She flinched away from my hand.
“Sorry,” I said.
“It’s all right…I was just…It’s nothing. It looks a lot worse than it is.”
I sat there in silence for a while, gazing without shame at Candy—her hair adrift on the pillow, the rings in her ears, glinting in the low red light…her necklace, her neck, her slender fingers gripping a twist of the sheet…
“You don’t have to do this, you know,” I said to her.
“What?”
“Pretend that you’re OK, that everything’s fine. You don’t have to hide things from me.”
“I’m not,” she said quietly. “I’m hiding them from myself. It’s the only way…”
“No, it’s not.”
She sighed. “You don’t know what it’s like, Joe. You don’t understand.”
“I might if you told me.”
She rolled over onto her side and looked up at me. I could feel the intensity in her eyes as she gazed deep inside me, looking for answers. Could she trust me? Did she want to? Was it worth it?
“Promise me something,” she said.
“What?”
“Don’t get involved. I’ll tell you as much as I can, but
only if you promise to keep yourself out of it. I don’t want you trying to
do
anything for me—all right?”
I nodded.
She gave me a doubtful look. “I
mean
it, Joe. You can’t get involved.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
“Yeah…”
“Say it.”
“All right—I
promise.
OK?”
Another look, this one touched with a fleeting sadness, then she took a deep breath, rolled onto her back, and started talking.
This is what she told me:
It all started about four years ago. She’d always been a good-looking girl, the kind of girl that mothers are proud of and fathers feel the need to protect, but when she was about twelve or thirteen she’d suddenly blossomed into the kind of girl that men can’t resist, and that’s when the trouble began.
“I’m not
bragging
about my looks,” she told me. “I’m just being honest. I know what I look like. I’m
pretty.
I know it now, and I knew it then.”
At first, it didn’t cause her any problems. Why should it? Everyone likes a pretty girl. And she was smart, too. Intelligent, popular, good at sports. She had a more than comfortable home, never wanted for anything, and for the most part she got on reasonably well with her parents. Her father was the managing director of a multinational IT company, so he wasn’t at home as much as he might have
been, and her mother had a few emotional problems…but, all in all, things weren’t too bad.
But then the jealousy started.
“I didn’t even notice it at first,” Candy explained. “I used to get on all right with all the other girls at school…I didn’t have any real close friends, but there was a gang of us who used to hang around together, and that was OK most of the time. We didn’t do all that much…You know, we’d talk about boys, who we fancied, what we’d do, what we wouldn’t…that kind of thing. It was fine. No problems. Most of it was just talk, anyway. Sometimes we’d all go out to a local club together, and occasionally one of us might get off with someone for an hour or so, but it never changed anything between us. It didn’t affect how we were with each other. Do you know what I mean?”
I nodded.
She went on. “It never ends there, though, does it? It always has to get
serious.
Boys start ringing you up, asking you out. Men start looking at you with different eyes. You start doing things, going to nice places…and you think it’s great. It
is
great. It’s exciting. You love it. And because you love it, you want to tell all your friends about it. But when you do, instead of loving it
with
you, they throw it back in your face. They don’t like you doing stuff they’re not doing. It makes them feel bad. So they call you a liar…They laugh at you. They reject you. And it’s all so
sudden.
One minute they like you…the next minute they hate you. You’re not
with
them anymore. You’re different. You’re trying to be better than them. Or worse. Flashing your tits around, wiggling your bum, begging for it…you’re a slut, a tart, a whore…”
She paused and lit a cigarette, sucking the smoke deep
into her lungs, holding it there, then angrily breathing it out.
“It was horrible, Joe…the things they said…the other girls. The way they treated me…it really
hurt.
I cried myself to sleep almost every night. It’s stupid, I know…I shouldn’t have let it bother me, but it did. It still does.”
She lay there quietly for a while, staring at nothing, twisting a knotted tissue in her hands, and then, with a funny little gulp, she started crying again. I put my hand on her shoulder and let her weep. I’m not sure if it helped very much, but after a few minutes she wiped her nose, dried her tears, lit another cigarette, and went on with her story.
