Drowning in the Shallow End

by Charlie Mellor

  This reasoning led at the end of 2002, to my next questionable decision – one which may also have been influenced by visits to clairvoyant Rubie Deramore. Sick to death of all the driving, the office politics and the never ending reorganisations, I handed in my notice from a well-paid, secure job and launched a small consultancy which specialised in providing learning and development services to local businesses.

  Initially, this was a time of great optimism. While I was concerned about money and where clients would come from; I had a real sense of purpose. Relying on our limited family savings, I worked tirelessly on this new project. With an empty diary and no bookings in sight, I woke early each morning and planned how to promote my services, how to package the programmes and how to attract potential customers. I was determined to give this my best shot and while I might not make a fortune; I’d at least have the satisfaction of knowing any achievement or failure was of my own making.

  As anyone who’s started their own business knows, self-employment provides a lot of freedom, but is at least as demanding as being employed by others. Year one, setting up the venture was therefore really full-on and while Pennie was never far from my mind, I was forced to ration the time I was spending with her. This was in part due to the conspicuous absence of her two foot-soldiers. Working from a Humberside base had made it much tougher to see Kirsty, who was no longer only a few miles from the office. Similarly impending fatherhood had convinced Allan of the need to stay closer to home so that Stacey could keep both of her big brown eyes on him.

  One full year into the business and I was confident I’d built a credible brand. The majority of the training courses were written, a website was built and the marketing literature designed. The only thing missing was a sufficient number of contracts to keep me gainfully employed for a full working week. I’d been warned this early period of self-employment was all about adjusting to a feast and famine cycle, but was beginning to wonder if the feasting would ever materialise. The excitement generated by this new enterprise had kept me focused for most of the year, but now with far too much free time on my hands and concerns about our depleted savings, it wasn’t long before my thoughts drifted back to my favourite obsession. Miss Fenton always loved an inactive mind.

  I was frightened of failure and scared by the possible humiliation of having invested in something which there may be little demand for. I was worried about letting Annie and our three children down; concerned that my actions had threatened all our financial security. Most of all, I was petrified by the overwhelming silence that not having a regular job presented. I’d walked away from ‘proper’ work, the social interaction, defined responsibilities and tangible rewards. All of a sudden I found myself in a situation, where if I didn’t keep really busy … I might end up hearing my own thoughts and be forced to address all those memories I’d buried so deeply. Without all the other distractions to occupy my mind, I might have to face myself. Confronted by a seemingly unsurpassable mountain of doubts, the siren’s call became much more compelling.

  My response to her call was to turn swiftly towards the nearest person I knew who could satisfy my insatiable cravings.

  The pattern was always the same. Middle of the day I would abandon my half-hearted attempts to look for new clients, turn the answer phone on and then travel all the way over to York. Arriving at Kirsty’s front door, ready to greet her as she arrived back from work, I’d half-listen to the stories about her day at work, as she set about rolling a cheeky spliff. After we’d smoked this first one, I would begin an unremitting campaign to convince my sister to give me a freebie or two for later. Then, triumphantly clutching a couple of ready-rolled for the evening ahead, I’d spin the car around and travel all the way back to Scunthorpe – head still buzzing. Each of these discretionary trips back over to Yorkshire took the best part of half a day and a quarter tank of fuel. It was ninety minutes there, an hour for a smoke or two and then another ninety minute drive home. On the return leg, I continued with old routines, staring anxiously in my rear mirror just in case I was being followed by the police. All for the love of Pennie.

  I shielded Annie and the kids from the fact that I had only one client who was providing me with any regular work, because it meant I had the freedom to replicate these trips to see my sister as many as five times a week. It wasn’t the most rewarding period of my life, but at least this groundhog-day existence did stop me having to think about just how little work I was managing to secure. Most morning-afters would start in the same way: feeling weary and unable to concentrate, promising myself I wouldn’t go over again. Unable to purify my misfit ways, I’d complete a bit of work in a feckless manner during the morning, but by lunchtime would be climbing the walls again. Inevitably, by early afternoon, I’d engineer some novel way to scrape enough money together for some fuel and then start sending a series of repetitive texts to Kirsty – pleading with her to let me travel the one hundred and fifty mile round trip, in order to scrounge a couple of spliffs. By mid-afternoon I was completely unable to concentrate, transfixed on my phone, hoping and praying for a reply to the series of begging messages I’d sent. I had no pride, no dignity.

  This went on for months. I was totally unable to build my business because I was never around. Kirsty was getting pissed off with me hassling her all the time and Annie was becoming concerned that our family savings were running out. She’d tolerated me smoking a couple of spliffs in an evening so long as the kids were upstairs asleep, because she knew all the gear I was smoking was free gratis. However when we started to look at devising a household budget it became clear that the biggest drain on our financial reserves was now the cost of all the fuel being used for trips to York. No longer in receipt of a company car, I hadn’t appreciated the ongoing running costs associated with owning your own vehicle. Brilliant – I’d successfully turned my back on a developing career because I was spending too much time on the road, only to put myself in a poorly-paid, unstable position where I was choosing to throw all of my meagre income away on petrol, travelling right back to the very place I was once based.

