I cannae be bothered ringing, she’ll just moan. Wish this bus would hurry up.
Look at the back of the passengers’ heads and try to work out which person each thought comes from. I cannae switch them off, they lilt in and out — most people’s thoughts are so boring I could die, but I dinnae want tae be dead, staring away with no light in my eyes and my hand held out and scissors on the floor and blood on my cheek.
Fuck, fuck, fuck! I’m panicking. Shit, shit, shit! I wonder if the police are tracking me right now from my tag? I need to get it off.
I can hear a siren somewhere. I feel fucking sick. Shit, it’s getting worse, palpitations and colours like worms everywhere — shit, shit, shit!
Just, hold, on. Rub at the window. Stare. Stare. Stare. I grip the seat in front of me and I’m sweating, and everything looks the same outside the window, and if everything looks the same how am I gonnae know when to get off?
Eventually they appear — five huge fingers pointing at the sky. The high-rises are like one hand that holds hundreds of people’s lives. There’s five blocks and Jay’s safe-house is in my old staircase.
I ring the bell. There’s a woman in front of me.
Need tae get Jack a winter coat. A tartan one. Need tae get his injections from the vet.
Woof, woof — I growl as I walk by her. The bus doors open and I soar down the steps.
The cold air stings, and it’s misty when I breathe out — cars blare their horns at me as I cross the motorway; ribbons of light unfurl from their headlights. And I remember watching gymnasts when I was wee, with coloured ribbons and coloured leotards. The experiment — Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! 3–0 to the experiment. They have Teresa, Tash, and now Isla, but you need four queens to make a deck. They drive by and one lifts up his hat, so he can stare right at me.
‘You’re next,’ he mouths.
The lift stinks of pish.
This is where I stood in cords, holding a social worker’s hand, going to see my new mummy. And this is where they took her away, and this is what I have to do. Now. I press floor fourteen. Wait. Crack my knuckles. Wait. The lift pings open and it is sat there. Door 73F.
Step up to the door and knock, just lightly.
I bend down on my knees and the acid is putting trailers everywhere — my fingers are elongating, and I open the letterbox and peer in. There’s a light on in the hall. At the end of that hall is the living room, and that hole in the door has been there for about ten years. Our carpet is a different colour than it used to be, though, and there is no clock on the wall. Whoever lives here now doesn’t smoke, because all I can smell is air freshener and nothing else.
I’m sorry.
I whisper it through the door and turn around and march straight back into the lift. Jab — up, up, fucking up! I’m getting out. Fuck it. That’s what Teresa would tell me to do.
She’d want me to have something better: to go to Paris and paint naked boys and read every book in every library and walk by the river and never look back. I am getting out. They’ll want me in John Kay’s when I get home. Later. They’ll get me in there this week. Unless I go. This is my floor. Ping.
Mike opens his door.
‘Hello, Anais — a vision indeed!’ He has a tinny in one hand.
‘Mike, can I come in?’
‘Aw, Anais, away and come in, hen, aye, come in. Fuck, how are you?’
‘Alright.’
‘I’ve not seen you since your ma, well — we all miss Teresa, you know. She was quite a woman.’
His hallway’s rammed with magazines and boxes of knocked-off PlayStations and MacBooks and mobiles.
‘D’ye need a laptop, hen?’ He points.
There is a stack of about forty laptops on one desk; the other wall has stacks of boxes of dog food, then beans, Xboxes, porn DVDs. He has a Christmas tree up and the light bulbs are those coloured ones that nobody ever gets now. On the top of the tree there’s a Barbie; she’s smoking a spliff and she looks like she’s wearing bondage gear.
‘No, Mike. What I really need — is tae get rid of this?’
I show him my tag.
‘Aye, hen. That’s no a bonnie bracelet for a wee looker like you, is it?’
‘No, it’s not.’ I’m laughing, and Barbie is parting her legs, sliding down the top of the tree, up and down on the top of the tree, and I’m leaning against something inky. Fuck — it’s the money press. Beside me on the floor’s a wee mountain of fake twenties.
‘Are you alright, Anais?’
‘Aye. I’m gonnae go and see my boyfriend, ay. I’ve not seen him for ages.’
‘He’s a lucky laddie. What’s his name?’ he asks as he goes into his kitchen.
‘Jay.’
He comes back out with a welding gun-type thing and plugs it in tae heat it up.
‘Ye might get a wee burn, is that alright?’
‘Aye. It’s fine.’
‘Jay that’s inside? He’s no out for ages, Anais. His door’s marked — d’ye ken that? He owes a fucking wadge ay cash out, and no tae nice people. Can you not meet a nice laddie? A banker, no some wee piece ay pish fae round here.’
‘A banker?’
‘Or ken somebody straight!’
I must look confused. Barbie has got her tits out and she’s go-go dancing in the reflection of the baubles, and I can remember laughing with Teresa, I can remember that. Jay’s probably just not telling anyone he’s out, if he’s in that bad a debt. I’m not saying anything.
Fuck! The heat on my leg is unbearable, and the gun buzzes and everything’s far away.
32
THERE’S WEE WITCHES on the inside of my eyelids when I blink. They are always the same ones — they’re quite cheery like, until they turn. If the experiment put an implant in my head, could they see the witches?
Sometimes I close my eyes when I’m tripping and I can see wee Pac-Men eating the dark, turning everything fluorescent.
Get into the lift, press down. My ankle is red fucking raw fae that burner — but nae tag. Nae fucking tag! My arms feel grimy. I should have wore a coat, cos it’s so fucking cold, but I dinnae, I never do. I dinnae wear coats or extra jumpers, cos it never looks as good.
My T-shirt is damp. I mind sleeping rough last year, and when I ran out of clothes I robbed a clothes line, but because it was winter all I could find was rows and rows of frozen jeans, and frozen jumpers and knickers and towels. I unclipped one pair of jeans and carried them away like a cardboard cutout.
It’s all buzzing too loud: the light in the lift and Isla and Teresa and Tash, all telling me — what?
The lift pings open. Four doors just stand there. A darts commentator is making his low speech in someone’s living room. An audience claps. It smells like Fray Bentos pie on the landing. Teresa wouldnae let me eat processed food, apart from the only thing I can cook — Kraft macaroni. She would make an exception for that. Usually she got all organic stuff from the butcher. He would bring us chickens, or steak and chops — when he came around for his shags.
Hands shaky, and my legs. I just want tae get in bed with Jay, and watch cartoons, and smoke myself blind. I keep feeling like I’m gonnae pass out, cos I’ve had too much, but I want more. I want to forget.
I tap on the door, but there’s no answer — tap again.
‘Alright, Anais?’
Spin around. It’s troll. Troll Mark, who sells the shan wraps.
‘Alright.’
‘Jay’s expecting you, Anais, has he not answered? He’s fucking wasted, ay. You are looking great, by the way!’
He passes me a wee bong; it’s neat, really pretty green glass. I drag hard on it — and my spine goes numb.