'Death on the Stairs' (For Shelly and Louise)
2:11 PM
It felt like I had been drugged.
Not literally.
I knew, of course, that I hadn't been. The two boys from the previous evening had been nothing but gentlemen right up until the moment that they ditched me (and given the circumstances I found this to be most forgivable).
But I struggled to pry my eyes open against the gray light seeping through the basement window and I could not convince my body to react to the sound of the GO phone vibrating against the laminate hotel floor. The first sliver of sight between lids, obscured by tangled lashes, caught on my wristwatch and jostled my nerves more than my physical being. It was past 10am-- I had been asleep for five consecutive hours and it had been the most sleep that I'd had in at least nine months.
I made the slow crawl to where the phone was charging on the step beside the door to find that the vibration was to alert me of a text message from Neil's friend, Shelly.
Sometime after the decision had been made to go to London, Neil took to the internet and sent out humble requests to his London friends asking on my behalf for places to crash.
Shelly was one of the first people to open her home to me and the only person who could've taken me on for the entirety of my stay. I knew immediately that she was kind by telling me that any friend of Neil's was a friend of hers but the more communication that I had with her had me believing that she was nothing less than a saint.
She had called me the night before while I was standing outside of The Libertines party taking a smoke/scene break, having just moments prior returned from a holiday herself, to tell me that I didn't have to stay in a hotel and it wouldn't have mattered how late that I arrived at her house. My heart warmed at her concern over someone she hadn't met yet.
In the text message Shelly told me that she had the day off and that I was welcome over any time. She had books and maps for me to navigate my way around the city and we could cook food so that I wouldn't have to spend money eating out.
I took another shower, plugged in the electric kettle and made a cup of instant coffee, dried my Keds using the hair dryer and re-packed my bag.
I ate a muffin and espresso at the cafe on the corner. England looked how I had expected it to so in a lot of ways it felt the same as The States. It didn't look the same but it was comfortable and familiar-- or perhaps I just assimilate well.
I took to the streets-- the gray pavement and green trees-- and walked under scaffolding. I took pictures with the camera phone that I had refused to use at The Forum-- nothing special--nothing in particular-- a Tesco Express for my boss after a lengthy debate we had about what would be England's equivalent of 7-11-- and really what I wanted to find was a Mars bar so that I could relate myself to an Undertones song.
I met Shelly outside the Highbury-Islington tube station. She was a vision and immediately I felt at ease with her. She was my connection to Neil so I knew that I was safe.
She walked her bicycle along side us and we conversed about 'getting-to-know-you' things: how she and her sister (as it would later turn out, a woman equal in sainthood) had moved to London from Liverpool, what Neil was like when she knew him there and how after he had left they unknowingly moved into his old flat.
I think that I explained a little bit about the night before.
Shelly shared a beautiful flat with her sister, Louise, and one other room mate. It was located on the ground floor of what I imagined was once a large brick house and when I asked the girls when they thought it had been built-- Louise (who was very good with architectural history) said something, I think, about the late 1800s; a time period impossible for me to comprehend.
There was carpet in the hallway, where the three bedrooms were, that led to a step down into the living room with a sort of high ceiling, wood floor and windows that looked out onto a small brick patio where a few pots of green plants lived.
I was particularly smitten with the kitchen, for some reason. A small space of blue tile and white cabinets with this little gas stove that had a toaster built into the top of it. Looking back on it, maybe that was my attraction to the kitchen-- my love of toast.
(The first time that I tried to make toast with it-- I didn't realize that I had to light the toaster and spent a great deal of time confused by the hissing sound of gas and why nothing else was happening)
I set my bag behind a chair and Shelly provided me with the aforementioned navigation material: a book of street maps, cards with 100 different walks of London, a current magazine of what was happening and an Oyster card so that I could get around.
She allowed me to accompany her to the market. It was a real novelty for me. The market was smaller in size than my local 7-11 but it had absolutely everything necessary to stock the cupboards. I was infatuated with how everything seemed to be packaged in more realistic-sized portions (yet another thing I chalked up to practicality) and how the beer was sold in individual bottle not paper carton six packs.
Shelly and I talked a lot about music-- everything from records to radio and she was one of the first women that I'd ever been able to have a lengthy conversation on the subject about because she was more knowledgeable than most anyone else that I knew. (In fact, it was while listening to Shelly spin records at a pub the following evening that I realized if ever I should decide to date again, I only wanted to become enamoured with someone who was willing to dance barefoot in the living room to old soul 45s... her selections and transitions moved me so).
Back at the flat, Shelly prepared a lunch of beans, toast, scrambled eggs and tea for the three of us while I sat in the chair with my copy of 'Bound Together', the maps and my notebook. My goal was to go through the book and find every notable place in Libertines history, get directions to it and create my own sort of walking tour (if I had time leftover I also wanted to create my own Suzi Quatro walking tour-- luckily some of the locations crossed over).
After lunch, the damp, cold, sitting and time change seemed to weigh on me with exhaustion despite having slept so much the night before. Shelly allowed me to use her computer to check my e-mail. There was a message from Roger making sure that I had made it into the gig okay as well as a few odds and ends from family and friends. I responded quickly and without much thought. A film by Shane Meadows was on TV that I tried to devote attention to but I'd lose whole scenes of it as my head tilted forward in a nod.
Shelly offered me her bed so that I could lie down. I shuffled to her room with my notebook in hand. I attempted to write about everything: the plane, the hotel, David & Chris, the gig, the party, Shelly & Louise but I couldn't concentrate on any one subject long enough to tell a coherent story.
Sleep became like drowning. I struggled to keep my head above the surface and take in air but slowly I lost fight until, eventually, I was pulled under.
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