Junk - Melvin Burgess [15]
‘Skolly.’
‘I’d never have found anywhere like this on my own. And the people are…’
I think he blushed a bit.
‘They’re not people, they’re anarchists,’ I corrected him.
‘They’re all really interesting…’
‘Would you like a cup of tea, Skolly?’ the girl wanted to know. She was a right sight. Shaven head, scrawny neck like a plucked goose. You couldn’t see what shape she was under the… I dunno… sacks or something, she was wearing. But I’m willing to believe it was all very nice under there. I should be so lucky.
‘No thanks, I’ve got to be off.’
‘How about some of this, then?’ It was Richard. He was offering me a joint. I looked at it out of the corner of my eye.
I was tempted.
‘I haven’t done that for twenty years,’ I said.
‘Bring back your lost youth,’ urged Richard.
I accepted the joint and took a drag. It felt nice. ‘Used to smoke masses of this stuff in the Navy,’ I told him. I was in the Merchant for five years when I was a lad.
Richard beamed. ‘Part of our great British tradition of drug taking,’ he said.
I took a few lungfuls before passing it on.
I have rarely regretted anything so much in my life. I used to quite like it when I was a lad. I don’t know whether this was stronger or I was weaker. I broke out in a cold sweat. I started hearing things… people coming down the stairs. I got this really strange impression that my missis was going to come in and catch me sitting in this smoky den with these kids. She’d go mad if she knew. Even though I knew she was miles away visiting Doreen…
I wondered what was going on for a second, before I realised it was that joint. Just my luck, I thought. My heart was going like ten tons of coal falling off the back of a lorry. I just closed my eyes. I heard Richard asking me if I was okay, but I pretended to be asleep. I don’t know what he must have thought. I felt like a right prat.
By the time I felt fit to open my eyes and have a look around, Jerry, Vonny and David were all sitting on the floor smoking more of the obnoxious things. Richard had disappeared. It felt like the whole room was crawling with little worms. Horrible. They all had cups of tea. So did I, it was by my chair, half cold.
I saw the girl nudging Jerry to look at me and they all laughed.
‘Ha bloody ha,’ I said. I was somewhat annoyed. I didn’t come there to be laughed at by a bunch of paper anarchists. It doesn’t mean anything to call them anarchists, anyway. You might as well call my wallpaper the Politburo.
I waited a bit, watching them. They were all right, I guess… better than the lot in George Dole’s shop. From the way Richard was with these two I figured they were more like his friends. They were treating David very nicely, listening when he had something to say, talking seriously to him. They must have been eighteen and nineteen, and he couldn’t have been more than… I dunno, fourteen, fifteen.
I got up and brushed my trousers down.
‘Well, David, what do you think of the place then? Des. res. or what?’
‘Oh…’ David jumped up like I was the Queen Mum. ‘Thanks, Skolly, it’s really great…’ He gestured to the yoofs on the floor and smiled shyly.
‘Here…’ I tossed him a packet of fags. ‘You can use them for joints with your new mates.’ I’d noticed he was smoking one himself. He seemed to be enjoying it.
He took the fags and looked at them doubtfully. He was still wondering what to do when Richard appeared.
‘Just booking another customer,’ I told Richard, who duly laughed, but he didn’t look too happy. He doesn’t mind them rotting their brains with pot but he disapproved of smoking well enough.
I made another attempt to leave. Richard led me up the stairs. ‘You can be the first man out the new front door,’ he said. He opened the door. I was still crawling with that pot. The fresh air smelt so good, I almost skipped out of the house. As I stood on the path a woman I knew, Mary Dollery, was walking past. I smiled at her.
‘Good evening, Mary.’ You could see her looking at me and then at Richard. Then she scuttled off down the road like a crab on two legs.
‘If you see any more likely