Truths, Half Truths and Little White Lies

by Nick Frost

  The wind roars through the house. We hear Little Miss Emma laughing and laughing, it is loud and terrible. It vibrates inside me and I slump against the wall and vomit. Simon grabs me and heaves me down the main staircase, we turn and head down the steps into the pantry. All the bells begin to ring, the inhabitants of the rooms long empty, angry and now pulling with all their might. We claw at the door and surge outside into the garden. The pantry door smashes closed behind us and inside the bells stop.

  We don’t stop running until we reach the car. We get inside and Simon revs the engine hard and we spin away as the wheels struggle for purchase. We don’t say a thing and eventually we have to stop. Simon shakes so much I’m afraid we’ll crash, he pulls the car over and we cry. It is uncontrollable. We never speak of this again. I will never forget Little Miss Emma’s white eyes.

  ***

  At some point two friends that Simon and Smiley had made while on tour in Australia came to stay. I’d heard a lot about these two. Greg Fleet and his then girlfriend Janei Anderson were both performers, actors and comedians. Greg was the person responsible for killing Daphne in Neighbours, he played a drunken yahoo who killed her in a car crash. Janei can be seen as Jacqui in the film Romper Stomper screaming up a right storm when the Koreans start handing out revenge beatings to the nutty skins.

  I liked those guys from the start, I mean really loved them. I was struck by the amazing relationship they had at the time. I say amazing – it was terribly co-dependent but I’d never seen anything like it before so to me it was amazing. He was so naughty. He’d been a heroin addict for years and years by the time I met him but she just forgave him any indiscretion. Janei had so much bloody love, she was a sexy, funny, den mother. She cleaned with a finger of spit, she’d advise, she’d listen, cuddle, kiss, whatever was needed. She was also fucking funny. What a gal.

  Greg, or Fleety as he was known, and me got each other immediately. We understood, not just each other but also the need to push things to their very end point, both socially and chemically. I’d never known anyone who did heroin before. I was frightened and fascinated and, to be honest, pretty confused at first. I think I was taught to be afraid of ‘smackheads’. I didn’t think they could be normal, amazing, beautiful, creative people who just happened to do heroin. Then again my tolerance for addiction and addicts was pretty high anyway because of my own experiences with it. I was more than ready to accept people for who they were, not what they did.

  I didn’t realise at first what was happening with the heroin, Greg would slope off to the loo and stay in there for ages. When he came out he was so sleepy. We’d sit and watch the morning cartoons, Greg would sit in the Dead Man’s chair and smoke, he’d nod off and would come to as the hot end of his ciggie burnt him awake.

  With Smiley and Simon and our two new arrivals the house bloomed and blossomed. It felt amazing being there, it was like a Lars von Trier collective but with less trumpets. Some mornings we’d all put faux fur coats on and shoot music videos. We were always creating something. I still had to go to work and wait tables or shake Martinis but it gave me a reason to forget my folks and my sadness and enjoy myself. This, of course, meant drugs, although I never tried H. I always hated needles so for me injecting was way beyond my limit.

  This was my Camden Town time and I loved it, I looked forward to it, it made me feel special. Every Sunday I’d get up at whatever time, shake off whatever was still in me, and dress up. I’d try and look cool to impress Janei, it was difficult for me – the others made it seem so effortless. Janei was a very stylish woman and I tried to impress her whenever I had the chance. We all did. Smiley has always dressed well. He has a great sense of style. He’s one of those fellas where clothes just hang so well on him. Greg was an H pony so he seemed not to care much about fashion, yet in his not caring it made him very stylish and cool. Lucky prick.

  After breakfast/brunch/lunch we’d stroll into Camden Town. Camden Town then on a Sunday was very happening. It still is but now it seems more corporate-sponsored, cleaner, less dangerous. It’s still nice though, even a little edgy I guess if you’re a Danish teen on an exchange trip. Back then it was a dirty, dangerous breeding ground for bands and drugs and laughter and fighting.

  We’d walk around the stables for ages, buying T-shirts or new screens for the bongs or sunglasses. It made me feel like an extra in Blade Runner walking under the railway arches that heaved with tourists, Rastas, wide-eyed Ravers and backcombed Goths as we trawled the stalls looking for nice fresh falafel. It was exciting.

