The Jacaranda House, page 25
She dashed into the Alibi Room and looked round for her friend, Lesley, who’d been a dancer downstairs but was an escort now for the better pay. She knew she was working tonight and hadn’t seen her go out lately, so assumed she must be in the bar. Lesley, she knew, used a bit of heroin now and then: she’d have a word to her.
She found her sitting on some bloke’s knee, laughing her head off.
‘Can I’ve a quick word?’ Polly shouted over the noise of the bar’s sound system.
‘Hang on,’ Lesley said, struggling to get to her feet without spilling her drink. ‘What is it?’
Polly raised her hand to Lesley’s ear. ‘I want to buy some heroin but I don’t want Adler to know. Where do you get yours?’
‘Off Ron,’ Lesley said, nodding at Adler’s in-house drug dealer, leaning against the bar smoking a cigarette and sipping what looked like a glass of water.
‘But won’t he tell Adler?’
Lesley shook her head. ‘Half the staff in the club buy off him. Ron doesn’t give a shit about Adler’s rules as long as he gets his money.’
‘But I don’t see any staff coming past me.’
‘They don’t. Haven’t you heard of direct sales? God, girl, wake up.’
Polly felt quite silly. ‘Oh. OK. Thanks.’
‘Have fun,’ Lesley said and went back to her punter.
Polly made her way across the room to Ron. ‘Hi. I’m in the market. I work here.’
‘I know. You’re out on the door. How much?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t gone down this road before.’ She hoped that didn’t make her sound like too much of an amateur and encourage him to take advantage.
‘I’ll give you half the amount in the packets you hand out,’ he said. ‘Safety first.’
‘And the price?’
He told her and she winced. ‘Bloody hell, that’s steep. Are you having me on?’
‘No. It’s really good stuff, pure Asian. I don’t shit where I work. It’s bad business practice.’ Then he laughed. ‘Except when it comes to Lucky Luciano, your boss.’
Polly paid him: he slipped her a very familiar little packet, which she put straight into her handbag.
‘Go easy, start small,’ he said. ‘You’re not going to jack up, are you?’
‘No.’
‘My advice? Stick to chasing the dragon.’
‘What?’
‘Heat a bit on some aluminium foil and inhale the fumes through a straw or a tube. As for the needle, that’s a mug’s game. But, you know, up to you.’
*
When Polly got home later that night Emmeline had gone and the girls had returned from work and were about to go to bed.
‘How was your night?’ Rhoda asked.
‘Same as usual,’ Polly replied. ‘Busy. Yours?’
‘Quite good, actually, wasn’t it?’ Rhoda looked to Star for confirmation.
‘We tried out the new number and got a standing ovation,’ Star said. ‘Well, a couple of people nearly stood. And there was no end of clapping.’
‘That’s good,’ Polly said. ‘Look, I’m knackered. I’m off to bed.’
‘See you in the morning,’ Rhoda said as she collected her shoes, her smokes and Tatiana, and headed for her room.
‘Night,’ Star said.
Polly waited till they were safely behind closed doors, then went into the kitchen and opened a drawer, looking for the aluminium foil. She methodically folded a section and tore it off, then went into the toilet in search of an empty toilet roll. She knew there’d be at least one – Rhoda and Star seemed incapable of putting them in the rubbish. What else would she need? No, she thought she had everything.
In her room she sat at her dressing table and laid out her things. First she cut off a smaller square of the aluminium foil with her nail scissors so it wasn’t too unwieldy, then tipped some of the heroin into the centre and sat there looking at it. How much would be too much? Even more of a worry, how much wouldn’t be enough? She added a tiny bit more, then picked up the foil and held her cigarette lighter underneath it. As she watched, the powder changed colour and became a liquid, then she belatedly noticed the rising fumes. Dropping the lighter and snatching the toilet roll, she held it over the liquid and put her mouth to the other end, capturing the fumes and inhaling deeply, not stopping until the heroin had been reduced to nothing more than a brown stain on the foil.
