by Woods, Karen
“You were asleep so I just thought I would grab a brew,” she said panicking. This seemed enough for Ged but as he looked at Shaun he knew she’d shared their drugs with him. He grabbed Shaun’s cup from the table and took a drink. Bringing his knees to his chest he let her know he wasn’t happy.
“Have you given him our gear?” Lizzy nodded and spoke casually.
“Yeah he was roasting his nuts off. I’ve told him to sort us out later. Don’t worry.” Ged shook his head and she could see he was livid.
“He better fucking had do. I’m not grafting my balls off all day to supply him with shit.”
“For fuck’s sake man,” Lizzy huffed, “He’s ya mate isn’t he. He’s just got out of nick. He’s bound to be on his arse for a bit until he gets himself sorted.” Ged knew she was right but he didn’t like to admit that he was jealous of the attention she was giving Shaun. He backed off still moaning.
“Well as long as he does. He can come out with me today anyway. I’ve got a few things to look at that should earn us a few quid.”
By now Shaun was in a world of his own. He didn’t hear a word they were saying. He’d planned to go and see his mother today and a few other friends he hadn’t seen for a while. Julie had heard all the commotion and stood at the door shouting.
“What’s all the fucking noise about? People are trying to sleep ya know?”
Lizzy had just about had enough of her moaning and pounced on her. “Listen Sleeping Beauty. If you don’t like it here fuck off and stay somewhere else. I’m sure one of ya punters will put you up.” Julie’s widened as she looked at Shaun. She prayed he hadn’t heard her and tried to defend herself.
“I’m just saying that’s all. Ged, can I make a drink?” He nodded. As Julie left to go into the kitchen he moaned at Lizzy.
“What’s ya problem with her? Every time she tries to speak to you, you’re a nasty bitch.”
Lizzy screwed her face up and hated that he was trying to protect Julie. “She’s a dirty fucking scrubber. Shaun deserves better than her. She’ll probably give him AIDs or summat like that. You know she’s a dirty slag. I can’t fucking stand her.” Ged placed a finger over his mouth to quieten her. He then told her Shaun didn’t know Julie was on the game. Lizzy smiled cunningly and knew in the future she could have her at her beck and call with that information. She smirked as Julie came back into the room.
They sat smoking. Shaun was like a corpse at the side of them and Julie dug her fingers into his ribs to try and get him to move. She had to leave soon and didn’t want him dossing all day. After all she was going out to get money for drugs so why wasn’t he?
When he’d recovered, Shaun and Ged left the flat together. They walked at speed down the main road. A few kids were gathered outside some shops. The youths could be heard shouting abuse at them both as they walked passed.
“Dirty bagheads! You got owt to sell?” Ged gave them a look that could kill as he turned his head but that didn’t deter them. They shouted even louder now.
“Smackheads. Probably going to sell ya arses aren’t you?” Shaun wanted to run back to them but Ged pulled at his arm.
“Mate just leave ‘em. They’re always like that. If you show the nobs it bothers you, they just do it all the more.” Shaun shoved his two fingers in the air and rammed them towards the kids. He laughed at Ged as they both carried on walking towards the local shopping centre.
Shaun looked as if he was dragging his legs along as he walked. Ged had seen some televisions in the local supermarket earlier. He was sure they could have a couple away if they played their cards right. Heading towards the Asda in Harpurhey they planned their next move.
Harpurhey looked like a ghost town. Shaun remembered how it used to be back in the day. He dipped his head as he watched fellow smackheads planning their next graft at the shopping centre. This was just another normal day in the life of a smackhead.
Chapter Seventeen
Gladys sat beside her son’s hospital bed. Mike, Shaun’s father, sat with her. Over the last few weeks they had somehow learnt how to speak to each other without shouting. Gladys looked tired. She was trying to wash her son’s face. She lived in hope every day that he would pull through. Over the time that had passed she just sat staring at her son’s face every hour of every day. She watched every time his body twitched and prayed he would wake up soon.
