High society (18 page)

AN OXFAM SHOP, WEST BROMWICH

T
here were nine girls in our attic. We crashed out mornin’s, mostly, when business was slow, that’s where they fed us as well and where we smoked our bit of smack or crack. We rarely got given a needle. Jacking up soon ruins your skin even if it’s good stuff, an’ before ye know it, ye start tae look like a pizza. Goldie was aware o’ that. So he worked hard tae keep us nice. Still, there was plenty tae smoke an’ any amount o’ pills tae pop. Well, there’ll always be pills if you’re working. He wanted us awake, didn’t he? An’ docile, o’ course. Ah don’t know what most brothels are like, but Goldie certainly thought it were worth the cash tae keep us out of it most o’ the time. Ah was the only English-speaking girl there, or at least the only girl who had English as a first language. The others were all Eastern European. Slaves, basically. No passport, no ID and absolutely no chance. The boss, Goldie, had three houses an’ he liked tae move us around, always at night, half conscious on the back seat of a Merc. It didn’t make any difference to us. All three houses were the same, a gangroom in the basement and reception on the ground floor, wi’ us all sittin’ there in our miniskirts an’ stilettos, sometimes wi’ our tits out, sometimes starkers. The punter’d take his pick an’ up we’d go tae the shaggin’ rooms.

‘It didn’t take me long tae realize the sort o’ hellhole Ah’d gone an sold maseP into. There was one girl, her name was Maria. Ah knew that because she was shouting it the day they took her out o’ the house for ever. Always on about her name, that girl was, whenever the boys called her babe or sugar or whatever, she would say, ‘My name is Maria’. It was her thing, the thing she wanted tae hang on taste. Everybody knew she had attitude. Even when she was completely high she’d be demanding her passport and asking for the money she’d been promised tae come taste England. So one day she just flipped, stormed out of her cubicle refusing tae service a client, downed tools, so to speak. Ah think he wanted somethin’ she were no prepared to provide an’ she’d just had enough. Anal, Ah imagine, that was a big problem wi’ all us girls. We didnae like that at all. Believe it or not, some of the idiots we serviced reckoned it represented safer sex for them. Can ye believe the pig ignorance? Anyway, whatever it was, Maria just flipped an’ started screamin’ tae get out an’ go home. ‘My name is Maria! My name is Maria!’ she kept shoutin’, so they took her out an’ that was the last we ever heard of her. She was from Chechnya. Ah’d spoken to her once or twice because her English was no’ bad. She’d got very unlucky in the war, wrong place, wrong time, et cetera. Stolen from her house by the Russian army for mobile R and R, sold on to a drug baron when they was sick o’ her, shipped across Europe on the drugs mainline, an’ whored all the way tae fuckin’ Birmingham of all places. Can ye believe it? Chechnya tae Birmingham! I mean, how big a mind fuck would that be? Anyway, what happened tae Maria turned ma mind tae thinkin’…No easy thing tae do when ye’re smacked out o’ your head an’ getting serial banged every wakin’ hour, but thinkin’ is what Ah did. It suddenly dawned upon me, loud as thunder, that all of us girls was goin’ tae die, an’ die quite soon. Either through disease, or through violence or maybe an overdose or maybe bad shite or whatever, but we were all definitely doomed. Maria was just our advance guard. She’d be there waitin’ for us on the other side. Funny thought, really, knowin’ you’re goin’ tae die.

‘Did Ah tell ye about ma other self? The girl who used tae float above the cars when Ah was workin’ the kerb for Francois? Ah hadnae seen her for a while, that other self, the one that liked music. We certainly never heard any music in Goldie’s houses, except the boomin’ o’ drum an’ bass from the passing cars. Well, Ah was lyin’ on ma bunk thinkin’ about Maria, an’ for some reason Ah’m wonderin’ how old she’d been an’ suddenly Ah’m lookin’ intae ma own face and ma face is sayin’ tae me, ‘How old are you, Jessie? Are ye seventeen or are ye eighteen? Ye don’t know, do ye?’ An’ Ah realize that Ah don’t know how old Ah am any more. Ah don’t know what the date is, what the month is, even.

‘An’ then one o’ the boys comes in an’ tells me it’s ma shift an’ would Ah like a nice pipe o’ crack tae get me in the mood, an’ Ah’m just reachin’ out for it an’ suddenly the girl on the ceiling that used to be me screams. Ah swear she screamed at me. It’s ringing roun’ ma brain while ma man’s grinnin’ at me over the pipe no’ hearin’ a thing. An’ the old Jessie shouts…‘No! Don’t take it, ye stupid cow!’

‘An’ then Ah’m seeing Maria before ma eyes getting dragged off shoutin’ out her name, which was all she had left, an’ Ah realize that ma name is just about all Ah have left masel’, because Ah don’t even know how fuckin’ old Ah am any more!

