Junkie Love Page 5

  “Oh, hi babe, what’re you doin’ here so early?”

  “What, aren’t you glad to see me? We arranged to meet, don’t you remember?”

  “Of course I am, silly — but I thought you were coming later, this evening.”

  “Yeah, that was the original plan, but then we decided to meet earlier — you must remember, surely.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right, I forgot. Sorry babe, I’m miles away today. Jesus, it’s freezing.” Cissy was suddenly seized by a spasm of uncontrollable shivering. She seemed detached and distant, not herself at all.

  “What, are you ill or something? It’s not that cold. Come here, let me warm you up.” I tried to pull her into my arms, but she resisted, finally pushing me away.

  “Oh, don’t get all sloppy on me, I’m not in the mood. Sorry, I’m just not feelin’ very well today, that’s all. It’s nothin’ personal, so don’t go all moody on me.”

  I looked into her face, but she avoided my eyes. Suddenly, after being seized by another bout of shivering, she threw up, right there at my feet, on the grass. I felt angry and stupid, and I confronted her right then and there.

  “You’ve been using again, haven’t you? C’mon, admit it, you have haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, well, so what if I have? It’s my fuckin’ life isn’t it, an’ I’ll do what I want, alright?”

  “Oh, that’s just great! What about your plans for the club, an’ everything else? I thought we were both gonna stay clean from now on.”

  “Oh, get off my back, will you, you’re like my fuckin’ mother! An’ anyway, it’s only a little chippy I’ve got, I haven’t been mainlining, just skin-poppin’ a bit, that’s all. It’s nothin’ serious, so don’t get your knickers in a twist!”

  This last rejoinder was said in such a sarcastic, bitchy tone of voice that I felt like punching her. All my warm feelings towards her suddenly turned to icy hatred and we both stood there sulking, me staring off into the distance, she holding herself with both arms across her stomach and doubling over each time she was seized with a spasm. I felt like an idiot for not having noticed she was getting high again; but she had been clever and cunning, probably scoring during the day while I was at work, then skin-popping in her arse so that I wouldn’t see any track-marks on her arms. By the time I met her in the evening, the effects of the drug would mostly have worn off, and anyway she had brown eyes, so it was very difficult to see from the size of her pupils whether she was high or not. I didn’t know how regularly, or how much, Cissy had been using, but once you have had a habit in your life each subsequent one creeps up on you that much easier. Although you might think you are being careful, before you know it you are back into the gear once again, and I presumed that this was what had happened to Cissy. I started to ask myself, “But why?”, before realising it was a stupid question. I, out of all people, should know the answer to that one, aware as I was of the empty, aching void at the heart of me that only the spreading warm light of heroin could ever truly alleviate.

  “C’mon, let’s get out of here — the bands are shit, it’s raining, an’ I’m cold an’ miserable. C’mon, let’s split.”

  “But I’ve only just got here!”

  “Well, stay if you want, but I’m goin’ home. I’m not havin’ any fun here, so why should I stay?”

  Again, I felt like decking her. I wanted to stay and watch the bands, and Cissy’s bitchiness and fucked-up attitude were pissing me off; but I also knew that if she went alone, she would go straight to her dealer’s house to score. I was determined not to let her sink back into daily use of heroin, that I would somehow prevent her from getting a full-blown habit again. But I also knew how difficult it was, once your body has again had a taste of smack, to think of anything else. Each moment, you will be calculating how long you must wait before it is “safe” for you to take another shot, and once you are thinking this way you are, in truth, already addicted. We walked to the station in silence, and as we sat on the train back to London it seemed obvious to me that the honeymoon period of our relationship was over.

  • • •

  But Cissy had a talent for always bouncing back, and within three or four days she was over the chippy she had developed. She didn’t score again, and life continued in much the same way, a seemingly endless round of pubs, clubs, restaurants and parties. I was beginning to have problems holding down my job with this lifestyle, but the boss liked me, and as long as I wasn’t ridiculously late in the mornings, he turned a blind eye to my lack of punctuality.

