Street Song

by Wilkinson, Sheena;

  ‘That’s a bargain.’ A guy about my age, a uniform polo shirt straining at his belly, materialised beside me. He nodded at my guitar case. ‘You looking to sell one?’

  ‘No.’ My hand tightened on the handle. ‘No way.’ I had this stupid moment of hoping my guitar hadn’t heard him. ‘But – d’you buy watches? It’s a good one.’ I held out my wrist.

  His plump cheeks swallowed his eyes as he squinted at it. I smelt his deodorant. ‘Probably do you a good enough wee price,’ he said. ‘You just need two forms of ID and—’

  I snatched my wrist back. ‘I was only enquiring. I’m probably not going to sell it.’

  Fuck’s sake, I thought, glooming my way down the darkening street. Did you need ID for everything? All I wanted was to make a few honest quid. It’s not like the watch was nicked. I shoved my hand deep in my jeans pocket.

  It was in there, where it always was, a bit rubbed and flaky but safe in its plastic bag. It had become a bit of a talisman. I can’t say I’d never been tempted. But I’d never given in. It was one of the things that made me feel good about myself. I rolled it over in my fingers.

  Florian and Julia were leaving tonight. And if they didn’t get it off me, they’d end up in some Dublin dive getting into bother in that naïve way they had. Really, I’d be doing them a favour.

  I knocked on their door, hoping they hadn’t already gone, but Florian called out, ‘Come in!’ Two rucksacks spilled clothes all over the floor and the shower roared from next door.

  ‘Cal! You have come to say goodbye.’ His round face lit up.

  I set my guitar case down carefully and closed the door. ‘D’you still want …?’ I lowered my voice. ‘You know.’

  ‘Huh?’

  I whispered it: ‘You asked me if I knew where you could get some stuff?’

  ‘Ah! Yes.’

  ‘I can probably help you. How much do you want?’

  ‘How much do you have?’

  I took the bag out of my pocket. Florian picked it up and peered at it. His eyes glinted behind the round glasses. He opened it and emptied the crumbling lump onto his palm. Its sweet smell brought back a million memories.

  ‘There’s at least an ounce,’ I said. ‘You can have it for 250.’

  Florian wiped his dusty hands on his jeans.

  My heart was pounding. I didn’t know why. I’d never sold before, but I’d bought plenty of times. And this wasn’t some street corner, or dodgy bar.

  Florian turned the lump round in his hand, like he was ready to change his mind.

  ‘Hurry up.’ Now the deal was done I wanted the stuff gone and the money in my pocket in its place.

  He pulled out a bulging wallet from his pack pocket and counted off tenners and fivers, one by one. ‘I can give you 200,’ he said.

  ‘Whatever.’ I held out my hand for the notes.

  When the door opened I thought it was Julia coming back from the shower. Until I heard Beany’s voice.

  ‘Just inspecting for damage before yous head off.’ His voice changed. ‘What the—?’

  He came further into the room. He gave me a squinty look that made his face mean. ‘This better not be what I think it is.’ His voice was conversational but with an underlying edge. ‘See if I’m right, son …’

  But he must have known he was right. There was no way to pretend it was anything but what it was.

  31

  There was no point even trying to argue or lie.

  ‘You’ve had your chance. More chances than I’ve ever given anybody.’ Beany’s face was nearly purple. ‘Dealing! In my hostel. The one thing, Cal. The one fucking thing!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ It was all I could think of to say. I wanted to tell him it was a one-off, but what was the point.

  He threw us all out. There and then. It was no odds to Florian and Julia. Just one of those adventures they would laugh about when they were middle-aged: Remember when we were thrown out of that funny little hostel for buying drugs? Was that in Cork or Derry? Oh yes, it was Belfast. God, wasn’t it a dump?

  We stood in the street. Julia packed their little Polo in silence, her hair wet and ruffled from the shower. My guitar case was at my feet; my backpack on my back; the drug money in my pocket.

  ‘We feel bad,’ Florian said. ‘Why don’t you come to Dublin with us?’

  I shook my head. ‘Have to stay here. Got the band.’

