She took a deep breath and called Rachel.
Call rejected.
She called again.
Call rejected.
Frantically, Megan texted: “Rachel, so sorry. I can explain. Please pick up the phone.”
Call rejected.
Megan’s heart began beating fast. She could feel the beginnings of a panic attack. She needed to get through to Rachel.
Call rejected.
She screamed out. “Please!”
She tried one more time.
‘The number you are calling is not available at this time.’
No message facility.
Megan started stamping her feet. Banging the walls.
Her bedroom door opened.
“What the hell is going on, Megan?” her dad shouted. “I’m trying to watch The Apprentice.”
Over the next few weeks, Rachel started missing classes. No one spoke to her.
Megan caught her a few times in the corridor, tried to say sorry, that she wanted to explain. Rachel said it was okay. She knew social media was a minefield.
“Coffee?”
“No, I’m busy right now. Got a lot going on. See you around.” Then she’d be gone.
She didn’t answer Megan’s calls or respond to her texts.
“Ah, Miss Prim and Proper isn’t bothering anymore,” one tracksuit said.
“Fucking snob thinks she doesn’t need to come to class,” said Taylor.
When Rachel did come in, Megan watched her as she manoeuvred her way through groups of girls standing in the corridor. The conversation would go quiet as she passed. Some of the girls would fold their arms over their fake boobs, creating an even thinner corridor for her to pass through.
“Is everything okay, love?” Megan asked her in the library. “Not seen you around too much. I saved some notes for you.”
“Thanks, Megan,” Rachel said, her cheeks going slightly pink.
Megan said she regretted the confusion.
“Hey you want to come over to mine? I want to explain everything. Make up for it. I really didn’t mean for that to happen. We’ll have a Chinese meal or something?”
“Sure,’ said Rachel. “That’ll be nice.”
It was a start.
But Megan never got a chance to follow through.
Megan was there when it happened. She wished she hadn’t been. She wished to goodness she hadn’t been on that WhatsApp group. That she had been brave enough to get out, right from the start. She wished she could turn back time.
She was guilty. By doing nothing. By not fighting back that night, when the girls were making their barbed comments.
By not explaining the mistake she’d made to them. By not defending Rachel. She was guilty as hell.
The entrance to the main college building was all broken paving slabs. Rachel was coming in behind Taylor, heading for one of the last classes before the term ended.
Legs got tangled, and Rachel pitched over and off a step. It was all a bit of a mishmash, and she went down hard. Rachel hit her cheek on the concrete.
There was not much blood, nothing broken. She sat up, dabbing at a graze across her left cheek with a tissue. A few students crouched down to make sure she was okay. Plucking her from the floor.
“Oh, my God Rachel, are you okay?” Megan said, running up to where she had fallen. “Oh darling, what happened?”
“It was nothing,” Rachel had said. “Just a trip.”
As she sat there on the concrete, Rachel’s beautiful green eyes were red and damp. Full of grief. Asking: Why?
Rachel never turned up to class that day. She didn’t turn up the next day either. Nor the next week. Then it was end of term.
Megan tried to get hold of her by phone. She’d sent texts, made calls.
Rachel never replied.
29
There was something Giles knew that Megan and Benny didn’t. When he awoke and saw Megan and Benny lying together on the steps above him, he saw no point in keeping it quiet any longer.
He might even get Benny back on side.
Just another puff, Giles? Just another pint? A shot before home time? Just another line? You know you can never say no to a little uplift, Giles. All the lads are having one.
Giles was so despairing down in that hole that nothing mattered any more.
What difference would it make if he did the coke he had in a little plastic bag in the pocket of his suit jacket? There wasn’t a lot there. Just a few lines’ worth, the remnants of that night.
Giles sniffed. That had been mental. He and his workmates had been taking themselves off to the toilet all night, sitting on the pan and snorting little white lines from the backs of their hands. By the time Giles fell out of the Casino, he was too far gone to take any more.
There was something else he wanted, something he knew he could get not too far from the City. The coke had gone back into the corner of his pocket: a little something to spice up tomorrow night, or whenever else his workmates insisted it was time to go out on the town again.
Supping, snorting and sucking tonight, Giles? You know it makes sense.
But down here? Well, there was no tomorrow. The walls were oppressive, the unending light feeling like he was under interrogation, being forced to confess. Giles needed to relax, to take his mind off being trapped. He reached down into his pocket, pulled out the little bag, and waved it at Megan.
“Hey, you want some of this?”
Megan woke, rubbed her eyes and pulled herself from Benny a little. Giles asked again.
She shook her head. And not just to say ‘no’, Giles felt. It was as if she was sorry for him. He baulked at her judgement. Naive little Essex girl, living with Daddy somewhere at the end of the Central Line. What did she know about stressful life in the City.
Keep climbing that ladder, sweetheart. Sleep with those you need to and you’ll get there. Then you can play with us big boys. Big boys like me.
Giles shook his head.
Megan might be patronising, but those guys from work were worse. For them, you could never snort enough coke, never drink enough pints, or shots, or whatever it was they’d decided the tipple was tonight.
