by Giles Ekins
But then Josie realised that no dealer was going to ply his business on a busy station forecourt and so she began to patrol the periphery of the Square. But to no avail.
Tired, with increasing dysphoric depression as the unrelenting dragon tore at her innards, Josie had to rest and sat on one of the granite benches and put her head in her hands, sobbing gently. Fucking Jackson Parrot, he was so full of shit, everything he ever said was a lie, total bullshit, if he told you it’s raining, you can guarantee it’s a bright sunny day, all this crap about you can always find a dealer by a railway station, so where is he ?
She became aware that somebody had sat down beside her but bore it no mind, she was too enmeshed in misery to care.
‘You hurting there, sister?’ a deep male voice asked.
‘No, fuck off, none of your business.’
‘Been watching you, sister, doing the walk, glassy eyed. Looking for the man.’
Josie looked up, wiped her eyes to see a tall black man with a thick halo of Afro hair and goatee beard.
‘And are you the man, the man with the candy store?’ she asked with sudden hope.
‘Now that depends, sister.’
‘Depends on what?’ Josie asked suspiciously
‘On your needs, like, are you on d’spike?’
‘Spike?’
‘You shootin’ for the moon, babe?’
‘Shooting? Oh, you mean injecting. No. no definitely not.’
‘Chasing?’
‘Chasing? Yeah, chasing hard, never catching.’
‘And that ‘ole dragon is real hungry, right?’
‘Fucking ravenous. What’ve you got?’
‘Well now, sister, I don’t do no business in the street, busy like this, you know what I mean? Not just that me that has eyes watching what’s going down. Plain clothes transport police about, CCTV, all sorts of crap so I don’t do no business here. Know what I mean?’
‘Where then. Just get on with it. Stop pissing me about.’
‘Follow me, we’ll go up the road awhile.’
‘Where?’
‘As I say, up the road a while.’
He led Josie up past the long red brick face of St Pancras station, crossed over the road and into a side street where there was a small shaded park.
Seventy-Seven
I was depressed, so fucking depressed that I was almost suicidal. I tell you.
And angry. A previously untapped well of red volcanic anger had been unleashed, at the slightest provocation my temper would flare up
That RTS is a nasty bitch and once the black dog of depression gets his teeth into you, it’s a bastard to shake off. For two days I barely left my room, just laid there, clutching Marmalade to me, alternately sobbing or staring at the ceiling in despair as the black dog howled at the moon, tearing my inside into…mush. There is no other word – MUSH, writ large.
My mother did stick her head through the bedroom door to ask if I was OK. I just told her I had a heavy period, a touch of flu and felt a bit shit. Which was not entirely untrue, I did feel like shit and I had been bleeding, only not menstrually, if there is such a word (if not, there is now).
She made vague sympathetic noises and went back to her telly and vodka.
I’ll not bore you will all the boring, pathetic, psychological effects of the RTS, (if you want to find out more about RTS without going through the traumatic effects of rape personally, there are plenty of articles available on the internet).
Suffice it to say my life was ruined. Five weeks before my A level exams I virtually stopped going to school, and when I did, I barely took any attention and just gazed out of the window.
I told my favourite teacher, Mrs Mitchinson, to ‘go fuck herself’ when she asked me what was wrong and the girl who had been expected to pass 4 A levels in style with an anticipated A* in Maths failed 3 of them and only gained a minimum pass in maths. Result? All those provisional offers of university places went out of the window.
My self-pride and self-respect had been shattered and almost overnight I became a slut, (not uncommon in RTS victims)
I started to drink heavily, and I mean heavily. I went partying and from being a careful virgin, I became known as an easy lay. It was an unwanted reputation but having no respect for myself, I could hardly blame others if they had no respect for me.
But meaningless sex with strangers I met at a party was no catharsis for what ailed me, it only made my self-worth diminish even further.
I was at the lowest ebb I had ever been,
Or so I thought.
