Junk - Melvin Burgess [77]
Well. It went on till, I dunno, ten o’clock? Gemma was getting really agitated because Tar wasn’t back. The village was only about five miles down the road and he’d been gone over five hours.
‘Something’s happened to him, he’s done something silly,’ said Gemma. She thought he’d topped himself or something! I tried not to look at Lily but I couldn’t help it. We both started snorting and laughing. It was no use, I couldn’t keep a straight face with Lily looking at me like that. Gems didn’t seem to notice that all the rest of us were okay. And as for Tar…
It was just so obvious. Tar didn’t have to kill himself. If he was that desperate there was a much easier way. Not that I’d fancy hitching all the way back to Bristol. He wasn’t exactly wearing his woollies and overcoat. Come to that, I don’t think he even owned one.
Poor old Gems, she was so worried about him. Her stomach cramps were really bad and… it was getting silly. Then Sals started on at us because we were laughing about it.
We had to spill the beans. Lils got cross and she said, ‘Look, Gemma, it’s obvious…’ and she told her that Tar had certainly hitched back home for more smack.
That was the worst bit. Gemma was furious. She wouldn’t have it at first. She more or less accused Lily of lying, and that’s a bad thing to do. They started shouting and that’s when Gems clicked that Lily and I had some.
And then there was a real major row.
‘But what about your baby?’ said Gemma. ‘You just don’t care, do you? You’re doing that to your baby…’
I thought, O-oh. I cleared off quick into the next room because you can tell Lily anything, but don’t tell her she’s doing her baby any harm…
It was horrendous. They were screaming and yelling. Sal was quite pissed up by this time and she was having a go as well, which was a bit unfair because she was all right. I sat on the bed next door and listened. They were really digging up the dirt on one another. Finally Gemma came barging into our room in tears. Gemma’s no good at that sort of thing, she starts crying. Sals and Lils’ll carry on forever. We could hear them screaming at each other and Gemma said, ‘Give me some, just… give me, will you?’
I pulled the packet out. I was getting a bit worried because there wasn’t much left but I couldn’t say no, could I? She calmed down. Lils came in a bit later. She said, ‘Are you all right now, Gems?’
‘I’d have done it if just one of you bastards had hung out with me,’ said Gems. And the whole thing started off again. I thought, This is no fun.
Chapter Twenty-One
Gemma
We never even spent the second night.
On the way back no one said anything. A couple of times I tried to say how awful it was, but I just got ‘Next time, next time, next time…’ We were all scared silly.
I’d tried to give up about half a dozen times, but I’d never been scared before. I mean, you’ve gotta take risks, we’d all been scared about ODing, or about getting stuck forever on junk, or about buggering up our veins, that sort of stuff. But that’s just normal. This time was different, and I knew I really was a junkie this time because, what’s a junkie scared of? Not Aids, not overdosing, like you might think. We were scared because there might be no more smack at the other end. It was the first time I’d felt like that. It was the first time I knew I couldn’t get by without it.
Rob dashed round to Dev to score, but I was all right because Tar was at home when I got there and of course he’d already scored.
He was sitting on the settee. ‘Home already, Gems?’ he said, with this silly little I-told-you-so smile.
I walked across to the kitchen area and found the stuff in our usual stash place. I got my works together, put the kettle on. I sat down on the settee and did it.
You have no idea. You have no idea.
I could feel him watching me. ‘You really hitchhiked all the way back?’
He pulled