Candy

  “So?”

  “Well, I just thought it might be a good place to go. It’s safe, for one thing. Iggy’ll never find us there. And it’s nice and quiet, really peaceful…” I looked at her to see if she knew what I meant.

  “A cottage?” she said.

  “Yeah…”

  “Just you and me?”

  “Yeah…I mean, there’s plenty of room. Three bedrooms. We wouldn’t have to—”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”

  “It’s half term.”

  “What about your dad? What will you tell him?”

  “He’s away for a week. He doesn’t have to know.”

  She didn’t say anything for a while. I could see her thinking about it, picturing things, weighing up the consequences of leaving everything behind—her life, her people, her drugs. It was a struggle for her, I could tell. I had no way of knowing how much of a struggle, but if the look in her eyes was anything to go by, it was a bigger struggle than I could even imagine. It was as if there were two separate people inside her head, fighting each other for what they wanted…

  Fighting to the death.

  “Is this all right?” the taxi driver said over his shoulder.

  I glanced out the window. We’d stopped on the bend of a busy little street in a crowded maze of office buildings. Everywhere I looked, all I could see was towering walls… marble and brick…shimmering sheets of smoked-glass windows. I was lost for a moment, completely disoriented, but then I spotted the familiar angles of a rusted metal sculpture, and everything suddenly clicked into place.

  Broadgate, I thought. This is the Broadgate entrance to Liverpool Street station.

  “All right?” the driver asked again.

  “Yeah,” I said, glancing at Candy. “This is fine, thanks.”

  The driver said, “That’s eleven-fifty, then.”

  I started patting my pockets, looking for some money, but I realized I didn’t have any on me. I looked at Candy. She stretched out her leg and dug into her pocket and pulled out a roll of notes. She peeled off a couple of tens and passed them through to the driver.

  “Keep the change,” she said.

  Without looking at me, she picked up her bag and opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement. The seesaw was moving again. Going up…going down. I followed her out, almost stumbling on the curb, and shut the door. The taxi pulled away, leaving the two of us—together on our stupid seesaw—in a streaming tide of pedestrians.

  “All right?” I asked Candy.

  She nodded, still not looking at me.

  I said, “What do you want to do, then?”

  She looked up. “He’ll find us, you know. Wherever we go, he’ll find us.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know—he just will. He always does.”

  “Not this time.”

  “You wanna bet?”

  “50p says you’re wrong.”

  She smiled. “50p?”

  “All right,” I said. “Make it a quid.”

  “You’re on.”

  She held out her hand. I looked at her for a moment, feeling a wonderful floating sensation all through my body, then I reached out and shook her hand.

  My fingers tingled.

  It was still there—the touch of her fingertips. It was still there—hot, cold, electric, eternal, intoxicating…

  It still didn’t make any sense.

  But I was beginning to realize that it didn’t have to make any sense. Like Gina had said, this kind of stuff, it just happens. There’s not much you can do about it, so why bother worrying? Just let it happen. You might not always get what you want, but sometimes that’s just how it goes.

  “You know I won’t pay up if I lose?” Candy said. “I never do.”

  “Me neither. D’you want to get something to eat?”

  She smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  We ate at McDonald’s, used the station toilets, then just had time to catch the seven-thirty train. It wasn’t too crowded—too late for commuters, too early for people going home after a night on the town—and we managed to find an empty table in the smoking compartment. It smelled disgusting, but Candy said she was going to smoke wherever we sat, so I thought it was best to put up with the smell rather than risk drawing attention to ourselves. Candy’s black eye was conspicuous enough, and bearing in mind that she’d come out of the toilets with her eyes rolling all over the place, and that her pockets were crammed with the stuff she’d taken from Iggy, the last thing we needed was a bolshy ticket inspector throwing us off the train and calling the police just for the sake of a cigarette.

  So, smoking compartment it was.

  I wanted to talk about things, but I wasn’t sure where to start. There was so much to talk about…and so much I didn’t know—about heroin, addiction, withdrawal…I didn’t even know if Candy wanted to stop using heroin. It seemed a pretty simple decision to me—if she stopped taking heroin, she wouldn’t need Iggy, and if she didn’t need Iggy, then she wouldn’t have to live the life she was living. What could be simpler than that? But then, what did I know? I’d never been addicted to anything. I didn’t have a clue how it felt. Of course, I knew how it felt to want something. But wanting something so much you’d give up everything else to get it…?

  That was beyond me.

  I knew I had to try to understand it, though—which was why I wanted to talk about it. But, like I said, I didn’t know where to start. And, besides, Candy was starting to nod off—her heavy eyes were beginning to close, her shoulders were slumping, her head was resting against the window…

  I waited until she was asleep, then I got out my cell phone, turned it back on, and called Gina.

  “You’re doing what?” she said.

