Heathers Busy Week Pt 06

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

(Thursday, 25th April 2002)

By all rights Carrie should have been pissed off, but a flicker of hope burned inside her. After the foulest sequence of setbacks she'd finally had a break. Now, if she played her cards right, if everything went to plan . . .

Jesus, she thought, I need a hit. Just one last hit . . .

The doctor had been bang on when he'd told her the addiction was in her head. She didn't have a physical craving; she just couldn't stop thinking about that magical white powder.

Just one last hit . . .

She knew Mother was right in insisting on detox. She'd had a narrow escape on Sunday and couldn't go through that sort of experience again. It really was time to clean up her act. And she would, because she was strong. She'd sail through whatever tasks the doctors imposed on her. Never mind twenty-eight days, she'd be discharged by this time next week. She was one of life's winners. Always had been. All she needed was to get herself from now, half past midnight Thursday morning, to ten o'clock Friday morning. And there was an easy way to do that, wasn't there?

Just one last hit . . .

Carrie cast her mind back a few hours, trying to divert it. Wednesday was the one day of the week with restricted visiting, so she'd been spared Alex and Mother for once. Instead she'd been questioned by the police.

Again.

There had been two of them: DI Fazakerley and a miserable bitch with Norwegian glaciers for eyes. Taking advice from a nurse, Carrie let them interview her in bed. According to the nurse, "coppers" liked to do interviews in private rooms so they could apply heavy pressure (she said "heavy pressure" as if it included waterboarding and thumbscrews). But not on her watch, not if she had any say in the matter. 'Don't take any nonsense from them,' she'd said. 'One press of your buzzer and I have them out on their ears.'

Fazakerley had done most of the talking while the miserable bitch took notes. He'd wanted to know where she'd got her coke from, and when. Expecting that, she assured him her second statement . . . the one she'd agreed with Heather whore Hunter . . . was factually correct. She just hadn't mentioned the cocaine Ross had unexpectedly pressed on her.

Next up she was asked about Whore Hunter. Lying through her teeth, she'd maintained that they hadn't spoken since Friday and would never be speaking again. Fazakerley had grunted and said their statements tallied, more or less. Seizing the opportunity, Carrie had said it was good to hear the devious cow was telling the truth for a change.

She'd stonewalled when the miserable bitch asked her about previous use. Only the once and never again, she'd said . . . and thank God for doctor/patient confidentiality!

His colleague obviously wanted to press charges but Fazakerley had considered the bigger picture. Carrie had actually seen the thoughts going through his head. Nothing to be gained by charging the lass. Most she'd ever get would be a slap on the wrist. Walker is a different kettle of fish altogether. And she can add to the case against him . . .

In the end they'd rewritten the witness statement, copying most of the last one but changing the slant slightly, and adding a few choice paragraphs to nail Ross's coffin. She'd been okay with that. She was, after all, telling the truth. And Ross's coke had nearly fucking-well killed her.

Carrie only noticed the cold after the police had gone. Feeling cold worried her. The hospital was always stiflingly hot, with no oxygen in the disinfectant-flavoured air. And that was before you overdosed. Feeling cold wasn't ever supposed to happen.

A passing nurse had put her mind at ease. She wasn't relapsing or suffering from withdrawal symptoms, the heating was playing up. It was Siberia in the women's side of the ward, sauna-time in the men's. The engineer had been called . . .

Dr Strickland had taken Carrie's clothes away. His reasoning was that an addict would find it harder to escape in an NHS nightie. Carrie had reckoned it would be just as hard to sit out in Siberia, so she'd stayed where she was.

Marina dropped by perhaps an hour later. Marina was a care worker and had to be the nicest person Carrie had ever met. She didn't speak a lot of English but had a smile that would have cheered up Scrooge.

'Still in bed!'

Carrie had smiled back at her. It was impossible not to. 'It's too cold without my clothes.' She pulled the bedsheets tighter, pretending to shiver. 'Brrr, brrr!'

Ten minutes later Marina was back, closing the privacy curtains behind her. 'Clothes,' she said.

Carrie could have kissed her. They weren't just any old clothes, they were her clothes. The ones she'd been brought here in.

'You put on.' Marina was holding out a garment, a quizzical expression on her face.

Carrie had had the grace to blush. There wasn't a lesbian bone in her body but she did have a few mannish-isms. Occasionally wearing Alex's boxers was one of them. She liked the airy sense of freedom. But explaining that to an Eastern European with limited lingo . . .