I’d like to see you guys down here. You’d be shitting your pants. Hell, he was shitting his pants. Or at least he had given up.
Nothing mattered: not the booze, the girls, the credit cards, the bonuses, and definitely not the drugs. None of it had never had mattered. Except for Lisa.
This isn’t for the kicks. Giles stared down at the little pouch. This is to numb the pain, smooth the edges of these stairs, interrupt the endless starkness of this light.
Back up there, he wanted the coke along with the pints.
But down here? Down here, he needed it.
“Benny?” The guy had woken too now, and looked over as Giles waved the pouch towards him. “A little something to pass the time?”
Come on you pussy. It’s no fun alone. What’s a little coke between friends?
Benny stared at the package and then Giles with sorrowful eyes. He took a deep breath and slowly whistled it out, shaking his head. But Giles could see a longing in his face.
“Not me, man,” said Benny. “It ain’t me. Not any more.”
Benny had learned a lot on the Programme. About clarity and understanding his position. Stevie had talked about not letting things get out of control. But most important was Benny coming to understand his weaknesses and triggers. Even the slightest waver could knock him off his feet again. Everything Benny had worked for, all the difficult decisions he’d been forced to make.
They’d all be for nothing, and he’d be back to the start.
Going cold turkey in prison was horrible. Benny needed drugs like he needed air. The methadone the Programme had put him on hadn’t eased the craving, but the prison walls that kept him in gave Benny no choice but to take what they would give him.
But day followed day. Benny felt the pain ease and then - on the surface at least - go away. He
came to hate that he’d become dependent, that the heroin and crack had left him out of control, that he could tip back into it any time. But coming to understand he was a drug addict was the easy part. Prison was the easy part.
What he had to do afterwards, that was where the real pain was. There could be no compromise. He may be off drugs, but he would always be an addict. Staying out of the way of temptation meant Benny had to leave everything he’d ever known. Get away from his old life. Never even consider going back to where he used to live.
Rachel had come to see him in prison.
In here, Benny was safely tucked away from that old life. Rachel, his love for her, was the only gateway back to the old world. If he allowed that door to remain open, the temptation to walk through would be too strong.
He decided not to go down to see her when she came. Maybe in a month or two, when he was stronger. Next time she came, he promised, he’d go down.
Rachel didn’t come back. She was probably too out of it to haul herself out of bed. Benny knew what that was like. Someone else was scoring for her now, feeding her habit. Providing a bed for her.
Rachel had walked into Benny’s life with £50 and a plea for oblivion. It was £50 he was happy to take, and the oblivion he delivered in the form of crack cocaine.
He didn’t consider himself a drug dealer. He’d just bought more than he needed and started selling it to friends, maybe their friends, for a bit of profit so he could go and buy more. He’d get his own hit, they’d get theirs and there’d be more for tomorrow. A proper little entrepreneur.
Benny’s council flat, four storeys up on the Cracknel Estate close to Bethnal Green was always full of people. They were quiet there, not raucous. No late night parties or violent scrabbles with the cops. People came, handed over the money, maybe smoked a little something, slumped on the sofa or a mattress on the floor, then went away again.
A few of Benny’s bigger mates had appointed themselves the ‘heavies’ and Benny was happy to slip them £20 every now and again or stand them a hit just for being around. They had to have a quiet word with a few flat visitors, once or twice frisked people they didn’t know - weapons or police wires, they’d imagined they were looking for - but had never raised a hand to anyone. Being there was enough to emphasise that this was a quiet operation. A few mates hanging out on the quiet. Definitely not a crack den.
The girl appeared out of nowhere, brought in by some Kurdish lads Benny vaguely knew from around the Turkish bars on the Dalston Kingsland Road. Benny had chatted to Rachel for a while, just to check her out - to make sure she wasn’t a cop, or worse a plant from one of the east London drugs cartels doing a recce on the flat.
She had limp hair and was so gaunt her collar bones showed through her light top. But she had a natural beauty about her, the hint of a sparkle in her deep green eyes. But she didn’t smile once. This one had potential, thought Benny. Not just for a sale, but maybe something else. He gave the Kurds some money to go away.
It wasn’t usual for Benny to share a hit with someone who came to buy. He preferred to do it among very close friends once the evening’s trade had dried up. She’d done some heavy drugs before. That was clear from the paleness of her skin and the bruises on her arms, but she seemed to be seeking more than just a single hit. She seemed lost and unsure, even naïve.
The crack they shared on a mattress on the floor in a room at the back brought a huge grin to Benny’s face and a smile cracked on the girl’s thin lips too. They’d chatted quietly for a while about not much, then both lain back and fallen asleep next to each other.
When he woke an hour later, her eyes were already open, and she was blinking at the ceiling. But she didn’t move from out of his arms or move her head away from his. They lay there as it got dark, until eventually she sat up, put her hand gently on Benny’s chest and told him she had to go.
Benny gave her a small wrap of cocaine to take with her, and when she said she didn’t have any money, he told her to pay him next time. Now she offered him a genuine smile, much more beautiful and relaxed than the grin the drugs had brought out an hour before.
