ Ruth said.
We hung up. That night I slept soundly for once because I wedged two pieces of screwed up toilet paper in my ears.

‘You should be ready to go home tomorrow. The tests show that overall you’re in pretty good shape considering. I’m just a little worried by your liver toxicity levels,’ the doctor pauses, ‘Can I ask you how much alcohol you usually drink?’
I stare up at a patch of paint peeling from the ceiling. The shape looks a bit like a fish. I am obsessed with all things aquatic since my dance in the river.
‘I don’t know how you ended up where you did Jess.’
‘You mean in the river. You can say it you know.’
The doctor walks over to the bed and I feel him touch my shoulder lightly, ‘But I do know that alcohol can bring on depression. It will only make things seem worse, do you understand?’
‘I’m fine,’ I lie.
‘I want you to see the psychiatrist before you leave just in case,’ the doctor says.
I nod my head and plan what my first drink will be.