by Ruth Jacobs
“What are you doing?” Shelley said, pulling her arm free.
“You’re arm’s a mess! You’re fucking high! So much for quitting.” Angel shook her head.
“I said I’d try, not that I was doing it now, but I will... There’s the whole summer.”
“You won’t cope at university on that poison, believe,” Angel said. “You can do it but you have to want to.”
“I do want to... Part of me wants to, just not all of me.”
“You have to stop, please, Shell. You’re gonna kill yourself.” Nicole leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. Shelley sensed both her fury and her sympathy.
Angel lifted Shelley’s chin, which – like her eyelids – was falling south. She tilted Shelley’s face towards hers. “A friend of mine says some people don’t stop ’til the pain of their using gets worse than the pain they’re running from.”
With a cigarette resting between her lips, Shelley contemplated what Angel had said. Was her drug taking causing her more pain than her past? No it wasn’t – not yet. But how much worse did it need to get before it was?
***
“When’s your flight to New York?” Nicole asked Angel.
“Monday.” Angel took a sip of her vodka and coke.
“So this is the last time I’ll see you?” Shelley asked. I’ll miss you, she thought.
“You can come and stay anytime, both of you.”
“I will. If that punter still wants me in Miami, I’ll be out next summer.” Shelley tried to conceal her shame by averting her gaze. She looked at the veins in her hands. The only way she’d make it to America is if she could get off the junk.
“You promise to look after Tara when I’m gone?” Angel asked.
“I can’t. You do know she’s blanking me?” Nicole picked up her bottle of wine and poured the last of it into her glass.
“She’s in a bad way, babe. It’s not your fault Max is gone. She’ll come round.”
“She’s never gonna see him. It’s the bloody Middle East. If I were her I wouldn’t talk to me either.” Nicole downed her glass of wine and as she looked up, Shelley saw the sadness in her glazed eyes.
“You did what you thought was best, Nic.” Shelley smiled weakly.
“But it wasn’t best, was it? Not for Tara. Not for her boy. Who was it best for?”
“You did the right thing. You didn’t know that was gonna happen.” Shelley walked round to the other side of the table. She perched on the end of the bench and took Nicole in her arms. “It probably would have happened anyway, even if you hadn’t called her parents.” Shelley gently rocked Nicole.
Shelley hadn’t seen Nicole drunk in a while, and she didn’t like it. For a moment, she imagined Nicole’s perspective: how she felt about Shelley’s heroin habit. And for the briefest moment, she considered rethinking her options – not giving up junk, but possibly counselling and a methadone prescription. Then the thought left her.
***
At closing time, outside The Magdala, the air was cool. “See you in Manhattan,” Angel said, hugging Shelley.
After saying goodbye to Nicole, Angel took a few steps up the road, then turned round and called out, “I’m Lucy. Don’t be a stranger.”
Shelley set off walking towards her flat with Nicole. She looked up to see the stars, but the night sky bore the effects of a hangover from the overcast day; the stars were invisible, hidden behind the dark clouds.
With her arm linked in Nicole’s, they hobbled along as a pair down Pilgrim’s Lane. Shelley slowed down each time they passed a house lit up from the inside, extending her glimpse at life through the naked window of a stranger.
As she stole a final peek at a hybrid townhouse-castle, she noticed a figure watching them from an open window upstairs. Her heart rate quickened and she tightened her link on Nicole’s arm.
“Slow down. You’re gonna pull me over,” Nicole said, as Shelley dragged her along, causing her to totter.
“Sorry, it’s just creepy round here.” Shelley glanced back over her shoulder to check if they were still being spied on from the castle of a townhouse, but it was too distant now and she couldn’t tell.
They walked on a little farther before stopping by a Victorian street lantern. Under the dim light, Shelley searched in her handbag for her cigarette packet. “Will you call Marianne tomorrow?” she asked Nicole.
“She won’t turn up at Len’s house. What would she say?”
“That’s not what I’m worried about. He can handle her – he’s a Resident Master Bullshitter – but we still need to stay close.” Shelley pulled two cigarettes from her gold twenty-pack and passed one to Nicole. “You keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
“Now who’s the master of bullshit?” Nicole puffed on her cigarette to catch the flame that Shelley was keeping alight for her. “I’m not calling. I won’t be speaking to that sick bitch again.”
“You have to. How are we gonna—”
“Find another way. I’m finished with her, with all of them.” Nicole hurled her mobile phone, sending it smashing into the road.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“Cutting ties,” Nicole said, throwing her arms in the air. “I’m not working any more. I’m done.”
“What are you gonna do?” Shelley stared at her friend’s shadowy face in the dusky light.
“I don’t know, it doesn’t matter, as long as it’s not this. I’m repeating the pattern of what those perverts did to me for years. What I let them do.”
“You didn’t let them. You were a child.” Shelley’s heroin-smudged vision of Nicole blurred further with tears. “You were selfless, protecting your little sisters. I know it’s fucked up, but you did it out of love for them.”
“They took a chunk of my soul and I let them.” Nicole stamped her foot on the pavement.
“You didn’t. They just took it.”
