by V E Rooney
“No, it fucking isn’t alright, soft lad. You already owe us £60,” Ste said firmly.
Gav began spluttering at the sight of the menacing man mountain glowering at him. I tried to stifle a smirk.
“Eh lad, come on!” Gav said plaintively, looking at me like he expected me to take his side.
“Listen. I’ve got overheads,” I said, crossing my arms and staring at Gav. “This stuff doesn’t grow on trees, you know.” Well, yeah it does, kind of, but this soft twat wouldn’t know that. “I’ve got bills to pay. Materials to buy.”
“And you’re taking the piss, gobshite. So fucking pay up,” Ste growled.
Gav held his hands up in front of him in a placatory gesture.
“Alright, alright, fucking hell,” he whined. He turned away from us and shouted down the hallway. “Sharon! Where’s your purse, love?”
I was pondering what to do about starting up as a full-time weed aficionado. How would I go about growing and selling full-time? It’s one thing to be selling three or four £10 bags a week to a small band of customers – that is when I had the quantities to fill the orders.
There had been a few times where I’d had to lie to Mum and Janice that one of the plants hadn’t budded properly, when the truth was I was using it as my own little one-plant operation. If they had sussed anything, they didn’t show it. They pretty much left me in charge of growing and packaging. They would only venture into the greenhouses to retrieve the pre-packaged eighths I prepared for them. I could only get away with that for so long.
On the afternoon I got my GCSE results, I met up with Ste and John in a café in Kirkby townie. Ste was tucking into a bacon sandwich and John was slurping on a can of fizzy drink with a straw.
John was a friend of a friend of David’s. The story goes that this mate got a £10 bag from me and shared it with John. Apparently, John thought my stuff was the dog’s bollocks, the best fucking weed he’d ever had. And he’d been smoking regularly since he was 14. “Honest to God, I thought I’d been strapped to a rocket and I was flying through space. The fucking stars were all like fireworks. You know that film, 2001: Space Odyssey, where the fella goes down that wormhole thingy and all the colours are twisting and turning like one of those kaleidoscope thingies? It was like that, girl,” he said to me once. High praise indeed from someone who is like the Jancis Robinson of weed. And he’s been buying off me ever since.
He’s become sort of my own personal weed tester, always passing on his feedback about the latest batch of produce I sell to him.
This is too heavy, girl, I was unconscious within 20 minutes. I don’t want to be comatose, you know?
Cracking little buzz off this one, I was dead happy and giggly. I even laughed watching the news.
That fertiliser’s fucked, it’s making the weed taste funny.
John is a total scally with the scally uniform of trackie and trainers. He lives with his Mum and two younger brothers in a house in Northwood. He’s a year older than me and is also signing on, but is doing some painting and decorating course at Kirkby College. All he wants to do is have a good time, whether it’s drinking with his mates or going clubbing in town, or more often than not, passing spliffs around with his mates as he watches telly or his extensive film collection on video.
He’s a sound lad, is John. He doesn’t take the piss out of me, always pays on time and doesn’t treat me any differently to his other mates. As long as you’ve got a sense of humour and don’t take life too seriously, you’ll quickly make friends with John. He’s the proverbial life and soul of the party, even if he is a bit of a dickhead at times. The kind of lad who’ll do a streak for a dare, or will eat raw chillies just for a laugh, without any care as to how sore his arsehole will be the next day.
I take my seat at the table in the café. Ste and John do the “alright, girl” greetings.
“Alright, lads.”
“So?” Ste says through a mouthful of half-chewed bacon. “What did you get?”
“Passed six and got four As,” I say.
John raises his eyebrows, folding his arms and cocking his head at me.
“Fucking hell. Get a load of you, smart arse,” he says before leaning forward and slurping through his straw. “You sure you wanna be hanging round with us two fucking peasants?”
“Speak for yourself, arsewipe,” Ste said.
“Makes no difference. I don’t need any qualifications to do what I’m going to do,” I say as read the café menu. Ste and John shoot each other a look.
