Smack

by Melvin Burgess

  You don’t believe me. You think, she’s out of her head. Yeah, I’m out of my head—on being me. What are you on? On being them. You don’t even know. I bet you were never even given a chance to know.

  Remember when you were little and they used to say, “Naughty girl, naughty boy,” because you broke something or said the wrong thing? They told you, “You are a bad person.”

  But it wasn’t like that, it was just you were doing a bad thing. It wasn’t you who was bad. You’re beautiful. You’re wonderful and everything that you do is wonderful because it’s you doing it. You’re that strong. You can do it bad and know it bad or you can do it good and know it good but it doesn’t do anything to you. You’re still you.

  Listen. You can be anything you want to be. Be careful. It’s a spell. It’s magic. Listen to the words. You can be anything, you can do anything, you can be anything, you can do anything. Listen to the magic.

  You are anything…everyone, anyone. Whatever you want. I’m showing you. So long as you stay yourself inside, you can eat dirt and it’ll taste good because it’s you that’s eating it. You can even lick their arses if you have to. You listen to them, teachers, parents, politicians. They’re always saying, if you steal you’re a thief, if you sleep around you’re a slut, if you take drugs you’re a junkie. They want to get inside your head and control you with their fear.

  Maybe you think your mum and dad love you but if you do the wrong things they’ll try and turn you into dirt, just like mine tried to turn me into dirt. It’s your punishment for being you. Don’t play their game. Nothing can touch you; you stay beautiful.

  I’ve done everything. All of it. You think it, I’ve done it. All the things you never dared, all the things you dream about, all the things you were curious about and then forgot because you knew you never would. I did ’em, I did ’em yesterday while you were still in bed.

  What about you? When’s it gonna be your turn?

  Gemma

  Just lurkying about, lurkying about

  Lurkying about, lurkying about

  We’re just

  Luuuurrk-lurkying about.

  LURKY

  I’m flying, but a lot of people end up dead inside. You can’t tell to look at them but as soon as they open their mouths you know they’ve lost it. They got murdered by life.

  I look back at where I came from and I think, What a mess most people make of their lives. My dad. Too scared to live, too scared to die. He works all day for that firm, managing this, managing that. Apart from the fact that it’s other people who do the work—I mean the real work, the making things; he just burns himself out making himself look important, he doesn’t actually do anything. And he hates it. And what for? He makes this money and spends it on a new TV when the old one still works, or a new car because the one he’s got is old, or he spends it on a holiday to get away and relax from that ghastly job he’s got to have because he needs the money…

  I don’t need money. It’s the people who want things gotta work.

  You should come round to our place sometime. You’d love it, everyone does. You’d come in and there’d be people about but we wouldn’t expect anything. You could sit in a corner and watch or you could talk or do what you wanted. There’ll be music, there’ll be something to drink, maybe there’ll be food later on if some turns up. We usually open up the French windows and people sit in the garden. It just turns into a party. We don’t have to plan it. Like, Col brings round some booze and Sal turns up with something to smoke, and then someone else turns up with more booze and we all get a bit drunk and then we think we want some more…so everyone pools in what money they’ve got and I turn the music up.

  And it’s a party.

  Then at night we’ll light the fire. People’ll go round and find wood in the skips and the fire’ll burn all night long. There’s always something going on—dealing, music, people. There’s Dev, the dealer. He doesn’t go out much but sometimes he comes to sit by the fire and he rolls joint after joint. There’s Col and Sal. She used to be with Dev but they split up. I get on really well with Sal, she’s right on my wavelength, we’re almost as close as me and Lily. Almost. Col’s okay, he’s a bit boring; he does too much stuff, I reckon.

  Col…he could be a casualty. Well, you get casualties. Life’s a dangerous business. I reckon Col and Sal’ll split up before long. And there’s Wendy and there’s Jackson and there’s Doll and Pete-Pete. We’re never at a loss for people.

  But at the centre of everything it’s me and Tar and Lily and Rob.