  “Don’t shout—”

  “I’m not shouting—”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “Yeah, well…what do you expect? I’ve been worried sick about you. I don’t know where you are, you don’t answer your phone, and when you do finally get around to calling me, you tell me you’re coming home with this girl and then taking her off to Suffolk. I think that calls for a little bit of shouting, don’t you?”

  “You sound just like Dad.”

  “Christ, Joe…” she sighed. “What’s got into you? You can’t just…”

  “Just what?”

  “You can’t do it. You can’t go to the cottage—”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s ridiculous.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, you hardly know this girl, for one thing—”

  “Candy.”

  “What?”

  “You keep calling her ‘this girl.’ Her name’s Candy.”

  “All right…Candy. But—”

  “And I do know her, anyway,” I said, lowering my voice and glancing at Candy’s sleeping head. “I know her better than you think.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “She’s not a stranger, Gina. She’s not just someone I found on the street—”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “All right…but you know what I mean. We’ve been through a lot together. And anyway, I couldn’t just leave her where she was, could I? She needs somewhere to stay.”

  “And what about this guy she was with, this Iggy? I suppose he’s all right with the two of you waltzing off together, is he?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say he’s all right with it…”

  “No? What would you say he is, then? A bit miffed? Mildly annoyed?”

  “Possibly…”

  “God, Joe—what have you done?”

  “I don’t know. It was just…I don’t know. It’s complicated…I’ll tell you all about it later on. Right now, I just want to get home.” I glanced at Candy again. Even in her sleep, her face looked troubled. “I know it all sounds stupid,” I told Gina quietly, “and I expect it probably is…but Candy’s completely messed up. I just thought that if I took her to th
e cottage for a while, she might have a chance of getting off the drugs and getting back to normal again.”

  Gina breathed out heavily. “Have you any idea what that involves?”

  “No—but it’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

  She sighed again. “Have you talked to Candy about this?”

  “Of course I have.”

  “What does she think? Does she think it’s a good idea? Is she serious about getting off heroin?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” I lied, “absolutely…She’s been meaning to do it for ages, but she hasn’t had a chance…not with Iggy and everything. She just needs some time…”

  I didn’t like lying to Gina, and I didn’t really know why I was doing it. I hadn’t meant to—it’d just come out that way. The strange thing was, though, as we kept talking and I kept lying, Gina began to calm down. She still thought the whole idea was ridiculous, but I sensed in her a growing realization that—however much she tried to dissuade me—I was going to the cottage with Candy, so she might as well accept it. She didn’t actually say it like that…but she didn’t have to—I could tell that’s what she was thinking.

  “Look,” she said after a while. “Just come on home and we’ll talk about it some more—OK?”

  “That’s what I’m doing.”

  “Yeah…I know…”

  She changed the subject then, telling me that Jason had called that afternoon, demanding to know where I was, which kind of stumped me for a second. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what she was talking about—I hadn’t forgotten about The Katies, the rehearsal that night, the planned recording sessions…It was just that all that stuff didn’t seem to have anything to do with me anymore. It belonged to a different life. A different time. A different me.

  “What did you tell him?” I asked Gina.

  “Nothing,” she said. “What could I tell him? He wanted to know your cell phone number—said he’d lost it.”

  “Did you give it to him?”

  “No…I might have, if he’d asked me nicely. But the way he was talking to me I felt like telling him to piss off. He’s not the nicest person in the world, is he?”

  “No,” I agreed.

  “Did you want me to give him your number?”

  “No, it’s all right…I’ll ring him later. Has Dad called yet?”

  “No…”

  We talked for a little while longer, then Gina said she had to go and we said our good-byes and hung up.

  I looked at Candy, asleep on the seat beside me, and as the train rattled along, racing through the darkness, I wondered what I thought I was doing—taking her to the cottage, taking over her life, taking things for granted…I didn’t blame Gina for thinking it was ridiculous. It was ridiculous. The whole thing was riddled with problems—big problems, little problems, awkward problems…problems that scared the hell out of me. I didn’t know if I could deal with it, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to try.

  But want didn’t come into it.

  Nothing came into it.

  It was just there.

  It was going to happen, no matter what. Just like before, when I’d known in my heart that I’d be at The Black Room, no matter what…

  It was there.

  As inevitable as night follows day.

  It could never be anything else.

  Candy was still sleeping when the train began slowing for Heystone station. I gave her a gentle nudge.

  “Whuh…?” she said, rubbing her eyes and blearily looking around. “What’s this…where are we?”

  “Heystone,” I said, standing up to get her bag off the luggage rack.

  She wiped her mouth and blinked her eyes, looking pained and confused. “What’s going on? What time is it…?”

  “Come on,” I said, offering a hand. “We’re getting off here.”

  As the train juddered to a halt—wheels squealing, air hissing, doors opening—I helped Candy out of her seat, then hurried her along the corridor, through the door, and onto the platform.

  She was still looking dazed as the doors slammed shut and the train creaked and groaned and began pulling away. I ushered her away from the platform edge and led her across to a bench.