Seventy-Eight
The squat was housed in a disused 1960’s three storey office block, apparently designed to be as ugly as the architects, obviously deranged, mind could make it. It resembled, and probably took its inspiration from, an egg crate, with pre-cast concrete panels with tiny windows in the deep recesses of the egg-crate. Extraneous bits and pieces and odd projections went off in all directions, apparently without out any connection to any of the other bits and pieces.
The interior had been gutted of all interior fittings such as partitions and furniture, but the toilets and a run-down kitchen remained intact.
Josie had been told about the squat by Devin, the Kings Cross dealer.
After he had sold her two small foil wraps of heroin for £20 apiece and she had fed and placated the dragon, he asked, if she had a place to go that night. When Josie said that she had absolutely no idea where she was going to stay, he suggested the squat. It was late and starting to drizzle, Josie was cold, tired and her nerves were chromium wired to the brim. She needed to sleep and soon. Sleeping rough without a sleeping bag and any other warm clothing was not a prospect she relished and so she readily agreed. A squat had to be better than the streets, her money was almost gone, and a squat would save her money she would otherwise have to spend on a B&B or hostel.
‘Tell them Devin sent you,’ he said as he gave her directions, ‘You’ll have to get approved by the committee to stay long time, though.’
‘The committee?’
‘Yeah, it’s a sort of cooperative. Only you don’t get no dividend.’ Devin said as he pointed her in the right direction.
She waved her thanks, for the first time in many months she felt relieved, almost safe, by the simple experience of a man who did not deceive and had not tried to take advantage of her.
‘Hey babe’ ’he called after her departing back, ‘You ever want a fuck with the biggest black dick you ever saw, you know where to find me, right?’
Again, Josie waved her thanks but the last thing she needed right now was a dick, a dick of any size, shape or colour, she had seen enough of those to last lifetime, thank you very much.
Seventy-Nine
Josie was admitted to the squat, Devin’s name acting as a sort of Open Sesame. She was given an old sleeping bag which smelled of piss and sweat and was shown a stained mattress in a corner of the floor where she could sleep, being told that the committee would ‘interview’ her in the morning.
The squat ‘committee’ was supposedly democratic with all decisions put to the ‘common vote’ but in reality in was dominated by Marian, Angus and Jurgen, The interview, apart from asking Josie’s name (first name only) and where she came from (Angus had vaguely heard of West Garside and thought it was somewhere ‘up north’ making it sound like a criminal offence) was otherwise solely concerned with Josie’s political views.
Although she had never voted, if she had done so, Josie would probably have voted Lib Dems or maybe Greens but quickly realised that such views would lead to instant ejection from the squat. The walls were liberally covered in posters of Lenin, Stalin, Che Guevara and Jeremy Corbin together with a mass of Marxist and anti-fascist (i.e. anti-Tory) graffiti, such as ‘KILL A FASCIT PIG TODAY.’ ‘WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE’ (although Josie soon noticed that nobody in the squat actually did any work apart from petty shop-lifting and managing the large cannabis factory on the top floor of the squat.) ‘Democracy sucks,�
�� ‘FUCK TRUMP’. ‘End world hunger, eat Tories’ and ‘Anybody who voted Tory should have their children taken away for re-education’
Another was ‘CAPITALISM KILLS’ which hardly seem to reconcile with the production, distribution and sale of cannabis to local dealers, including Devin, that was the man source of income for the squat.
Josie’s favourite slogan was ‘FUCK ALL FASCIST TORY PIGS’, to which someone had added, ‘But then they’ll only breed!’
Whatever her real thoughts on politics, Josie was able to convince the ‘committee;’ that she was wholeheartedly in favour of revolution and their Marxist and anti-fascist ideals. She was welcomed to live in the squad, although her duties as a newcomer included cleaning the toilets and so learned that cleanliness is not next to Marxiness
Eighty
‘Hello, Dennis Jowett.’ he answered when the phone rang. ‘Hello? Hello?’ but there was no response. Then a sudden premonition swept over him, a thin chill slid down his back like an icy snake, ‘’Josie?’ he said, his heart pounding, ‘Josie, is that you?’