“Do you have to go,” he asked, clasping his hand over hers. For a moment he saw a desperation in her eyes, as if she was going to lie back down, allow Benny to hold her in his arms and just sleep. But just as quickly her face went steely and her eyes took on a blank look. She pulled her hand away and stood abruptly, making for the door.
A boyfriend, was that it? Benny felt a bit offended by the sudden change in atmosphere. He felt jealous. Another hit when she’d gone would take care of that. Anyway, the £50 and the last hour more than made up for any annoyance he felt now.
“Let me give you my number,” he said, scribbling it on the back of an unopened piece of junk mail. “For next time, so you don’t have to come through those Dalston boys.”
She dropped her coldness and smiled again as she took it. Someone showed her to the front door, as Benny sat in the bedroom with others popping their head round the door offering knowing jokey eyes.
“Ah, fuck off, will you?” he told them. He knew they’d assume she exchanged sex for drugs, and he wasn’t about to put them right. He certainly would not tell them that all they’d done is share a hit and then lain there together in the quiet. That for once in his life, and just for ten or twenty minutes, Benny had felt he could be truly happy.
A few hours later he received a text message from a number he didn’t know.
- Thank you for this afternoon… whatever it was. Sorry I had to leave. I had to work. Will have more money to spend soon and I’d like to spend it with you.
Rachel was a mix of hot and cold as they got to know each other over the following months. And eventually they started sleeping together. Sometimes she was open and talkative and would drop her guard to reveal smiles and even a laugh. But often she was cold and formal: just wanted the drugs, to hand over the money and get out of there.
Benny learned by implication that Rachel was selling sex, though she never actually said it. He didn’t want her to say it out loud, as if it would sully her. But he knew he didn’t want her to do it, either.
He started giving her hits, then when she rose to leave and tried to hand over money he’d refuse and she’d curl back into bed and they’d fall asleep together for the entire night. She talked little about herself, always clammed up if Benny asked too much. But it was clear she was lonely, had nothing else to fill her time, and Benny hoped she enjoyed his company.
Life was complicated. It wasn’t a relationship, as such. It was mixed up with the drugs and the money and a chaotic fug of addiction.
One directionless day followed another. Hit followed hit. Benny would go out with his friends on jobs; thieving, a little light mugging, just enough to feed their habits and feed themselves. Benny and Rachel would lie in bed afterwards, next to filled ashtrays and empty cans, enveloping each other, looking at the ceiling waiting for slow warm creep of the craving to kick in again.
Slowly, she stopped disappearing in the evening. Then not at all. She smiled more. Laughed. She declared she would only sleep with him from now on. Maybe even get a proper job.
In prison, he’d tried to tell them about Rachel. There was someone they should help. But it was one of those things Stevie was always saying.
“It’s crazy, really Benny. We’re only funded to help former offenders, not those who might offend. Those who are already at risk.”
‘At risk’ was the Programme’s word for everyone like Benny. Criminals. Druggies. Prostitutes. Stevie had swung his lanyard and shaken his head at the twisted logic of it. Benny knew he had to let her go if he was to stay clean.
Rachel not coming back to visit him in prison was probably the best thing for him. Though it hurt far worse than any cold turkey.
Benny sat on his cold step. He couldn’t really have loved Rachel. If he did he wouldn’t have left her like that in East London. He wouldn’t have saved himself by never going back there.
/> Yeah, prison was easy.
30
The worst thing about it, thought Benny, was not that he had relented. It was how easily he had given up.
Giles had not had to beg. Giles hadn’t had to pester him, wheedling out months of Programme messaging.
From the moment he’d seen the bag of coke, Benny knew he would take it. It made him sick how weak he was. He couldn’t even blame his need to escape from the relentless pain in his injured foot. His foot had gone practically numb, as if there was no life left in his lower right leg at all.
And it was as simple as that. That old need suddenly started running through his veins; the adrenaline pumped into his brain and he felt his breath quickening. A warm feeling rose into every inch of his skin. He imagined the satisfaction, the immediate release. Release from this spiral, from the memories, from his life that was going nowhere. Just something different from trying to keep it together.
Benny poured out a small pile of the powder onto his palm and passed the pouch back to Giles. He looked at Megan, but she wouldn’t meet his eye. Giles sprinkled out a thin strip on the back of his hand and ran his nose across it.
Benny dabbed the pool, held a coated finger to his nostril, and sniffed deeply. He put the finger down and took up another finger’s worth, holding it to the opposite nostril. He held up his palm and sniffed in the remains deeply. A few grains were left. He licked his finger and dabbed them around his palm, then rubbed the remaining coke into his gums. For a moment Benny felt the deepest sorrow, a painful grief. He had a feeling towards Giles that bordered on hate.
And then, despite himself, he loved him.
“Oh yeah,” said Giles, as Megan watched him snort the final bits of coke from the back of his hand.
“Yeah,” he said again, as he stuck out his tongue, directing a disgusting licking gesture towards her.
“You don’t know what you’re missing, baby,” he said. He stuck his tongue into the tiny plastic bag to mop up the remaining minuscule grains. Then he spat the plastic off his tongue in Megan’s direction.
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