Authors: Ray Banks
I’m about to go through the movies — anything to keep my mind off the itch — when Greg comes back into the room. I try not to snap to attention. Take it slow, act like I don’t need what he’s carrying.
He frowns, a bag of pills in his hand, the cigarette hanging from his bottom lip. Smoke rising into narrowed eyes, he says, “What happened to the tunes?”
“It was doing my head in.”
“That’s Yusuf’s best work you’re fucking around with there.”
“Cat,” I say. “He wasn’t—”
“Man’s a genius, I don’t care what name he’s using or who he’s praying to.” Greg picks up the remote, changes the track to “Hummingbird”, which throws my mind for a loop.
“Greg—”
He puts a finger to his lips. “Say the man’s a terrorist, I’ll slap you. Listen to the music. It’ll calm you down.”
It doesn’t. “Can we get on with this?”
“Fine.” He sits down, flicks ash into a mug. “Getting harder to come by this stuff, y’know.”
“Yeah, you told me.”
“No, I mean it’s
really
hard. Nobody’s dealing this.” Greg moves the CD case out of the way, starts counting out the pills.
“What? That your subtle way of jacking the price on me, is it?”
Greg frowns. “Fuck me, you’re in a mood.”
“You want to charge more, Greg, just come out and say it.”
“Would I do that to you, man?”
“No, Greg, you’re salt of the earth.”
I turn my back on him. Can’t stand to watch him take his time with the pills, and I wish I didn’t have to keep this conversation going, but I’m supposed to be all cool about this. I’m sure the fucker does it on purpose, just to see if one night I’ll crack. But I can’t afford to look too needy. Part of the reason Greg’s so willing to have me come round is that I don’t look like the rest of them. I’m not bringing any attention his way. So I try not to look too desperate. Besides, salt of the earth or not, a needy punter is a punter about to be fucked over.
“You working much?” I say.
“At the club?” Greg sniffs. “Yeah, still got some shifts. Not doing doubles anymore, like. Don’t need to.” Another sniff, I don’t think he realises he’s doing it half the time. “Couple lads from
Corrie
came in the other night.”
“Which ones?”
Greg looks up, surprised. “You watch it, do you?”
“No.”
“Then it won’t make a difference, will it? Anyway, they come in, ask where they can score. Like they’re all set for a long night out and reckon of course I’m going to know where they can get something to keep their eyes open. Don’t know me from Adam, like, so I could get offended. Anyway, these two might be as discreet as pillheads get, but they’ve got cash, so you know how it is. Way I see it, if they get fuckin’ stupid about the situation, it’s their jobs down the drain.”
“Or going great guns as soon as they’re out of rehab.”
“They’re not Pete Doherty, these lads. They fuck up, they’re not going to get the column inches.”
“Right. And how d’you class me, Greg? Pillhead?”
He doesn’t look at me. “I sell you pills.”
“Oh, right. Cheers.”
“But you, Cal, you’ve got a
medical condition
, right?”
I don’t like his tone, but I’m willing to let it go. “We doing the same price or what?”
“This one time, I don’t see why not. Next time, I might have to hike it all to fuck, mind.”
“Cash good for you?”
“Always good,” he says, bagging and twisting. “Never took a cheque in my life and I’m not going to start now.”
“Thought you’d have gone chip-and-pin.” I dig out my wallet, hand over the cash, take the bag.
“Chip-and-pin’s fuckin’ insecure, you didn’t hear about that? And the people I deal with — present company excepted — I’m sure they’d find some way to fuck me over.” Greg slips the cash under the CD case so he can get a good look at it as he goes down on the next line. “Anything else I can do you for?”
“Nah, I’ll let you have the rest of your night.”
He nods, then asks, “You’re alright, though?”
“I’ll be good.”
But as I leave Greg’s flat, hand in my jacket pocket, fingers in a tight claw around the pill bag, I reconsider.
And reckon I’m pretty fucking far from being good.
Air from outside has wafted the puke smell all through the flat, but these pills need transferred sharpish. Greg might have been taking the piss with the whole “medical condition” thing, but I’m the one still on the codeine so for all intents and purposes it
is
a medical condition.
Technically.