  Tar’s just so much better now. You wouldn’t recognise him. He always used to be so anxious and worried. He takes it easy now, you can tell just looking at him. He’s sorted out that business with his mum and dad. He had to leave them behind. I mean, he’d left them physically but he was still carrying them round inside his head. Lily said to him over and over, “What are you carrying their shit for?” It’s their problem. They made a mess of their lives; he doesn’t have to make a mess of his for their sakes.

  I really love him. When I think how close I was to chucking him! It was a close thing. I must have been crazy. I guess I was so excited, I felt that everything had to be different after I met Lily and Rob. It was them who talked me out of it. I was going on about how claustrophobic he made me feel, and how he was always staring at me like I was a fish in a tank. They said, “No, no, he’s really nice, he’s special, why don’t you be nice to him? You gotta be nice to your friends…”

  I said, “But I don’t love him.”

  Lily laughed at me and she said, “You gotta look after him, he’s yours, can’t you see that?”

  Yeah. He’s mine. We got each other. I’m his.

  I ring up my parents from time to time, just to let them know I’m okay. I’d like it to be all right between us. I’d like to ring up and just chat or invite them round for a visit, but I don’t dare. They’re still into this owning me trip. They’d tip off the police and get me back home—a bloody mental home or a remand home if it wasn’t their home.

  I said to my mum, “When I’m sixteen, I’ll come and visit you and we’ll be friends.” She said nothing. I know what she was thinking. She tries to keep her mouth shut but it slips out from time to time.

  She still can’t forgive me, see? She thinks I’ve done something bad to her. See what I mean? I’m just getting on with my own life and she thinks I’m doing her down. No wonder I couldn’t even breathe in that house.

  The first time I rang up home after moving in with Lily and Rob I was scared stiff. I kept putting it off and putting it off. I mean, what could I say to them? I’d turned into something they could never understand. But the others kept going on at me.

  Tar always rang his mum up even though his parents were even worse than mine. He’s such a good little boy it makes me sick sometimes. He and Rob and Lily were on and on at me.

  Rob’s really soft about mums. It was all right for him, his mum’s really great. She’s an amazing woman. She came round to visit us once and when she saw the sort of thing we were up to, she just laughed.

  “Don’t get caught,” she said. That’s all. Can you imagine it? It was so wonderful to see there were people like that. I mean, it’s like, once you break away and get out of the brainwashing, you can liberate your children and your grandchildren and all the generations to come. Rob had his first joint when he was about eight. He didn’t smoke tobacco and she reckoned it was the way she’d brought him up. She was really pleased with the way he’d turned out. Most people who smoke hash smoke tobacco, too, you see, but Rob grew up with it so he had more sense. Mind you, he rolls his first joint as soon as he gets up.

  Even he doesn’t tell his mum everything. He made us all swear not to tell her about the heroin. She’d have blown her lid. A lot of people can’t handle junk. You have to be special to be able to use it.

  Anyway, he was always on and on at me to get in touch with my mum, and so were Lily and Tar. I said, “I just know it’ll be horrible, t
hey’ll make me hate them, I know it.” But they kept on and on. So in the end I did. They went round with me to a telephone booth to back me up.

  I got Dad.

  “Gemma, is that you?”

  I was full of it to start with. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I am, then?” I said. I was grinning at Rob and he was nodding. This was about two, three weeks after I met them.

  My dad said, “Is that you?” again. He sounded like a little grey man.

  I said, “Yeah, it’s me, all right. How are you, Dad?”

  “Gemma, Gemma,” he said. He was weird. He sounded…

  Lily pushed her face into mine. “He’s scared of you,” she hissed.

  I thought, Wow! and I knew it was true. He sounded like a little boy stuck outside the headmaster’s office. I could have whooped because I knew that whatever spell he had over me was broken for sure. But I didn’t want to be mean to him. I stared at the phone and licked my lips, then I said, “Yeah, it’s all right, Dad. It’s nice to talk to you.” Pause. “How’s Mum?”

  “Gemma. She’s worried sick. We both are. Why didn’t you ring? You could have rung us any time.”

