Like Robert saying Nine years we were married and she must have hated me for half that time and I never knew, I never fucking knew.
Like Steve talking about going to India to find his brother. Saying I’ve just got to get my passport sorted out first, shouldn’t be too complicated. And pick up these postcards I’ve got from him, they’re in a bag of stuff I’ve got in a hostel down in Cambridge. They’re saving it for me, they should be. And these postcards had an address on them, I can probably look it up on the internet or something. Once I’ve got my passport sorted out. There’s some issues to resolve first. Steve talked about going to India almost as much as he said My country lied to me. Didn’t he.
Like Robert saying You’d have thought she would have given me some fucking warning or something.
Who wants to open up the discussion.
Everyone sitting there looking at their feet or picking at their nails or stretching their arms out above their heads and leaning back to look at the ceiling. And the counsellor or whoever going You won’t find the answers up there. Facilitator. Enabler, whatever. I’m just here to enable the discussion. It’s up to you where we take things today. Why don’t we start with you, Ben?
And where was Ben. Sitting in the custody suite, still handcuffed, waiting to be processed by a custody sergeant in no mood to rush. The cells full of hangovers and black-eyes and Ben starting to jitter already. Thinking about how long it was going to take to get out, and where he could score when he did. Wondering where Mike had got to once he’d sent him in on Jamesie like that. Wondering what sort of a team that made them after all.
And the same time or near enough there was Steve, sitting on his bed, watching Ant with the spoons and the lighter and all the rest of it. A bed, more like a mattress on the floor. But better than most of the places he’d slept in. Taking off his boots and laying out his socks to dry and massaging his feet with the rough calluses of his hands. Waiting.
We can all wait. Here in this room. Sitting and standing and leaning against the wall. In this cold dark room. And it’s easier to think of him, now. His body in a bag.
We’re used to it already, what’s happened to him. What’s happened to us.
Get used to anything, after a while. The mind adapts, quicker than the body does. Even when the body can’t.
See here, where the skin has fallen away.
See, here, where the maggots have eaten his flesh.
Get used to insects though, living like this. Flies, bedbugs, maggots, lice. All sorts.
Like when that bloke at the day centre went to see the chiropodist, and warned her that he hadn’t taken his boots off for six months, and it turned out he had trench foot so bad there were things crawling around in his toes.
Jesus. Give that girl a medal.
Cut his socks off and all bits and pieces came with them, skin and rotten flesh and everything, and she never said a word.
What was his name. Didn’t see him around too much after that. Maybe he ended up behind one of the doors in here. And who would know if he did.
Steve went to see the same chiropodist once, as it happens. Sat and waited and when it was his turn he took off his boots and socks and stretched out his feet for her. One thing the army taught him was how to look after his feet, and he always made sure he had a pair of dry socks to be going on with, always aired his boots at night if he could. Some things, when you’ve been doing them every day for years, you get stuck doing them no matter how drunk you are.
Nothing wrong with these feet, the chiropodist told him, cupping one in each hand and running her thumbs along the tendons and joints. You must be doing something right, she said, smiling.
Didn’t forget that one. Things like that stick with you, even with all the gaps. Things like then she washed and dried his feet, and cut his toenails, and rubbed away the hardened lumps of skin with a pumice stone before giving him a new pair of socks and asking him to send the next one in. Most people going out of their way not to touch you all day, to not hardly brush up against you or even catch your eye or anything. And then that. Washing and drying and holding his feet, one in each hand. Things like that stick with you, on the whole. Could sit and wait all day for a thing like that.
Watching Ant stirring away at the mess in the spoon and remembering all this. Waiting.
Same with the hairdressers, when they go running their fingers through your hair. Same with the nurses, changing your dressings or taking your blood pressure or listening to the crackling in your lungs, they got to touch you with their clean soft hands and no one says nothing about it but it all helps oh Christ but it helps.
Same with having a dig. When someone else does it, and even the most cack-handed old smackhead does it slow and tender and gentle like. Like a gift. Like rubbing at your skin till the vein comes up, easing the needle in, slowly pushing home the gear. Like in a war film when someone lifts a drink to the lips of a wounded and dying soldier, cradling his head in one hand and letting the cold water trickle into the desperate mouth.
Wait all day for that.
Can’t wait another minute.
Like Ben in the cells that night, couldn’t wait but he had to. Doing his rattle. Doing his nut in. Ringing the alarm and going Please I’m sorry can you get me a doctor, can you get me a script? I just really need something to hold me until I get out, please, sergeant?
The way he
talks, when he’s asking for things like that. All Excuse me, sorry, please. I’m sorry to trouble you. If I could just take a moment of your time. With this look on his face like, what, beseeching. Fucking beseeching. Wringing his hands and all that. Like he’s still a little boy, which he near enough is, which he looks like near enough. With his big brown eyes and his long eyelashes and his matted brown hair falling over his face, looking up at people and wringing his hands together like he was going for a part in a musical or something, like Pardon me sir and all that bollocks.
Usually works for him but. Looks even younger than he is and people go for that. Young enough to give him a chance, they must think. Like he can still better himself or something. Pardon me sir. If you could just.
Usually works for him but not that night. Custody sergeant weren’t interested. Told him to sweat it out. Which meant he didn’t know fuck all about withdrawing. Or it meant he knew exactly all about it, and he thought Ben rattling through the night like that was some kind of what some kind of joke.