  Under the bridge by the lock was the place to go if you wanted to buy the shittest drugs in the world. The dealers were men used to cutting at thin tourists looking for something to blaze up through the window of their two-star Paddington flop house. I’d been burned a couple of times but sometimes after a few drinks on a Sunday it was hard to resist the temptation.

  One afternoon I pushed past a group of Polish kids who were waiting to be threatened. A frightened young Swede with deep cuts to both his arms bumbled back up the towpath crying. In the canal there were two corpse-shaped things floating just beneath the surface. It seemed quiet for a Sunday. No matter, I fancied a smoke and this time I had a surefire way to not get burned.

  As I neared the stick-thin one-eyed Rasta I took an approach I was hoping they’d never seen or heard before. Honesty. I was going to be honest and just lay it all out there.

  ‘All right?’

  ‘Whauwan?’

  So far so good . . .

  ‘I need some bush.’

  I’d heard some white Trustafarians in an earlier exchange say ‘Me need some bush, mon.’ They got cut and rightly so. The exchange progressed and I see One-Eye reach into his jacket to fish out Sir Stabsalot. It’s at this point I spring the trap:

  ‘Wait!’ He tenses up. I continue:

  ‘Can I be honest with you?’ A fog of confusion descends upon the trader. His hands tremble as he works out what’s happening. I think he thinks I’m Old Bill. I’m not. I continue:

  ‘I’m from London, born and bred as, I think, are you.’

  ‘Fucking right, blud. Islington.’ His patois drops for just a second. This is good – for the moment my body remains watertight.

  ‘Can I be honest with you?’ I repeat.

  ‘Go on but be quick I got Spanish kids to slash at.’

  ‘I understand. I live in Kentish Town, I’m here every week and I’ve been burned in the past by people that trade under this bridge. I’m a bit pissed and I’m desperate for a smoke, I don’t want to spend £40 buying something that’d be better suited going into cannelloni.’ I hear someone drop a knife behind me in utter disbelief. There’s a long pause, he’s debating how to open me up: tummy jab maybe, bleeds a lot, takes an age to die if it’s shallow enough I guess, how about a . . . facial slash? Facial slash is good because it sends out a very visible warning. Maybe a few short sharp stabs to my bum and upper thighs – I’ll shit standing up in the shower for the next eight weeks but I’ll live. Who knows. Let’s find out, he stares at me . . .

  ‘Yeah, okay, fair enough, follow me.’

  I follow One-Eye back to his flat on the outskirts of Camden. I’m slightly nervous but we’ve begun to chat and like a trusting fool I go with him. The atmosphere lightens somewhat when he lifts his patch to reveal another fully working, bright clear chestnut eye. I shouldn’t have but in the atmosphere of honesty and trust I do. He invites me in, I accept. By and by we have a glass of semi-skimmed milk. He pulls out a carrier bag of stinky shit, I hand over dollar bills, he hands over the fat buds and the deal is done. Simple as that. We shake hands and drift back into town together. As he nears the bridge he explains, pulling down his patch, he has to put his game face on.

  ‘I’ve gotta get back to work. It was nice to meet you though.’

  ‘And you, mate.’ I go to shake hands, he pulls away.

  ‘I can’t, the guys are watching.’

  ‘I understand. How do you want to play
this?’ He thinks for a minute.

  ‘I’ll shout loudly calling you a Bumbaclart, I’ll go through my pockets looking for my carnival knife and you flee into the crowded market place.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan. Thanks, Ian.’

  ‘BUMBACLART!’ He winks. I run.

  Sometimes honesty is the best policy.

  Camden on a Sunday was something all the crew liked. Usually it was me, Fleety, Janei and Simon, later we’d hook up with Smiley and his lot, the stand-ups, proper stand-ups, dark, edgy, wonderful loonies. Later still Dion and Tony and the South Africans would roll into town and shit would get weird. These were not exclusive combinations. For a long while we’d hit the World’s End, the place where I broke my neck falling off of the wagon, and sit there for a long-time session. Once hammered we’d drift off into the market for fun and cheap Chinese food that made us all need to do semi-solid toilets really quickly. We loved it.

