Dying to Survive (11 page)

‘Emm, no,’ I answered. ‘My mother wants me to stay, but I don’t want to.’

‘Tell me about it. It’s not all that bad, you know. I’m Lenny,’ he said coolly, offering his hand for me to shake.

‘Nice to meet you. I’m Rachael.’ Lenny had a kind face with big sad eyes, but I liked him straight away.

‘Did you get a chance to look around? It’s amazing, you know.’

‘No, I just got here.’

‘Come on with me and I’ll introduce you to my wife.’

‘Your wife is here as well?’ I was amazed.

‘Yeah, we both came from Kingston, but I’m here a bit longer than my wife. You’ll have to go easy on her; she’s still having a hard time coming off the crack.’

I followed Lenny through the villa, apprehensive about going any further. We passed Mediterranean-looking huts with straw roof-tops. ‘This is where we live,’ Lenny explained. ‘You can either have your own hut or one of the apartments over there.’

I tagged along after Lenny, jumping over a set of concrete lily-pads set into the grass.

‘That’s where we have therapy,’ he said pointing to an outdoor conservatory, ‘And here’s where we hang out the most.’ The swimming pool. I was impressed. ‘All together, there’s forty acres of land. You can go horse-riding if you want, or play bowling. The alleys are over there.’

I could hear music in the distance. It got louder as we walked towards what appeared to be a restaurant, also outdoor, on stilts. The patients were gathered around the one table as if they were having a meeting. No doubt they’re talking about the man who had just died, I thought. They all seemed very serious. Except one woman who was singing along to the reggae music.

‘
La musica
, Rose,
por favor
,’ one of the others shouted. Rose ignored them, singing louder this time, doing twirls, with a smile on her face.

‘That’s my wife,’ Lenny said, as he turned down the volume of the music. ‘Everyone, this is Rachael.’ The group glanced at me, nodded and got back to their meeting.

‘What have we got here? A white Rastafarian!’ Rose said, as she took me by the arm. ‘Look at the Robert Marley tattoo on her arm. You’re in the right place, girl.’ And I was, I thought to myself, looking at the swimming pool and the swaying palm trees. This would be more like a holiday than a detox.

At dinner time my mother and Laurence had found me in the restaurant. ‘Well, you seem to be settling in well,’ Laurence said with a smile. Laurence was always cracking jokes about my addiction. I think he found it easier to deal with me in this way.

‘Listen, Rachael, you only have to stay here for three weeks. Myself and Laurence are going back to Ireland, but we’ll come back and collect you then,’ my mother assured me. Out of sight, out of mind again. Why didn’t my mother just talk to me about my drug problem, instead of bringing me to the other side of the earth, I wondered. But I already knew the answer to that. The usual story, except that now I was in a lot more trouble. I needed her now more than ever.

Leaving me in Cuba only fuelled my sense of abandonment and anger. When I go home, I’m gonna go fuckin’ mad. I’ll get her back for this, I pledged to myself. I’ll definitely get her back. Then I began to panic. ‘No, you can’t leave me here on my own!’ They both looked away and I could feel the tears well up in my eyes. ‘I fuckin’ hate you,’ I shouted, as I stormed away from the restaurant.

I wandered aimlessly around the villa, contemplating making some sort of a getaway, when my thoughts were interrupted by a stream of Spanish. ‘
Buenos dias, Racquelita. Me llamo Gregorio
. You can call me Greg.
Andamos a la casa
. We go to the house, ok?’ Smiling, Greg dragged my suitcases into one of the huts. ‘Living room, bathroom, bedroom, ok?’ He gave me a smile and left me alone. I opened the wardrobe and climbed inside. I hunched myself up into the foetal position and cried my heart out.