It’s not my fault my GP’s a vindictive prick and he can’t get his head round one stolen prescription. Never darken my doors again, be fucked. It was desperate measures and, Christ, it’s not like I’m popping them like sweets. I only take what I’m supposed to take. I might up the dosage in proportion to the pain, but it’s not like I’ve graduated to heavy-duty opiates or anything.
I could’ve taken the harder stuff. Easily. Before I hooked up with Greg, there were a couple of seriously bad nights, thought I was well on the way to shaking hands with St Peter. But edging into methadone territory, that’s a line I’m not willing to cross. As soon as my back gets better, as soon as it stops crippling me, I’ll kick the pills into touch. Methadone — that’s another beast entirely, and I know how hard it is to pin the fucker. My brother’ll tell me all the gory details of his long, slow trek to recovery in between the protracted silences of his monthly catch-up call.
Which reminds me, there should be one of those due soon. There’s something to actively avoid. Not that I don’t like my brother, I just don’t like feeling I have to talk to him. And he’s on a forgiveness kick at the moment, must be one of the steps they taught him when they were urging him to kick the habit. He keeps telling me to come up to Edinburgh, the pair of us can go over to Shotts to talk to my dad.
Spend quality time in prison with my father, and not just any prison but fucking Shotts? That place is home to Scotland’s nastiest: the coat-hanger pimps, the paedos, the killers, the serial rapists. Whatever my dad did to deserve a cell there, I don’t want to go through it with him. Mind you, knowing him, the bastard probably requested Shotts. He wouldn’t be seen dead in an Edinburgh nick.
So somehow I don’t see that happening, but Declan can’t understand why I wouldn’t want to go into the type of place that used to give me nightmares to see a guy who did the same.
Declan left home earlier than me. He doesn’t know how bad it got after he was gone.
So, fuck forgiveness and healing old wounds, whatever the fuck he has to do as part of the rehab he’s doing.
Last month, he said, “How’s your back these days?”
“Fine,” I told him.
“Still on the painkillers?”
“They’re still being prescribed.”
“Right.”
And I told him right then: “Settle down, Dec. Not everyone in this family has to have a fuckin’ addiction.”
He didn’t say much after that.
One day at a time. That’s the mantra. Except right now it’s one pill at a time, because I can’t trust myself with more than one, not with my hands shaking this much. My knee twitches as I pick pills.
One of them slips out of my fingers. I panic, slap it against my leg.
Cold sweat on the back of my neck.
Concentrate.
I don’t want to drop one and have to go scrabbling on the carpet to get it back, especially if it goes into the puke. Drop a codeine in there, talk about a dilemma.
So I keep the ritual going, don’t think about the vomit on the floor or my brother or my father, just the slow transfer from bag to bottle. The label’s started to wear off the plastic, the prescription’s barely legible, but this little brown bottle represents a legitimacy that Greg’s plastic baggies don’t. It makes me feel better, too. This way, the stuff I’m taking, it’s still prescription medicine. I just don’t get it on prescription.
I save the last two pills, hold them in the middle of a sweaty palm. Slap myself in the mouth and wash the pills with some water before I swallow. I lean against the kitchen counter, take deep breaths, wait to see if my stomach’s going to be a good boy and let the codeine digest. A small gurgle just above my belt, and I think I’m going to be okay.
I give it to the count of ten to be on the safe side, then grab a cloth and the washing-up bowl, get to work on the puke.
The sound of progress also happens to be the sound of Galaxy FM, and the summer morning brings out the best in the Lads’ Club renovations.
I get out of the car, walk to the double doors. Someone’s propped them open with a couple of fire extinguishers. Sunlight glitters across new paint and a slight breeze pushes plaster dust out onto the street, crap dance music thumping hard after it. The smell of the paint hits me as soon as I step inside the place, gets right up into my sinuses. Paulo’s painters are hard at work, which is weird, because I haven’t seen them do anything in the last month.
Paulo’s standing in the middle of the club, the calm eye of the storm. He sips from a Starbucks cup in his hand. Things must be looking up if he’s gone to the coffee shop for his morning brew. That, or the kettle’s still packed.
“You look busy.”
He turns and grins when he sees me. “Callum.”
“You want to move those fire extinguishers, mind. Inspector’ll have a fit if he sees that.”
“Health and Safety’ll have one if I don’t. We’d have this lot passing out from the fumes. Besides, inspector’s been around already.”
“And?”
