by Luke Davies
We pay our bill and leave. We drive one street away. Candy stops the car, like she did once before, a long time ago, along the avenue of poplars, in late autumn in the country way north of Melbourne, in the time when our lives were always misery. We’d fucked then, on the side of the road back to Melbourne, in the backseat of the car. The wind had rushed across the desolate surface of the earth and poured into our brains and given us respite from the frantic pounding of our hearts and the chase for money and smack.
Is it possible the chase is over? Nothing seems real. I feel I’m wading underwater. And if the chase is over, then is it over with Candy too? It’s hard to say aloud the words inside my head, that things have run their course.
She pulls the hand brake and says, “We have to fuck. It’s been a while.”
“It has,” I say.
We climb over into the backseat. She hitches her dress and slides off her underpants.
“We can go somewhere else,” I suggest.
“Fuck it,” she says, “there’s no time.”
This is the last fuck, ever, and we know it. Even as it’s happening it’s already over. She straddles me. I cling to her arms, to her breasts, to her back. Across the road the neon lights of the South Sydney Leagues Club blink.
After we fuck, we sit there for a while, Candy still on top of me, hugging each other tight, both of us crying.
The next morning she goes back to Melbourne, and I know I’ll never see her again, or that our life, the way it was, is over. For a very long time we’ve been going in one direction, and now we’re going in two. Candy disappears from my life at this point, and so she disappears from the story, or the story disappears. Later I will hear she’s traveled a bit, is doing okay. I will hear she had a baby. For a couple of years I will hear lots of things, some good, some bad. And then after a while I’ll hear nothing.
But for now I drag through the weeks, one foot in the past and one in the future. I feel I am nothing but a dividing line. I don’t know who I am. They tell me there’s nothing wrong with that. They tell me today is all I have, and for the first time it begins to make sense. At times it seems like such hard work, to make it through each day. They say, of course, it’s early days, everything is new, what did you expect? You can’t sit on your arse and slide uphill. And I come to realize that all my small todays, the way I act, will lead into my tomorrows.
When I was using, it was like, tomorrow everything will be all right, so today doesn’t matter so much. I thought if I could hold my breath for long enough, then finally tomorrow, full of light and pollen, would arrive.
And here it is. I can start breathing again.
Epilogue
CANDY
In the beginning: Sydney, summer
Everything’s fucking beautiful! I’m so in love. I’ve just met Candy, it’s been a month or two. We’re discovering each other’s bodies. Candy’s just discovered smack and I’ve just discovered she’s got a bit of money. Keen as all fuck to get dirty.
Candy’s got the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, a kind of mist you fall into. It’s weird how you can be going along, and all you’re thinking about is heroin, and then you meet someone, and other thoughts get in there. It makes it like meeting Candy was meant to happen. Things were getting hairy, as they tend to when you’re using. As always, I was enjoying the gear. It can be all right being alone. But partnership is a good thing and helps focus your energies.
We did a credit card scam together, and Candy’s still reeling from the adrenaline rush. She thinks we can be like Bonnie and Clyde, me handsome, her beautiful, both of us glamorous and full of sex and ready to take on the world. I suppose I mean Dunaway and Beatty. Anyway, falling in love is kind of exciting.
She walks around the house naked all day, her body lithe and lank and lovely. She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen, naked or clothed. Not a blemish. Her cunt smells nice. She laughs a lot. She runs several baths a day and splashes about. She fools around with makeup for ages. She wears her long blond hair in wild pigtails. She looks like Annie Oakley on a windy day. She reads sad Virago books with flowers and pale languid women on the covers.
She’s just finding out what I found out a few years back, that thing that heroin does to you the first few times. She is over the moon. She’s in the Miranda zone—O wonder! O brave new world! Things are good beyond belief. I envy her that innocence. Nowadays, when it really works—which is beginning to be not always—what I get from hammer is a kind of deep comfort. An absence of this and an absence of that. Absence of everything that prickles and rankles.
