Bourgeois by Mikey Cuddihy / Fiction / Untitled Books

I once had a boyfriend whose hair was so dirty there were bugs, big ones, crawling around in there.

Bourgeois by Mikey Cuddihy

Derek Jarman was making a film on the floor above us – I think it was ‘Jubilee’. The ceilings were very low, and they would play loud opera music sometimes. I’m ashamed to say that I used to bang on the ceiling with a broom-handle, and shout ‘sh

Walking down our street at eight o'clock in the morning with my son James - he is shuffling along, resignedly. It's summer, there are only three days left of school, and Friday is a half-day anyway. His hair is a mess, tangled (long) and unwashed; bits of flaky scalp.
I say, "You really need to wash your hair".
He smiles, "I know".
I say, "It's really dirty".
I tell him that I once had a boyfriend whose hair was so dirty there were bugs, big ones, crawling around in there - you could see them clearly. (I've caught his attention - he's impressed).
"He lived in a garden shed", I tell him.
"Well that explains it", he says, "The bugs must've come from the garden".
"No", I say, "The garden shed was on the third floor of a derelict warehouse".
Well, not derelict, because they (the artists and performers who lived there) had fixed it up. There was a room with a gigantic pool table in it, which hardly took up any of the cavernous space. The wharf still smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg in those days.
Steve had a whole space to himself - the garden shed seemed doll-like in that vast space, which was littered with scrap metal and welding paraphernalia for his 'pyrotechnic sculpture'. There was even part of an airplane - the cockpit from an old fighter jet, lying among it all.
"Anyway", I say, "he died of a heroin overdose", (turning the story into a morality tale, which I hadn't meant to do).
What I was trying to say, or what I was thinking to myself, was that in spite of the bugs (the dirty hair), I had still loved Steve. That's what I wanted to say to James - in spite of your hair, I still love you.
Once, Steve made me a valentine - a flat square piece of rusty steel, with a heart welded onto it, and an arrow, with 'SC/MC'. I still have it, somewhere - in the attic I think, in a box with old cards and letters. Steve became a fireman, I heard, he loved fire and fireworks so much. But he was always into drugs (I didn't realise how much at the time). Once (and only once), I took some cocaine, a line of it, sitting with him in the shed - it made my teeth go numb, and that was about it.
Steve would stay up for nights on end, making fabulous sculpture, producing drawing after drawing with pen and ink, scribbling. I would hang around a bit, craving love and romance, which he threw my way occasionally, hence the welded valentine, and once we drove to Brighton and stayed in a hotel. We stayed up all night and watched a horror film - The Blob I think.
Did I say the wharf still smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg in those days? I shared a studio with three friends from art school, just along the wharf from Steve; we had a whole floor. Fog used to roll into the studio from the river sometimes. Our place was dark, low ceilinged, with a wooden ramp at the front, which hung from big chains, double doors opening out to it. On fine days, we would sit there on old office chairs, salvaged from the wharf outside, watching the river go by. We would memorise the commentaries, which we could hear clearly from the passing boats, filled with tourists, and repeat it to one another long after the boats had turned around and gone back.
Derek Jarman was making a film on the floor above us - I think it was 'Jubilee'. The ceilings were very low, and they would play loud opera music sometimes. I'm ashamed to say that I used to bang on the ceiling with a broom-handle, and shout 'shut up!' (I couldn't concentrate on my paintings). Derek was very friendly, passing on the stairs; he and his boyfriend - a handsome Frenchman, both wore black leather jackets, and leather trousers.
Steve got involved with a group called 'Artists for Democracy' in Fitzrovia; it was run by a charismatic character from the Philippines called David. I didn't understand these people - they were all a bit crazed - I guess on drugs. Steven had a sloppy morality; didn't believe in being faithful, and I couldn't cope with that, I was too insecure.
David didn't like me. He called me 'bourgeois', and even banned me from AFD, as it was called. We'd been sitting at a big table in David's gallery, eating an artists' banquet, when he stood up and denounced me: "You bourgeois, you never come back to AFD again", he said.

So I didn't.

Mikey Cuddihy is an artist and writer living in Hackney; she had 3 stories published last year in an Anthology of short fiction by artists: The Alpine Fantasy of Victor B & Other Stories'. She is working on a fictionalised memoir, and a collection of short stories.

Thursday, 6 November, 2008

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Untitled Books

Issue 24 / August - September 2010

I once had a boyfriend whose hair was so dirty there were bugs, big ones, crawling around in there.