Mike had been there too. Gladys had told him to “fuck off” on many occasions but he just ignored her. Drinking tea and smoking cigs at the hospital was how they spent their days now. They had sat around Shaun’s bedside and laughed and cried at some of the things he had done in the past to both of them. Gladys always blamed her break-up with Mike for the way Shaun had turned out, but she knew deep down inside Shaun was always set for disaster even from being a small child.
Mike couldn’t get his head round why anyone would take drugs in the first place and he questioned Gladys everyday to try and get into the mind of his son. As they sat round the hospital bed Gladys began to tell Mike the life her son had led. She took him back to the first time she knew her son was a heroin addict. As she spoke every wrinkle in her face seemed to go deeper. Her facial expressions showed him just how much hurt she felt in her heart. Her words were slow at first and she fidgeted with her hands constantly as Mike listened eagerly.
“I didn’t know what a drug addict looked like Mike. I mean there isn’t any book that explains what to look out for is there?” Gladys shook her head as she continued. “I saw he was changing when he got out of prison but I just put it down to him being in nick for so long.” Mike slowly reached for her hand and stroked it slowly as she carried on talking.
“I’ve been to hell and back with him ya know. Each time he hit rock bottom, it was me who he came to you know. I’ve seen him on his knees screaming for money for drugs.” Gladys pulled her coat around her and looked cold. “He’s not only broke my heart ya know. He’s shattered it into a million pieces. In fact I don’t think I have a heartbeat anymore,” she smiled sarcastically. “It’s a wonder I’m still alive.” Mike pulled his chair closer to hers. His own torment now set in and he told her how much he regretted ever leaving her. Gladys held her head up and fought back the tears. Mike told her she didn’t have to continue if she didn’t want to but she insisted and told him she wanted him to know exactly why their son had tried to end his own life.
Gladys played with the cuff of her sleeve as she continued. Her eyes shut slightly as if she was reliving every second of the torment. “The first time I saw him after he got out of nick was only for a few hours. He came to the house about half-ten at night. He looked tired and his eyes looked glazed over. I just thought he’d been smoking that wacky backy or summat.” Mike smiled and told her it was called marijuana. She chuckled “Well whatever it is, he looked fucked,” she continued. “He knew I was on my own and he just sat staring looking around the living room.” Her head turned to the side and she looked to the corner of the room as she spoke. “When I think back he was just probably seeing what he could nick from me to sell for drugs. I feel a right daft cunt now. Why didn’t I see it Mike? Am I that vulnerable?” Mike told her to calm down and went to the other side of the room to get her a drink of water.
When he returned he watched as she sipped the cold liquid. Gladys now sat up straight and looked angry. “He asked me for some of my Temazepam tablets,” she nodded her head at him. “You know the ones I get from the doctors to help me sleep.” He remembered and waited for her to continue.
“He told me he wasn’t sleeping. I just thought I would be helping him and give him about four of them. I told him not to take them all at once but I watched him neck the fucking lot of them right in front of me. I went mad at him ya know but he didn’t seem to care.” Gladys looked so sad. “To me he just looked like he’d given up on life and wanted to sleep his life away.” She chewed on her lips. “I know how he felt and I probably made excuses for him in my own mind.”
Mike looked gobsmacked.
“What he took four? Fucking hell I bet he slept for days didn’t he?” Gladys sighed.
“Oh I wish. He stayed at mine for a while longer and then fucked off. When he’d gone I noticed my purse was missing. I searched all over for it. I thought I had lost it at first.” Mike commented on her forgetful mind and laughed as he remembered her face in the past when she’d lost something. She sat straight in the chair and looked at Shaun lay in the bed as she continued.
“I searched fucking everywhere for my purse and finally gave up and collapsed on the chair where Shaun had sat earlier. I felt something sticking in my arse and that’s when I saw my purse. It was open slightly. I knew exactly how much I had in it because I had just got paid.” The nurse entered the room and quickly made a few adjustments to Shaun’s pillows. She smiled at the couple and left the room telling them she was just outside if they needed her. The hospital had been very supportive to Shaun’s family. Gladys promised that if her son ever pulled through she would buy them a box of chocolates. Mike urged her to keep talking.