“I don’t know how it happened,” she told me, “but everything suddenly changed. No one liked me anymore. Everyone started picking on me—the girls at school, the teachers, even my parents…going on at me all the time, whatever I did…I couldn’t do
anything
right. If I went out with boys, I was a tart; if I didn’t, I was frigid. If I worked hard, I was a swot; if I didn’t, I was stupid. If I dressed up, I was easy; if I dressed down, I was a tramp. And it just got worse and worse. It got so bad I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t know what I was doing. In the end, I just gave up. I suppose I thought that if everyone hated me, I might as well hate myself, too. So I started doing things to
make
me hate myself—hanging around with the wrong kind of people, drinking myself stupid, staying out all night, sleeping around…” She took a long drag on her cigarette, then stabbed it out in the ashtray. “Anyway,” she said, “it was around then I met Iggy. I’d gone to this club in London with some people I barely knew, and I was whacked out of my head on something, and they’d gone off and left me…and this creepy old guy was bothering
me, trying to get me to go somewhere with him, and then Iggy suddenly appears…just walks up, cool as you like, and whispers in the creepy guy’s ear, and the next thing I know the creepy guy’s gone and Iggy’s sitting down next to me, asking me if I’m all right. God, he was so
smooth.
Nice clothes, nice manners…clean and kind and caring.” She rubbed her forehead. “The thing is, he
was
nice. Charming, polite, funny…and he didn’t try anything, either. Kept his hands to himself, never touched me…he didn’t even try to chat me up. Just talked to me. Asked me all about myself. And he
listened
to me…that was the thing. I couldn’t believe it. No one had listened to me for months. Then, after I’d jabbered away for hours, he gave me a lift back home—drove me all the way back to Heystone in his shiny black BMW, dropped me off at the end of the street, and said good night.”
She paused then, her eyes lost in thought, drifting back over the memories…and I just sat there, looking down at her, studying the landscape of her face: the flesh of her lips, her nose, her eyelids, the pretty pink curl of her ears…
“Excuse me,” she said, getting up off the bed. “I won’t be a minute—just going to the bathroom.”
She walked around the bed, picked up something from the dressing table, then slipped through the beaded doorway into the bathroom. I watched the beads, swinging in her wake, moving to the shape of her passing body, and I remembered the way she’d walked away from me in the café at the zoo—with no vanity, no pretense, no frivolity…walking with a purpose…either not knowing, or not caring, that I was watching her.
Just like now.
Getting what she needed.
I guessed it didn’t make any difference to her. She was simply getting what she needed, and that’s all there was to it. It didn’t matter that I didn’t understand it. It didn’t matter that I didn’t
like
it. That’s how it was. What I liked or what I wanted didn’t come into it. So I just sat there, looking around the room, thinking about things, listening to the secret sounds coming from the bathroom—the creak of taps, the rattle of pipes, the rustle of plastic and foil, the click of a cigarette lighter…
I got out of bed and went over to the window and pulled back the curtains. They were stiff and cold to the touch. The window was shut. Locked. Barred on the outside. A pattern of blurred marks in the smeared glass showed where Candy had gazed out the window, resting her nose against the glass.
I wondered what she looked at.
It was fully dark outside.
Streetlights glazed the surface of the road below, and in the distance the lights of the city flickered in their thousands: orange lights, dipping gracefully with the curve of roads; ice green traffic lights; the circular white glow of traffic circles…lines of motion, the drop of the sky, lights of lights…
I could see for miles.
I couldn’t see anything.
I looked over at the bathroom, willing Candy to appear:
Come on…please…if you take any longer, I’ll have to do something. I’ll have to call out to you…and you probably won’t answer…and then I’ll have to come and find you…to check that you’re OK…and I’ll find you sitting on the toilet smoking smack, all bent over and ugly, with a plastic straw sticking out of your mouth…
The toilet flushed. I crossed the room and sat down on the bed. Taps gurgled, pipes roared, the toilet flushed again…and then the beads in the doorway rattled and swooshed—and there she was, a vision in white, gliding her way around the bed and settling down beside me. She had that look about her again—the way she was sitting, loose and easy, hanging her head…that strange little smile on her lips…
“Sorry…” she said. “I had to…you know…”
“It’s all right.”
