So, I spent further hours thinking about the book today, whilst I lay in bed attempting to recover from the soul-destroying virus that's seen me lying around in discomfort all week.
Jamie was a prostitute, though she never used the word and would spurt a mouthful of angry obscenities just at the implication. The fact was that she had traded sex for money (or drugs) on numerous occasions, but only with men that she already knew. Tony was the first man to offer - her dealer - that she could give him oral in exchange for a large dose of brown powder. And she, as by far the most addicted of the group, couldn't decline such an offer, and took it up frequently afterwards. He wasn't the only dealer that she had, and he also wasn't the only dealer that she made these trades with, yet because she wasn't part of an agency, and she didn't have a business card posted in a London phone box, she considered herself purer than pure. She was not a prostitute. She had just had sex with a few guys for money.
And I know that she felt demoralised afterwards, even though she would claim that she would have fucked them for free, because her personality started to change. She was more volatile than before, and she would find herself bursting into explosive rages at more opportunities than ever. What used to be a fairly bad temper became a problem for all of us, something that we would have to avoid seeing her because of, something that would make us fear for her own baby son's life during numerous uncomfortable evening discussions.
I tend to believe that, in trading what is deemed such a sacred act of self-worth with other men, she abandoned the only shred of her own personality that kept her sane. She lost her sense of identity. She was anybody's girl, so long as they would trade for the right price, although this was on numerous occasions (as far as Tony was concerned) just one hit. That was enough to see her on her knees, dealing pleasure to a man that was slowly killing her by feeding her addiction for "free".
She and Owen were in a long-term, committed relationship, but even that couldn't survive this new development in events. Owen was naturally jealous by nature, and his protective personality was perhaps the only thing that kept him with the tempestuous Jamie in the first place. He didn't mind that she was on heroin because he had the job, he was paying the wages and it was his cheque that was funding her addiction. She would never jeopardize such a fortunate opportunity, or so he thought. When she started to sleep around to get drugs after he lost his job, his alcoholic demons fought back with a vengeance, as did his anger issues that he had so carefully supressed after months of stress management support meetings. The two of them would display cuts and bruises of broken ashtrays, splintered wooden chairs and sovereign-clad fists, that told of a depressingly dismal tale of two lovers that had lost their only connection.
I sometimes cry at the thought of their son, lying in his cot at night as his parents slowly slaughter eachother.
