by Self, Will
It wasn’t necessary to tell Natasha what the family’s plans for her were – that much they knew. Natasha and Lily had been like the two weighted balls on a gaucho’s bolas, hurtling through space, revolving around themselves, tangling savagely in the running legs of the world. With Lily gone, Natasha was simply thrown.
Dr Steel had Natasha’s number all along; his very steeliness was itself a psychic scalpel with which to excise tumours of false, junky emotion. ‘She can take up a bed at the Royal Free and get a detox,’ he told the Elverses; ‘there’s one available at the weekend. But she’ll be discharged within a fortnight and go straight back to using – that I can, unfortunately, guarantee. Or else you could consider putting her in a treatment centre.’
‘Would that work?’ Charlotte asked, as if contemplating a new accounting system for the business.
‘It might – it might not. Your mother’s death should’ve broken through some of her denial, put her in a more receptive state.’
‘How long would she need to be there for?’
‘Well, as far as I know the primary-care programme lasts around eight weeks, then they might let her out if she had a stable environment to go to, but she doesn’t, does she?’
Charlotte pictured her sister’s environment. It wasn’t so much not stable as fragmented like a refugee camp bombed by the Israeli air force. Five bin-bags full of dirty laundry at Miles’s, three at Russell’s, two at Lily’s flat, one at Cumberland Terrace. Natasha had no money, no abode, no prospects. Her job at Hackney Dogs had indeed gone there. Her habit had become a skilful practitioner of negative arbitrage, talking her out of everything she – and significant others – had. ‘Erm . . . no, not exactly.’
‘Well, they’d probably want her to stay in for a secondarycare programme as well. All in all you could expect her to be away for six months.’
Charlotte heard this as ‘you could expect to be rid ofher for six months’, and resisted the impulse to whoop and holler, because: ‘She’ll never agree, Dr Steel. Never.’
‘She might if you shock her into acceptance, confront her forcibly with the reality of what she’s done – of how her behaviour is affecting you all. What’s her boyfriend’s name?’
‘Miles.’
‘Is he an addict?’
‘No – but he’s pretty spineless.’
‘What I mean is – will he back you up on this?’
‘Yes, he’ll do that . . . But there’s another boy – man – she’s involved with. He’s dangerous – a drug dealer, a criminal.’
‘Is she in contact with him?’
‘I think so.’
‘Well, I don’t know what you can do about that, but what I can organise is an interview with the admissions people from the centre – ‘
‘We’ll never get her there.’
‘That’s all right – they’ll come to you. To be blunt, Mrs Elvers, they need the sale.’
Sale – a word Charlotte understood. ‘How much is this likely to cost?’
‘That’s something you’ll need to discuss with their people, but from what I understand . . . if she completes a full programme . . . not far shy of six thousand.’
‘Six grand!’
‘I know, it’s a lot, but the DHSS will pay a proportion. Mrs Elvers . . . it may not be too tactful, but your mother – Lilydid she leave anything for Natasha?’
Charlotte pressed the plastic squares of inner calculation, a thing she was good at. ‘Um . . . yes, well, she could afford it, not that I’ll let her know she’s paying. I’ll get a power of attorney if necessary. Fortunately I alone am my mother’s executor – she wasn’t altogether a fool in such matters.’
‘So it seems.’
The people from Pullet Green, the treatment centre, arrived with sinisterly avaricious promptitude the very next day. But they had the disconcerting honesty to explain themselves to Charlotte Elvers at once. In the hall. ‘We have a waiting list who want to come in on state-assisted beds, but we can’t afford to take them unless they’re subsidised by full-payers. And those are in short supply,’ said Irene Theakston, a dumpy presence with frilly blonde curls, a neat blue suit, and brown moles on her face and neck, so heavy they hung down, like tiny dewlaps.
Her companion was a vigorous young man in his early thirties with beaky features, who wore a most unfashionable, green nylon jacket, even duller brown trousers, and neverbeen-on–deck shoes. He introduced himself as ‘Peter Landon, I’ll be doing the admissions interview with . . .’ – he cumbrously consulted a file he withdrew from a briefcase of achingly sensible utility – ‘. . . Natasha?’
