Page 72 of A Long Way Back
“I have to pick those up so Dog doesn’t get them.” Ink stumbled into the main room and grabbed Dog before he could escape. He handed him to Tay, then grabbed a dustpan and brush from under the sink. He made sure he collected every pill before he took the dustpan back to the kitchen. The effort of doing that exhausted him.
“I need to lie down,” Ink muttered.
“Lie down with me. I want to yell at you and I’m too tired to stand up and do it.”
They stumbled into Tay’s bedroom and Ink crawled onto the bed.
“Don’t suppose you got the steak, either,” Tay said.
Ink laughed and yelped at the pain in his ribs. Dog tried to lick him, and Tay lifted him away. Ink felt Dog snuggling at his back.
Tay lay on his side and took hold of Ink’s hand. “You are such a dickhead. He could have killed you.”
“Drugs could killyou.”
Tay bit his lip.
“I know you feel bad, but you need to keep going. Five days to get over the worst. This is almost the end of day three. You can do it.”
“I feel so ill,” Tay whispered. “Like the worse flu I’ve ever had, that anyone’s ever had in the fucking history of flu. I keep thinking I’m never ever going to get over this. It’s like when I was lying in hospital after the fall, and I couldn’t make anyone understand I was still there. I might not have been able to speak or open my eyes, but I was… Still. Fucking. There. Except now, thereissomething that can make me feel okay, and not want to die anymore.” He gave a mirthless chuckle. “And it’s in that dustpan in the kitchen.”
“Don’t take it, please. Wipe that cretin’s number from your phone. Block him. We’ll talk to the doctor on Friday. Find something that will help, but don’t take those tablets.” Ink was finding it hard to keep his eyes open.
“Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“No.”
“I’ll look after you.”
“Good. I’d like steak and chips.” Ink fell asleep with a smile on his face.
Chapter Ten
TAY DIDN’T MOVE FROM INK’S side. He’d been stunned by the speed of the attack, horrified by the violence, distraught that he’d been unable to stop it. Things had spun out of control so quickly and all he’d been able to do was plead with a guy who was never going to listen. Ink had done nothing to deserve that. All he’d been trying to do was help, even offering Lennie his own money. Okay, Ink might have mentioned the police, but Lennie still shouldn’t have hit him.
He considered calling the police now and reluctantly concluded it would be a mistake. Hopefully, Lennie would just disappear from their lives, and Tay was fairly sure that wouldn’t happen if the police got involved. For a start, it meant admitting he’d been buying drugs and that would be his career down the drain. Just as importantly, the police could make trouble for the guy he was lying next to and whatever it was that made Ink so nervy, the police would make it worse.
Ink had to have known what would happen when he confronted Lennie. The guy was twice Ink’s size. Tay frowned. Had Ink let himself get beaten so Tay got the message about what Lennie could do?Shit.Lennie had really hurt him. Ink was sleeping now, or at least resting with his eyes closed, one side of his face bruised and swollen. The bleeding had stopped, but his breathing was ragged. What if he had internal injuries?Oh God, I need to call someone. Why aren’t I on the phone to the police? Or to the ambulance service?
“No…police,” Ink muttered as if he was reading Tay’s mind. “Just make it worse. No…hospital either. Be okay in a bit. No broken bones. Need to rest.”
Dog climbed over Ink, jumped down from the bed, and sniffed at the door.
“You want to go out?” Tay asked.
Dog wagged his tail. Tay pushed himself up, slotted his arms into his crutches and followed Dog to the back door. He thought back to the fun he and Ink had had out there not so long ago, and felt sick as he accepted how far he’d fallen. Whether Ink had intended the message or not, Tay got it. This was all his fault. Now he had to make it right.
Back in the flat, Dog returned to the bed, and Tay headed to the kitchen. The dustpan of tablets sat on the work surface. Tay wished that he hadn’t hesitated, but there was a pause while he ran through the consequences of keeping a few tablets, just in case, taking a couple now to calm him down, even giving a couple to Ink.
The means to feel great was just sitting there waiting for him. He could throw them away tomorrow. The tablets were smeared with blood, mixed in with a few bits of dust and fluff, but still retrievable. They were what he’d been desperate for when he’d sent Ink to get the cash. Except now his desperation was punctured by guilt.
As if to shore up his wilting resolution, he thought again about Ink, how he’d stood up to Lennie, how hard Lennie had hit him and kicked him. Tay groaned. He put all the tablets in a plastic bag, squirted in washing up liquid and crushed them with a mug before he could change his mind. Once the bag was in the waste bin, he released a shaky breath. He waited for regret to strike, for need to fill his throat. If this had happened yesterday, he wasn’t sure he’d have been as strong. Not that he felt strong. He was still shaking inside and out. Withdrawal? Anxiety? Guilt?
In the bedroom, Ink lay exactly as he’d left him. Dog was curled up behind Ink’s knees. Tay lay down and took hold of Ink’s hand. The awareness of how far Ink had been prepared to go to help him, the risk he’d taken, and his own inability to stop Lennie hitting him had caused something to shift inside Tay, allowing a ray of clarity to shine into his clouded mind.
Jonty would have done exactly the same as Ink. Jonty would be trying to get him off codeine. Jonty would have stood up to Lennie and been battered like Ink. Tay had thought he’d never have another friend like Jonty and he’d been wrong. He’d known Ink for less than a week, but it was long enough to see the sort of guy he was.
Wasn’t Ink exactly who he needed?A tough friend who tried to make him do the right thing? Whether he was what Ink needed was another matter. And there was the other…issue. Ink hadn’t been honest with him. There was something in his past that he was hiding, something he was hiding from. Though telling Tay he’d sold himself for sex was a pretty big admission. What could be worse than that? Tay’s mind started to make crap up—gangs, drugs, theft, assault, prison…and he stopped himself.
