by Kevin Brooks
“It must be past five,” I said. “Places close early around here at the weekend. We’ll have to go to the petrol station.”
“Great—and how far’s that?”
“Just down the road.”
It was one of those petrol stations that sell all kinds of stuff—videos, cigarettes, beer, groceries…whatever you need to keep you going. Candy picked up a shopping basket and started scuttling around the aisles, grabbing things off shelves, and I followed along behind her. She didn’t seem to be in the mood for questions, so I didn’t bother asking her what she was getting or why, I just trailed along in her wake, watching curiously as she filled the basket with all kinds of odd little items: chocolate bars, biscuits, sweets, Coke, toilet paper, soluble aspirin, crappy magazines, paperback books, talcum powder…
At the register, she dumped the basket on the counter, asked for two hundred cigarettes, then paid for the lot with the cash she’d taken from Iggy.
It was fully dark when we got back to the cottage. As soon as we were through the front door, Candy hurried off into the bedroom and almost immediately came rushing back out again, heading toward the bathroom.
“Is this it?” I asked her.
She stopped hesitantly and looked at me.
I said, “Is this the last time?”
“Yeah…yeah, it is. Look, I’m sorry…It’s just…I didn’t know we’d be out so long…” Her eyes darted anxiously at the bathroom. “I really need it now…”
“You don’t have to go anywhere. I mean, you don’t have to hide away from me…I don’t mind—”
“No,” she said quickly, “it’s not nice…I don’t want you to see me. It’s nothing, anyway…It’s just…It’s just pathetic.” She shook her head. “It’s just stupid bits of foil and crap…and I hate having to do it…it’s so ugly…” She looked at me, wiping a sheen of sweat from her brow, and I suddenly realized she was hurting, and all I was doing was prolonging the pain.
“It’s all right,” I said, indicating the bathroom. “Honestly…I understand. Please, it’s OK.”
She tried to smile, but her face was too tense to allow it. All she could manage was a rigid nod, like a tearful child, and then she was off like a shot to the bathroom.
This time, though, she didn’t lock the door.
Twenty minutes later we were sitting in front of the fire, drinking tea and talking things through. Candy was a bit dopey but perfectly lucid, and she seemed quite happy about what she was doing.
“I know it’s going to be hard,” she told me, “but I think I’ve got my head around it now. It’s like I can see myself on the other side…I can see what I want to be. D’you know what I mean? I can see where I’m going, and I really want to get there.” She started emptying her pockets, pulling out all the stuff she’d taken from Iggy and placing it on the floor. “I’d better get rid of this now,” she explained, “while I still know what I’m doing.”
I watched the drugs piling up—little packs, plastic bags, bottles of pills. It was strange how harmless it all seemed. It was just stuff—powders and pills—and it was hard to imagine how something so dull could mean so much to anyone.
Candy stood up and showed me her empty pockets. “All gone,” she said. “OK?”
I looked at her. “You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
“Yeah, I do. I’m an addict, Joe. We lie and we cheat and we hide things. I can’t trust myself to do this—you have to help me.”
“All right,” I said. “What do you want me to do?”
She nodded at the pile on the floor. “Get rid of all that first.”
I gathered up all the packs and bags and went to chuck them on the fire.
“Not there!” Candy barked, stopping me just in time. “Christ…if you burn that lot, we’ll both be flying for days. Just flush it all down the toilet.”
I got up and started toward the bathroom.
“Hold on,” said Candy. “You need to go through my bag as well.”
I stopped and looked at her. “Your bag?”
“It’s in the bedroom. I don’t think I put any stuff in there, but I wouldn’t put it past me.”
I gave her a hesitant look.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing…It’s just…well, it’s your personal stuff, isn’t it? I’m not sure—”
“It’s only clothes and crap,” she interrupted. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Look, this is serious, Joe. However good my intentions are now, I’m going to get desperate at some point, and when I do, I’ll probably start searching around for the tiniest scrap of gear. If it’s there, I’ll find it…and if I find it, I’ll take it. I don’t want that to happen, but I won’t be in a fit state to stop myself. So the only way to make sure I don’t find anything is to make sure there’s nothing for me to find—do you understand?”
“Yeah,” I said, getting up and walking off into the bedroom.
“Check everything,” she called out after me. “And I mean everything.”
I checked everything: her bag, her clothes, her makeup, her handbag, under the bed, under the carpet…anywhere and everywhere. All I found was some aluminum foil and a couple of plastic straws. I put these in my pocket with the rest of the stuff, then left the bedroom and went into the bathroom, where I flushed all the drugs down the toilet. They didn’t all go at first, so I had to keep flushing for a while, but eventually the water cleared and everything was gone.
I was on my way out of the bathroom when I suddenly remembered something Candy had said. I’m an addict, she’d told me. We lie and we cheat and we hide things.
I looked around the bathroom. It was a perfect place to hide things. It was private, she’d always have an excuse to come in here…and, what’s more, she hadn’t suggested I search it.