‘That’s right.’ Charlotte was taken aback. Natasha would eat this one alive and spit his bones out all over the carpet. More mess. She hadn’t known what to expect of the Pullet Green people, but surely not these two, who looked recently cashiered from the Jesus Army. Strangely, Landon intuited Charlotte’s scepticism. ‘I do admissions because I look soft but can act tough. Two cops in one if you like. Not, ha-ha!’ – he laughed abruptly – ‘that I’ve ever had much to do with law enforcement – except on the receiving end.’
Charlotte arched her brows in query.
‘I was a major cocaine-trafficker for ten years – I found recovery in jail. All of our counselling staff are recovering addicts and alcoholics, so, I hope we know whereof we speak.’
‘I see,’ said Charlotte, now entirely flummoxed. ‘Would you . . . like some tea?’
‘Coffee, if you have it,’ said Irene Theakston. ‘I’ll handle the boring, administrative stuff with you, while Peter takes his gloves off.’
Landon meanwhile had withdrawn a two-inch-square yellow paper sachet from his briefcase. ‘Just some hot water for me, please – I’ve brought my own tisane. No caffeine, you see – I find it too speedy.’
The preceding night Dr Steel’s suggested intervention had taken place. The Elverses and Miles stood round the beddy mess where Natasha lay, and hit her first with their anger – why did she behave like this, the lying, the stealing, the cheating, the abuse? – and then with their love. Didn’t she understand how much they cared? How much they wanted to help her get better? That there was some hope. But only if . . . only if . . . only if . . .
They succeeded in wearing her down, but all sensed it would be temporary. They got her agreement at least to speak to the Pullet Green people. Miles’s sole contribution was to withhold her evening potions for a few minutes – he had no stomach for intervention. He’d never intervened in anything in his life; if a self-sealing envelope wouldn’t seal – he’d cry. Richard didn’t do too much of the intervening either. He did dislike Natasha and wish her ill, but only on principle. Only because she so distressed the sister he loved. And anyway, Richard had another kind of intervention ahead of him that evening, one he suspected he’d enjoy rather more.
Richard put on his old jean jacket from his Kenny Market days. He drove north with casual finesse. He parked the big, blue Mercedes in the alleyway behind Kentish Town Road and got a stainless-steel Big Chief baseball bat out of the trunk. There were hidden sides to Richard Elvers, sides that included intimidating rival card-shop proprietors in the provinces. He mounted the steps to the rear entrance above the bookie’s, and leant the bat between two bins. He knocked with all due respect, in the way he imagined an addict might knock – ‘rap-t’-tap-tap’.
With disconcerting abruptness a tough, full-bodied, Cockney voice enquired from within, ‘Oozethere?’
‘I’m a friend of Natty’s,’ Richard replied in a wheezy voice.
‘Wotchew after?’
‘This and that,’ said Richard, hoping this was sufficiently vague.
It was. The door swung open. ‘Wot this? Wot that?’ The speaker had to be Russell. He was both better– and tougher-looking than Richard had suspected. Around six foot, with black shoulder-length hair, and more black hair lying flat on his hard head. His nose was hooked, his eyes heavy-lidded, his complexion olive. He wore a loose black sweat suit, with Olympic rings
embroidered over the left breast and upper thigh. What, Richard wondered, could Russell possibly be working out for? The two-metre sprint to the ashtray? Miniature-javelin throwing – into the vein? Or perhaps the one-gram smacklifting contest?
Over Russell’s shoulder Richard could make out, moving in the dark interior, another large shape which emanated dangerous energy. ‘Who is it, Russ?’ the shape challenged from the shadows.
Richard edited the Big Chief baseball bat from the framethis would require a more flexible incentive. ‘I’ve got a message from Natty’ – he addressed the shadowy shape as well as the war bonnet in the doorway – ‘and some money for you, a debt?’
‘Oh really – Natty’s gonna pay ‘er wedge, is she, wonders’ll never cease. You’d better come in.’
