In reply to my question, he glared at me for a moment, allowed his anger and disgust to find their target at the centre of my chest, then slowly moved his head away, looking out of the window on the small ward he was on. There were seven other beds in there, each spaced equidistant to each other, each with a side table, a chair for visitors and a long green curtain. I got up, pulled the curtain around the bed, sealing us in a little so we could talk a bit more freely. The other patients were focused on themselves, not us, but you couldn’t be sure who was listening and what they would learn.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said to him as I sat down, tucking my chair closer to the bed. I’d been saying that since he’d arrived here, before and after his surgery. Even though he’d been asleep, I’d been whispering it to him, hoping it would filter into his consciousness and he would know that I was here, and that he had someone to come back to. Someone who was so sorry for what had happened to him. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t know he’d do that.’
‘You didn’t have to go with her,’ he said quietly. ‘You could have let her go and give him the money on her own, so he’d never have known we were involved.’
‘I couldn’t have done that. You know that. He would never have just accepted that. He would have told her all sorts, hooked her back in. He couldn’t do that with a witness who would tell everyone how he went back on his word. And he doesn’t think you or anyone else was involved. Just me.’
‘Just you?’ he said, still looking away. They’d shaved his hair to put stitches in at the back of his head where it’d been kicked a couple of times. ‘Look at me, Ace. Look what he’s done to me because you wanted to help out some silly bint who wouldn’t listen. Everyone had told her not to take stuff from him, not just you. Everyone told her and she wouldn’t listen. You help her and look what happens to me.’
He’d wanted to help her out, too, he’d seen that thing in her that he’d seen in me and he’d wanted to help. The others had too. We’d all got involved because we were trying to turn back time, stop another person becoming us and erasing themselves from ‘normal’ life. He’d forgotten that desperate need to help he’d felt because he was in pain. He’d been hurt. His world had been turned upside down. He was right, too, he had been hurt because of me, he’d been a casualty because I’d got on the wrong side of a hideous person. He was like Frank the driver who lost his job all those years ago. Collateral damage. Frank and Reese were both collateral damage, victims of the choices I had made.
‘You’ve got a death wish, ain’t ya?’ Reese said quietly but viciously, his words full of venom and anger. ‘All that stuff he was saying, he was right – you don’t care about yourself enough not to be reckless. That’s why he hurt someone else, cos that does make you care, doesn’t it? In all the time I’ve known you, Ace, you only ever get upset or show fear when someone else is in trouble. You’re a fucking liability and downright dangerous to anyone who knows you when someone like Judge is involved because he can read people and a situation like that.’
‘That’s not true,’ I protested even though it probably was true. Was something to do with the numbness that surrounded my emotions. It sounded like how my ability to blot out feeling much of anything would probably come across to other people.
Moving swiftly but carefully, trying not to dislodge or further damage anything, Reese turned back to me, his disgust becoming a quiet, low-burning anger as he stared at me. ‘The fuck it isn’t. The way you were begging him, promising him anything, would you have done that if he’d been about to do that to you?’
No. The answer was no.
‘I would. The whole drive out there I was begging him for my life, promising all sorts, but I bet you didn’t say a word until you saw me. Then no one could shut you up. It ain’t on to have friends when you’re so reckless about your own safety, Ace. It just ain’t.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said to him. ‘I’ll go. Leave you alone. I’m sorry. That’s all I should have said, really – I’m sorry that I got you into this.’ I rose from my seat.
‘Nah, nah, don’t go,’ he said, softly. ‘Sit down. Stay.’
‘No, you’re right, I shouldn’t have friends when I am the way I am.’
‘Oh, sit down, you silly cow. You know I don’t mean half of it, I’m just mouthing off, ain’t I?’ Pain shot across his face as he tried to move his hand to tell me to sit. ‘Sit down. You owe me, so sit down.’
I did as I was told. I remembered how that first night I met him he had said that when he was down the hole he collected every debt owed to him. I’d never owed him anything until now.
‘Did he really make you fuck six men in one night?’ Reese asked.
Their hands, their faces, their bodies, the sounds they made, what they did to me all came rushing back at me in a barrage of images, crawling through my mind, slithering over my body. I was immediately stiff and immobile, locked into that night. I forgot, most of the time; even when Judge mentioned it and tried to humiliate me it never had this effect. I was feeling low, though. I hadn’t felt this low, defeated, fragile in a long time. My usual defences were down and I couldn’t stop this particular flashback playing itself out in my head, in my body.
A tear that had formed in my eyes when Reese had been ‘mouthing off’ spilled over and began moving down my face. I raised my hand to wipe it away, to hide my hurt from Reese, and that seemed to break the hold the flashback had. I could move again, I could shove that night, those acts, to the back of my head where they belonged. ‘It was four, actually. He thinks six but two of them didn’t want to, loved their wives, found the whole thing repulsive but had got into business with him and this was a condition of it. We just sat and talked for a bit, but they made me promise not to tell him or anyone.’
Reese shook his head slightly in what I assumed was despair. ‘Why’d you even get involved with him in the first place? I thought you knew better. You did know better.’