She'd put them on. Then, cursing herself as a Sunday morning slob, she put on her trackie bottoms. There would have been money in her jeans. Not much, but some. And Mother had confiscated the cards and cash from her wallet.

Fully dressed, she'd let Marina help her out of bed and into her sitting-out chair. She hadn't actually needed any help but had been feigning a lack of balance since she'd left HDU. No particular reason. She'd just thought it gave her an edge.

'I finish early today,' Marina said. 'See you tomorrow.'

Carrie waved her off and asked her to leave the curtains drawn. As soon as she went Carrie was out of her chair and stripping. Safely back in her nightdress, she'd stashed her clothes in the bottom of the bedside locker.

Big break or what?

The plan was to wait until the ward settled down for the night. Sneak out. Find a dealer. Have just one last hit. Sneak back in . . .

Finding a dealer wouldn't be a problem. Ross had started her off on coke in a generous sort of a way. Leastways, he'd been generous when she was sucking and fucking his cock. She'd only seen him every now and then, though. And the supplies he gave her lasted days rather than weeks, so she'd needed another source. Or sources.

Getting a new dealer had been a piece of piss. Getting a new dealer with gear the quality of Ross's was much more difficult. The strength was always inferior and some of it stank. She'd had hits that smelt of paint-stripper and hits that smelt of cat pee. She'd found it hard to inhale powdered cat pee. Hard but not impossible.

And the cost of it!

Cost was her major concern. Her wallet (another mannish-ism) now contained a tatty fiver, her student union card, library cards from university and back home in Kent . . . and bugger-all else. Normally she kept a minimum of fifty quid in there. Mother had left enough to buy a few newspapers and nothing more.

And Mother had confiscated that money from Whore Hunter! Two hundred and fifty quid that had been earmarked for white powder ahead of white dresses. Another little lifeline that was no more.

Here, in her hospital bed, Carrie's only asset was a wristwatch. It was nice enough, but she'd bought it from Samuels for £39.99. Waterproof or not, she doubted it had appreciated much in the two years she'd had it.

Sex was the answer. One of her regular dealers had told her that she could easily get herself "a little discount". And he hadn't just told her that once. As she understood it, a blowjob would get her twenty-five per cent off. Surely a couple of fucks would get her a freebie.

Sneaking out time was fast approaching. The main lights in the ward had been switched off long ago. Carrie's fellow patients were all in bed, most of them snoring in the semi-darkness. She was already fully dressed under the sheets and ready to go. A nurse would be doing her rounds at any moment. As soon as she'd gone . . .

And here she was! Carrie didn't try to pretend to be asleep because nurses could always tell. Instead she yawned and tried to seem drowsy.

'Night-night,' said the nurse, moving on to the next bed.

Then pandemonium! Suddenly an alarm was ringing. Other nurses were arriving on the run, sensible shoes clattering on hard floors.

Fuck! I do not need this!

Except, Carrie gradually realized, maybe she did need a diversion. And, as diversions went, this was a lulu. In a matter of seconds her neighbour's bed was curtained off and surrounded by lots of medics and nurses. From what she overheard, it was a heart attack.

Nobody was looking her way so Carrie got up and pulled her nightdress on over her clothes. Holding her trainers, she made for the corridor.

But the duty nurse must have been looking her way after all. 'Carrie!' she called. 'Where are you going?'

'I need the loo,' Carrie said innocently.

The nurse nodded and turned away as a voice cried, 'Stand back!'

If Carrie turned left the exit would be forty or fifty yards away, at the end of the ward's central corridor. But going that way involved passing the nurses' station, and the station was always manned. Turning right took her past the toilets, along a much shorter bit of corridor that ended in a fire door. She knew there was a staircase behind that door. God knew where it went, but she was determined to find out.

The stairwell and stairs were illuminated by night lights. Breathing hard, Carrie removed the nightdress and put on her trainers.

'Bless you, Elf and Safety,' she muttered as she started to ascend.

The staircase was in two flights, doubling back on itself. She soon reached the first floor and, peering through the glass in another fire door, saw another ward. It was identical to her own ground floor ward; she was sure it would have the nurses' station in the same sort of location.

Onwards and upwards.

