9. Stories, stories, stories...

Friday 9th December 2005: 11.19 pm

Three days.

Well¦ two days, twenty-three hours and nineteen minutes, to be exact. But you might as well call it three days, 'cos nothing's going to happen now.

Three days. And what have I got to show?

An empty coffee jar.
An empty hard drive.
A full waste paper bin.
A raw thumb where I've bitten the nail to the quick.
The start of a beard.
A t-shirt that stinks like a gamer's laundry-bag.
Sandpapered eyeballs.
Indigestion.
And an exercise book full of scribbles and doodles and crossings-out and¦
¦and crap:

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Man gets divorced, loses job, goes bankrupt, finds freedom.
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Play set in traffic jam on M25 ' environmental message.
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Couple both have sex changes to save marriage.
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Man decides to kill himself to see if there's life after death.
Finds out there is and wishes he'd lived.
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Bank robbery ' 100 people, all naked.
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Industrialist falls for anarchist. Each changes other. She
founds global company. He assassinates Bush.
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Couple go on holiday somewhere. Get lost. Find each other.
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Losing more by losing something than you gain by having
it. Or gain by losing it. Or lose by having it. Or not
losing or having it. (decide which)
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The monsters are here, too ' comfortably settled, keeping me company. The ol' black dog ' a big bastard mastiff ' sprawled on the sofa, all teeth and slobber and fire-glow eyes, like a pissed-off Hound of the fucking Baskervilles, waiting to jump on my back when I move. That charming old parasite, cackling Count Crap-u-are, swooping about from desk-end to mantelpiece ' a cape-clad pterodactyl ' screaming at the words he reads over my shoulder as he plunges his teeth for another glut on my self-esteem. And old Giant Despair himself, lumped on his arse over there in the corner, mumbling away, down on a visit from Doubting Castle where the wife's been giving him a bellyful for being just far too bleedin' miserable. "Fuck it, he tells her, "I'm off to see Alan. He appreciates me. And don't wait up, girl¦ I might stick around. (I wouldn't have minded if he'd bought some giant-sized cans with him, too. I could just go a Tennant's the size of a dustbin).

Then there's the others: a vast dark mythology of gibbering goblins and newty-faced elves, hiding in cupboards and behind the curtains, nicking my food, pissing in the milk, wiping their bums on the bedclothes. Harpies sticking their spikes in my earlobes and giving my muse a kicking. The spooks of old ladies tickling my armpits and farting in my face when I'm trying to sleep. (Sleep? )

And nothing to keep them quiet or send them away. No fags now since that little emergency. The nicotine's seeping out on my sweat like oil. I lick it up.
As for the booze¦ I didn't do bad. Two and a half days. Keep my wits sharp, I thought. Maybe that was the problem before: an unhealthy mixture of typing and Tennant's. The words getting jumbled. The ideas souring. Going to bed thinking I've scribbled a masterpiece and waking to pages of bollocks. But it hadn't made any difference. Even bollocks was better than nothing. So after lunch, I'd succumbed a bit. Which prompted the one useful thing I have written ' though that was for somebody else¦

¦Yoyo had come up to tell me he'd gotten the first response to his ad. Someone had rung to ask him what it meant.

"What it says, he'd told them.

"But I don't understand what it says, they'd replied.

He'd offered to go around and explain it more graphically.

The caller had then hung up on him.

"Piss-taking bastard, Al, he said. I could tell he was agitated. He was pacing around my room in a way that was making the sideboard move.

"Maybe he was dyslexic or something, I said, attempting to mollify him. "Maybe¦ I dunno, he saw the word 'jobs' and thought it said 'lobs', or 'pobs'¦ or 'gobs' even. They're the letters that most often get misread. (the whiff of bullshit was astonishing, as you'll have gathered, and I was banking on a hitch in Yoyo's sniffing gear).

He stopped pacing and looked at me in a way that suggested one of two things: either he was going to kill me (sweet mercy! ), or he was trying to decide if my explanation was plausible. Fortunately, it seemed to be the latter.

"You reckon that's what it was?

"I reckon so. I mean, if you saw an advert that said 'Gobs Done', what would you think it was supposed to be for? Dentistry? Spitting?

He sighed a big heavy one then and dropped down into my armchair. The legs seemed to sink about three inches into the floor.

"Everyone's always got something wrong with them nowadays, he said. "Always some bastard reason for being a wanker.

I went to the fridge and got us a can each. We popped our tabs and let it go down. And... just for a few moments... the monsters went ' snuck off and hid somewhere under the stairs. Though that was probably the Yoyo effect, too. Whatever¦ it seemed to relax him slightly. The hand holding the can stopped vibrating, at least.

"Tell you what, I said. "Why don't you get me to write the ad out for you on the computer. Make it easier to read than handwriting ' and it'll look more professional. Look like you really mean business.

