Inside my flat, I collapse against the door, my back pressed against the wood veneer, my breath filling my throat so that it is a struggle to breathe. Too terrified to sit with the thoughts tumbling around my head, scared that they will bury me, I haul myself up.
Looking down at my feet, I notice, as if for the first time, that I’m not wearing shoes.
Automatically reaching inside my bag for a cigarette to steady my nerves, my hands brush against the packet. As I pull it out, even in my confused state, I know something isn’t right. Where are my trainers? Rummaging inside the bag, as if something might suddenly appear from the emptiness, I feel my heartbeat strain in my chest. The shoes aren’t there, and neither is my purse.
Holding the bridge of my nose between two fingers, I move towards the kitchen table in the centre of the room that was already small but whose walls now seem to press at me from both sides, and I make myself sit.
Desperately attempting to slow down my mind, to impose some sort of order on the images that move in and out of focus, I have a flash of memory: me on my knees in the undergrowth, scrambling around for the hash, rummaging through my bag. In my panic, I must have knocked the shoes and the purse out of the bag, and not even have noticed before the sound of the woman’s screams sent me hurtling down the hill. The memory hits me like a wave and I stand, desperate to escape it.
Picking up a lighter from the table and inhaling deeply, I move around the bedsit, through the makeshift door into the bedroom area, where clothes and old books are strewn across the floor.
Looking up, I catch my gaunt reflection in the mirror. As if studying something new and confusing, I pull at the knot of hair on top of my head, which has slumped to one side, pinching the skin under my eyes as a car alarm starts to wail in the distance. For a moment I stand there, my senses still heightened, the sound of Camden stirring on the street below.
It is that time when the drugs have nothing left to offer; instead, what is left circulating in my system starts to feed off my body, slowly sucking all the goodness out. I can almost feel myself withering, my vital organs shrivelling.
Come on, I tell myself, willing my mind to come back to me.
Oscar.
His name comes to me like an epiphany and I reach for my phone in the pocket of my shorts before remembering it is dead. A wave of adrenaline kicks in then, as if from nowhere, my mind’s final lunge for survival, and I scrabble together a handful of coins from the counter before grabbing my keys and shuffling down the stairs to the phone box two metres to the right of my front door.
It is the only payphone that still works on this stretch of Camden High Street and as I pull open the door with the full weight of my body, I am met by the overwhelming stench of urine. Dialling Oscar’s number by heart, the same number I dialled night after night for so long, my eyes flit over the usual collage of calling cards layered one over another in a surreal tapestry of swollen nipples and painted talons. Holding one hand over my mouth, I suppress the urge to vomit.
There are three rings before the answer machine kicks in, and I hear my money being swallowed by the machine. Out of habit, my mind stumbles as it pictures him asleep in someone else’s bed, and then the image is gone.
The voice at the end of the line is mechanical and unusually polite.
‘This is Sergeant Morley, I’m away from my desk. Please leave a message after the tone and I’ll call you back. If your call is urgent, please try the Kentish Town police main office …’
At those words, I throw the handset back onto the cold metal receiver. For a moment my fingers hover over the nine button but there is no way I can talk to the real police, not now. Despite his artificially elevated position in the force, in my mind Oscar Morley will never be that. Admittedly, a number of the officers around here have dubious social lives of their own, as I’ve inferred from conversations overheard in the hours I’ve spent shadowing PCs for various pieces on community policing, or waiting in the station for press office-approved updates on a case, but that doesn’t make it acceptable for me to turn up with pupils like the inside of a well to report something I’d seen happen in a bush on the Heath on my way back from a squat party.
In any case, what would I say? What had I actually seen?
Go home. The voice in my head is adamant, any doubt confirmed when I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the glass door, my jaw swinging as though only partially hinged.
Before turning back towards the flat, I insert two more coins and dial Jess’s number. When her answer machine kicks in, I clench my fist, kicking the base of the booth with my sore foot, and letting out a cry.
Back home, just before I collapse on my bed, I reach into the drawer, pulling out a box of fluoxetine and popping one of the capsules in my mouth. Reaching in further for a bag of Xanax, I crack one in half and swallow it without water before letting my body sink back, a smudge of glow-in-the-dark stars staring back at me from the ceiling.
In my dream I find myself in a field with Jess and we are walking in silence. At some point, I notice the rain, the sky melting to a dappled grey behind us. As the drops fall against my face, I lift my chin, feeling renewed by every splash. It is a while before I notice the party behind us, the roar of it having faded the further away we walked into the field; the clatter of cans and pulsing techno stretch out into a low hum. When the rain stops I hear her breathe in deeply beside me.
My heart is beating heavily against my chest and the air is cold in my throat as the wind gets up, whipping against the bare flesh of my calves.
‘What time do you think it is?’ I ask. We have come to a halt by a cluster of cows who continue to gnaw at the ground, oblivious to the rain lashing against their coats. It is so cold, I think, the rain making my bones ache as it drives against my skin. I can no longer remember whose idea it was to come up here and all I want is to be somewhere else.
Opening my eyes and turning back to face the way I’d come, I see she has already gone.