Dying to Survive

by Rachael Keogh

  Another ‘friend’ at this time was Derek, who had just appeared out of nowhere in Cindy’s flat. I knew his face to see around Ballymun and I wondered what he was doing there after I heard him saying he was clean. He explained that he was doing his rounds with people, collecting money that he was owed from the time he dealt in drugs. He gave me his number and told me to ring him if I ever needed any help getting clean. I was immediately attracted to what I saw as his strength and self-assurance. Little did I know that meeting Derek would be one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Being a drug addict does not mean that you choose your friends with care: you meet all sorts of people, generally in the same boat as you, and trust doesn’t exactly come into it. So, when Derek’s unpredictable and moody met my desperate and vulnerable, it was an accident waiting to happen.

  A few days after meeting Derek I woke up in the Mater Hospital after overdosing on heroin and tablets. My clothes were wringing wet from sweat. I had been given a heroin antidote, but I was screaming at the doctors to give me something to take away the withdrawals. The doctors refused to give me anything and they discharged me as soon as my grandmother arrived. By the time I got home I had lapsed back into another overdose. I was kept in hospital for a few days and the break from drugs gave me that chance to think clearly for the first time in a long while.

  I needed to get clean. And I decided to ring Derek to ask him to help me do a detox. He was only too happy to take me under his wing and within one week I was clean from drugs and in a steady relationship with him. Derek was small but stocky. He had shovels for hands and big, square shoulders. He understood me like nobody else did and he made me feel very safe. But there was something about his piercing blue eyes that made me think twice about him. I saw a craziness in them that didn’t match up to the person that he presented himself to be: strong and steady. But I just pretended to myself that my instincts were wrong.

  A lot of my friends knew Derek and were shocked to hear that he was my new boyfriend. ‘What the fuck are you doing with him?’ an old Ballymun friend asked me one day. ‘I was locked up with him and I’m telling you now, he’s not what he seems to be.’

  But I wasn’t willing to listen. I was introduced to Derek’s family who welcomed me in with open arms and within a little time myself and Derek were shacked up together in his mother’s sitting room. It was us against the world, pledging loyalty to each other until the day we died. I had never felt safer or more secure in my life.

  But soon, Derek began to show me his more unpredictable side. It seemed that my friends were right.

  One night we were lying in bed. I was fast asleep, but woke with a start, to find Derek standing over me, staring at me. His eyes glittered.

  ‘What are you looking at me for?’ I said, startled.

  He shook his head. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I was having a bad dream.’

  I looked at him doubtfully. ‘You weren’t even asleep.’ I pretended that I needed to go to the toilet. Looking at my face in the bathroom mirror, the first thing I thought of was heroin. I had been clean since I had moved in with Derek, so it would be impossible to use drugs with him around. When I came back downstairs Derek was fast asleep. Now was my opportunity to go and score.

  I snuck out of Derek’s house and knocked in to Cindy. But she wasn’t in and I assumed that she was in Baggot Street. I decided to follow her in, knowing that I would have to do some work myself and be back before Derek woke up.

  It was a busy night and I wasn’t waiting long for my first client to come. I had never seen this punter before, but he insisted that he was a regular visitor to Baggot Street. He looked like a Goth, with wavy shoulder-length hair, pale skin and lots of eye-liner. After he agreed to pay me for sex, I brought him to my usual hideout by the docks of the canal. I was just about to unbutton his jeans when he pushed my hand away. ‘I have a special request for you,’ he said in a posh Dublin accent.

  Ah, here we go, another freak, I should have known, I thought to myself, becoming afraid. I watched his hands like a hawk and cursed myself for not having a weapon with me. Then he reached under the seat of his car and pulled out a pair of leather trousers and a pair of women’s high-heeled boots. ‘I don’t want to have sex with you if that’s ok. I would much prefer it if you put these boots on and just stood on me,’ he said.

  ‘Emm, are you serious?’ I replied, incredulous.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I like.’

  ‘Ok, but you’ll have to pay me more,’ I told him, knowing that he was just as afraid of me as I was of him. He agreed and handed me one hundred pounds. Then he put his leathers on over his jeans.

