Smack

by Melvin Burgess

  “But Tar hasn’t done any,” she wailed.

  “Well, of course he hasn’t, he’s been surrounded by all these people paid to make sure he stays clean. Where he was you’d have to be strong as hell to take the stuff,” I told her. “You’ve done it all on your own, you’re doing really, really well.”

  “But he’s been clean and I haven’t and I don’t think I’m strong enough to keep off it and I do love him, I love him so much, Sal, and I’m just going to drag him down…”

  “Listen…” I gave her a squeeze. “You’re really lucky. I wish I felt like that about someone. You don’t know how lucky you are, Gems.”

  She smiled at me through her tears.

  “You’re going to be all right.”

  “I ought to go away. I’ve been thinking if I was strong I ought to go away and leave him because maybe he’d stand a better chance without me.”

  I started getting a bit irritated with her then. I told her, “You’re mad, you don’t leave someone because you love them. You’re mad…” I started laughing, and she started laughing a bit through her tears, because it was so stupid.

  We did a little one together. She was worried about it but you can’t turn yourself into Superwoman. She did a chase, so Tar wouldn’t see any marks on her. She hasn’t done a needle for weeks. That’s brilliant. She was falling to bits, what sort of homecoming would that be for him?

  I told her, she can’t be strong for everyone all the time, she had to learn to take some strength off him. I told her, he’d been taking strength from her for a long time. Maybe now it was her turn. If that place where he’d been was any good, he’d come up with enough strength for the pair of them.

  I was scared that when the party came she wouldn’t be able to cope with it, but she was brilliant. Gemma knows how to rise to the occasion. She was bubbling. Tar was as cool as a cucumber, although looking back maybe he was a little freaked.

  Later on I noticed Rob was missing, and I knew what that was likely to mean so I went upstairs and found him, sure enough, doing one in the bedroom. And guess who was there with him?

  Well…that didn’t last long, did it? I was pretty annoyed with Tar about it, I can tell you. Gemma had tried so hard and she’d done so well. He was saying how it was a party, he was just having a hit because it was a big day and he was feeling a bit freaked out with all those people. I thought, Maybe it didn’t mean anything. But of course I knew exactly what it did mean.

  I sat on the bed and shot up. We sat about talking about nothing and then, Lily came in.

  She just stood there looking at Tar and nodding, going, “Yeah…yeah…” He just smiled wryly. You could see there was a performance on its way. Then she starts going round the room looking behind the wardrobe and in the drawers and under the bed and she says, “You know what? I can’t find God anywhere.” God, of course, was what she thought Tar was on about when he talked about something outside himself helping him.

  “He didn’t hang around long, then, did he?” she told Tar.

  “It’s not a problem to me, Lily. I’m sorry if it bothers you,” he said, smiling at her like he was drinking milk.

  I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes. I just couldn’t be bothered. I’d have said something, but he didn’t look as though he cared either. I don’t suppose he did he hadn’t used for over a month. Lucky bastard, you could see by the look on his face. He felt good. Even so Lily stood there staring at him until he began to wriggle about in his chair.

  “Gemma did some,” he said at last.

  “Oh, that’s all right then,” Lily said. Then she started on at Rob. “You prat!” she said.

  “He asked me, what was I supposed to do?” said Rob.

  “Oh, leave him alone, Lily, for God’s sake, it’s supposed to be a party,” I said.

  “Look at him, he’s practically gauching out…”

  “I only had a chase, I didn’t use a needle,” he said.

  I said, “You’re making too much of it, Lily. It’s his party.”

  “It doesn’t mean I haven’t given up,” said Tar.

  I said, “Oh, God,” because that was asking for it.

  Lily was right in. “Oh, yeah, you take the stuff but you’ve still given up, sure…”

  “…this is a party. Anyway, Gemma did some tonight. She told me. She asked me if it was okay.”

  “And you said yes.”

  He smiled. I thought, You crafty git. Of course Gemma could have some. Because then so could he…

  Well, you know, that’s junk. We’re all the same. There’s always a reason when you want to do some.

