I say ‘shyness’ rather than ‘inadequacy’ – not prepared to go that far. Dangerous assumptions could be made, my very masculinity questioned. Oh no, we’ll not go there!
This newly discovered reticence has no basis in common sense. It’s just talking. Public speaking. And, yes, I’ve done that before. Many times. Given speeches, briefings, given evidence in High Court, many a time. What about talking about a subject as personal my own writing though? To strangers.
Daunting.
I’d not been well. Felt awful. The request I’d agreed to months ago had arrived and I looked and felt, like death warmed up. But, I said I’d do this, so I will. Just hoped I last the evening out. I have to talk, in public. Socialise afterwards. Take questions.
Agghh! I can’t do this, but I must. I gave my word.
It’s nothing important. Not really. I was asked, ages ago, if I’d read some extracts from my books to a Book Group. Not a Book Club – this is the Cotswolds where ‘club’ has connotations of vulgarity, a suggestion that just ‘anyone’ could join. A ‘group’ is a closed order, invitation only. Far more appropriate.
I’d wondered whether the person making the request had actually read anything I’d written. ‘Oh yes, rather,’ she replied. Genteel, well that’s a given but also enthusiastic. I have weak moments, far too many of them, and this boost to my fragile ego made me say ‘yes.’
Months later, I’m regretting it. Arrival at the venue, a living room the size of an aircraft hanger in a 16th Century Manor House near Chipping Camden, had done little to quell my misgivings. Twenty-two members, all but one of them female, ages ranging from thirty-something to well past thirty-something. Expectant. Eager. Welcoming. I can’t fault them in any way, but what about me? Am I really going to be able to offer them anything worth their trouble in coming out on a bitterly cold evening?
We chat for a while. They chat, I listen. They’re lovely. Interesting, alert, knowledgeable, love books, what’s not to like? Our hostess is dressed for Royal Ascot. Slim with great cheekbones, she looks thirty-five, at most. Then she introduces me to her daughter who could be her twin sister and yet has a son at Sandhurst. It’s another world.
After coffee, biscuits, three slices of homemade cake – I know, I’m a pig, I blame it on nervousness – it’s time to sing for my supper. I’ve thought about this. I can’t give them three pages of description about a tree in full leaf, they’d nod off, but if I read something stronger, will they send for the smelling salts?
I go with what I’d planned. Hit them hard. The worse that can happen is they won’t ask me again. I can cope with that.
I start with a reading from my first novel. I explain it’s now also available as an e-book. That doesn’t go down too well. These are traditional book buyers. Nobody here would even contemplate buying a book from Amazon. They go to bookshops. Browse. Choose a book at leisure. Have it wrapped. Take it home and after reading donate it to a charity shop or a Church bazaar.
My first offering concerned the life and death of a drug user. I spent most of my working life in the company of gang-bangers, criminals, addicts and dealers. Even a few policemen who were occasionally the worst of all. All useful material for a crime writer, as it turned out.
In my first book I wrote about a heroin addict and have now found the original notes that helped flesh out the character. Notes intended for a novel, but never used, found in a long-lost file dating from 1997. Recollections of far too many days spent in squats or shooting galleries watching junkies shoot up. Not the happiest of times, even as the only non-user in the building.
It was work and the job had its moments, but seeing the misery of addiction at close quarters has to be among the lowest points.
In that first novel I gave an eyewitness view of a smack addict based on recollections of one I once met. I got to know him as well as anyone knows anyone under such conditions. His name was James and he’d managed the transition from a detached house in Wilmslow to a sordid squat in Cheetham Hill within eighteen months. A waste of a life? Absolutely.
Middle class family, father a barrister, went to a good school, very bright and yet his moments of lucidity were rare. Our only topic of conversation was Class A drugs and their availability. His street name was Dog-Boy as he had a dog when I first met him and the two were constant companions. The dog wandered off one night when he was dead to the world and never came back, but the name lingered on. I called my character Snake. This is his story. I’ll save the second reading choice for another time.
‘Snake’s Tale.‘
‘The handles of the pliers were coated with orange plastic. ‘For Christ’s sake,” Snake rasped. ‘Mister cool, Mister fucking G.Q. designer label suits brings pliers with fucking orange plastic handles.” The irrelevant thought was swept away on a tidal wave of relief as the pliers, cool against his bruised skin snipped the tight wire. Snip, snip, that’s all it took. The fresh agony of returning circulation doubled him up, mouth gaping in a silent scream.
Marcus threw him a cloth-covered bundle. ‘So, Clive’s not talking to anyone? Never goes out? That’s good. I can find you. I can always find you, junkie. You’d better have told me the truth.”
Snake scrabbled to open the bag as his tormentor left. His precious works, his most important possession, no, the only things that really mattered to him. The twisted and blackened spoon, still bearing the crest of a fast food chain, the stem bent at right angles allowing the scoop to remain level. Syringe and needle in a metal cigar case, the same needle used repeatedly, cheap disposable lighter, a grubby cotton wool ball, a small twist of foil and the precious white powder. His torn and bleeding fingers, like filthy blackened claws, remained rock steady, as sure and tender as the hands of a mother with her infant. The act transcended pain, suffering, deprivation, all that mattered was the release and the needle was the key.
Snake scooped pooling water from the floor with the spoon. Boiling would make it sterile. He transferred the powder to the bowl of the spoon, never, ever, spilling a single grain, his cupped hands shielding the precious cargo from a nonexistent wind. Safely accomplished, the bent spoon hooked over a protruding nail, he flicked the lighter, adjusting the flame. The bitter-sweet pain as he delayed bringing the flame to the spoon brought a nervous giggle to his cracked lips, sweet agony knowing he finally had the power to end his pain, his longing. No surgeon brought more concentration to his work than this, the pale, greyish mixture bubbling with the heat. He looked at it longingly, the delay now unavoidable, shoot that stuff while it’s still hot, and it would be fucking goodnight.
No gritty residue in the cooling liquid, a good sign. He knew better than most that heroin at street level is cut many times, adulterated with baking powder, cement dust, ground up chalk, even fucking Ajax, whatever was handy. The absence of obvious contaminant was a good sign, but ultimately irrelevant. Snake knew he would take it no matter what it looked like, regardless of the debris that accompanied it. He’d take it all.
He removed the hypodermic from its container; the needle still blackened with scabs of dried blood, pushed the needle into the ball of cotton wool and lowered it carefully into the bowl of the spoon, soaking up the liquid.
The veins in his arms and legs were useless, covered in scabs and ulcers. He had started with the small veins on the soles of his feet, hoping in those innocent early days to avoid the obvious bruising and heavily tracked arms of the addict, but all were useless now, veins receding from the threat of the invasive needle, retreating into flesh. He removed his shoelace and tied it round the stem of his penis, pulling tight, wincing as he slapped the prominent vein to make it stand proud. He muttered to himself, lost in the precision of a familiar routine.
‘Make sure you’re in the vein, always check for blood. Miss the vein it’s a fucking waste.” There was no one around to hear, but the sound of his own voice soothed him.
He never felt the needle, but as he pressed the plunger, his eyes widened as the rush began. The kick was instantaneous. Never like this, he thought as the veins behind his eyes burst and he slumped to the floor. His heart seized instantly as the pure grade uncut heroin flooded his blood stream. Snake was dead before his head hit the cement floor, needle still jutting from his penis. One more drug culture victim.’
Gulliver Smith 