Die of Shame

by Mark Billingham

  ‘Never seen the point,’ Susan said.

  ‘I know.’ Tanner wondered how many times she had told Susan just what she thought about arming the police or capital punishment or the dangers of the internet. Then she thought about the things she had never told her.

  ‘People make a choice, don’t they?’

  Tanner nodded again.

  ‘I do that line of coke or I don’t. I take that tablet or I don’t, whatever. I know people talk about it being genetic or being about family and environment, but at the end of the day, they choose to do it.’

  ‘Like which skirt should I wear today? Like whether I want salt and pepper squid or sizzling beef?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Maybe it’s the only choice some people have.’

  ‘What, like your druggy doctor? Operating on people while he’s off his tits?’

  ‘Some people,’ Tanner said.

  Like a young woman who finally made a choice to get clean; to reclaim her life. Only for someone to take it from her.

  ‘I know you think I’m unsympathetic,’ Susan said.

  Forty minutes later they handed over credit cards, splitting things straight down the middle, same as always. They left enough change for a tip and each took a fortune cookie, to take the taste of the MSG away as much as anything. The stickiness on the teeth, the slick coating on the roof of the mouth.

  Tanner’s fingers pushed through the brittle, yellowish crescent as Susan read out her motto. Something about a long-awaited opportunity, a lucky number. Even as Tanner was unfolding her own thin slip of paper, she was thinking about a motto she had seen elsewhere, hand-drawn in felt-tip pen behind dirty glass. Bold and brightly coloured; fringed by stars and smiley faces.

  We are only as sick as our secrets.

  … THEN

  To Tony’s experienced eye, the body language and the enthusiasm of the responses around the circle when he asks the usual question suggest that everyone has genuinely had a pretty good week. Or that, at least, nobody has had a bad one. He looks once more at Chris to be sure; gets a roll of the eyes and a confirmatory nod.

  ‘Excellent,’ he says. He straightens the notepad on his lap, rolls the biro between his fingers.

  ‘Me and Diana had lunch,’ Caroline says.

  ‘I have lunch every day.’ Chris looks for someone willing to play along. ‘Breakfast as well, sometimes. I’m a nutcase, me.’

  ‘We had lunch together. At Diana’s house.’ Caroline looks at Tony. ‘That’s all right, isn’t it?’

  ‘I told you it was.’ Diana sounds a little irritated that she was not believed, that the younger woman is insisting on checking. Or perhaps she just thinks that Caroline is sucking up to Tony.

  ‘Of course,’ Tony says.

  ‘As long as we don’t sleep together, right?’

  ‘Is that likely?’ Chris leans forward. ‘Only I know people who’d pay good money to come along and film that. You know, for people with specialised tastes.’

  ‘Don’t start,’ Heather says.

  Caroline smiles. ‘Water off a duck’s back.’

  ‘That’s a lot of water,’ Chris says.

  Tony raises a finger, waits for silence, then looks at Caroline again. ‘This group is all about learning that we’re not alone, that others have been through what we have. Are still going through it. Interaction is a really important part of that process and if it carries on outside this circle, so much the better.’

  Caroline says, ‘Great,’ and smiles at Diana.

  ‘As long as it doesn’t lead to the development of smaller groups within the larger one.’ Tony lets that sink in. ‘That’s important, too. Cliques are never a good idea.’

  ‘Me and Chris met up as well,’ Heather says. ‘Well, you know we sometimes do.’

  Tony nods. ‘Right, and that’s absolutely fine, but the same thing applies.’

  ‘I bet our lunch wasn’t quite as swanky as yours though.’ Chris looks to his left and waits for Diana to look back at him. ‘Suckling pig, was it? Roast swan?’

  ‘We had salad,’ Caroline says.

  Diana turns sharply to look at her. ‘I was trying to… cater.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t mean it to sound…’ Caroline reddens. ‘It was lovely.’

  When Chris has finished giggling, he nods across at Robin. ‘What about you? Nobody want to have lunch with you, then?’

  ‘I rarely have time to socialise,’ Robin says. ‘I work.’