Nothing happened. She sat for moment gazing at herself in the mirror, wondering if bloody Ron had sold her icing sugar or Ajax or something. And then it hit her, a wave of the most intense euphoria she could ever remember experiencing and a profound sense of well-being. She felt safe, warm, calm, at peace and, for the first time in years, utterly without fear, dread or anger. It was heaven. It was better than heaven, it was complete . . . relief.
And then she felt her head drop forwards and knew she was about to nod off, so she staggered over to her bed, lay down and let herself float away.
*
During August, Polly managed to spend half her savings on heroin. She didn’t mean to, and didn’t realise she had, until one day, after a trip to the bank, she sat down with her bank book and added up all her withdrawals and realised what she’d done. The recognition that she’d frittered hundreds of pounds on a drug that disappeared almost as soon as she’d paid for it came like a physical blow. But she had to have it now, just to feel she could function, and she had to have more and more of it because the piddly little pinch of heroin on the foil she’d started off with wasn’t enough any more. She biffed the bog roll and got herself a nice glass pipe so none of the precious fumes could escape, and she was really good now at handling the gear, but nothing since had been quite as incredible as that very first high. She wanted another one of those. No, she wanted hundreds more, but now she couldn’t even seem to get herself out of the bloody house without a bit of smack on board.
She kept her heroin use hidden from the girls, and, most importantly, from Gina, and she was pretty sure no one at work knew, except for Lesley and Ron, and they wouldn’t say anything. What she knew she wasn’t hiding very well was her escalating reliance on all the other drugs she was taking to fill the increasingly nightmarish gaps when she couldn’t use the heroin. This, in her opinion, was an almighty swizz, as somewhere in the back of her mind she’d thought that if she were using smack, which trumped most other drugs, she wouldn’t need anything else. But it seemed she did, and now not only was she forking out hundreds to Ron, she was buying even more from her man down on bloody Macleay Street.
It did occur to her she could ask for help, but if she did, people would only make her try to give up the drugs, and she didn’t want to. She’d rather die, because if she went cold turkey her fear would end up killing her anyway. And now so would her shame, because of what she was stealing from Gina. She’d brought her to Sydney so they could be together and have a proper relationship, and what was she doing? Shutting herself in her bedroom and sucking up heroin smoke every chance she got. Maybe Awhi was right: maybe she was a shit mother.
In the second week of August she bought Gina a bicycle, something she’d never had. Gina nearly exploded with excitement as they wheeled it home from the shops.
‘Can I have a go now, Mum?’
‘No, wait till we get home.’
‘Oh, please!’
‘No. It’s too dangerous next to the street. Wait till we get home.’
When they arrived back at Bayswater Road, Gina immediately took the bike around to the back of the house.
‘Wait for me,’ Polly insisted. ‘I’ll just go to the loo then I’ll come and help you.’
‘OK.’
When Polly came out of the toilet, Star and Rhoda were standing on the balcony.
‘Did you buy Gina a bike?’ Star asked.
‘Yes. Why?’
Rhoda said, ‘Because she’s just fallen off it.’
Polly rushed to the balcony: Gina was lying in the long grass, laughing.
‘I told you to wait for me!’ Polly yelled at her.
Gina waved.
‘Can she not ride a bike?’ Star said.
‘She’s never had one.’
‘Well, she can’t learn in grass two feet long,’ Rhoda said. ‘Let’s take her out on the footpath.’
So out they all went, and took turns running alongside Gina as she wobbled up and down the footpath, laughing delightedly and gaining more and more confidence the farther she rode.
After a while Polly sat down on the front wall and started to cry.
Gina pulled shakily up in front of her. ‘Mum, what’s the matter?’
‘Nothing, love. Keep going. You’re doing really well.’
‘Sure?’
‘Yep.’
Gina wobbled off again and Rhoda sat down. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t know.’ Polly sniffed and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. ‘It’s just . . . we never had a bike, us kids. None of us. And if we had had one, I doubt Mum or Dad would have pushed us on it.’ She sniffed again. ‘Well, Mum might have, but not Dad.’