  Then he said, “Don’t tell her, will you, Lily? It won’t do her any good, you won’t be doing her any favours.”

  Lily sneered. “Yeah, you want me to play your game. How are you gonna feel about this tomorrow?”

  “I expect I’ll think I fancied some heroin, Lily.”

  She flounced around the room a bit, then snapped at Rob. He’d been sitting quietly. He knows not to put his head over the edge when Lily’s off. He’d been doing her a works and now he handed it over to her. Lily sat on the edge of the bed and started digging about for a vein behind her knees.

  “You’ve really buggered it up for both of you,” she told Tar.

  I’d just about heard enough. I got up and stamped out to the door.

  “What’s up with you?” she snapped.

  I turned around at the door and said, “You, lecturing him about junk with a needle stuck up your arse, that’s what,” and I slammed the door and walked out. Lily came running to the door and leaned over the bannisters screaming at me.

  “You fucking slag! Are you calling me a junkie? Are you calling me a hypocrite?”

  I just ignored her and walked on down. I didn’t even look round. I knew she wasn’t going to come for me. She still had her works loaded up in the bedroom behind her and she wasn’t likely to leave that behind, not in a room with two junkies in it.

  I got to the bottom of the stairs imagining I was one of those starlets in an old fifties film where they descend the grand stairway in a ballgown, and all the heads turn. All the heads were turning, of course, but not because I was looking beautiful. I stepped off the last stair and I thought, So she isn’t a junkie? Hasn’t the penny dropped for that girl yet?

  Richard

  Help me help me help me help me

  Throw me a line and I’ll spin it back

  Help me help me help me help me

  But what I reeeeeeally neeeed’s the cash

  LURKY

  I said, “Are you clean?”

  “Sort of.”

  “I don’t want any needles in the house.”

  “I’m not that bad,” he said. He sounded slightly offended. I didn’t ask any further than that. I thought it was just a visit. We made arrangements for the weekend, then I put the phone down.

  I was living with Sandra at the time. I’d had a great time in Australia and Southeast Asia. Bicycling is the only way to travel. I used to go down regularly to the New Forest when mountain bikes first came on the market and I knew at once I’d seen the future of cycling. Southeast Asia was only the first step. I’m going to do India next.

  I’d often thought of Tar when I was over there. He’d have loved every second of it. I used to think of the last time I’d seen him and what he’d said to me, “I don’t have to run away to Asia to have a good time, Richard.”

  I was sitting on this fallen statue in Thailand at the edge of a ruined temple in the jungle. I’d slept on the beach, had a swim and cycled through the jungle for fifteen miles. There were huge butterflies everywhere, big as birds. I thought, I know where I’d rather be…

  Then when I got back I went to live in Birmingham for a bit. I had friends in Birmingham, but it’s a city I’d never lived in before. That’s where I met Sandra. She was living in the same house as my friends and we started to have an affaire du coeur. Unfortunately I’m not very good at that sort of thing. Then she got a p
lace in college at Reading. Reading! I must have been mad! I went and interviewed at a bike shop there and they offered me the job.

  That’s life. I came back thinking I’d earn enough money to get off to India fairly quickly. Instead I ended up with Sandra in a flat in Woodley. The worst of it was, Sandra liked it.

  I keep falling in love but it always makes me unhappy, I’ve no idea why. When I told Sandra about Tar she was very disapproving. I tried to tell her what a lovely person he was, what a hard time he’d had as a child, all that. It wasn’t as though she’s unsympathetic, actually, but only professionally. Her course was for working with handicapped kids. She was doing work experience with some very badly handicapped kids and it had a very high burn-out rate. By the weekend the last thing she wanted was work at home.

  “Junkies are bad news,” she announced. I suppose after dealing with people with those sorts of problems, addiction looked a bit self-induced.

  I told her what he’d said.

  “What’s ‘sort of’ supposed to mean?” she wanted to know.

  I had a good idea.