“I opened my purse and twenty quid was missing. I didn’t have to think about whether I had spent it because I was one hundred percent sure it was there earlier.” Mike looked angry and called Shaun a “thieving bastard” under his breath. He told Gladys that she should have barred him from the house from that day on but as he looked at her he knew that the unconditional love a mother had for her son would never let her do that.
Gladys rubbed at her legs. “It’s fucking freezing” she moaned. Licking her dry lips she carried on. “I was gonna go and chase him but it was too late. I knew he would deny it anyway so what was the point? I just made sure that whenever the thieving cunt came to the house again my purse was always by my side.”
Mike swept his hair from his forehead. Looking down at his feet he tapped his toes. His head lifted up and he looked at the mound in the bed that was his son. Sighing he turned to Gladys. “Why didn’t you tell Paul about him robbing from you? Surely he would have sorted him out.” Gladys screwed her face up.
“Paul wasn’t in that night. Anyway all he would have done was knocked ten tons of shit out of him and what would that have solved? I still wouldn’t have got my money back.” Gladys told him she needed a cig and he helped her put her put her coat on as they both went outside.
Gladys carried on talking when they sat on the bench outside. It was cold and they huddled together. She told him of all the other things he’d stolen from her. This included gold necklaces, rings and even her clothing. Mike couldn’t believe his ears. Her eyes welled up as she rocked. Her face looked in pain as the words struggled to come out. “He tried hanging himself once you know. I come in the house one night after bingo and caught him in the act. He’d fell asleep on the chair before I was due to go out, so I thought I would just leave him asleep until I got back .I mean he’s my son and anything of value had been nicked by him a long time ago.” Mike held his hands close to his neck and looked frightened. She took a long drag of her cig.
“I just walked in the house and needed a piss. As I opened the door there he was lying on the floor crying. He had a rope hanging from his neck. I didn’t click at first what was happening but when I did I fell to pieces. He told me the rope had snapped because of his weight. I know it’s not funny but when he told me I laughed. I think it was nerves.” Mike looked at her and shook his head, he couldn’t see the funny side of it and called her mad. She continued and tried to make him see what had happened.
“Our Shaun was the one who was laughing Mike. He sat holding the rope in his hands and rubbing his head. He told me he’d hit the large handrail when the rope snapped. So instead of hanging himself he had a big massive bruise on the side of his face.” Mike raised a smile but still couldn’t see the funny side of it. He now asked what she did after she found him and asked if he got medical help. She looked calm and looked him straight in the eyes. She realised what she should have done back then but at the time she wasn’t thinking straight.
“Did I ‘eck phone an ambulance. I made him a brew and sat talking to him for a bit. He just told me it was a daft thing to do and he just felt down in himself. I gave him two Temazepams and told him to go to bed.” Mike shrugged his shoulders. Gladys went on the defensive. “It’s alright you saying you should have done this and should have done that. I was on my fucking own and had to deal with it the only way I knew how. Imagine if I would have phoned you and told you your son had tried hanging himself. I know what you would have said the same as you always said when I phoned you for help.” She mimicked his voice now and took the piss out of the way he used to speak to her. Her face changed and she sat forward and blew her cheeks out a little. “’Hung himself! Is he okay?’”
“Mind you I don’t blame him living with you,” Mike interrupted, “He was probably looking for the easy way out!” Gladys’ face filled with a smile and Mike couldn’t help but smile at her. His face looked endearing and he remembered when he loved her with all his heart. She continued taking the piss out of him and they both chuckled loudly. Gladys was on a roll and to look at them you wouldn’t think their son lay in a coma in a critical condition.
Gladys confessed that over the years she just turned a blind eye to lots of Shaun’s crimes. Katie had bought her a large lamp for her birthday a few years before and she’d placed it under the stairs in a box for when she’d re-decorated. She looked sad as she told Mike the story about it. “I was just walking home from our John’s one night when I looked through my neighbour’s window. You know Jack don’t you?” Mike nodded. “I think everyone has a look through windows as they walking passed don’t they? It just kills the time. And you know me I’m a bit of a nosey fucker.”