  ‘I work too,’ Caroline says. ‘Anyway, we had lunch on Saturday.’

  ‘Tell us about your job,’ Tony says. ‘If you want.’

  ‘Nothing to tell.’ Caroline shrugs. ‘Supermarket.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with that,’ Heather says.

  ‘Never said there was.’

  ‘I was sacked from a supermarket.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Nicking stuff.’ Heather shakes her head. ‘They make it so easy.’

  ‘Can’t have been that easy or you wouldn’t have got caught.’ Caroline laughs and Heather laughs along with her.

  ‘Old habits,’ Tony says. He sits forward. ‘We’ve talked about this before, haven’t we? Many of us have stolen or worse to feed our addiction, and even when we’re in recovery the urge to do those things can still linger.’

  ‘Sometimes I wish I’d got caught,’ Robin says. Tony turns to him. ‘Because I had access to whatever I needed, I never had to steal, or anything else. It was too easy to feed the addiction, basically. Anaesthetists don’t even have to write prescriptions, they can just order up a bit more of this drug, a bit more of that one, no questions asked.’ He smiles, but there’s no joy in it. ‘Possibly another reason why they have the highest suicide rate in the medical profession. Anyway, I’m just saying that perhaps if I’d been forced to break the law and been caught… if I’d gone to prison even… I might have got clean a lot sooner than I did.’

  ‘That’s interesting,’ Tony says.

  Robin nods. ‘A wake-up call sort of thing.’

  Chris barks out a dry laugh. ‘If you think there’s no drugs in prison, you’re an idiot.’

  ‘Chris.’ Tony looks at him; a warning.

  ‘Sorry. Just saying… it’s rife inside, mate. Rife. People go into prison clean as a whistle and come out as major league junkies.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right,’ Robin says. ‘It wasn’t a good example.’ He stares at Chris. ‘Have you been in prison?’

  Chris looks at his feet, the toes of his training shoes tapping out a rhythm. ‘I know, all right?’

  The group falls silent for a while. They shift in their chairs and watch the day continue to dim outside the conservatory windows. Tony takes the opportunity to scribble a few notes. Heather stands up and takes off her jacket. As she is hanging it carefully across the back of her chair, Tony looks across. He sees no sign of a mark on either sleeve. When Heather sits down she catches him looking and smiles. It looks like embarrassment, but Tony can see that she’s pleased at the acknowledgement of their private conversation; this moment between them.

  ‘I want to go back to talking about shame,’ Tony says. ‘The resolution of the shame in our pasts as part of the recovery process. As part of redefining ourselves.’ He looks around the circle. ‘Everyone still OK with that?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Diana says.

  Robin nods. ‘I found it hugely helpful.’

  Tony looks at Chris. Chris stretches his legs out and says, ‘Yeah, whatever. I said my piece about this last week.’

  ‘Say it again if you like,’ Tony says.

  ‘Not much point if everyone else is up for it.’

  ‘We never do anything if it makes any member of the group uncomfortable.’

  Chris waves away Tony’s concerns. ‘Whatever. Don’t look at me though. All I’m saying.’

  Opposite him, Heather begins to make chicken noises, quiet at first, then growing in volume. Chris puffs out his cheeks as though supremely bored and g
ives her the finger.

  Tony stifles a smile. ‘Nobody has volunteered to… lead things off tonight, but I don’t think that’s any bad thing, as it happens. Preparing something often leads to a certain amount of… self-censorship, which is never very helpful. With this particular part of the process, I’m wondering if being thrown in the deep end might actually pay dividends.’ He looks around the circle again then extends a hand towards Caroline.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she says.

  Tony holds up both hands. ‘No problem if you’d rather not, but if that’s the case, I think it might be useful to talk about why you don’t want to.’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t want to, but I really haven’t got anything to say.’ She looks at Robin, then Diana. ‘Just so I’m clear, you’re not talking about being ashamed of who we are now, right? What we’ve done…’

  Tony shakes his head. ‘Something more deep-seated than that. Something that we did, or perhaps something was done to us, that may well have been what led to the addictive behaviour in the first place.’

