Junk - Melvin Burgess [98]
‘No. She knew you, though.’ Willy looked suspiciously at me. ‘Who was it then?’ she asked.
I scratched my ear. ‘I can’t think… What did she look like?’
Willy started to describe her, but that didn’t help either. I just suddenly realised…
‘Gemma!’
I hadn’t seen her for ages. It got worse and worse round there, full of brain-dead zombies. I used to go round and nag her quite regularly. She was boasting about it all the time – being on the game, using needles. She thought it was all a big gas. I kept on going for a bit after Richard moved out of Bristol, but then I stopped.
I thought she must be in trouble. I mean, she’d been in trouble for years, but now she’d realised it at last.
I drove straight round to her place but I couldn’t get an answer. I looked through the windows and there was no one there. I got back home, fiddled about. I was worried about her – scared, really. She was in such bad trouble for so long and she never even knew it. I like Gemma. She had a lot going for her, but she was just such a lousy judge of character.
It was six o’clock in the evening before I discovered the note. She must have pushed it through my letterbox, but there’s a little piece of carpet I use as a mat and sometimes it rucks up and letters get stuck underneath it.
‘I can’t wait any longer, I’m going to the hospital to try and get them to admit me. Gemma.’
I’d told her so many times I’d always be there if she needed me, and she’d just laughed at me. But she remembered in the end. I ran out and jumped in the car and drove straight there.
She looked like death. I sat on the bed and listened to her story, and I kept thinking, she’s eighteen and I’m twenty-four, but she’s so much older than me. She’s an addict, she’s fallen in love, she’s slept with dozens of men, she’s pregnant. She was only eighteen but I felt like I was sitting there listening to an old, old woman telling me what had happened to her when she was still young.
The police had been round to interview her but Tar, bless him, had taken the rap again even though he must have known she’d called the cops… and even though it would mean youth custody for him this time.
The hospital was keen to get rid of her. She was just taking up a bed as far as they were concerned. She’d only got in because she was getting these violent stomach cramps. She said she always got them when she was coming down but to be honest, I think she’d exaggerated it so they’d give her a bed. So she was just lying there waiting to be chucked out with nowhere to go.
Poor Gemma! Of course I could take her into my house. I would have done but…
‘Give me your parents’ number, Gemma. Let’s try that first.’
‘I can’t.’
The number of times I’d asked her. The number of times she’d said that. I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing.
‘It’s out of your hands, Gemma. Just say the number.’
She covered her face with her hands. ‘0232…’ she began. She remembered after all those years.
The phone rang three times. A woman picked it up and said, ‘Hello.’
I said, ‘Mrs Brogan?’
‘Yes.’
I took a deep breath and said it. ‘It’s about your daughter, Gemma.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Emily Brogan
Three and a half years.
I wanted to catch the train. It would be quicker but Grel insisted on driving. I suppose the driving took his mind off things. I thought it’d be unsafe, but in the event he was as good as gold. I sat there and thought about all the things I’d missed – the things Gemma had missed – growing up, going to school, exams, boyfriends in the living room, parties…
I’d looked forward to all of it. Having a daughter was like living my own childhood over again and I’d missed out on so much. We all had. I was furious with her because of that. And because… You see, after all those years, you try to tell yourself you’ll probably never see her again until you’re an old woman. And then this happens and the wounds are all as fresh and raw as they were when she first left. She was eighteen years old and in trouble but she was still a child to me.
How could she do that to us?
I kept remembering what that