by Ruth Jacobs
As soon as their feet were on the dirty carpet in the cramped hall, Tara asked them to buy some crack. Surprising herself, Shelley declined. She’d planned not to take crack – but usually her plans not to failed. Her fix in the morning to stave off the sickness must’ve given her willpower a boost – though her mood could have still benefited from some tweaking.
Not happy with Shelley’s answer, Tara tried to sway Nicole. But Nicole stood her ground. “We need to keep our heads clear,” she told Tara.
Nicole led the way into the lounge and took her usual spot on the navy sofa. Tara sat on her armchair and Shelley stood awkwardly by the door. She was thirsty but she didn’t want to drink from a vessel kept in the filth-pit that was Tara’s flat.
“Can I wash my hands in your kitchen?” Shelley asked.
“If you like, or use the bathroom,” Tara replied.
Shelley turned back into the lounge. Something was different. Tara no longer had a television. Shelley felt pity for Tara as she walked through to the kitchen. Tara had most likely sold her television for crack.
With the tap turned on, Shelley carefully leant over the pile of pots and crockery in the sink and drank from the flowing water.
“I’ll get you a glass.”
Shelley flinched. Her chin narrowly missed the faucet. She hadn’t realised Tara had come into the kitchen. Tara took a glass from the cupboard and passed it to Shelley. Before filling the glass with water, Shelley rinsed it a few times under the hot tap.
When Shelley walked back through to the lounge, she took her place in her usual seat, next to Nicole on the sofa. In front of them was the glass coffee table – Crack Island – on which they usually prepared their pipes. Shelley had that feeling she was missing something, or had forgotten something. She guessed it was the crack.
For a second time, Tara asked if they’d join her in buying a rock, and Shelley expected that she too had the same ‘missing’ feeling. Following the second rebuff, Tara stormed out of the lounge, leaving Nicole and Shelley alone.
After a while, Tara returned. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot and not quite looking in the same direction. “Oh my God, Shelley, you’ve changed your hair!”
“Resident Unobservant, surely it hasn’t taken you this long to notice?” Nicole said.
“Your mind’s on a pipe, isn’t it?” Shelley pulled a cigarette from her twenty-pack and held it out to Tara.
“Fuck you.” Tara’s nose screwed up as her face contorted and reddened. “I was about to say you looked really nice but I won’t bother now.”
“Calm down, love. She didn’t mean it.”
“No, I did mean it.” Shelley put the cigarette she’d earmarked for Tara in her own mouth and lit it. “You’ve got a problem. You sold your laptop and now your TV’s gone. What’s gonna be next?”
“My TV’s getting fixed at the shop. Anyway, it’s not your fucking business.”
“I’m gonna make a cuppa.” Nicole stood up. “When I get back, I want you ladies on your best behaviour.” Nicole smiled at Tara as she walked out of the lounge, and from the hall, she shot a wink in Shelley’s direction.
Guilt and anger tussled to find their order in Shelley’s head. She was angry with Tara for her outburst and also cross with herself. Her honesty she knew could be brutal. And when it was directed at someone for whom she cared, she tended to feel guilty. That she hadn’t mentioned Tara’s son and the reason he didn’t live with her was some consolation. Though she’d thought it, thankfully, she hadn’t converted the thought into spoken words. Reflecting on her intention, she knew it wasn’t to hurt Tara’s feelings. She had wanted to make her see that she couldn’t go on as she was.
“I’m sorry I upset you, Tara. I didn’t mean to,” Shelley said.
“I’m sorry too. I haven’t had a pipe today and I’m climbing the walls.”
Shelley was stumped for what to say. She didn’t want to get into another argument but she was quite sure Tara had taken a pipe since they’d been in her flat. She wanted one herself, but she couldn’t let Nicole down and get high with Tara, not today. Perhaps Tara had taken something else in place of crack that had a similar effect on her eyes. In case she was strung out, Shelley took a fifty-pound note from her purse and pressed it into Tara’s palm.
“Thank you,” Tara said. Her face crumpled as if she was about to cry, but she didn’t. Her head rocked a little, and her slight smile looked forced.