  It was Allan who suggested it would be much more sensible for me to buy small quantities of resin to keep at home for whenever I needed it.

  “I always have a little bit of blow put away these days – it’s so much easier than scrabbling around trying to scrounge it from other people. My advice would be to find yourself a reliable source so you never have to worry about where your next spliff is coming from.” he said.

  “It’s a great idea – a bit like ‘a Pennie for a rainy day’,” I said laughing, “I know buying my own would save hours going back and forth to see Kirsty, but I’m not sure how I’d cope having such easy access to all that gear,” I replied.

  “Just do what I do mate, ration yourself to a couple of spliffs on a week night, then treat yourself to a massive blow-out at the weekend if you fancy it.”

  “That’s great if you have the will-power you do Allan, I just reckon I’d end up shit-faced every single night.”

  “Mmm, I can see where you’re coming from. What about if you got Annie to hide it for you – she’s is pretty cool about these things, so if you asked her to limit what you were allowed each night, you’d never be able to overindulge. That way everybody would be happy.”

  “How do you work that out?” I asked.

  “Well, Annie and your kids would see more of you, because you wouldn’t be over in York all the time; you would be more chilled because you wouldn’t ever have to go without again; your mates wouldn’t get pissed off with you for always cadging off them...”

  “But… it would mean that I’d have to start paying for it though.”

  “So what Charlie, gear is much cheaper than alcohol. Anyway with what you’ve told me about all the petrol you’re using going to see your sister, you’d probably end up making money.”

  “What?”

  “Think of it in commercial terms. I reckon the cost of supply is going to be much less than the amo
unt you’re spending on fuel each week. Listen, buy the gear, stop wasting your time on the road, and then put Annie in charge of it. Everyone wins.” he emphatically concluded.

  It was a convincing argument.

  When I met Flick she was in the process of building a conservatory onto her already sizable property. The divorced mother of two didn’t match any of the stereotypical images I had of an average drug dealer. While she lived on benefits and as far as I knew had never actually worked, she managed to maintain a very comfortable existence for herself and her two daughters. Looking more like an affluent footballer’s wife ‘who likes to lunch’, rather than an unemployed pusher, she was both personable and eloquent. Best of all, she had no problem getting her well-manicured hands on copious amounts of gear. More often than not this would be high concentration, freshly harvested weed.

  For a few months I bought masses of the stuff. Her produce provided a very different smoking experience to the resin I’d been used to. No oily blocks to crumble, instead all you had to do was make sure the little pointy leaves were sufficiently dried-out prior to rolling and that you stored them in an airtight container. The right storage unit was critical, because these recently matured plants were extremely pungent. This meant that instead of using an empty matchbox to conceal one little nugget of borrowed resin, I now needed to find a large airtight Tupperware container to store all my booty.

  My dealings with Flick weren’t exactly akin to the French Connection, but I was aware of the need to be discreet about our transactions. As I saw more of her, Flick introduced me to the various small-time suppliers she was working with. All unpleasant little toe-rags on the make, usually wayward youths who probably regarded me as some kind of cash machine. A couple of times I was asked where I lived and what time I went to work.

  “To make it easier to get a bag of weed over to you mate.” But I always avoided divulging details, to prevent what I thought was a strong possibility of being robbed by these untrustworthy little tossers.

  With such a bountiful supply from Flick and her nefarious associates, I began smoking more and more frequently. I was drained and emotionally flat, but persevered with all the zeal of Fortinbras’ army. The impact of losing the support of Mum and Stuart, two of the most important people in my life had of course worked to Miss Fenton’s advantage. Without their guidance, I was increasingly dependent on my controlling desire, the one thing which was preventing me from coming to terms with losing them both.

  Annie resigned herself to letting things run their course, believing that ultimately they would right themselves. She recognised I had little else to rely on other than herself and Pennie and was prepared to bide her time for as long as was necessary. It is incredible she put up with so much for so long. Somehow the three of us found a way to make it work. Looking back I can see that the two of them were actually complete opposites. One appealed to the good in me, the other the bad. While my wife was open and warm by nature, Pennie turned out to be cryptic and cold. Annie was about as poisonous as a new born baby, while Pennie on the other hand... Because of these variations, Pennie and Annie never became best buddies, but neither were they outright adversaries. Instead they remained as they always had, carefully tolerant of each other – perhaps both a little intrigued by my fascination with the other.