“Does that mean you’re gonna go full-time? With the weed?” John says, looking at me wide-eyed.
“May as well,” I say. “It’s what I’m good at, isn’t it?”
John looks ecstatic and rubs his hands together.
“Fucking too right, girl! How are you gonna do it though? Does your ma know?”
I shake my head. “No. I mean, I don’t think she’d be that surprised to find out, put it that way. It’s not like she can tell me off, is it?”
“No. But you need a lot more than a couple of plants in the back bedroom, don’t you?” John says.
I have already considered this dilemma and I have turned over a few options in my mind. But serious planning can come later. “All in good time,” I say.
After catching up with the boys I head home to chill out for a bit before going to the party. At the turn of my key in the door, Mum appears in the hallway. “There she is, Brain of Britain herself. Well done, love,” she says as she hugs me. Fuck me, that’s rare. I follow her into the lounge and fish out the results paper, handing it to her as I flop down on the couch beside her. “I’m gonna frame this and stick it on the wall,” she says as she reads it.
“I never had you down for being the proud mother type.”
“I’m not. It can cover that stain above the mantelpiece.”
“Haha,” I say, rolling my eyes.
I’m not quite sure how to broach this delicate subject with Mum. Best not to try and sugarcoat it, I suppose.
“I’ve been thinking I should move out, get my own place,” I say, looking at her.
“Oh aye?” she says, raising her eyebrows, but otherwise looking unperturbed.
“Yeah. I mean, I’ve been thinking about what I want to do.”
“Mmmm?”
“Let’s face it, there’s no point in me looking for work, there’s no bloody jobs to apply for anyway.”
“Well, not round here, there’s not, no.”
“I’m gonna do the weed, full time. Properly,” I say, resolutely.
“How are you gonna manage that? What, you’re gonna get a flat or a house and grow weed at home?” Trust her to think of the practicalities.
“Well, for starters, I suppose. We can’t fit any more plants in here, can we? Besides, it’s too risky. The lecky, the council. What I was thinking that if I find a place that’s big enough, then I could move the plants there, couldn’t I? And it’s less hassle for you and Janice that way, isn’t it? It’s not like you two are keen on the growing side, is it? And that’s what I’m good at, isn’t it?”
“Oh yeah, little Miss Greenfingers, that’s you,” she says wryly. “Well, I suppose it makes sense. To tell you the truth, Janice wants out of the whole thing, anyway. She and Doug are finished for good. He’s got some girl in Jamaica pregnant so he won’t be coming back here. And she’s got a new fella anyway, clean-living, like, you know, and he doesn’t want any part of all this. So pardon the pun but she’s outgrown it.”
“Well then. It suits everyone, doesn’t it?” I say, somewhat silently cheering this bit of news. I was wondering if Janice would be the one to put up the most resistance to me taking over, so to speak. Mum doesn’t answer me, she’s still on Janice.
“Anyway, she doesn’t smoke that much, not any more. Her asthma’s getting bad. She’s on some health kick at the moment. And I don’t do it that much these days, either. I was getting sick of feeling like I had a head full of cotton wool all the time.”
>
We’re silent for a bit as we absently watch the telly.
“I mean, I’m don’t want to move away, or anything. I’d be nearby. I’d still be coming back here for tea and that,” I say in what I hope is a reassuring fashion. Not that my Mum has ever given the impression that she needs reassurance.
“Oh, you think I’m still gonna be cooking and doing your washing, do you? You can forget about that, my girl,” Mum says. I sigh.
“You know what I mean,” I say. She looks at me, smiles and rolls her eyes.
12. SEED FUNDING
Without schoolwork to worry about, and having passed the threshold of 16, for the first time in my life, I was able to plot my own course. And that involved selling for myself.