  ‘But we feel so guilty. If I hadn’t—’

  I didn’t need to hear how guilty he felt. From the front doorway, Beany’s voice called out. ‘Yous have one minute to get the fuck away from my hostel.’

  ‘At least let us give you a lift somewhere,’ Julia said. ‘Another hostel or a B&B or …’

  She made it sound so easy. We all got in the car, but as soon as the door closed and Florian pulled off down the street and round the corner, I wanted away from them.

  ‘Just drop me at the pub,’ I said. ‘Any pub.’ But drinking on my own in an anonymous pub always ended in disaster. I wanted to be somewhere with someone who might be glad to see me. Someone who knew my name. Well, my assumed name. ‘Take me to’ – what was that pub Joe had mentioned? – ‘McGroarty’s.’

  Julia looked it up on her phone, and called out directions to Florian. I hunched myself down in the backseat while we drove through dingy, half-demolished streets and then up a main road lined with boarded-up shops. We were west of the city, or maybe north – I wasn’t really sure.

  ‘There it is,’ Julia said. She turned to me and frowned. ‘It doesn’t look very—’

  ‘Didn’t you want to see the real Belfast?’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Florian squinted through his glasses at the barred windows and reinforced door. ‘It doesn’t look very nice. I don’t mind taking you into town.’

  I gritted my teeth. ‘It’s fine. Have a good time in Dublin.’ I flung the door open, dragged my stuff out and watched the car drive away.

  McGroarty’s was a shithole, and there was no sign of Joe. I felt stupid. He wouldn’t remember me. I hadn’t even liked him, I’d just liked the admiration in his face. But it was a bar, and right now the main thing was to be drunk as fast as possible. To sluice away the horrible feeling of stupidity, and the memory of Beany’s angry, disappointed face.

  I drank fast, drank up all my Bangor busking money and started into Florian’s two hundred, but didn’t feel drunk. I waited in vain for the edges of the room to soften, for people’s faces to brighten and look more attractive and for me to think, ah, fuck it, it’ll be grand.

  There was a darts match on. Nobody took any notice of me. They just threw their darts and yelled across at their mates and downed their pints. I went for a piss and realised, fumbling with my flies, and trying to stop the STD poster on the wall from shimmering and floating, that I was drunker than I thought. I just wasn’t getting the happy vibes.

  I looked down at the arc of my piss and hated myself. Who was I trying to kid, with my new life? It had all been made from paper and now it had been crumpled up and tossed into the bin. I couldn’t make an honest living busking and I couldn’t manage to sell a few drugs without messing up. And my first instinct when things got tough? To go and get off my head. Two hours ago, when I was sober, I could have phoned Toni and told her – well, not the truth, but something. I could have pretended the hostel had shut down because of a gas leak or something and I could have stayed at hers for a night or two while I got myself sorted. Or gone to a nice B&B and got settled for the night. I could be lying on a bed now watching TV, or in a lovely hot bubble bath. Instead of pissing out beer in a smelly toilet in a backstreet bar in some dodgy part of town I didn’t even know.

  I’d left my guitar and backpack under my seat. I rushed back, but it was OK. More than OK actually: Joe was standing at the bar, talking quietly to a blond fattish guy.

  I felt stupidly nervous that he wouldn’t remember me, but when I said, ‘Uh – Joe, isn’t it?’ he turned round, gave me a clap on the shoulder and said, ‘Och, hi
ya kid! What’s the craic? What’re you drinking?’ as if he wasn’t surprised to see me at all. ‘Kevin, this is – ah, sorry kid, what’s your name again?’

  ‘Cal,’ I muttered.

  ‘Cal! That’s right. How’s the music?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. At least he remembered who I was, even if he’d forgotten my name. He started telling Kevin about the band. It was ages since I’d been in male company. Easy enough to talk shite and not say anything at all.

  ‘I play the guitar,’ Joe said.

  ‘Ah yeah, Shania told me.’

  ‘He can play three chords,’ Kevin said.

  ‘Four,’ Joe said.

  ‘Aye, right.’

