I hadn't had a drink since the end of November. For the last month I had been with my mother, brother and sister in a kind of Yoga retreat. The other guests were all from West London too, it was kind of Notting Hill on the South Seas. Everyone was talkative and bright, their lives a long tea party. I wanted to curl up and vanish. For the last two years I'd been drunk pretty much all of the time - always on the verge of retching, my flesh feeling as if it was composed of heavy putty and poison. I was feeling better every day now but I badly needed some space. Now thank God everyone had gone home. I read books and jumped in the sea.
My crazy sort-of girlfriend was coming out. I'd bought her the ticket a few months before. She had problems of her own - a violent disgust of sexual activity and a tendency to scream at me when she was drunk. Weird delusions that I was sleeping with other girls. This was so far from the truth - I was trying to adjust to being sober for the first time in years; I wasn't feeling like a sexual demon.
She was arriving today - I'd arranged for a Taxi to pick her up from the airport and deliver her to a seaside bar. She was late and didn't recognise me with my new haircut, tan, and green shirt. She sat down and immediately ordered a beer. This was bad as she'd promised to not be drinking. She looked me in the eyes and started to cry. I asked what was wrong and she said; culture shock, the feeling that she'd never be content, the dangerous taxi ride. The fact that I hadn't come to meet her at the airport. I thought: This is going to be difficult.
I was already in another place. Kay was associated with mornings drinking beer and screaming and insanity. A typical day would start with me desperately horny with the DT's rolling over and trying to stimulate her into wanting a fuck. She'd lie back and take it with pleasure until it got to the point where I wanted to plug myself in. Then She'd tell me to off, managing to imply that I was some kind of filthy pervert. Rejected and furious, with adrenaline bubbling through my bloodstream, I'd go to the shop to buy a paper, returning with a few beers which I'd sneak into the bathroom. With the water running I'd down the first beer and throw most of it up again. Then in the bath I'd drink the other two or three and my mood would lighten with the exquisite relief of the DT's disappearing.
I showed her the straw shack where we were to stay, the tears rose again. My head felt like it was floating away; I found it hard to connect with reality. I became convinced that the only way to ground myself was a serious drinking session. My feeling was compounded by Kay telling me that I was acting strange - my sober persona made her paranoid. I stopped taking my Antabuse tablets. (Antabuse is a drug that makes you extremely ill if you drink.) I was bored with Goa so we decided to go to a place I'd heard good reports of - Kudle Beach in Gokarna. We got there by bus and train; it was a perfect slice of paradise congested with Israeli hippies. I decided to have some beers. It was only two days since my last Antabuse and you were meant to wait four, but I decided that was just Doctors being over cautious.
I got a large Kingfisher beer. It felt delicious going down. The blood vessels in my head started throbbing and I felt dizzy and sick. My face was purple. I ordered and drank another. The reaction with the last of the Antabuse continued but to a lesser extent. I'd once read that George Best used to drink through his Antabuse and realised that it was just a matter of perseverance. Seven or eight beers later I wobbled to bed with a hot pulsating head and a vague feeling of content. For some reason my memory of drink far outstripped the reality - I'd expected a euphoric rush and just got drunk. The beers I had the next morning worked slightly better, but I still felt that I was floating away from myself. I decided to go to Calcutta and see what mixing dark Rum and heroin would do.
It took two days to get to vague civilization from Kudle beach. I got through it with the help of bottles of Rum and Vodka; shitty Indian stuff that tasted like it was distilled from fermented sewage. I bought two tickets to Calcutta. The flight was painful; you aren't allowed to drink on internal flights in India. I was keeping the extent of my drinking secret from Kay. My DT's were as bad as if I'd never stopped drinking. We arrived in Calcutta at midnight after a miserable delay. Too late to go in search of smack. I had to bribe a guy at the hotel we eventually found to get us some beers. He returned with eight Kingfisher Strongs. Eight percent jobs.
In the morning we went to New Market. I'd scored here a couple of years before when visiting a friend. The heroin had been sublime - I'd felt like I was lying in the arms of an exotic goddess all afternoon; then we'd gone to a very posh party at a five star hotel and kept on having to run off in the middle of dinner to puke in the gleaming marble lavatories. A little fellow came up to us as we entered the
labyrinth that is the New Market of Calcutta. He said he could find us anything we wanted; 'beautiful clothes, jewelry, carvings.' 'Would it be possible to buy some opium,... or heroin.' I asked nervously. 'Of course, anything you like. I also get you some beautiful shirts? I get you best price.'
We got the stuff from a smooth talking guy right in the basement. We were all pretending that buying heroin was a perfectly normal foible for the Englishman abroad. The price was outrageous and the amount pitiful. A bit of half hearted haggling and then a deal. We got back to the hotel and smoked it of the tin foil we'd eaten chili chicken out of. It was alright but quite weird. I'd read a few days before that there was a problem importing heroin from Burma due to increased security operations. As a result the stuff that did get through got heavily cut with human and animal tranquilizers. I watched Kay's face become shiny and alien and forgot her name and my own. I thought the hotel room was a capsule drifting towards nothing in space. I decided the stuff was cut. When it ran out I ran out into Sidder Street to get more. I was still a bit apprehensive about being thrown in Indian jail for the next forty years. A guy whispered in my ear offering hash. I asked about opium or heroin and he said; 'Surely yes.' The next few days were spent like the first, I'd tell Kay I was popping out to score and then see what strange situations occurred. It seemed like every dealer in the city had heard that there was some weird English guy blowing vast amounts of cash on smack and they all wanted a piece. I could never find the last guy I'd bought it off so I'd offer my custom to someone new. I'd jump in the back of ancient 1950's Taxi's with my latest dealer, wearing my pair of tiny blue lensed sunglasses. They looked like they been last worn by some 1920's fugitive, I'd bought them from a hook handed muslim with an evil smile. We'd travel across steaming filthy glorious Calcutta, cash spilling from my pockets. I'd haggle with people in stinking dens, always taking them up on their latest offer - more smack for less money. Two or three hours I'd return to find an oblivious Kay lying down watching Star Movies. I'd either smoke it or dilute it in Rum to try and make Laudinum. My brain felt very fried after a while so we decided to fly to Bangkok.
A bit of a blip, part 2
