I deserve the pain.
For kissing Tim’s girlfriend – because that’s what she is, Ant has seen them together. But I deserve it more for breaking Kerry’s heart.
When he stops punching me, I want to tell him to keep going, to smash me up properly. Then Kerry can walk away from him. Come back to me. The way she kissed me just then, the one thing I know is that she still feels like she did two summers ago and—
‘How long has this been going on?’ Tim asks, between gasps.
I glance at Kerry – already my left eye is swelling up. The kiss lasted, what, twenty seconds? Two minutes?
But this really started the night of the millennium. Just because we haven’t been together doesn’t mean I haven’t thought of her most days. Christ knows, I’ve had nothing else to think about.
What do you want me to say, Kerry? I ask her with my eyes.
Tim sees the look she gives me and raises his fist. Instinctively, I block the punch with my forearm.
‘Tim, please, it’s my sister’s wedding, don’t make a scene . . .’ Kerry sounds like she did that time on the drive at Curlews, when she begged me to let her help me and I sent her away. ‘It’s not worth it.’
She wants him, doesn’t she? I don’t blame her. He has a future, and that’s what Kerry needs.
Decision made.
‘Come on, mate, you don’t want to do this, we were only talking.’
‘I’m not your mate. I know what I saw.’
‘You didn’t see anything, Tim. I haven’t seen Kerry in years; we hugged to say hello, she’s glad I’m doing so well.’
There’s doubt in Tim’s eyes. I’m getting somewhere. I reach into my waistcoat for a cigarette. ‘Do you smoke? Looks like you could use one.’
He glances nervously at Kerry. Yeah, I reckon goody-two-shoes Tim does smoke but he thinks she doesn’t know. I play along.
‘Breath of fresh air while I have one, then? Clear your head. You’ve been working, right? I can smell antiseptic. Respect, man. I couldn’t do your job for all the money in the world.’ I try to flip the dynamic, make him feel superior.
‘They don’t pay me anything while I’m training.’
He wants to back down too, so it’s easy to lead him outside and down a side street.
‘Yeah, Tim, but soon you’ll be loaded. I’ve seen the motors in the hospital car park when I go in for appointments. The consultants rake it in.’
‘That’s a long way off,’ he says grimly.
As I get my lighter out of my pocket, my fingers touch the joint I saved for after. Weed switches off the bad thoughts. I take it out and see him clock it. ‘Wanna share this instead of a cigarette?’
He shrugs and takes the joint, lights it casually, takes a long drag. Interesting.
‘Not your first time, then.’
Tim shrugs. ‘Doctors and drugs. The clichés are true. I prefer the prescription kind but it’s been a long day.’
I smile. ‘We all need something to get us through.’
He inhales the weed and the tension leaves his body as he exhales. ‘How’ve you been?’
I don’t want to tell him, but the more I reveal about my own shitty existence, the less of a threat I seem. ‘I’m . . . still working stuff out. Been through my Elvis phase, eating like a pig, feeling sorry for myself. But I’m trying to come out of it. Ant is helping me.’
He nods. Offers me the joint and I take it back unwillingly: I don’t want to lose the taste of Kerry on my lips.
‘Ant’s a decent bloke. Did he get the weed?’
‘Good shit, right?’ I take a drag and hand it back to Tim. ‘No, not Ant’s scene. Keep the rest of it if you want.’
He shrugs again and pinches the half-smoked joint out between his fingers and pockets it. ‘Cheers. But I was hoping you might know where to find other stuff.’
Seriously? ‘Like what?’
‘Speed? Ritalin at a push. Nothing heavy.’
‘Thought you guys got pills for free. Perk of the job.’
‘That’s higher up the food chain. I’d be lucky to score a free incontinence pad.’
I shake my head. ‘Sorry. I don’t deal.’
‘No. Shit. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply—’ He stops. ‘It’s not a big thing for me. Just exam time or when the long hours are a struggle.’
Who are you, Tim Palmer? Because you’re not the bloke I thought you were.
‘All the other med students do it too,’ he adds. Now there’s fear in his eyes; he knows he’s revealed more than he meant to.
‘Sure,’ I say, but what I want to do is pin him against the wall and ask him what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, when he has a brain and a future and most of all when he has Kerry.
I watch his lips as he justifies himself, but I don’t hear a word he says because there’s this rushing in my ears, like I used to get in the months after I died, this big tsunami of noise and feelings: guilt, rage, hatred, sucking me under . . .
Is this really what Kerry deserves? Tim, with a secret habit? Or me, with nothing to offer except the way it feels when we kiss.
What if neither of us deserve her.
‘Stop!’ I say out loud.
Tim stares at me. I hate him and pity him. But if Kerry cares about him, maybe the one thing I can do is protect them both.
And there’s something else: I like the idea of having one over on him. Tim was the one who brought me back to a life I hate. This feels like turning the tables, regaining a tiny bit of control.