  “Sit down a minute,” I said.

  She sat down, gazing curiously around the station, like a tired and bewildered child.

  “Are you all right?” I asked her.

  “Yeah…I think so.” She was still looking around the station. “Christ…this brings back some memories. I haven’t been here for years…It hasn’t changed much, has it?”

  “No…”

  She fumbled in her pocket for a cigarette. Her hands were shaking as she lit it, but her eyes were beginning to clear. “What are we doing here, anyway?” she said. “I thought we were going to this cottage.” Her eyes suddenly narrowed. “Hey, if you’re thinking of taking me back to my parents—”

  “I’m not.”

  “You’d better not be.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Because you’re wasting your time if you are—”

  “I’m not. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not taking you back to your parents. I don’t even know where they live, do I?”

  “Yeah, well…” she said, puffing moodily on her cigarette. “What are we doing here, then?”

  “We’re just going back to my place to pick up a few bits and pieces, then we’re coming back here and catching the last train to Lowestoft—OK?”

  “Lowestoft?”

  “It’s the nearest station to the cottage.”

  “Why can’t we go straight there?”

  “I need to pick up the key. And I want to see my sister.”

  “Your sister?”

  “Gina.”

  “She’s at your house?”

  “Yeah…”

  Candy looked at me. “I don’t have to come in with you, do I?”

  “It won’t take long.”

  “Maybe I’ll just stay here…”

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing…I just feel a bit funny about…you know…meeting other people.”

  “It’s all right—it’s only Gina. You’ll like her.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Twenty.”

  “Will she be on her own?”

  “Well, her boyfriend might be there—Mike. But he’s OK. I’ve told them all about you. They both know what’s what.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They know about you and Iggy and everything. They both saw you at The Black Room. Mike was the guy who tried to stop them from dragging you away.”

  “The big black guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They beat him up…”

  “I know.”

  “Is he all right?”

  “Yeah…he’s fine. Don’t worry about it. It’ll be OK.”

  She smiled doubtfully. “You think so?”

  “Yeah…no problem. Everything’s cool.”

  Her smile brightened. “Cool?”

  “Yeah,” I grinned, “cool with a capital K. Just like me.”

  “Capital F, more like.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah—but you’re sweet with it, so I’ll forgive you.”

  “Thanks very much.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  It would have been nice to have walked back home, but the last train to Lowestoft was due at ten-thirty and it was already getting on for eight-thirty now, so we didn’t have much time. Luckily, there was a taxi waiting at the rank. And this time I didn’t have any trouble opening the door.

  The taxi dropped us off at the end of the avenue. Candy paid again, and we got out.

  “Is this your house?” she said, gazing up the driveway.

  “Yeah…”

  “Very nice.”

  I opened the gate and we started up the drive.

  “What’s yours like?” I asked her.

  “My what?
”

  “Your house.”

  “You saw it this evening…”

  “No, I mean where you used to live. Your parents’ house.”

  “Oh, right.” She shrugged. “Similar to this, I suppose. Not so old…a bit bigger, maybe…”

  Her voice trailed off and I guessed she didn’t want to talk about it anymore, so we walked on in silence. It felt really odd, being back home—back among the rolling lawns and the pine trees and the well-tended hedges…shrouded in comfort. It felt safe. It is safe, I thought to myself. It’s peaceful, it’s quiet, it’s home. It’s where you belong. It’s where you ought to—

  “I can’t stay here,” Candy said.

  “What?”

  “I can’t stay here.”

  “I know,” I said. “We’re not going to stay here.”

  We were approaching the front door now. I dug the key out of my pocket and guided Candy into the porchway. She was looking really apprehensive, almost timid, like a shy young girl about to meet her boyfriend’s parents for the very first time.

  “All right?” I asked her.

  She nodded.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’re only going to be about half an hour—OK?”

  She nodded again.

  I looked at her for a moment—briefly amazed that this beautiful girl was actually here…with me…at my house—then I opened the door and we went inside.

  chapter sixteen

  To tell you the truth, Candy wasn’t the only one who felt a bit apprehensive. As I led her along the hallway toward the kitchen, following the sound of Gina’s and Mike’s voices, I was feeling pretty nervous myself. I really didn’t know what to expect. I knew that Gina and Mike would be nice to her; I wasn’t worried about that. They were the kind of people who’d be nice to just about anyone I brought home. No, I wasn’t worried about that…I wasn’t worried about anything, really. I just wanted them to like her, that’s all. Especially Gina. I really wanted her to genuinely like Candy. It was a selfish thing to hope for, I suppose, and probably a bit immature…

  But what the hell?

  If you can’t be selfish and immature with your big sister, what’s the point in having one?

  Anyway, when we reached the kitchen door, I paused for a moment and quietly asked Candy if she was OK.

  She nodded.

  I said, “Are you ready?”