Wild (2 page)

The room was empty apart from Nick, who beckoned the pair of them over to the end stall. Hannah appraised him blatantly. “Hello, gorgeous. What you got for us, then?”

Nick winked at her, flashing that slow smile that jangled Lizzie’s nerves. He ushered them into the stall and locked the door. He fished his wallet out of his pocket, and pulled a small plastic bag from that. The bag was filled with white powder. Hannah’s eyes lit up. “Boss,” she declared. “Just what we needed.”

They crowded around the toilet, pressed up against each other in the small space. The smell of piss and stale beer wrinkled Lizzie’s nose, and she felt the first pricks of a comedown stabbing at her. Suddenly the cubicle was way too small and hot, and the thought of doing coke exhausted and nauseated her. She wanted to leave, just get out, get a kebab, and go home. Sleep off the comedown.

Nick tapped some of the powder out on the top of the cistern, then cut a couple of lines. Hannah licked her lips and tapped her foot impatiently. “You having one?” she asked Lizzie.

Lizzie shook her head, a crushing sense of depression falling over her. She stared around the tiny stinking cubicle, heart sinking. What the hell was she doing here? This place was a mess. Her life was a mess. She wiped her mouth, lips suddenly dry. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She should be starting her third year at John Moore’s university, worrying about exams and dissertations. She’d been doing Sports Science, planning to move back to London afterwards to do physiotherapy.

This… this had never been part of the plan.

Hannah snorted her line with a sigh, slumping back against the wall. “That feels so good. You really should have some, Lizzie.”

Lizzie shook her head, scratching her arms through her sleeves. “I’m good, thanks.” She closed her eyes, then opened them again when someone tugged at her arm. She opened her eyes to see Nick staring at her intently.

“You okay?” he asked, rubbing his nose. His eyes were wide and bright, his own dose taking hold.

“Yeah, just not in the mood anymore.” She shrugged.

“You should try some. This stuff is pretty special – ”Nick started.

But then Hannah screamed, bloodcurdling and terrified, snapping upright. Lizzie jumped, grabbing her friend as Hannah tried to shove past her, out of the cubicle. “Hannah, what’s wrong?” She turned to Nick, panic bubbling inside her.

“Shit.” Nick paled as he fumbled with the door lock. “Shit, I… I’ve got to go, yeah?” The door swung open and Nick took off, leaving them there, alone in the men’s toilet.

Hannah stumbled out of the cubicle, slipped and collapsed on the cracked tiles.

She lay there on the dirty floor, convulsing, making strange little whines and moans.

Lizzie dropped to her knees beside her, trying to hold Hannah’s thrashing limbs still. She called after Nick, hoping he’d do something. “Call an ambulance!” She held Hannah tight as she twisted and choked.

“Come on, Han,” she whispered, wiping blood and spittle from her cheek. “Don’t do this. Come on.”

two

I
T RAINED THE
day Hannah was buried in Toxteth Unitarian Chapel’s graveyard. Thick torrents of water sluiced off the cheap coffin and turned the bright green grass into a squelching bog. Lizzie’s scuffed heels sank into the mud, giving her the morbid impression that she might be swallowed up by the earth as Hannah was lowered in.

Harris stood next to her, restlessly shifting his weight from foot to foot, flicking cigarette ash into the grave. His pale hair was plastered to his skull, a slick cap that gleamed gold despite the gloom. “How long does this take?” he muttered to her, rubbing his nose.

She shot him a poisonous look and didn’t answer. How could he be so eager to go home and get high, today of all days? She glanced across the coffin to where Hannah’s only family, an elderly aunt and an estranged sister, stood. Her eyes met the sister’s and she smiled weakly. The woman sneered and turned away. Lizzie wondered what she was thinking. Probably wondering how she and Harris had the gall to show up.

The sister tossed a single white rose onto the coffin as it disappeared into the earth, and the vicar said a prayer that went mostly unheard in the steady drumming of the rain. Lizzie’s eyes stung. Hannah was her only real friend; all her uni friends had drifted away after she’d met Harris and got into drugs. With Hannah gone, all she had was Harris. Didn’t seem like much.

