The Water Tower - Books 1-3

Chapter 2-2

So she’d taken it. She’d inhaled the first time, and that had been slower, but Vince had soon put her in touch with Danny Barton and she’d started injecting after that. Just once a week at first, when she met up with Danny and the lads by the Bay Leaf in town, after hours. Then twice a week. Then a little more, just so she could take the edge off. Mum had screamed the house down the day she’d found the Jack Daniels tin with the needles in under her bed. Danny had increased the price around then, so she’d started taking from her Mum’s purse. That had caused another epic shouting match.

Bay LeafJack DanielsGaz had tried to warn her off; he’d always looked out for her in a way no one else did, even then. They’d spent more time than usual together in the months after she’d started using. He used to buy her lunch with his wages from the garage, put an arm round her when she was cold, and made sure she drank something to keep herself hydrated. She could always rest her head on Gaz’s shoulder, talk to him, tell him anything. He said he’d kill Vince for introducing her to the junk. She hadn’t been surprised when he’d finally kissed her.

Then she’d got pregnant. It had been the expression on the doctor’s face that got to her the most. She still remembered it now. She knew what they all thought of her. 15-year-old Madison Carter, knocked up and taking junk. Her Mum’s “disappointment” wasn’t going to cover it. They’d told her all about the risks to the baby if she kept on using; the baby could become dependent, it could be born prematurely, it could arrive stillborn. Her Mum hadn’t wanted her to have it, anyway, but she’d been determined. It hadn’t just been another act of defiance on her part either, another way of f*****g them all over; it had been something she’d wanted, she just hadn’t known how to tell them.

wantedSo they’d put her on the methadone programme. Slowly and steadily, it had worked. She’d been 16 when Alice was born. A few weeks early, but she’d been healthy, if a little underweight. The drinking had become a problem – more so in the last few weeks of the pregnancy, they’d said – but, in reality, it had always been there in the background. The booze had just been another way to escape, after all, once she’d weaned herself off the junk for Alice’s sake. She’d sworn from the moment that she first saw Alice’s face that she’d never let her down. She’d do everything right, make everything right.

makeWell, she’d royally f****d that up, hadn’t she?

Gaz had gotten his fair share of the blame in the meantime; her Mum had used every name under the sun for him, even going as far as to call him out in the street, telling him he should have kept it in his trousers and reminding him how ashamed he should be for not putting his hand in his pocket when Alice was born. But Madison didn’t blame Gaz for anything that had happened. He’d looked after her the best he could – he still did, with the wages he took from the garage, working for that that sleazy fucker with the skinny blonde wife. No, what happened next was on her.

herShe’d applied to the Council for her own place. Gaz had helped her with the form. She’d been on a waiting list initially, but someone must have realised that her Mum’s place wasn’t big enough once Uncle Sean had moved in. She’d got lucky, Cathy Hale had told her; “something suitable” had come up just a few streets away, on the other side of the estate. She’d moved in, her and Alice; into their little house on the corner of Meredith Court, with its front windows that gave them a near-perfect view of the Water Tower.

She’d thought she’d be able to cope, but she’d spiralled. The drinking got heavier. Alice was always crying. She’d spent a whole afternoon covering her ears once, a pillow pressed against her head in the hope that the world would just disappear for five f*****g minutes. The money she got in benefits, coupled with Gaz’s semi-regular handouts, had been stretched to breaking point. She’d felt like the mounting pressure was going to crush her. So she’d relapsed. She’d rung Danny Barton, begged him to come round; told him she couldn’t give him much, but she needed something. What he’d given her had been pitiful, but she’d taken it. Then she’d done it again. And again. She’d started using cash that she would have otherwise spent on food to pay Danny.

five f*****g minutessomethingThe social had noticed, of course. Those visits from Cathy f*****g Hale became more and more frequent. “We just want to check on you both, it’s our job,” she’d said, in that patronising voice Madison was sure she reserved just for her. “We just want to make sure that you’re coping.”

They’d known she wasn’t f*****g coping. But they hadn’t cared. Not really.

known So much of her memory was a haze; the result of an almost toxic combination of drink and months spent shooting herself up. But she remembered with stark clarity the day that they’d come to take Alice away.

The irony of her Mum being there when it finally happened wasn’t lost on her. Mum had never needed an excuse to tell her how much of a failure she was but, that day, she’d had the chance to actually watch her daughter’s life collapse with her own eyes. The day that Cathy f*****g Hale had come to take Alice into care was largely lost to a fog of blind fury, tears and recriminations. But she remembered her Mum. The “I-told-you-so, I-knew-this-would-happen” expression she’d worn. The shake of the head and the fold of the arms. The accusations. Somehow she’d tried to work Gaz into the long list of people she’d blamed. It was his fault, her Mum had said. His, and Kelly Horrocks.

