I got out of bed and went over to the window and pulled back the curtains. They were stiff and cold to the touch. The window was shut. Locked. Barred on the outside. A pattern of blurred marks in the smeared glass showed where Candy had gazed out the window, resting her nose against the glass.
I wondered what she looked at.
It was fully dark outside.
Streetlights glazed the surface of the road below, and in the distance the lights of the city flickered in their thousands: orange lights, dipping gracefully with the curve of roads; ice green traffic lights; the circular white glow of traffic circles…lines of motion, the drop of the sky, lights of lights…
I could see for miles.
I couldn’t see anything.
I looked over at the bathroom, willing Candy to appear: Come on…please…if you take any longer, I’ll have to do something. I’ll have to call out to you…and you probably won’t answer…and then I’ll have to come and find you…to check that you’re OK…and I’ll find you sitting on the toilet smoking smack, all bent over and ugly, with a plastic straw sticking out of your mouth…
The toilet flushed. I crossed the room and sat down on the bed. Taps gurgled, pipes roared, the toilet flushed again…and then the beads in the doorway rattled and swooshed—and there she was, a vision in white, gliding her way around the bed and settling down beside me. She had that look about her again—the way she was sitting, loose and easy, hanging her head…that strange little smile on her lips…
“Sorry…” she said. “I had to…you know…”
“It’s all right.”
“I…uh…” she mumbled. “Where was I?”
“Sorry?”
She raised her head and looked at me, her drugged eyes wandering around my face. “The story…” she said. “I was telling you the story…” She jerked her head and ran her fingers through her hair. “Christ, it’s so pathetic…”
“What is?”
“This…me…what happened…why it happened. It’s so stupid. It’s nothing. I mean, I used to be all right…I was OK. Nothing bad happened to start it all off. I didn’t get beaten up or raped or abused or anything…nothing happened.” She shook her head. “All I got was a little bit of jealousy, a little bit of rejection, and a lot of self-pity. It’s not much of a reason for ending up like this, is it?”
“A reason’s a reason,” I said.
“Yeah, well…”
Her eyes closed again and her head sank down to her chest. I thought for a moment she’d nodded off, but then she took a deep breath and straightened up and opened her eyes and looked at me.
“What was I saying?” she said.
“You were talking about reasons—”
“No, before that. Before I went to the bathroom.”
“You were telling me about Iggy,” I reminded her. “When he gave you a lift home…”
“Yeah, right…gave me a lift home. That’s right. He was sooo nice…when was that?” She shook her head. “Long time ago…years ago. I was good then…I gave him my number…big mistake…” She sighed and yawned and lay down on the bed, resting the back of her head in my lap. Despite the growing cold, beads of sweat were glistening on her skin. “Yeah,” she said, “good old Iggy. Didn’t ring me for a week…kept me waiting…” Her head lolled back and she gazed up at me. “Just like you.” She smiled.
I nodded.
She said, “Then he rang me…asked me out…and that was it. Clubs, compliments, money, clothes…he gave me everything I wanted. Everything. Told me everything I wanted to hear: I was amazing…my parents were shit…they didn’t understand me…I was a woman…I was special…” She shook her head sadly. “I couldn’t get enough of it. I was hooked. He had everything—money, drugs, respect…it was so cool, you know?” Her voice was bitter and hard. “Doing coke all the time…feeling good…a bit of smack now and then to slow things down…a bit more…then a bit more…” She looked at me again. “You ever tried it?”
“No,” I said.