Harris rubbed his nose again. “Can we get out of here already or what? This is depressing.”

Hannah’s sister glowered at him, but he was oblivious. Lizzie bit her lip and shivered, rubbing her frozen fingers together in a vain attempt to warm them as Hannah’s coffin disappeared from view.

****

“Glad that’s over,” Harris announced once they were in the car. He reclined his seat back as far as it would go and lit a spliff. The soft, heavy aroma of cannabis filled Lizzie’s car. She sucked in a lungful eagerly.

“Poor Hannah,” she said, swinging the Mazda out of the chapel car park and heading towards their poxy house in Wavertree. “I just kept thinking, that could have been me, you know?”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t,” Harris replied. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s shit and all, but it was just bad luck.”

She chewed her lip, biting back a retort. She was going to leave him, she decided, the resolution crystallising inside her. She was going to tell him. Today. She’d had enough of the fighting, the drugs, everything. She wanted to quit. She was going to quit.

She smiled bitterly as she wove through the traffic. How many times had she told herself that in the last six months? And how many times had she been lured back in by the thrill of getting high?

“So how do you know that Nick lad again?” she asked as casually as she could with the image of Hannah convulsing and choking to death in her head.

“I don’t really,” he replied. “He’s in a band that played one of the clubs I do, we got talking, turns out he’s a bit of a user. I told him I could sort him out, that’s all.”

“He was at the Krazy House the other night though,” Lizzie persisted. “I saw him talking to you.”

“I don’t know him,” he snapped. “Leave it, okay?”

She flinched at the warning in his tone and dropped it. It wasn’t worth getting hit for.

“Where are we going?” Harris asked after a frosty interlude, sitting up to throw his joint out the car window.

“Home,” she said. “I could go for a line or two after all that.”

“We don’t have anything,” he said. “I used the last of it before we came out.”

“What?” she snapped, staring at him. “You wanker!” No wonder he’d been so twitchy throughout the service. Selfish bastard. Like they could afford to get more. Coke was expensive and their benefits weren’t anywhere near enough to cover what Harris spent.

“Watch it,” he growled, fists clenching.

She flinched and turned her eyes back to the road, anger bubbling in her blood. She was going to knock his coke-addled head off first chance she got, she promised herself.

“Go to Vic’s,” he instructed. “We’ll pick up some meth.”

Vic was Harris’s main dealer, a nasty piece of work. He made Lizzie’s skin crawl, but he always had something on him. They’d started using crystal meth on his advice, after Harris had missed one too many coke payments. It was vile shit, but it did the job well enough. And it was a hell of a lot cheaper than coke. “I don’t have any cash on me,” she said softly, masking her anger.

“So? You can get some. Fuck, you can give him a blow job for it as long as we get it.”

She wrinkled her nose in disgust at the thought of touching Vic. “You can’t be serious.”

“I need a fix too, Lizzie. I’m dead serious.” He settled back in the seat again.

She gripped the steering wheel as hard as she could, murderous thoughts slicing through her head. She changed lanes, heading for Vic’s flat in the city centre rather than their place on Smithdown Road. The rain fell slower now and dusk was creeping over the city. The darkness made her feel claustrophobic, Harris’s presence a grating annoyance at her side.

“You gonna stop and get some cash?” he asked after a few minutes of icy silence.

“One of us has to,” she said shortly. “We both know it won’t be you.”

“Oh, fuck off, Lizzie! Why d’you have to be such a cow about it all the time?”

She glared at him, hating the whine in his tone, like he was a victim of some crime she’d committed. “Because you’re such a –”

“Watch the road!” he yelled.

She whipped her head back in time to see a large dark shape shoot out in front of the car. She shrieked and slammed on the breaks. The Mazda jarred to a halt with a squeal of rubber and spluttering engine. For a scant second the headlights illuminated a pair of baleful red eyes and a mouthful of gleaming fangs. She blinked, and the shape was gone, vanished into the thickening shadows.