It seemed like a light had come on behind his shades.

"Don't let me put you out or nothing.

"Not a problem, mate, I said, clearing the shit away from my keyboard. Then I sat and typed to his dictation:

YOYO'S
ODD JOBS
all kinds of jobs
done
windows cleaned
painting, decorating
moving
NO JOB TOO SMALL
CHEAP RATES
02177 749783

I coloured the background, made the text bold and gave it a nice posh font. Then I printed it off and handed it to him. He read through it once ' his lips mouthing the words ' then looked up at me briefly, then read through it again.

"That's exactly what I wrote before, he said.

"That's right, mate. But it looks better printed, doesn't it?

He rubbed his chin.

"Yeah. I think you're right. You sure about the spelling, though? 'Painting' don't look right to me.

"The Spell-Checker said it was all okay.

He gave the ad one final scan, then folded it up and finished his beer.

"Well, thanks for that, mate. I really appreciate it. Maybe I should make you my business manager.

"Not a problem, I said. "The other thing, of course, is that it gives you an excuse to go to the shop and see Gemma. Have you given her a call yet?

"No, he said. "I was just about to when that bollock-chops rang.

"Well, now you can ask her in person, I said.

The idea seemed to be wholly appealing. He unwedged himself from the armchair again and made for the door like a man on a mission. The room seemed to tilt suddenly. Pictures swung on their nails.

"Let me know if you need anything yourself, Al, he said, glancing around at the three-day shambles of my life. "Looks like you might need a few jobs doing sometime.

Like a bigger armchair, I thought. A re-sprung sofa. A new floor. Monster control.

"I'll bear it in mind, mate, I said.

I saw him come back about twenty minutes later. You could hardly miss him. He didn't come into the Square so much as make an entrance ' jumping from pavement to gutter and back like a punked-up Gene Kelly after crash weight-gain. When he came up the stairs, it sounded like the approach of a tube train. I leant down over the bannisters and caught his eye as he got to his door. His grin was so wide it was hard to tell where his mouth stopped and his ears began.

"Sorted then, mate? I called.

He showed me his thumbs and cackled. It sounded like his lungs were full of broken glass and tin-tacks. "Saturday night, boy! Whey-heeeeeeeeyyyy!! 

Then he was gone inside. The next thing I heard out of him was his stereo, ladling out Urge Overkill's cover of Neil Diamond's Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon. On each chorus, I could hear him chiming in with 'soon, you'll need a man.' Gone as last Christmas.

Like my chances of finding a story.

Well¦ at least someone had got a result.

*

Midnight. Quiet now.

Three days exactly. And I've had enough.

I need some air.

I switch the computer off, pull on my hoodie and boots. I ain't seen the outside world since Wednesday. Time to get reaquainted.

I go out of the Square and up along the seafront. The pub's shut already (Denise isn't one for the 24-hour lark, and I can't say I blame her ' though a swift scotch would settle the bubbles).

I nip up the alley to the High Street: one or two people about, mooching back to their rooms, hunched up against the knifing cold. The last bus has long gone and the station's locked up and deserted. The kebab house next door is open, though, and a few late stragglers ' fresh from one of the pubs by the looks ' are leaning against the counter, kicking their feet together, waiting for supper.

I head up to the Bank Street junction, then cut along through into Mariner Plains. There's no traffic here, and the trees and benches and lamp-glow make me think of a piazza in some small Sicilian fishing village. It doubles as a market square, and on Saturday mornings it's like a fairground, with stalls and buskers and clamouring crowds. Quite nice, in a way ' except most of the stuff on offer is tat: cheap fleeces, chavvy shell-suits, bootleg CDs, boy band posters, spanners that snap off at the first twist, Rolex wristwatches for a tenner.

Now, though, it's deserted ' apart from a couple of cats howling at one another in the shrubbery. I walk along past the shops, glancing in at a window here and there, aware all the time of the cameras whirring above my head. You're never alone with CCTV.

What really catches my attention, though ' something I'd not noticed before ' is the darkness above the shops. The rooms, I mean. All of the buildings in this part of town are two or three storeys high, which is a lot of floor space. Yet there's hardly a light to be seen. Some of them house solicitors or accountants by day, it's true¦ but many of them seem deserted. Uncurtained. Vacant. Dark. What are they used for, I wonder? Storerooms? Restrooms? Offices? Why is no one living in them?

It must be the effect of the last three days ' but these dark, empty spaces suddenly catch my imagination.

Is someone living in them without our knowing? Night people, lurking in corners and behind curtains? People we never see, who never come out until we're asleep? The undead, perhaps¦ or agents of some sinister organisation, keeping watch, taking notes, biding their time¦

Hmm¦

Maybe I just need to get out more often...