Junk - Melvin Burgess [63]
Later when she calmed down, she said she got a hit off it, but she didn’t enjoy it the way I meant. She got hyped up from it, like she used to when she was a kid and she walked across the river on the edge of the rail bridge. It was a dare.
This is how you do it.
She stands on the street corner. He waits a little bit down the road. Then the punter in a car comes along and pulls up, has a chat. He makes himself seen, so the punter knows she’s not on her own. They decide to do business. They decide what the service is, what the price is.
‘We all knew what the goods were,’ said Lily, and she grinned.
She gets in the car, the car pulls away. He walks up and down chewing his nails and fretting. Fifteen minutes later the car drops her off, she gets out and she finds him and hands over the money. Then she goes back to her place, does another punter.
Two punters. Hey presto. Sixty quid.
Yeah, money’s easy. You can earn it standing in a doorway or flat on your back or in the back of someone’s car. You use your body same as other people do – carpenters, mechanics, gardeners. You can go to work and earn it in a shop or you can work for yourself on the street corner or at home. Money’s easy, same as everything’s easy – once you know how.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, how terrible, how demeaning, how awful, oh, dear me, oh oh oh…
Yeah, about as demeaning as going out to work five days a week. About as demeaning as going down a mine. About as demeaning as sitting in an office all your life while the sun shines on someone else. About as demeaning as getting married and having kids and then finding out he’s a bastard who knocks you about and wants to give you one five times a week and you can’t say no even though you hate him, and all for less in a week than Lily can earn in a couple of hours.
Who’s the sucker?
I was amazed. Even after I was full of heroin I was still amazed and I kept saying, ‘You didn’t, you’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?’
‘I was a little prossie for half an hour, now I’m Lily again. And I’m having a really good time…’
I had Vonny and Richard round here the other day and… Oh, I couldn’t resist it. I’d already told them about turning over a few punters. I love it. You can see their faces trying to work it out. They just hate being disapproving. They think they’re Mr and Mrs Alternative, really subversive. Gluing up the banks, smoking a few joints. I’m only fifteen and I’ve done things neither of them would dare do.
When I told them I was on the game, Vonny sat for a bit trying to decide what her position was, then she said, ‘That’s awful, Gemma.’
‘Well, I’ll try anything once,’ said Richard. ‘But I wouldn’t advise it as a career move.’ Which actually was just about right. He surprises me sometimes. Anyway, I was going to tell you… I couldn’t resist. They were sitting there and they wanted to know what I’d been up to. So I thought, I’ll show you what. And I rolled up my sleeves and showed them my track marks. Where I’d used the needle.
I won’t bore you with the details. I was almost sorry I bothered, they went on so much. Actually, I say that, but I didn’t mind. I like talking smack. I could talk about smack all day, it fascinates me – what it does to you and the way people react to it. But they were just appalled, far more than when I told them I did punters. It went on for hours.
‘There’ll be tears over this,’ said Richard.
I laughed. He doesn’t know me!
‘Everyone thinks they’re stronger than heroin,’ said Vonny. ‘That’s how it makes you feel. But there’ll be deaths.’ She got really wound up.
She got up and started pointing round the room like the Angel of Doom. ‘Some of you are going to die.’ There were a couple of younger ones there, little beggar girls who made a bit selling to the even more down-and-out beggars. They just sank back into the carpet and stared at her as if she’d Come To Get Them. It was so funny.
‘You know all about it, you’ve been through it, have you?’ said Tar. And of course Vonny had to admit she’d never