  ‘You’ll have to tell me what to do,’ I said, squashing my feet into the stiletto boots. ‘As hard as you can, press your feet into my crotch area,’ he instructed.

  I reluctantly obliged.

  ‘Do it harder,’ he demanded and as I obliged, he began to make little purring noises. ‘Meeow, meeow,’ just like a kitten. I thought for a second that I was hearing things, but then he did it again. I didn’t know whether to laugh or run. But I continued stepping on his crotch in my boots, pretending that his purring was the most natural thing in the world, until my legs were sore and he was hurt enough to have an orgasm. I left the punter’s car unable to believe what had just happened. I was disgusted with myself, but I was glad that I didn’t have to have sex with him. I realised that it was getting late and there was no sign of Cindy, so I decided to make my way back to Ballymun.

  As I walked through the mucky fields towards Cindy’s flat, I noticed that all her lights were on. I couldn’t wait to get inside, have a turn-on and tell her everything that had happened. She had her fair share of freaks as well, I thought to myself, as I pressed the button for the lift. The lift opened and to my absolute horror I stood face to face with Derek. ‘Where d’ye think you’re going?’ he said calmly, looking demented.

  I knew that I had to be careful what I said to him. ‘I was on my way up to Cindy’s. I needed somebody to talk to after the argument that we had.’

  ‘So where have you been all this time?’ he said, fists clenched with tension.

  ‘I went for a walk to clear my head,’ I said calmly. If only he knew.

  Derek started to laugh. ‘Do I have fuckin’ eegit written on my forehead? I know exactly what you’ve been up to. And you needn’t bother going up to Cindy’s. I just smashed her door down and I really don’t think she wants to see you at the moment. Now, I’ll ask you again, where were you?’

  I had no choice but to tell him everything. He may have frightened me earlier, but the tables had turned and now I was the bad one.

  Derek listened to me intently, then said. ‘So ye want to use, d’ye? C’mon then, let’s go.’ With my tail between my legs I did as he said. We both ended up taking heroin that night.

  _____

  From then on I felt indebted to Derek. He was back using drugs. He had lost his job as a labourer and it was all my fault. But he promised me that I would never have to sell my body again. He became my partner in crime, showing me how to creep into factories and offices to steal petty-cash boxes and anything else that was worth taking. He taught me how to break into apartments and how to do smash-and-grabs. We became like Bonnie and Clyde, feeling invincible and going on robbing rampages every day. We would dress up in business suits in order to take the junkie look off of ourselves and we would brazenly fleece the shops, taking everything, from shelves of Waterford crystal to trays of jewellery. We had buyers all over Dublin and we would make sure to get rid of the stolen goods as quickly as we could. We lived for the moment and thrived on the excitement of it all. But Derek’s mother started to question where all the money was coming from. When she confronted him, he went crazy and started wrecking the place. Derek’s brother chased him out of the house and told him never to come back again.

  Derek was beginning to show his other side. I was terrified of him, but I felt trapped. Trapped between him and the heavy brick that was my ad
diction. And I had no idea how to escape. We spent our nights sleeping in cars and sometimes if we were lucky we would find unoccupied apartments that were fully decorated and ready for someone to move into.

  Then Derek began to sell drugs around Ballymun. He would walk around as though he owned the place, wearing his favourite red puffa jacket, with an old pair of tracksuit bottoms and slippers. People would make a joke out of his dress sense but they knew not to push him too far.

  We both needed somewhere to stay in Ballymun, so Derek brought me to an empty flat that we were allowed to use for a couple of weeks. He took out our heroin and began to cook up. ‘Put me out a bit, will you,’ I said timidly.

  ‘No, you’re not getting any,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  ‘That’s my gear as well, you know,’ I protested.