  Jed, the biker, finally reappeared, and Cissy met up with him to explain the situation. Much to my surprise, he accepted that their relationship was now over, and instead of coming looking for me, as I’d half expected, he just took off again, keeping his feelings to himself and not flying into a violent rage.

  Cissy could be warm, direct and honest, often generous to a fault, and because of these qualities she always had a large circle of friends who would do anything for her. But she could also be underhand and devious, with a streak of greed in her that could lead to ill-considered business ventures and endeavours, and as the months passed I began to see more of this side of her. Just before Christmas, she spent all the money she had saved from the pub on a quarter ounce of cocaine. The idea was to sell half of it in small deals (first adding a little cut), make her money back and have a few grammes for personal use over the holidays, so that she could spend time with Julia in Kensington without having to ponce off her, as she said. However, as soon as she had scored, she started to dip into the coke, and within four days almost half of it had gone. Instead of just stopping and selling the rest as she had originally intended, she took half of the remainder for herself, and cut the rest so badly that nobody would buy it. Then, depressed at this state of affairs, she finished off the remaining uncut two grammes in a vain attempt to cheer herself up. By the time Christmas came, she had no cocaine and no money, and was so down about the situation that she refused to go out and celebrate. Instead, she stayed in her room the whole time, reading magazines and sulking. All of this would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so tragic, and another big row followed.

  “I told you not to buy that shit — it’s always the same, gone before you know it, an’ it’s a total con anyway. I mean, if you wanna freeze your nose just buy some novocaine, for fuck’s sake!”

  “Oh, an’ you’re Mr. Perfect, I suppose, like you never make mistakes, or waste money on drugs. C’mon, you’re just as big a junkie as I am, so stop makin’ out you’re some kind of saint! Just take a look at yourself for a change!”

  We were walking back from the station, through one of the enclosed alleyways around King’s Cross, and so busy arguing that at first we didn’t notice the lone figure sat huddled on a darkened doorstep with his head between his knees. As we came closer, I saw that it was Jimmy, a junkie friend of Cissy’s who lived in a damp basement flat in one of the crumbling old tenement buildings further up the street. His shoulders were shaking and I could see that he was quietly sobbing, and Cissy immediately forgot about the argument and went over to him.

  “Jimmy, what’s the matter, what’s happened? why are you sat outside here like this? C’mon, it’s freezing, let’s go inside.”

  Jimmy didn’t answer, but just kept on sobbing and moaning to himself. His lank, greasy hair covered his face, his jeans were torn at the knee, and even from a couple of yards away you could smell the malodorous reek that came off his clothes. Cissy sat down next to him on the step, putting her arm around his shoulder, then she asked him once again what was the matter.

  “It’s ’Rene — she tried to top herself by jumpin’ under a tube train, for Christ’s sake. Only she didn’t do it properly, the train stopped in time, or pushed her along, or something … but anyway, it went over her leg an’ they’ve had to amputate it — she’s in UCH now, still unconscious, I’ve just come from there. Oh shit, what am I gonna do, what about the kid …?”

  This was so heavy — so over-t
he-top — that I had to stifle an impulse to laugh; but Cissy had gone deathly pale, and neither of us knew what to say. Irene was Jimmy’s common-law wife, fresh over from Ireland when they met, a well-brought-up country girl who always seemed totally out of her depth and perpetually bemused whenever you spoke to her. She was no match for Jimmy with his underhand junkie ways, and was always trying to get him to stop taking drugs, probably praying for his poor, abandoned soul each Sunday in church. Although he’d made something of an effort to stay clean since the baby had been born, basically he was incorrigible and always found ways to get money for a hit, even if the flat was without food or electricity. In spite of this, his weakness and selfishness, he truly doted on Irene and his baby daughter with the kind of helpless, hopeless love that I saw time and again in junkie relationships — a love born out of emptiness and desperation that could break your heart if you thought about it for any length of time at all.

