My Mum and Me

You see, the thing is, hang on. I sit on my chair in what I call ‘The Cheeky Lotus Position’ when I write, I spose it’s a half-lotus, or ‘looks like louts from a distance,’ which causes me calf strain. Let me adjust that. Much better. Where were we?

You see, the thing is, Dene is only ten years old, so his mum’s groaning voice and the bumping bed against the wall stopping and starting again clunk clunk clunk clunk leaks through the walls like masonry seepage through cracked plaster. As if I’ve ever worked in construction. I Googled those terms. Dene’s heard it all before, but it was his tenth birthday just last week, and his mum said, “You’re a man now,” so a man now, Dene shall be. He’s seen enough men coming and going to know what that means.

No posters of footballers or singers or movie stars or pretty girls or other loud and largely unattainable dreams on the bare and please-feed-me-culture walls of Dene’s anaemic bedroom. No toys or games consoles or wires or little red standby lights, not much of anything really. A blanket, a bed, some clothes and some drawers.

The carpet is in a constant debate with the floorboards that slowly consume it without the stupid carpet knowing. Dene knows the job a carpet does is underrated, but doesn’t quite have the words to construct the thought fully. He has also described it as ‘stupid’ when it failed to protect one of his favourite socks from getting shredded by an angry tooth of floorboard.

His fingers pushed deep into his ears to keep the sounds out, and because he likes the way it feels, he walks to the drawers, because, stashed behind the bottom draw in a small bag stuffed in a beaten and damp teddy bear, unzipped at the back of the neck, the head flopped forward, undead, as small squares of multi-coloured foam tumble onto its lap like some psychedelic blood of hyperreality is a load of pound coins. Dene pulls out the bag. Drops Floppy (that’s the teddy’s name) counts coins. Moves.

He wipes the shiny and lipid-rich cerumen from his fingertips but not before very nearly giving in to temptation and hovering his fingertip just millimeters from his tongue to get a bit of that odd, bitter taste he’d got once before, after putting his fingers in his ears. Stays strong. Good lad. Removes his fingertip from his mouth and gets on with the task at hand. Curious lad is our Dene, but being ten now, he wants to stop tasting his orificial extractions.

He pulls his anorak over his pyjamas, pushes his feet into his trainers, and, as quiet as the ghosts he no longer fears, being a man and that, glides down the stairs, moves the brick that keeps the door closed because the lock doesn’t lock, and slips out, pulling on the string that pulls the brick that closes the door that marks the line between inside and outside and into the bitumen black night outside, our Dene does go.

That forty-five-degree Made in England® rain that hurts first then chills then soaks. Spiteful old Mother Nature groaning. The zip on Dene’s anorak doesn’t work, never has. Was never new, not to Dene, anyway, so he holds it closed and hunches his shoulders to stop his hood from being blown back, but blown back it frequently is and he makes a mental note to ask for a new coat or something. “Not something,” he says, “a new coat”. He’ll not get it. But for some time now he’s considered it good practice to ask anyway, for when his life is like the lives of others, the ones he’d seen on telly, back when they had a telly and that.

Before long, Dene is but a nothing at the feet of three tower blocks, twenty-eight kilograms of shivering flesh and bone in the confusing anti-glow of an energy-saving light that saves energy, but does not light, not really, just enough to show there’s a light there failing to do its job, well, it’s saving energy so I don’t know and neither does Dene.

“Sorry, mate.”

“What for?” says Dene.

“For that horrible dead pigeon I just kicked at you,” says a man about 35 years old, whose name we’ll soon find out is Storm. “I didn’t mean to kick it at you. I just kicked it, and it went towards you. I didn’t even know you were there, to be honest.”

“It’s okay, I didn’t notice it,” says Dene.

“Isn’t it past your bedtime, like by about eight hours?”

“I go to bed when I want. My mum’s busy. All the time,” says Dene.

“Yep, I know that one.”

“Can you get me a dig?” says Dene.

“What did you just say?”

“Can you get me a dig?” says Dene.

“A ‘dig’. Right. Wow.”

“I’m clunking. Like really bad,” says Dene.

“Clucking?”

“Yes,” says Dene.

“But you’re like four.”

“I’m not four, I’m ten,” says Dene.

“Oh well, that changes everything. I mean… is Jeremy Beadle going to come out of that alley or something?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know Jeremy Beadle. Does he sell the digs?” says Dene.

“Is this some weird new old bill sting, sending out toddlers? Am I going to get a five stretch for supplying a kid?”

“I don’t know what that is,” says Dene. “I just need a dig.”

“Well, I’m ‘clunking’ too. Have you got money?”

“Yes, I have eight pounds and nineteen pence,” says Dene.

“And I have two pounds, so yes, we can indeed ‘get a dig.’”

“Can we get it right now?” says Dene.

“We can certainly try.”

Dene and Storm stand in the lift. Storm presses a button. The doors shut. The whirr and cangle of the sheave, hoist motor, and counterweight do their thing and stuff and that. Yeah, same again, I’ve never worked as a lift maintenance engineer. Googled it.

“I like lifts,” says Dene. “What’s your name?”

“Storm.”

“Storm? Like rain and wind and that?” says Dene.

“Yeah, dumb, eh? My mum and dad were dozy shitbags and named me after the bloke who designed the Pink Floyd album covers. But with you being two-years-old, I guess that means nothing to you.”

“I’m not two, I’m ten, and I like Pink Floyd. Wish You Were Here is my favourite,” says Dene.

“Of course it is. What the fuck is going on?”

“You shouldn’t say ‘fuck’,” says Dene, “it’s a swear word. So is ‘shitbag’.”