My quest for independence began with an application to the council for a flat. Mum talked me through the steps of how to work the system to get a flat of my own – I was being exposed to alcoholism, it was an unsafe environment, blah blah, exactly like she’d done when she’d left home. I should’ve got an Oscar for my tearful performances in front of sympathetic social workers and housing officials who patted my knee and handed me tissues. My academic record worked in my favour. What a shame to let such an intelligent girl waste her potential! Let’s rehome her so she can fulfil her lifelong dream of going to university, the first person in her family to do so. Mum had no objections at all to being castigated as a drunken abusive tyrant. So it was a win-win situation for both of us.
God bless Knowsley Council, because they came through with a one-bedroom pokey little place above a shop in the townie. It was unfurnished but I wasn’t too bothered about that. The council even gave me an emergency loan to get some furniture. The rent was fully paid for by housing benefit so all I had to worry about was utility bills. All I had to do was sign up for A-Levels at Kirkby College and keep up the pretence of attending on a regular basis so I could sign on and get dole. Not the proper dole that adults get, but dole for people my age who have no one to support them. The dole wasn’t my main source of income, of course. Signing on every two weeks was a pain in the arse at first but mostly because I didn’t want to be hanging round the job centre when I could be growing and selling.
Once I got the flat ship-shape with the help of Ste and John, I could get down to serious business. I decided to sleep in the lounge and use the sole bedroom as my greenhouse. I could easily get Mum’s and Janice’s 12 plants in there. I sorted out some seedlings of my own which I grew alongside those – it meant jiggling with extra equipment to tend them but at least now I could sell of my own volition. I popped up to Mum’s a couple of times a week and would hang out with Mum and Janice briefly before going back to my place. It was the perfect arrangement for everyone.
I had already agreed with Janice and Mum that I would in effect take over their customers. By this time I had a regular client list of my own: the boys, and through them, their friends and relatives. The quality of my product compared to some of the shite on sale elsewhere helped to retain some loyal customers and meant that I was bringing in anywhere between £150 to £300 a week in total. That was more than some people were earning in full-time jobs. And because I didn’t smoke the stuff myself, I had more to sell, unlike some of my competition. The presence of Ste as my mate/bodyguard/enforcer, who was always at my side on deals, also meant I was paid promptly, and I was able to bung him some cash as a sort of salary every week. Things had gotten off to a reasonably good start.
Here I was, aged 16, with my own place and more money than most of the adults that surrounded me. I’ll admit, life at times felt very surreal. Out of my small circle of friends, I was the only one living independently so naturally my place became something of a gathering place and dosshouse for a few. Ste, David, John and his mate Brian were regular visitors. Debbie had left school and was signing on. Gillian was in sixth form. Neither of them had much money and so an unspoken understanding had developed in that I would sub them occasionally, which I didn’t really mind. It wasn’t like I couldn’t afford it, and anyway, I felt I owed Debbie in particular as she had provided me with one of my best customers, David, who had also become a mate.
I didn’t like people smoking in my place, not just because of my own aversion to the stuff but because I didn’t want nosy neighbours, so the house rule that everyone had to follow was that they could only smoke out of the kitchen window which faced the rear of the flats, away from prying eyes and sensitive noses.
What were supposed to be brief stop-offs by the boys to collect dope deliveries would often evolve into them “just trying a little spliffie out the kitchen window, you know, quality control”, and then they would slump into the couch for the evening. I would often go out and come home to that familiar stench emanating from my kitchen, with an assortment of monged people scattered around along with discarded takeaway boxes and shite on the telly like Jim Davidson’s Big Break. Snooker and cannabis is a match made in heaven. I suppose the dope made that particular programme’s twat of a presenter bearable, although I did admire John Virgo’s trick shots.
Sometimes I would walk into the lounge and wait a few moments for whichever rabble of monged-out visitors had congregated to register that someone else was actually there. Then came the dozy smiles and glazed eyes again, and then the greetings of: “Alright, Queen Green! How are you, girl?”
“How many fucking times have I told you lot not to smoke in here?” I would protest, furiously spraying a can of air freshener all over the place with a tea towel over my nose and mouth, while they sat there and giggled their faces off. In all honesty, I really didn’t like to see my inner circle getting monged on their own supplies. To me it just looked a bit pathetic and wasteful. Unprofessional, you know?
