by A. D. Koboah
If those words affected him in any way, it didn’t show.
“Just go! All of you! Just go!”
“I can’t,” Jason said quietly, almost too low to be heard. “I can’t leave you now.”
The pain in my head, the pressure was unbearable as I kept looking from Jason to Eva, taking a step back and breathing harshly as I tried to choke back the tears that had already found their way down my face. I brought my hands up to my head and squeezed my eyes shut. I didn’t want to be anywhere near Eva and Jason. I felt so betrayed by them, these two people who had begun to mean so much to me.
So I fled from the room into the hallway where I tore Eva’s coat off the hook and swept her bag off the floor as she appeared a few feet away from me.
“Take all your things and get out of my house!” I threw her things at her.
She didn’t even try to catch them, but stood there staring at me, her eyes round with shock. Her expression seemed to increase the pain and it felt as if my head was about to explode as I turned from her and staggered into the bedroom.
“Peace, you don’t mean that. Look, let’s talk about this.”
She had followed me into the bedroom and stood at the door as I flew around the room, first knocking all the things off the chest of drawers with a sweep of my arm and then pulling open one of the drawers and tossing whatever clothes of hers I could find onto the floor.
“I want you gone! I want you out of my house!” I screamed, before I moved to the wardrobe and began pulling out any and everything, no longer able to distinguish between what belonged to her and what belonged to me. I then turned my wrath on everything else in the room, smashing the full-length mirror and knocking over my bedside cabinet.
I finally stopped when the room resembled something you see in the aftermath of a hurricane, stopping not only because nothing was left for me to throw or smash, but because I could sense something in the silence around me.
Eva was still standing by the door with her hand covering her mouth and tears streaming down her face. She was no longer looking at me, but at Mohamed and Jason, who had walked into the room during my wild rampage. They were standing a metre away from the chest of drawers, staring at something amidst the rubble of clothes I had thrown onto the floor. I then saw the needle and the ball of heroin lying discarded amongst the clothes.
Mohamed was the first to speak.
“What the fuck?” He knelt and scooped the heroin off the floor. “Is this yours?” he asked.
I couldn’t speak. I could barely even breathe as I watched Jason carefully take the heroin out of Mohamed’s hand. He looked up at me.
“What is this?” he whispered, but it was clear he knew exactly what it was.
Not knowing what to do or how to respond, I did the only thing that came instinctively to me. I leapt toward Jason, hardly registering the fact that he recoiled slightly in disgust when he saw me reach for his hand. But he soon saw I was only interested in my brown and he let me snatch it out of his hand. He stared at me as if he was seeing me, really seeing who I was for the first time as I retreated with my brown jealously clutched to my chest.
“Oh my God!” Mohamed was laughing, obviously loving every minute of this new development as Jason looked on with glassy bewilderment in his eyes.
“She’s a skag head. You’re a fucking skag head!”
Jason finally tore his gaze away from mine and strode out of the room.
I stood there, not moving, wondering how it was possible for me to lose so much in such a short space of time. When I heard the front door slam shut I ran out into the hallway.
“Jason!”
“Where are you going?” I heard Mohamed say when I got to the front door. “What’s she running after Jason for?”
I ran out of the flat and down the stairs, getting outside just in time to see Jason, behind the wheel of a red Ford Focus, pull out of his parking space.
“Jason!”
The car accelerated and tore out of the estate, leaving me with a glimpse of the side of his head as he sped past without giving any indication that he had seen or heard me.
I didn’t know why I felt as broken as I did when I walked away from the house as I wouldn’t have known what to even say to him if he had stopped.
I walked and walked, not caring where I went or how I looked with streaks of tears blackened by mascara marking my face. I walked until I found a deserted bus stop and sat down.
Picturing the way Jason had looked at me, I broke down and wept again. It seemed as if no matter how hard I tried or whatever I did to try and take away the pain, I was always left on my own in a sea of tears.
I returned to my dark, silent flat hours later and found that everything in my room had been straightened. The broken mirror had been removed. There was a two-page letter written in Eva’s small spidery handwriting on my pillow. I tore it up into as many little pieces as I could.
My mobile phone rang an hour later and Eva’s name flashed up on the screen. I let it ring as I had done when she had called numerous times after I had left the flat. I deleted all the voice messages she left without listening to them.
Then I set myself adrift on a beautiful brown wave until all the pain I had experienced in the last hours, and over the last few years of my life, floated up and out of the room and I was left empty and drifting far, far away where nothing could reach me.
Chapter 18
I leaned against the shelter at the bus stop. It was April and although the sun shone brightly giving the illusion of a spring day, the bitter wind that blew through me was evidence that winter still dominated and that spring was a long way away from the cold, dark wintry days of my world.
Whilst I waited, I caught fragments of conversation from two Ghanaian women speaking in Twi. I listened to them talk, letting the warm earthy tones of that language which was such a familiar part of who I was, soothe my feverish thoughts and act as a balm to my tortured soul.
