Junk - Melvin Burgess [88]
But I didn’t say anything. I got a knife and helped her cut up the peppers.
I was watching her. I kept my mouth shut as long as I could but finally she hangs down her head and starts weeping. I put my arm round her. ‘What’s up, Gems?’ I said.
Out it all came. ‘I’ve really let Tar down, I’ve really blown it for him. I made all these promises and…’ And she cracks up all over the rice salad.
I was really surprised because, you know, she’d been doing so well. She’d turned over a new life. She’d stopped doing jumps at the parlour, saving herself for Tar. She’d cut right down on the smack.
‘I’ve been doing more smack, I did some today and he’s been keeping himself clean and look at me…’
Off she went.
‘How much have you been doing?’ I said.
‘I did some again today, I was feeling so rotten…’
‘And when did you do it before?’
She shrugged and wiped her eyes. ‘Day before yesterday.’
I mean, she used to do stuff every day. Twice a day. Three times. She used to do more than me. And now she’d cut right down, just taking a little bit when she was feeling low, and here she was blaming herself and turning the brilliant effort she’d made into a mess, just because she wasn’t bloody Superwoman.
‘But Tar hasn’t done any,’ she wailed.
‘Well, of course he hasn’t, he’s been surrounded by all these people paid to make sure he stays clean. Where he was you’d have to be strong as hell to take the stuff,’ I told her. ‘You’ve done it all on your own, you’re doing really, really well.’
‘But he’s been clean and I haven’t and I don’t think I’m strong enough to keep off it and I do love him, I love him so much, Sal, and I’m just going to drag him down…’
‘Listen…’ I gave her a squeeze. ‘You’re really lucky. I wish I felt like that about someone. You don’t know how lucky you are, Gems…’
She smiled at me through her tears.
‘You’re going to be all right.’
‘I ought to go away. I’ve been thinking if I was strong I ought to go away and leave him because maybe he’d stand a better chance without me.’
I started getting a bit irritated with her then. I told her, ‘You’re mad, you don’t leave someone because you love them. You’re mad…’ I started laughing, and she started laughing a bit through her tears, because it was so stupid.
We did a little one together. She was worried about it but you can’t turn yourself into Superwoman. She did a chase, so Tar wouldn’t see any marks on her. She hasn’t done a needle for weeks. That’s brilliant. She was falling to bits, what sort of homecoming would that be for him?
I told her, she can’t be strong for everyone all the time, she had to learn to take some strength off him. I told her, he’d been taking strength from her for a long time. Maybe now it was her turn. If that place where he’d been was any good, he’d come up with enough strength for the pair of them.
I was scared that when the party came she wouldn’t be able to cope with it, but she was brilliant. Gemma knows how to rise to the occasion. She was bubbling. Tar was as cool as a cucumber, although looking back maybe he was a little freaked.
Later on I noticed Rob was missing, and I knew what that was likely to mean so I went upstairs and found him, sure enough, doing one in the bedroom. And guess who was there with him?
Well… that didn’t last long, did it? I was pretty annoyed with Tar about it, I can tell you. Gemma had tried so hard and she’d done so well. He was saying how it was a party, he was just having