Smack

by Melvin Burgess

  I began to see what she was on about. We started talking. It turned out she’s over a month gone already. We’ll have a baby in the house for Christmas.

  A baby.

  It means you have to live another life…

  You can see it, can’t you? Lily can’t be on smack while she’s got a little baby growing inside her. That wouldn’t be fair. And it’s not fair on her to do it all on her own. So, we’re all going to pack it in together, just like we’ve done everything together ever since we met. Out of solidarity to Lily. Out of solidarity to the baby.

  That’s how it happened. The change. Because it all started making sense. After about a couple of days no one could talk about anything else.

  Lily and Rob had already started making plans. He was gonna get a job and we were all going to move off the City Road, where, let’s face it, it’s pretty squalid. And Lil was coming off the game and she was gonna grow veg in the garden and keep chickens and everything.

  Lily’ll be its mother, of course, no one can be its mother and father except her and Rob, but the baby will belong to all of us. Rob and Tar are going to build a swing in the garden, a little one just for the baby. All right, it’ll be a while before it’s big enough, but still. And they’ve been out round the skips looking for a cot and all that sort of baby stuff. And Sally and me are going to knit—imagine! Me knitting!

  And the first thing—the big thing—we’re all going to give up smack. That’s it. It was good for a while. No, I don’t regret it, why should I? Okay, there’s been casualties, there always are. You walk across the road, there’s casualties. But now it’s gone on for too long. It’s time…we’ve all known that for a long time, it was just a question of the right thing, the right time. And now it’s come, courtesy of Lils, as usual.

  The way I look at it, I had a love affair—but now it’s over. Me and Junk, we’ve fallen out. It’s just so right that we all get led out of it by a little baby. You know? Like baby Jesus.

  A baby is different, isn’t it?

  I’m really looking forward to being clean again. It’s this weird thing with smack. First off it makes you feel so good. But after a bit, after your body gets used to it, it stops working like that. You start needing it just to stay normal. You know? So you wake up feeling disgusting because you’re coming down. So you do some and you feel okay, but that’s all you feel. It’s like medicine. You get like some old woman who has to take her pills in the morning in order to get through the day.

  So what you do then is take more and more and more, chasing that dragon, chasing that hit, chasing that feel-good feeling. You take more and more and more, and more often. Then you get sick of it and give up for a few days. And that’s the really nasty thing because then, when you’re clean, that’s when it works so well. That’s when you can take a hit and mmmmmmmmmmmm!

  We’ve all been talking about it and we’ve realised—we all feel the same way. I was getting scared. Rob and Lily do so much. Every day. Tar and me have days off, at least.

  Actually, though, Tar scares me, too. He’s got so cynical. You know Tar, he was always so delighted by things. He used to get so emotional about, I dunno—me, a flower, the stars out at night, it was all wonderful for him. These days he doesn’t care any more. I don’t understand him these days.

  I don’t feel that I’ve changed, except I feel so rotten a lot of the time. But he has.

  Sometimes I think I preferred him the way he used to be, almost. Not really, he used to get so upset, but…

  And the other thing is, he lies. About smack. You know? Like, we’ve run out, it happens from time to time. He tells me he has none left, and I think, Shit, that means coming down. But then he sneaks off and when he comes back he’s got eyes like glass, and I say, “You’ve just had some.”

  And he admits it. That actually happened the other day. He just sat there smiling and nodding, “Yeah, yeah, I had a bit…” And he starts explaining to me that he didn’t have enough for two and how if we’d shared it we’d both feel awful so he thought it would save a lot of trouble for both of us if he took it on his own. And he’s serious. He’s actually convinced himself that this is sensible behaviour and he gets really put out when I don’t agree.

  “You could have given it to me,” I said.

  And he said, “I could have done. But I didn’t.” And he smiles like a snake at me. Then he’s going on about how he’s got to go out and score some so he needs it more than me. I have to go and rub up old men at the parlour. Does he think that’s fun? Does he think I like that? Doesn’t he know I’d rather be out of it when I do that?

  But it doesn’t make any difference. He believes anything he tells himself. “I need it, Gems,” he says. Yeah.

  Imagine! A baby…Actually it’s made me go all broody. What if I got pregnant? We could bring them up together and they’d be really good friends just like me and Lily. I know you can’t tell how your kids are going to turn out but I really think we all live so close together they’d be bound to be friends. I’m sixteen now. I could go on the dole. I could pack my job in…

  That’d be nice. It’s started to get me down doing that job. I keep telling myself that it’s just a job, it’s easy money. It’s no worse than any other job. People have a prejudice about sex, but it’s just something you do with your body. I jolly myself into it. Sometimes I think, I’m here to make these people happy, and I do. On a good day I see these guys walk into the parlour looking like dogs and they walk out like princes. Let’s face it, they’d never get a girl like me if they couldn’t pay for it. But…well, it’s still a job, you know? I can think of better ways to be spending my time. It’s easy money, that’s all.

  I’m thinking I’ll stop doing tricks at work—I mean, full sex. It’d be up to me, you don’t earn as much but you can still do all right. Maybe when we’re all clean I’ll pack up altogether and have a baby, too.

