Candy (31 page)

Q: You focus on the theme of addiction in
Candy
: addiction to drugs, addiction to music, addiction to a person. Do you think that love can be a kind of drug? And why did you choose to explore this theme?

A: Yes, I wanted to look at the idea that we can become addicted to anything—physically, mentally, emotionally—and how immensely strong addiction can be. How it can make us do things that we know are wrong, but we just can’t help it. Like falling in love with someone you shouldn’t be falling in love with…there’s nothing you can do about it. We all like to think we have control over the things we feel and do, but sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we have no control over the things that make us feel things…which is a pretty weird idea when you think about it.

Q: You draw an incredibly affecting portrait of Candy, a girl from a good family and neighborhood who has been pulled into the underworld. Why did you choose to give her a background that would seem to upend the conventional wisdom about teenage prostitutes? And did you do any research to create this character?

A: Continuing the addiction/lack of control theme, I wanted to show that it’s not just a certain kind of person who is prone to addiction of any kind, and it’s not just those who suffer major domestic/personal/emotional problems who end up being “pulled into the underworld”—we’re all vulnerable. We all face problems, and obviously some problems are bigger and more catastrophic than others—but it doesn’t take much for a small problem to get out of control, and once something gets out of control, anything can happen.

I read quite a lot about the vice trade before writing
Candy,
particularly on the theme of teenage prostitution, and many of the real-life stories I came across were about young girls from safe, comfortable, middle-class homes (just like Candy), who—for various reasons—gradually descended into the world of drugs, pimps, prostitution. It happens all the time, all over the world.

For more conversation with Kevin Brooks, check out www.thisispush.com

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by Kevin Brooks

The Paradise Hotel was seven floors of dull gray concrete on the outskirts of a dull gray town. I didn’t know how I’d got there, and I didn’t know if it was a good idea to stay there or not, but I was bone-tired and wet, and my stomach was hurting, and I just couldn’t walk any farther. But, most of all, I needed to be on my own. I needed to start thinking about things. I needed to do something. Without giving it too much thought, I opened the hotel doors and went inside.

It was a fairly big place, and fairly posh. Srnoked-glass doors, a dark-carpeted lobby, pillars and panels, plants in brass pots. There was a bar at the far end of the lobby, and a restaurant off to one side. Both were quite busy. Men in suits, wornen in suits, everyone drinking and having a good time.

I felt out of place.

I’d never been in a hotel before. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know the procedure. So, for the next five minutes or so, I just stood in the doorway—glancing at my nonexistent watch now and then, as if I was waiting for someone—and I watched what was happening. How it worked. Where people went. What they said.

Then, when I’d worked it all out, I smoothed back my hair, straightened myself up, and crossed the lobby toward the reception desk.

The young woman behind the desk was sleek and well dressed. She had a thin face, a false smile, and slick blonde hair. As she watched me crossing the lobby, I wondered what I looked like to her.
You’re just an ordinary young man,
I told myself.
You’re wearing an ordinary jacket and an ordinary shirt, and you’re carrying an ordinary briefcase and an ordinary backpack. You’re ordinary, that’s all you are. That’s what she sees.

“Good evening, sir,” she said. “How can I help you?”

“I’d like a room, please.”

It was easier than I thought—the procedure.

She asked me questions, I answered them.

“How many nights?”

“One.”

“Single or double?”

“Single.”

“Smoking or nonsmoking?”

“Non.”

“Newspaper in the morning?”

“Yes, please.”

“Which one?”

“Any one.”

The only tricky part was when she asked me for a credit card. I had credit cards. I had Ryan’s and Kamal’s credit cards. But I didn’t want to use them. Credit cards are traceable. I didn’t want to be traced.

“There’s a problem with my card,” I told the receptionist, giving her what I hoped was a weary smile. “It’s been playing up all day. I think there’s a faulty computer or something. Is it OK if I pay in cash?”

She hesitated for a moment, then smiled and nodded. “Cash? Of course, cash is fine. We’ll need some identification, though—credit card, driver’s license, passport…something like that. And full payment in advance, of course.”

“Of course.”

I was thinking hard now, thinking fast, trying to work out what to do. What could I use for ID? And what would the receptionist do with it? If I gave her a credit card, would she swipe it? And if she did, would Ryan find out? What if I used Ryan’s ID card? No, that was no good, it had his photograph on it. Kamal’s driver’s license? No, that had a photo on it, too. And, besides, who in their right mind would believe that I was called Kamal Ramachandran? What else could I use? My insurance card, Ryan’s business card…?

“It doesn’t matter if your credit card’s faulty,” the receptionist said. “We’re only going to make a photocopy.”

I smiled at her. I still wasn’t sure what to do, but I knew she’d start getting suspicious if I didn’t do something soon. So, still smiling, I took Ryan’s wallet out of my pocket, selected his Amex card, glanced briefly at the signature on the back, then passed it over.

The receptionist barely looked at the card. She just smiled at me, made a quick photocopy, then gave it back.

The rest was easy. She pressed buttons on her keyboard, gave me a form to fill out and sign—Ryan’s signature was just a s crawl—then she took my cash, and that was it.

Room 624. Sixth floor.

Through the doors, down the corridor, the elevator’s on your left.

Thank you, Mr. Ryan.

Thank
you.

