I stared across at the cottage and wondered what Candy was doing. Was she sleeping? Being sick? Crying? Was she still mad at me? Why did she get mad at me in the first place?
Did it matter?
I didn’t know the answer to that one, either.
I looked at the phone in my hand and thought about
Jason again. I knew I ought to ring him. I didn’t want to, but no matter what I thought of him, he deserved an explanation of some sort, and so did the rest of the group. The recording session was coming up soon, and I’d run off and left them without so much as a word.
That wasn’t
right,
was it?
It wasn’t
fair…
But it wasn’t
here,
either. It was somewhere else, and somewhere else didn’t matter anymore. Somewhere else was nowhere.
I closed the phone and got to my feet and went back into the cottage.
As I opened the door, Candy was just coming out of the bathroom. She’d combed her hair and was dressed in jeans and a sweater. For a fleeting moment my heart lifted and I thought that everything was going to be OK. She was feeling better…she’d got over the worst of it…she was on her way back to normality…
But then I saw the look on her face, and I knew I was wrong. It wasn’t a face of
normality;
it was a face of desperation.
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
“Don’t ask,” she said, walking straight past me.
I shut the front door and followed her into the bedroom. It was a mess. All the cupboard drawers had been emptied out and the contents strewn all over the place. The bed had been moved, the mattress turned over…She’d even searched my bag. Now she was scuttling around the room, grabbing clothes off the floor and shoving them into her bag.
“What are you doing?” I repeated.
“I said…don’t ask.”
“I just did.”
“Well, don’t.”
I watched her as she packed. She looked terrible—everything about her was pained. Her face, her lips, her cheeks, her eyes…her neck, her legs, the shape of her body…her pale white skin…
God…her skin.
I remembered the first time I’d seen her, the way she’d stood there looking at me, the way she’d cocked her head and smiled, the way her rippling skin had turned me to stone…
It didn’t turn me to stone anymore: It just scared me. It was too white, too sweaty, too cold…like milky plastic left out in the rain.
“You can’t do this,” I told her.
“Do what?” she said, zipping up her bag.
“You can’t just give
in
to it—”
“No?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because…”
“Because
what?
” she sneered, turning to face me. “Come on, Joe…I wanna know why. Why
can’t
I give in to it? Because it’ll make me feel better? Because it’ll make me feel human again? Because it’ll get me out of this shit hole?” Her voice was icy and cruel. “Let’s hear it,
Joe
…come on—let’s hear your
reasoning.
”
I looked at her, trying to see beyond the sickness. Trying to see Candy.
“You wanna look?” she spit. “Is that it? You don’t want me to go cos you want something to
look
at—”
“You’ll die,” I said.
“I’ll
what?
”
“If you leave now, you’ll go back to Iggy, and one way or another you’ll end up dead. If he doesn’t kill you, the drugs will. And if the drugs don’t do it, your lifestyle will.”
“My
life
style?” she snorted. “You’re worried about my
lifestyle?
”
“I’m worried about
you.
”
“Yeah? What do you know about me? You don’t know
anything.
You’re just a cute little rich boy looking for thrills. You don’t know
shit.
”
“I know you’re not leaving.”
She stared at me, her eyes spiked with hatred.
I said, “You don’t want to go back. You pretend you don’t care, but you do. You’re just scared, that’s all.”
She laughed again, cold and hard, but this time it didn’t ring true. She was having to
make
herself sound ugly.
“I’ve had enough of this,” she said, picking up her bag. “I’m going…and don’t worry about Iggy. I can get by without him—”
“How?”
She shrugged. “That’s my business.”
“Yeah? What are you going to do for money? How are you going to get your drugs?”
“I don’t know…I’ll manage. I don’t need much, anyway…just enough to stop hurting. Then I’ll sort something out…”
“Right,” I said.
She glared at me again, then shook her head and started walking toward the door. I stepped in front of her and shut it.
She paused, looking at me. “Get out of the way.”
I said nothing.
She moved toward me until we were standing face-to-face, staring into each other’s eyes.
“Get out of the way, Joe.”
“I’m not letting you go,” I said.