“Shit,” she said, breathless, her heart in her throat. A car behind them honked its horn. She pulled herself together and put the pedal down. “What was that?”

Harris twisted round in the seat, trying to get a glimpse of the animal. “Might have been a wolf! Shit, wish I had my camera with me. That would have been one for Wolf Watch.”

She rolled her eyes. He was obsessed with bloody Wolf Watch. The website was nothing but grainy, badly-shot photos of the supposed “wild wolves” roaming the UK, and eye-witness accounts from the gullible idiots who took the pictures. It was ridiculous, like chasing Bigfoot or UFOs. But Harris loved it. “It was probably just a dog.”

“It had red eyes,” Harris said. “Did you see? Just like all the witnesses say.”

“I don’t care,” she snapped. “It’s all bollocks anyway.”

“Alright, don’t get so bloody uptight. Just concentrate on driving and get us to Vic’s,” he ordered.

She bit her tongue to hold back her sharp retort. No point antagonising him. The near-miss with the animal nagged at her. What the hell was she doing? Driving around in the rain to pick up drugs after her friend’s funeral? Fucked up.

She wanted to quit. Really she did. What had started as a bit of fun, a weekend thing, a party thing, was out of control now. She could see that. It wasn’t just Hannah’s death that brought it into focus, it was the fact that she
needed
drugs, all the time. A pill to get her through a trip to town. A spliff to chill her out afterwards. A few lines of coke or meth to see her through a night out, and then a pill to pick her up again the next morning… It was too much. Crazy. She was ready to quit, try to reclaim her old life.

If she got away from Harris she could do it, she was sure of that. But as long as she was with him, it was impossible to stop herself using.

Harris waited in the Mazda while she ran up the stairs to Vic’s place. She hammered on the door and after a few minutes, Vic appeared, scratching his bald head and yawning wetly. He flashed her a gap-toothed grin and tugged at his string vest. “Alright, chick. Where’s Harris?” he asked, voice thick with sleep.

“In the car,” she said shortly. She tried holding her breath to avoid inhaling Vic’s body odour, but it didn’t quite work. The fetid smell of alcohol, pickles, and plain bad oral hygiene was inescapable “We need some meth. You holding?”

“Sure, chick,” he said amiably. “I got some shit.” He turned to amble back into the dim living room, clearly expecting her to follow.

The hot itching in her limbs forced Lizzie to follow him despite her dislike. The flat was depressingly messy. Empty pizza boxes and beer cans were stacked in the kitchen, and the living room was full of wet laundry and unopened letters. The highlights of the Liverpool-Arsenal match played on the TV, a bottle of cider sat on the floor next to the threadbare sofa.

Vic headed for the kitchen. “How much d’you want?” he called back to her.

She loitered in the doorway, watching him rummage through a drawer full of bags and tins. “The thing is, I don’t have any cash, yeah? I didn’t bring my wallet, and Harris hasn’t picked up his job seeker’s benefits yet,” she explained, grinding her teeth. Vic’s expression turned dark.

“No cash, no meth, babe.” He jerked his head towards the door.

A surge of trembling desperation fired her. “Please, Vic. You know we’re good for it – Harris will swing by tomorrow to pay you back, you know he will. I really need it – we both do. Please?” She gripped his arm and fluttered her eyelashes, hoping she didn’t sound as fraught as she felt.

He scratched his head again. She could almost see the wheels turning in his brain. “I guess,” he said finally. “Long as Harris comes by first thing tomorrow.”

Sweet relief coursed through her. “Boss. He will. I swear he will. We both will.” She flashed him a brilliant smile. “I owe you, Vic.”

“Damn right, you do.” He leered at her, eyes skidding over her breasts before he moved to collect the goods.

Lizzie sagged against the door frame, almost crying with relief. Tonight would be okay. They’d go home, get high and everything would be fine. In the morning she would gather up the courage to tell Harris she was leaving. But tonight, tonight she would just do what she always did. Escape reality. She closed her eyes and rubbed her nose as if she could already feel the drugs taking hold.