  There was a club in the market on a Sunday evening run by the legendary DJ Goldie called Metalheadz. We weren’t into Drum and Bass that much, Hard House was our thing, but we weren’t snobby and after fifteen pints it was nice to have a joint and a jump. The guys came a couple of times but their hearts weren’t in it. Mostly – and when I say mostly I mean the five times we went – I went on my own. I loved the music but the clientele seemed a bit too serious, they seemed to want to be seen, it didn’t feel like anyone was having that much fun. Not like Hard House, that shit was all about fun.

  Sometimes, and I liked these sometimes, I’d have a mooch with the gang and we’d stop to drink a coffee under these arches deep at the back of the market. Dub reggae would rattle my eyes, my nose assaulted by the smell of ’erb and incense. We’d sit and watch tourists drift through. It was so nice sitting there, it felt like being in a futuristic space souk.

  Afterwards we’d bowl over to meet Smiley at The Stag’s Head pub just across the street. I liked it here a lot. It was a proper Irish boozer, packed with hipsters and locals. It also had an amazing Thai kitchen. Like I said, traditional Irish. It was always exciting in that place. Smiley obviously bossed it, he’s so fucking cheeky and gets away with absolute murder, it’s thrilling to watch. He’d often leave me open-mouthed by his naughtiness. The first time he met my mum he goosed her slightly and asked if she had knickers on. Lolz! She loved it. They all did.

  As well as Smiley he was often joined by a big dangerous northern man called Danny Brown. Danny quickly became a good mate to me. He lives nearby now and I see him all the time. Danny, along with Smiley, Simon, Nira Park, Tony Lindsay and Edgar, all have their initials tattooed around my arm around a crown. Kings and queens among men. I couldn’t have done any of it without them.

  Danny and Smiley were the two toughest sons of bitches I knew and I couldn’t help but feel slightly indestructible when I was out on the piss with that pair. There was also a small wiry fella called Andrew Maxwell who could talk the back legs off a donkey. He’s funny as fuck and sharp as a razor, smart and dashing to boot. Great stand-up. When I had my stag night Maxwell turned up with a massive glass bottle shaped like the Eiffel Tower, it was full of absinthe. Pandemonium ensued.

  Often other friends and family would turn up at the pub, children too; naughty and mischievous, smart, loved and clever, they would run around stealing sips from pints. It felt like these people in this place were my family. It was all I had and it was enough. After drinking and doing whatever else, the crew would walk back through Kentish Town back to Busby Place. We’d wind down listening to Smiley mix or watching new episodes of The Simpsons smoking fatties and sitting in the Dead Man’s chair. I’d often snuggle up and nod off with my head on Janei’s lap, she’d stroke my hair and call me Bubbie. I think it was the happiest I’d been.

  This was the time me and Simon started to make our first little films. They were shit and amazing. Little horror films we shot on Simon’s video camera. Our films, shot on location in 9 Busby Place and almost entirely in French, had the potential we thought to rock Hollywood to its very core.

  Aniseed Du Peril was the story of a man killed by a possessed bottle of the antacid drink Gaviscon. Thrilling stuff. Il Slash Mon Guts (He Slash My Guts) was a grizzly stalk and slash which became an advert for Gaviscon. Smiley had a plastic retractable knife that we used in the film, and in the thrilling dénouement when a bad me killed a good me, the blade snapped. During the only take we filmed you can see how frightened I am exactly at the moment the knife breaks. It adds a dimension of realism to the scene if you know that Smiley will be so mad when he finds out you went into his room and took something without asking which you then broke.

  Me and Simon rewound that moment about a hundred times and screamed with laughter every time we watched it. It’s funny when my dying screams turn into a ‘oooh’ noise when I realise how much shit we’ll be in.

  Our last horror short was a black and white effort called Dinner For Two. A tense psychological thriller starring the excellent Greg Fleet and the Alluring Janei Anderson. There was a chilling twist at the end which I won’t give away. The funniest part of that film was watching Greg trying to stick an LP record into a CD player. What a wally. So simple but boy we laughed.