Listening to them, I was reminded of how far away I was from home, not only physically but spiritually, living here, in a world where we were not wanted. Where no matter how hard we worked or how hard we tried, we were merely tolerated, not accepted or appreciated.
I was also reminded of how far away I was from my family who were the only link I had to my roots. I realised that I was not only far away from them, I was also far from the person I used to be. I was fractured and split and I had no cohesion in my mind or in my life as I drifted through day after day like a wandering spirit who had been torn from the world and condemned to wander aimlessly from one hit to the next, finding no peace for a tortured mind, body or soul.
My world was empty now that Eva was no longer a part of it and without her, I was alone in the dark and could see no way out of it towards the light. It had been weeks since they had confronted me in my flat and I hadn’t spoken to her at all in that time although she had kept calling me at least once a week and always left a message. The only message I had allowed myself to listen to was one she had left a week ago. I could remember it word for word, even down to the contrived upbeat tone of her voice.
It had gone like this: “Hi, Peace, how are you?” She had paused as if expecting a reply to her question before she breezed on. “Well, I hope you’re well and eating properly. I know how you love to skip meals. As for me I’m fine, just getting on with my coursework. The only thing bothering me at the moment—apart from you not talking to me, that is—is Mr Darcy.” Mr Darcy was the nickname we had for the man she had been dating. “It turns out that he’s a lot more of a Mr Wickham than Mr Darcy, but I’ll get into that when I see you next—and we will be seeing each other soon because like I’ve told you before, I won’t give up on you, Peace.”
She had paused reflectively and when she continued speaking, the upbeat tone had left her voice. “How many times do I have to say this to you, Peace? I’m sorry and I know I done bad. But I did it with good intentions. I didn’t realise that things would turn out the way they did—but
anyway, I’ve gone on for long enough. So speak to you soon. Bye.”
I had deleted the message and stared at the phone in anger.
I had wanted to call her back and scream and shout at her, tell her to stop calling and leaving such pathetic, heart-wrenching messages. I had also wanted to grab my coat, run over to her house, do the usual friendship thing and tell her that Mr Darcy was an idiot and she was too good for him anyway.
But I hadn’t done either of those things. Instead I had let the phone drop onto my lap and thought about how she had looked sitting next to Mohamed.
I felt so betrayed by her, but unfortunately that fact alone didn’t stop me feeling her absence and missing her.
The bus eventually came and I reluctantly left behind the soothing words and took the short journey to the petrol station which was also a mini supermarket.
I stepped past the security guard who was standing at the entrance to the mini supermarket looking apprehensively out onto the car park and got myself a basket. I had placed the second item into my shopping basket when I heard a commotion. I turned towards the sound to see the security guard in a tussle with another man at the entrance. They both staggered back into the store and crashed into one of the display units, sending merchandise flying across the floor as other members of staff left the tills and appeared out of aisles to run toward the tangle of arms and legs on the floor. The shop staff managed to pull the pair apart and then they had to half-drag, half-carry the man back out of the store.
I eventually joined the long queue of people at the vacant checkouts and stood watching along with everyone else as staff struggled to keep the man out of the store.
Everybody in the queue waited quietly, forming a united line in silent support of the shop staff throughout the disruption, and I didn’t hear anyone complain or even see anyone shifting impatiently during that wait.
Seeing an opportunity, I stepped out of the queue as swiftly as I had long ago stepped out of a normal life, and made a quick trip around the store whilst everyone’s attention was on the commotion at the door. I picked up anything that was small enough to fit into my shoulder bag, and by the time I had finished, the commotion had died down. I casually slipped past the couple of staff members still at the door and walked out of the store.
When I got home I threw the bag across the living room and watched a roll of toothpaste, razors, matches, even a packet of felt-tip pens, spill out onto the floor. Then I sat down in a crouch with my head in my hands.
What was I turning into?
I felt worse when I thought back to what had happened at the store and remembered that I had seen no sign of the security guard when I had left. He had probably been badly hurt during the scuffle with the other man.
When I had first smoked heroin, being far out from land had brought me peace. But as I drifted further and further away from myself and from the world, I became increasingly aware that I had swum too far out and wouldn’t have the strength to make it back to shore. The current was pulling me further and further away with each hit and I didn’t have the strength to fight it, and for the first time since I began this journey, I was fearful of where I would eventually wash up.
I sat like that until I felt the first twinge of pain pull at my stomach, and like a dog that had strayed too far, I obeyed the tug on my leash and reined myself back in from thoughts of life without my H.
Knowing that my body and soul no longer belonged to me, I retrieved my phone from the floor amidst the stolen goods, got up and walked into the bedroom to the nauseating smell of stale sweat and semen. Daniel was lying on his back with one arm resting on his big hairy stomach, snoring contentedly in his sleep. He had spent the night and when he had shown no signs of going home in the morning, I had dressed to leave the house in the hope that he would take that as his cue and leave soon afterwards. But he hadn’t.