  He just glared at me and I knew that I was walking on eggshells. He knew that he could torture me by withholding drugs. Eventually, he said, ‘Why should I when you’re doin’ the fuckin’ dirt on me?’ I knew that he was just looking for an argument, so I kept my mouth shut until he calmed down and eventually handed me the heroin. After having a turn-on I slept all day and night. When I woke up the next day I couldn’t move. I hadn’t eaten in days and I felt really weak. Derek told me that I had slept all that time with my eyes open and I knew that our chaotic lifestyle was wearing me down. I stayed indoors for about a week, living in squalor and keeping our drugs, munchies and cigarettes at hands reach. I felt empty and powerless, especially when Derek wanted to have sex. He would aggressively pull my head back by my hair, almost choking me. But I couldn’t seem to find the energy or the courage to tell him to stop.

  At this stage, I hadn’t seen my family in weeks. When I did finally go home, my grandparents and Laurence were shocked to see the state that I was in. ‘Oh my God, what have you done to yourself?’ my grandmother shrilled. ‘Go and have a shower and put your pyjamas on and I’ll make you something to eat.’ My grandfather was sitting like a statue in the kitchen, frozen in shock. His face dropped when he saw me. ‘Holy Jaysus, what are you like!’ he said and then went back to reading his newspaper. Laurence still didn’t want to speak to me. ‘I don’t want to know. No wonder you’re in a heap, with all those scumbags you hang around with. You’re just as bad as them anyway,’ he said as he ran up to his bedroom and stayed there for the night. I have only now come to realise just how much pain I inflicted on Laurence. At the time, no-one really said anything to me about my problems, except to make sarcastic remarks. I had grown up with a family where no-one knew how to express themselves. We kept the peace at all costs.

  My Nanny told me that Mick and my mother were having difficulties in their relationship. I wasn’t one bit surprised. I had witnessed for myself just how much Mick loved the women. He had never done anything in front of me, but just like my mother, I had a sneaking suspicion that he was having an affair. When my mother and Philip came to visit, I hardly spoke to her. I could barely even look at her. I blamed her for everything. For not being there for me and for not protecting me from all the bad things that had happened in my life. She had never been there for me. She never once sat me down and told me why she had left me with my grandparents. She never asked me why I was taking drugs. She superficially dipped in and out of my life, looking beautiful and pretending that her life was wonderful. I knew my mother wasn’t happy. I knew that she was running away from me, but I had no idea why. For some reason she couldn’t speak openly with me. And I couldn’t help but take it personally.

  My brother Philip was eleven years old and he was beginning to question why I lived with my grandparents and not with him and my mother. I told him the same thing that my grandmother had told me: it was because I had grown up in Ballymun and I didn’t want to leave my school and my friends. I knew that Philip was lonely and he wanted to spend more time with me. He would follow me around everywhere in my grandparents’ house, watching every movement that I made and looking for approval in everything that he did. But I could never spend time with Philip because I was too busy thinking about myself and my drug habit.

  I also had very little contact at this time with my aunties Marion or Jacqueline, even though they had been like sisters to me when I was a child. Marion and her husband Declan were living in their beautiful house in Swords and were in the process of adopting a baby from Thailand. When Marion did come to visit my grandparents I would run out of the house. For some reason I felt more ashamed around Marion than I did with the rest of my family. Marion had high expectations of me as a child. She had always made a point of encouraging me to get an education. I knew that I had let her down. My other aunt, Jacqueline, had got herself a job in Dublin Airport. She was branching out on her own and trying to make a life for herself. My uncle Laurence had just broken up with his long-term girlfriend, Gail. He blamed me for this, telling me that if he hadn’t put so much energy into trying to help me get clean, he would still be with Gail. Sometimes I believed him. But I knew that the real reason why he had broken up with Gail was because he had taken heavily to the alcohol. I noticed that Laurence was beginning to let his good looks go. He was losing interest in his appearance. He could barely hold down a job and he was spending most of his time in the pub. Every time I saw him he was angry. He hated me, he hated my grandfather and it seemed that he was beginning to hate himself. All that Laurence seemed to do was put me down, calling me a scumbag and telling me that I would never get clean. Maybe it was easier for him to blame all of his problems on me than to take responsibility for them himself—I should know; I’d spent most of my life doing exactly the same thing.