Two more flights and the stairs ended on a second floor landing. Promisingly, there were two fire doors to choose from up there. Carrie peered through the nearest and saw yet another ward. She couldn't see anything apart from inky blackness through the other. Bracing herself, she turned the knob, expecting the door to be locked. It wasn't. It opened into a small, unlit room that reeked of various detergents.

There was a light switch just inside the room. Carrie flicked it on then off again, swiftly taking everything in. It was a base for the cleaners. Shelves stocked with industrial-sized containers of bleach and polish. Buckets with mops in them. More interestingly, there was another door. She fumbled her way to it and looked out.

Bingo! This wasn't a corridor within a ward, it was the well-illuminated main corridor between lots of wards. Her road to freedom. She tried the door knob and cursed when it wouldn't turn.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Not ready to give in she risked the light again, hoping to see keys somewhere. Instead she saw that she didn't need any. The knob was the sort with an inbuilt catch. When she turned the catch the knob was no longer unmoveable.

Carrie went back to the first door and locked it from the inside, wanting to delay or mislead any pursuers. Then, sticking her NHS nightie in a mop bucket, she clicked off the lights and stepped out into the deserted main corridor.

Junior doctor, she thought. I'm a junior doctor with every right to be here.

Passing entrances to wards on both sides, she came to a ladies' rest room. She went inside on impulse, making straight for the washbasins, checking herself out in the mirror. Pale face. Black bags under her eyes. Messy hair . . .

Yep, I'm a junior doctor all right!

She rinsed her face then, repeatedly wetting her hands, used her fingers as a comb. Luckily, her hair was short and easy to tease into some sort of shape. Then, realizing she needed to pee, she shut herself in a cubicle.

The main door into the toilets opened while Carrie was pulling up her trackie bottoms. Not eager to see or speak to anyone, she stayed where she was, listening intently. A woman's cough and footsteps. Then a running tap and another cough. And then the sound of a cubicle door closing.

Carrie hit the flush and got the fuck out of there. And paused. There was a clipboard balanced on one of the basins. Snatching it, she hurried out into the corridor.

I'm a junior doctor, she thought, and I've got a clipboard to prove it.

She didn't have a nametag, though. Expecting to be challenged at any second, she hurried on. Holding the clipboard against her chest might just work.

That's where nametags are worn, isn't it? she told herself. Everyone will assume I'm modestly covering my tits, only co-incidentally hiding my ID.

Perhaps halfway along the corridor she came to more steps. These weren't concealed behind fire doors and were relatively worn. They were obviously a well-travelled route between floors. Gift horse in the mouth or what? Thirty seconds and Carrie was back at ground level, staring up and down another well-illuminated main corridor. Left led to her ward and was therefore out of the question. Right it was, then . . .

Hang on, what's that?

Directly opposite her position at the bottom of the stairs there was a door. Although it looked like an emergency exit it had a sign saying:

STAFF EXIT ONLY

She approached the door and sighed when she saw a keypad on the wall. The bastard thing was code-controlled. Then came another big break. Before she could vent her rage the door was opened by a smiling nurse.

'Ciggie time, is it?'

Carrie nodded and stepped out into fresh air. Yesterday's torrential rain had stopped late on into the evening. It had left its mark, however; there were puddles everywhere, the pavements looked drowned and even the air felt wet. Overcoming an urge to bolt, she joined her saviour and another nurse, both of them smoking like chimneys.

'I've only just started here,' Carrie said. 'I don't know all the codes yet.'

'That one's 7416. Aren't you lighting up?'

Carrie patted her pockets. 'I seem to have . . . er . . .'

'A penniless junior doctor, eh?' Carrie's saviour produced a packet of Bensons and somehow made one cigarette stick out from its ranks of companions. 'Just remember me when you're rich and I'm still a penniless nurse.'

Carrie took the cigarette and accepted a light from her saviour's colleague. Smoking tobacco was bad for her football, so she didn't normally do it. She still smoked plenty of joints, though, so knew exactly how it was done.

'7416,' the nurse said as she and her colleague went back inside.

Carrie took in her surroundings. She was in a fairly large staff car park which was more than half-empty at this ungodly hour. Some helpful person had painted big white arrows onto the tarmac, presumably showing the way to the exit. Stubbing out her cig, she followed them.

*****

Heather was pleased with herself as she arrived back in the bedroom. Not many naked girls could have carried two bottles of wine, two glasses and a corkscrew all the way up here.