“Don’t…it’s shit. It’s like the best thing in the world…it takes everything away, all the crap…everything. Nothing matters anymore—hot or cold, big or small, good or bad…you just don’t care. You don’t give a shit about anything. It’s like you’re wrapped up inside the warmest blanket imaginable, sleeping like an angel…all wrapped up in your own little wonderful world…and then one day you wake up and the blanket’s gone, and you feel so cold and empty…you feel so bad…you feel so terrible you’ll do anything to get that feeling back. And I mean anything…anything at all…because you don’t care, you don’t want to care. All you want is that wonderful wonderful feeling. So when Iggy says the smack’s all gone and he’s skint, so he can’t get any more…but he knows this guy, this friend of his who fancies me…and all I’ve got to do is spend a couple of hours with this guy and we’ll have enough money to get what we need…what I need…” She was speaking in a broken whisper now. “I mean, it wasn’t much to ask, was it? All I had to do was sleep with the guy. Iggy didn’t mind…He’d do the same for me. Why should I mind? If I loved him…I loved him, didn’t I? And it was good money…easy money…and he could probably find something to take my mind off things for a while…”
She was crying again, but without any tears.
I held her hand.
“There’s nothing left after that,” she said quietly. “The money keeps drying up, you keep doing favors for friends… needing more drugs…needing more money…doing more favors…and after a while you don’t know what’s happening anymore. You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re just doing it, doing what it takes…living in a shitty little room and working the streets all day and the saunas all night just to keep yourself from going mad…”
She mouthed a few more silent words, then her lips trembled and she closed her eyes and was quiet. I looked down at her, trying to take it all in—the words, the images, the life…trying to imagine how it must be…but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even get close. It was beyond me. A different world. A world I knew nothing about. A world of violence and pain and darkness. I felt so small, so weak, so stupid…
What do you want?
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
The room could only be silent.
And I knew what it meant—the silence. I knew without knowing. It was a silence that was there to be broken. I could feel it in the air, in the pit of my stomach, in the core of my bones…
The other world was coming back.
“Candy,” I whispered. “I think we’d better—”
“Shhh…” she said, rolling over and putting her finger to my lips. I watched in curious silence as she slipped off the bed and stood in front of me. For a moment I thought she was going to the bathroom again, but then, with her sleepy eyes fixed on mine, she knelt down on the bed and held my hands.
“No,” I started to say, “I don’t think—”
SLAM!
And Candy’s eyes were suddenly awake. “Shit!” she hissed. “That was the front door.” Her face was white with fear. “Listen…” Heavy footsteps were thudding up the stairs. “Christ, Joe,” she breathed. “It’s Iggy. He’s back…He’s coming up here.”
chapter thirteen
Quick,” gasped Candy, jumping off the bed. “Get in the bathroom.”
“Maybe it’s not Iggy?” I said. “Maybe it’s—”
“It’s Iggy. I know what he sounds like.”
“But I thought you said—”
“Just move,” she said urgently. “He’ll be here any second.” She took me by the arm and pulled me off the bed and started leading me toward the bathroom. “Stay in there and keep quiet,” she whispered. “And whatever happens, don’t come out. For my sake. Whatever happens…OK? Now go.” She gave me another shove toward the bathroom.
My legs felt numb as I crossed the room, like lumps of wood with shoes on. I wasn’t sure what I was doing. My head was empty—too shocked to feel anything. No fear, not yet. Just killing numbne
ss.
I paused at the beaded doorway, listening to the sound of approaching footsteps—boom, boom, boom…top of the stairs…boom, boom, boom…along the hallway…
“Joe!” Candy hissed.
I looked at her—eyes wide, face rigid, teeth bared, hands waving, imploring me to go…What else could I do? I turned around and stepped through the beads into the bathroom.
It was a small room—off-white, damp, dark. A faint shimmer of streetlight dappled the glass of a curtainless window set high in the wall, lifting the darkness just enough to show me my surroundings. There wasn’t much to see: broken tiles on the wall, a stained sink, a toilet, a bath, a rust-rimmed water heater.