  My double life continued apace. I’m never sure what me I was. I know there were lots of naughties in my life. I was clubbing at every opportunity I could and spent my time planning for weekends or getting over the weekends. This had gone on for so long that I was beginning to feel jaded, dirty, even a little bit bored of it. My head was everywhere. The fantastic and magical had become the grubby and malignant. I was paranoid and the consumption of more and more was beginning to feel like a hollow mission. I never stopped to enjoy or breathe.

  I found myself one night in a club somewhere in South London. I’d heard stories, rumours on the scene, that government agencies had infiltrated circles of dealers and that dodgy bumbles were being sold to break the movement up. I didn’t believe it. I was sure our government has better things to do than fuck with hedonists and independent thinkers. Right?

  That night a packed club full of happy people became an empty club within three hours. Everyone became very ill. I stumbled around until I found an overground station. Getting onto a train that was headed fuck knows where, I puke onto the floor of the empty carriage. My eyes roll, I couldn’t believe what I saw. I was covered in a thick black foam. What the fuck was going on? I was puking thick black foam. What organ in the body is responsible for producing black foam? I was unaware of the black foam gland in the human stomach up until that point. What was happening to me? I passed out and when I came to I was standing on a beach looking out at the sea. It was flat and calm. I closed my eyes. The sun was shining and it felt lovely.

  I realise now I had been deaf, the noise of gulls and children screaming tickle my eardrums and I fully awaken. I have no idea how I got there, what time it was or even where I was. In my hands I have two books, Cancer Ward and The Gulag Archipelago, both by Solzhenitsyn. No idea how I got them.

  I’m in Brighton. It’s the first time I’d ever been. I make my way home and spend the day trembling. This was the start of the end of that section of my hedonism. It continued, sure, but it was different. It took its toll on me. My glass shattered. I wouldn’t call it a massive breakdown as such but it was a tiny bit of a breakdown. A Nervy B as my mate Paddy would call it. I had a little Nervy B.

  When I was coming down off shit I used to feel sounds. Sounds would transfer into nerve commands and rattle up my pathways into my brain. It was terrible. I hated it. I always said to Simon it felt like my mind was a very thin veneer of glass resting on four old, red bricks. Every now and then someone would drop a piece of gravel on that glass. The fear I had of it shattering and its noise transforming into a bolt that raced up through my nervous system and into my brain was too much to take. One day my glass shattered.

  I stopped working, I stopped going out, I couldn’t really eat. I lay in bed or on the sofa smoking weed, feeling fucking sorry for myse
lf. Feeling my brain frighten itself whenever it could. Weed didn’t help me of course but I never knew that back then, that’s a fairly recent realisation. It’s probably been the thing that fucked me up the most over the years and I failed to acknowledge it until it was almost too late. I think I refused to accept that it was the HaHa biscuits making me feel like this. How could something I love so much be hurting me so bad? I couldn’t get my shit together. I was afraid and I was shit.

  Simon and Smiley and a few of the girls I knew were amazing at this time, always popping in and bringing me Weetabix. I like Weetabix. The boys gee’d me up and financially sorted me out. I really owe them so fucking much. After a few weeks I started to pull up out of my dive, the darkness cleared slightly and something started to drag that big, wet quilt off my stubborn bonce. Smiley is always great in these situations. He Smiley’d me one night and told me how it was. It was exactly what I needed. In the absence of my own dad, due to our alcoholic exile and my sad bitterness at the whole ‘Mum’ situation, he was it. He was the kick up the hole that shook me out of my chemically induced mind funk.

  Smiley was the guy who made me realise that it was all right to succeed. No one had ever told me that. It was something I’d never considered before. That’s stayed with me ever since. It’s okay to succeed. I knew what it felt like to hurt and fail, those things were familiar to me. But the thought that I was allowed to succeed was something new and scary and something I needed to hear.

  ***

  I did not want to go back to working in restaurants. I looked around for other things first before I was forced back on the floor. A cabbie maybe? I liked driving but couldn’t afford a car, I didn’t have a pot to piss in. What could I do? Me and Dion thought about starting a garden-clearing business called Busy Bees. It never came to fruition.