The Survival Game (18 page)

Well, whatever the problems in society were, she had enough of her own since John managed to lose their home and all their savings. She remembered how she felt just after it all sunk in, and she realised she’d have to live in a caravan.

It’s only temporary,
he kept saying.
Just till I sort it…

And how are you gonna do that, John?
she’d asked repeatedly.
You’ve got no job. You can’t get a job because of your record. We have no more money…

Then that delivery job turned up to save them. She bought into it once she saw how much he was getting paid. At the back of her mind she always knew something dodgy was going on.
Why would someone pay so much just to deliver some cooking ingredients?
But the cash he got was very, very good, and so she was willing to turn a blind eye to it just till they had enough cash to put down a deposit on a flat. After all, he
had
been returning home in one piece after every delivery until the other night…

And at first John was so excited about the job. Acting like it had been sent from God or something. She remembered thinking how he was acting like a completely different man, realising it was because he suddenly had something to aim for. And she’d been so heartened to see him excited and positive. Working. Saving. She decided to just take a back seat and let things play out. After all, he
was
working for that Aziz character, so you could never be one hundred per cent certain about anything. It could all still go wrong.

And it did, didn’t it?

Yes, he ended up in hospital, in some kind of coma. Seeing him lying there brought back all those old feelings. The feeling of being let down, lied to, cheated. At first she thought he was back to his old ways—drug dealing/taking, and that he’d been feeding her nothing but bullshit. And being with those two bastards at the hospital made it worse. And even though John explained what happened, and her anger diverted from him to the people that did that to him, she still felt both disappointed and scared.

Will anything ever be normal for us?

Or am I doomed for life?

She thought about her friends and associates. They all seemed to be happy. Happy in their semi-detached houses, happy in their BMWs and Mercs. Their husbands were accountants and solicitors. Their kids played for football teams on Sundays. Everything was normal for them.
Why couldn’t her life be like that?
It was a mess in comparison.

What have I done to deserve this? What did I do so wrong?
And it wasn’t just her home life that was bad. She thought of those bitches at work.
Yeaaauggh, those little slappers.
God she was glad to be away from them and that dental practice—The Gleam Team.
The sodding Gleam Team, what a joke!
As it was situated in one of the nicer parts of town, the other receptionists tended to be such stuck up pigs, just sponging off their spouses. Going on about their wealthy husbands, their two foreign holidays a year, their platinum credit cards, and how they only need to work part time while Alisha was doing overtime. Then turning to her and asking what exactly is it that her husband does for a living. And that was when she had to lie and she didn’t like that. They looked down at her. Because of race and class.
A poor black girl who married a bad ’un. A Greek. Well, what do you expect if you marry a Greek? You know what they say—you should never trust a man whose eyebrows meet in the middle.

And when they found out she was pregnant, one of them had the cheek to say—
ooh, you’ll have a hairy baby,
and they all laughed like it was funny.

Bitches. Slappers. She never thought people like that actually existed, but they seemed to have all magnetically gathered at the same place.

And the head dentist was no better—Damon Powell. Thought he was a hit with the ladies. When in truth he was a short, fat, bald git with as much charm as a malaria-ridden mosquito.
God, the way he looked at her, it made her skin crawl.
His ‘friendly’ little pats on the shoulder as he collected a patient’s notes. Winking at her from across the room. The image now in her mind’s eye made her cringe. She was more than pleased to be away from there, for a while at least.

She decided that once they had their new flat (whenever and however that may be) it would be a new start, and she’d look for a new job, away from the Grim Team. John would have to get a job as well, even if it meant setting something up for himself. Window cleaning, handy work, anything. But she was always afraid that would turn out to be nothing more than wishful thinking. Like right now; he’s apparently working in Aziz’s shop as they both agreed it would do him good after what happened. Get his confidence back, help him recover. Okay, good thinking, but after the last time,
and
with his ‘previous,’ how legit was it?

Working in a shop he told her.
Hornsey Food & Wine.

What exactly is the going rate for doing that?
Probably not a lot. He said Aziz was gonna pay him overtime rates. Her response to that was she’ll believe it when she sees it. And besides the financial aspects, she was worried about him.
Was he okay? What shit was he getting into now?
She prayed that he really was working in a shop and not doing something dodgy. She couldn’t help feeling that way. Not after all the other crap. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt so badly, but she couldn’t hide from the truth either.

And she’d already given him the benefit of the doubt on a major personal issue.

The thing with Yousif, her brother.

She first met John through him, after he’d already met John at a club in Tottenham. By then Yousif had a heroin problem that he’d managed to keep secret from her. John was using heroin as well, although she was unaware of it at first. He wasn’t injecting like Yousif was, he was just smoking it; something he picked up in prison, and was trying to beat. John was also dealing at the time. Nothing major (she thought); weed, that sort of thing. At first she thought it was sort of cool. He was nice, not the arrogant type of dealer like she’d met before, but a more gentlemanly one. He had a bad boy streak that she liked, at the time finding it a bit of a turn on; young and naive and all that… They started seeing each other, nothing too serious at first. After all, John
was
a drug dealer. But once they started to get close, he opened up about his heroin problem, and how he wanted to beat it. She helped him with it, and to her surprise and delight, he actually gave it up pretty quickly. But it was when Yousif later died from a heroin overdose that she and John became close. Yousif’s death came as such a massive shock that she went close to losing her mind. But John was there for her the way she’d been there for him. He helped her through it all, every painful moment. And in truth, she was certain that if he hadn’t been there, she would’ve plummeted right over the edge of the cliff and into the abyss of depression and insanity.