Russell stood back a half-pace, allowing Richard space only to insinuate himself in the manner of a table being manoeuvred around a corner. His belt buckle snagged against the door; he felt his vulnerability as intensely as a chilly plunge. The contrast with the smoky airlessness of the flat completed the reverse sauna. The flat was also the size of a sauna. A corridor long enough for a five-year–old to turn a somersault in led to a narrow room with shelving units on all four walls the kind featuring half-size supermarket baskets suspended from vertical tracks. These had been screwed in from floor to ceiling. Each of the baskets – there must’ve been near to seventy – was prominently labelled with Dymotape: ‘SOCKS’, ‘PANTS’, ‘CASSETTES’, ‘DHSS’ and so forth. This smudging of exteriority and interiority was as deranging for Richard as the fussy orderliness, the heat and the claustrophobia.
The only other door in the room – which must lead to still tinier apartments – was blocked by the bulky presence of a portly middle-aged man. He was bald save for a horseshoe of brownish furze, wore a white T-shirt, the trousers from a long-since dismembered suit, and a scowling mien on his crushed, Gladstone face. He would almost have looked comical were it not for the fact that in his pudgy hand he held a long-barrelled revolver. Next to the man was a crappy little kitchen table, and on top of this were a set of electronic scales and two square pieces of plastic, one featuring a miniature beige slag heap, the other a milky-white one.
‘Is that real?’ Richard asked, nodding at the gun barrel which wavered over the rucked surface of thin, stained carpet. He had no idea why he’d had the temerity to come out with this – it hardly seemed diplomatic.
The pigskin-faced man, however, took it in excellent part. ‘Heurgh-herg,’ he gurgled, ‘nah – not exackery – s’won of them replicas. But you can file out the guard they weld across the front, an’ put in a real firing pin – then they work, sort of.’
‘Oh,’ Richard replied.
‘I know a bloke who’s dead handy with his file,’ the man warmed to his theme, ‘so I’ve got meself quite a number of these . . .’ – the barrel described a gestural figure of eight, like a steely index finger – ‘. . . replicas.’
Russell came into the room, and then there were three big bears in the little house of knick-knacks. Russell sat down on one of the plastic office chairs by the crap kitchen table. His body was a jerky toy which contained an eccentric Inner movement. He pushed up the cuff of his track-suit trousers, disclosing the top of a high-performance track shoe and a white padded sock. He withdrew from his pocket a flat plastic case, and from that a one-millilitre diabetic’s syringe, already primed. He administered the fix with Dr Steel-y efficiency, the bunched cloth and the angle of his crossed-over leg serving as a tourniquet. He flushed the works in a mug of water on the table, replaced them in the case, and replaced that in his pocket. He began to wrap the wraps of cocaine and heroin, while speaking. ‘So, Tiny Tony . . . this is . . .?’
‘Richard,’ said Richard, oddly fortified by Russell’s grotesque performance.
‘Charmed,’ said Tiny Tony, offering Richard his left hand. They clasped.
‘Richard’s come to pay back that dozy cow’s debt – issatso, Richard?’
‘Erm . . . yes, yeah – that’s right.’
‘So you’re givin’ her one, are you?’ Russell looked up from his task at Richard and gave him a glance of malevolence mixed with sympathy. Tiny Tony gurgled with evil merriment.
‘Err . . . no-no, not at all – I’m her brother-in–law.’
‘Okeydokey, brother-in-law, are you. Hard to imagine Natty having anything so legit, the moody bitch. Well, whaddya gonna give me then, brother-in-law?’
Miles had managed to screw out of Natty the approximate figure. Richard drew out a wallet from the inside pocket of his jean jacket; an incongruously large wallet, with double rows of plastic credit-card holders, set like teeth in its leather mandibles. From this he began neatly peeling pale-purple twenties, dealing them out on to the tabletop, next to Russell’s fussing hands. Richard did this ‘rather well, in keeping with prevailing gangster chic. There were hidden depths to Richard Elvers all right.
Tiny Tony kept count in a whistling undertone: ‘Twenny, for’y, sixty, eigh’y, ton, ton-twenny, ton-for’y, ton-sixty, toneigh’y, two tons – ‘
‘Oi – hold up!’ Russell had finished bandaging the bindles of smack and coke with clingfilm, and they lay like small packages of meat between his lean hands. ‘Thass double what she owes – what gives brother-in-law.’
