Accidental Addict
by
Leonie Martin

 

Someone was shredding the pure, white piece of paper that had once been her daughter’s life-plan. Thick flakes of snow drifted silently from the dense, early morning sky, shrouding the crowded hospital car park. Reds, blues and greens gradually lost their vibrancy.

Penny had stepped out through a side-entrance, hoping to find cool, fresh air to clear her head. It had been a long night pacing those endless hospital corridors. As the door swung open, a cloud of cigarette smoke engulfed her.

‘Friend or foe?’ rasped a voice at her side.

Leaning beneath the door-canopy stood a grey-faced, old man, sucking hungrily on the remains of a soggy roll-up. His vein-rippled hands trembled as the cold January air permeated his baggy dressing gown. ‘Thought you were that bossy nurse, come to tell me off again,’ he said, clearing his throat noisily before taking another deep pull. The end of his cigarette glowed like a hot coal in the whiteness now surrounding them. ‘Have you come to join me?’ He offered her a cigarette, his grin displaying the yellowing remains of a set of teeth. They were like tombstones: all leaning at different angles.

‘No thanks, love’ Penny replied, shaking her head. ‘I gave up - ten years ago now.’ She hugged her arms around herself.

Ten years. It was one of the first things she’d done when she’d found out about Emily’s “problem.” She’d wanted to set a good example: show willpower. If only Emily had been able to find that same willpower. And now it was too late.

It had been an endless walk from one part of the hospital to another last night, but finally, gowned up in green, Penny had been allowed access to the special unit; filled with bleeping instruments and eye-watering, clinical smells.

‘The next twenty-four hours are critical,’ the doctor had told her, head bowed with the weight of implication. How many times had Penny heard those words over the years? How many lies had been told and believed? Tears shed?

She’d gazed down at the fragile body; her own flesh and blood. Snake-like needles and tubes hissed lifesaving chemicals into writhing arms and legs. But she’d reminded herself that these were friendly needles: unlike the contaminated shards of steel that had ruined Emily’s life.

‘Are you sure you don’t want one?’ urged the voice at her side again, ‘looks like you could do with a friend…’

‘Thank you…but no,’ she replied, sorely tempted to accept his offer this time. What did it matter now anyway?

The snow seemed to be easing, but an icy wind grabbed at a final flurry of flakes, sending them spiralling out of control. She shivered, reaching in her bag for a tissue to blow her nose, and found her hand clutching the baby photo she kept of Emily in its silver frame. Their family resemblance was remarkable: same aqua-marine eyes; same wayward curls. Penny reached a hand up, tucking a grey-brown strand behind her ear. She recalled a time when her daughter’s young skin had bloomed with promise; when her limbs and veins had been fluid and flexible.

Emily had taken her first steps in the small flat Penny and Jack had rented when they’d found out their baby was on the way. Christmas had been magical that first year, twenty-eight years ago. She pictured her daughter’s soft, chubby legs careering across the carpet.

‘Come to Mummy,’ Penny had called, arms open in anticipation. But Emily had teetered past her, drawn to a sunbeam reflecting off a piece of silver tinsel on the window-sill.

Almost from the outset, Emily had insisted on going her own way. Those once-chubby legs were soon clad in denim, playing chase in the park with the wrong sort of friends; returning home covered in bruises and fresh scabs. Then, one day, Jack came home from work smelling of beer, his shoulders slumped: he’d been made redundant. Penny was forced to work double-shifts to make ends meet. She’d had neither the time nor the energy to keep up with Emily’s attitude, which seemed to grow in proportion to her long, skinny legs, now bared to all beneath tiny, teasing mini skirts. And she and Jack began to grow apart.

At just eighteen Emily had been introduced to her fate by her then boyfriend. Not long after this, Penny and Jack had finally decided to separate, following years of tight-lipped tension. At first, Sam had seemed pleasant enough: he appeared to make Emily happy, always turning up with a smile on his tanned face. But there was something about him Penny couldn’t quite put her finger on. He was five years older than Emily and quite successful in whatever it was he did for a living. Turning up in his sports car with fresh cut flowers; whisking her off on nights out and weekends away.