  “Don’t get at me, Dad, I’m doing my best,” I said. “Is Mum there?” I didn’t want to start talking about what he thought I should have done.

  “We love you, Gemma.”

  “Dad…”

  “I know we made mistakes but we both love you, you know that, don’t you?”

  That shocked me. I was embarrassed because…I love you. I don’t ever remember him saying that to me and now that he was saying it he sounded so broken and beat up. But it made me angry, too, because it was like, you know, a trap? I mean, they’d covered me in shit and now I was out of their control it was, I love you…

  He could have said that any time before.

  “Look, Dad, just don’t, just don’t start on me. I’m not coming back. I’m having a good time.”

  “Gemma, you’re fourteen years old…” Then I heard sounds over the phone and I thought I heard Mum’s voice.

  “Is that Mum? Can I have a talk to her?”

  I could hear her in the background. She was saying, “Grel? Grel? Is that her, Grel?” she always called him Grel, God knows why. His name’s Andrew.

  He said, “Just a minute.” Then to me, “Gemma, why are you doing this? Are you punishing us? Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”

  I could have laughed. He didn’t have a clue. Punishing him! That was his scene. I wasn’t doing anything to him. I didn’t have to.

  “I’m just having a good time, it’s nothing to do with you any more,” I told him.

  “I think it is something to do with us, Gemma,” he said. “And I think it’s time you stopped this. Do you realise the upset you’ve caused your poor mother?”

  I was getting upset. First it was loving me. Then it was what I was doing to him, now it was what I was doing to Mum. I put my hand over the mouthpiece. “I don’t think I can take this,” I said.

  “Stay cool, stay cool,” Rob was saying.

  Lily said, “You’re doing great, Gemma, you’re doing beautiful.”

  I could hear my mum on the phone saying, “What’s she saying, Grel? What’s she saying?”

  “Look, just let me talk to her, will you?” I said.

  He said, “What’s going on, have you got someone with you?”

  “Never mind that, can I have Mum now?”

  “She’s been worried sick, ringing up the police, ringing up the papers and not a word from you, Gemma. Not a word in four weeks…”

  He was really getting going. I could hear Mum behind him trying to get to the phone but he wasn’t having it.

  “She’s done everything for you, you might at least think of her…” And I was really beginning to get mad because he wouldn’t let me speak to my mum. He was only going on like that just because she was in the room. He always felt he had to act up for her.

  Then Rob grabbed the phone.

  “Hello? Mr. Brogan?” he said.

  “Who’s that? Who’s that?” yelped my dad.

  “I’m a friend of Gemma’s, Mr. Brogan. I just want to tell you, you’ve got a beautiful daughter. You ought to be proud of her, Mr. Brogan,” he said.

  My dad said, “Oh, so she’s found a bloke, has she? I suppose you know she’s underage, whoever you are…”

  I began trying to pull the phone away from Rob. I was so angry, I was so embarrassed for him.

  Dad was going, “Gemma? Gemma? I’d like to speak to my daughter now, please.”

  Then Lily grabbed the phone. “I think she’s beautiful too,” she said. “And if you want to know, I’m underage as well. And don’t start telling my bloke he’s messing around with my best friend, okay, Mister Man?”

  Then it turned into a bit of a fight with everyone yelling and snatching for the phone to tell my dad what for. Tar started really screeching.

  “My turn, my turn!” he was screaming. He was so loud he got hold of it and then he held it to his ear and he just stood there. I could hear my dad’s voice going, a little tinny crackle. But Tar just stood there listening. I guess he just wanted to hear, he didn’t have anything to say. We were all quiet, watching him. Then the tinny crackle changed and I could just make out my mum.

  “Hello, Mrs. Brogan,” Tar said.

  “Hello, David? Is my daughter there? I’d like to talk to her, please,” my mum said, and Tar handed me the phone with a funny little look. Everyone gathered around me with their heads close to the phone and listened in.

  My mum said, “Gemma…Gemma, is it you? Is it really you?” I was so pleased to hear her voice. I forgot all about the things she did to me.

