drugs

Don’t Look – 22 December 2000 – 2.20PM

Soul Destruction - Diary of a London Call Girl

I’m lying on my Betty Boop towel at Manly Beach. It’s blazing hot. Sweat is trickling down my neck, between my breasts and onto my stomach. I can’t stand the heat anymore. The sand burns the soles of my feet as I rush to the sea. In the warm seawater, I lie on my back, make small waves with my arms, and float.

I feel terrible for misjudging Lorna last night. Because of the things I’ve done and the things I’ve seen working as a hooker, I suspect the worst of people. Lorna was such a comfort to me. She made me up another hit, and after holding me tight and rocking me, I felt at peace. I never feel at peace like that. It was like she brought me out of this world and carried me up to heaven. Like when I first started taking heroin.

As I stand in the sea, I catch sight of Mickey with his surfer friends a little further down the beach. After the embarrassment of yesterday, I can’t have Mickey see me. I’m in a different bikini today. Perhaps he won’t notice me. This one is bright orange. Perhaps he won’t be able not to notice me. Tiptoeing back to my towel, I hide behind children building sandcastles and families with windbreakers.

Please don’t let him see me. Please don’t let him see me, I pray silently in my head. But I want him. There was something about him. Something that drew me in. That sucked me in. More than his looks and his fit, tanned body. It was something behind his nearly transparent, blue eyes. But he doesn’t want me. So I don’t want him to see me. If he doesn’t see me, then he’s not rejecting me again. I hate rejection. I don’t know what it is about rejection that I can’t take. I only know I can’t take it.

Moving my towel further along the sand, I hide behind an obese family of five. The family are as loud as they are fat. I was hoping they’d conceal me from Mickey but with all their noise, they’re drawing attention. I can’t move again now. Too many people are looking over this way.

I dry off naturally in the sun, then layer oil over my body as I have done countless times since I arrived on the beach at midday. I’m cooking like the lady in the red bikini. That contented lady I walked past the other day who was saying, “This is the life.” I’m much younger than her. I don’t have her wrinkles yet. And I’m pretty sure if I stop cooking myself at thirty, not that I expect to make thirty, but if I do, then I shouldn’t have done as much damage as she has to her leathery skin.

While I’m worrying about Mickey seeing me now, I’m worrying about Greg seeing me later. I think I might have set myself up for disaster by arranging to see Greg tonight. He’s going to notice the abscess scars on my arms that are still healing. All three were lanced at Barnet General Hospital. They make such a messy job of it there. I swear they do it on purpose. As if leaving you with large scars will stop you injecting heroin. If only it were that easy. I’d have stopped already if it was. Even coming out here hasn’t got me off heroin. Beijing did, but that was for two days. Perhaps I should have stayed at the stopover instead of coming here to Sydney.

If Greg sends me away, I’ll be devastated. I remind myself he’s a wanker. But that’s not the point. He has to want me. I have to pull his strings. I have to be in control. If I don’t want to see him that’s fine, but he has to want to see me. If he sees the scars, he might realise what I am. I haven’t been working for the last few months. I couldn’t handle being sent away from a job. I’ve never been sent away from a job in my life. I know other call girls that have. Shelley was sent away from jobs regularly. That’s why some of the madams stopped using her.

I look at my arms. Maybe I should cancel, or perhaps some concealer will work to hide the redness. At least they’re not the deep, gaping holes they were to begin with. I could see right down to my ligaments. I could see them move. It looked mechanical. The skin has grown over now. It’s red and thin. Concealer should do the trick. I’ll wear that black, Moschino dress with the deep V-neck. That’ll give him something to focus on. That’s all I have – my breasts and what lies between my legs. I should be more than these body parts. I don’t want to be just body parts. No wonder I want to die. There’s nothing to me.

Not the Girl I Thought You Were – 22 December 2000 – 12.15AM

Soul Destruction - Diary of a London Call Girl

It’s just gone midnight. I don’t want Lorna in my hotel suite anymore. I want it back to myself. I want her to go. The heroin, though, she can leave here with me. We’ve had one hit. For some reason, I feel anxious. I want the next fix now. I don’t want to make out with Lorna. I don’t want a flashback. My sex drive has vanished. I felt drawn to Lorna earlier. Now I don’t, not in the slightest. I feel really uncomfortable. Although we only shot up heroin, I feel like I’ve been on the crack pipe. This isn’t how I usually feel on smack.

This is really strange. Maybe it was bad gear. Maybe that’s what it was. I want to ask Lorna if she feels strange too but I feel too strange in myself to talk. We’re lying on the bed in silence. At least we’ve got our clothes on. Her arm’s around my waist as she’s cuddling into me. I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel right. I don’t feel like I’m me anymore. This isn’t any kind of flashback. This is just like crack.

“I need another hit,” I say to Lorna eventually, once I’ve found the courage to use my voice.

She turns her back to me, preparing the hit on the bedside table. I light a cigarette in the hope it’ll make me feel relaxed. If the cigarette doesn’t make a difference, the hit should. It must be anxiety that I’m feeling. Heroin will sort that out for sure.