  Finally, I broke the sob-wracked silence that had fallen between us.

  “C’mon, Jimmy, let’s go get a drink — you’re gonna freeze to death if you stay out here much longer.”

  “I don’t care, I don’t wanna fuckin’ drink … I just wanna crawl into a corner somewhere an’ die. An’ anyway, I couldn’t face all those pissed-up fuckers in the pub, no way.”

  “Yeah, c’mon babe,” said Cissy, “can’t you see he’s sick? Here Jimmy, come with me, I’ll get you some gear — you need to get out of it tonight, forget about everythin’, then tomorrow you can start dealin’ with things, start thinkin’ about what to do. Rene’s gonna need you, so is the kid, but tonight you need to forget. Listen babe, I won’t be long, an’ I promise I won’t get high myself — but you can see what a state he’s in, an’ someone’s gotta look after him. So here, take my keys an’ wait up for me, I won’t be long, honest. I love you …”

  Before I could say anything, she had planted a kiss on my lips and had disappeared into the night with Jimmy in tow. I was worried that she wouldn’t be able to resist taking a hit also, but when she returned about two-thirty in the morning, and got into bed, I could see she had been true to her word: she’d spent the last bit of money she had on getting Jimmy high, but had not taken anything herself. She had stayed up half the night talking with him, trying to calm him down until he’d finally passed out, and now she was worn out herself, pale and shaking from the emotional trauma of the last few hours. She curled up in my arms, the tears pouring silently down her face as I held her close, and I could feel the darkness inside her welling up, as if from an underground cave. Just before I fell asleep, I heard her whispering, almost to herself, “I can’t deal with it anymore, there’s just too much pain … really babe, I can’t deal with it anymore — what the fuck are we gonna do …?”

  • • •

  As the winter passed, I could feel Cissy starting to slip away from me. She would disappear for days at a time, only to return looking pale and wasted, and if I questioned where she had been, she would fly into a rage and an argument would follow. I didn’t need to ask, anyhow — it was obvious what she had been doing, and the Whys? the Wheres? and the Whos? were pretty much irrelevant. I wasn’t prepared, even if it had been possible, to follow her around the streets twenty four hours a day, checking on her movements and generally acting like some kind of policeman. If someone is determined to score heroin, there is little you can do to prevent them — unless, that is, you’re prepared to lock them in a room somewhere, like the Frankie Machine character in the movie version of The Man With The Golden Arm. If the desire to stay clean doesn’t come from deep inside, any attempt to kick the habit will be doomed from the start: as soon as your body starts to feel good again, and your energy returns, you will be subconsciously counting the days until you feel it is possible to give yourself that “one-off” special treat. This is how addiction works — it is insidious and strange, and its secret workings turn like wheels at the back of your consciousness, providing you with all the justifications and reasons you could possibly need to indulge yourself once more.

  Soon, she began to miss her shifts at the pub, coming up with the most feeble excuses, and her position there was looking increasingly tenuous. As she depended on the job for her living arrangements, and as it was the middle of a very cold and bitter winter, this was serious; and although the landlord liked her, and gave her many “second chances”, he did, after all, have a business to run. It was obvious to me that pretty soon the inevitable would happen, and she would find herself out on the street once more, together with her dog and the few meagre belongings she still possessed.