_____

The time came for my mother and Laurence to go home. I hadn’t spoken to them since we arrived in El Quinque. I hoped that my ma would see sense and change her mind. But she didn’t. I was being left in this strange treatment centre with people from Latin America and I couldn’t understand a word they were saying. Everyone was much older than me, except for Mauricio and Alejandro, both fifteen years old like me and from Colombia. Alejandro had been a crack user and he could speak a little bit of English. He loved telling me stories of his escapades with the Colombian Mafia. I put his delusions down to his crack withdrawals.

Mauricio looked like a model and we were attracted to one another straight away. We couldn’t communicate, but our attraction didn’t need words. It was physical. He was beautifully tanned with a toned body and a boyish, chiselled face. Before long we were sleeping together. Connected by our own pain and troubles, we would lie under the night sky, staring at the stars, wishing we were anywhere but in El Quinque.

Three weeks passed quickly, but there was no sign or word from my mother. She wouldn’t accept my phone calls and I was becoming more and more fearful that I would be stuck in Cuba forever. El Quinque was more like a holiday camp than a treatment centre. With very little supervision or guidance from the staff, there were drug-filled parties and orgies every night, which frightened the life out of me. I got the impression that El Quinque was more concerned with the money they were receiving than with the welfare of their patients.

Going to therapy and mixing with the other patients seemed pointless to me. Unlike them, I wasn’t an addict: they were a lot worse on the drugs than I ever could be. I didn’t need to be in a treatment centre receiving therapy like them. They were all crazy anyway. So I spent most of my time isolated in my room, listening to rave music and fantasising about drugs. The highlight of my day was medication time, when I was pumped up with all sorts of medication while the other patients went to therapy. I was hurting badly and I needed some comfort, so I turned my room into a replica of Ballymun by painting the flats on to my walls, along with paintings of needles and junkies’ faces. I tried to soothe my hurt by living in my head and plotting revenge against my mother. But no amount of plotting or eating or having sex with Mauricio could ease my pain. It seemed that the only person I could really talk to was Lenny. He had become my friend and I would talk to him about my family and my life back in Ireland—I could confide my pain and rage to Lenny and I knew that he understood. But I still felt lonelier than ever. Five months had passed in El Quinque and no-one from Ireland had made any contact, let alone come back to get me. I began to slip into a state of depression.

_____

Then one day I heard a familiar voice outside my apartment. ‘
Racquel, Racquel
.’ I couldn’t believe it. It was my uncle Laurence. I jumped up off my bed and raced out to give him a big hug. I forgot about everything that had happened in the last five months. Laurence hadn’t broken his promise to me, I thought. He had come back to get me.

I was later to learn that the reason I’d been left so long in this place was that Mick’s friend ‘Donal’ had run off with the money and my fees at El Quinque had not been paid. Laurence had to break me out of the place and make a run for it, back to Havana and home, putting his own life at risk for me, terrified that we would get caught. I didn’t care about any of this. I was just relieved that I was getting out of this hole and going home.

_____

And of course, the ‘holiday’ in Cuba had been a complete waste of time. My family had got rid of the problem for a few months, but as soon as I saw the flats in Ballymun, my cravings for heroin kicked in. It was as if the previous five months had never happened.

I was surprised to see my old buddies Katie, Emer and Mary, waiting outside my grandmother’s house to welcome me back. ‘Ah, thank God you’re alright,’ they all said, their arms wrapped around me in a huge hug, crying their eyes out. ‘Just don’t start hanging around with all them in Poppintree again. They were the ones who got you into this trouble,’ Emer said.

‘I won’t, I promise,’ I agreed, so pleased to see them. ‘Is there anyone around with a bit of hash?’ I asked them.

‘Ah, Rachael, don’t start already,’ said Katie.

‘No, I’m ok, I swear. I’m just stressed out after all that flying. Honestly, I’m grand.’

‘Ok...’ Katie looked at me suspiciously. ‘You’ll get some in Sillogue. Knock around to us when you get it.’

I was so excited to be home that I couldn’t breathe. ‘Ma,’ I shouted to my grandmother, ‘I’m back.’

