Junk

by Julia Eccleshare

The first thing was coming down off the methadone. I’d been on a script for over a year. They put me on twenty-five mil and I’d come down a few mil a week, but of course I was using all the time as well. Well, not all the time. A lot of the time I was selling the methadone to buy smack; you get plenty of methadone users, too. Then I’d have a binge and tell the doc to put me back up to twenty-five or thirty. But in the last weeks before my case came up I was doing quite well. It was something to focus on, I suppose. I was thinking: don’t use needles, stick to chases if you have to, do your best not to take any at all. And I did all right considering I’d been in such a huge mess in the months leading up to it. I managed to get by without any junk at all in the last week, and that’s not bad because you can imagine how tempting it was – the last fling, make myself feel better, you know…

  So coming down was the first thing and it was awful. Coming off methadone is worse than coming off junk. It really makes you feel bad. They’re crazy, because that’s what they give you to come off heroin – something that’s even more addictive and worse to come off. The only reason they give it to you is because you don’t get the same hit. It’s not fun. It’s medicine so it can’t be nice. It’s bonkers, really.

  I spent a few hours rolling around groaning in my cell and they let me go to the pharmacy. I was in a horrendous mess – sweating this horrid yellow juice that stung and aching, and my teeth with this toothache that kept jumping from tooth to tooth.

  I explained to the nurse what I needed and she just laughed at me.

  ‘We don’t have methadone in here, David.’ Stupid git that I am, my heart actually leapt. I thought, Yeah, they’re going to give me a diamorphine script – that’s the real stuff. You don’t get it any purer than the hospital gets it.

  ‘But I need something…’

  ‘You’ll live,’ she said.

  I waited a few seconds as it began to dawn on me that the heartless bitch was going to give me nothing. My teeth started screaming in horror.

  ‘You don’t understand –’

  ‘I don’t suppose I do. But I do know we don’t give methadone to heroin users in a young offender institution.’

  I said, ‘Some Valium.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Something,’ I croaked. She pulled a face and went to the medical cabinet and broke off a couple of tabs which she handed to me.

  ‘Two Paracetamol?’ I said. I couldn’t believe it. I thought, Doesn’t she know anything?

  I tried to be patient and explain to her. ‘Two Paracetamol won’t do anything to me. I’m a big user, I need something a little bit stronger…’ I smiled encouragingly at her, which wasn’t easy when your bones are trying to break themselves up in your body. She’d just about had enough.

  ‘I’ve got a lot of people to see…’

  I stood there staring at my miserable two tabs of headache pills until the screw pushed me back outside.

  I was horrified. Two Paracetamol! It was monstrous. It had to be against the Geneva Convention or something. I mean, locking you up, I could understand that, maybe even electrodes up the bum. But giving me just two Paracetamol in the middle of methadone comedown was inhuman.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ I said to the screw as he slammed the door in my face. The thud of it went right through my spine; I thought it was going to snap in twenty different places.

  ‘Have a nice time,’ he told me. And they just left me there.

  I’d have escaped. I’d have committed murder. I broke the Paracetamol into four halves and took a half then and saved the rest for later. When that’s all you have to get you through, you might as well go for the placebo effect. I even ground one of them up and snorted it, but that wasn’t much good either.

  That’s the way it works. You’ll eat shit or go in the ring for ten rounds with Mike Tyson – slave, hero, rent boy, pimp, master of the universe – you’ll do whatever you have to do to get your next hit.

  Looking back – some of the things we were doing. Rob was cottaging – you know? Selling sex to homos in the public toilets. Lily went mad when she found out, it totally did her head in. It was all right her doing it at home, but him doing it with men – she just went ape, running around screaming and crying. Me, I was nicking stuff. Not from the shops; I’d lost the bottle for that ages before. From Gemma, from Rob, from Lily. Anyone. I’d turn up late at a friend’s house, stay late, ask if I could stay and then get up in the night and sneak about opening drawers and digging around in cupboards and coat pockets.

  Gemma was the only one who seemed to be getting better. She stopped doing jumps at the parlour. She was a heavy user, though. She was using as much as me, I reckon, and I was using a lot. And then, of course, she broke out. Trust Gemma.