‘Well, then, isn’t Gina lucky?’ Rhoda said.
Polly nodded, but the fun had gone out of things. ‘I’m going inside. My head hurts. Can you keep an eye on her?’
She hadn’t pushed Gina on her new bike since then, but she hadn’t needed to: the kid got the hang of it in about a day and was soon whizzing up and down the street – on the footpath, not the road, of course – as though she’d been born on a bicycle. Often she went up the street on her bike with Star and Rhoda to the shops or to the park on the weekends, though she, Polly, seldom went with them because she was either high, or unwell, or just too tired. She knew she was missing out, and worse, that Gina was missing out, too, and it was her fault.
She was missing out on a lot of things, not just her daughter. Spring would be here very soon and she loved spring in Sydney. The jacaranda trees in the backyard were covered in tight green buds prior to bursting into raucous purple bloom, something to which she usually looked forward every year, and she’d barely noticed. The jasmine was already out, scenting the streets around the Cross day and night, and all she could think about it now was how seedy the perfume made her feel if she got a face full of it when she was feeling off. It used to make her imagine she was on a tropical island somewhere.
She didn’t imagine that much any more. Not these days.
*
It occurred to Polly that Emmeline was probably being more of a mother to Gina than she was herself. Take that night, for example; she had to leave for work shortly, and so did Rhoda and Star, which meant Emmeline, who’d arrived at the flat early to have dinner with everyone, would be doing the washing up, and then she’d fuss Gina into the bath, probably help her dry off her hair, then spend a few hours with her playing cards or knitting and watching TV, and then she’d send her off to bed. Those were the things a mother should do, but she, Polly, would be at work, desperate for the moment she could get home and get stuck into her drugs. It was pretty bloody shabby of her, really.
‘Gina,’ she said, ‘come here a minute.’
Gina set the dirty plates she was carrying on the kitchen bench and sat next to her on the couch.
‘You know I love you, don’t you?’ Polly whispered in her ear.
‘’Course,’ Gina said, then moved closer. ‘And I love you.’
Polly hugged her. ‘You’re such a good girl, you really are.’
‘Shall we make you some rocky road? Auntie Em’s got a new recipe.’
‘Rocky road!’ Rhoda exclaimed. ‘My favourite!’
‘But don’t put that candied peel crap in it,’ Star said. ‘I hate that.’
Rhoda said, ‘God, you’re picky. And ungrateful.’
Emmeline said, ‘No, this particular recipe is just chocolate with small cubes of Turkish delight. One trusts that meets with your approval?’
Star stuck up a thumb.
Polly left for work. The weather was getting warmer now. It was September and spring had properly arrived – not that winter in Sydney was ever particularly taxing – and she had thought she might walk to work, but she’d left it a bit late. She went straight upstairs when she arrived.
David was in his usual spot, though looking vaguely perturbed, which was out of character for him.
‘Have you heard?’ he said before she’d made it even halfway across the foyer.
‘What?’
‘Ron got arrested this morning.’
Polly’s heart did a couple of sharp, extra thumps. ‘Arrested? Shit. That’s terrible.’ And it was. Where would she get her heroin from now? ‘What happened?’
‘Not sure. I just heard the cops went to his house this morning and arrested him.’ David shrugged. ‘Bad luck for the guy, but, you know, he is a drug dealer.’
‘True,’ Polly said, thinking bloody hell, what a disaster.
‘Polly?’
It was Joe Adler, standing at the top of the stairs, beckoning her with a bent finger. Polly glanced at David, rolled her eyes, and followed Adler down the stairs to his office.
He closed the door behind them, and leant his fat bum against the edge of his desk. ‘Sit,’ he ordered, as though she were a dog.
Polly did.
‘You heard about Ron?’
‘I heard he was arrested, that’s all.’
‘This morning, fuck it all,’ Adler said. ‘At his house. Either someone grassed on him or he got careless. Probably careless. I never really trusted him. Always had the feeling he was screwing me.’
‘What if he tells the cops where he was dealing?’ Polly said.
