A Song for Joey (14 page)

"When are you going to get me some real stage work?" I demanded, petulantly. The
summer season was about to start in the theatres, but I was still in the wilderness as far as
the entertainment industry was concerned.

Gary was nursing a hangover. It had been two o'clock when he staggered up the stairs
and flopped into bed, smelling like one of our dustbins. I had turned my back as he
dragged the covers off me; thankfully, he was too drunk to try to grope me.

My day's work started at six o'clock, when I had to be up to receive a beer delivery.
Thankfully, the drivers were sympathetic to my situation, and carried the kegs into the
cellar for me, otherwise I would have been helpless; it was struggle enough for me to roll
one into position and connect to the lines, I could never have lifted it.

When Gary had finally blessed me with his presence, it was ten o'clock and I had
cleaned up the mess left by his cronies, washed all the glasses and polished the bar and all
the chrome. We had reached a stage where he left everything to me.

He pulled himself a pint of bitter and sagged into a chair. "Don't nag me, baby, I'm not
well," he whined, pathetically.
"You're not ill," I spat, hating myself for the shrill tone my voice had taken. "You've got
alcohol poisoning!"
"Get me an Alka Seltsa, babe. My head's splitting."
"God, you're pathetic!" I snapped. "If you don't get me work soon, I'm moving out. You
can try to run this place without me."
His face clouded over; his lips pulled back in a snarl. "Don't push your luck, kid," he
snapped. "If you leave me, I'll make sure you never get a job in Yarmouth."
I threw down the tea towel I had been using to dry the glasses, and stormed out into
Nelson Road and down to the beach. There, I walked slowly along the waterline, as I had
as a child, skipping aside as waves rushed at my feet, as though trying to grab me. I
remembered the long chats with Oliver, and the companionable silences.
Slowly my mood improved. My thoughts drifted to Joey. Dear little Joey; what a tough
life he had suffered, and how resilient he had to be, but always he was stoical and
cheerful, until it was snatched from him. 'I must learn to be like him,' I thought.

That night, after I called 'time, gentlemen please', with scarcely a hint of sarcasm in the
word 'gentlemen', Gary called me over to the table where he was sitting with some of his
friends. "Here, try one of these," he said, holding out a little piece of pink paper, about the
size of a stamp, which he had removed from a small tin box that sat on the table with its
lid still open.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Don't worry about what it is, just try it, it's good stuff, you'll enjoy it." He thrust the

I hesitated, looking at Gary, the piece of paper, the tin, then at his mates, who chorused
"Go on!"
"What am I supposed to do with it?"
"It's just blotting paper," he grinned. "Put it in your mouth."
I knew I should have walked away, I knew he was not to be trusted, but somehow, in
that moment, a combination of bravado, his power over me, and my curiosity, took over
my hand. I saw it reach out and take the innocent-looking scrap, then watched
dispassionately as it came up to my mouth, which opened without any instruction from
me.
After depositing the paper on my tongue, my rebellious hand then picked up Gary's beer
glass and raised it to my lips. I heard Joey shouting to me "
NO! Stop, Bell, stop! Don't do
it
," but it was too late, I had taken the first step on the lonely road to my own destruction.