Stuffypants was still on the bed, although she'd shifted into a sitting position, the top half of her body propped up by the brass bedhead. She'd also shifted onto the relatively dry left-hand side of the duvet.

'What's the choice?' she asked. 'Chilled red or warm white?'

'It's chilled Pinot or room temperature Shiraz, actually. Does that meet your exceptionally high standards?'

'Chilled Pinot will, I must admit.' Then, while Heather put the corkscrew to use, 'That's a very traditional way to seal a bottle.'

'DC Pants-Parker, do not get me going about those poor Portuguese cork farmers.'

'I wasn't trying to.'

'Too late. I'm off. Do you know that fifty per cent of the world's cork comes from Portugal?'

'Er . . . no.'

'Well it does. Cork is a big business out there. It's a wonderful product. It's fire resistant, water resistant, a great insulator . . . used for buoys and floats as well as in just about every civilized household. And it's sustainable. You don't have to chop a tree down to get cork. It's extracted from the bark, but only once every nine years. And those trees can live for three centuries, by the way. Three centuries! Hunters Farm didn't last nearly that long, and we Hunters had it for six generations.'

'Okay, I'm impressed,' said Stuffypants. 'It is a wonderful product.'

'Are you being sarcastic?'

'No, I mean it. Screwcaps are more convenient, but the sound of a cork being extracted is very romantic. And champagne corks make my knees go weak.'

'Screwcaps are an abomination. I used to prefer them, I must admit, then I read an article on modern-day bottle-stoppers and the world shifted on its axis. I know I just extolled cork for all sorts of reasons, but sixty per cent of all production is used in bottles. And that's older, high-quality cork. Sixty per cent!'

'Doesn't Spain produce cork as well?'

'Yes, but not nearly as much. And the Spanish can look after themselves, can't they?'

'If you say so.'

'Most of the article was about the decline in demand for high-quality cork,' Heather went on zealously. 'Nowadays all the mass-producers of wine want cheaper alternatives. And a lot of them have vineyards a long way away from Portugal, of course. As a result our supermarket shelves are filled with bottles that aren't environmentally friendly.'

'It's not just sentiment, then?'

'No it is not. A traditional cork stopper emits hardly any CO2. A plastic stopper emits ten times as much. And an aluminium stopper emits twenty-six times as much. Bear in mind that there are twenty billion bottles of wine sold every year. Back in the day they all used to be stopped with real corks. Now it's down to sixty per cent. That's a lot of needless emissions, isn't it?'

'It certainly is. Er, am I getting a Pinot or not?'

Heather gave Stuffypants her drink then climbed onto the bed before pouring herself a Shiraz. 'I'm sorry for smacking your bum,' she said, clinking glasses.

'And I'm sorry for smacking your tits.'

'It was strange,' Heather confessed. 'Nobody's done that before. I didn't exactly enjoy it, but I didn't hate it, either. And now, looking back, I think it was fun.'

'I enjoyed your bum-smacking too. Although I couldn't have taken a lot more.'

'Trade secret,' said Heather, 'I couldn't have given a lot more. My hands were tingling.'

'And now you tell me! Come here.'

Heather assumed Stuffypants wanted a kiss. She was surprised when the other girl squirted white wine into her mouth.

'Drink it,' Stuffypants commanded.

Heather obediently drank. Then she took a sip of red and squirted it into Stuffypants' mouth.

'Drink it,' she commanded.

The next fifteen minutes or so were spent swapping mouthfuls of wine. It was a pleasantly childish diversion and so un-Stuffypants it wasn't true.

'That was good,' Heather said, replenishing their glasses, this time giving the policewoman red and herself white. 'So now are you going to tell me?'

'Tell me what?'

'What your first name is.' Then, quickly, before she could be palmed off: 'You call me all sorts. "Miss Hunter". "Hunter". "Heather". Probably a few insulting names as well. Here's another for your collection. Friends and lovers call me "Hev".'

'Friends and lovers? Which am I?'

'You're definitely a woman I can have sex with. A woman who likes fucking and being fucked. That makes you a lover, and I can live with that. I could live with being friends too, unlikely as that may seem.'

'We haven't exactly made love yet, have we?'

'I use "lover" as an all-embracing term. It covers a lot of eventualities. Which is just as well as far as you are concerned. I think we're better suited to fucking than making love. Although we could always try . . .'

'Christina.'

'What?'

'Christina. That's my first name.'