Adler shrugged. ‘I’ve got insurance.’
Polly wasn’t entirely sure what that meant but assumed it involved bribery.
‘The bigger problem is the interruption to my sideline business,’ Adler went on, ‘but, being the shrewd businessman I am, I’ve been busy all day and I’ve now made arrangements to buy direct, so I don’t need a middleman. I do, however, need someone to take the money for the product, and as you already distribute it, that someone is going to be you.’
‘But that makes me the dealer!’
While this thought made her panic, Polly could also instantly see the obvious benefit of what Adler was proposing. Any heroin addict would.
‘No one’s being a dealer, Polly,’ Adler said. ‘This is just business. I have a contact who imports a product which I buy from him. I then on-sell that product though my club. You take care of those sales. Do you hear the word “dealer” in any of that? I don’t.’
‘But what if I get arrested one morning? I’ve got a daughter to think of.’
‘You won’t,’ Adler said. ‘Your girl will be perfectly safe. If anyone gets arrested it’ll be me, and I won’t get arrested because, like I say, I’ve got insurance.’
‘I want a guarantee that if anything goes wrong I won’t be dragged into it.’
‘This is the Cross, Polly. There aren’t any guarantees. For anyone.’
‘You’ve just said you’ve got insurance.’
Adler just shrugged.
‘And if I say no?’
‘What do you think?’
She could piss off and find a job stripping in some club at half the money she was getting now, and hope she could buy decent quality heroin, which was pretty hard to come by and bloody expensive, on the street.
Back upstairs, David said to her, ‘What did he want?’
Polly lit a cigarette and slipped her handbag beneath the counter in her booth. ‘He wants me to sell his drugs as well as just hand them out. But I don’t actually want to be a drug dealer.’
‘Did you tell him no?’
‘I couldn’t, could I? The money I’m getting’s too good and I don’t want to go back to stripping in some shitty club, either. I’ve got Gina to think of.’
David crossed his arms, putting a colossal strain on his suit sleeves. Polly couldn’t help notice how big, and frankly sexy, his arm muscles were, and quickly averted her gaze before he noticed her looking.
‘You be careful, girl,’ he said. ‘You be really, really careful.’
*
Gina stuck her head around Polly’s bedroom door. ‘I’m just going out to post a letter to Nannie, OK?’
‘OK, come straight back, all right?’
There was a bright red post box not far along the street near where Bayswater Road intersected with Darlinghurst, and it was much more convenient to drop a letter there than at the actual post office.
Polly jumped up and called after Gina, ‘What return address did you put on it?’
Almost out the door, Gina said, ‘The post office box, same as always.’
‘Good girl.’
Polly returned to lying on her bed. She didn’t want Gina writing to Awhi at all but it would be very mean not to let her. She knew she was also writing to her school friends in New Zealand, and was very happy for her to do that, provided she only used the post office box as her address. She’d thrown away Gina’s first few letters to her grandmother, and had felt horrible for it: not for depriving Awhi of contact with Gina but because Gina had expected replies and hadn’t got them. Now she let Gina write, but when Awhi replied to the post office box address, she, Polly, opened the letters before she gave them to Gina. She wasn’t being nosy – she just didn’t want Gina subjected to her mother’s manipulation or vitriol. She’d had to dump two of Awhi’s letters because she’d written that Polly was evil and mentally unstable, and had offered to send money so Gina could buy herself an aeroplane ticket home. Polly had written her own short letter threatening that Awhi would never see Gina again if she couldn’t be civil, and the old lady’s letters had been fairly reasonable since. Polly knew Awhi didn’t have their actual street address because Sonny had said he’d refused to give it to her, and clearly that had been the right thing to do because God only knows what she might have sent through the mail to her. Awhi herself would never turn up, Polly knew that, but still, she felt a lot safer knowing she wouldn’t find out where they lived. Honestly, fancy having to hide from your own mother. Fancy even wanting to. But things had been heading this way for a long time, and the dispute over Gina had only made everything much, much worse.
