and trucks parked up under the flyover, some kids burning cables on a bonfire but no one he knew so he climbed back across the canal and called Einstein and carried on along
Mike had told him hadn’t he, Mike had said he was better off not going, said there was no way his brother would let him in the house. So if he’d listened. He should have listened. Seemed like Mike was talking bollocks half the time but then he turned out right. Which was why he’d stuck with him. He’d helped out when Danny first showed up in town, when he’d got taxed for asking someone where he could score. Come up afterwards and offered Danny halves on a ten bag in return for a split on Danny’s next giro, helped him get the giro sorted and get a new address for it and all the rest. Waited three days while the giro came through and that was enough to set them up as partners, three days of thieving and begging and scoring just enough to keep from getting sick while they waited for the giro to come in. Which all went at once on the dark and the light and they got through it quick before anyone could find them and take it off
Jesus. Could do with some gear now. Would help. Would help him think a bit straight. Got his script from the chemist as soon as he got to town, before he went up to Robert’s, but that was hours ago now and it weren’t nearly holding him. Yawns coming on already and the rest would follow soon as. Had just enough for a bag from what his brother had given him when he’d slung him out of the house. When he’d said Danny take this I can’t have you here no more, not in your state, not with Nicola and the kids and everything, I’ve given you a chance but she’s had enough she’s all on edge. You understand don’t you, mate. Boxing Day. Nice one. You know how it is, with the kids, but take this and get yourself sorted. And happy fucking Christmas to you an all, brother. There’d been a bit of a scene then, shouting, banging, kids crying in the house and Nicola’s little red car getting its windows broken again but only once he’d taken the money. He was proud but he still needed the money. Found somewhere to score before setting off back. Not hard when you know what you’re looking for and it don’t take long. Scored just enough to hold him while he got to the chemist’s, and kept enough money back to sort him out after that. His own brother and he wouldn’t let him in the house. And if he had he wouldn’t have been the one to find Robert like that. Would have been one of the others and it would be them staggering around town now going mental with the sight of it instead of him. It was always, why was it always
Couldn’t get his usual man to answer the phone and he’d been trying all day. Cunt was probably still in bed. No one around to ask for another number but if he didn’t get sorted soon he was going to start getting sick he was going to
Down the steps by the locks beneath the railway bridge. The water dark and still and rainbow-slicked with oil. The railway arches fenced off to keep them out but he knew a way through. Dark inside, and a stink of piss and shit and soot but no one there. A heap of rotting blankets, a pair of split boots, cans and bottles and scraps of foil and card, an old paperback book ripped apart at the spine. But no one there. Something scratching and moving
Three days before Christmas Danny had last seen everyone. Up at Robert’s flat and everything had seemed fine back then. No one had much gear, there hadn’t been much gear around for a while, but there was plenty of benzos and jellies going around, plus the scripts. Nothing to get excited about but enough to keep anyone from getting proper sick. Plus some more drinks than usual and
Walked along the towpath looking in at the water, wondering where to score and wondering where to go for a dig when he did. Rolled a fag from the ends he’d found but he knew it wouldn’t do much good. A heron standing watch up ahead, shoulders hunched over, looking in at the water. Heaving into the air on its big baggy wings when Danny got too close, Einstein chasing on ahead and Danny thinking about the works in his bag. The note in his sock weren’t worth nothing if he couldn’t find no one selling. The heron settled on the opposite bank a hundred yards ahead, folding its wings and hunching its shoulders and dipping its ash-white head towards the water as Danny called Einstein back and scrambled away up the
Only one chair in the room and that was Robert’s. Everyone else sat on the floor. Leaning up against the wall which meant Robert was always sat at the centre of things with everyone around him. All his things in easy reach. His cans, his papers, his tobacco. Good job because it took him a lot of time and trouble to stand up and someone mostly had to help him. Big man like that. Drank all day and didn’t do anything else. Seemed like the deal was if people brought him food and drink they could hang out in his flat, and it seemed like a good enough deal. Brought him plenty of food enough. Never asked Danny no questions the first time Mike took him up there, and that was the way he liked it. Just about the only one who didn’t do gear, but never seemed bothered what anyone
Jesus though. A man like that. Didn’t look ill the last time Danny had seen him. But the others must have seen him after that, must have noticed something was wrong. Had to find them and ask them, had to make sense of all
Weren’t like Robert didn’t have people looking out for him. He did, he had all of us. Not like some of these other cunts, these ones who’ve got no one and are always looking over their shoulders. Like the old man in the wheelchair, getting taxed near enough every time he comes out the post office. Like that one that turned up at the soup run a couple of times, no one knew his name and he never spoke to no one and word was he was sleeping out in the woods. Wouldn’t catch Danny going out in the woods in the daytime let alone at night. Never know what’s going off in the woods, it’s all shadows and hiding places and furry fucking creatures running around after dark. Anything can happen. But some cunts have got no one and they’ve got to find somewhere to hide. But Robert had no one to hide from, he had all us lot looking out for him. It was a what was it an understanding. Weren’t it and
Laura she couldn’t she said but
Had to find
Fuck
The van drives quickly now, the men in the front run dry of conversation and impatient to be done, to be home, to be off the streets on a wind-cold empty day like this, and through the darkened windows we watch the city pass us by; long dark streets splashed with light, empty parks and flooded playing fields, boarded-up shops and fenced-off factory ruins, and we see Steve, almost, dimly, we see the place where Steve’s been staying, a boarded-up room above a shop with the birdshit and feathers scraped out and a mattress from a skip hauled in and the walls whitewashed with a tin of stolen paint. A light and a television running on power cut in from downstairs. The room kept tidy, always, and no rubbish left lying around but thrown out through the window into the yard. The yard full of cans and bottles and batteries and bits of scrap he’s brought back because it might be useful, because he’s got a plan to do the place up and claim squatter’s rights and make something of it. Car tyres and bike frames and planks of wood. Plant pots and cable and window-frames. A crowd of pigeons picking around in the corner of the yard, shifting at the sound of footsteps and flapping into the air as Danny pulls himself over the wall and falls awkwardly to the floor. He gets up again, wiping the filth from his hands and his coat, and he shouts up at the first-floor window. Steve! Steve! The pigeons swoop and circle overhead, settling on the sagging roof as Einstein barks and claws at the other side of the wall and Danny keeps shouting up. Steve it’s me! It’s Danny! Are you there, are you fucking there? His voice cracks, and he bends forward to hack and spit on the ground, his long bony hands resting on his knees, and he stays bent over like that for a moment, a long string of bile swinging from his mouth to the floor, and he straightens up and calls Steve’s name again. Steve where the
None of the others ever knew where Steve stayed, apart from Ant who stayed with him now and again. Only reason Danny knew was he’d helped Steve back there one night, dragging him along the towpath when he should have known better and left him lying in the bushes until morning. One time when Ant