  ‘And it’s not always immediate,’ Robin says. ‘It can take years for that behaviour to surface.’

  ‘You running this now?’ Chris asks.

  ‘No, he isn’t,’ Tony says. ‘But what Robin says is bang on. Just think about his own story, what happened to him when he was a child.’

  Caroline nods, understanding. She takes a deep breath, then shakes her head. ‘There’s nothing. Sorry.’

  ‘Really?’ Chris narrows his eyes and studies her. ‘You seriously telling us that you never strangled the neighbour’s cat or murdered your parents? Seriously?’

  Caroline ignores him, keeps looking at Tony. ‘I swear. I’ve been thinking about this since last week and I just can’t think of anything. There’s nothing I’m ashamed of, honestly. Is that… weird? I mean, is that not normal?’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Tony says.

  ‘Fine,’ Diana says.

  Heather leans towards her. ‘And you’ve got nothing to be sorry about, either.’

  Caroline looks relieved. ‘You can ask someone else if you want to, but there is something I’d quite like to talk about, if that’s OK.’ She looks to Tony. He nods. ‘I mean I know Chris was taking the mickey, saying that painkillers aren’t really a proper addiction, you know… not hardcore, or whatever. Thing is, he’s basically right. I took them and the pain went away, sometimes, but they didn’t get me high or anything. So I wanted to ask the others what that was like. Well, maybe not Diana… obviously I know what being pissed is like.’

  ‘I didn’t get pissed,’ Diana says, quickly. ‘That was the problem. I told you that on your first night.’

  ‘OK, sorry. Everyone else, then. When you take heroin. What does it do, exactly? How does it make you feel? I’m sitting here with you all every week and you’re talking about these things and I’ve genuinely got no idea. I mean, is that… all right?’

  Tony sits back. Robin appears to be thinking about it. Heather and Chris exchange a look.

  ‘It’s fucking fantastic,’ Chris says, eventually. ‘I’m not going to lie. It’s the best feeling in the world. Why else would you do it?’

  ‘Ignore him,’ Heather says. ‘He’s talking crap and he knows he is.’ She has been looking hard at Chris, but now she turns to Caroline. ‘Yeah, it’s good to begin with, but in the end you’re not using to feel great. You’re using to stop feeling shit.’

  ‘Very different things,’ Robin says.

  ‘I don’t think I ever used because I wanted to feel great.’

  ‘You mean like you see in films?’ Caroline asks. ‘When they’re throwing themselves around and screaming?’

  ‘That’s always such bollocks,’ Heather says. ‘Cold turkey isn’t nice, but they always overdo it on TV and stuff. I’m talking about how you feel every day, when you need to score.’

  ‘What’s that like then?’

  ‘You’re a bit… spacey, you know? You wake up and it’s like you’ve got the runs or something, but you haven’t, because heroin makes you constipated. Then it’s like you’re very awake and you just feel like you’ve got flu.’ She rubs her arm, remembering. ‘You’ve got goosepimples and you feel too hot, or too cold, and whatever you do you can’t get comfortable. It’s like your skin doesn’t fit.’

  ‘Greasy,’ Robin says. ‘Your skin feels greasy.’

  Heather is still rubbing her arm. Chris is watching her.

  ‘So, what’s it feel like when you finally get it? When you shoot up?’ Caroline puts the last two words in inverted commas, like she feels silly saying the phrase out loud.

  ‘Weird thing is,’ Heather says, ‘all those symptoms go when you’re about to fix. Just like that. Just knowing it’s coming, you know? And the whole business is like this… ritual that you need. Spoons and candles and all of it.’ She laughs, shakes her head. ‘When I was on methadone they used to give me pills, but I’d crush them up just so I could use a needle. A dirty needle was better than popping a pill. Like I was addicted to the works as much as anything else.

  ‘Then you do it, and it’s… instant.’ She snaps her fingers. ‘The taste in the back of your throat, and the glow. This warm glow.’

  Robin nods. ‘Like those kids on the Ready Brek commercial. Remember?’