  Did I tell you, Lily turned blue the other day?

  It was really frightening. We were all out in the back bedroom with the works. We were taking turns. There were some friends of ours in the front room, so after we’d done we went through to see them. Lily was last so she was on her own. I thought it was funny at the time because Lily is never last usually, when it comes to getting her smack.

  I only went back because I’d left my fags in there. She was lying on the bed and I thought she was asleep but she was this strange colour. Blue. I just stared; I didn’t realise what I was looking at until I saw the needle in her arm. Then I thought about what Tar said about Alan and Helen. The needle was still in, you see. There was a little blood had found its way into the works and…

  “Tar, Rob, Tar, Rob!” I screamed. I thought she was already dead. I jumped over and I hauled her upright on the bed. Then I remembered the blood in the works and that’s supposed to be really dangerous, you can get air in your bloodstream and if that little bubble gets round to your brain…So I tore the needle out quick and I ripped her arm doing it and this black blood oozed out of the hole. Black blood. I was thinking about Alan and Helen, I never thought it could happen to any of us. Rob came in, then Tar. She was getting bluer and bluer. Tar pushed her back on the bed because he wanted to press her heart, but Rob was pulling her upright; he had this feeling she ought to be upright. I started slapping her face, whack, whack, whack. Then she twitched.

  In the silence that followed she took two little sips of air. I could hear them. It was so shallow, her breath.

  We all stopped breathing then, I think. And so did she. I slapped her again and again and again and she took another breath, a deep shuddering one this time, and a little pink came into her face.

  Then we got her on her feet and started marching her round and round the room. She started to come round and she was muttering something. I was really terrified because—it was really strange this—I thought she had some message, you know, from the other side. Because she’d died, she’d stopped breathing, her heart had stopped. I had this awful feeling that she was com
ing back from the dead with some terrible message for us, like in a horror story. I really wanted them to put her down and just let her die…

  Then the words started getting clearer, and all it was was “Leave me alone, leave me alone…”

  She was all right after that. She began to come round. It was so weird because she was just normal. I mean, if I hadn’t gone back for another few minutes she’d have been dead. And here she was, just like Lily, normal.

  Later, when she came out of the smack a bit, she tried to make a joke out of it. “Live fast, die young,” Lily kept saying. But it just wasn’t funny. But what was weird, she was laughing. She found it funny. I honestly think she wouldn’t have minded dying. Like it was just another adventure.

  It turned out she’d stayed behind and had another little one. But the stuff was stronger than usual. We’d all been remarking on that in the front room while she was dying in the back room.

  The really awful thing was…I mean, the other awful thing was…You see, it was nearly two weeks ago, that. No one has said anything. I know, I know, it’s just a blob of jelly at this point, it isn’t a person or anything. But I still keep thinking of how whatever it is went blue inside her as well. It’d be dreadful if the baby wasn’t all right.

  I know I’m being stupid. She wasn’t out for long. It’s very early days. If anything is wrong she’ll probably miscarry or something. But it would be so dreadful. If she has a miscarriage I’ll think about that all the time.

  A baby! Imagine…

  Rob

  We were going to get Dev to drive us down, but that was too risky. He wasn’t giving anything up. Why should he?

  I haven’t got a licence, but I’ve been driving since I was a kid. I’m seventeen, I should take the test but…I’ve got better things to do, I suppose.

  The cottage belongs to a friend of Wendy. Wendy’s my mum. It’s a sort of holiday let, but this was April and it was a bit early in the season so it was a stroke of luck it was free that week. A whole week. Wendy used to take me there in the winter when I was a kid. At the time I’d been bored but now, when I thought about it, it was perfect. Miles from anywhere, beautiful countryside, no people, no hassle, no problems. They’d all fall in love with it. I was really looking forward to it myself. We drove along and I felt like I was taking them to another world.

  We’d finished off the last of our smack before we set out, and we had just a tiny little bit, a dab, just to get us to bed that night so in the morning we could start right from scratch. Barebrain riding, Lily called it. Riding life with nothing on…

  Tar was next to me, map reading. Lily and Gemma and Sal were larking about in the back. It was a great feeling, watching Bristol slip past. Getting on to the M4 and seeing the countryside. I don’t think any of us had seen the countryside for two or three years. Fields, space with no one in it. Trees.

  We were leaving everything behind. All the shit. The baby was the real magic spell and Lily was the witch who was making it. What does that make me? A magician, I suppose. It’s a bit like that. Me, a dad. With my magic wand.

  Gemma and Sals were really into it. Sal had been a bit doubtful at first, but now she was as keen as anyone. It was a real chance. She and Gems were already talking about having babies themselves.

  “It’s gonna be like a farm at this rate,” I said. And they all howled with laughter.

  I dunno. I know Lils better than any of them, see. This baby. Well, it’s part of life, isn’t it? Whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, babies, they just happen. But I wasn’t so sure how great it was going to be this time. I kept my mouth shut. Anyway, you never know. You never know with Lils, that much is true.

  They had a few spliffs and they were sitting in the back there singing the No More Song.