“On every job I’ve done, I’ve lost a bit more, given away a bit more.” A sad anger contorted Nicole’s mouth. “We might not sell our bodies but we’re selling our souls.”
“We’re not.”
“We are, Shell, and I’m trying to hold on to the little bit of me that’s left before there’s nothing... I’m sick of it, being used like a sex object. In this life, everyone wants to fuck you. They don’t wanna know you. They’ll never love you. They just wanna fuck you.”
53. The Ripple Effect
Nicole’s words were still resonating in Shelley’s head two days later on Sunday 1st June during the train journey to Brighton. The board, with its existing armoury of powerful, negative mantras, didn’t need a new one with which to flog her.
She looked out the window to give herself a break from the conversation with her aunt and mother, who were sat opposite on the blue seats. She reached to the empty seat beside her and picked up the bunch of pink carnations. Holding them to her body, she inhaled their scent. “I’ll never forget you,” she said silently in her head to Will.
Rita and Aunt Elsie appeared outwardly to be far more emotionally ready for the day than Shelley felt within herself. She continued to remain silent as the two sisters chatted about matters as important as flowerpots.
This was the first time she would be back in Brighton since the last family holiday they’d taken with just the three of them – Shelley, William and Rita – in the summer of 1983. It was also the first time her mother would return. But William had been back, once. He’d been a ten-year-old boy on his penultimate visit, and he was a twenty-one-year-old man at the time of his final trip in July 1994 – from which he returned in a body bag.
Aunt Elsie maintained her belief in the possibility it had been accidental. But Shelley and her mother had no doubt it was deliberate. Shelley thought that perhaps her aunt only voiced that supposition to allay her sister’s guilt. There had been too much spoken, too many times, for the incident to have been a random accident.
Shelley excused herself from her aunt and mother’s company a
nd walked to the rear of the carriage. Cool air gushed through the open windows where she’d taken a seat in the smoking section. She stood up and closed them all except one that was stuck. Still feeling a chill, she buttoned up her red cardigan that she wore as a cover-up over her cream, linen dress. Protruding under the tight sleeve was a lump that she’d noticed had been increasing in size. She stretched the material to ensure it wouldn’t be visible to anyone else.
The train chugging, ‘damaged goods,’ could still be heard over the noise of the rowdy wind rushing through the window. To drown out the talking train, she put on her headphones. Listening to her Hue and Cry – Bitter Suite album often soothed her, but today her mind was in turmoil and her body equally so. There was drilling in her head; her stomach cramped; and she felt twitchy and sweaty. It wasn’t withdrawal symptoms because she’d had a fix before leaving her house that morning. Though not enough to be noticeable, it had been enough to hold her and she still had the itch, which told her it was still in her system. Although she didn’t have Jay any more, for the price of his cab fare, Len had been willing to come over yesterday to replenish her supplies. This time he’d been more generous with her allowance of crack. She hoped the arrangement would work long term; waiting for Ajay was like waiting for a block of ice to melt in a Siberian winter.
After stubbing out her cigarette, she remained seated. Isolated in the stormy, smoking area, she listened to the third track – Shipbuilding – on repeat. The dark cloud that hung over her rained down, drenching her in melancholy. She thought about the ironic system that planned, allowed and paid for the destruction of souls. The system that had parents building ships on which their children were taken to their death. The system that bore the cost of her family’s case and supposed recovery – and seven years later was still paying out – yet next year, that same system would be sending that same child rapist back into the world to reoffend. It was a farcical strategy she couldn’t comprehend because once again – as if on a loop – it would facilitate the destruction of more souls. The system paid for everything, financially, but what it couldn’t meet was the cost on every other level – that was borne by Shelley and her family. For William, the price had been his life. It was nearly too high for Rita and though Shelley was adept at disguise, she knew in her marred heart that she couldn’t pay. Heroin bought her time, and heroin kept her from going under, but she’d begun to see heroin came with its own price. It was costing her more than money.
***
On King’s Road, between Ship Street and Middle Street, Shelley sat outside a cafe with her aunt and mother. She stared out to sea, breathing in the salty air carried across the road by the zephyr. In the clear sky, the sun looked powerful, but its looks were deceiving; the cool sea breeze weakened its warmth.
The grandeur of the Regency, white-stucco townhouses in Brighton reminded Shelley of Belgravia, which led her to think of The Lanesborough. For a couple of seconds, her breathing shortened until she remembered that was something she no longer needed to feel anything about. The guilt from that night was gone. If only the rest of the guilt she carried could vanish as rapidly. William had been burdened with guilt that wasn’t his too. He had nothing to feel guilty for. A voice in Shelley’s head told her she didn’t either. It sounded like Will’s voice – was he on the board? Although she could agree with him in her head, she couldn’t accept it in her heart.
Having eaten a croissant, she lit a cigarette to smoke with her coffee. She hoped the caffeine would make her feel more awake. She felt so exhausted in body and mind that if a bed was wheeled into the road, she could have lain down and slept in the bustling street.
“Are you ready, dear?” Rita asked Shelley.
“I don’t think so, Mum. But you feel ready, don’t you?”
“It’s something we’ve got to do, dear. We’ve got to stop living in the past.”