When Nicole came back through with the tea, Shelley examined her mug closely. It didn’t look clean, but she decided it appeared more coffee-stained than dirty, so she took a chance and drank from it.
“Let’s get started,” Nicole said. With a writing pad on her lap and a pen in her hand, she looked as if she was responsible for taking the minutes.
“You can’t take notes, Nic,” Shelley said. “You’re making evidence.”
“I’m trying to be organised, in case I forget anything.”
“Like an organised criminal?” Tara sniggered.
Nicole turned her back on Tara and spoke to Shelley. “I know we’ve gotta be mindful of the police, but whatever’s going on with sick bitch or not, we can’t stall any more.”
“I think we should wait, let things cool down a bit,” Tara said.
“Another girl could be being raped right now for all we know. I can’t live with that,” Nicole said forcefully.
Tara stood up from her armchair and walked out of the lounge.
Nicole shook her head and looked up to the ceiling before returning her attention to Shelley.
“I’ll call Angel from the car,” Shelley said.
“Thanks, love. Shall we go back the North Circ way, then we can check out those empty houses?”
“No. There’s too many squatters,” Shelley said. “I think I can sort something else.”
On the way downstairs, Shelley reflected what a waste of time it had been having their meeting at Tara’s when she’d been absent for most of the conversation. As she reached the front door of the building, she imagined Tara telling Marianne about the change in her appearance. She clambered back up the stairs.
When Tara finally responded to her knocking, Shelley reminded her of the holiday Marianne thought she was on, and that she shouldn’t share her new phone number. Casually, Shelley added, “And don’t mention my new hair.”
“Your cut and colour is safe with me,” Tara said, breathing vodka over Shelley.
23. The Message
Shelley was feeling weak and craving her next fix, but she was unable to go straight home. On the drive back from Tara’s, she’d been talked into eating dinner at Nicole’s. Not being able to lie meant she couldn’t excuse her urgency to leave. If she couldn’t lie about that, she worried how she’d ever cover her tracks wearing long sleeves in the summer.
Nicole handed her a cup of coffee and sat down next to her on the black leather sofa. “What I told you before, it’s happened with my Mum as well,” Nicole said. “I know she’s dead, but I’m not processing it.”
“That’s normal, there’s a grieving process. Everyone goes through it.” Shelley tried to sip her coffee but it was too hot and burnt her tongue.
“There is, but I’m not allowing myself to grieve properly. I’m running away, escaping through punters, getting stoned, smoking crack.”
“We haven’t done crack today.” Shelley rubbed her tongue on the roof of her mouth in the hope it would ease the pain.
“It’s stopped working, Shell. I don’t even— None of my crutches work any more. I’m falling and they’re not keeping me up. If anything, they’re pushing me down.” Nicole lit a cigarette and took a deep pull. “I want it to feel different. I want to be able to move on, make Mum proud of me, do a better job with helping the family. I’m not— I’m not doing life. Not how I want to be.”
“Time heals, Nic. It’ll be okay.”
“Time... right, that hasn’t healed you either, has it?”
“No, not yet, but maybe it will.” Shelle
y felt the onset of tears. Nicole sounded angry, but it wasn’t with her, she told herself. “I know Will’s watching me, and your mum will be watching over you.”
“If she is, I don’t want her seeing me living like this and I’m sure Will wouldn’t want to see your life wasted.”
“Like he wasted his,” Shelley muttered as Nicole headed to the other side of the room.
Shelley fought the envy emerging inside her as she listened to the never-ending stream of messages play out from Nicole’s answer phone. Far more people cared about Nicole than her. Lying back on the sofa, Shelley tried to resist her eyelids closing as the tranquil voices of Nicole’s family (her brother, Enda; her sisters, Milly and Susie; two aunts) and her friends (Shelley had lost count of how many) washed over her.
The sudden rant booming from the machine shocked Shelley out of her near-hypnotised state. From her horizontal position on the sofa, she sat upright. Her eyes were now open wide.