‘I’ll ask around,’ I’m saying, without planning to. ‘The chefs usually have something. Same problem. Late nights, long hours. You got a mobile? Let’s swap numbers and I’ll text you if I get lucky.’
When we meet in the same spot later and I hand over a little bag, he looks so relieved it almost feels like I’m doing something good.
I’m not a dealer.
I’ve only got one client and selling to Tim doesn’t count, because I don’t make any money out of the odd upper or downer. I know Kerry’s the only one earning so she’s paying, indirectly. If he’s going to take pills, at least I can make sure they’re safe, and cheap. That feels like I’m helping, in my own way.
We have a regular bench, two blocks down from the hospital, overlooking the sea. Since I sold him a few pills on the day of Marilyn’s wedding, it’s become a routine. He texts me what he wants and I get hold of it from some OK guys I know who hang out on the Level. Not like I have much else to do.
‘All right?’ I say when he arrives with his polystyrene cup of hospital coffee and his home-made sandwich. Did Kerry make that for him?
‘Yeah. We’re sound. Especially my mum, she’s on some new medication that Kerry researched,’ he says. Tim seems to have forgotten what he saw at the wedding. He almost treats me like a mate.
But we’re not mates. Meeting him is like picking a scab: hearing about Kerry, staying involved in her life, means that wound never has a chance to heal . . . but if Tim’s got his bad habit, this is mine. I’m not ready to break it.
‘Listen, I don’t suppose you could get hold of Fentanyl?’
‘That’s a bit of a step up. Why do you need it?’
‘As a painkiller, nothing sinister . . . I was moving a patient and hurt my back.’
‘So go to the doctor,’ I suggest.
He shrugs. ‘I never get time. My back’s a bit weak from when I used to have to haul Mum in and out of the bath as a kid. I hadn’t finished growing.’
When I turn to look at him, I don’t see the weasel who condemned me to this crappy life; the idiot who lies to Kerry instead of facing his fears.
I see little Tim looking after his sick mother, trying to do his best.
I’m no soft touch, but that feeling of power is back. What’s the harm? Kerry wants him to become a doctor, so this would be helping her. ‘I’ll ask around.’
Happy, balanced people probably think that getting into drugs is a cliff-edge decision you make, a single choice to jump out of real life.
But it’s really not. Or at least, it wasn’t for me.
It started when I began to spend more time with the guys on the Level. One afternoon, I got chatting to the bloke that always wears a trilby – Spike – and he introduced me to his mates, red-bearded Ham and a pixie-faced girl called Zoë. And even though it was November, we stayed there till long after dark, even after the cider and the weed had run out. Despite my beta blockers, that night I didn’t even feel the cold.
As I wandered home, drunk and stoned and loose and light, I tried to work out why I felt so good. The spliffs helped but it wasn’t that. It was the way those guys accepted me. I didn’t have to explain myself or make excuses. They’d never known Joel Greenaway, superstar footballer. They simply saw me as I am, now.
The next morning I went straight back there, and they greeted me like an old friend. And suddenly it didn’t feel like any big deal to move on from weed to the other stuff they shared, which depended on what they could get their hands on. The old Joel would have been horrified by the damage drugs could do.
The new Joel doesn’t give a shit, so long as it feels good now.
What keeps me going back, day after day, isn’t the drugs. It’s the sense of belonging. I’ve only felt that twice before: in the team, and with Kerry. I’ve missed it. Of course, when we do ecstasy, I love my new friends even more. Speed always makes me nervous, because of my heart, but it’s hard to resist, when they’re all off their heads and I want to be too.
I’ll never be as bad as them. Ham does crack and heroin, and I think Zoë does, too. She once told us this ‘funny’ story about giving her dealer a blow job in return for drugs.
‘All women turn tricks, one way or another,’ she said, and I wondered what had happened in her life to make her believe something so shocking. But everyone else was laughing and I ended up joining in. We laugh a lot.
Sure, when Ant’s dad sacked me for missing three Christmas party shifts at the Arsehole, I knew I’d let him down. But after the crap I’ve had to deal with, I deserve some fun, right?
I don’t even remember New Year’s Eve, which is fine by me. 2003 feels no different to 2002.
We have a loose routine. On cold days, and dole days, we go to the Caroline of Brunswick and make a pint last all day, nipping out or to the bogs to do whatever pills we’ve chipped in to buy. On sunny afternoons, we go to the beach instead. The three of them take the piss out of me for being a tourist, because I don’t smoke crack, plus I have somewhere comfortable to sleep, and parents who will bail me out.
Except, as the weeks go by, and January turns into February and then March, comfort stops mattering so much. Spring is coming and with the warmer nights there’ll be no need to go home at all . . .
Tim and I still meet on the bench, and I sell him what he needs. The Fentanyl was a temporary thing, he’s back to speed and sleeping pills now – he knows what he likes. Perhaps we aren’t so different after all. Except that he’s studying, acting normal. Me? Not so much.
