zachary 2

When I came back to England after my year abroad, Zachary had been so sweet. It had turned out he was living just across the road from me in Tufnell Park with his new girlfriend Hetty, who I liked a lot – she was friendly and welcoming and generous.

Zachy had been over almost the day I’d moved in, bustling around putting posters and paintings on my walls. When he’d finished, he decided I needed something in my room to sit on. It hadn’t crossed my mind before, but there was only the bed; and so his Dad had driven over from Hampstead with a bemused smile and a squashy armchair covered in tomato soup coloured linen. It looked perfect in the corner. After that he was in and out all the time, and I was just about beginning to get used to the new gentle Zach.

On my birthday I walked across to their little flat. Hetty was just on her way off to work; she gave me a hug and vanished out of the door. She was very pretty, with spiky blonde hair and a headband like me, and looked like a skewed, malevolent version of Tinkerbell in the pink tutu she always wore for the club - it always made me laugh when I saw her dressed like that. Propped up on the mantelpiece I could see a page from the big cartoon version of the bible that she was doing, and on the walls were some of Zachy’s framed pieces, ready for an exhibition in the cinema he worked at.

Zach was buzzing around, in and out of the kitchen. He looked preoccupied and a bit nervous. I was very puzzled.

“Can I help at all?”

“No. Sit there. Wait.”

He sounded very emphatic, so I did, and he put some music on – it was Francoise Hardy – and disappeared in to the kitchen again. I was trying and failing to work out what he was up to when he came back with some beer.

“Now you have to close your eyes and wait, ok?”

I was laughing by then; I’d never seen Zach so purposeful before – he was normally the most chaotic person I knew. There were more mysterious rustling noises and then I heard him come back in; I could tell he was laughing too.

“Ok. You can open them now”

I looked, and there in front of me were two very beautiful boxes – one big, one small. They were bright, bright blue – different shades, in oil pastels. Zachy had this thing where he layered oils, or pastels very thickly, and then scraped patterns, exposing the colours below the surface, finally splashing the whole with flecks of silver ink. He’d covered the boxes in this way and they were very pretty.

“Zach they’re lovely!”

“Yes. Open the big one first”

I lifted the lid off; there were layers of blue and silver tissue paper and I removed them one by one. It was like playing pass the parcel except I knew I’d be the winner from the start. Underneath were fireworks – rockets mainly, all covered in their gaudy wrappers. I looked up, smiling, to thank him and he held his finger to his lips.

“Open the small one”

I did as he said, and this time, under the paper, there was something tiny, wrapped in silver foil. Inside was a light brown powder, which I guessed was heroin. I’d never tried it before, but since I’d found out you didn’t need to shoot it up I had been meaning to. I was thrilled – I couldn’t think of a nicer birthday surprise. Zach looked at me and he relaxed and started smiling too. He went over to the mantelpiece and got down a mirror and a razor blade and started cutting lines for us. When he’d finished, he stood over me like a mother hen;

“Ok. There …go on …. you might feel a bit sick the first time”

I did a line and he was right, I did feel sick, but the rush was so wonderful I didn’t mind in the slightest. It was the nicest drug I’d ever tried – as the warm exciting happiness flooded through me I could see why he didn’t really want to give it up.

Zachy did a line, and then he pulled me up by the hands and led me out into the little garden where we lit the fireworks and stood smiling, watching as the rockets soared up into the night, finally exploding into little stars. It was exactly how I felt inside.