  Tar was his usual shifty self. I mean, that’s usual for him since he got on to smack. He’d lost that open look he used to have about him quite early on, after about six months of leaving the squat, I’d say. It was funny. I hadn’t actually liked him for years. I loved him when he first turned up. He had this way of trying to hide everything but it all came shining through anyway.

  The heroin covered that up soon enough but I kept getting little glimpses. He’d look shyly at me out of the corner of his eye, or a slow smile would spread over his face and I’d think the old Tar was still in there somewhere.

  The evening started off not too bad. He told me about the bust. I thought it was very noble of him to go in when the place was crawling with pigs and take the rap. And he talked about the detox centre. I think he got a lot from it but Sandra wasn’t impressed.

  “Obviously you didn’t get enough from it,” she said. It wasn’t very comfortable. She went up to bed early on but I stayed up with Tar rapping. He had a lot to say about junk and getting off it. It all sounded very sensible to me. I thought he was okay.

  I went up to bed about an hour later and Sandra was furious.

  “I want him out of the house first thing in the morning,” she said. I couldn’t believe it.

  “Why?”

  “He’s just bombed out of his head, that’s all.”

  “No, he told me he’s been clean for a month…”

  “He says! Didn’t you see his eyes?”

  “He wasn’t…was he?” And even as I said that I knew it was true. He’d been getting more and more dopey and his pupils had been getting smaller and smaller. I’d been smoking so I hadn’t really noticed, but looking back he was bombed out of sight. If it wasn’t heroin it was something very similar.

  “His pupils were like pinheads,” said Sandra in disgust.

  “I’ll have a word with him,” I promised at last. “But don’t boot him out. He’s a friend of mine. Please.” She snorted and rolled over in the duvet. But she didn’t make me chuck him out.

  We were planning on going for a walk along the river the next day, but first Sandra and I had a few chores to do. We tended to spend Saturday morning doing things like the laundry, ironing. Sandra was being a pain. We put that sort of thing off when her friends came visiting. I got sent to the supermarket. Tar came along with me, and I noticed he was a bit fidgety in the car on the way out. He seemed distracted but at least he wasn’t out of it. Then at Safeway’s he bought some Paracetamol.

  “Not feeling well?” I said.

  “A bit fluey,” said Tar. The number of times I’ve heard him and his friends talk about being “a bit fluey.”

  “Oh, yes?” I said.

  “Really.” He looked me in the face. “I really have got a bit of flu, really,” he insisted seriously. He swallowed a mouthful of Paracetamol.

  I didn’t say anything. He was so convincing but Sandra had burst the bubble. I thought, Well, if he doesn’t want to admit it, that’s his business. Actually that’s not true. What I was really thinking was, Oh dear, more trouble. Because if Sandra found out he was coming down…oh dear.

  Sandra and I hadn’t been getting on well for weeks. Ever since we moved to Reading, actually. We split up a few months later. Not a very good atmosphere for poor Tar to come off heroin in.

  I was hoping when we got out in the fresh air by the water he’d feel better, but we went back home. Sandra still had loads to do. I was getting annoyed about it. From what I could gather she’d been on the phone to her mum all morning, she didn’t seem to have done anything at all while we’d been out. I suggested Tar and I go on our own, but no, she wouldn’t have that either. So we had to hang about while she got the ironing board out. I could see it was going to take ages, so I went to load the washing machine in the kitchen to try and speed things up.

  I was thinking about having a word with her and telling her that I thought he was coming down and that we ought to be helping him, when suddenly there was Tar behind me pulling his coat on.

  “Where are you off to?” I asked.

  “I’m going back.”

  “What for?”

  Tar shrugged. His eyes drifted across the floor. “I need to go back,” he said. “Can you lend me the bus fare? I’ve left myself with no money.”

  “Oh…” I felt I was letting him down. “Is it Sandra?”

  “No, it’s nothing to do with her, I don’t blame her at all, I just have to get back…”

  “Why?”