‘So Ah grins at ma man all sheepish an’ tells him thanks very much but Ah’m totally monged already an Ah’ll have it later. So he shrugs and pisses off and the next thing Ah’m goin’ intae one o’ the cubicles with a punta an’ ma other self, ma floatin’ girl has come intae the cubicle wi’ us, an’ as I pull ma knickers down she’s speakin’ tae me an’ she’s sayin’…‘Jessie! Get out o’ there before ye forget your own name!’ an’ then this bloke’s on top of me, trying to push his dick intae me while Ah try tae finger an’ thumb a johnny ontae it, an’ all the while Ah’m saying tae my girl ‘How? How?’ but it’s OK, ‘cos the punta thinks Ah’m groanin’ or some thin’, an’ my girl on the ceilin’ says, ‘Get yourseP fuckin’ straight, Jessie! Get straight…Get fuckin’ straight!’’

BEHIND THE ASTORIA THEATRE, SOHO

F
or a moment all human life seemed suspended as Peter, his colleagues, Robert and the three teenaged onlookers absorbed the full horror of the situation. Robert recovered first. He was a decent man beneath his crust and he knew exactly what Peter Paget was thinking.

‘I’m clean, man,’ he said. ‘No sweat. That’s my personal works stuck in your leg there. Honest, geezer, I don’t share my works with nobody, very rarely anyway, that’s for sure, and then I’m real careful. It’s clean. I use white spirit. You’ll be fine.’

Peter could only stare at what had so suddenly and so catastrophically come to pass — this needle, this steely rapier of death buried deep within his flesh, a fast-track, mainline, infiltration super-highway carrying incurable infection directly to the fast-pumping veins and arteries of his defenceless adrenalin charged system.

‘Take it out.’ Peter’s voice was no longer his own. It came from far away.

‘For God’s sake, be careful with that plunger!’ This was the voice of a colleague who had noted that Robert’s grimy, blackened thumb still rested on the top of the poisoned pump.

‘Don’t worry, dude. It’s my only hit.’ Carefully, Robert withdrew the needle. There was a tiny shading of red about its tip.

‘Eeeeuugh.’ The teenaged girls were almost in shock with the horror of it all, but their object lesson in the seamy side of drug addiction was not over yet. Robert may have been concerned for the mental health of his new acquaintance, but like all addicts he was most concerned with his own mental health, which was becoming further strung out by the minute. Driven by a craving which entirely dwarfed and engulfed all other personal and social issues, he now returned to his original agenda.

’

‘Scuse me, everybody, but I’m gagging for it.’

And so while the girls hovered between nauseous revulsion and rapt fascination, Robert set to the task of getting his weakened, scabby, limp and useless penis into shape to receive its delayed shot. He slapped it and squeezed it and fiddled with it until he had persuaded a vein of sufficient stature for his purposes to rise up out of the filthy, sickly skin.

Meanwhile, Peter was in a waking nightmare of such intensity that he could neither speak nor think. All he knew was that he could feel infection running through his system like a greyhound on a track, furious, straining, desperate to complete its course.

Robert was on the verge of injecting. Once more the needle hovered at his groin, but then a thought occurred to him. Even in his increasingly desperate state he was aware that the risk of infection cut both ways.

‘Here. Sorry to ask this, but you ain’t HIV or nothing, are you? I mean, anyone can have it, not just us users…You gay?’

Peter did not answer. His tongue was infected now, grown swollen and useless by the viruses he knew were destroying it.

‘Oh well, whatever. To be honest, even if you said you was fullblown Aids I’d still only wipe me steel down, because there is no way this scag is staying on the outside of me one minute longer.’ And with that Robert finally completed the task of injecting a massive but to him only adequate shot of corrupted, badly cut heroin into his bedevilled penis.

SOHO SQUARE

I
t’s all gone very pear-shaped, Tom. The bloke on the Astoria door says the cops are going ballistic. Nothing can get across St Giles Circus, not even those anarchic thugs on bicycles, and the traffic’s backed up west along Oxford Street all the way to Marble Arch. East it’s jammed as far as the City and south it’s going all the way down Charing Cross Road nearly to the river.

Tommy showed Tony the palm of his hand. ‘Tell it to the ‘and ‘cos the face ain’t listening.’

The speed he had taken was having its desired effect. Tommy was exhilarated. He felt powerful, confident, energetic.

Tony, on the other hand, who was entirely straight, felt anxious and nervous and no longer in charge.

‘Pop some of this, Tone,’ Tommy said soothingly. ‘You’ll feel loads better.’

‘We underestimated your pulling power, Tommy. This is a mess.’

‘I never underestimated anything. I reckoned this’d happen and it ‘as. Brilliant, eh?’

The police are saying we’ve caused a public disturbance. They say the gig’s cancelled.’

Took that. Who do they think they are?’

They don’t think they’re anything. They know who they are. They’re the Metropolitan Police.’

Took that.’

Tommy pressed the electronic window button. The cheering and screaming spread almost instantly throughout the crowd. It was as if everybody knew at once that Tommy was amongst them. Out of view to most of them, certainly, but amongst them nonetheless.

Tommy squeezed himself out of the limo window and, with the help of many eager female hands, scrambled up onto the roof of the car, where he stood, arms stretched out like a Messiah. The amphetamine and adrenalin high were of such a scale now that he was oblivious to fear. The crowd surged around him. People cheered from every window of the square. Tommy felt as if he were flying above them all.