Yousif kept his addiction secret, and so she had no idea just how bad his problem was until it was too late. She regretted more than anything not getting a chance to help him. She promised herself that if she ever found out who gave him that shit in the first place, she’d kill them. As John was using
and
dealing at the time he first met Yousif, she confronted him, asking him straight if it was him who got Yousif into heroin. John looked her sincerely in the eye and told her it wasn’t him and he had no idea who’d first sold Yousif that shit.

That was the first time she’d given him the benefit of the doubt on a major issue.

Besides, she believed him. If he said it wasn’t him, then it wasn’t him.

A couple of years later and they got married. That was when everything was at its best. It was perfect. They had a home. John was clean and had stopped dealing. They were happy.

But then he started hanging around that snooker hall and everything just went…
wrong.

Now they were in a caravan.

She thought back to what her parents said to her just before they got married—that,
he was trouble. He wasn’t ‘one of them.’
They were dead set against her marrying him. She let them know she didn’t care what they thought because she loved him. It was the last time she spoke to her father. She still saw her mother, but only behind her father’s back. But even that didn’t last long because she couldn’t face telling her about the gambling debts and the caravan. Couldn’t bear to hear her saying ‘I told you so…

I told you so…’

So, she was alone.

She stared with half-closed eyes at the tulip John brought home for her the other day. She’d put it in an old beer can along with some water and placed it on the table.

Yes, she was alone, but she had John. She sighed.
Oh, John, why can’t you just be normal, babe? Why can’t you just be…

normal?

She now found herself reflecting on John’s behaviour since he came out of hospital. Distant one minute, snapping for no reason the next. Maybe those arseholes that attacked him did something really bad to him that he was keeping to himself. Or maybe being in that coma had affected his mind. As if it needed affecting any more…

She wondered where he was right now.

Working in Aziz’s shop, he told you. Hornsey Food & Wine. Now be a dutiful wife and wait patiently for your husband to return home.

Yeah, right.

God, I hope he’s not doing anything stupid right now. Please tell me he’s not. I don’t think we could handle it.

She shook off the thought before it had a chance to send her spiralling into manic depression, picked up her pen again, and went back to her incomplete Sudoku puzzle. She looked at a horizontal line and worked it out. She filled in the space with an 8.

Then, just after she did, the door opened and in walked John. She looked up from her book.

John puffed his cheeks and then rubbed his face with his free hand. He looked exhausted. ‘What a fucking day,’ he said.

Alisha squinted her eyes, scrutinising him closer.
Did he leave this morning with those clothes on?

She’d never seen them before in her life.

He came over and dumped a bag of Chinese food on the table and turned away. He then went back to the front door, opened it, lit a cigarette, and began puffing away.

Alisha looked around her, feeling confused. She might as well have been a ghost. He didn’t speak to her, kiss her, or even acknowledge her. And she hadn’t failed to notice the worn out look on his face either. Like he hadn’t slept for days.

What was going on with him?

‘John?’ she called.

He didn’t answer, like he was in a trance.

Is it something I’ve done?

‘
Yoo-hoo, John!
’ She called again. This time his head snapped round as if she’d just awoken him from a dream.
Man, he looked so so tired.
‘Did you have those clothes on this morning?’ she asked. ‘
And why are you so dirty?
’

John stared down at his clothes for a second. He then licked his hand and wiped his dirty cheek with it. ‘Ah, yeah… I-I got bleach on my clothes this morning,’ he replied, waving his hand flippantly on the air. ‘I’ve been lifting things all day.’

‘Bleach?’

‘Yeah,’ John said as he blew smoke into the air outside. ‘I was carrying a box of the stuff at the shop. I slipped and dropped it. The bottles inside broke open and I got bleach all over me. The clothes I had on this morning are ruined. So I dumped ’em, and went and bought some more.’ He carried on staring outside, sighing and smoking.

Something
was
up with him, ever since that night, whatever happened—

A gorgeous smell then hit her nostrils, derailing her train of thought. It was fried rice, noodles, crispy duck, prawn crackers. MSG. She closed her eyes and savoured it.
Aaaahhh.
She went and grabbed the bag John just dumped on the table and opened it up, taking in the sweet aromas deeply. Suddenly John and his shit were put on the back burner. It was dinnertime (prawn crackers), and at least he returned home when he was supposed to (fried noodles), and she knew he was safe although (crispy
crispy
duck was just
sooooo
damn tasty).

She pulled a foil container out from the bag and peeled off the lid. She quickly grabbed a fork and tucked in. John carried on smoking by the door, staring out into space.

‘You not eating?’ she asked, and suddenly déjà vu hit her hard.
Weren’t we going through this just the other day…?

John threw his cigarette butt out of the door and closed it up. He turned to face her. ‘Nah, you eat. I’m gonna go have a shower.’ He walked over to the bed and began to get undressed. She watched him with half-sad eyes. Even though the food was doing wonders for her, the sight of him looking so tired and fed up hurt her deeply. She shared those feelings alongside him. But only in silence. John always bottled things up, and that was his problem. He never spoke about how he felt, always keeping his problems locked away inside him, thinking he could deal with it all by himself. In a way she admired that aspect of his character, and as she watched him undress, his back turned to her, she realised that was why she loved him; he was strong, brave. He faced life’s challenges single-handedly. A real soldier. But being married to him had made her realise that sometimes even the most brave of men needed to open up now and again. To pour their hearts out. No one, no matter how strong they believed themselves to be could get through life alone. John just couldn’t see that, and no matter how hard she tried to make him realise, she felt like she was doing nothing but smacking brick walls head on. She feared that until he realised that, he’d never be a happy man.

And maybe
she
would never be a happy woman.

He stepped into the shower, his shoulders hunched. Alisha knew he’d never walk around the streets like that. It would show weakness. Expose him as easy prey. But she got to see the
real
John. The one that was special only to her.