Now, before I continue, I have a confession to make: there is something I haven't told
you.
Despite my total recall, there is one place, a hole in my memory which, thankfully, I
cannot access. I do not wish to see into it, because it holds the darkest part of my life.
Sometimes, I have momentary glimpses of the start of it - and the end - they are bad
enough. I am thankful that my mind is preventing me from peering over the edge into the
abyss of full recollection.
Gary fed me every drug he could get, and once he had me hooked, I was desperate for
more. I will never know which substances he pumped into me, all I can say is that I
became dependent on him maintaining my supply. He gave me pills and powders, I
smoked, sniffed, swallowed and, yes, eventually, injected everything he gave me. But the
drugs were just a tool; he used them to pacify and control me, keep me malleable and,
ultimately, to sell me.
He started to hold parties in our flat, attended by sleazy characters I hadn't met before.
They would arrive after dark, through the back door, and stay all night getting high,
drinking, smoking, shooting and snorting to loud music.
And there were other girls - young, like me, with eyes that gazed unseeing into space.
Before my brain locks up, refuses to allow me any further access, I can see disjointed
movie clips of those nights, like flickering images projected onto a thick cloud of smoke.
There is no sense of time, one moment flows into another, which, for all I know, could
have happened on a different night, or even in a different month. There might be six or
ten or twelve people, laying around on cushions or lounging in chairs, taking turns to
make lines of white powder, which they sucked up through their noses with straws made
from banknotes. By then, I was doing the same, and usually my memory gives out shortly
before recalling the kick that followed.
But sometimes I have little flashes; they are not pleasant. I look down and see my naked
body, I look up and see men standing around watching as, one by one, they violate me,
degrade me, pierce, slap, punch me. I feel nothing, the drugs insulate me from all
sensations. I see them handing Gary money. I see him laughing and slapping them on the
back.
As far as I can work it out, those little vignettes represent a period of about six months
that is otherwise completely lost to me. I could not have saved myself. I was hooked on ...
god knows what. Gary supplied me, then sold me to his friends.
When I probe my mind, all I can see is a shadow show, shapes swimming past, voices,
echoing.
But one day, as I drifted out of my cloud, my body screaming for a shot, I found Gary
laying unconscious on the floor of our flat, out of his head on something. No matter how I
tried to wake him, I could not. It did not occur to me to worry about his welfare, I didn't
care if he lived or died, I just wanted my shot.
Desperately, I staggered down the stairs and into the street, hoping to find someone to
give me what I needed. As the mist shreds and drifts, I can see the disgust on the faces of
strangers as I begged them to give me drugs, offered them money, or sex. Then I found a
familiar face. Thank god!
I didn't know his name, didn't care, he was someone I knew who might give me some
heroin, anything to relieve the terrible pain that racked me.
"Please, give me some smack, anything, I'm dying!" I croaked. "I'll sleep with you, do
anything you like."
He stared at me, puzzled, amazed. "Belinda? Is it you?"
“Yeah, yeah, B'linda, whatever. Have you got any stuff, or not?"
He grabbed my shoulders with both hands, rocked me gently but firmly, forcing me to
look in his eyes. "Belinda, it's me, Oliver, I came to find you. God, you look awful.
What's happened to you?"
Oliver? I knew an Oliver once ... he left me.

My fuddled brain tried to make sense of the thoughts that suddenly flooded through it.
There was something familiar about him. The hair, the eyes? He was older, but yes, it was
him!

"Oliver!" I threw my arms around his neck and held onto him, felt his hands on my back
as he hugged me close and I sobbed into his collar. "Where have you been? You went
away without telling me. I missed you so much. So many things have happened."

"I'm sorry," he whispered, huskily. "I'll tell you all about it, but first I have to know what
has happened to get you into this state. What's all this about drugs? I thought you were too
smart to start down such a dangerous path."

The mention of drugs switched my mind back to my present predicament. "Yeah, drugs.
Have you got any, can you get me some?"
He studied my face intently, so deeply that I squirmed with embarrassment. "Yes, I've
got some, you will have to come with me to get them."
"Sure, lead on, kindly light."
He took me to a run-down house along a narrow path, and led me up a flight of dingy
stairs to an attic room. As soon as we were inside, he turned a key in the lock, then put the
key in his pocket.
"What you doin'? Why you locked the door?" I slurred, my whole face screwed up with
the effort of concentrating.
"Sit down," he said, indicating a battered table and chairs. "I'll get you something." He
lit a ring on the greasy gas cooker in one corner of the room and began rummaging in a
cupboard, emerging with two mugs and a jar of instant coffee.
"What's this? You playing some kind of game. Where are my drugs?" I started to stand
up, but he was behind me in one movement and pressed down on my shoulders. I was so
weak I could not resist.
"Here," he said, plonking a mug of coffee on the table. "Drink this."
"I don't want that!" I spat. "Let me go! I need drugs." Again I tried to get up, and when
he restrained me, I lashed out, feebly. He grabbed me in a bear hug, pinning my arms at
my side.
"Belinda, I want to help you. His face was close to mine, his breath warm on my sweaty
cheek.
The closeness of him affected me deeply. In the short while we had known each other,
all those years ago, there had never been any physical contact, and yet, there was an
attraction that was completely different from how I felt about Joey. I felt my heart
pounding against my ribs, like it wanted to break free and join with Oliver's.
Through the haze of my drugged state, I knew I loved Oliver. I relaxed and rested my
head on his chest, wrapping my arms around his waist. I felt him kiss my dirty, sweaty
head.

Oliver kept me locked in his room; I was a willing captive. He bathed me, fed me,
talked to me, held me when the demons returned to stab me with their fiery forks, and
when my body shivered uncontrollably from the withdrawal of the poisons on which it
had grown to depend.

For two weeks, he hardly left me. When he had to go out to shop for food, he locked the
door, and was gone for just a few minutes. Slowly, I recovered, finding something like the
real Belinda Bellini, leaving behind the broken facsimile created by Burroughs.