  ‘What taste?’ Caroline asks.

  Heather thinks for a few seconds, then shakes her head. ‘Can’t describe it. It’s… heroin.’ She cocks her head slowly right, then left, as though she’s working out a stiffness in her neck. She says, ‘What you said before, about the painkillers?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s no different, not really. Exactly the same thing applies to smack, or whatever else you’re using.’ Her eyes slide away from Caroline’s. ‘You take it and the pain goes away.’

  ‘And you’re the king of the world,’ Chris says.

  ‘Until you’re not.’

  Robin nods, knowingly. ‘King of the world, piece of shit.’ He looks at Caroline. ‘It’s something we say a lot. It’s what junkies are, what they feel like most of the time. Always the two extremes.’

  ‘What are you now?’ Caroline asks.

  ‘I’m a piece of the world,’ Robin says.

  Chris throws his arms wide. ‘And I’m the King of Shit.’

  As had happened the previous week, as often happens whenever part of the session has drifted into heavy territory, they spend the rest of the time swapping stories. Tony is happy with the shape of such sessions. The dissipation of any tensions that might have built up, the reassertion of the group as a unit before they go their separate ways for another week.

  He listens as Robin tells them about a junior doctor who snorted coke off the belly of a coma patient and Heather talks about an old friend of hers, a woman smaller than she was who had once stolen a dumper truck and driven it into a chemist’s in the middle of the night.

  Tony keeps a careful eye on his watch and, with five minutes to go, he raises a finger. ‘Now, before we call it a night, Heather has something she wants to give everyone.’

  ‘Is it an STD?’ Chris asks.

  Even Robin and Diana can’t help but laugh, but Heather ignores them. She takes a large envelope from her bag, then stands up and moves around the circle, passing out the personalised invitations.

  Diana says, ‘A party. That’s fantastic.’

  Heather hands Tony his invitation last. ‘Not really a party. I mean it’ll probably just be us. I wanted to celebrate with the group, you know.’

  Chris pretends to fight back tears. ‘That’s beautiful.’

  ‘Well, count me in,’ Robin says.

  Caroline tells Heather how nice the invitations are. She says she would love to come and asks if there’s anything she can do to help.

  ‘Not sure I can make it,’ Chris says. ‘I might be washing my hair. X Factor might be on.’

  ‘And I might cut your balls off,’ Heather says.

  Diana says, ‘Are you coming, Tony?’

 
‘I’m afraid I can’t.’ Tony looks at Heather for a moment or two, then addresses the group. ‘Not really ethical, you know? But I think it’s a great idea.’

  ‘Course he can’t,’ Robin says. ‘Professional distance.’

  ‘Right,’ Chris says.

  ‘Yeah, but it’s her birthday,’ Caroline says. ‘What if one of your patients invited you to a party? You could go, couldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, probably, but it’s not the same. There isn’t a relationship, as such. I don’t anaesthetise the same patient every week.’

  ‘I bet you weren’t always so sure.’ Chris is reaching for the small rucksack beneath his chair, the time almost up.

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning you were so off your tits a few years ago, you could have knocked the same patient out every day for a month and you wouldn’t have had a clue.’ He’s grinning, but there’s an edge. ‘Wouldn’t have known one end of a body from the other.’

  ‘If you’re going to be an argumentative arsehole, I’d rather you didn’t come.’ Heather reaches for her jacket.

  ‘Will there be nibbles?’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘Jelly and ice cream?’

  ‘See you all next week,’ Tony says. ‘I’ll expect a full report.’

  Chris stands up. ‘Probably won’t happen anyway.’ He walks towards the door, swinging his rucksack. ‘Some seagull will have looked at her the wrong way and she’ll have chucked herself under a train.’

  … THEN

  They walk up towards the Broadway. Chris is out in front, twenty feet or so ahead of anyone else, though it is probably down to more than his naturally longer stride or any eagerness to get to the pub and order an orange juice. Caroline, Robin and Diana are behind and Caroline is well aware that the other two are deliberately walking more slowly than they might otherwise.