  There was all hell that night when the pigs turned up. Everyone knew, somehow. Lily was screaming at me, ‘Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!’ as if Gemma was sort of a part of me. Actually I had a pretty good idea it was going to happen. I didn’t know about the baby till much later, but Gemma had been going on about Lily using and having a baby, I think that really shocked her. I heard her going out of the front door that night and I knew all her clothes were in the bedroom, so it had to be something pretty weird. And she didn’t come back.

  I lay there and I thought, Is this it? I just lay there. I thought I’d find out soon enough.

  They hauled us all in. Me and Rob took the rap, or tried to. Lily tried to implicate Gemma but it didn’t wash.

  ‘It’s that bitch who rang you up – she did, didn’t she? It’s all hers, we’re just living here…’ Standing there in the middle of the floor in her short nightie with her beautiful legs all covered in needle bruises… yeah.

  They’re both in care now. I’m the only one who got a custodial sentence. Lily and Rob didn’t even see the light of day, they never even got bail because they were considered to be so much at risk. Lily went with the baby into one detox centre, Rob went into another. Then straight into separate rehab centres. And there they are now, eight months later. Gemma says they’ll be moving into halfway houses in a few months. I don’t suppose either of us’ll ever see them again. Actually the comedown could have been worse. Like the nurse said, there was nowhere I could go and score. Well, that’s not strictly true. You can get any kind of drug in prison, it’s a user’s paradise, but of course I didn’t know that at the time. The thing was, I didn’t have that awful feeling – all I have to do…

  Then I was depressed. I never was so depressed. Not much to say about that except I got through it. That’s one thing about being inside, you get through it, whatever it is, because you don’t have any choice. Gemma came in to visit me and I didn’t tell her how I was feeling. I just said I was keeping my head down, getting on with it, doing the things you do.

  And then – like I say, I thought, Maybe it’s not so bad. Somehow my head popped up above water. I was getting through it. Look at it, after all – I’ve been clean for over three months now, for the first time in years. I might not have done it myself out of choice, but I am clean and that’s the important thing. It’s something to build on. I got a reasonable sentence. It was my second conviction, they could have given me a lot longer than eighteen months. With any luck I can be out in nine; that’s a third gone already. The other day one of the screws said to me as I was going past, ‘You’re doing well, David… keep it up.’ He smiled and nodded at me.

  And I thought, Yeah… I am. I’m doing well. I was pretty pleased with myself. I’d been ill, I’d been depressed, now I’m doing all right. Some of the screws are okay. You get some horrific bastards, of course, but some are okay. And I was doing all right.

  I told Gemma. She must have seen how proud I was because she laughed and said, ‘Hostage syndrome.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Loving your jailer,’ she told me, and I just smiled. She was right, I was proud I’d pleased a screw. It’s a bummer really, you feel grateful to them just for being human. But it helps and anything that helps is important
.

  Gems is as big as a house! She got bigger and bigger every time she came in and now she’s about ready to pop. Next time she comes in she’ll bring the baby with her. It’s due in about a week. Last time she was sitting in her chair beaming away and patting her huge turn. We sit at these little tables, and I put my hand on it so I could feel it kicking.

  ‘He’s gonna be a footy fan, I reckon.’

  And she leaned back in her chair and slapped her big tum and pushed up her big tits and said, ‘And it’s all yours, boy… it’s all yours. You come out clean and it’s all there waiting for you.’

  Like I say, I keep my head down and my nose clean. I just think… it’s all there. All I’ve got to do is time.

  Chapter Thirty

  Gemma

  SO WHAT’S SO INTERESTING ‘BOUT YOU-O WHERE’S THE DAMAGE, WHERE’S THE FUN?

  THINK OF ALL THE THINGS WE DONE BUT WE’LL NEVER DO ‘EM NO MORE-O O NEVER DO NO MORE-O

  Lurky

  I’m in my sitting room writing this.

