Stuart: A Life Backwards by Masters Alexander

Author:Masters, Alexander [Masters, Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Published: 2006-05-29T16:00:00+00:00

After the doctor has gone, Stuart tells me that the thought of having to stop injecting pleases him. Now that he’s been told that his next dose of heroin could kill him, he has the incentive to come off completely. He’ll ‘never touch the stuff again’.

I note that Stuart has curiously mistaken what the doctor has said–it is not the heroin that is dangerous, it is Stuart’s method of putting it into his body. No one has ruled out smoking or eating the stuff. He can still snort whatever he wants. But I don’t say anything. Drugs have almost killed Stuart more times than he can count and if he stops doing them simply because he’s too dopey to figure out the doctor’s real message, then that is as good a way as any.

‘What did the man mean about your uncle?’ I ask.

‘Uncle Nigger?’ Stuart perks up.

Uncle Nigger turns out to be Uncle Roddy, who earned his nickname as a child because he fell in a puddle one day and came home covered head to toe in mud. Of all his father’s family, Stuart was closest to Uncle Nigger. Uncle Nigger used to give him lectures on how to grow up responsibly, and then go out and get himself nicked for car theft or burglary. Uncle Nigger ended up in a wheelchair because of his muscular dystrophy, and died on his fifth pacemaker.

‘The day I’m like Nigger is Death Day. I’m not going to be no Uncle Nigger.’

Stuart’s wounds, where the surgeon has cut flaps into the flesh of his chest on both sides, are causing him agony, but as a known drug addict, he isn’t allowed proper painkillers. Painkillers might be combined with illegal substances, or overdosed, or sold, ground up and injected.

‘Oi,’ Stuart whispers, ‘did you get what I asked you for?’

I nod and fish a bottle out of my bag.

‘Quick, before the nurse comes, empty the water jug. They’ll never know the difference.’

Stuart, abruptly energetic, takes the emptied jug back and hurriedly splashes it half full of the new clear fluids. Plymouth Gin: £14.99. Nothing but the best for a delicate patient.

‘Fancy a sip yourself?’

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