  With my family in difficulty, I decided to go back to Derek, thinking, better the devil you know. We decided to stock up on money and drugs. We had got our hands on some stolen credit cards and after putting on our best clothes and our posh accents, we headed into a city-centre department store to do some serious shopping. It was 5.45 p.m., fifteen minutes before the shops would close. This was the best time to be scamming because the floorwalkers and security guards would be in no humour to do anything but go home. We grabbed the best of everything, from clothes to household goods, and nobody blinked an eye as we handed over the stolen credit card to pay for our items.

  We were just about to leave the shop when Derek noticed a dressing-gown that he knew his mother would love. ‘I have to get it,’ he said.

  ‘Just leave it, will ye. You’re getting greedy,’ I warned him. But he wouldn’t listen. Once again he handed over the credit card. But when the cashier disappeared for more than two minutes, we knew that they were on to us. We calmly walked to the nearest blind spot where the camera couldn’t see us, then we got down onto our hands and knees and we crawled our way to the nearest fire exit. ‘When I count to three, I’m gonna kick the door open, so leg it,’ Derek whispered. Derek kicked the door and we both ran as fast as we could down two flights of stairs. Then we burst out of the fire exit that led us onto one of the busiest streets in the city centre.

  ‘Will you fuckin’ run,’ Derek shouted and pushed me at the same time. But my feet couldn’t go as fast as I wanted them to and before I knew it I had fallen flat on my face. Within seconds there were two security guards running towards us. Taking me by the hand as I lay on the ground, Derek dragged me up Henry Street, but the security guards caught up with us. One of them grabbed my leg and had a tug of war with Derek. ‘Just run, will you,’ I shouted at Derek, preferring that one of us got away.

  I was arrested, charged with fraud and, with a couple of warrants already hanging over my head, I was put back into Mountjoy Prison.

  Chapter 10

  NOTHING CHANGES

  Mountjoy was stuck in a time warp, with the same people coming and going year after year. I saw so many familiar faces this time, but no matter what I did to fit in, I still stuck out like a sore thumb. I was tall, blonde and still reasonably smart-looking, in spite of having wrecked myself on drugs: to most of the girls I was a snob and some of them would cal
l me ‘Little Miss Make-up’. But I had changed a lot since my first visit, at fifteen. I was older and more street-wise. I was clever and I knew how to protect myself in prison by hanging around with girls who took no shit from anyone. I guaranteed myself safety, and prevented withdrawals, by having a regular supply of drugs and I always made sure to sort out a couple of the girls, as they did with me. And my own, from Ballymun, always looked out for me.

  Derek was my life-line. Every couple of days he would smuggle me in grams of heroin. Sometimes he would put the heroin into a tennis ball and he would throw it over the prison wall, making sure that it landed in the women’s yard. But this way usually caused trouble because everyone would know that I had heroin and they would be around me like flies on shite. So we decided to take the risk of him kissing it over to me when he came to visit. But there was no physical contact allowed on visits, so Derek would count to three and we would both lean over the counter. We would lock our lips together as he flicked the heroin into my mouth. The officers would grab me by the throat in an effort to stop me swallowing the drugs, but I always managed to get rid of them. They would throw me in a padded cell for a couple of hours, which gave me a chance to vomit the drugs back up. By doing this I lost my visits with Derek, so he resorted to sewing the heroin into the hem of the clothes he brought me when visiting was allowed again.

  We always found a way to get drugs into Mountjoy, but getting needles and citric acid inside was much more difficult. I had always promised myself that I would never share a needle with anyone, but my habit had become much bigger and my withdrawals were more severe, so I felt I had no choice in the matter. Myself and my two friends shared our needles between us. We made sure to clean them as well as we could and sometimes we would have to burn the top of the needle to get rid of any bacteria. The needle would be like a blunt nail after a while and I found it harder to get a hit. My veins already had thrombosis from using, so when I saw how easy it was for my friend to get a hit into her groin, I asked her to do the same for me. I was terrified of using into my groin, so I covered my eyes with my hands and prayed that she wouldn’t inject the heroin into an artery. I tried to distract myself from the possibility of losing a leg. But she knew exactly what she was doing and she got the vein straight away.