-----EC1--ep1-----

EC1-Nicolas

I am sitting. In my head, I am sitting in my new apartment. The apartment I viewed today, or, one exactly like it. And scrolling down I can feel the leather furnishings. In fact, if I remove the category setting, I can see a list of all the options. Ambassador armchair, £345, Art Deco etched mirror, £600, automated curtain rail etc…  So far I have only ticked one selection, smoked oak flooring with feature border, but then I’m still on my first glass here. 

It’s funny actually, in many ways, I’ve moved in already. A skinny white girl from the coffee bar opposite, must have seen the brochures in my workbag, told me she would show me round when I’m settled in. Looks like I will need that two-person en-suite.

I squeeze past the neighbour’s bike-frame and grab the door latch. It’s nights like these it seems lucky to be so close. The streets are black and slick, raindrops showering from the awning. I shift the empty cardboards with my foot and I’m inside with the buzzing electrics. Lucky? Not so much when they pull the car up at 6am and switch themselves to some poorly tuned Turkish news channel when you’re trying to…

My new place will have double, triple windows if I want. An automatic locking system and an easy call out for those late night bottles. I will need it if I’m 60, 70 floors up. I will lean over to the telephone and call in one of those spinning girls from the spa, ask her up with a nice steamy tea, a bottle of red and a foot scrub.

“Same again is it?”

It’s the only bottle over five pounds in here, the rest they keep refrigerated out back. It’s easier to get a good bottle of red in Asia than it is in South London. Convenience. It’s one of the reasons I chose ‘The Eagle’. Good travel links, a short walk to work, bars, central- good coffee girls.  

On the tube I carry my black workbag and a small rucksack of the last things from the flat. All part of the ‘executive changeover package’, the rest of my luggage will be waiting on the living room rug. Much preferred from transiting the load through the office with me, and the colleagues will see with the change of address, or maybe I could snap a few photos from bar.

From the top of the tube tunnel stairs, you can see, actually you can only really see, my glass tower pointing skywards like a finger. The banner: ‘OldStNewRules’. The buildings’ sides tapering above the buses ‘til your neck locks back and it’s disappeared out of sight.  

The streets are packed and well dressed; business bags, gym-bunnies, homeless looking creative types. And the women: tight jeans, well kept, fabrics so light when the wind hits them you can see every curve of the body. It’s the hard-faced ones I like the most, the EC1 ones, slap you if you even step near them. I will get myself one of these, one of these ‘challenges’ later, probably online. For now it’s me and miss coffee girl, as warm and generous as my favourite black beans. 

As I reach for the buzzer, I am relishing the idea of the smooth suited European showing me up to my new apartment, but he won’t answer. Alternatively, on fourth attempt, the door opens to an overweight English guy with grey hair and creases along the bottom of his suit. Not only is the man poorly kept, but he’s looking at me funny, backing away to his desk and drawing out a stack of papers.

“I”

He clears his throat constantly

“I wasn’t, uh, I, I wasn’t told to expect anyone this evening.”

He keeps his eyes on me while his chubby fingers flip the notes. When he finally finds the name, he gives a kind of head flap and wipes his brow with the back of his palm. An apology?

Out in reception, the European is chatting up a group of prospective buyers, or just renters perhaps. A tall bald black man sizes up the lobby with a student couple standing awkward and apologetic. The cool salesman slides me a hand and places another on my back as I pass into the lift.

The landing of the 56^th smells like wet paint and we pause as he checks his sheet and follows a finger down the central corridor. He scans the door numbers. Apartment 5681, I tell him, and he turns to grasp a handle on the left. The key card is swiped and reads in mute green. He rearranges his suit and pushes the door through with an outstretched arm.

“Welcome to the Eagle, it’s all yours. And if there are any problems, please call down immediately ok”

The man gives a sick smile and turns to leave.

“My keys?”

He places the three plastic key cards in my outstretched palm and I pull closed the door with a satisfying seal.

Inside, all is dark but for the security hall sensor. I place a key card into the vacant panel and the lights switch on noiselessly. Setting one, ‘evening high’, I let my hand run across the unit. I slide a finger through the buttons and it fails to compute. Number four maybe, ‘dinner time relax’, the spotlights tick on one by one ahead of me, lighting the corridor like a runway. I drop my bags down on the ‘London skyline hospitality rug’ and walk through. It is exactly as I pictured. I pull my phone up; the white sofa set, the dashed marble workstation, the smooth fountain taps.

Out of the window, the balcony, London’s ceiling. I try to free the lock, it must be over-tight, something catching in the… No, don’t force it. It can wait. A swim instead maybe, or take out. Yes, I could definitely have a swim.