I moved to one side and stood with my back against the wall…still numb…but starting to feel it now. The fear. The beating heart, the tightening throat, the rapid breathing…out of control…too fast, too strangled, too loud. I could hear Candy outside, scrabbling around, cursing under her breath…I didn’t know what she was doing, but I guessed she was checking around the room to make sure I hadn’t left any telltale signs. I heard her pause for a moment, and then I heard her skipping across the floor and jumping into bed—and half a second later I heard the sound of the door opening and Iggy’s voice booming across the room.
“What you doing?”
“Nothing,” Candy replied, her voice remarkably calm. “I thought you’d gone over to Karl’s.”
A brief silence—the soundless sound of Iggy’s eyes sweeping the room—then the door closed and I heard his footsteps crossing the floor.
“Yeah…” he said. “You got that number?”
“What number?”
“The guy…what’s the matter with you? What you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
“You out of it?”
“Just a bit…I was hurting—”
“Don’t use it all—you’ll need some later. And you ain’t getting no more—I told you that.”
“I know.”
“Yeah, well…”
I heard him move across the room again…then rummaging sounds, things being thrown on the floor. I guessed he was at Candy’s dressing table.
“Shit,” he said, “look at this mess…You wanna get yourself cleaned up, girl. You living like a sick pig. Where the hell is it?”
“What?” Candy asked him. “What are you looking for?”
“I told you—the guy’s cell phone number…the guy with the gear…”
“What gear?”
He didn’t answer, just kept searching through the stuff on the dressing table. I imagined his big hands sweeping the bottles and jars to the floor, his empty eyes searching…empty of feeling, empty of heart, empty of everything but himself. I could see him. As I stared at the bathroom wall, unable to breathe, I could see him. His heavy head, his close-cropped hair, his death-mask face…
“You dead, girl?” he said to Candy.
“What…? I’m not—”
“You gonna lie there all day?”
“I was just—”
“Move yourself…Come on—get this shit cleared up. Christ!” An angry fist slammed on the table. “You hear me?”
I heard the sound of Candy getting out of bed. Then silence. Then Iggy’s voice again, hard and low—“Come here.”
Bare feet moved hesitantly across the floor.
Silence.
Iggy sniffed, then spoke again, his voice a polished growl. “What you waiting for?”
“What d’you want me to do?”
“I just told you—clean this shit up.”
“What—now?”
“Just do it!”
I heard the sound of things being moved—bottles, jars, bits of paper…
“I ain’t got all day,” Iggy said.
“My wrist hurts—”
“You what?”
“Nothing—”
“You got a problem?”
“No, I was just—”
“Here, give me your hand, let me see.”
“No, it’s all right—”
“Gimme your hand!”
A frightened silence.
Then, “Where’s it hurt? There?”
Candy yelped.
Iggy laughed.
“Please…don’t,” begged Candy. “I didn’t mean anything—”
As she cried out again, I dug my fingernails into my palm, trying to take my mind off her pain. It didn’t work. Her pain was everywhere. I could feel it all around me—in the cold bathroom air, in the sickness of my stomach, in the ache of my bones…and the worst thing was, I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t do anything…for Candy’s sake. She’d told me to stay where I was—whatever happened. For her sake. But I couldn’t do that, could I? How could I do that? How could I stand by and listen to that cold-blooded ugliness next door—the sound of her suffering, her stifled whimpers, his mocking laughter…
How could I listen to that?
I couldn’t.
But I couldn’t move, either. My back was glued to the wall, my feet nailed down to the floor. I was too scared to move. It sickened me…I sickened me. So frightened, so small, so useless…
Then my cell phone rang.
As the piercing ring tone echoed loudly around the bathroom, amplified by the white-tiled emptiness, I yanked the phone from my pocket and—unbelievably—checked the caller ID. Even as I scanned the display—GINA—my mind was already screaming at me: What are you doing? Turn it off; Turn it off; TURN IT OFF!!! I hit the End button and the ring tone stopped, but it was far too late. The damage was done. Iggy was already on his way. I could hear his voice—“What’s that?”—and the sound of his footsteps approaching the bathroom, boom, boom, boom, and Candy’s futile attempts to stop him: “No, Iggy…Iggy! It’s nothing…”
There was a brief silence, then SLAP!—and Candy went quiet.