  I laughed and said it was my round. Fumbling in my pocket I realised that I was making quite a dent in the drug money. Beany had weeks of rent from me and now he’d get to keep the money and rent the room out to somebody else. Over a hundred quid he owed me. Surely he couldn’t do that. I shouldn’t have let him. I’d gone far too quietly. But I knew I wouldn’t go back and argue.

  ‘Party at mine tonight,’ Joe said, lifting his glass. ‘It’s only up the street. You wanna come, sing a few songs maybe?’

  I shrugged. ‘Might as well.’

  ‘Will we go after this?’ Kevin said. ‘Or should I get another one in?’

  ‘Yous go on,’ Joe said. He lowered his voice. ‘I’m waiting on Mark. I’ll see yous up there.’

  ‘I thought Mark was off it?’ Kevin said.

  ‘Shut up, will you?’ Joe said. He tapped the side of his nose, then turned it into a scratch. ‘Wee bit of business to sort out. Know what I mean?’

  I knew what he meant. I wasn’t stupid. Well, I was. If I’d had more sense, I could have made money out of that lump of weed weeks ago, safely away from the Crossroads. And then I wouldn’t be sitting here in this dump with nowhere to sleep tonight. Then again, selling on someone else’s patch in a strange city was likely to have got me into a hell of a lot more bother than that.

  I guessed what Joe’s party would be like. These guys were exactly the kind of crowd I’d drifted around with in Dublin. The kind of people I’d avoided in Belfast so far. But I didn’t care any more. The party would solve the problem of where to go for the night. And tomorrow—

  Well. Tomorrow was tomorrow.

  32

  Joe’s house was a tall scruffy red-brick terrace a couple of streets from the bar. It looked like a really bad student house, all the doors open, the halls and landings full of people sitting, talking, smoking, snogging. Rap blasted out of an iPod on the living room windowsill.

  The smell of dope was everywhere, drifting down the stairs, fighting the smell of frying from the kitchen. That night I thought someone was actually cooking; later I discovered that the stink of old grease was more or less permanent.

  The first person I saw was Shania, who looked like she’d already been partying hard. She didn’t seem surprised to see me, which I suppose was proof that she was pretty out of it, in that realm where nothing seems incongruous, except normality.

  ‘Where’s Joe?’ she demanded.

  ‘On his way,’ Kevin said.

  Shania pouted. ‘Aw, I miss him,’ she said. She looked at me, her dozy eyes suddenly focused. ‘You wanna hook up?’

  ‘No!’ I was pissed but not so pissed that I wanted to get off with a kid. Anyway, wasn’t she Joe’s girlfriend?

  And what about Joe? I thought. Joe’s years older than I am. What’s he doing with her? And what am I doing here?

  ‘Whatever.’ She shuggled her way through the crowd, skinny shoulders wriggling up and down.

  It was skanky and crazy, like a lot of parties I’d been to in Dublin except I’d never been on my own. Booze was sitting around for the taking, discarded bottles of this and that; nobody seemed to mind. Everybody was pretty out of it. It must have been late; things had reached a mellow stage. People mostly ignored me. I thought of getting my guitar out but when I tried to spring open the catches of the case my fingers wouldn’t work.

  I leaned against a doorway, welcoming the stab of the doorjamb into my back as a reminder that I actually existed. I had been at the party two minutes, or two hours. I was holding a bottle of cider, or beer. I knew no one. Joe came back but I didn’t see Shania. He was with a girl who looked vaguely familiar and I realised it was the girl I’d seen with Shania that first day on the street. Her sister, I’d assumed. She looked older than Shania. At least sixteen.

  What was I doing with these people?

  I took out my phone. I found Toni’s number. I wanted to text her. I wanted to be back on the beach with her. But my fingers just slid uselessly over the keys.

  The doorjamb stopped holding me up suddenly and I slid down it into a hunkering position. ‘Ow,’ I said, as the wood bashed my spine.

  Shania was beside me, sitting on the floor, her sleepy eyes level with mine. I didn’t know if she had really dark eye shadow on or if her actual eyelids were that colour. ‘Wanna hook up now?’ she said, as if the night had nothing much left to offer but she thought I’d do.

  I tried to say something but my tongue was numb.