What Candy’s getting is the angelic buoyancy, the profusion of colors. Good luck to her; it won’t last long.
We fucked a few times then I told her I had a problem. Crying and all that. Holding my head in my hands, at least. Oh my life is so fucked-up, I’ve got to stop. Can you lend me some money? At the time it’s happening, misery is real. She was game. She was curious. Sure. How much do you want?
Really, to be honest, I guess I was just scamming for a bit of cash. Then the falling in love part began to happen a few days later. Because she came along for the ride. Because she was so willing.
She watched me bang up a few times. I told her, make sure you don’t ever do this. She nodded, watching the plunger slide down the barrel. I don’t know what it was she saw when I untied that tourniquet and lolled back, but it didn’t make her go away.
After a week she started asking questions—what’s it like? and how come you can’t stop?—and I said to the first question, that’s such a hard question to answer, and to the second question, I don’t know. I said, if you really want to try some you can snort a bit. She was silent for a moment and then she said, nah. Nah, I don’t think so.
The next day I had to go out and do stuff and I left a little package for her and said, if you want to snort some of that, feel free. But I don’t mind if you don’t. I got home in the afternoon and Candy was lying on the bed reading The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty and the package was still on the dressing table where I left it. Did you use that dope? I said. No, she said uncertainly, I didn’t feel like it. That’s good, I said, because I’m going to have it now.
I didn’t offer her any more after that. Two days later I was mixing up for myself and she said, okay, I want to try some.
I was scraping some dope from a package into my spoon. I stopped what I was doing and laid out a thick line on a glossy magazine. She rolled up a twenty-dollar note and snorted the heroin. It seemed she started to really feel it at about twenty or thirty seconds. She was touching her nose and making short sniffing sounds and then she said whoa.
She was puffing, like her breath was trying to catch up with something bigger and faster than her, something that was catching her unprepared and slamming her into a world that was different.
To me it seems, despite the signs that are beginning to say otherwise, that heroin is the greatest thing there is. I’m not trying to give Candy a habit. I’m not trying to fuck her life. I’m trying to make mine better. I’m falling in love with her and want to share with her absolutely everything, especially the best bits. And who wouldn’t?
There are no glitches in everything we do. Everything is perfect, agreed upon, unspoken. Everything moves forward as if oiled by God’s own grease.
That first snort, Candy had a ball. She lay around on the bed, mostly with her eyes closed, saying this is incredible, saying kiss me, touch me. After a while she said, I feel nauseous, I think I’m going to spew. I grabbed a bucket from the laundry and I said, after you vomit you’ll feel better, it happens the first few times. She vomited into the bucket and wiped her mouth and said, even that feels fantastic.
She said, I want to try sex on this. I said, you probably won’t be able to come and she said, this is coming. Everything was electric, the horniness, the erections, the wetness, and of course we didn’t come but fuck it was nice, in a trippy gymnastic kind of way.
The next day she was phased and didn’t
talk about it. Then a couple of days later she says, can I have some more? I say, sure, and start to lay out a line for her. She says, not that way, I want to try it your way.
At that moment my heart moves and I feel so in love I want to cry. I know what’s going on. What she is saying is, I don’t want second best. She’s sensed already that if snorting is good then this will be infinitely better. I can feel the deep tugging of a kindred spirit, a twin.
I say okay. I look at her for a moment, at her big pupils about to become small. I nod my head. I say, sure.
I remind myself I have to be careful here. I get out my spoon and I mix up the smallest amount of hammer I can possibly imagine would do anything to anyone. Candy’s wrapped a tie around her upper arm and it’s way too tight. I unwrap it and there are purple lines like bands on her delicate skin. I show her how to tie a hoop that can be tightened or released quickly.
She holds out her arm and looks the other way. I tap the soft skin on the inside of her elbow and it’s easy. The needle slides in and I pull the plunger backward and a strong spurt of pink erupts into the liquid in the barrel, spreading up toward the 50 calibration in a cauliflower shape. I hold it steady and carefully push the plunger forward.
