Even the Dogs - Jon McGregor

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piece of something like he wanted. Good gear as well, better gear than they’d had for a while, they tested out a small hit first and didn’t need to go back for no more. Near enough gouching and felt good like back in the days. She asked him where he’d got it from, told him to make sure he told the others how good it was. Tell them to be careful and that. Lying there smoking, and each time he rolled one for her she said Cheers mate you’re a diamond you’re a star. Turned out she said that to everyone not just him. So that was something else that didn’t mean nothing. To go with the rest. Her keyworker had got her the room because she was going for a rehab place in the New Year, it was all lined up and her keyworker had said she should try and keep away from the usual crowd over Christmas. You’ve been so strong to get this far, he’d told her. That was the way they talked. You don’t want people talking you out of it, he’d said. She hadn’t told no one but she was telling him now, on that narrow bed. That was something. They were lying close together but it weren’t like that, he’d thought it would be for a while but it weren’t. None of them had the energy or the time for that, not when it took all day just getting the money together to score. Lying on the bed and she said Danny believe, I’m going through with it this time. Which he’d heard before. I’ve had enough, she said, I never wanted to get into it this far, I want to be clean again, you get me, I’m going to be clean. Turning to him with her hazel-green eyes too close to focus, her voice all warm and blurred and her saying Danny you do believe me don’t you? And for a minute he’d seen the two of them somewhere else, somewhere clean, a brief and lonely vision of them lying clean and healthy in a big wide bed of their own, a car in the driveway, two cars in the driveway, jobs to go to, his contact lenses in a little case on the bedside table, the smell of coffee and bread drifting in from a spotless kitchen at the other end of the house and the two of them clean and naked in bed beneath soft white sheets, without fear or shame, without scars or sores or bruises or scabs, nothing to hide as they woke to the open window of a clear new day, the breeze blowing in from outside and carrying with it the smell of cut grass, the postman whistling, the warmth of spring and all that bollocks. She looked at him, her mouth scabbed and cracked, her bitten fingers pulling at her greasy hair, and she went Danny believe this time it’ll be different, this time I’m going through with it all. Which made him laugh because she’d asked him to believe that before, just about everyone he knew had asked him to believe that before. Spent his life being asked to believe things that turned out to be bollocks. I’m going clean. I’ll pay you back next week. This is only a temporary situation. You’ll see your parents soon. If you keep your mouth shut and keep still this won’t

      Went to the new winter shelter like Maureen had said but weren’t no one there. Sign on the door saying it was only open after seven and even then you had to be referred. Didn’t seem like anyone he was after was likely to have got themselves referred. Went round the back of the old timber warehouse near the shelter, he’d slept there a few times but it kept getting burnt out and they kept fencing it off. Weren’t even worth the trouble of sleeping there, it got too busy and there were too many people you wouldn’t want to turn your back on let alone sleep in the same place. Always fights and worse going off in there. Saw Ant there one time taking a bloke down with a half-brick in the face. Kept hold of it for about an hour afterwards and kept saying the miserable twat should be happy I couldn’t find a whole one but, the kid shouldn’t have opened his

      About a million things in his life he regretted, but laughing at Laura like that was top of the list. If he could take it back. If he could go back and tell her. If he could say Laura, mate, of course I believe you. Things will be different this time. Which was bollocks but it wouldn’t have been hard to say it instead of laughing, instead of still laughing even while she was pushing him off the bed, sitting up and throwing her fag at him, pushing him and punching him and telling him to Fuck off fuck off fuck off get the fuck out of it. They’d still be lying there now if he hadn’t laughed. Would they. But what. So what. If ifs and buts were ten-pound bags he’d have gone way over by now. And he’d laugh all over again because the way she said it, the way she went This time it’s going to be different with her eyes all wide and nodding like she was a little girl telling him about Father Christmas, it would still make him laugh. It was funny. It was too funny. Five years he’d been using and just about every user he knew came out with it eventually. Fuck this Danny I’ve had enough I’m going to get clean I’m going

      Came out on Barford Street and back to the junction where he’d seen Sammy before, where he always saw Sammy and he was still there now. Sat on his bench working his way through those cans. Sammy mate, I’m looking for Laura, I’m looking for Mike. Have you seen them? Sammy? Sammy looking up at him slower than that woman at the benefits office. His eyes all screwed up, like the failing light was giving him pain. Looked like he’d forgotten the question by the time he’d looked up so Danny asked him again. Still had to wait for the answer and it came out one word at a time.

      Not seen

      no cunt

      for

      Two of them laid out together on the narrow bed but it weren’t never going to be like that. And where was she now. What would she say when he told her. Would she

      Mike would know what to do. Danny thought. Mike would be at the Parkside squats and would know what was going on, what had happened, what to do. Might even have some gear or know where to get some where to

      Didn’t even need to be like that anyway sometimes, with Laura. Sometimes just, it was like being mates, like they were ten or fifteen years younger and still bunking off school and having a laugh. Like that time he needed to get Einstein some decent food and they planned it all out like a bank job, left her outside Tesco’s as a four-legged lookout, three-and-a-half-legged, but then once they were in there they didn’t do nothing clever just grabbed an armful of tins each and ran. Got halfway up the street, laughing so much they kept dropping the tins, and realised she was still sitting all to attention outside the shop. Fucking, ears pricked up and everything. Had to sneak back and call her and it still took her a while to come, and Laura going She’s not the smartest fucking dog on the block is she, she’s not exactly a genius or nothing. Things like that and it kept him going but it didn’t mean

      Fucking Sammy. Sitting there all day like the lord of the manor, like a watchman or something, and no one ever gets a straight answer out of his mouth. Never goes in the day centres or nothing, never see him in the benefits office or none of that. Must have like a keyworker sorting it all out. Lives in one of those supported-housing places on The Green, one of the ones for the old blokes who the keyworkers call what is it entrenched and everyone else calls fucked. Old blokes who’ve been drinking for years and can’t hardly remember why they started. They’ve probably got stories and that. But we aint got the time for

      Rattles trying to catch up all the time, and every day gets harder to keep ahead. Like that time the police had some big day of action with all cameras and battering rams and whatever and for about two and a half days no one could score a thing. Ended up riding it out in some old caravan he’d broken into down the allotments, laid out on this mildew-rotten mattress that might as well have been a bed of fucking nails and needles and pins. Couldn’t get no rest, couldn’t get comfortable or keep still for the cramps and the pains shooting through him, the sickness and the diarrhoea pouring out long after it felt like there was nothing left. Scoring the new gear after that though, that was something, that was a lifesaver, like a, fucking, a parachute opening or

      When it’s been on you once you don’t want it on you again. People talk about detox and if that’s what it means they can go to fuck. Hear that rattle dragging along behind you all day when you’re blagging and scoring and cooking and fixing and it’s all you can do to keep it

      Funny thing with Laura was she always made out like she weren’t even an addict at all. That was a laugh. That was one of the first things they’d hit her with if she really did go to the rehab, before they even let her upstairs to unpack her bags and that they’d be giving it all There’s no room for denial here, Laura, the first stage is acceptance, Laura. She always made out that she’d got in to gear by mistake and now she was only taking enough to keep

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