“Right little wanker.”
“The whole ’fire kills in minutes, smoke kills in seconds’ bit?”
“Had pictures of burnt-up dollies, Cal. Made me sick.”
“Apart from that, how’s it going?”
“It’s going,” he says. “And that’s all that counts.”
“How long till you open?”
“Way it’s going, Friday. That’s what we’re aiming for, anyway.”
“Thought there was more work to do.”
“Nah, it’s mostly smoke damage, so it’s a lick of paint — primer, another coat, whatever that bloke said to me before — and then we just need to move the new equipment in.”
I look at him. “You’re replacing everything?”
“All the stuff that was in here, it’s black, Cal. Had to junk it or punt it on. Even if I could bring it back, I wouldn’t want all that old shite making the place look untidy.” Paulo moves away from me, opening his arms, a kid about to show off his imaginary new toys. “Let me give you the guided tour.”
“If you feel you have to.”
“You don’t have a choice,” he says, and gestures towards the middle of the gym with his coffee. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Right, two new rings over here — a nineteen-foot championship AIBA one and a sixteen-footer. Can’t be big enough. You’ve seen the lads coming in here, they’re fuckin’ monsters. Must be something in the water. We’re also going to have another floor ring, like fourteen foot, for training purposes.”
“Hang on a second, should I be taking notes?”
“Yeah, there’ll be a test later, so pay attention. A line of speedballs down the right side there, then the heavy bags and super heavy bags next to them. I’m talking all the good stuff too, Callum. Brand name stuff, no expense spared.” He turns to the back of the club, and now he’s a stewardess pointing out the emergency exits. “Custom-built fuck-off huge locker where we’ll put the hook and jab pads, headgear, ropes, all that. And the changing rooms, all new lockers in there, new benches—”
“This is all coming straight out of the catalogue?”
“Thought I might as well start fresh.”
“Sounds pricey.”
Paulo’s smile stays on his face, but he lets out a long breath. “You would not
believe
.”
“And you can afford this?”
He walks back to me, swirls his coffee around the bottom of his cup, then takes another drink. “Mostly. Sold a bit of gear second-hand, got some grant applications sorted, a few more pending. Looking to turn this place into more what Shapiro’s got in the States, like a place we can hold local amateur smokers, all that.”
“So it’s on tick.”
“Hey, the press get interested, I was hoping to raise a little more cash at the opening.”
“You’re a registered charity now, are you?”
He pulls a flyer from his arse pocket, hands it to me. Looks like one of the lads who used to come into the club did it — Sean. Kid’s an art geek, doing a foundation course at college, got a thing about a bloke called Richard Hamilton. And Sean’s taken a liberty with The Smiths, plastered them in pieces across the flyer. I don’t know that it’s going to get many people round, but it’s eye-catching, I’ll give him that.
“You had any bites yet?”
“Nah,” says Paulo. “The
Evening News
are a bunch of bastards.”
“The ENS thing.”
Paulo pulls a face. “Try to do a bit of good, inject a little pride back into the community and who gets his picture in the paper? Jeffrey fuckin’ Briggs.”
“He’s a local personality.”
Paulo stares at me. I smile.
“Good,” he says. “For a second there, I thought you were serious. Now you’re going to turn up, aren’t you?”
“If there’s a hedgehog, I’m there.”
“I think we can do better than a hedgehog, Cal.”
“A wine box?”
“Maybe.”
“Red or white?”
“Push the boat out, we’ll have
both
.”
I push the flyer into my back pocket. “Then I might pop by.”
“You better. I don’t want to be standing around here on my lonesome.”
I slap Paulo’s shoulder. “I’m sure everything’ll work out fine.”
“I hope so.”
There’s a pause. Paulo seems to be watching his feet. The bloke looks funny, like he’s got something to say, but he hasn’t worked out what it is yet. There’s tension in his face, so much I think he’s going to have a heart attack if he doesn’t spit it out soon enough. I’m about to tell him that when he beats me to it.
“Look,” he says, “when we’re open again, d’you think you’ll come back?”
“To work?”
He looks up, regards me. “Yeah. Why, do you need the work now?”
I think about Plummer, what I told him last night. I did promise to chuck the job if I got hurt again. And it’s really only a matter of time before that happens. “I might soon. But it’s no big deal.”