‘I’m here! I am fookin’ here! Yes! I have come to my people! I am here! I am fookin’ here!’

The crowd kept pressing forward as those who were far away and around the corner tried to force their way into Soho Square to catch a glimpse of Tommy.

‘Come to me, my people. Come! For I am fookin’ here.’

Inside the car Tony could almost feel the metal of the limousine’s superstructure straining and starting to buckle as all the young bodies were flattened harder and harder against it. Once more he reached for his mobile. ‘Hello. Yes, police, please…My name is Tony Day. I’m with Tommy Hanson, I’m his tour manager…We’re in Soho Square and Tommy’s been spotted. You have to get the crowd to pull back, people are getting crushed here, little girls are getting crushed. I can see that some of them are starting to lose it…’

There was pain on the girls’ faces now; their mouths were gaping open, but no longer to scream; now they were gasping for air.

‘You have to clear this crowd…Yes, I know who started it, officer, I’m aware of that…But I’m telling you that you have to stop people pushing from the back — ’

Suddenly there was a thunderous roar from the crowd.

‘Oh, shit. He’s gone crowd-surfing.’

FALLOWFIELD COMMUNITY HALL, MANCHESTER

S
peed, see. Prat powder. I’m not always a tosser, honest. Mind you, what a fookin’ high that was. I mean, I know we’re all here tryin’ to get clean, but come on! Everybody remembers the really good ones fondly, don’t they? And that was truly amazing. I were invulnerable, a god. I got crowd-surfed out of Soho Square all the way up Sutton Row and round the front of the Astoria. Do you know, I nearly actually made it to the gig. If they’d ‘a just chucked me over the crowd barrier at that point I could have been in, ‘having a drink wi’ Liam and Noel. How cool would that have been? Crowd-surfing to your gig! Unfortunately the crowd were having too much of a laugh and to be honest so was I, so they surfed me straight past the theatre up into St Giles Circus and left along Oxford Street. Brilliant. So there I am, passing Waterstone’s, borne by many hands, and I’m thinking, hang on a minute, if I can just hang a left into Soho Street and down into the square I can get back to my limo and stick a bit o’ coke on top o’ this speed. Top idea. Mental.

‘Amazing, in’t it, what drugs can do to your sense o’ reality? I’m shouting, ‘Left! Left! You bastards! I’ve got some superb charlie in me motor!’ when about twenty arms all in nice white cotton shirt sleeves reach up and grab me. I am well and truly fookin’ nicked.’

BBC NEWS DESK

P
eter Paget, MP for Dalston North West and prominent campaigner for the full legalization of drugs, is in fear for his life tonight, having been accidentally stabbed with a hypodermic needle while visiting homeless drug users in London’s West End. The incident occurred amidst a crowd that had been gathering in anticipation of an expected appearance by pop star Tommy Hanson. Numerous teenaged girls were caught up in the crush. It has been reported that when the addict to whom Mr Paget had been talking began to brandish his needle, Mr Paget placed himself between it and the terrified young girls. Sally Ward is the BBC’s medical correspondent.’ Moira, the newscaster, turned to Sally in the newsroom.

‘While there seems to be no question of a deliberate attack on Mr Paget or the girls, addicts in withdrawal are not entirely in control of their bodies or their emotions, and in such a tight group of people there is no doubt that an accident such as this one was very nearly inevitable. With all the attendant risks of infection, it is enormously to Mr Paget’s credit that he ensured that none of the young women was harmed.’ Sally turned back to Moira. ‘Narinder Kumar is at the scene of the accident.’

The perky young reporter stood in the doorway that had so recently seen such drama. ‘Thank you, Moira. I’m here with Fred Golightly of the drug charity Straight…Mr Golightly, you feel strongly that this terrible accident serves only to reinforce the point that Mr Paget has been trying to make with his high-profile campaign.’

‘Absolutely. Peter Paget is a very brave man and he may now pay the price for the blind stupidity of Britain’s ostrich approach to our drug problems. If the man whose needle stabbed Paget had had access to a safe, clean place in which to inject himself this accident would never have happened. Thousands of people are injecting themselves with heroin on the streets of Britain every day. They would prefer to be somewhere safe with access to clean needles, but the law excludes them. With no stake in society, these people become fiercely antisocial, discarding their needles irresponsibly. It is inevitable that the wider community will come increasingly into contact with this bloodied and dangerous litter — in playgrounds, in public toilets, in council lifts and smart shop doorways. The fact that Mr Paget has become such a public victim of that which he seeks to change is a sad irony indeed.’

By the time the following morning’s papers hit the streets Peter was being lauded as a genuine national hero. The protector of innocence, the stern combatant against wild maniacal junkies, the fearless voice of reason in a world of blind political fools. Sometimes the spin goes one way, sometimes another. On this occasion, it was spinning so fast Peter’s way that it seemed that morning as if this one tragic incident had awoken the entire nation from a deep sleep.

Peter, of course, had given up any thought of sleep, convinced as he was that he was going to die of Aids.