At nine thirty the first appointment, a mother and daughter from Bellevue Hill, arrived. Di sat them down in the lounge area, made a pot of lemon ginger tea, and while it was drawing discreetly texted Kim, waiting out the back, who appeared a moment later with Maddy. Kim was scheduled to do a myofascial release for the mother, and Maddy an essential oil emotional support session for the daughter. Later, when they’d finished and the credit cards were out, Di would give them all, practitioners included, caramel truffle tea.
Back at her perch, confirming appointments, booking practitioners, processing a few late web payments for tomorrow night’s seminar (“Women’s Financial Mindfulness”), she saw Bec, the receptionist at Good Bloke, come hurrying out of the lift. She waved absently at Di, unlocked the Good Bloke door, darted inside, barely a minute ahead of the Two Stooges. No friendly waves from them.
Five minutes later the lift bell rang again and Dave stepped out. Tall, okay-looking. He called hello to her, in his clear voice. That nice smile, the manners and looks, definitely enough to cast a spell. She could see it. But there were things there not declared. Seemed so, anyway, but she kept that to herself. Try not to judge, right? Dave, like her, like all of them, even the Stooges, staying clean a day at a time, trying to be open to whatever changes they might have to go through, agreeing maybe not in words exactly that they were all kind of on the same team. None of them was perfect. None of them even adequate, really, if it came down to it. But recovering. The line she recited often to herself.
Justin was last to arrive, via the stairs, a Fitness First backpack on one shoulder, not carried loosely. Anything but. He slowed as he approached, peered through the door into Good Bloke to see who was there, then glanced at Di, nodded, gave a quick smile. He had that elsewhere look that she knew well. They’d been separated for four years now, though there was always stuff to deal with — who was taking Mimi to ballet tomorrow, to piano on Friday, to the weekend playdate — and they’d turned a corner this year, had mostly gotten past the embittered-ex thing, becoming whatever they were now. Friends. Wary friends.
But they never talked about the business, Justin’s business — Di had drawn the line there. Not to say she didn’t know a fair bit anyway. There was plenty of talk. At meetings, at the coffee shops. People weren’t happy. She understood that. The hydroponic — okay, people could sort of accept that. But powders were different. Thing is, as Di had said more than once, what do you do, form a lynch mob? Anyway, like they’d told her at the Al-Anon meetings she’d gone to when she was breaking up with Justin, ask yourself, Is it my business? Is it really my business? It was maybe a yes to the first, but definitely a no to the second.
Two minutes after Justin went in, Bec tottered out, holding her phone, cigs, and lighter, heading for the lift. She looked at Di and eye-rolled, came over to the door, and stage-whispered, “Fuck. It’s all going on today.”
Di nodded slowly.
“Something to do with—” and nodded in the direction of the lift.
Di knew. Timmy was in the shit. That much was obvious. Plus, she’d heard something yesterday. And there was that Fitness First backpack. Which she’d have rather not noticed.
But that was all the time Di had to give it: a Double Bay woman, hefty, arrived for her consultation. Di, all smiles and gentleness, ushered her into the free room, sat her down, poured her a tea. “Okay, so, let’s talk about raw diets...” and as she closed the door caught a glimpse of a distressed, harried Andy bustling into Good Bloke.
Dave got himself a Diet Coke from the fridge in reception, plonked down in the armchair in Justin’s office, and watched them all take their places. Awkward, bumping into each other. Justin came in, slung the backpack under the desk, shut the door, took the big chair, sat back, scowling.
Dave tried not to look at the backpack at Justin’s feet. But he felt its radioactive force. The rest of them had all been heroin junkies, and for them okie-doke was just a little extra fizzy thing they did from time to time. But cocaine had been Dave’s drug of choice. It didn’t exert the same pull on him now, but still, he felt its presence.
The others felt it too: the excitement of the whack-up, the largest batch so far, the most pure, at the best price yet. The supply side was mostly a mystery, all they knew was it came from a Korean guy. They sort of knew it came on boats, and that the Koreans kept changing the method, and that had kept things reliable. So far.
This business with the powder had just more or less happened, when Justin’s Korean mate approached him, and Justin had approached them, and they in turn had each spoken to one or two people they knew. By then their circles consisted of other former drug addicts. So it had come about almost by accident that the stuff was sold mostly by addicts who didn’t use dope anymore. No one really planned it.
Dave had been the first to get the tap on the shoulder. He had sought counsel on the matter, confidentially, from Mac, who wouldn’t make a yay-or-nay call on it, just put the responsibility right back on Dave: do whatever you do, he said, just be prepared to deal with the consequences, whatever they may be. So Dave in the end decided, fuck it, come this far, go with it.
But it was still too new a thing for him or for any of them to really weigh it all up: for one thing, they were making good money, so far expressed in new cars, better threads, jet skis, and holidays in Bali. But not quite at the level of real estate yet. And there was the anxiety, though they had their ways of dealing with that. They all knew, too, but hadn’t discussed together the fact that people, their friends, took a dim view. But they, people they knew, didn’t want to condemn or moralize either. None of them had ever met a recovering addict who actually supported drug prohibition — the addiction isn’t in the substance, it’s in us, in me, in you. Maybe it’s like the ex-alcoholic who runs the bar, right? In fact, look at it this way: who better to sell drugs? No one was quite convinced by that line, but that was the sort of shit swirling around in their heads, understood between them, mostly unspoken. So far, though, so good. Maybe it was meant to be?
But the whack-up would have to wait. There was an emergency.
Justin leaned forward and, no smile, glanced toward tough, wiry, agitated Andy and said, “So?”
Andy sighed, searched out Justin’s eyes, which remained distant. He looked at the floor then back at Justin again, then put his head down, apologetic. “So, yeah. It’s what I thought. Timmy’s been using.”
“How long?”
Andy shrugged. “Couple of months.”
“Our stuff?”
Shook his head. “Smack.” He looked up, faced Justin. “But paid for with our stuff.”
No one moved.
“He blew the lot.”
“Smack from...?”
Andy shrugged. “Don’t know, mate. From the Cross. Lebs, whoever. I’m fucking gutted.”
Another silence.
“What’s he into us for?”
A pause. “Ten.”
Head shakes and slow exhalations around the room. Next thing was obvious to all. The way drugs were dealt the world over: get a bag up front, bring back the money, and you get another bag. Fail to bring the money back and get a flogging. Then you’re given time to make good. And if you don’t make good, there’s another flogging, only worse. The iron law. Timmy was due for a hiding.
The Stooges would arrange it. That’s what they were for. Except none of them had dealt with this in recovery before.
Dave sat watching. Andy was scared, but not groveling. Justin kept silent, then swiveled around and peered through the window. An outlook, not much, back toward Paddington, a corner of Rushcutters Bay Park, but no harbor view from this angle. Turned back and looked at Andy, very directly now. Getting ready for the hard bit.