  “Mum, hello, Mum, I love you, Mum, I love you,” I was saying, and Rob was nodding and Lily was going, “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Are you all right? Have you got enough to eat? Do you need anything?” she was saying.

  “Yeah, Mum. I’m fine, I’m great, everything’s fine. How are you?”

  “Gemma, come home, please come home…please…” she said. And she started crying.

  I wanted to hug her and hold her. I had to hug the phone, it was the nearest I could get to her. Dad made me angry, but Mum just made me love her.

  “I can’t come back, not yet, Mum, not yet. But I’m okay, I really am and I miss you, Mum, and I’ll come back as soon as I can,” I blabbed. I was just about crying already.

  “Oh, Gemma,” she said. “Oh, Gemma…” And she couldn’t even talk, she was crying so much.

  I wished she wouldn’t cry.

  I could hear Dad trying to get the phone back but she pulled herself together. He was going on in the background, raising his voice to her. It made me cross.

  “What’s he going on about now?” I said.

  She said, “Don’t be angry with your father, Gemma. It’s been a terrible strain. He hasn’t been sleeping, the doctor’s put him on pills.”

  I felt rotten then, but Tar reached over and put his hand over the receiver so she couldn’t hear and he said, “Bloody junkie.”

  It was so funny. It was awful. There was a second’s pause and then everyone started spluttering and laughing silently. Lily clapped her hand over her mouth and slid down to the floor of the booth and hid her face in her hands. I had to bite my cheeks to stop myself laughing.

  I gritted my teeth and said, “What sort of pills?”

  “Sleeping pills, you know. Quite strong ones.”

  Rob and Tar were holding on to each other.

  “He’s in the most awful state,” finished my mum.

  I was howling and laughing and laughing and I had to do it all without making a noise. It was so funny! All that stuff about him worrying about me and there he was, packed up to the eyeballs with downers and smoking fags. Lily got up off the floor and hissed, “Ask her if he’ll send some down. We’ll give him a good price…”

  I was killing myself. Mum was saying, “Are you all right, Gemma? Are you all right?” And then I
heard Dad saying, “She must be on drugs or something…” And of course that made me howl even more. I could barely stand up. We were all getting really hysterical.

  Then Mum started crying again and I felt rotten so I just said, “Look Mum, there’s a spot of bother here, I’ll ring you back later…” and I slapped the phone down and we all just roared with laughter. It was hysterical. It was rotten, I felt awful, but it was so funny…none of us could help it. Rob was staring at Tar and saying, “You bastard!” but he was still laughing. And Tar was saying, “Sorry, sorry…” But none of us could stop.

  I rang her back later on my own, and it was okay. She sort of understood, I think. She made it sound as though she did. But I kept thinking about it the whole time and I kept bursting out laughing for the rest of the day.

  Once she accepted that I wasn’t coming back we got to have some intelligent conversations. She still cracks up and starts crying sometimes, which is a pity because I’d ring up more often if it wasn’t for that. I hate that. It doesn’t do any good.

  My dad’s okay, too. I try to have a normal conversation but it never gets much past the “How are you, what’s the weather like over there?” kind of thing. Sometimes he tells me he loves me but it never sounds all that convincing. I guess I get on better with my mum, all in all.

  Vonny and Richard come round from time to time. I don’t know whether it’s because they like us or whether they’re just keeping an eye on us. It’s nice. I like them. Even Vonny. Now she can’t be some sort of Auntie Thing, it’s okay. Mind you, they don’t know the half of it. I don’t tell her everything. Junk, for example. I don’t tell them about that. They wouldn’t understand. They have their drugs—hash, a bit of speed, booze. But junk. I dunno. One day, maybe I’ll tell them just to watch their faces.

  Yeah. There’s a lot of drugs around here. Drugs are just part of life—pleasure, business, they bring you up and take you down, they make you feel good. They take you to another planet, sometimes. Sometimes you have to find your own way back.

  I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, O-oh, she’s a junkie, she’s only been away from home six months and she’s a junkie already.