And the footsteps started again.
I still hadn’t moved. My body was frozen, my blood turned to ice. Even if I could have moved, there was nowhere to go. Nothing I could do. The window was locked and barred on the outside. There was nothing to use as a weapon. There was only one way out—through the beaded doorway—and Iggy was almost there.
I stopped breathing.
The footsteps slowed.
My eyes fixed on the doorway.
A heavy hand appeared, parting the beads…
Then a head…
A skull of black skin.
Eyes of nothing, turning on me.
He smiled, grinning white teeth. “Well, now…look at this.”
I forced myself to look him in the eye as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stepped through the beads to stand in front of me—solid as a rock, muscled and scarred, a huge black anvil of a man. My eyes darted down to the straight razor balanced loosely in the palm of his hand. The handle was bone, as white as his eyes; the blade was stained with dry blood. I tried to swallow, but my mouth was too dry.
“This is something,” he said. “This is something.”
The words were directed at me, pushed into my face, but I got the feeling he wasn’t really talking to me—he was talking to something else. Something he wanted, something he needed, something he took from other people…something weird.
I didn’t want to know what it was.
I inched to one side…then stopped, the blade of the razor against my cheek.
“Where you going?” said Iggy. “This is good—right here. You want a bath? Take a shower? Get yourself nice before we start? Hey? You listening, boy?”
I didn’t say anything.
He moved his face to within an inch of mine, then slowly ran the edge of the razor down my cheek, over my chin, and onto my throat, resting the blade just below my Adam’s apple. I felt no pain, just a cold metallic shiver, so I guessed he hadn’t cut me yet. But I was in no doubt he meant to. I could feel him turning the blade in his hand, lightly pricking my skin. I could feel his eyes boring into mine, searching for the fear and the pain.
?
??See you smile,” he whispered. “Let’s see it…”
The blade pressed harder, breaking my skin, and I knew it was too late to do anything. The slightest movement from me, and the razor would tear open my throat.
I closed my eyes, hoping for the calmness I’d heard about—the calmness you feel just before you die. It’s supposed to anesthetize you, to make your death a pain-free experience. But I couldn’t find it. All I could find inside myself was the sniveling voice of terror: I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t want to die. I’ll do anything to stay alive…anything…anything at all. Just don’t kill me…please. For God’s sake, don’t kill me…
“You ready?” said Iggy, tensing his arm. “You ready to smile?”
I opened my eyes, not wanting to die in the dark, and just for a moment I saw the light of my death in Iggy’s eyes, the black light he lived for—and then his head exploded in a crashing red fury of stars, and all the lights went out.
chapter fourteen
I’m not sure what I thought in that instant—maybe nothing, maybe everything: Am I dead? Is this what happens? Is this how it ends? With a crash, a heartbeat, a dancing explosion of red and black sparks…?
Is this it?
It wasn’t, of course.
I knew it wasn’t the end. It couldn’t be. The end is not knowing. The end is senseless. And this wasn’t senseless; this was just another world. I could see things, hear things, feel things. I was sentient. In the dim light of the window I could see Iggy’s body lying on the bathroom floor. I could see Candy standing over him, breathless and tense, still holding the base of the cylindrical lamp in her hand. I could see the shards of broken red glass, the explosive remains, scattered all over the bathroom—on the floor, in the bath, in the sink…in the thickening blood on the back of Iggy’s head.
I could hear my heart.
And Candy’s shallow breaths.
I could feel the fear of death.
Candy looked at me. “Are you all right? You’re bleeding.”
I put my hand to my throat and touched a small nick of pain. It felt sharp and moist. When I looked at my fingers, the thin smear of blood seemed incredibly bright. Like toy blood. Too pink to be real.