I push myself to sit upright on the bed. Leaning my back against the padded headboard, I open my eyes wider. I’m seeing in double vision. This is something that has only ever happened when I’ve speedballed, and I haven’t done that often.

Lorna passes me the filled syringe.

“Thanks,” I say, rolling back the sleeve of my pink cardigan. I look for a vein. It’s hard to see with double vision. “Can you find a vein for me, please?” I ask her.

Lorna takes my hand in her lap. She runs her fingers softly over my arm. It feels like spiders are crawling on my skin where she’s touching me. “Here’s a good one.” She wraps my tan belt around my arm, just above the elbow.

“Is this the same kind of heroin as last time?” I ask. I know the heroin in Australia is different from England because it’s white, not brown, and it’s stronger. But this wasn’t the feeling I had on it last night.

“There’s only one kind of heroin, Nicole, and this is it. This guy’s stuff is always powerful. It’s more pure.” She strokes my hair away from my face. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel fine,” I lie. I’m too scared to tell her the truth.

“Gimme your arm back. How can I give you a shot like that?”

I didn’t realise before, but now I notice my arms are wrapped around my waist. The tan belt acting as a tourniquet is hanging loose. I’m holding myself. It’s that self-protection, or self-consoling or something. I put my hand back in her lap. I want the fix. I need the fix. She inserts the needle into the vein on the inside of my elbow. She pulls back the plunger then pushes in.

I don’t feel better. If anything, I feel worse. I should be lying back, gouching out, but I’m not. I’m still sat upright. My unseeing eyes feel wide open. I’m thinking Lorna’s going to tie me up to the bed. She’s going to steal all my money and credit cards. She wants to take my designer clothes, shoes and handbags. She doesn’t really like me. I thought she did. But now I don’t think so. I’m convinced she’s here to rob me. That’s the reason she wants to hang out with me. She wants everything I have.

Deadly Road – 21 December 2000 – 8.50PM

Soul Destruction - Diary of a London Call Girl

“What do you do for work?” Lorna asks. We’re driving back to Manly after scoring smack in Parramatta. I’ve no idea where we are now. We’ve been driving for around fifteen minutes. There’s bad traffic. I wonder if there’s been an accident. It can’t be rush hour at nearly nine at night.

“I’m a hooker.” I twist a strand of my hair around my forefinger.

“No, really. What do you do for work?”

“Really.” I look at her. “I’m a hooker. A call girl in London.”

“I would never have thought it.” Lorna keeps her focus on the road. “I used to work in a brothel. That’s the lower end though, isn’t it? Not a call girl.”

“It’s all the same, just better money,” I say. “I started streetwalking at fifteen. I had to get away from my pimp so I got into escorts. Then a while after that, when I was seventeen or eighteen, I started working for madams. It’s all a blur now.”

“I know what you mean. Not exactly the things in life you want to remember.”

I enjoy being stuck in the Dolomite for a while. I stop feeling frustrated at the traffic that’s holding us up. My hit is being delayed but I might have found someone in Sydney who could be a proper friend. I’m missing Shelley so much. She couldn’t be replaced. But to have someone to really talk to here, talk to honestly, would be a godsend. The closest I have is my therapist in London, Dr Fielding, over the phone, but she can’t understand like another working girl can.

We’re talking about our experiences of working when we get near to the sight. I know I shouldn’t look because it’ll upset me. Things like that always do. But I look. I can’t not. It’s on our side of the road, a bit further up. Ambulances, paramedics, police cars and police officers are at the scene. Bodies are lying on the grass verge at the side of the road. There’s at least two children – the bodies are small. The others, I can’t tell if they’re men or women. There must be about ten bodies in total. There’s blood on the road mixed in with broken glass. Parts from the cars are strewn across the carriageway – a twisted bumper and some other black, plastic objects that I don’t know the names for. Getting closer, a policeman is diverting the traffic in our lane to the lane on the other side.

“God bless them,” I say as we drive past. I shouldn’t have stared. The image is burned into my mind. Whether my eyes are open or closed, it’s what I see. A bright-red saloon car on its side, a bottle-green hatchback smashed into the back of it and a white four-by-four behind that. The green hatchback is tiny, squashed in the middle of the red and white cars. The people in that car must have died.

Lorna parks the Dolomite down the road from my hotel. As we walk from the car to the Radisson, I pray I don’t have another flashback if we end up having sex tonight. I’ve decided that if I do, I’m going to be honest about it and tell her what’s happening. Because Dr Fielding told me, I know that most working girls have been abused as children. So the chances are that Lorna will understand. Maybe she has flashbacks too. I wonder if she wants to stop using gear. Perhaps I’ll ask her about that. We could help each other. We could be good friends. I need a good friend here.

I see past Lorna’s defects. I have the same – the blemished skin, the proof I’ve been shooting up written all over my arms, the lank hair, the dead eyes and the skinniness. It’s all surface stuff, external. Inside, she’s a good person. I can tell.