Junk - Melvin Burgess [66]
I don’t have much to do with the rest of them. I only see them. I have my own life to live.
I had Richard round here the other day to say goodbye. He’s going on a trip to South-East Asia. Thailand, Bali, then on to Australia. He wanted me to go with him. I laughed. What with? I don’t have any money.
‘I’ll lend you some,’ he said.
I just shook my head.
I impress myself sometimes. He thinks I’m worth offering a thousand quid to and I don’t do anything. I get on with my life, I do my business. I don’t try. And he still thinks I’m worth giving a thousand to. I know he said lend, but we both know I’d never get round to giving it back, no matter how good my intentions were.
I knew what was behind it, of course. He thought if I went with him I might leave the smack alone. He used to come round regularly to nag me.
‘It’ll kill you. It is killing you. You’re really boring these days,’ he told me.
I said, ‘So are you.’
He just shook his head.
‘I don’t have to go running off to Asia to keep myself interesting, Richard,’ I told him.
‘I hope you find it just as interesting being dead as you have being alive,’ he told me.
That’s the trouble with most people. They want to live forever. When you turn round to them and tell them that you’re just living your life and if that means you’ll be dead in three years, that’s okay by you, they hate that. There’s no answer to that. If you don’t mind not reaching twenty there’s no argument against heroin, is there?
You have to face facts. There was this thing with Alan and Helen, this really spooky thing. I was just getting to know them quite well. I can’t remember where I met them, but they used to turn up at our place to score. Then they got into a bit of dealing. He was the handsomest bloke I ever met. He was dark and all hairy. Hairy chest, black hair on his arms. He had to shave twice a day. Well, he never did, of course, but if he wanted to keep clean shaven he had to. He had beautiful eyes, like liquid gold, and those even, good-looking sort of features. He could have been a model, except maybe he was even a bit too pretty. People used to sit staring at him. I used to myself. Then if he caught you looking, he’d fling back his head and put out his arms into this model-man pose.
He was a laugh. He always played up to it, posing like a model in the magazines. He had this really silly shirt, with a picture of a dragon on the front of it, all picked out in tiny little fairy lights. Sometimes if it was getting dark he’d turn the shirt on and sit there with his head flung back, like Erik the Viking, and this stupid shirt flashing on and off.
Helen was a frizzy blonde, quite pretty, with a turned-up little nose. She was from Birmingham, I think. She was quite lively. I didn’t really know why she was with Alan, because he was a bit thick. I think she just thought she had it made because he was so good looking, and he made quite a lot of money dealing.
Anyway, Rob had some sort of a deal with them, for some stuff. There was a shortage on. Me and Gems had a little bit but we didn’t want to share it because it was all we had, it was just a tiny little bit. It happened like this. They were out of town organising this stuff, and they rang Rob in the evening to tell him it was sorted and he could come and get his. He went round straight away to their place and the light was on, but he couldn’t get an answer. He banged on the door and shouted up… nothing. They were in Brook Road, just round the corner. He didn’t want to make too much fuss. It’s bad manners, you know, to make a fuss outside a dealer’s house, so he came back to wait at home.
‘They only rang me up half an hour ago and they never said they were going anywhere. I told them I was coming round,’ he said. He looked awful, sitting there chewing away at the skin round his nails.
‘Maybe they got busted,’ said Lily. She was sitting on the floor with her arms round her legs all wrapped up in a cardigan. They were both really going through it. I really felt for them. Yuk. It’s like, every little thing that happens is too much. It