Junk - Melvin Burgess [60]
When she took me back in I was so happy. I was just so happy. I really felt like I’d arrived, I belonged. We were just all over each other. I was nervous at first that she’d want a bit more freedom in the next few days, but it wasn’t like that at all. She’d really missed me. She didn’t realise until I’d gone. She wanted me so much. And then when I came back, she was in love with me as much as I was in love with her. It was a miracle. In the summer we’d sit next to one another for hours and hours, by the fire holding hands, and I was so grateful and happy that it had worked out.
I still love her, but it’s different now. I don’t need her any more, you know. If she chucked me now, I’d still be really upset, but I know that I’d get on with my life. Back then, it felt like the end of the world.
Maybe that’s the difference with me these days. I used to get this feeling that life was rushing past me and I had to grab hold of it or I’d lose everything. But when I moved here, I remember thinking, I’m in control now. It was the first time I felt I had my life in my own hands. There I was scrabbling and struggling to keep things together. These days, I just let go of them. And it isn’t me who falls. It’s the rest of the world that goes away – up or down, I don’t know. Just away.
The trouble with the dealing is, there’s always drugs about so you tend always to take them. But I’m glad we don’t have to do so much thieving. We had a couple of close calls, actually. There was this one time we ran out of booze, so Rob and Col decided to go and do an off licence. I went along, I don’t know why. They’d done it before but this sort of thing was brand new to me.
We got to the place. Rob whips out this brick – and crash, straight through the window. Then the alarm; it crashed about, it was terrible. I thought the whole world would be on top of us. We all dived in. I was a bit slow, I’m always a bit slow. I was too busy watching up and down the street but the other two dived in and grabbed bottles as fast as they could. But it was a good job I was a bit slow, because then I saw a cop coming. This cop was haring up the road, he must have been just round the corner. I yelled, ‘Pigs!’ and everyone charged out and up the road, dropping cans of beer and smashing bottles of wine.
We made it to a railway cutting, up the side and into the trees. The policeman waited at the top of the ridge. We heard the police cars wailing up the road, screeching to a halt. Then it was a manhunt!
They roadblocked the two sides of the cutting. They had men up and down the side. I mean, fifty quid’s worth of booze and they had this operation that must have cost thousands. If they’d given me half that money, I’d never commit another crime for months. They even had a loudspeaker.
‘We know you’re in there… come on out, lads, and we’ll see what we can do for you.’
Yeah, sure.
We were hiding in the shrubbery, giggling. Actually, I got a bit panicky at one point and I thought we’d better give ourselves up. You know how they go on: It’ll be better for you, the magistrate will think better of you if you do this, we’re going to get the dogs now…
But Col and Rob knew better. They’d been up to this sort of thing all their lives. We just sat tight. After a bit the pigs got bored, or they decided we’d legged it. So they went. And after they went, we went too.
I was scared shitless, actually, but it was fun looking back on it. We don’t do that sort of thing these days. It’s too risky. If they came to our homes, it’d be serious. Apart from the fact that I do a little dealing, it would really do Lily in. She’s in a bit of a mess, if you ask me, although no one says anything about it.
I dunno, perhaps she knows what she’s doing. Sometimes I do really honestly think she has special powers. She thinks she does. You know that book they got me? We’ve still got it. I keep it in a drawer. In the drawer there’s a cutlery box we found in a skip, an old one made of wood with a silk lining. Inside there’s this piece of silk, a scarf or something. It’s really old. We found