So I started searching it. Cupboards, shelves, under the carpet…I didn’t really know what I was looking for, but I guessed I’d know if I found it. A couple of minutes later, as I was going through the cabinet over the sink, Candy suddenly appeared in the doorway. She didn’t say anything at first, just stood there watching me. It felt a bit weird, but I didn’t say anything, I just kept searching.
“You’ve got a suspicious mind,” she said, after a while.
“I’ve hidden things myself once or twice,” I told her. “I know where to look.”
“Yeah? What kind of things have you hidden?”
“Secret things…”
“Like what?”
“They wouldn’t be secret if I told you, would they?”
She nodded in agreement, then continued watching me in silence. As I bent down and looked in the cupboard under the sink, I wondered if she knew I was lying. The truth was, I’d never hidden anything in my life…not that I could remember, anyway. I’d probably put things where they wouldn’t be found… but that’s not quite the same, is it? That’s amateur hiding, the kind of hiding that doesn’t really matter…
“Joe?” said Candy, interrupting my thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to search me?”
I stood up and turned around, and there she was—leaning against the wall, smiling at me. But it was the kind of smile that doesn’t mean anything—all lips and teeth and no sparkling eyes…
“What?” I said.
“I mean, if you don’t trust me…” She raised her arms above her head. “If you want to do a really thorough search…”
“Don’t be stupid…I don’t want to search you. I’m just doing what you said. You told me not to trust you.” I shook my head. “Put your arms down.”
She raised a provocative eyebrow. “Are you sure?”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t understand what she was doing. Was she playing games with me—teasing me, tempting me, testing me—or was it something else…some kind of twisted emotional reaction?
I didn’t know.
I didn’t really want to think about it.
“I’ll go and make some tea,” I said.
As I e
dged my way past her and went back into the front room, my heart was beating hard. I wished it wasn’t. I didn’t want to feel anything. I just wanted things to be simple.
When Candy came out of the bathroom and joined me in front of the fire, she looked a bit awkward, as if she knew she’d done something slightly embarrassing and wanted to explain herself but didn’t know how.
“All right?” I asked her as she sat down.
“Yeah…thanks.” She flicked some imaginary dust from her jeans. “Look,” she said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“What’s in the bag?” I said.
“Sorry?”
I indicated the plastic bag on the table. “All that stuff you bought at the petrol station. What’s it for?”
I think she knew I was changing the subject, steering her away from the awkwardness, and I think we both knew it was the best thing to do. There was enough awkwardness around as it was—we didn’t really need any more. And besides, avoiding it was also the easiest thing to do.
“You mean all the chocolate and stuff?” she said.
“Yeah—and the rest of it.”
“I’m just trying to be practical,” she explained. “I know what it’s like when you start withdrawing—I’ve been there before. Not like this…I mean, I’ve never done it out of choice before, and it’s never been for very long, but I know how it feels. Sometimes Iggy used to hold stuff back from me…If I told him I didn’t want to do something, or if I’d pissed him off about something…he wouldn’t give me any smack. He’d just lock me in the room and leave me there until I started climbing up the wall.” She gazed sadly into the fire. “He always got what he wanted in the end.”
“Couldn’t you get the stuff from anywhere else?” I asked.
“I thought about it a couple of times,” she said, “but it wouldn’t have worked. Iggy knows everyone. He would have found out. He would have killed whoever sold it to me, and then he would have killed me.”
If she’d told me that a few days ago, I’d probably have thought she was exaggerating. But I knew what Iggy was capable of now—I could still feel his razor cutting into my throat—and I knew she was telling the truth.
“So, anyway,” she went on, “that’s how I know what it’s going to be like.” She smiled at me. “I’m going to eat lots of sugary crap, and I’m going to be sick and sweaty and shitty and mad. In fact, I’m starting to feel it already.”
“Really?”
“Just a bit,” she shrugged. “It’s probably just the fear of what’s coming. A smoke usually lasts me at least two or three hours…”
“Does smoking it make any difference?” I asked. “I mean, is it less addictive than using needles or anything?”
“I thought it was when I first started—lots of people do. But it’s not. Smoking’s just a different way of getting the stuff into your head. Some people think that slamming gets you higher…” She paused, shaking her head. “God, will you listen to me? I sound just like a junkie. I hate talking about drugs. It’s so bloody pissy.”
“Pissy?”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “You get all these dealers and junkies rambling on about their gear and their works and God-knows-what-else…and it’s just so boring. It’s like listening to a bunch of computer nerds or something.”
“That bad, eh?”
“Yeah,” she grinned. “Only these computer nerds are all whacked out of their heads and some of them carry loaded guns.”
I nodded, trying to imagine what it was like—living in this unknown world of drugs and guns and violence—but I still couldn’t get there. I couldn’t even get close. I could accept it. I knew such a world existed, and I wasn’t too far away from understanding it—but the idea of living in it…? That was just too much to imagine.
“What are you thinking about?” Candy asked me.
I looked at her. “Nothing…I was just…”
“Thinking?”
“Yeah.”