It was a small room—single bed, cupboards, TV and VCR, bathroom. I locked the door behind me and dropped my bags on the bed. I went over to the window, pulled back the edge of the curtain, and looked outside. I was at the back of the hotel. All I could see was a plain brick wall and the rear of the kitchens down below. I turned on the TV, clicked through the channels, then turned it off. I went into the bathroom, looked around, took a glass tumbler from a shelf over the sink, then came back out again. I sat down on the bed and put the tumbler on the bedside cabinet. There was a telephone on the cabinet. I stared at it for a while, imagining how simple it would be to just pick up the phone and press a few buttons…

Hello?

Bridget? It’s me, Robert-

Robert! Where are you? What’s going on…?

No. It wouldn’t be simple at all.

I leaned across the bed and opened the cabinet drawer. Inside was a pad of writing paper, a hotel pen, and a bible. I took out the bible and flipped through the pages, then put it back in the drawer.

I knew I was just playing for time, putting off what had to be done. And I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer.

It was time to think about it now.

Right now.

I ernptied my pockets and tipped the contents of the backpack and the briefcase onto the bed. Then I just sat there and stared at them, making myself see the bare truth of those things: X-rays, photographs, a videotape, scalpels, needles, syringes, papers, medical records, an automatic pistol, wallets, cash, clothes, vodka, chocolate bars, chicken, painkillers…

It was an unthinkable collage.

And I knew what I had to do.

I picked up the glass tumbler and half-filled it with vodka. The smell of it made me gag. I hate vodka. I hate alcohol. I hate the taste of it, the smell of it, how it makes you feel. I
hate
it.

But it was necessary.

I topped up the glass with Coke.

Took two aspirin.

I drank, shuddered, and drank again.

It was necessary.

I started examining the items on the bed.

The X-rays. Blurred images of bones and organs on a plastic film. X-rays.
Normal,
Casing had said.
Normal.
I held the X-rays up to the light and studied thern, but they didn’t tell me anything. I didn’t know what I was looking at. I didn’t know what I was looking
for.
What does
normal
look like? I put the X-rays to one side and turned to the pile of papers.

The papers. Photocopies of my appointment card and admittance record, my name and address, a few personal details on a handwritten sheet. Blank pages. Papers. Nothing about Ryan, nothing by Ryan. Nothing to tell me what had happened. I collected all the papers together and placed them on top of the X-rays.

The medical records. Cramped handwriting on small white cards. I glanced through them, looking for anything unusual, but there was hardly anything there. In fact, apart from the details of my stomach problem, there was nothing there at all. No broken bones, no diseases, no ailments.

Was that normal?

I tried to remember if I’d ever been ill. I knew I’d had colds. Snuffles, sneezes, a cough. Colds and chills. But, no, I couldn’t remember anything serious. Nothing that needed medical attention.

Nothing?

Ever?

Chicken pox, measles, mumps…?

No.

Nothing. Not as far as I could recall.

Only bad dreams.

I didn’t know what to think about that.

I took another drink.

Refilled the glass. Three parts vodka, one part Coke.

The photographs. Black-and-white stills taken from the endoscopy video. Unclear images of unclear things. Strange things. Strange shapes. Cones, flecks, weird black chambers. Wiggles of white, curves, ridges, trails. Patterns. I didn’t know what I was looking at. There was no sense of dimension or direction. No reference points.

Not yet.

I stacked the photographs and placed them beside the videotape.

Another drink.

The pistol. It was matte black, slightly oily, with a molded grip, chunky little sights, and seven vertical grooves gouged into the rear of the barrel. On the side, it said
MADE IN AUSTRIA
, and below that,
GLOCK
. It was a gun. A 9mm automatic pistol. I thumbed a little catch and the magazine slid out. I counted sixteen bullets. I replaced the magazine—
snick
—and hefted the gun in the palm of my hand.

It felt solid and primed. Powerful.

It felt like death.

I placed the pistol on the left-hand side of the bed.

Putting things in order. That’s what I was doing. I was picking things up, one by one, examining them, studying them, seeing what they told me. Then I was arranging them in separate piles on the bed. On the right, the stuff that told me nothing, the stuff I could get rid off. On the left, the stuff I needed to keep. And in the middle, right in front of me, the stuff I needed to look at.

Order. Keep things in order.

I liked to keep things in order.

Chocolate bars, water, aspirin—left. Map—left. Ryan’s wallet and penknife—left. Old clothes—right. Kamal’s wallet—left. Car keys—right. Cash—left.

Photographs—middle. Video—middle…

Left and right.

Right and left.

Middle, middle, middle.

There was a shopping bag in the trash can. I gathered all the stuff from the right-hand pile and packed it into the shopping bag, then I placed the shopping bag in the corner of the room. The pistol, the map, everything else from the left-hand pile, I put into the backpack. Then I changed my mind about the pistol, removed it from the backpack, and placed it on the bedside cabinet.

What was left? Videotape, photographs, syringes, needles, scalpels.

It was almost time.

I put the endoscopy video in the VCR and sat on the bed with the remote in my hand. I drank more vodka and Coke. The alcohol was getting to me now, making me sick and numb and stupid. It was doing what it had to do.

I stared at the blank television screen. Gray-green. My thurnb hovered over the
PLAY
button.

Whatever you see,
I said to myself,
whatever’s there…there’s a thousand ways it won’t be you.

I thought…
don’t think.

I drank some more…and pressed
PLAY.

But what the doctors discover inside Robert Smith doesn’t make medical sense. Naked and numb on the operating table, Robert can hear the surgeons’ shocked comments:

“What the hell is that?”

It’s me
, Robert thinks,
and I’ve got to get out of here.

Armed with a stolen automatic, Robert manages to escape. Off the radar, on the run, and with a beautiful thief as his hostage, he embarks on a violent odyssey to find out exactly who—exactly
what
—he is.