“Yeah you’ve always been a nosey bastard.”
Gladys smiled and nudged him in the waist. “Cheeky fucker!” she giggled. Mike urged her to go on. “The neighbour had his curtains fully opened. You could see them all sat in the living room as clear as anything. As I walked a little further to go inside my gate. I saw it.” Mike was sat upright in his chair and urged her to keep speaking.
“What did you see love?”
Gladys bit her lip and a tear fell onto her cheek. As she wiped it away she stared at her ex-husband. “My lamp. The one our Katie bought me. The neighbours had it on a table in the window. I wasn’t sure at first and ran inside the house. As I looked under the stairs I knew it was pointless. I had a gut feeling and already knew it wasn’t there.” Mike was holding her hand and he began to speak.
“What he nicked your lamp from the house?” Gladys nodded and he grabbed her in his arms hugging her.
“Orrr Gladys. I’m so, so sorry. I just didn’t know how bad things really were with him. You never told me. So how could I have helped?” Gladys was angry and she kept remembering the past.
“You didn’t give a fuck about anything but yourself. I was left to cope with everything. You wonder why I’m a nervous wreck? It wasn’t just Shaun who had troubles ya know. Our Katie was getting knocked about by her fella as well. I felt helpless. I had no one to turn to.” She gritted her teeth at him, she was on one now. “So don’t preach to me about the choices I made.” Gladys dragged herself away from him and sat with her nose up in the air. Mike looked as if he was thinking and he started to confess to some of the things his son had nicked from him in the past. His voice was low.
“There were times when he had me over as well. I sent him to the bookie’s one day with twenty quid for a bet. My mate had given me a tip and it was a dead cert to win. When he come to my house I wasn’t ready and asked him to nip round to the bookies with it. The race was twenty minutes away and I would never have made it.” Mike rubbed his hands in front of him and huffed. “The fucker took my money and the bet and I didn’t see him for months after that.” Gladys was still upset and struggled to get her breath. They got up and headed back to the ward.
“He was a thieving fucker. There’s no doubt about it Mike. He owes me his life. If I had a pound for every time
he’d borrowed money from me and swore on every cunt’s life that he would bring it back when he got his giro I would be a rich woman.” Gladys reached for her brown leather bag . The bag looked old. She searched inside it and pulled out her purse. Opening it up, she searched the little compartment in the back of it. She pulled out a small photograph and passed it to Mike.
“Look at him there. He looks so well doesn’t he?” Mike held the picture and tears came to his eyes. Gladys quickly took the photo back from him and gazed at it as she spoke.
“He’s been through so much. He has tried to get clean you know. He just couldn’t do it.” A silence filled the room and they both sat looking at their son. Gladys squeezed her arms around her body and broke. It was all getting too much for her.
“Did you know he was selling his body, Mike?”
Standing up from his chair as if boiling water had been poured over him Mike screamed at her. “What the fuck do you mean, selling his body?” Mike marched about the room. He held his hands up into the air. “No, stop right there. I can’t take much more of this.” Gladys continued and watched as he trudged around in total shock.
“Our Katie saw him in town. We’d all heard rumours, but you just ignore them don’t you?” her head sunk low as she played with her fingernails. “Katie followed him one night and she came home heartbroken after she had seen him stood there looking for punters. She told me she watched him get in a car with a man and how she waited for him to return. Shaun didn’t know we knew. Our Katie wanted to keep it like that, but I couldn’t hold my tongue.”
Mike sat back down and looked white in the face. The tears he’d kept bottled now poured from his eyes. Gladys reached over and held his hand. She didn’t look at him she just kept on talking. “I told Shaun what I knew and called him all the bent bastards under the sun. He just sat there Mike and cried. He never denied it. Later that day he was found in the park half-dead. He’d taken tablets again and tried to end his life.” She sipped a mouthful of water. “Fucking hell when I look back it was every week he was trying to kill himself. We got him medical help and even a counsellor from the hospital but nothing seemed to get through to him. It was like he’d just given up and wanted to die.”