But she’d been the one using again. She’d been the one who’d left Alice in her pram in the hall overnight, sleeping in her own filth, while she’d thrown herself into the armchair, filled her veins with junk and then pissed the night away. She’d woken up to the sound of Alice crying, somehow staggered to the door where she’d tried to lift her out of the pram. She’d still been drunk when her Mum had arrived. Cathy f*****g Hale hadn’t been far behind. Her Mum had brought breakfast, probably in a bid to make sure she actually ate a decent meal. (Shame she never bothered when I was a kid, always had to fend for myself while she was busy shagging Uncle Sean). Cathy had brought a Care Order and two women in suits whose names she hadn’t heard because she’d been crying so hard.

Shame she never bothered when I was a kid, always had to fend for myself while she was busy shagging Uncle Sean)She remembered screaming, remembered trying to lash out only to find herself flailing, remembered trying to scratch that b***h’s face with her torn and ragged fingernails. She remembered the sound of someone soothing Alice, murmuring hush-a-byes in her ear and promising that everything would be alright. Then she remembered turning her anger on the nearest thing she could find – the mirror her Mum had given her. She’d thrown it against the kitchen door, smashed it, wishing she could will it back together so that she could smash it all over again. Then she remembered slumping to the floor, a sobbing, pitiful wreck who’d grabbed onto her Mum’s leg and used it for purchase, hoping she’d never have to let go. She remembered her shoulders shaking as she’d sat there sobbing, her tears just a gateway to her deeper notes of despair.

I promised I’d never let her down, was all she’d been able to think. I promised I’d make everything right.

I promised I’d never let her downI promised I’d make everything right.In the end, she had let go. Months and months had gone by. Gaz had helped. She’d stopped using. She was eating again. She’d cleaned herself and the house up. She’d stopped drinking. She hadn’t so much as seen Danny Barton for weeks, let alone rung him. Someone on the estate had told her that the police had picked him up, but she couldn’t have cared less. Cathy f*****g Hale kept on visiting but, slowly and steadily, things had seemed a little less bleak. They wouldn’t talk to her about Alice coming home, of course. That was still a bridge too far. Plans needed to be put in place; she needed to be much further down the road they called “the straight and narrow”. They needed to be sure. She was getting her housing benefit now, too. She’d even done a few afternoons with Hilda, on the promise of some proper income, although they didn’t seem to do much work. They just talked. Sometimes it even helped.

The last time they’d seen each other, Hilda had told her that her face was filling out again. Then she’d pressed a hand against Madison’s cheek and smiled that watercolour smile she saved only for a chosen few.

Still none of them knew about the cutting. If she couldn’t have the drink, if she couldn’t use, then she needed something. A place she could retreat to, in her own mind at least, if not physically. She’d always known the inside of her own head better than any of them. Better than her Mum. Better than Uncle Sean. Better than Cathy f*****g Hale. Better than the doctors, and the teachers, and the woman from the Job Centre with the hoop earrings. Better than Gaz, even, although he tried.

somethingShe sliced the shard across her arm again, slowly this time, savouring how it made her feel, clenching her teeth to help work through the pain. The mirror had been the victim of her unvarnished anguish, but she hadn’t been able to simply throw the shattered pieces away. She’d discarded the frame easily enough; a gaudy, unlikeable thing that she’d never really taken to. She’d swept up most of the glass, but had held three of the bigger shards back. She’d cupped them in her hand for long enough before making her choice. One of them – the largest of the three – had pierced the skin of her forefinger and the simple, sharp acuity of the lance had made her smile. The sting it had inflicted had led to her final decision; she’d wrapped the shard in an old cloth that she’d stashed in a cupboard, then ferreted it away in the cabinet beside her bed for whenever she found herself needing a friend. She’d known it wouldn’t be often; she knew her visits to this little corner of the bedroom were becoming less frequent as the face of the future solidified in her mind. Still, she felt more secure just knowing it was there. Her personal instrument of release. A way to shut out the noise for a while and feel whole again. The fact that the remnant of her Mum’s ugly mirror was the tool of her wounding haven was life’s little way of mocking her, she was sure. But she could live with that.

The blood from the latest cut she’d inflicted marked the towel; rich splashes of colour on the off-white that she savoured. She thought about Alice again, wrapped in a towel a few days after she’d been born, her Mum drying her down after one of her first baths. How long had it been since they’d taken her? Alice would be two soon. How long had it been since she’d laid eyes on her daughter; that precious, irreplaceable bundle of beauty that she’d brought into the world? They could take the junk, they could take the drink, they could take everything else from her; all she wanted was to hold Alice again.