“You can’t stop me.”
“I can try.”
She was doing her best to control herself now, but she wasn’t making a very good job of it. Her face was tight, cold with sweat. I could see the nerves twitching under her skin.
She licked her lips. “Please don’t do this. It’s not worth it. Just open the door and let me go.”
I couldn’t speak anymore. I was shaking so much inside that the words just wouldn’t come out. Candy was silent, too. Her breaths trembled, sour and stale on my face.
“What do you
want?
” she hissed. “What do you want me to
do
? You want me to beg? Is that it? You want me to get down on my knees—”
“Don’t,” I said.
“Well, get out of the
way,
then. For God’s sake…I have to go. I
need
to go. I’m dying here…You don’t understand…” She moved even closer, pouting her lips and lowering her voice. “Please, Joe…please…?”
I shook my head.
She put her hands on my shoulders and stared into my eyes. For a moment I thought she was going to kiss me. I started moving away, but then her grip suddenly tightened and her eyes went cold, and before I knew it she was lurching forward and kneeing me hard in the groin.
The pain exploded in a white-hot roar. The pain…God! It was
everything.
Ripping through me, emptying my lungs,
crashing me down to the floor. I couldn’t do anything. I was senseless, a sobbing heap…groaning, crawling…I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t hear…
Do something.
Breathe.
You have to
breathe…
Suck it down…
Feel it…
The floor…
Eyes…wet…
Back…
The door…
At your back.
The door…moving against your back.
Candy.
The fog was beginning to clear, and I dimly realized that I was lying with my back against the door and that Candy was trying to open it. I looked up at her. She was pulling on the handle, getting her fingers between the door and the frame, trying to widen the gap, trying to squeeze through. Her face was streaming with tears.
I forced myself to sit up and lean my weight against the door.
Candy kept on pulling at it for a while, but it was never going to open now. She had no strength. She was exhausted.
She started screaming—“No! No! No!”—slapping the back of the door with her hands. “No! No! No! No! No!…”
I breathed slowly, focusing on the pain in my belly—calming it, calming myself, keeping my mind off Candy’s despair. I couldn’t listen to it. It hurt too much. Everything hurt.
She kept screaming and hitting the door for a while, but gradually she began to tire. The screaming faded to sobbing, the sobbing faded to whimpers, and finally she went quiet. I raised my head and looked at her. She was just standing there, limp and forlorn, staring at nothing.
I reached up and touched her leg.
She didn’t respond.
“Candy?” I said.
She looked down at me. Her face was tear-streaked and broken. “I’m sorry, Joe,” she said weakly. “I’m so sorry…”
I held out my hand. She took hold of it and slumped down beside me on the floor. There was blood on her hand from a broken fingernail. I licked my finger and wiped it away.
She looked at me.
I said, “You hurt yourself.”
She nodded and started to cry. I took her in my arms and closed my eyes and willed the hurting to stop.
The rest of the day was comparatively quiet. I tidied up the bedroom and got Candy back into bed, then I went around the cottage and cleared up the rest of the mess she’d made. It was hard to believe that while I’d been sitting outside, feeling sorry for myself, she’d virtually ransacked the whole place. She’d searched everywhere—the empty bedrooms, the front room, the fridge, even the cooker. The worst of it, though, was the bathroom. She’d just about ripped it apart. I suppose she must have remembered me searching it, and in her confusion she’d taken that to mean there were drugs in there. Or maybe
she
had
hidden some drugs in there but couldn’t remember exactly where…?
Anything was possible…
As I was beginning to realize.
It was dark by the time I’d finished cleaning up. I grabbed a flashlight and went outside to get some more logs, then I set the fire and tried to settle down for the night. I was still aching a bit from Candy’s low blow, but I’d reached that stage of tiredness when your senses blur and everything starts to feel dull—the light, your body, your mind, your pain…
I was too tired to hurt.
I lay down on the sofa and rang Gina.
The call failed—no reception.
I couldn’t be bothered to go outside, so I just closed the phone and lay there, drowning in the silence.
