Living became incidental for Thomas. His next hit was the thing, and what he had to do to get that fix. Seth pushed them both into doing small jobs – delivering parcels or standing watch while deals were made, picking pockets, acting as decoy, acting as bait.
Then, as the boys became more and more in thrall to their addiction, the jobs became more and more demeaning.
‘Good lad,’ Seth said to Robert one day when they came back in from a delivery, hand on the back of his neck. ‘That guy on the corner could have been a copper; you might just have saved our bacon.’
Robert’s spine seemed to straighten under this praise and his eyes shone.
‘Here you go, son.’ Seth handed him a small packet, and it quickly vanished into Robert’s pocket. ‘Just rewards.’
Robert shot a sly, sideways smile at Thomas. A smile that said, See, I’m his favourite. With a great effort of will Thomas held himself in check. He wasn’t going to give Robert any satisfaction, but inside he seethed. No way that man on the corner was a copper. He stank, and his long beard and the front of his coat were littered with food fragments. And besides, Robert couldn’t spot an elephant with a pink bow on its neck so deep were his cravings.
‘What about me?’ Thomas chipped in, hating how he could hear a whine in his voice. ‘I managed to get in and out of those loos without anyone seeing me.’
The blow came before he could react.
‘You’re such a little pussy. Give it a rest.’ Seth’s tone was scathing. And Thomas promised himself he’d be the one getting rewarded the next time, and sent Robert a look of pure loathing. His life would be so much better if the little shit would just die. Any connection the two boys had managed to foster during their brief time of freedom was long gone.
Thomas could see that Robert was desperate to get to his filthy mattress and cook up whatever substance Seth had given him. And his own craving went into overdrive as he imagined Robert on his back, staring at his ceiling with wide-open, unseeing eyes as the drugs took over.
Everything was subservient to the pay-off provided by the drug. Even as men lay on top of him, pushing his face into the pillow, their breath hot on his neck while they thrust, all Thomas could think about was the moment the needle pierced his skin and the substance was released into his blood stream.
Degradation became the normal. When you can’t get any lower, what does anything matter? And there was always safety in the warm cocoon of the drug.
Robert became a physical representation of his shame. Thomas could ignore it, bury it deep, but not when Robert was by his side, because then the yellowed skin, almost toothless gums, and hollowed-out expression of the other boy was a reflection he could not ignore.
Nor would his conscience allow him to forget his part in Robert’s debasement. And that was his greatest shame – a shame he allowed to transform into hate. A hate that grew until it was second only to the next score, and he began to dream of a time when the boy no longer existed.
At the beginning, by way of a warning, Seth told them about a boy who’d been killed. Seth had been paid, he crowed, so a man could fuck and kill the child, then his body was thrown in the river, discarded like a piece of trash.
Rather than serve as a caution, Thomas began to fantasise that this would happen to him. Better to be dead than suffer this living hell. But then, as the cravings took hold, and the tactics Seth used to set the boys against each other took effect, he placed Robert at the heart of this sick dream. This twisted his mind so much it was all he could do not to grab him by the throat and choke the life from him every time they were in the same room together.
His chance came one evening when they had some rare time off. He didn’t even have to get his hands dirty.
Thomas was on a chair, in the corner of a dark room where the shabby curtains were permanently closed, his mind lifting from euphoria into drowsiness. His limbs were heavy and he felt unable to lift his head. Then the itchiness began; on his thighs, his arms. No amount of scratching could satisfy it. He used the pads of his fingers, rather than his nails, to rub into his flesh, pressing down as if trying to reach through layers of muscle.
A loud gasp distracted him. Then the sound of a strangled breath. As if someone was fighting to breathe through a collapsed throat. He looked over to see that Robert was on his mattress in the middle of the room. Even in the gloom Thomas could see that something was badly wrong. Robert’s hands were at his own neck, his mouth was wide and his back was arched as if his next breath was beyond hope and prayer.
Thomas could have called for help. Instead he watched for a moment more as Robert’s face turned blue, as his attempts at breathing became more agonised. Then, without a backward glance, he went in to another room in the squat, found an unoccupied mattress, curled up into a ball and fell asleep.
Sometime later, Seth prodded him awake.
‘Oi,’ he said, his booted toe nudging at Thomas’s ribs. ‘Wot happened with your mate?’
‘What do you mean?’ Thomas croaked, momentarily forgetting, his mouth and lips painfully dry.
‘He’s only gone an’ croaked, the little shit.’ Seth looked down at Thomas, his expression knowing. ‘You could have saved him, couldn’t you?’
‘What do you mean?’ Thomas sat up, suddenly alert.
‘You let him die, you little bastard.’
‘No … no … I…’ Thomas struggled to find any words, so worried was he about how Seth might punish him.
‘Never mind,’ Seth said as he tapped the side of his nose. ‘Here’s a little something to tide you over until your next hit.’ He handed him a small pill and a glass of water, with a strange light in his eyes. As if Thomas had passed some kind of test.
While he swallowed the pill and drank the water, Thomas heard a series of clicks in his ear. He was sure it was the muscle of his heart slowly turning black, and the blood in his veins being reduced to dust and ash.