“You just said them both, so there.”

“Yes, but I didn’t want to,” says Dene

“But you did.”

“But I wouldn’t have said them if you hadn’t, so there,” says Dene

The lift doors judder open, and Storm walks out and to the left, followed by Dene.

“Give me your money and wait there. I’ve got to go to the end of the landing.”

“No, here’s the money, but I’m coming with you,” says Dene.

“If I wanted to fleece you, I’d have already done it. I’d have given you a clout and you’d have run home crying. What would you do, shoot me? Actually, don’t answer that.”

Storm puts four fifty-pence coins in the little bag and knocks twice on door number forty-four. A couple of seconds later, the letterbox pings open.

“One dark,” says Storm, pushing Dene’s head aside as Dene leans forward to look through the letterbox. Storm pushes the bag of coins through. It’s snatched by a hand, and the flap snaps shut.

“That’s like my Snappygum,” says Dene. “It looks like a pack of chewing gum but when you ask your friend if they want a chewing gum, they take it and a piece of metal on a spring whacks them on their thumbnail and it hurts.”

“Yeah, I know it. We used to have those too, from the joke shop. There’s a problem though.”

“Yes, people get suspicious when you offer them a stick of chewing gum because you’ve never done it before,” says Dene.

“Exactly that. Clever kid. Ideally,” says Storm, “you’d prep them by having some chewing gum on you every day for a few weeks, so people got used to you offering them a stick.”

“That would work, yes,” says Dene.

“A lot of money and prep just to hurt your mate’s thumbnail, though.”

“I’ve only actually done it on myself. No one’s ever fallen for it,” says Dene.

“Same here. Fucking hurts, too, if I remember rightly,” says Storm.

The letterbox opens. Something. Almost nothing. Falls out onto the floor in front of the door.

“There’s your dig. Well, the important part, anyway.”

“Do you want your two pounds’ worth?” says Dene.

“No, I want my two pounds’ worth and my three pounds’ finder’s fee. We’ll split it in half. I’ll divide it, and you can choose. Standard procedure. No one gets done.”

“OK, but can we hurry up?” says Dene as he leans forward and picks up the little bag, about the size of a garden pea. A really small garden pea.

“It’s tiny!” says Dene. “Like a garden pea, a really small garden pea.”

“Wait until we remove the ten metres of cling film, then the Rizla, maybe two, and even now, more than ten years on the stuff, I’m still surprised at how humiliatingly small the actual amount you get is for ten whole pounds.”

“Ten whole pounds and nineteen pence,” says Dene.

“No shit, you gave them a tip!”

“You did,” says Dene.

“I guess I did. But it was your money.”

“So we gave them a tip,” says Dene.

“So we’re a nice couple of blokes.”

“Can we get it divided? I need it really quickly,” says Dene.

“Everyone needs it really quickly. No one wants it for later; that is not a thing in this game. Yesterday, yes. Later, never.”

They go to the stairwell.

You see, the thing is, it’s such a dank and dangerous and dirty and damp and decomposing and dehumanising block, the people who live there are often more concerned if there aren’t people shooting up or gouching or buying or selling or fighting or dribbling or dealing or disappearing or dying, at some time and somewhere in the stairwell.

Storm and Dene, sitting on their haunches, get busy, and for the first time in the history of heroin, a stranger fairly divides the gear for another stranger. He wraps both halves in a new cigarette paper and recycles the clingfilm to ensure they’re well protected.

“If you get a tug, swallow it. You can shit it out in about three days, and it’ll still be good to go. I’m going to take the stairs. My mate lives down a few flights,” says Storm, already halfway down the first flight of stairs.

“Bye, Storm,” says Dene.

“Be lucky, little fella,” says Storm, out of sight.

Dene makes his way to the lift. Waits. Gets in. Presses ‘G’. Waits. Doors shut. The whirr and cangle of the sheave, hoist motor, and counterweight do their thing. The doors open, and he walks outside and into the bitumen black night. Away from the blocks and back up the road to his house. The rain the same as it was before.

He nudges the front door which pushes the brick which moves out of the way and lets the door open and Dene slips inside. He pushes the brick back in place which closes the door that marks the line between outside and inside, and into the house, the grimy grey house, our Dene goes.

He hears his moaning mum, and the knocking and creaking of her bed stopping and starting again clunk clunk clunk clunk. He goes into the kitchen, slides a chair across the room, uses it to climb onto the work surface, reaches on top of the cupboard. Feels about. Grabs a shoebox. Brings it down with him.

He opens the shoe box, and from there it’s standard:

Put down spoon.

Remove clingfilm.

Unwrap cigarette paper.

Pour heroin into spoon.

Add citric acid.

Pull water into syringe.

Squirt water into spoon.

Tilt spoon side to side to mix.

Light lighter.

Dark darker.

Solution bubbles.

Looks like weak tea (without milk).

Pull cotton from the end of earbud.

Put in spoon.

Put needle on cotton.

Pull plunger and draw liquid into syringe.

Flick syringe to remove air bubbles.

Push plunger until a small amount of liquid leaves the spike.

Dig prepared.

Dene goes upstairs, holding the dig in front of him, wary of tripping.

Dene stands outside his mum’s room. The groaning, the rocking of her bed. Expressionless Dene. Not knowing and knowing. Human, all too human. Dene turns the doorknob and opens the door. His mum is fetal and rocking and sweating and dribbling and shivering and crying and the twisted and damp and knotted and sweat-stiffened and bunched and utterly foul duvet a map of several days of such things.

“I got you a dig,” says Dene, holding up the syringe.

BUY ME A COFFEE

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Be lucky

Chris Dangerfield