“What the fuck’s that about?” Nicole stomped back into the room and replayed the message. Perhaps she couldn’t believe it either. “Why’s she blaming me? I wasn’t even there.”
“You were. It was the day you got back from Mustique.”
Still as a picture, Nicole stood by the answer phone.
“It’s not your fault, Nic. She’s off her head. She’s probably been on the crack since we left, sold something else and now she’s looking for someone to blame.” Shelley felt guilty; Tara had probably started off with the fifty she’d given her.
“Why me? It doesn’t make sense. I’ve only ever been nice to that girl.” Nicole hovered by the sofa. She looked as though she was about to sit down next to Shelley but, after bending her knees, she straightened back up then walked over to the dining table. She picked up her keys and threw her red coat over her shoulders.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m gonna put that bitch right. I’m not having her treat me like this.”
Shelley persuaded Nicole it was best left until Tara had sobered up, that it wouldn’t be possible to reason with her given the unstable state she was in.
Angel had been right. Tara was a weak link, a liability - not only for what had been discussed earlier in the day, but also for the secrets Shelley was trying to hide from Marianne.
***
To avoid running dry, Shelley had called Jay on her way home from Nicole’s. Surprisingly, he’d arrived at her flat before she’d made it back herself – and he’d sounded annoyed on the phone when he’d called asking why she wasn’t there. The turning of the tables was unintentional and she hoped this wouldn’t result in his return to tardiness.
Had she not spent half an hour in the twenty-four hour store at Hendon Central, she would have been there by now. The man in the shop had been amiable and didn’t seem to mind her reading the papers. He may have been under the impression her interest lay in politics; the newspapers were still focused on the new Labour government. But their landslide win in the election a few days earlier, and the independence they’d given the Bank of England, was neither of interest nor relevance to Shelley.
As she pulled up in Willoughby Road, she caught sight of Jay leaning against the wall of another split, Victorian house a couple of doors down from the one she lived in. With him watching her, she couldn’t carry out her usual leaving-the-car ritual. She’d have to rely on the central locking working, her eyes seeing the door locks depressing and her ears hearing it happen. The boot was on its own.
She did it, and although she felt uncomfortable, her anxiety waned after a director in her head told her she could go out and do it properly once Jay left.
The dour expression on Jay’s face became obvious as she rushed towards her flat. She made rolling-wave motions with her arm and he walked up the road.
“Sorry I’m late. I didn’t think you’d get here so soon.”
“Don’t let it happen again.” He cracked a smile and closed Shelley’s front door behind him.
Standing in the shadows of the communal hall, their deal didn’t have much light. Both bulbs in the hall had blown and none of the residents had replaced them. Their only illumination was a yellow glow from a streetlight shining through the stained glass panel in the front door.
“How’s Ali?” Shelley asked, as she counted the cash from her purse that had already been organised into groups of one hundred pounds when it was originally folded.
“He’s doing all right. They’ve moved him to the Isle of Sheppey. He’s teaching himself to play the drums. He says it’s like a holiday camp compared to Brixton.”
“That sounds good.” Shelley slipped the money into Jay’s hand.
Jay delved inside the front of his jeans and from somewhere near his bulging crotch, he pulled out a drawstring pouch. “I can’t find your man in Ladbroke Grove. I’ve been round that yard nuff times but no one’s ever in and there ain’t nothing to rob – it’s like a squat in there.” He took two clingfilm wrapped parcels and slid them into Shelley’s palm. “I’m back again tonight. I’ll see what I can do.”
Shelley pushed the parcels into the front pocket of her jeans. “I think there’s another way I wanna sort this, but thanks for what you’ve done. I really appreciate it.”
“That money’s heading for my pocket anyway, love.”
If her using carried on at the same pace, every fifty from the freezer would be heading that same way too.
Through her weakness, she ran up the stairs, which were unlit until the first landing. She didn’t return to her car. She was being pulled in that direction, but the pull to have a fix was more potent.
After closing the door to her flat, she checked it was locked eight times – forty counts. The rhythm of pushing down on the handle while counting aloud in time to the tapping engrossed her. Three of her senses were involved – sight, hearing and touch – and they nourished the sixth. The pull to her car faded. In her stomach, neck and shoulders, she could feel the tension ebbing away.