‘’Yes, Daddy’ and the phone went dead.
‘Who was it?’ Joyce called.
‘Josie, it was our Josie’, Dennis shouted exultantly, for more than 17 months they had had no news, no contact, no idea where she was, unsure whether she was alive or dead. And then out of the blue, this contact. He wanted to do cartwheels, dance around in the rain, run down the street shouting ‘She’s alive, Josie’s alive, Josie’s alive! Alive!’
‘Let me speak to her,’ Joyce said, running over to take the phone.
‘She, she rang off.’
‘So, where is she?’
‘I don’t know, I told you she rang off.’
‘Why didn’t you keep on talking to her, then’
‘I told you she rang off. I answered the phone, said hello but nobody answered but it came to me that it could be her, so I asked, Josie is that you, she said yes Daddy and then put the phone down.’
‘Is that all? Yes Daddy?’.’
‘I told you.’
‘God, you are useless, worse than useless. Have you phoned her back?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Not yet! What in God’s name is wrong with you?’
‘I was waiting to tell you it was her. If I had gone on and called her without telling you, you would have had a fit, A man can’t do right for doing right in your eyes’
‘Stop talking rubbish and call her back before she gives up.
Dennis pressed the recall button on the handset and listened to the ringing tone, it rang and rang for what seemed like an age, before a hesitant man s voice said ‘Hello?’
‘Yes, hello, is Josie there? Josie Jowett?
‘Nobody here mate, this is a public phone.; and the phone went dead again.
‘Well?’
‘It’s public phone. She wasn’t there.’
‘Of course, she was there, she’s just phoned from there.’
‘She’s not there now, she must have left as soon as she put the phone down.’
‘She’s not there now because you spent so much time messing about, if you had rung straight away, we would be talking to here now. God, you are so utterly useless.’
‘Don’t keep saying that,’ he retorted angrily, Joyce had always had a waspish tongue, but she was much worse as she got older, nothing he did ever seemed to be right
‘Well, it’s true. So, what did the man, the man who answered the phone say?’
‘I told you,’ Dennis answered in exasperation, ‘You heard what I asked, is Josie there, he said there’s nobody there, it’s a public phone box and rang off.’
‘Why didn’t you ask him where the telephone box was, it’s the obvious question to ask?’
‘Because he rang off, how many more fucking times?’
‘Don’t you swear at me, you bastard, it’s your fault we ‘ve lost the contact with her.’
‘Well, it was your fault she left in the first place,’
‘Don’t you put that on me. it was you that let her run riot, to miss school...’
Now you listen to me…’
And so on and so forth, the bickering, recriminations and accusations of uselessness continued for the rest of the day. Dennis and Joyce continuously re-dialled the number, either without response or eliciting any further information.
But at least they knew that Josie was alive, for which they ought to have been joyful, it should have brought them closer together in their happiness, but it seemed to only increase the bitterness between them.
Eighty-One
The Clusterfuck -Part Four.
They say that time is a healer.
Bollocks!
Time has marched on inexorably, and I am no more healed than I was the day it happened, the day that bastard raped me.
If anything, the depression got worse,
As did the drinking.
As did the soulless partying and joyless sex. Fucking strangers I neither liked nor ever wished to see again.
But somewhere in the depths of what passed for the shreds of my soul, there was a small modicum of self-respect.
It was there.
I just did not know it. Not yet.
I hated the parties, the drinking, the drugs that were passed around, joints, lines of coke, pills by the ton (but I never touched those, who the knows what they are or what they do, ecstasy can kill) and here was no way I was going to take spice or touch heroin or crack.
And I hated the reputation I’d earned for being an ‘easy lay’, ‘that Charlie slut who drops her knickers for anybody.’