Turning away from Daniel’s lumpy body and the images from the night before that were still fresh in my mind, I retrieved the carrier bag I had hidden away in my chest of drawers and sat down on the floor. Leaning against the foot of the bed, I took out the needle and the spoon that had already been tarnished a dark, putrid brown, glancing down at the mobile phone which was still in my hand. Eva hadn’t called so far this week and I stared sadly at the phone, wondering if despite all her talk, she had seen sense and finally given up on me.
I slowly lay the phone on the floor. Then I reached for the heroin Daniel had given me the night before.
Without Eva around making sure that I was eating regularly, I had grown so thin that it wasn’t hard to find a vein when I filled the needle and injected.
Leaning my head against the bed, I welcomed the instant hit and was thankful that I could escape the darkness, even if it was only for a short while.
***
I was dreaming and seeing unfamiliar faces that were looming above me, barking orders I couldn’t comprehend. I slipped away from them only to return and find one unfamiliar face and Eva’s. Her eyes were wet and red as I had seen too many times before.
I tried to smile as I wanted her to know I was happy to see her even if it was only in a dream. She came closer and seemed to be trying to tell me something. I heard the words but couldn’t put them together to form a sentence and I shook my head at her in an effort to convey that I couldn’t make sense of anything. Just before I went under again, the words finally formed into a sentence and I could understand her half-demand, half-plea.
“Tell me you didn’t do this on purpose.”
***
I drifted in and out of consciousness, realising with each visit back to the land of the living that the confusing things I kept seeing were not part of a dream. I saw different people come and go during each of these visits but the only constant face was Eva’s; either sitting by the side of the bed, or in sombre-looking discussions with the doctors and nurses. I was eventually allowed to leave, and was thankful that Eva was there to help me into the cab.
When we arrived at her bed-sit, I didn’t protest, but let her lead me to the bed where I fell fast asleep. I woke up later that afternoon and Eva immediately materialised at my side with a bowl which she tried to hand to me.
“It’s mashed potatoes.”
“No,” I said weakly and struggled to sit up. “How long have I been sleeping?”
“Peace! The doctor said I’ve got to make sure you eat something.”
I gazed up at her. Her hair was pulled untidily away from her face into a ponytail and her eyes looked red and puffy. She was clearly exhausted.
I gingerly reached for the bowl.
She hovered over me while I meekly ate a few mouthfuls before she was satisfied and left the room. When I heard her footsteps in the kitchen, I put the bowl down on the floor and waited until she returned with a glass of water.
Her eyes narrowed immediately the moment they zoomed in on the discarded bowl.
“How did you know I was in trouble?” I asked.
She stared at me and then her gaze returned pointedly to the bowl on the floor and when she spoke, I heard a quiver in her voice.
“Did you do it on purpose?”
“Come on, you know I...”
She looked up sharply. I saw so much anger behind her eyes that I was silenced. I let a few seconds pass before I spoke again.
“No, trust me. I wouldn’t do something like that on purpose.”
She walked over to the bed and picked up the bowl before she began to speak.
“I called you. I was expecting it to go to voicemail again but Daniel answered. He said you were sleeping and when he tried to wake you up, you wouldn’t wake up. He started panicking, said he didn’t know what to do and then just hung up. I came over straight away and let myself in. I couldn’t believe it when I got there and he’d gone. He just left you, Peace. You were unconscious on the floor with a needle sticking out of your arm and he just left you. I can’t believe he left you there like that.”
She seemed to forget I was there as s
he was taken away by the fear she felt at that time.
I could believe that Daniel would just leave, and strangely enough, I wasn’t even angry about it. Instead, I thought about the way I had spoken to Eva when she had cornered me with Mohamed and Jason. Despite all that, she had come to my aid without a second thought.
She was now standing rigidly by the bed with the bowl of food and was still so very angry, the angriest I had ever seen her.
“Eva, I’m sorry about the time I smashed up your plates and all the other things—”
“What the hell are you talking about? What does that have to do with anything?”
“I need you to know that I’m sorry about everything; about some of the things I said to you after you lot found out about...about Dante and I’m sorry about scaring you like this.”
She placed the bowl of cold mashed potatoes in my hand.
“Just eat the damn food, Peace.”
“Eva, forget the food and sit down, please. I…I need to talk to you about Dante.”
She seemed surprised for a few seconds and then she slowly sat down on the bed.
“Okay,” she said after a few seconds. “You can talk while you eat.”
Chapter 19
I always thought that if tragedy chose to walk into my life, it would find a way to let me know that it was coming. Maybe I would be alerted to its arrival by a sense of foreboding the moment I opened my eyes in the morning. Perhaps I would be able to feel its presence at my side as I went through the day, or even feel its icy breath on the back of my neck as it leant to whisper a warning in my ear.
But that wasn’t how it was meant to be.
Instead I was jolted awake when a small but heavy object landed on my back. Lifting my head off the pillow to the sound of a playful giggle, I groaned when I realised it was Dante sitting on me. I reached up to disentangle the tiny fingers that had found themselves beneath my headscarf to pull my hair. Then I turned over and caught him before he could throw himself on me again, wrapped him in a tight hug and kissed him on his cheek.