Sitting on her usual spot on the sofa, she cooked up the first shot. Only heroin for the first because she still had to call Len. An early night was required as well, so somehow she’d have to take the control away from her drugs and not stay up partying for hours. Her commitment to support Nicole at Tara’s the following day was something she couldn’t shirk. The confrontation that she anticipated would be awkward. She was furious with Tara and committed to defending Nicole, but she’d have to curb her anger. If she didn’t restrain what came out of her own mouth, then Tara would be less likely to restrain what came out of hers in Marianne’s company.
24. The Revelation
“Thanks for picking me up,” Shelley said, stepping into Nicole’s Chimaera.
“You look as tired as I feel.” Nicole gave her a slight smile. “I couldn’t sleep thinking about what she said. I don’t know how I’ve managed not to call her.”
“You haven’t though, have you?” Shelley could hear the concern in her own voice. They’d agreed nothing should be said until they got into her flat. If Tara knew Nicole had already listened to the message, it would be obvious that Shelley would know about it and then most likely Tara wouldn’t let her in.
Shelley was exhausted. The weakness bestowed by a junk habit partly caused her tiredness but it was also due to the call that had disrupted her sleep at seven o’clock in the morning, only two hours after she’d put herself to bed. Resident Dicks All the Boxes had wanted to see her for a full day booking. She’d had to ask for a rain check due to her prior obligation to Nicole and, as it was Friday, she was due at her mother’s maisonette some time before dusk. The money she could have earned would have had a nominal impact on increasing her ever-decreasing savings in the cold bank – the Black Forest gateau box that had cleaned up beautifully after she rescued it from the bin at the beginning of the week. Nevertheless, the extra cash would have been enough, perhaps, for a week’s supply of heroin and crack, and looking at it from that angle, it was substantial for a day’s work.
&nbs
p; As they passed through Kensington, Shelley became aware that Nicole’s rage was intensifying. Not only was her once soft and lyrical voice now loud and brash, but her predisposition as a fast driver had crossed the line into dangerous. When Nicole swerved off the Cromwell Road, Shelley had to grip the central console to stop the force pulling her upper body into the door.
“Take it easy, Nic,” Shelley said, as they parked up. “I know you’re angry, but if we say too much, she might grass on us.”
“That tart needs to apologise, and I’m not gonna stop until she does.” Nicole’s face was reddening and Shelley admired the vein in her neck as it throbbed. It would have been a great vein to shoot in if it didn’t lead to a stroke or paralysis. “Are you listening to me? Snap out of it.”
“Sorry, I thought there was a spider on your collar,” Shelley replied, trying to take her eyes off the vein but, of their own volition, they kept returning.
“Argh! Get it off. Get it off.” Nicole grabbed at her blouse and shook it as she jerked her body in an effort to dislodge the spider. “Where is it? Has it gone? Can you see it?”
“I can’t see it now. It must have gone.” That wasn’t a lie; I can’t see it now. Engrossed in her vein fixation, she’d forgotten Nicole’s arachnophobia. She could feel a guilty blush in the warmth of her cheeks. There could be no escaping that first statement was a lie.
***
Tara’s lack of response to the intercom was no shock to Shelley. What was, however, was the immediate buzz in that followed the brief call she made to announce her arrival. Naturally, she hadn’t mentioned Nicole was accompanying her, but she had still expected an interrogation of sorts.
Nicole tiptoed up the wooden staircase, as advised by Shelley who was skilled at listening for footsteps and knew how loud the reverberations were from Tara’s flat. Shelley motioned towards the corner, near Tara’s front door. Nicole hid, and within seconds, Tara was at her door.
“Do you want to get a rock?” Tara asked.
“Not today.” Shelley followed Tara down the first section of the L-shaped hall. She could feel the heat from Nicole’s body behind her. The door slammed and Shelley flinched. Tara didn’t seem to notice. She didn’t even turn around. Perhaps she thought Shelley was responsible.