  Tar looked away from me, at the fridge, at the wall opposite. “I’m coming down, I’m doing cold turkey, but I can’t go through with it. I want to go back and get some heroin,” he said. And he looked at me and shrugged.

  I said, “Why didn’t you say?”

  “I just thought I’d give it a go and it’d happen, but I’m not making it. I have to go back.”

  “But you said you’d been clean for a month.”

  “I didn’t want to tell you I was coming down. Look.” He spread his hands open. “Can’t you lend me the money? I’ll only hitch home if you don’t.”

  “What were you on last night?”

  “That was downers. I took some barbs along to help me through the first night, but they’re gone now. I can’t do it, Richard, I’m sorry. I can’t do it. Not this time.”

  I started trying to talk him out of it, telling him to think of Gemma, telling him how well he was doing, which we both knew was a pack of lies. He hadn’t even made it through one day and, in fact, I was appalled at how bad he was. I was still going on at him when Sandra came in.

  She stood and looked at us, Tar in his coat.

  “What’s going on?” she said.

  “Tar wants to go back. He’s been trying to come off it on this visit.”

  Sandra just snorted. She turned her back and went to the washing machine and began to go through the clothes I’d loaded.

  “I’d better go,” said Tar, and he made for the door.

  “Wait…”

  I could have killed her. He was coming to see me because he thought I might be able to help him, he was my friend. He was still just a kid! If she decided she didn’t want to help, I might as well give him the money now, except I’d have an argument on my hands about that as well.

  He got to the door when Sandra came back in. “How long have you been off it?” said Sandra.

  Tar turned at the door to look at her. “Just one day,” he said.

  “What about last night?” she said.

  “That was barbiturates,” I said quickly. “He took some to help him get over the first night but they’re gone now.”

  Sandra snorted softly.

  Tar said, “You’re right, I’m just a junkie. I’m just a junkie and I just want to get back and get on with…”

  And as he said this his face began to crumple up. He began to cry. As he started to cry he turned and ran out of the room.
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  I was shocked. He’d looked so cool. I stared at Sandra. She looked at me and suddenly, she ran out after him. He was at the door fumbling with the lock and Sandra threw herself on him and she grabbed his shoulder and spun him round, tall bloke though he was, and fixed him with a hug. She just wrapped her arms round him so hard he couldn’t move and hugged him and hugged him. I stood and watched his face over her shoulder. It was terrible. He cried and cried, he couldn’t stop. All the strength fell out of him. When she let him go he sank to his knees and then lay down on his side, his face in his hands, and he cried and he cried and he cried.

  “I’m just a junkie, I’m just a junkie, I’m just a junkie,” he said, over and over and over. Sandra lay down next to him and put her arms around him. I got down too and lay half on top of him.

  “I’m just a junkie, I’m just a junkie,” he said. He tried to get up but we held him down. I put my arms around him. I was crying too. Tar lay there underneath us both and wept.

  Sandra was brilliant. Once she realised what was going on, she was right there. After a bit when the tears began to subside she said, “I’ve got some strong painkillers upstairs, would that help?” Tar nodded. I mentioned the Paracetamol, and he said he’d had two. Sandra and I glanced at each other; he was in such a state we were scared he could do anything, so we made him hand over the packet and sure enough, he’d just had two. So Sandra went and got her painkillers. She’d had them prescribed for her periods, which had been really bad ever since she’d had a coil fitted.

  Then we discussed what to do—me and Sandra, that is. Tar just sat there and watched us. Whether we should get to a doctor and try to get him on a methadone script, whether we should give him some money and pack him away on holiday somewhere. I have to hand it to Sandra—she’d have given over her life savings to save him once she came round to his side.

  The trouble was, Tar wouldn’t have any of it. The tears had stopped, but he was as stubborn as a mule. He was going back to get some heroin. That was all. He wouldn’t agree to anything else. When she asked him if he wanted to go on holiday to Spain or somewhere, on us, he just said if we gave him any money he’d go straight back to Bristol and spend it on heroin, so it would be better for us not to.