‘He caught me when I was really low.’ I shrugged. ‘It all seemed so hopeless there for a while, Reese, and he just happened to sit down opposite me when I was at probably the lowest point.’
My friend’s gaze stopped being so rage-filled, and he connected the dots of what Judge had said to what I said, and the realisation of when I got involved, what his role had been in it, seemed to jerk across his brain.
I needed to speak before the memory took root and he started to blame himself for something that was not his fault. ‘And I liked the money,’ I admitted. ‘I liked being able to sleep in a hostel or a B&B for weeks on end.’ I rubbed my hands over my face. ‘And getting dressed up, having a couple of drinks … I felt almost normal for a while. I feel awful about it now, I felt awful about it then, even before I had to let those men screw me. I know that’s awful that I felt like that and I do feel ashamed, but that’s what it was like.’
‘There’s no shame in that.’
‘I don’t want you to hate me, Reese,’ I confessed. I could put up with a lot, but not him hating me. It sounded juvenile and young, but he was my best friend. Since Veronica, I hadn’t had many friends, people who I could rely on and spend time with without any expectations. ‘I don’t think I could stand it. You think I don’t feel anything for myself but I do. I would feel so … lost, terrified and, I don’t know, suicidal probably if you weren’t my friend any more.’
Reese inhaled deeply as he stared at me, his eyes seemed to be microscopically examining me.
What does he see? I wondered.
I would stare into a mirror and see eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, forehead, chin, long dreadlocked hair wound up into a bun at the back of a head. I would not see the way those features were arranged, the blemishes adding depth and shade to the skin. I never noticed if that combination was pretty or handsome or stunning or plain. I would stare into a mirror and see nothing beyond a set of features.
‘What did you want to be when you were little?’ Reese asked.
‘Way to reassure me there, buddy,’ I said. ‘I, who y
ou think feels nothing, have just spilled my guts out and you’re changing the subject.’
‘I’m serious: what did you want to be when you were little?’
‘A ballet dancer,’ I admitted. ‘Not a ballerina in pink with the tutus and tiaras and stuff. I wanted to be a real ballet dancer, to actually dance for a living. I didn’t have to have the lead roles all the time, I didn’t want to be a star or anything like that, I just wanted to be a dancer. If I got to be the star, that would be the icing on top of the amazing cake that was being able to dance ballet all my life.’
‘Why didn’t it happen? Weren’t you good enough or something?’
‘I was good enough. Apparently I was naturally gifted. Me and another girl, we were set for great things. But I had to stop, and then I left home and never really danced again.’
Ah, I saw him think. Ah. It clicked into place for him: he’d been waiting more than ten years to find out who and now he thought he knew. I glanced down at my hands. I’d managed to keep them relatively soft and in good condition over the years. No more £20 tubes of hand cream, but they were all right, they would do. In my shoes, though, my feet were ugly. They were ugly, with almost deformed, twisted toes, and hard, almost permanently calloused soles because I’d wanted to be a ballet dancer. I’d trained so hard, punished my feet more than any other part of my body so that I could do it. Even if I could forget that dream, my feet would never let me.
‘Do you think you’d have even met me if you’d become that ballet dancer?’ Reese asked. Urgh. Being given the shove by a friend, by this friend, was like having something hard and solid and heavy slammed into the centre of my body. It had even more pain attached because he had used my confession about what I used to dream of against me.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Absolutely yes.’
‘Nah, mate, you wouldn’t. You know that. When are you going to stop living this life and go back to where you should be?’
‘This is my life, Reese. In case you didn’t realise, it’s not easy to get off the streets. And don’t give me any of that “if you work hard, keep your head down, you can be a valued member of society” crap, nor that “you live on the streets because you choose to” bollocks. The truth is I had no choice when I turned up ten years ago. Everyone might have thought I did, that I could have gone to the authorities, but no one would have listened to me. So I know you and a lot of the others think I’m not like you and not a proper homeless person, but I am. I have been for ten years and I probably will be for another ten years, maybe even twenty years. This is who I am and the life I’m living. And that’s why I know you, that’s why you’re my friend.’
‘What’s your real name, Grace Carter? If we’re such great mates, tell me your real name.’
It was my turn to shoot a look of disgust while I sat back in my chair. ‘I keep forgetting, you’re not only a bastard when you’re using, are you?’
‘Thing of it is, mate, you and me, we’re bad for each other. We keep each other here. Stuck. I should have OD’d a long time ago, that was my destiny. You should have found another Vinnie and gone to live somewhere else an age ago. But you keep me here, you give me a reason to live. Sometimes I don’t want to be here, you know? And you get in the way of that. I’m grateful, don’t get me wrong, but some mornings, when I look up and see that hole I need to crawl out of, I just can’t, but I have to, because the thought of you sitting there, waiting for me and then going round the streets looking for me … I can’t let go.’
‘That’s good. It’s good that you’ve got a reason to hold on. That’s good.’
‘Look at me, Ace. The people I deal with on a daily basis did this to me because they could. This is my life. But you shouldn’t be here. When you got with Vinnie, that should have been your chance to move away, leave me and everyone behind. But you didn’t cos you’ve got this weird loyalty thing, because you care about me more than you care about yourself … In the nicest way possible, Ace, you need to fuck off and stay fucked off. Go live the life you were meant to.’