There, I say.
I pull the syringe from her arm and drop it on the table and hold my thumb down over the tiny hole I’ve made. I release the tie with my other hand. Candy looks down at her arm like a child who’s relieved that the inoculation is over. Then she says mmmm, and her facial muscles relax and she lies back on the bed and says, that is heaps better. Heaps better. Fuck oh God. Fuck fuck fuck. This is the best. Oh God, this is awesome.
It’s a beautiful afternoon in Leichhardt and I want Candy to experience more of it, not just the heavenly weight that descends on vertical bodies, not just the exquisite crush of inertia. She vomits a couple of times and I wipe her face with a towel and then she wants to close her eyes and nod off but I say, come on, let’s go for a walk.
First I have another blast and get pretty ripped myself. The phone rings and it’s Micky Fleck wanting a hundred and I tell him to wait along the bottom of Norton Street, at the Memorial Park, and I’ll be coming through the park in half an hour. I make him up a package, and Candy and I walk out into the sunlight.
We’re arm in arm and I’ve never felt better in my life. The world is full of promise. My plan is that love will be stronger than heroin, and then we can get stuff done. The things we’re meant to do in life. Candy’s going to be an actress, and I’ll work something out too. We’re just having a bit of fun right now, and soon, I suppose, it’ll be time to stop. This is the way I’m thinking, when I think about it.
I can’t see Candy’s eyes behind her sunglasses, but I can tell from her grin that she’s loving everything, the way you do in early days, the way narcotics integrate all the parts of the world. That’s not an easy task. She’s loving everything: the sunlight, the heat, the greenness of the day, the trees, the cars, the children in baby carriages. There’s a little council fountain in the middle of the park and Candy stops and sits beside it and runs her hand back and forth through the cool water. She’s staring mesmerized at the water. I know what it is: she’s intrigued by the way her wrist breaks up the scallops of silver light that bob on the surface. It’s summer, in a world that is shining and good.
I see Micky’s car pull up and I wave and we wander over. Hi, mate, how you going? I say. I lean into his window and drop the package in his lap and he tucks a hundred-dollar note into my top pocket. Micky, this is Candy, I say. She’s beaming. Hi. She holds out her arm and they shake hands.
Micky drives away and we walk up to the Italian coffee place and have a big plate of gelato, which Candy vomits up twenty minutes later on the way home. When does the vomiting stop? she asks, like she’s preparing for a journey. Not long, I say. After a while you don’t vomit, except when you’re really sick.
Is that bad? she asks.
Hanging out? It’s the worst, I say. Just don’t get a habit, Candy, and you won’t have to go through that.
We get home and lie down for a while and Candy says to me, there’s better things in store for us than pain. It’s an odd thing to say but I feel overwhelmed and I want to say something big in return. I really love you, Candy, I say. I was, er, thinking, do you want to—Then I feel embarrassed and stop midsentence.
She rolls toward me and smiles. What? Get married?
I was going to say have a baby, actually.
She laughs. Well, let’s do both!
I think we have a great future, I say. She smiles even more, her eyes water. My heart feels it’s going to burst.
I kiss her, maybe the nicest long kiss I’ve had to that point in my life.
Then we fuck for an hour, and don’t come, and finally stop when we both get a little raw and chafed.
The next day little brother Lex comes around. I’m not always on a roll, there are bad times too, but I’ve been getting the good brown Sri Lankan gear from T-Bar lately. It’s a time of abundance, and Lex, being family, is on the inner circle. I kind of subcontract a bit to him, and his friends get it, stepped on a little more. But still everybody’s happy. Relatively speaking.
It’s been a good day and I’m in a good mood when Lex arrives. Candy hasn’t had any smack all day and she runs a bubble bath downstairs and says she wants to try some in the bath. She’s searching for new experiences and I can understand. May she milk them until they run out. Lex and I have a whack in the bedroom, then I mix one up for Candy. I want her to have a nice blast, and she’s been using for almost a week, so I make it a good amount.