  No more needles

  No more for me

  No more needles

  Now I am free…

  And then giggling and nudging one another and beginning another one.

  No more punters

  No more for me

  No more punters

  ’Cause now I’m free-ee…

  The stuff they were giving up. I said, “You lot are going to give up your whole lives.”

  “Nah,” said Lils. “That’s the one thing I’m gonna keep, ’cause I’m too precious, I am…”

  Tar was, I dunno, not so up as the others. I was annoyed, because it wasn’t his baby and he could’ve been a bit more supportive. Lily was eyeing him up and I thought, She’s going to have a go at him later on unless he comes round a bit. He was going on about a lot of the stuff they give to babies in hospital—you know, when women go in to give birth they give them this to stop the pain, then they give them that to start the labour, something else to keep the baby breathing—I mean, half the world is drugged up at birth.

  I said, “I don’t think now’s the time to go on about that,” because it couldn’t make it any easier for Lily to pack smack in if he was telling her about all the crap they were going to fill her and her baby with in hospital. He glanced at me a bit resentfully but he kept his gob shut after that. He had a few joints but…he looked a bit anxious to me. We spent most of the time talking about the route.

  No more hand jobs

  No more for me-ee

  No more hand jobs

  ’Cause now I’m free-ee…

  We were all talking about how great it was to give up smack. I was watching, thinking, Who’s going to make it? Who’s going to make it?

  No more junkies

  No more for me-ee

  No more junkies

  Now I’m free

  It was dark when we got there. Griffin Cottage. When we got out of the car we stood for a bit on the grass.

  The dark and the quiet were so intense. It was like standing on a hill in outer space. You couldn’t see anything but you could feel how it went on forever and ever all round you…

  “It must be as dark as this all the way to the next star,” said Tar. Yeah. It was so dark the dark was like, filling it all up, as if it had been poured in. And there was nothing going on. No noise. If you held your breath there was nothing. That was so amazing after being in Bristol for all those years, because in Bristol you can always hear the cars buzzing away or the noise of people doing things. There was no one doing anything within twenty miles of here.

  I thought, Tomorrow I’m going to be able to do anything. I think we all felt like that.

  Inside was smaller than I remembered. This tiny sitting room and two bedrooms and the kitchen sort of tacked on the back. The toilet was an outside one. That part of Wales is like that—timeless. It was cold, it was colder inside than it was outside. There were a few logs left in the basket by the fire and me and Tar went out and got some more. We took it in turns chopping logs while the girls made some tea and got the stuff out of the car and tidied up a bit.

  Every time we swung the axe—thup, into the wood—you could hear the echo come back a few seconds later.

  I said, “It’s the mountains.” We peered into the darkness. We shone the light out down the hill but we couldn’t see a thing. It was too far off.

  I said, “They’re out there somewhere.”

  He said, “Standing around watching us.”

  I said, “Nah, they don’t take any notice of us.”

  He said, “Do you think they’re friendly?”

  I said, “Yeah, definitely friendly.”

  Whole mountains without a light on them. There were stars out, it was quite a clear night but there was no moon. We turned off the lamp and stood on the wet grass waiting for our eyes to acclimatise. But it was so dark they never did. We used the gaps in the sky where there were no stars to try and work out where the mountains were, but we couldn’t really do it. Those mountains had really hidden themselves well.

  “What do you think of it?” I said.

  “I could live here,” he said.

  I laughed. “You’d get bored. It used to drive me mad when I was a kid.”


  “No, no. I really love it here.”

  I said, “Be honest, you didn’t think much of this idea, did you?”

  We were standing next to each other. I could just make him out. This ghostly voice.

  He said, “I didn’t think anyone really wanted to.”

  I waited.

  “But I think now…maybe we can do it.” I could feel him looking at me. It was funny—I couldn’t see a thing but I could feel him. “What about you?” he asked.

  I laughed. “Oh, yeah. Well, we gotta, haven’t we? For Lils.”

  Personally I was determined to have a real go at it. I had a little package in my pocket no one knew about, and I almost thought about throwing it away, but I didn’t want to muck things up. I’m lousy at that coming down bit. I’m all right after that but I do need something to let me come down slowly. You have to find the best way of going about it. That little packet was right for me.

  We stood for a while breathing big long breaths of air. It was cold and pure, you could feel it falling down into your chest. You could feel it inside you, doing you good. Then we went in to light the fire.

  We all had our little dab and a bit to drink that night—not much, a couple of cans of Special Brew, because the last thing you want when you’re coming down is to wake up with a hangover.

  I got up early. I said to Lils, “Do you want a cuppa tea?” and she smiled yes. She looked so beautiful lying there in bed. I kissed her and went out into the kitchen.

  Tar and Gemma were already up, outside, drinking coffee. They called me to come and see and I went out.

  It was tremendous. This soft, cool, clear air and now you could see it all, miles and miles of it, mountains and hills and forest. There was a buzzard circling about. Little birds hopped about in the firs nearby. No one said anything. We just stared and sipped our drinks. Then I went to get Lily up and she sat on a pile of logs and we all just looked and looked. It was like soaking something up. I felt I could soak it up forever and never be full.