  She leaned her head on my shoulder. Her hair tickled my neck. It smelt like the fat on a lamb chop. My stomach turned. I hoped I wasn’t going to puke all over her.

  ‘You gonna play your guitar?’

  I shook my head. ‘Too pissed.’

  ‘I’m stoned.’ She mouthed it silently, or maybe I just stopped hearing her properly.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘My sister’s a slag,’ she said into my ear. Her boozy breath warmed my neck. For the first time in ages I thought about Kelly. ‘I love Joe. Georgia’s a bitch.’

  ‘Does Joe love you?’

  She stared at me, her eyes huge in her thin face. ‘Does Joe love me?’ she repeated. ‘Does Joe love me?’ She kept saying it, over and over until I wanted to scream.

  ‘Is this party going to go on all night?’ I asked. The more I tried to speak the better my tongue worked.

  Shania shrugged. ‘There’s always a party here. One kind of merges into another. Joe likes parties.’ She narrowed her dark eyes. ‘Have I seen you on the TV? You look dead familiar. Even the first time I saw you … Were you on—?’

  I gulped. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘OK.’ She slid further down into a slump beside me, and took out a tin. She started rolling a joint, looking at me sideways. ‘Wanna share?’

  I wanted not to be in that room, at that party, with that girl, in that life. I wanted not to have been thrown out of Crossroads and not to have nowhere to go. I knew that dope could take me out of there for a bit – it had always done it for me, not as good as the pills I’d been chucked in there to get off, but easier and sweeter than booze, which always made me sick when I overdid it. Even though Shania was so out of it, her fingers, skinning up, knew what they were doing. She laid a neat line of tobacco along the bottom of the paper, and started adding a generous amount of dope. Already I could smell it, or maybe the smell was just in my nostrils already.

  I wanted to take the joint from her and take a long drag. It was only a bit of dope. But I’d carried an ounce or so around with me for weeks and never given in. If I took it now – it’s not that I thought I’d wake up tomorrow as a junkie, I knew it wasn’t that easy, whatever they tried to tell you in drugs education – but I’d have failed. I’d be Ryan again. And however messy things were right at this minute, there was a tiny bit of sense inside me that told me not to take it.

  So I said, ‘Nah. You’re OK. You go ahead, though.’

  Shania looked at me like I was an idiot and said, ‘I wasn’t asking for your permission,’ and stuck it into her mouth. The smell was so strong I gagged. I dragged myself up, pushed through the crowd – mostly they were getting off with each other, or just lying around in heaps – and forced my way outside into a messy yard with a high brick wall and an old sofa with broken springs. The cold air hit me and I stood for a minute,
looking up at the sky that was never totally black in the city, sweat cooling on my neck. I gulped in the night air. My legs buckled and I flumped onto the sofa, wincing as the broken spring scraped my back. I shut my eyes against the whirling lines made by the broken paving stones and the bricks of the wall.

  ‘All right, kid?’

  I didn’t risk opening my eyes or replying. I wasn’t too drunk to know I was pretty close to puking and I’d rather not have an audience.

  ‘It’s Joe. You having a good time?’

  ‘Great.’ I concentrated on breathing. I felt his weight on the sofa beside me. So much for being left alone.

  ‘Did you and Shania …?’

  ‘Nah. I don’t think we’re each other’s type.’

  ‘Everybody’s her type.’ His tone changed. ‘D’you want anything? You know – anything?’

  ‘I’ve had enough.’

  ‘Sensible.’

  ‘Never been called that before.’ I sat up, and the paving stones and bricks tipped alarmingly. So did the cocktail of booze inside me. I pitched forward and started retching.

  Joe gave me an encouraging slap on the back. ‘Aye, get it up there, kid.’ I was vaguely aware, as I puked again and again, of his hand on my back and his voice, over the disgusting noises I was making, saying, ‘You’re OK, kid.’ And even though I’d been wishing he’d go away, I was sort of glad he hadn’t.

  I leaned back and closed my eyes, letting the rain wash over my burning face. Was it only a few hours ago I was on a beach with Toni? Thank God she hadn’t seen me in this state. I heard the hiss of a tap and the splash of water.