Junk - Melvin Burgess [87]
It really upset some people. Including me. I was sitting next to Nancy and I looked at her to see what she thought but she just shook her head. Afterwards she said that she thought Ron was just stirring things up but I don’t know. I don’t know if what he said is true but it showed me one thing: I never really thought about me and Dad before. One day when all this is over I’ll ring him up, go and visit him… maybe. And my mum. But not now. It’s all there. It’ll wait. At the moment I need all my strength for Gemma.
I don’t believe in anything any more. I don’t believe in me, I don’t believe in my friends, I don’t believe in Gemma. But I don’t mean that in a cynical way. The thing I have to remember is that I’m weak and that they’re weak. I can’t do it alone. If you have an addictive personality, you have to have help from outside yourself. Not a person, or an organisation necessarily. Something deeper than that. Some force outside you and stronger than you, that you can turn to when you feel weak.
I don’t know what they mean when they say that, but maybe I’m getting some kind of an idea about it. That thing outside yourself is different for everyone. I know that I can’t trust myself ever again. I know I can’t trust Gemma either. She’s stronger than me but she’s still weak. But what about love?
I was looking at a letter she wrote to me the other day and those words on the bottom she writes – ‘Dandelion, I love you…’ And I thought that was magic. Loving someone. It’s not you and it’s not them. It’s not in you, it’s between you. It’s bigger and stronger than you are.
That’s what I have. That’s all I have, when you think about it. My personality almost disappeared when I was on heroin. I’m off it now but I still don’t know who I am. I only know that I’m weak, and Gemma’s weak, and that I love Gemma. And I know that she loves me.
Dandelion, dandelion. That’s what I believe in. It’s the only thing can help me now.
Steve said to me, ‘When you go home you’ll know in the first day whether you’re going to get through the week.’
‘I will,’ I said.
I’ve said that before. This time I know I’ve got nothing to be confident about.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sally
It was gonna be a wedding party, it was gonna be a honeymoon, the way Gemma was. She was jumping up and down, and kissing him and hugging him. He was blushing. He’d definitely changed, definitely. He looked so much better. I was pretty cynical about the whole exercise, but you’ve gotta keep an open mind or nothing ever changes.
Later on, he started going on about all that stuff they’d taught him – how he couldn’t do it on his own, how he needed help from outside himself, wherever that is. Lily was really sneery. She said, ‘Brainwashed. Yeah, what a drag. They took him off one drug and they put him on another. They done a good job on you, mate…’
Well, she was right, but she didn’t have to say it. Maybe he needs brainwashing. Poor old Tar. I gave her a nudge and I said, ‘Leave him alone, he’s doing all right.’
‘Yeah, they put you in prison all right. They locked you up inside your own head and then they gave you the key and how do you get out of that jail? They made you your own jailer, it’s cheaper for ‘em that way…’
I was pissed off with her, she was being really nasty. He needed that stuff. He just sat there drinking a glass of fizzy wine and said, ‘You can think what you want, Lily. You’re on smack and I’m not.’ She hated that. Later on she went into the bathroom and came back with all these broken up little bits of soap and started trying to push them in his ear and up his nose.
‘Get off, Lil!’ He was getting annoyed now.
‘That’s to keep your brain clean,’ she told him. You had to laugh. Poor Tar! Lily’s a bit of a missionary. She doesn’t like any other religion but her own.
Gemma was her old self that day. Bouncing about. She wanted to show the world how pleased she was to get her hands on him again. She was all over him.
It was a bit different the day before. I went round