‘This is my life.’
‘And you think Judge is going to stop now? You think this is it and he’s finished with you? You really think he won’t be using everyone you’ve ever even looked at to teach you more lessons? When he’s having a pop at the rest of us to get at you, what are we supposed to do?’
‘It will be fine because I’m going to go to the police.’
He closed his eyes, scrunched up his face as though vicious fingers of pain had strummed across his nerve endings. ‘Fucking hell. You don’t know when to quit, do ya? The rozzers? Are you out of your mind?’
‘No, it’s the only way to stop him.’
‘I’ve already told them I don’t remember anything, was out of it and it could have been anyone. What, you’re going to go back and tell them otherwise?’
‘I’m just going to tell them what I saw, what happened.’
‘You were gone before the ambulance arrived and left your mobile phone behind so they could find me – you’re going to go in and confess all now? Even if they believe you, what good do you think it’ll do?’
‘I didn’t want to leave, you made me. I would have stayed and told them everything then. And it’s not just about what happened to you, is it? I went to loads of his “parties”, I talked to people, I listened to them talking. All those “contacts” of his who loved nothing more than to talk business and brag in front of the women because we weren’t really there to them – I heard it all. It’s all stored up in my head. I know it’s years ago, but he won’t have changed, he’ll still be doing the same old things because he’s got away with it for so long.’
‘Ace, look at me. Look at me.’
I did as he asked, really looked at him. His bruising, the bandages, the damage left by someone who wanted to teach me a lesson. ‘This will be you or you will be dead, if he gets even a hint that you’re talking to the rozzers. He’ll kill me, too. This guy doesn’t mess about, you know that. He took us out to the middle of nowhere because he didn’t think I’d live long enough for the ambulance to arrive. People like us don’t matter to him. Going to the rozzers will do no good and lots of harm.’
‘I have to, Reese. For once the bad guy has to get punished. Just for once.’
‘The world don’t work like that, not for the likes of you and me.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe this time it will. Maybe this time, we get justice and the bad guys get to go to prison.’
Reese frowned at me, looking at me as though I was speaking a foreign language. Maybe I was, maybe I was being idealistic and stupid in the wake of all that I’d seen of the world, but for once it had to happen. For once I was owed the right thing happening to someone who was wrong; for once, someone who went through life hurting others would get what was coming to them instead of continuing on as though protected in a special non-stick coating that let them get away with crimes against others time after time, year after year.
‘There’s no point talking to you. You’re just going to do this and fuck the consequences. Look what that attitude did to me, really look, and then tell me it’s worth it to get “justice”, like “justice” isn’t just for those that other people actually care about.’
I said nothing.
‘If you do this, mate, that’s it, me and you over. I won’t see you again, speak to you, I’ll probably go off and OD first chance I get, cos I’ll have no one to live for, cos you’ll be fucking dead. In fact, yeah, go on, do it. Give us both a way out of this world.’
I wished I could make him understand why I had to do this. ‘Reese, you deserve to have someone care about what happened to you the other day. And what happened to you all those years ago that brought you out on to the streets. You’re a human being, you’re just as important as anyone else who’s been attacked. You deserve to have someone – lots of someones, actually – care about it. I want to make someone care about what happened to you.’
Back and forth, back and forth he moved his head, and
with every move his eyes grew colder, more distant, until he could have been looking at a stranger, he could have been staring at nothing. ‘I’ll see ya, Ace,’ he eventually said. He shifted, his movements full of agony, until he was turned away from me and could pretend I wasn’t there.
That was it: over. It had been since before I’d sat down, if I was honest with myself. Probably since he’d wanted me to leave him back at that derelict warehouse. I had thought he’d changed his mind, but no, my lack of interest in myself apparently was always going to make me a liability to someone like him. Being around me was dangerous. If I didn’t report it to the police he might possibly still speak to me, would keep me around to have a go at when he was out of it and the drug was fuelling his vicious thoughts and loosening his usually friendly tongue, but it wouldn’t be the same again. He wouldn’t meet me for coffee at Bernie’s. We wouldn’t walk down by the canal, watching the leaves drift away on the water. We wouldn’t sit in shop doorways looking at the stars and pretending how we lived was how we wanted it. He wouldn’t look at me sometimes as though he wanted to tell me something and couldn’t quite find the words. Judge had known what he was doing when he chose to hurt Reese instead of me. He’d known it would mean the end of our friendship and it would make everyone else – the network of people we all relied on in various ways – be wary of me. He’d isolated me and that would mean, when he wanted a tiny bit more revenge, I’d have no one to help me.
‘I love you, Reese,’ I said. I had to say it – it’d probably be the last time he would be this close to speak to me. He had to know that no matter what he thought about what I was going to do, this was the bald, unvarnished truth of the situation. He did matter; someone did feel that much about him.
I wanted to hear it back, I desperately wanted to know he felt the same, but I would be waiting until the end of time if I thought Reese would say it, especially now I had decided to do this thing. ‘I’ll see ya,’ I mumbled to his silence, before I began my long journey to the police station.