We’re minding the house for someone I don’t even know, a friend of a friend of Candy. There are two bathrooms and the best one is under the house in a spacious converted cellar that opens out onto the backyard. The walls are rough sandstone and it’s cool and musty down there. A claw-foot bath stands in the middle of the room.
I come down with the syringe. Candy has tied her hair up in a loose bun. She’s pink and gleaming, sitting in the bath pouring water from a saucepan over her shoulders and back, so that steam is rising off her. I dry her arm with a towel and tie the tourniquet. I hit her up and release it.
She slumps forward and I know right away that she’s passed in an instant from full consciousness to full overdose. She doesn’t moan or make any sounds of pleasure or say a word to me. Her head slumps forward so fast that her spine bounces twice in the reverberation. Her hair unties from the jolt and the ends of it flop down into the water.
Hey, Candy!
I try to lift her head but her neck is rubber. I take her by the shoulders and pull her up, back into a sitting position. But her butt slides forward on the slippery surface of the bath. I’m badly positioned and her momentum carries her head backward in an arc. I hold on for long enough to keep her from cracking her skull, but now her crossed legs are sticking out of the water at a right angle down at the plug end, while her head is trying to submerge itself up at my end.
I stand behind the head of the bath and take her underneath the arms. I pull her back up into a sitting position. But she’s deadweight, and the floor is wet from splashing, and it’s hard to get her out any farther. I’m a little breathless. You wouldn’t call me fit.
I shout, Candy, Candy, and she might as well not be there.
I scream upstairs to Lex. He’s on the nod and takes a while to answer.
What? he finally says, as if I’m extracting a tooth.
Quick, she’s OD’d, give me a hand here.
He springs into action then. He comes down the stairs pretty fast.
What, mate? He sees me standing there, slippery and soaked and trying to keep Candy upright.
I think I gave her too much, I say. Help me get her out.
He takes her legs and we lift her out of the bath and sit her on the edge. I slap her on the face a bit but her lips are turning blue.
This is not good, I say. I slap harder. Let’s walk her around.
&
nbsp; We take an arm each and sling it over our shoulders. We start to walk her around the room. Her head is slumped forward and her feet drag toes down on the concrete floor.
The thought of an ambulance is not really appealing.
I think of a previous mishap, how T-Bar once saved the day.
Saline solution! I say. Lex, go upstairs, get a glass of warm water—and salt, put some salt in it. Stir it, dissolve it. Hurry!
How much salt?
I dunno, fuckin’ heaps. A couple of teaspoons.
Other parts of Candy’s face are going blue by now. It doesn’t suit her at all. We lay her on the cool floor and Lex runs up the stairs. I crouch beside her saying, Candy, Candy, wake up, wake up, and slapping her gently on the face.
Lex brings the glass. I clean Candy’s syringe—some habits don’t die, even in an emergency—and fill it with the salt water. Lex is one step ahead of me and tying a tourniquet. I hit Candy up with salt. It seems such a weird thing to do.
Lex unties the tourniquet and I’m wiping Candy’s arm of the little trickle of blood and already her eyelids start to flutter. They open and close a few times, and she’s not sure where she is. I lift her head a little. The color is returning to her cheeks.
She’s beginning to take it in. Her eyes focus first on me and then on Lex. Then she smiles a huge languorous smile and says, what’s the matter, boys? I feel several things at once. I feel relieved that she’s okay. I feel glad that the salt thing worked, though maybe it’s just a junkie myth, maybe all the slapping would have woken her up anyway. I feel proud of myself and Lex for getting it done. Most of all, I feel the thing that feels like love.
Candy is sitting up now, rubbing her face in slow motion, marveling at the way her fingers feel on her skin. She’s sitting naked in a puddle of water on the concrete floor, which I know would feel cold and delicious in the state she’s in, coming out of such deep bliss. A cluster of bubbles from the bubble bath hangs on her collarbone like a bunch of tiny white grapes.