A 5 to 9 free of shaking ceilings, drunken tramps and Turkish corner shops, this is the kind of seclusion you have to pay for in the city. Good eggs, humus, avocado, chorizo, ‘Cheerios’ and two bottles of Chilean red. I’m out and back without a single disturbance, spreading the goods across the polished wooden table.
I take a long bath and stumble out into the white leather armchair. I pull up the remote, the tailored package of TV, music, film, all of it, anytime. I click through the options with their carefully worded descriptions. Ten minutes of ‘Solaris’, a half an hour of ‘The Shining’, then straight into ‘Hitchcock’s city slicker classic’, ‘North by Northwest’. 

By the time I get up for the second bottle, I’ve flicked over to the music and the featured playlist ‘Exceptional masterpiece’. ‘The face of black America, Louis Armstrong’, ‘Big city Sinatra, Live in New York’, I switch through the intro’s, recognising one in the traffic. The mellow flutey, whistling kind of track, a favourite of the tuneless cleaners back in HK. ‘Older’. I lean back with the wine, the music cool and soulful. I’ll add it to my favourites for tomorrow. 

Another rain slicked night people cramming through the lights and bus lanes to get home. I will meet her in fifteen minutes. Finishing work at five, I have been back, completed a 45minute set in the gym, and managed a few eggs. Now I stand under the wide black umbrella in my leather brown shoes, off white chino’s and dinner jacket. I will follow the streams to the corner and back, and when she gets out, I’ll be hurrying straight from work. 

“You’re Spanish right, its got to be Tapas, I know someplace perfect”

I tell her I’m Brazilian and we head off under the subway at speed. She shouts back over her shoulder at me,

“This is the road, whatever, whatever you want”

Her eyes are wide and she shakes her hair as she talks,

“I mean, people say the place has changed. But I say they moan. They moan and moan. They like to moan like they like their mothers you know”

Our pace is growing as the rain picks up over the Friday night crowds. She weaves ahead of me, twisting her body, her hands pointing to various windows while her voice drops in and out of hearing. Her body is better than I remember. Not just straight up and down but with a nice round butt too.  

As we stop in the corner of a busy entrance, she drops her wet hair, the messy curls falling down her small shoulders and neck,

“If you come anywhere, it has to be this”

But it looks like the rest of them, candle lit windows full of stone-faced youths, isles of street boards cluttering the roadway. ‘The real Dog’, ‘Eat over autumn’. I head for the bar, maybe I should go, but she’s looking even better now, her jacket gone, her skin a warm pink against the condensation of the window. I hide the umbrella under her feet and wedge myself in to the table. The waiter targets us from across the room,

“Hi there guys, are we good?”

He carries on regardless,

“Well your very lucky. It’s sad but this is our last weekend here. But you’re very lucky this should be a really good one.”

She nods him on,

“Nice and chilled tonight, but we got a load of special guests in over the weekend. Some real all-dayers: funky, kickback vibes. And a really cool crowd, lots of nice people I mean we’ve got fuck loads of friends on Facebook so”

I second her order and he winds back to the serving hatch.

“So this is the best place in town?”

She laughs a little, her eyes walking around the room

“I like it”

“The bar staff look like women”

I say, and move my head round to catch her gaze. She holds it and flicks her hair a little,

“I think they look hot”

I can see it in her now. She is opening up, defending herself. We both take long sips of the drinks. Then I feel the hand on my shoulder, the bright red turtleneck, that strong smelling aftershave. The smooth skinned black guy from the lobby.

He leans into the waitress’s ear and stretches his legs across the space. He wears gold-rimmed glasses and a short coarse beard, not looking at us, just staring straight between. I’m paying 6 pounds a fucking drink here and I can’t get my space. I take another long sip. The food comes and she circles it annoyingly round her plate. The three of us stare into the street where the rest of them stare back. A billboard hangs from a ‘green’ restaurant opposite,

‘No excuses, its your health’ two mothers sit with their babies in a summer park. The women smile over the children’s heads, spooning in the rice like some kind of drug. I cover the large burrito with hot sauce and raise it to my face.

Maybe I should turn up my cardio this week, clear out the head a bit. Maybe if I did a little more cardio, and tried to eat a little better, I wouldn’t have to be so uncomfortably racist. The thought forces me to lower the food to avoid drawing attention.

On the walk home she talks of the coffee shop and I watch her thin lips tighten round the cigarette. I would definitely like to sleep with her at some point, maybe Sunday or in the week. She stops to give me her number and we hug quickly. I back away beneath the umbrella and the security gate buzzes closed between us. 