‘Got to make a phone call,’ was Sam’s stock phrase. The phone calls were always urgent; carried out in hushed tones on the other side of any convenient door. When he smiled, she began to notice that it never quite reached as far as his green eyes. But Emily’s eyes would sparkle as soon as she heard the thrum of his red car pull up outside their small terraced house.

Penny had simply been relieved that after living for so long in the toxic atmosphere between her parents, it hadn’t put Emily off forming a relationship. But she realised now, too late, that her feelings of relief had numbed her intuition, preventing her from seeing early warning signs, which might otherwise have averted what soon became a relentless rollercoaster.

One summer morning Emily had been picking at her breakfast, lank hair hanging down over her face, when Penny had commented on the bruises inside her arms.

‘Just get off my case will you, Mum?’ Emily retorted, snapping her head back. ‘I’m not a kid anymore you know.’ The sound of a car horn outside broke the loaded silence. Penny watched her daughter’s stick-like legs rush down the garden path towards Sam’s red car, a tight knot in her stomach.

Every meal time became a battle ground.

‘But it’s your favourite,’ Penny would say, as Emily pushed her food around the plate.

‘I’m not hungry,’ was the frequent reply, with a glance at the clock.

It was only a matter of time before Emily was thrown off her college course. Instead, she became skilled at failed promises, which only lasted until the next giro came through. ‘Pay day,’ Emily liked to call it. For so many years her poor body had certainly paid the price; but so had Penny. Emily’s habit had bled them dry - forcing Penny to scour the supermarket shelves at the end of each day for reduced items fast approaching their sell by date. As her daughter had begun to lose her glow, Sam’s interest in her had faded. One day last summer, his red car failed to turn up. The fresh cut flowers wilted in their vase. And now, he’d left his legacy; but given up his rights.

 

A rattling cough at Penny’s side startled her. It sounded like a car refusing to start. She turned to offer the old man a tissue and noticed her distorted reflection in the glass door. Was she, too, past her sell by date?

She’d always wondered if Emily’s weakness had been a genetic thing – perhaps she’d never know. But of one thing she was sure. The fragile form she’d seen last night, surrounded by blinking monitors, wouldn’t be leaving this hospital until she’d made the necessary arrangements. And they were almost in place now. She wouldn’t give up hope.

‘Look,’ said the old man, ‘up there.’

‘What?’ mumbled Penny, lost in her thoughts.

‘Blue sky,’ he wheezed, building up for a fresh bout of coughing.

Penny looked up. A weak sun had begun to melt through the heavy white layers of cloud, creating a patch of pale-blue. Optimism flickered through her soul. ‘We’d better get back inside before that nurse comes after you,’ she said, gently supporting him by the elbow as they returned to the warmth inside the hospital.

Making her way back down the long corridor, she tried to focus on the bright pictures lining the walls. But when she got there her heart lurched. Through the glass window she could see a huddle of doctors and nurses. One of them turned and caught her eye. Penny searched the woman’s face for information. And instead of the gravity she’d expected, a tentative smile wavered. The nurse joined Penny in the corridor. ‘We think she’s through the worst of it now. We’ve removed the oxygen. She’s breathing on her own.’ Penny’s legs turned to jelly and she was grateful for the woman’s reassuring arm. The nurse continued. ‘It’s heartbreaking, watching them going through withdrawal symptoms – especially when they haven’t even taken the drugs themselves.’

Through tears of relief Penny could see her granddaughter’s tiny legs trying to kick inside the incubator. She could do no more for Emily now – and it was a miracle that they’d been able to hold onto little Hope. She may be small - but she was a fighter.

Later that day, Penny would ring Social Services again to give them the news - and get those official-looking sheets of paper signed. She would soon be able to take Hope home with her; love her; and do her best to make sure history didn’t repeat itself.

 

© Leonie Martin 2009

 

 

 

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