She looked into the fire again, chewing her lip, staring deep into her thoughts. After a while she said, “Why are you doing this, Joe?”
“Doing what?”
“Helping me…finding me, bringing me out here…” She looked at me. “Why are you doing it?”
“Why?” I asked, stuck for words.
“Yeah…why?”
“I don’t know…” I stammered. “I just…I don’t know…Does there have to be a reason?”
“I think so.”
As she kept looking at me, I could feel my mouth making useless little movements, searching for unfound words. Why are you doing this? I asked myself, but I knew I didn’t know. It was a question full of questions. Why do you do anything? Why do you like music? Why do you take drugs? Why do you hate yourself? Why do you die? Why do you fall in love?
I didn’t have any answers. I didn’t know why I was doing anything. I was just doing it.
“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Candy said.
“What?”
“Everything…I don’t know—you and me…the way things happen…all this stuff…” She rubbed the side of her head and sighed. “I’m sorry…I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m starting to ramble. Maybe I’d better go and lie down for a bit.”
“How are you feeling now?”
“Not too bad…” She lowered her head and started picking nervously at her fingernails. “I might get a bit funny,” she said timidly. “You know, when it starts…I might say things I don’t mean, things that aren’t very nice.” She raised her head and looked at me. “It won’t be me, Joe.”
“I know—it’s all right.”
“And don’t be afraid to get tough with me. Don’t give in—OK? Whatever I say, whatever I ask you to do—”
“Just say no?”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “Something like that.”
“I’ll do my best.”
She looked at me for a moment, and I thought she was going to say something else, but then her smile faded and without another word she started getting to her feet.
“Do you need anything?” I asked her.
“No, thanks. I’m just going to lie down in the bedroom for a while…I’ll leave the door open.”
“OK.”
She started walking off.
“Before you go,” I called after her, “can I just ask you something?”
“What’s that?”
“Your name…”
She frowned. “My name?”
“Yeah…I’ve been wondering about it ever since we met.”
“Wondering what?”
“If Candy’s your real name.”
She didn’t answer immediately, just gave me a funny look. For a moment I thought she was annoyed with me, but then, to my relief, her eyes lit up in sudden realization. “Oh, right,” she said. “I see what you mean. You thought that Candy might be a street-name?”
“Yeah, I suppose…”
She laughed quietly. “No…that’s one thing I didn’t have to change. Candy’s my real name—well, Candice, actually.”
“Candice?”
She nodded. “Apparently, it means ‘pure and virtuous.’”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “What’s the matter? You think that’s funny?”
“No,” I grinned. “Not at all.”
She stood there smiling at me for a second, tearing a hole in my heart, and then she turned around with a wave of her hand and walked off into the bedroom.
It would be a long time before she smiled like that again.
chapter nineteen
It’s hard to relive the rest of the story. I know what happened—I can remember every moment. From the first troubled hours of that cold Saturday night, and the endless days that followed, to the deadening silence of the very last second, when everything came to an end…
I remember it all: every word, every breath, every tick of the clock…everything that happened is with me forever.
I can never forget it.
But that d
oesn’t mean I can live it again. You can’t live what’s gone, you can only remember it, and memories have no life. They’re just pale reminders of a time that’s gone—like faded photographs, or a dried-up daisy chain at the back of a drawer. They have no substance. They can’t take you back. Nothing can take you back.
Nothing can be the same as it was.
Nothing is.
All I can do is tell it.
Saturday night, eight o’clock: I’d stocked up on logs and got the fire going, and now I was just lounging around on the sofa, munching biscuits and flipping through Candy’s dumb magazines. They weren’t that interesting—just lots of photographs of sweating celebrities, celebrities in bad clothes, drunk celebrities…that kind of thing—but they helped to pass the time.
Candy was still in the bedroom. I’d popped in a couple of times to make sure she was all right, and on both occasions she’d been asleep. The first time I went in, she was curled up like a baby on top of the bed. I thought about covering her up with a blanket or something, but she seemed OK and I didn’t want to wake her, so I just left her as she was. An hour later, when I checked on her again, she was in the bed with the duvet pulled up over her head. I stayed for a while, just to make sure she was breathing, then I tiptoed out and left her to sleep.
Now I was just waiting.
Passing the time.
Staring at pictures of famous people, emptying my head, listening to the wind in the trees outside, hearing it grow, hearing it howl, hearing it gust down the chimney and rattle the windows…
It sounded angry.
I wondered where it went when it died.
Eight-thirty: Candy came out of the bedroom and shuffled silently to the bathroom. She was still dressed, but barefoot. I was glad to see her shuffling. Shuffling meant no hurry; no hurry meant no drugs. After a couple of minutes, the bathroom door opened and she came over to the sofa and stood beside me. She looked tired and worn-out. Her eyes were sleepy and her face was pale, but I was pretty sure she hadn’t taken anything. She just looked drained.
“How’s it going?” I asked her.
“Not great,” she replied. “I’m cold…shivery.” She hugged herself and scratched her arms. “Itchy.”
“Do you need anything?”