But it wasn’t me, it was this other person who had taken over my body and was living a different life.
Redemption when it comes, can come in the strangest of ways, Events which at the time seem catastrophic, events that you deem to be the end of the road, can sometimes be the hard road back to deliverance.
Even though you think you have hit rock bottom
Rock bottom!
As somebody (please tell me who if you know) said ‘No matter what a waste one has made of one’s life, it is ever possible to find the path of redemption, however partial’.
Note the bit about it being only partial, it is of significance.
So, there I was having a quiet drink in the ‘Potter’s Wheel,’ not a pub I usually go to but was passing by and thought why not?
I was there by myself, minding my own, with only my misery for company (misery loves company, so they say, those ever ubiquitous they). I’d nearly finished my pint (for obvious reasons, I no longer drink rum and coke) and was ready to leave when this guy come up to me, pint in hand.
‘Hi Charlie. It is Charlie. In’t it?’
Now I swear I did not know this guy from Adam.
But he knew me. Knew me by the hateful reputation of an easy lay. Somebody who did know me and had pointed me out to him. Whoever he was. Maybe it was boys talk, something along the lines of, ‘you see that bitch over there, that’s Charlie McBain. Buy her a pint, or even a half and she’ll shag your brains out, no questions asked.’
I said nothing, why would I want to speak to this creep?
‘Come on’ he insisted, ‘it is, in’t it, Charlie, Charlie McBain?’
‘Look, what do you want, I’m just going.’
‘Nah, let me get you a drink,’ and he waved to the barmaid, pointed to my nearly empty glass and shouted, ‘Same again here, luv.’
Should have refused. Should have walked out.
Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve.
But none of the above applied, I mean, who am I to turn down a free drink?
As I drunk the new pint of Stella, he moved over closer and slid his arm around my waist. I pushed him off, but he was insistent and came even closer, thinking that I was just playing hard to get. One thing I did know, was that I had never seen him before. Certainly, he was not been one of those I had slept with. By the way, that wasn’t nearly as many as my unsavoury reputation would have you
believe. But once you get a rep like that it sticks to you like your own malformed shadow. I could go into a Carmelite nunnery and still be known as Charlie McBain, the slut who would shag you for the price of a pint.
‘Look, leave me alone, right. Leave me alone.’
‘Come on, Charlie, don’t be like that.’, sliding his hand down my back and onto my arse. I was getting angry by now, and pushed him away as hard as I could, but rather than being deterred he came back again, this time putting his hand on my thigh,
‘Come on, let’s go outside. Round the back by the car park, it’s dark out there nobody’ll see us.’ he said as he pressed his yellowing teeth towards my face.
‘’I’ve told you, no, how many more fucking times, leave me alone.’
‘We don’t have to fuck, just a blowjob, come I bought you a pint, it’s the least you can do.’
Well God knows I’m cheap, but am I really that cheap? Did yellow-teeth really think I was going to blow him just ‘cos he bought me a pint?
‘No, for fuck’s sake, no! Fuck off!’ but he still thought I was up for it and, after looking around to see if anyone was watching, slid his hand right up the inside of my thigh. Far, far too close to the toy-box. Now, I know I’ve been overly generous with admission to my toy-box, but it is still by invitation only. It is not a public facility, freely available to any passer-by.
The anger exploded then, that red-raw anger bursting through in a volcanic eruption. A white-hot mist flooded my eyes and I smashed the glass I was holding onto the bar top and thrust it into his face. I was so blindly incensed I could have killed him. I nearly did. If he had jerked his head back three inches, just three inches, the jagged edge could easily have sliced his jugular.
There was blood and beer everywhere. He was screaming and yelling, holding his bloody face, my hand was sliced open and streaming blood. Everyone was shouting, the barmaid looked fit to faint. Through it all I felt nothing. An icy calm, a frigid numbness settled over me like a shroud, and I retreated into the person that once I had been.