I don’t know anything about heroin. I don’t know what it is or how it works or what it does to your mind and body. I don’t know why it’s addictive, and I don’t know why you get sick when you stop taking it. What I
do
know, though—what I learned that night—is the hold it has over a body. Or maybe it’s the other way around—the hold a body has over heroin? The need…the desire…the
demand…
The chemistry.
Like I said, I don’t understand it, but that night I witnessed its work.
From six o’clock until midnight, Candy’s soul screamed in every way possible: her temperature raged from hot to cold; her limbs burned; she sweated slime; her muscles ached; her stomach knotted; her skin itched; her eyes
watered; her nose streamed; her head throbbed; she smelled bad; she sneezed so violently I thought she was going to burst something. And all the time, on top of this, there was vomiting and diarrhea and raging thirst and waking dreams…
And all because of chemistry.
Her body was holding her ransom.
Give me what I want or I’ll make you sick. I’ll hurt you. I’ll kill you. I’ll drive you insane. GIVE ME WHAT I WANT!
But she didn’t.
Or she couldn’t.
It didn’t matter which. She stuck it out—her body screaming, hour upon hour, never giving her a moment’s rest, until finally she became so exhausted that even the screams couldn’t keep her awake and she fell into a nightmared sleep.
I slept, too. On the floor. Dreaming of kangaroos.
Monday morning, seven o’clock: When I woke up, Candy was sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking a cigarette. The curtains were open and her gaunt-looking face was framed in the morning light. It was a portrait in gray: her pallid complexion, the clouded skies, the cigarette smoke, the sweat-stained bed…everything washed-out and dull.
I sat up and stretched the stiffness from my neck.
“Hey,” said Candy, looking around at me.
“Hey, yourself. How’s it going?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “About the same, I suppose…maybe a little bit better.”
“Are you still hurting?”
She nodded. “Everywhere.”
“When do you think it’ll stop?”
“I don’t know—the worst of it’s usually over in a couple of days, so sometime today…hopefully. I don’t think I can go through another night like that.” She stubbed out her cigarette and scratched her head. “God, I feel so
dirty…
Everything’s sticky and scabby…This bed stinks…”
“Why don’t you go and have a wash?” I suggested. “I’ll change the bed for you—get some fresh sheets and stuff.” I stood up and went over to her. “Come on, I’ll give you a hand.”
I helped her along to the bathroom, then went back and changed the bed. It wasn’t pleasant. Fresh sheets, fresh pillows, a fresh duvet. I cleaned up a bit—tissues, chocolate wrappers, magazines—and opened the window to air the room. I was just on my way out to get some fresh water when Candy came back from the bathroom.
She looked as white as a ghost.
“Christ,” I said, hurrying over to her. “What’s the matter?”
“What?”
“Your face…your skin…”
“Oh,” she said, touching her cheek. “Sorry—it’s just talcum powder. I can’t stand the feel of water on my skin…It prickles.” She shivered. “It’s horrible. The talc makes me feel a little bit better.”
I helped her back into bed, then tried to get on with the day.
Ten-thirty: There were three more messages on the answering machine at home—two more silent ones, and one from Dad. His message went like this:
Gina, Joe—it’s me
(he never calls himself
Dad
when he’s talking to us, it’s always just
me,
or occasionally
your father
)…
I’m just
ringing to let you know that everything’s fine. Listen, don’t forget to put the bins out on Wednesday, and if the window cleaner turns up, don’t pay him until he’s done the conservatory. He missed it the last time. And Joe—where are you? You’re supposed to be at home, remember? Look, I’m not checking up on you, and I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason you’re not there right now, but I’ll want to speak to you about it later on in the week—all right? OK, well, I have to go now…I’ll see you both soon—good-bye.
It was weird hearing his voice—it sounded so
normal.
Talking about bins and window cleaners and conservatory windows…it all seemed so alien. Which it was, I suppose. It was a voice that belonged to somewhere else.
I tried Gina’s cell phone, but it was still turned off. I knew she had to switch it off when she was at the hospital, so I wasn’t particularly worried, but I hadn’t talked to her for a while, and it would have been nice to share a few thoughts.