I was expecting her to welcome me back with open arms, but instead she came out of the kitchen with a panicked look on her face. Barely pausing to greet me, she followed, ‘You needn’t unpack your stuff—you’re not staying here. You’re going to stay in your mother’s.’

‘Jesus, thanks very much. It’s lovely to see you too.’

‘You’ve got to go now. She’s waiting for you,’ my nanny insisted, looking flustered.

I couldn’t believe this. After five months of refusing to talk to me, to even acknowledge my existence, my mother was expecting me to sit down and have a nice chat. ‘Is she?’ I shouted. ‘Yeah, well, I’ve been waiting for her for five months, so she can wait. I’m going around to Katie’s.’

‘Don’t be long. Herself and Mick are staying in the Westbury and they’re waiting for you to meet them for dinner. If you’re not back in fifteen minutes, I’ll be around to get ye.’ Mick liked to stay at the Westbury when he was doing business in Dublin: himself and my mother liked to eat well, dress well and look the part. I was dreading seeing my ma. Now I definitely needed something to calm my nerves. The thought of confronting my ma without something in my system seemed unbearable. I couldn’t score gear though. I’d have to wait. Hash wouldn’t really hit the spot, but it would have to do for now.

_____

My mother and Mick were sitting in the lounge of the hotel waiting for me to arrive. They looked like something from a glossy magazine, she with her thick blonde shiny hair, a simple LBD, a dab of make-up with a touch of scarlet red lipstick. Mick looked equally slick in his immaculate black suit.

‘Ah, would you look, the eagle has finally landed,’ he said as I approached their table. ‘Where’s your new boyfriend, Mauricio? I sent him over a ticket so that he could come back with you and stay in Ballymun Hotel,’ Mick found himself hilarious. While he would row in when needed and help me out, he often cracked jokes like these at my expense.

I wished I hadn’t smoked that joint. I was even more anxious and fidgety and I didn’t know how to respond to Mick. ‘I heard that he only has one leg, has he?’ Mick continued to wind me up.

‘No, it’s not funny,’ I said, as if I were three years old.

‘Ah, come on now. Are you not talking to us? I’ll tell you what, I’ll bring you into town tomorrow and buy you new clothes. That might cheer you up.’

My mother didn’t say a word during this exchange and I had no idea of how to talk to her about Cuba. I couldn’t ask her why she had dumped me there for five months without a word and why she had refused any contact with me while I was there. So instead I said nothing and went along as if nothing had happened.

At this time, my mother and Mick moved into a new house on the south side of the city. Philip had started in a new school in the area and everyone agreed that it would be in my best interests to go and live with them, away from temptation in Ballymun and my cronies in Poppintree. Mick decided that my rehabilitation was to be a personal project. He took me under his wing. Anywhere he went, I had to go, so that he could keep an eye on me. He got me a job as a waitress in a pub across the road from their house and things seemed to be going well, but having candle-lit dinners and playing happy families with my mother, who seemed like a complete stranger, irritated me. It was as though we were living in the twilight zone, brushing everything under the carpet and pretending things were great, when everything just seemed so fake. I couldn’t take it much longer and the first opportunity that I got to run back to Ballymun, I took. I couldn’t get heroin out of my head.

Chapter
7

    THE DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND

B
y now Ballymun was infested with drugs. Everyone who had got into the rave scene was now taking heroin. The old-time junkies had been replaced by younger junkies who were taking ownership of the shopping centre and almost every block in Ballymun, claiming their patch of land and openly selling drugs as though they had a licence to do so.

My attraction to drugs was at its peak. I relished doing something that I wasn’t supposed to be doing, sticking my two fingers up at my family and the rest of the world and saying, ‘Fuck you all, I’ll show you and then you’ll be sorry.’ My appetite for drugs was insatiable—Es, hash, whatever I could get my hands on, and I was no longer getting a buzz out of smoking heroin. Most of my friends were injecting at this stage. They were spending less money than I was and getting more of a stone, so in my twisted logic I thought I might as well join them. I was doing heroin anyway, so I may as well be injecting, I thought.