  Because Annie hadn’t smoked cigarettes for years I’d invariably leave her to her own devices while I retreated into the playroom with Madame Fenton for most of the night. A married couple sitting in different parts of the house every evening didn’t make sense. We therefore agreed to make an effort to spend time together midweek, watch some telly and enjoy a little wine once the kids were in bed. I’d pop into the playroom a couple of times for a crafty smoke, then come back and join Annie. Everyone was happy. It worked remarkably well for almost a year with both of us having tremendous fun, laughing and joking as we enjoyed each other’s company. It was like our own private party. The only problem was these trips into the playroom picked up from once or twice a night, to five or six times; sloshed down with as many glasses of vino. As Annie was matching me drink for drink; we were both totally knackered by the end of the week. This roller coaster ride went on for over a year, by which time Annie needed just that little more wine, I needed just that little bit more time with Pennie, until eventually the effects of both depressants were increasingly fleeting.

  By this stage it was practically impossible to estimate just how much spliff I was able to consume. Given the resources available to me, I was capable of making famous stoner Howard Marks look like a beginner. No one could keep up. Okay, it wasn’t the same kind of drugs hell as Keith Richards ‘speedballing’ on a blend of heroin and cocaine; but the mental dependency Pennie peddled was just as real, just as overwhelming. I abandoned all else in favour of it, rejecting the needs of others and myself because of this obsession.

  As with any addiction, I needed to increase my intake to chase the same kind of high I’d once achieved. This meant I was spending a spectacular amount of money on my habit. Visits to see Flick were costing between eighty and one hundred pounds a time. Even though I had somehow managed to attract a few more regular clients of late, this was still a lot of cash. My little stash of ‘rainy day supplies’ which would once have lasted me three to four weeks was now being smoked within a week and a half. At one point I calculated I was spending more on Pennie than on our mortgage. She really was an expensive model to run. On the rare occasions where I felt I had plenty of stash hidden in the cupboard, I’d sometimes treat myself by removing any tobacco from the spliff and instead pack as many of the elephantine leaves that could possibly be squeezed into one giant sized Rizla. Maybe elephantine was the best way of describing these soporific spliffs, as they probably contained enough THC inside them to tranquilise a large animal.

  After a full week of smoking increasingly strong joints, my brain was so addled I would begrudgingly be forced to take a night off. When this happened, my mind actually felt like it caught up with itself, however my body, still craving all the chemistry it was accustomed to, screamed from within to get some more inhaled as soon as it could. Pennie’s few remaining followers in the area would all complain about the strength of my bulbous roll-ups, yet I soldiered on, falsely believing the stronger they were, the greater the high. My goal was always to get so totally annihilated that I’d achieve some kind of epiphany where everything would finally make sense and I would at last be at peace with myself. This was the promise Pennie whispered in my ear each night before I either collapsed on the sofa or crawled my way up to bed. Of course this apocalyptic discovery was never realised – it was just another justification made by a long-term stoner struggling to account for his long-term cravings. Out of all the mind altering substances available in the world, here I was, drowning in the shallowest end of available highs.

  The variant of weed I was smoking at this time was manufactured in local lofts, chemically manipulated to increase the active THC levels in the plant. It was an accelerated method known to significantly increase the risk of psychosis and paranoia among users. Before long I began to suffer minor mood swings on days I smoked less and became increasingly anxious if there was the slightest possibility I wouldn’t be able to get hold of Pennie. Possessed by my overpowering desire, I behaved like a crack-addict, sacrificing almost anything for one more decent spliff. Physically and mentally fixated, I’d purchase whatever paltry amounts I was offered, at whatever inflated price, just to keep me going.

  Smoking had become a chore, an unpleasant shabby secret which brought me into contact with a number of toe-rags for whom I had no regard whatsoever. Many deals fell through, others were delayed and both these situations would create an inner tension which filled my days. If I received a text saying Flick had picked up even the tiniest amount, I’d interrupt the delivery of a training course, make my excuses and dart round to pick up whatever morsels she could offer. To be frank driving all the way over to Yorkshire to see Kirsty, cadging two or three splits
and then driving all the way back home was probably preferential to the position I now found myself in.

  I won’t go into all the down-sides and indignities of my dependency, but needless to say there were plenty of times I was a mess. Since Annie usually went to bed before me, I’d often conclude a heavy solitary smoking session collapsed on a downstairs floor, unable to move as the rest of the family slept upstairs. Abusers efficiently construct defences like the Germans build cars and, like all addicts, I lied to myself and others to achieve my own aims. One of the biggest lies adopted by many addicts is the one they tell themselves about creativity. This was a personal favourite. It was linked to the ‘my habit helps me make a living and provide for my wife and kids’ line. Without the (supposed) innovative thinking which dope facilitated, I told myself, I’d be unable to think laterally enough to generate the astonishingly inventive training courses I needed, to run my business. Self-serving crap. It made EVERYTHING harder. In a few short years I’d become acutely un-curious and was no longer capable of looking beyond the solution which required least effort.