He washed my clothes. While they dried I wore a pair of his jeans and one of his shirts.
He said they looked better on me.
We talked about my life and his, and about our feelings for each other. I learned that, on
the day before the flood, he, his family, and everyone else in the shanty town on the
beach, had been moved out by the police for their own safety, following serious weather
warnings.
They lost almost all their meagre possessions to the wild storm that night, but there was
a good outcome: because so many families were thrown upon the welfare services of the
local council, homes were found for all of them in Local Authority housing complexes
being built in towns and villages all around Norfolk.
I told him about my evacuation from the flood, and about Gran's exposure and decline.
He was shocked when I recounted being ejected from the guest-house by uncle Ernie, and
solicitous over the loss of Joey.
Once we had opened the doors to discussing our relationship, Oliver told me that he had
loved me from the first time we spoke.
"But you were only ten," I said.
"I can't explain it, it was just something I knew beyond any doubt, and it stayed with me
all the time we were parted. As soon as I was able to leave home, I came here to
Yarmouth to find you. It took a month, but it worked." He smiled, and kissed me. I
realised that I had loved him too, that Joey's words were true - it is possible to love many
people, each in a way that is unique to that person. I would always love Joey with warmth,
as a brother; I loved Oliver with a heart-pumping flood of passion.
"What can we do next?" I asked. "I am still under-age, we can't be married for another
three years."
"I don't mind that, I can wait, but there's another complication: I've received my call-up
papers, I have to report for National Service in a couple of weeks."
"Oh no!" I cried, we have only just found each other. Can't you get them to change their
minds?"
He laughed. "I wish I could, my love, but little lives such as ours count for nothing in
the big scheme that is National Security."
I sat in silent thought for a few minutes, unable to reconcile the chain of events that
seemed to be dragging me from one crisis to the next. After a while, I asked softly: "Will
you take me outside, please?"
"Are you sure you're up to it?"
"I think so. It's just that I've been in this room too long; I need to feel the pavement
under my feet and the wind on my face, to see people and hear the gulls."

We emerged from his bedsit, and I blinked in the late summer sunshine, feeling the
warm breeze on my cheek and fluttering my hair. Hand in hand, we walked through the
maze of narrow back streets towards the sea. I could hear the gulls screeching, smell the
salty air. It was good to be back with reality.

Suddenly, I heard a rustle of clothing and a heavy footstep close behind, and strong
hands grabbed me. Before I could cry out, another hand was clamped over my mouth. I
could see Oliver struggling with two men, they were punching and kicking him, then I
was dragged into an alley and lost sight of them.

I could hear the panting of my captors as they ran, half carrying me so that my feet
scraped along the pavement.
A turn, and darkness, as I was hauled into a building, then light again as someone
switched on a naked bulb. I was in a room with no windows, possibly a cellar; the walls
were plain brick; it smelt musty. There was little furniture, a couple of wooden chairs and
a table were all I could see. One of my captors moved around to face me.
"Thought you could get away from me, did you, Belinda?"
"Gary? What's going on?"
"Oh, I have too much invested in you to let you go. You were my little goldmine, I can't
afford to have you wandering off, telling people my business."
The man holding me dumped me roughly into one of the chairs, and Burroughs sat
astride the other, staring at my face. "Did you think you and your little boyfriend could
hide from me forever?"
"To be honest," I said, with more bravado than I felt, "I didn't give you a thought."
He laughed, a harsh explosion, like a cough, then his hand lashed out and slapped me
across the face, first with his palm, then, on the back-swing, with his knuckles. It was a
shock - not just the pain, which was instantaneous, but because it was unexpected. I had
grown to realise in the time I had known him that he was capable of anything, including
violence, but until then it had never been directed at me.
I cried out, and he grinned, an ugly smirk that held more than a hint of menace.
"Now let's hear no more cheek from you. You are here, and now here is where you will
stay until I'm ready to let you out. Besides, I have something special planned for you
tomorrow." He leered as he stood and walked towards the door.
As he opened it, and allowed his henchman out, he turned back to me. "Don't bother
trying to shout for help, no-one will hear you, and Hoss, here," he indicated the brute who
had held me, and who glowered at me through bushy eyebrows, "will be keeping guard
outside the door. If he hears you making a noise, he will come in and silence you. Do you
understand what I'm saying?"
I didn't answer. "I'll take that as a 'yes'. Oh, and don't expect your boyfriend to rescue
you; my lads have taught him a lesson - if he lives, he will have more respect for my
property in future."
The door closed, I heard a key turn and the light was switched off, plunging the room
into darkness.