  It’s a windy day, the house is draughty. I’ve got the gas fire on full and I can see the flames move when the wind gusts outside. When I look out nothing’s moving, even though the wind is so strong. In Bristol I could always see the trees swaying in the wind. I can see the sea from here. I mean, I could if it wasn’t so dark. The waves must be lashing up full of foam. I can’t see it but I can smell it, even in the house.

  Bloody Minely again. I like being near the sea, though.

  The baby’s on the settee. She’s not asleep, I just fed her. She has this toy my mum gave her – you wind it up and it plays a tune and casts pretty lights on the ceiling for her to watch. It’s dim in here; I’m probably doing my eyes in writing this. I can hear her cooing at the pretty lights. Her name’s Oona and I love her to bits. She saved my life, really.

  Tar’s in bed, asleep.

  He came this afternoon. They let him out at seven this morning. I was going to pick him up in the car, but it’s miles and miles to Meadowfield and he said no, because they give them a pass for the train. So I met him at the station at Gravenham instead.

  It was great, it was great. He was pale and grey from being locked up so long, but he was his old self – Tar, my Tar. He was shy. He got off the train and stood there with his little bag smiling at me as I walked up the station towards him. Then he saw Oona and he smiled even more. You could almost hear the skin stretching at the sides of his mouth.

  I was going to do the ol’ ‘Wow! you’re the greatest, wow wow wow!’ trick on him that I did when I went to Bristol that time, but I thought better of it. I was talking to Sally on the phone. She’s off junk now, she’s on a methadone script but I don’t know if she’ll hold out. And she said, ‘Don’t come on too strong, remember he’s been inside.’ My mum said the same thing. So I didn’t go mad, I just ran up and I gave him a big, long, slow, hard hug. I squeezed him so hard, and I buried my face in his neck and then I went, ‘Whooo!’ I couldn’t help it, I felt so glad. Then I gave him the baby. And he was beaming away like… like Tar on a good day, holding his baby girl.

  Ah, Tar. And he was clean. He’d been off junk for over a month before he went inside on a methadone script, and he was off that in Meadowfield, so he was as clean as a whistle. And I was so pleased to see him.

  I had a bit of a party back at the house for him. None of the old crowd – I didn’t want any of that. I invited Richard and Vonny, that’s all – and a few old school-friends and some people I’ve met since. Nice food, loads to drink, a bit of hash going round. Music. We had an hour or two at home just to get him acclimatised, then people started turning up. Everyone was making a fuss of him. He was like – like Sally said – you know, you’ve spent all that time without ever opening a door, being locked up all the time, the screws watching you, all those hard cases, and then suddenly there you are, you can go where you want and do what you want and it’s all a bit of a shock.

  Richard was funny. He had a T-shirt on with a dandelion on it he’d had screened from one of Tar’s pictures, and those green boots Tar’d painted flowers on all that time ago – all cracked and faded now.

  ‘How was the holiday camp?’ he said, and he beamed at the door over Tar’s shoulder.

  It felt good. There were some of his old friends there as well. I’d been keeping my eyes open for people. I had Barry who put us up in his dad’s garage and a few others – some of the beach crowd, people from school. Afterwards, we went for a walk on the seafront with Oona, and Richard took us out for a meal. I was feeling a bit jittery by then but I put it down to all the excitement and not seeing him for so long. I thought it was maybe because I was a bit fishy about the junk. I’d said he had to be clean before he came to live with us and he was, but only by being locked up. But… you gotta give him a chance. He knew – first whiff of junk – out you go.

  In the evening we went out for a few drinks with Richard and Vonny, while this friend of mine babysat. Down my local. It was a Wednesday night so it was quiet. Tar looked exhausted, totally exhausted.

  Vonny said, ‘Do you want to go back?’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  Richard said, ‘I’m feeling a bit tired myself,’ and got up, which was his way of giving Tar a way out.

  I put Richard and Vonny in the baby’s room. Well, she doesn’t sleep there yet, she sleeps in her cot next to my bed. Then we went to bed.

  I felt really weird about it. I mean, I hadn’t done it for so long.