Mum and Dad have tried to talk to me a couple of times, but now they’ve given up, and so has Ant. Fine with me. It’s easier that way . . .
My eyes snap open. I’m in my den, hungover, hungry, dry-mouthed. The spring sunshine coming through my window is too bright. The morning smells of autumn: bonfires and decay.
Even I can’t have slept through an entire summer.
I turn my head to look for the source of the smell.
Nothing’s burning, nothing’s smoking.
Not in here. Is the main house on fire?
I leap out of bed to check. No. But the smell gets stronger. I slept in my jeans last night so I pull on my parka and follow my nose. Out of the house, down Dyke Road.
Smoke rises from somewhere on the seafront. Has a plane crashed on the beach? Or is it something to do with our invasion of Iraq? Has Saddam Hussein launched a WMD aimed at London and missed?
As I’m crossing Seven Dials, there are other people going the same way, following the smell.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask a bloke my age, in a shiny estate agent’s suit.
‘It’s the pier. It’s on fire.’
‘Which pier?’
Soon enough, I can see for myself. The Grand Old Lady. The prettier West Pier, the one that belongs to Brighton, lit from the inside. There are hundreds of us, maybe thousands, watching from the shore. But where are the helicopters and the boats trying to put the fire out?
People are red-eyed from tears or smoke. I pick my way between them, heading for the place where my mates usually hang out, next to the groyne. I can’t look away from the burning shape for more than a few seconds: the orange flames licking through the black-and-white pavilion that sits majestically above the water.
‘Someone saw a speed boat there beforehand.’
‘Gotta be deliberate. How else would a fire start in the middle of the bloody sea?’
‘Oh, I dunno, one of the gulls might have dropped a lit cigarette . . .’
I see Spike’s trilby above the crowd. Zoë is crying and it makes her look even more wrecked than usual. Ham is strumming something melancholy on his guitar.
We’ve wandered across the sand to the pier a couple of times, when the tide’s been low and we’ve been high. You can stand underneath, and though the ironwork’s covered in bird shit, and it stinks, you can see glimpses of what it used to be through the gaps: faded signs advertising sticks of Brighton Rock and ‘best stouts and ales’, and old theatre tickets blowing around like a snowstorm. All that paper must be fuelling the fire.
I sense someone watching me.
Turning, I see a woman in uniform. My face arranges itself into a sneer before I recognize her.
Kerry.
It’s too late to get away. As she walks towards me, I’m conscious of how filthy my parka is, and grateful that at least the smoke should drown out the smell of my friends.
There have been half a dozen times since her sister’s wedding when I’ve thought I’ve seen her: turning a corner in the Lanes, or through a shop window. I’ve always hidden, rather than face her. Now the shock in her face is worse than any mirror.
‘Hello, Joel. Isn’t it awful?’ She looks beautiful, even in the unflattering green jumpsuit, even with no make-up.
‘Can’t believe it,’ I say. ‘Bastards.’
She smiles nervously at the others, then back at me. ‘So how’ve you been? You working?’
Zoë laughs. ‘Joel doesn’t need to work. He’s got the Bank of Mum and Dad with their endless cash machine.’
Kerry frowns at her. Zoë’s only three years older than us, but she could be the poster girl for how drugs fuck up your complexion.
‘I’m between jobs, Kerry, but something’ll turn up.’
Spike stands up. ‘If you’re not gonna introduce us, I guess I’ll have to do it for you, you rude wanker. I’m Spike,’ he says, raising his trilby and holding out his other hand.
I cringe when I see her small, clean hand take Spike’s, with dirt and tobacco embedded under his nails.
‘This is Ham,’ I say, ‘and you’ve already met Zoë.’
‘With two dots,’ Zoë says.
‘Don’t forget the dots.’ I laugh, feeling protective of both women, somehow. ‘This is Kerry, we . . . went to school together. Works for the ambulance service now. She’s cool.’
No one speaks and eventually Kerry says, ‘Right, better go. Nice to meet you all.’
We all regard the pier for a moment.
‘Looks like a lost cause to me,’ Spike says.
‘Don’t say that!’ Zoë slaps his hand angrily and they start to bicker.
Kerry frowns at them, then turns to me. ‘You know where I am if you ever want to talk, Joel.’
This big, empty part of me wants to follow her, beg for help. But she’s done more than enough for me and look where it got her.
‘Good to know,’ I say. ‘Just call 999, right?’
The other three laugh and I join in.
Kerry blinks. I’ve hurt her again because that’s my only bloody talent.
As she walks away, I track her green-lapelled shoulders till she’s lost in the crowd. The fancy cafe with the glass doors starts to play Pavarotti’s ‘Nessun Dorma’ at full volume, and I hate myself even more than I hate whoever started that fire.