Sometimes I would hang out with the boys at local pubs or the grim, gulag-style snooker hall on Admin Road in Kirkby Industrial Estate, sometimes I would hang out with Gillian and Debbie. Sometimes we all hung out together. We all went up the Boffin one night and gathered around a table near the bar, with empty pint glasses, shorts glasses and lager bottles soon multiplying in front of us. I would stick to the orange juice and soft drinks, studying the gradual slurring and swaying around me.
“Fuck me, this place is slimier than a prozzie’s tongue,” John said, eyes wide and gawping round the room.
“I thought we could slum it tonight,” I said, necking my juice. “Kirkby townie is far too la-di-dah for the likes of us riff-raff.”
On nights like these, time stops, jokes are told, affectionate piss-takes are bandied about. More empties piling up in front of us. Gillian and Debbie are whispering about some bit of dick over by the pool table. John, David and the other lads are talking about the footie, and Ste is doing his best to flirt with me, even though he knows the score and knows that it will never happen. It’s more show for the others, to let them know that he’s top of the tree and can get away with it. Within certain boundaries, of course.
“Come on, girl, get on my lap and give us a grind,” he implores me, smacking his thighs with both hands and with a leery grin on his face. The others are laughing.
“I’ll grind you with a broken bottle if you don’t pack that in,” I say, half-joking, half-serious.
“Alright then, a hand job will do.”
I lean forward with my best earnest gob on.
“The only way you’ll get a hand job is if you ask your mum to wash it for you. Behave yourself.”
When we weren’t all hanging out together, us girls had graduated from cacky school discos to real nightclubs in town on Friday and Saturday nights – The State, Quadrant Park, Coconut Grove, The Continental. Before hitting the clubs we would do a pub crawl round the city centre, going to places like Flanagan’s Apple, a proper Irish spit-and-sawdust place with live music, and the claustrophobic John Lennon basement club on Mathew Street, where you were guaranteed to sweat out a stone in weight by the time you left. We were a lot younger than the average clientele in both places, but the craic was grand.
Then on
to the clubs. The two girls were way more girly than me and so got a lot more male attention than I did. Like I was arsed. I lost count of the number of times those two would be dry-humping some spotty fucker on the dancefloor while I was fending off the unwanted advances of their even spottier mate at the bar. It was all fun though.
These were the days of acid house. Of course, it had all kicked off in London around 1988 and had made its way up north, ushered in by the likes of A Guy Called Gerald, Inner City and Baby Doll, and now we were experiencing it for ourselves in the rarefied air of the northwest – looping synthesised and synchronised beats and bass lines, repetitive vocal samples, soaring electronic chords, girls and boys wearing luminous t-shirts, bandanas, baggy jeans, shorts and lycra skirts, repetitive jerky dancing, eyes closed or glazed, hands in the air. No matter which club you went into, everyone looked the same, danced the same, and were listening to the same acid house soundtrack. It occurred to me that the electronic music I had enjoyed as a kid had now evolved and surged forward, just in time for us to enjoy it as grown-ups, as it was meant to be enjoyed, on the dancefloor amid the heaving throng of loved-up and dropped-out ravers.
Helping its spread was a new drug I had heard of, Ecstasy, or Es. I had heard people at school talking about it but hadn’t been interested in it at the time, but in these clubs, I would watch people oscillate away in their trance-like states, free of anxiety and self-consciousness. I didn’t actually know anyone who dealt it though. Believe it or not, I didn’t hang around with other dealers so I had remained immune to its charms. That was all about to change.
We were in the Coconut Grove one night, one of Liverpool’s less salubrious clubs, and Debbie was snogging the face off some random she was dancing with. After she had managed to extricate herself from his tight grip, she rejoined me and Gillian at the bar. She furtively fished out three pills from her bag and slipped them to us. I had to laugh – she was dealing to me? Turns out loverboy had slipped her a few freebies, although in exchange for what was not clear.