  We both hopped into bed starkers – it was all very exciting. Then he kissed me and stroked me and touched me and I just went… aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…

  It was horrible. I just… I did not want to be there with him. I didn’t want him to touch me or lie on top of me or next to me, I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. It was awful. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been looking forward to him for so long and missing him and loving him and then as soon as he touches me I feel like I can’t stand him touching me.

  I must have stiffened up. He said, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m all right, I’m all right, I’m all right,’ I said. I tried to relax and get into it and that was horrible too because I had to put on an act. I mean, I’ve done that before… But this was Tar.

  I didn’t know what to do. I mean, I’d been waiting there; the house, Oona, me, all safe and waiting for him, no more junk, nice little family, everything’s going to be great. And he’s my Tar and he’s taken the rap for me twice, and he’s been through all this shit… the detox, youth custody, all for me, and he’d probably never even have become a junkie if it wasn’t for me-and then… bang!

  We did it in the end. It wasn’t easy. I was so shocked I was as dry as yer dad’s handkerchief, but I managed to concentrate and get down to it, and it was all right in the end. I told him I was just nervous. I don’t know if he believed me.

  I waited until he looked like he was asleep, then I picked up Oona and crept out of the room. I just had to have a little space and try to think. What does it mean? What on earth does it mean?

  I was sitting out there for ages. I must have drunk about a gallon of tea. Then to make it even worse, he came out to see if I was okay. He couldn’t sleep either. I tried to make out I was just upset and nervous. It seemed reasonable enough. He sat next to me and we had a cuddle. I just tried to think of him as my Tar, my little boy who’d had a really hard time and needed to be comforted, and that made it all right.

  I told my mum about it. She was good. It’s been quite a shock to find I can talk to my mum. Dad’s… well, I don’t think anyone manages to talk to him about that sort of thing, not even Mum. But Mum’s not bad. She said, ‘Give it six months.’ She knows we’ve been through all this stuff together; she’d like to see us split up, I expect. But she lets me make my own mind up. Tar’s the father – I suppose that makes a big difference in her book.

  Six months. I really, really hope it gets better. It’s just not fair, is it? I end up with the
life: he ends up with nothing. It ought to work, oughtn’t it? It ought to work.

  He’s doing really well. He wants to go to art college, but he needs to get the O-levels and A-levels first. He’s going to start at the Tech College, but that doesn’t begin till the autumn and it’s only May, so he’s doing night school in the meantime. And he’s got a little job behind the bar – off the cards or they’d take it off the Social. He does two nights and I do two nights. Well, just because you want to be clean doesn’t mean you have to turn into something out of Neighbours, does it? And he’s a great mate but…

  It’s just gone. Where’d it go? Funny thing, I was going to give him the elbow just before I met Lily and Rob. Funny thing. I just feel so bad about it.

  I was on the phone to Sal the other day. She keeps wanting to come and visit but I put her off, it’s too early. She’s not clean, she’s on methadone but she slips up from time to time. She’s got this new boyfriend, Mick, and they’re going to go to Amsterdam together and live over there for a while. Yeah, she’s bound to stay clean over there in the Drug Capital of Europe, as my dad likes to call it. To be fair to Sally, she doesn’t make much of a pretence that she’s going straight. But she’ll be all right, if anyone is. Sal’s one of those people who can go on forever.

  I envy her. I’d like to go but I know what’d happen. Me, I don’t even dare go back to Bristol for a visit. So I’m stuck here in sodding Minely for the rest of my natural. Well, for a bit anyway.

  But she said a lot of interesting things, Sal. She said, maybe it was some sort of comeback for being on the game. You know, maybe it put me off sex. That’s an interesting one. I try to think it’s that. I asked her, What about you?

  ‘Oh, no, oh no,’ she said. ‘You know me…’

  I can’t tell because I never slept with anyone while Tar was away. But I don’t think so. I mean, it’s not the thought that turns me off. Just, not with Tar any more…

  And she said, ‘You’ve got to give it a chance, Gems.’ Everyone says that. And she said this: ‘You’ve gotta do what you feel in the end.’ That’s what my mum says, too. And that’s what everyone says. But I don’t wanna do what I feel. I wanna do all right by Tar.