“I…uh…” she mumbled. “Where was I?”
“Sorry?”
She raised her head and looked at me, her drugged eyes wandering around my face. “The story…” she said. “I was telling you the story…” She jerked her head and ran her fingers through her hair. “Christ, it’s so
pathetic…
”
“What is?”
“This…me…what happened…
why
it happened. It’s so stupid. It’s
nothing.
I mean, I used to be all right…I was OK. Nothing
bad
happened to start it all off. I didn’t get beaten up or raped or abused or anything…
nothing
happened.” She shook her head. “All I got was a little bit of jealousy, a little bit of rejection, and a lot of self-pity. It’s not much of a reason for ending up like this, is it?”
“A reason’s a reason,” I said.
“Yeah, well…”
Her eyes closed again and her head sank down to her chest. I thought for a moment she’d nodded off, but then she took a deep breath and straightened up and opened her eyes and looked at me.
“What was I saying?” she said.
“You were talking about reasons—”
“No, before that. Before I went to the bathroom.”
“You were telling me about Iggy,” I reminded her. “When he gave you a lift home…”
“Yeah, right…gave me a lift home. That’s right. He was
sooo
nice…when was that?” She shook her head. “Long time ago…years ago. I was good then…I gave him my number…big mistake…” She sighed and yawned and lay down on the bed, resting the back of her head in my lap. Despite the growing cold, beads of sweat were glistening on her skin. “Yeah,” she said, “good old Iggy. Didn’t ring me for a week…kept me waiting…” Her head lolled back and she gazed up at me. “Just like you.” She smiled.
I nodded.
She said, “Then he rang me…asked me out…and that was it. Clubs, compliments, money, clothes…he gave me everything I wanted. Everything. Told me everything I wanted to hear: I was amazing…my parents were shit…they didn’t understand me…I was a
woman
…I was
special…
” She shook her head sadly. “I couldn’t get enough of it. I was hooked. He had everything—money, drugs, respect…it was so
cool,
you know?” Her voice was bitter and hard. “Doing coke all the time…feeling good…a bit of smack now and then to slow things down…a bit more…then a bit more…” She looked at me again. “You ever tried it?”
“No,” I said.
“Don’t…it’s shit. It’s like the best thing in the world…it takes everything away, all the crap…everything. Nothing matters anymore—hot or cold, big or small, good or bad…you just don’t care. You don’t give a shit about anything. It’s like you’re wrapped up
inside the warmest blanket imaginable, sleeping like an angel…all wrapped up in your own little wonderful world…and then one day you wake up and the blanket’s gone, and you feel so cold and empty…you feel so bad…you feel so terrible you’ll do
anything
to get that feeling back. And I mean anything…anything at all…because you don’t care, you don’t
want
to care. All you want is that wonderful
wonderful
feeling. So when Iggy says the smack’s all gone and he’s skint, so he can’t get any more…but he knows this guy, this
friend
of his who fancies me…and all I’ve got to do is spend a couple of hours with this guy and we’ll have enough money to get what we need…what
I
need…” She was speaking in a broken whisper now. “I mean, it wasn’t much to ask, was it? All I had to do was
sleep
with the guy. Iggy didn’t mind…He’d do the same for me. Why should
I
mind? If I loved him…I loved him, didn’t I? And it was good money…easy money…and he could probably find something to take my mind off things for a while…”
She was crying again, but without any tears.
I held her hand.
“There’s nothing left after that,” she said quietly. “The money keeps drying up, you keep doing favors for
friends…
needing more drugs…needing more money…doing more favors…and after a while you don’t know what’s happening anymore. You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re just doing it, doing what it takes…living in a shitty little room and working the streets all day and the saunas all night just to keep yourself from going mad…”
She mouthed a few more silent words, then her lips trembled and she closed her eyes and was quiet. I looked down at her, trying to take it all in—the words, the
images, the life…trying to imagine how it must be…but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even get close. It was beyond me. A different world. A world I knew nothing about. A world of violence and pain and darkness. I felt so small, so weak, so stupid…