Richard sighed, aware suddenly of the unpleasantness of the atmosphere in the room – a stench of hostility as rank and as palpable as shit. On the floor beneath the table a radio receiver hissed, then squawked, ‘A37, TDA in progress . . .Royal College Street . . . Request backup.’ ‘Roger Control . received . . . on our way.’ And then went silent. The two drug dealers didn’t appear to notice it. ‘Yes,’ said Richard, ‘it is. But I’d like you to do something for me . . .’ He went on adding more notes to the stack on the table, and as he did so continued, ‘. . . or rather, not do something. You see, we’re putting Natasha into treatment, or rehab, or whatever it’s called, and I know that you’re the only person who’ll carryon giving her drugs – who could stop her going. I want you to keep away from her until she’s out of town – ‘
‘Wot!’ Russell expostulated. ‘You want me to go away – I can’t do that! I’ve got the business – ‘
‘No-no, I’m not expecting you to go anywhere. All it is is don’t answer the phone or the door to her. Don’t let her have any drugs – she can’t pay for them anyway. Don’t see her . . .’ Catching Russell looking at him with dangerously beaten, narrowed eyes, Richard pressed on, ‘Look, her mother died a few days ago, and well, I think it’s the right time for her . . . psychologically I think she might actually give up . . . with treatment . . . you wouldn’t begrudge her that – would you?’
A siren whooped down Kentish Town Road, towards the room full of insincere men, and Richard’s eyes slid involuntarily to the window, framed by Russell’s basket-case belongings. Through a vertical sliver betwixt blind and frame, Richard could just make out the roof of the speeding police car, with ‘A37’ blazoned on it, as if for his eyes only. ‘Fucking good, these scanners,’ said Tiny Tony, who was positioned in such a way as to have a better view of the roadway and the rushing vehicle, ‘you set ‘em off an’ they run right frew the filth’s frequencies – over an’ over – only stop when they pick up a ca – ‘
‘I don’ – I-I don’ . . .’ Russell broke in on Tiny Tony’s hissed patter with his own request for backup, his own emergency squawk, ‘I don’ begrudge her – who fucking would . . . Richard . . . who wouldn’t want out of . . . of this.’ One of his lean hands flipped over, and fell open on the table to grasp the pathetic tininess of the situation – the drugs, the thugs, the paranoia-receiver underneath it.
Richard took the profound risk of looking Russell full in the eyes and saw there things he undoubtedly shouldn’t have. Self-pity, certainly, but also shame. Monstrous self-obsession without doubt – but also a kind of loving. Russell’s eyes had large hazel irises, with browner lines spearing them – pretty eye tie-dyes. His pupils were ine
xistent. Russell’s eyes burned with anger and welled with tears, as if an internal, emotional sprinkler system had been activated. Richard hurriedly broke contact, allowed his own gaze to waver away over the Dymotaped labels: ‘SHIRTS’, ‘BOOKS’, ‘NAT’S STUFF’. Nat’s stuff? Was it the case that this pair were that well integrated? That much of a storage unit?
‘Yeah well, hreugh, yeah,’ Russell snuffled, ‘I won’t speak to her, then – but you – you’ – he leant forward and caught Richard’s forearm, held it with pincer fingers, and in that moment the dim light in the flat seemed to intensify, the swirling smoke to eddy and clear, the hissing scanner to fall silent – ‘make sure you tell me where she is once she’s gone, right? You’ll do that, right? I’ll want to . . . I’ll want to write to her, call her . . . and stuff.’ Richard saw that the fingernails that clamped him were bitten into recession, and that the lean hands were really swollen sausage meat. He saw the track marks that wormed over the backs of those hands. And Russell saw that he saw. Then he turned back to the table, began unwrapping one of the packets he’d only just bound into its clear winding sheet.
A voice which was self-preservation spoke in Richard’s head: ‘You’d better leave.’ He turned away abruptly, walked the few paces necessary to take him to the front door. Neither of the men in the room made any motion as he undid the chain, undid the two mortise locks, flipped the catch on the Yale. As he was closing the door, Richard saw that Tiny Tony was lifting the purple fan of notes from the table. The fat thug looked at Richard and nodded curtly, as if to say, ‘Cut out the middle man, yeah.’ Then the door was closed. Richard retrieved his baseball bat from between the bins, not altogether certain who’d been struck out by whom.