Can I not get a relaxing morning? The T.V loops last night’s final choice while the lights of the bedroom seem stuck in full attack. I roll into my covers and can smell the wine, or vomit maybe. I feel for my phone and run the notifications under the warm darkness of the covers, a drunken email to a friend but nothing dangerous. I need a coffee and some breakfast. I pull on last night’s jeans keeping my eyes on the exit. The flat can wait; I don’t want the cleaners in here.

I slide out through the busy lobby. My head is full of dry wine and I’m sweating. The cab pulls over through two lanes of traffic,

“Take me to the river”

He laughs

“Where mate?”

I tell him temple and he shuts up and unlocks. My head rests back. The cab pulls out. I lick the roughness of my teeth. It’s a Saturday. I tuck in my shirt. I will go and find a bookshop and a bench somewhere on the river. This is how to spend a weekend, to sit and let the time pass slowly. Something from the physics shelves, or travel section maybe.

At a traffic light the cyclists line up beside us, a busy coffee shop behind. It looks warm, the people spread across the sofas. I want to find that place, to lay myself and relax beside the fire. But first I need a bookstore and a pair of black Levis for the week.  

By the time I’m back to the flat last nights wine is killing me again. I lay my new black Macintosh over the sofa and throw myself down next to it. The rain has left some chalky stripes. I should have got the protector.

I begin the night with my favourite drink, a gin Campari. The ice stacks up above the rim of the glass, it cracks and splits as the liquid flows over it. Another wave of tiredness hits me. Respect, my mother told me, surrounded by her piles of wooden statues and vegetable peelings, ‘You have to keep your respect’. The Campari is cool and catches at the edges of my teeth. She should never have asked so much.

After opening the ‘Ocean hills’ Argentinean, I realise there is no way I can drink it. My shoes are damp but I pull them on. In the corridor I check the door, walk five steps forward, look round, then check it again. It feels loose, or looser.

Drinkers fall out of the stations four at a time. A group of French teenagers ask me where ‘Kalgino’s’ or ‘Calsio’s’ is. No one seems to know where they’re going or even to be looking at the streets ahead. I am, I do.

The first place I find is a newsagents squeezed between two chicken shops. The strip-lit shelves running way back off the street. Tramps lurk by the entrance, watched over by a dead-eyed employee. A group of students cruise around the beer. I spot what I imagine is the cash machine and wait behind a stumbling woman, her fingers hovering above the options. She has long thin arms and a cut off t-shirt.

I insert my card as the bell goes and a group of new men push in. They greet the cashier and I see their bright green jackets moving into the aisle. I don’t like them, but I’m solidly tipsy and relaxed. I focus on the machine, imagining my notes shooting along the underground tunnels from Bank.

“Oi, which one would you…?”

He’s shouting something.

“Mate?”

 






I flash a quick smile towards them. I must look pathetic. The large black guy standing dumb by the till, my assailant leaning over the shelves behind me, a skinny spotted man hunched between the two.

“He asked you a question mate”

The skinny guy shouts, only him laughing. The front man’s moving closer now, I need to say something,

“I just want my money ok”

And with that he’s hovering a step from my shoulder.

“You what?”

The black guy laughs deeply, I can smell the booze, I could run for it,

“I said, you wha…”

I imagine he will hit me now. He turns to laugh with the onlookers, comes back round and I feel it start. The twisting body, the ringed knuckles. I close my eyes and tense. Hear the belts of the machine run. A second passes and then… I open again to see my two notes flying down between my feet.

 “I don’t want your fucking tenners son”

He’s already off my shoulder, walking towards the door. The skinny one falls in behind,

“Ponce”

I pick up my money and walk to the counter,

“Large Gordons”

My hands shake.

“Are you ok sir?”

I leave the full twenty, stepping over the barriers out front and taking a seat between the chicken boxes. The gin is strong but fresh. What kind of men attack one person with three? I take another long sip. I’m going to text her.

There is something going on now in the centre of the roundabout. A group of black families in shiny outfits take pictures. They circle around each other, a cracked out female cries against the concrete tunnel, the cars slide past under the subway line. No one sees it- the pavements, the bricks, the street lamps. I take another long sip at the gin and it nearly comes back on me.

Alone in the apartment, I force open the balcony door and continue drinking, first through the Campari, then everything else. The air is empty out here, and hanging over the 56^th balcony I can see something.

The music is loud but it doesn’t travel far. I grab my phone and call her, then ten minutes later, again. I won’t stop. I don’t want to. I’m not drinking to sleep. I’m drinking ‘till it’s fixed. The lights of the building tops spin and I fall backwards into the silent room. My phone is glowing on the chair beside me. A message. She’s coming.

Look out for next week's helping from the roundabout-'tramp' coming 12/01/14