Shelley was feeling weak and craving her next fix, but she was unable to go straight home. On the drive back from Tara’s, she’d been talked into eating dinner at Nicole’s. Not being able to lie meant she couldn’t excuse her urgency to leave. If she couldn’t lie about that, she worried how she’d ever cover her tracks wearing long sleeves in the summer.
Nicole handed her a cup of coffee and sat down next to her on the black leather sofa. “What I told you before, it’s happened with my Mum as well,” Nicole said. “I know she’s dead, but I’m not processing it.”
“That’s normal, there’s a grieving process. Everyone goes through it.” Shelley tried to sip her coffee but it was too hot and burnt her tongue.
“There is, but I’m not allowing myself to grieve properly. I’m running away, escaping through punters, getting stoned, smoking crack.”
“We haven’t done crack today.” Shelley rubbed her tongue on the roof of her mouth in the hope it would ease the pain.
“It’s stopped working, Shell. I don’t even— None of my crutches work any more. I’m falling and they’re not keeping me up. If anything, they’re pushing me down.” Nicole lit a cigarette and took a deep pull. “I want it to feel different. I want to be able to move on, make Mum proud of me, do a better job with helping the family. I’m not— I’m not doing life. Not how I want to be.”
“Time heals, Nic. It’ll be okay.”
“Time... right, that hasn’t healed you either, has it?”
“No, not yet, but maybe it will.” Shelley felt the onset of tears. Nicole sounded angry, but it wasn’t with her, she told herself. “I know Will’s watching me, and your mum will be watching over you.”
“If she is, I don’t want her seeing me living like this and I’m sure Will wouldn’t want to see your life wasted.”
“Like he wasted his,” Shelley muttered as Nicole headed to the other side of the room.
Shelley fought the envy emerging inside her as she listened to the never-ending stream of messages play out from Nicole’s answer phone. Far more people cared about Nicole than her. Lying back on the sofa, Shelley tried to resist her eyelids closing as the tranquil voices of Nicole’s family (her brother, Enda; her sisters, Milly and Susie; two aunts) and her friends (Shelley had lost count of how many) washed over her.
The sudden rant booming from the machine shocked Shelley out of her near-hypnotised state. From her horizontal position on the sofa, she sat upright. Her eyes were now open wide.
“What the fuck’s that about?” Nicole stomped back into the room and replayed the message. Perhaps she couldn’t believe it either. “Why’s she blaming me? I wasn’t even there.”
“You were. It was the day you got back from Mustique.”
Still as a picture, Nicole stood by the answer phone.
“It’s not your fault, Nic. She’s off her head. She’s probably been on the crack since we left, sold something else and now she’s looking for someone to blame.” Shelley felt guilty; Tara had probably started off with the fifty she’d given her.
“Why me? It doesn’t make sense. I’ve only ever been nice to that girl.” Nicole hovered by the sofa. She looked as though she was about to sit down next to Shelley but, after bending her knees, she straightened back up then walked over to the dining table. She picked up her keys and threw her red coat over her shoulders.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m gonna put that bitch right. I’m not having her treat me like this.”
Shelley persuaded Nicole it was best left until Tara had sobered up, that it wouldn’t be possible to reason with her given the unstable state she was in.
Angel had been right. Tara was a weak link, a liability - not only for what had been discussed earlier in the day, but also for the secrets Shelley was trying to hide from Marianne.
***
To avoid running dry, Shelley had called Jay on her way home from Nicole’s. Surprisingly, he’d arrived at her flat before she’d made it back herself – and he’d sounded annoyed on the phone when he’d called asking why she wasn’t there. The turning of the tables was unintentional and she hoped this wouldn’t result in his return to tardiness.
Had she not spent half an hour in the twenty-four hour store at Hendon Central, she would have been there by now. The man in the shop had been amiable and didn’t seem to mind her reading the papers. He may have been under the impression her interest lay in politics; the newspapers were still focused on the new Labour government. But their landslide win in the election a few days earlier, and the independence they’d given the Bank of England, was neither of interest nor relevance to Shelley.
As she pulled up in Willoughby Road, she caught sight of Jay leaning against the wall of another split, Victorian house a couple of doors down from the one she lived in. With him watching her, she couldn’t carry out her usual leaving-the-car ritual. She’d have to rely on the central locking working, her eyes seeing the door locks depressing and her ears hearing it happen. The boot was on its own.
She did it, and although she felt uncomfortable, her anxiety waned after a director in her head told her she could go out and do it properly once Jay left.
The dour expression on Jay’s face became obvious as she rushed towards her flat. She made rolling-wave motions with her arm and he walked up the road.
“Sorry I’m late. I didn’t think you’d get here so soon.”
“Don’t let it happen again.” He cracked a smile and closed Shelley’s front door behind him.
Standing in the shadows of the communal hall, their deal didn’t have much light. Both bulbs in the hall had blown and none of the residents had replaced them. Their only illumination was a yellow glow from a streetlight shining through the stained glass panel in the front door.
“How’s Ali?” Shelley asked, as she counted the cash from her purse that had already been organised into groups of one hundred pounds when it was originally folded.
“He’s doing all right. They’ve moved him to the Isle of Sheppey. He’s teaching himself to play the drums. He says it’s like a holiday camp compared to Brixton.”
“That sounds good.” Shelley slipped the money into Jay’s hand.
Jay delved inside the front of his jeans and from somewhere near his bulging crotch, he pulled out a drawstring pouch. “I can’t find your man in Ladbroke Grove. I’ve been round that yard nuff times but no one’s ever in and there ain’t nothing to rob – it’s like a squat in there.” He took two clingfilm wrapped parcels and slid them into Shelley’s palm. “I’m back again tonight. I’ll see what I can do.”
Shelley pushed the parcels into the front pocket of her jeans. “I think there’s another way I wanna sort this, but thanks for what you’ve done. I really appreciate it.”
“That money’s heading for my pocket anyway, love.”
If her using carried on at the same pace, every fifty from the freezer would be heading that same way too.
Through her weakness, she ran up the stairs, which were unlit until the first landing. She didn’t return to her car. She was being pulled in that direction, but the pull to have a fix was more potent.
After closing the door to her flat, she checked it was locked eight times – forty counts. The rhythm of pushing down on the handle while counting aloud in time to the tapping engrossed her. Three of her senses were involved – sight, hearing and touch – and they nourished the sixth. The pull to her car faded. In her stomach, neck and shoulders, she could feel the tension ebbing away.
Sitting on her usual spot on the sofa, she cooked up the first shot. Only heroin for the first because she still had to call Len. An early night was required as well, so somehow she’d have to take the control away from her drugs and not stay up partying for hours. Her commitment to support Nicole at Tara’s the following day was something she couldn’t shirk. The confrontation that she anticipated would be awkward. She was furious with Tara and committed to defending Nicole, but she’d have to curb her anger. If she didn’t restrain what came out of her own mouth, then Tara would be less likely to restrain what came out of hers in Marianne’s company.