Shelley watched Aunt Elsie take Rita’s hand across the table. When Elsie turned to smile at her, Shelley saw there were tears in her eyes. “Are you okay, Auntie?” Shelley asked.
Elsie picked up a napkin from the table and dabbed the corners of her eyes. “It’s not a sad tear,” she said, “not completely. It’s healing for me being here. It’ll be healing for you too.” She shuffled her chair backwards then stood up, holding her bunch of pink carnations.
Rita got to her feet and as she picked up her bunch of flowers, she looked over to Shelley and gave her a knowing nod. Fighting against her instinct that told her to stay where she was, Shelley forced herself off the chair.
Carrying her pink carnations, Shelley crossed the road to the seafront with her aunt and mother. They sauntered along the promenade, heading towards the white, Victorian pier, which from a distance looked like a horizontally stretched and vertically challenged palace on stilts.
Behind a bus stop, Shelley noticed a break in the turquoise-painted balustrade that was separating them from the beach. They left the hard concrete and ambled down the slope to walk the rest of the way in the sand.
***
“We’re here,” Elsie said as she stopped walking, one-hundred yards or so from the pier. Although it was Rita and Shelley’s first time back since William had died, it wasn’t for Elsie. Shelley wanted to ask about her previous visits, but today she was stuck in the pattern of keeping things to herself. The questions she really wanted answered could not be asked. They would have been addressed to her mother, but as agreed with her aunt, she would hold off for a while.
They sat in a circle on the sand. In the empty triangle in the centre, Shelley laid her pink carnations on top of the other two bunches.
A white Alsatian, dripping wet and ignoring the recall of its owner, flicked sand and shook water over everyone in its path, including Shelley. She brushed the sand off her dress and cardigan, then lit a cigarette.
The beach wasn’t deserted as Shelley had pictured it every time she’d imagined being there. Disappointingly, her time reliving the past was disrupted by the people around her living in the present. There were families picnicking and there were couples frolicking. Children played noisily in the sea and on the sand, rattling buckets and spades, throwing balls, digging holes and making sandcastles as she and Will had done years earlier.
She stubbed the butt of her cigarette into the sand that was already rubbish-ridden with ice-cream wrappers, bottles, cans and plastic bags. Having removed her shoes, she stood up and took a deep breath. Her legs wobbled. Her knees felt near to giving way, but she managed to bend down, pick up her bunch of flowers and get herself back into an upright position.
Clutching the pink carnations to her chest, Shelley fixed her gaze on the horizon in front of her. She staggered across the sand towards the sea. Even though it was the sea that had taken her brother, she knew it wasn’t responsible for stealing him from her. The blame for that lay at the prison cell door, which contained the man their mother had met in Brighton at the end of that last summer holiday in 1983.
Waves brushed over her bare feet as she navigated her way across clusters of egg-shaped stones in the wet sand. At first, her clothes were only lightly splashed as she trudged out into the sea. As she walked deeper, the hem of her linen dress became drenched. Walking on, the arms of her long-sleeved cardigan were soaked up to the elbows.
She stopped once she was waist deep in the ocean. Her dress danced in the water. Standing perfectly still, she noticed the noise that had been dominating her ears suddenly sounded dulled down. Louder was Pink Floyd - Shine on You Crazy Diamond playing on the sound system in her head.
In the sea peopled with strangers, Shelley felt alone. Everyone around her appeared blurred. She was in her own world as if she’d crossed over into another dimension.
“I’ll never forget you,” she chanted, tossing the pink carnations, one at a time, into the sea.
She felt as though Will had walked through her. She shivered. Now he was standing beside her. With her hand in his, she watched the sun reflecting on the waves and her flowers, coax
ed farther out by the current, floating away on the sparkling surface.
54. The Uninvited Guest
When Shelley set off from her mother’s home back to her flat, it was six o’clock in the evening. Her clothes were still damp, her skin was itching, and a rash had come up on her chest. In an effort to dry herself, she set the heating to the hottest temperature at the highest power. Finding it hard to breathe, she kept her window ajar. With the air making so much noise, she cranked up Capital Radio because the air alone didn’t clear her thoughts.
She wanted to escape and America would have been far enough had she been able to go. A voice from the board reminded her that she could be there next summer if her mother was well enough. But really, as with everything else she might be able to do, it hinged on whether she was ready to let go of what Nicole called her coping mechanism, and what she preferred to call her crutch – because somehow that didn’t seem as bad – heroin.
There was a big part of her, probably most of her, that didn’t want to stop. She couldn’t imagine a life without it. Her mind needed to be cleaned out and the only way she knew how was with heroin. Heroin drained the bad memories, although it was only temporary and the whole solution brought with it a new set of demons.
Considering the strength her mother had shown today, Shelley wondered if the best way to clean a contaminated mind was to wash it and not to drain it. If reciting words that were not her own meant feeling better, then perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing. Earlier, her aunt had again suggested that she attend the bereavement support group and again, Shelley told her that she’d give it some thought, but in truth, she couldn’t imagine sitting in a room full of strangers talking about how she felt, which apparently was what they did.