  I thought about inviting her to move in with me, but she wasn’t keen on that idea. My flat was up in Muswell Hill, a leafy and pleasant, but far-flung North London suburb with no Underground station and, as Cissy said, far away from where the action was. On the few occasions that she had stayed with me there, she’d been nervous and restless, saying that she felt like an alien in the streets, that she couldn’t stand being so cut off from all her friends and habitual haunts. What she really meant, of course, was that it was far away from all the heroin dealers she knew, who mostly lived around Camden Town and King’s Cross. I had chosen the area to live in for this very reason, so that I would be away from those streets and the drug memories I associated with them. But in any case, I sensed that living together with Cissy in Muswell Hill was not a viable option: she just wasn’t cut out for life in the suburbs. Junkies tend to form dependent relationships with the neighbourhoods they score in, as if they are attached to them by some invisible umbilical cord, and away from their home turf they feel insecure and vulnerable. It’s not even just that drugs can be bought relatively easily in these areas. It’s more to do with the atmosphere of the streets, what you might call a feeling of “drug potentiality”, and I understood perfectly. I used to feel the same way about the Lower East Side in New York, and would start to feel anxious and paranoid as soon as I left the area. I’d experience a distinct sensation of relief upon returning there from any journey, no matter how brief, outside the city limits, or even away from the neighbourhood.

  One evening, while I was having a drink with some friends in a pub, one of them, Andy, happened to mention that he was intending to break a squat, and that he had found the perfect place: a large terraced house in Camden Town that had not been lived in for at least five years. He had already been inside one night to examine the property, and reckoned that although it was dirty and full of garbage, structurally it was sound: the toilets hadn’t been smashed by the council, and it should be possible to hot-wire the electricity and turn the gas and water supplies back on without too much trouble.

  Cissy and I were growing ever further apart, largely because of her re-entry into the drug world and the pressures of junkie life: the way things were going our relationship would soon fall apart altogether, unless there was some kind of radical change. She was now buying smack each day, spending all her money from the pub on it, and was forced to wear long-sleeved shirts and sweaters all the time, to conceal the track-marks that coloured the inside of each arm at the elbow. She didn’t even bother to pretend to me anymore that she wasn’t using, adopting a fatalistic “take me as I am, or leave me” kind of attitude, with a mixture of sadness and defiance that was somehow both tragic and pathetic at the same time. I could either accept this state of affairs, and let our feelings for each other die a natural death, or I could try to do something about it — try to get Cissy off smack, and pull her back from the brink of this hole that she seemed intent on digging for herself. As I couldn’t imagine my life without her now, the first alternative was simply not a choice that was open to me: I couldn’t just let her wander off into the night alone. I preferred to go with her and risk the possible consequences than return to my solitary life of meaningless work and mundane relationships, that of course was safe, but also boring and empty.

  And so a plan began to grow in my mind, an idea that surely deserves filing under the heading, GREAT, BUT MISGUIDED, AN
D ULTIMATELY STUPID: I would quit my job, move into the squat with Cissy, spend the money I had saved on a half ounce of good-quality heroin and gradually wean her away from her habit by reducing the amount I gave her each day. I would support us both by selling the rest to friends and acquaintances, who would appreciate the fact that it wasn’t cut to hell like most of the street stuff that was available at that time. Then, once Cissy was clean, and the stuff had all been sold, we would get out of London: with the money saved from dealing, and from having no rent or fuel bills to pay, we would be able to afford the rent on a cottage in the West Country, maybe Devon or Cornwall. We would stay there for six months or a year, until our battered psyches had healed and we felt strong enough to return to the city; or maybe we would take off altogether and travel around the world, visit India, Tibet, Africa and the Far East. Suddenly, the possibilities seemed endless, and I could hardly contain my enthusiasm as I broached the subject with Cissy.

  “What, you’d do that for me? Spend all your money buyin’ smack, on the off-chance that you can get me to stop takin’ it? What about you? How’re you gonna handle being so close to it all again, havin’ it right there under your nose? At least now I do it on my own, well away from you — you don’t see it around you each day, an’ you’re not sittin’ on top of a huge amount like you will be if you go through with this stupid plan. Look, I really love you for dreaming this whole thing up, an’ thinkin’ about me, but I don’t want the responsibility of you gettin’ back into gear on my head, no way. I couldn’t deal with that, babe, honest. Forget it, it’s my problem, it’s a crazy idea, an’ I don’t want you gettin’ involved. You’ve been clean for a year an’ a half now — please don’t go an’ fuck it up just on my account.”