Chapter Fifteen

“I’ll be in my room if you need me Calli ok” Nathan told her giving Dave a hard stare.

“No it’s ok, Calli can we go to your room?”

“Ok” slowly she got up from the sofa “I’ll be okay” she hugged Nathan reassuringly seeing the look on his face.

“You know where I am if you need me”

“I’ll be fine Nathe.”

“Dave what is it?” she asked as she followed him through to her room “ Why are you here this time of night?”

Dave quietly shut the door behind them “I’ll explain everything honey.”

“David you’re scaring me, has something happened? She looked at him in horror “Oh God Dave somethings happened hasn’t it? Oh God is it one of the children, has something happened to one of them?”

Slowly Dave shook his head “No it’s nothing like that Callan, I need to speak to you about my behaviour earlier, to explain why I was the way with you.”

“That doesn’t matter. You were just…”

“Callan please” he interrupted her walking over to her desk and sitting down at her laptop.

“David?” she looked at him questioningly.

“Callan love come here there is something I need you to see.”

“David?” she asked coming to stand at his right shoulder

Silently he typed you tube into the search engine and opened the page. Finding the menu bar he typed in the title of the video that he always saw in his mind whenever he thought about how he was on the Devotional tour.

“David?” she whispered once again.

“Callan” he whispered turning away from the screen and looking up into her green eyes. “Honey don’t say anything else, just watch.”

She watched Dave stumbling around the stage, swigging from a bottle and yelling in to the crowd,

“Why are you showing me this?”

Dave ignored her and as the clip finished clicked on another clip from the menu on the side and the video she’d watched of the interview earlier appeared.

“I don’t understand” she whispered “You’ve already told me about the drinking.”

Dave said nothing as he looked at the wasted scrawny figure of what he’d used to be on the screen in front of him.

“David?” She asked reaching and taking his hand in hers. “You’re scaring me.”

“Callan please, just watch what I’m showing you.” he ended the second clip and clicked on a third one. “I was totally fucked up when this was filmed” he whispered, “I don’t remember it happening, but I ended up pretty badly hurt that time, broken ribs stuff like that but I didn’t feel a thing at the time.”

She watched as he dived into the crowd and the security team struggled to get him on stage again, whilst Dave merely laughed it off and carried on performing, “Right then I thought I was God and I had everything I could ever want.

“I still don’t understand why you’re showing me this though” she whispered despite knowing in her heart the reason why.

“Because your friend Justine was right Callan, I wasn’t drunk up there on stage I was totally wasted.”

“Heroin?” She whispered

Dave turned round to face her and nodded “How did you know it was that?”

“I just guessed” she answered quietly she watched as Dave swallowed hard and took a deep breath

“Callan I was a junkie back then, nothing mattered other than getting my next fix, No please don’t, Callan don’t” he looked at her face as her eyes filled brimming with tears and pulled her to him as best he could “Shush please don’t cry, not now.” he soothed wrapping his arms around her “Not now, I need you to be calm, no tears yet sweetheart can you do that for me?”

“Ok I’ll try” Callan nodded “David why didn’t you tell me this before? Surely you knew I’d find out eventually.”

“I was going to when we were having dinner at the Empire State, but I don’t know somehow I couldn’t bring myself to.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t understand?”

“No, that night when you told me about your problems I knew you’d understand, but there was something about the way you looked at me that stopped me, I was frightened that you’d get scared and I wouldn’t see you again, plus and this is totally selfish of me I know but I liked the fact that you didn’t know all that stuff about me and all the shit I’d been through. I liked that I could be myself as I am now and not Dave Gahan ex junkie and I didn’t want you to change the way you feel about me.”

“Dave that wouldn’t happen, we’re friends, nothing you did in the past would change what I think about you?”

“I know that now, but Callan it’s been a long time since I met someone who hasn’t seemed to have known everything that happened back then, I’m sorry I should have been straight with you since the start with you like you were with me.”

“How did you know about what Justine told me?”

“You left your messenger on, I was sitting at your desk messing with your mouse whilst I was talking to Andy when I clicked on it by accident. Justine sent you the clip of me I showed you, thats when I realised I had to come clean and tell you.”

“And that’s why you were so quiet at dinner?”

“Dave nodded “Yes it was nothing that you’d done, you do know that don’t you?”

Callan nodded, shakily she sat down on her bed and held out her hand “Tell me about it Dave.”

He got up from her desk and sat next to her “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes I want you to tell me so I know what’s true, I want to hear the truth from you.”

“Ok, I’d tried it before when I was younger, then being on tour there was always loads of booze and plenty of other stuff to take you know E, coke stuff like that. When you’re as young as we were then and you’re getting everything you want given to you, it all begins to get crazy, you go out on stage and everyone thinks your God and you are to them, after a while it goes to your head, the adoration, you go backstage and there are girls there begging you to fu..to sleep with them. Eventually I could feel everything slipping away from me, getting out of control, my marriage began breaking down I didn’t want to be a round Jo that’s Jacks Mom..I..I”

Callan reached over and took his hands in hers “There’s no rush…take your time.”

“I’m fine” he gave a small smile at her. “I met Theresa, she was my second wife, when she worked on tour with us, I fell for her completely, she was someone to run to. I left Jo and Jack and moved out to LA, after that, well that’s when it all got crazy. By the time we went into the studio again I was locking myself away for days at a time taking anything I could get my hands on, hiding the truth from the others, I still don’t know how that album ever got finished. Then the tour started and that was it , well you’ve seen the clips just now, how we ever survived that I don’t know.”

He stopped again and looked at her, “Are you sure you want to hear the rest?”

“Yes” she squeezed his hand “I want to hear everything.”

“Ok, I thought I couldn’t get any worse than that but I did, I holed myself up, by this time I was injecting as much as I could and it still wasn’t enough, I’d spend days wondering around totally paranoid with a loaded gun in my hands, or I’d sit for hours watching the weather channels convinced the Tin Man was holding conversations with me. I was hurting everyone I loved.”

“I know how that feels” she said softly looking down at her lap.

“Callan you could never know that, you’ve never been there.” he whispered shaking his head “And I hope to god you never have that happen to you, that you don’t have to go through the pain of seeing someone you love almost killing themselves in front of you. I ended up destroying everything in my life that mattered Jack, my Mom, myself, I was in total denial.

“Dave” she whispered putting his hands to her lips and kissing them gently as he paused “I can’t believe you went through all that.”

“I know by rights I should be dead by now.” his voice cracked with the strain of his emotions “Could you get me a glass of water do you think?”

“Of course” she let go of his hands and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll be back in sec.” Making her way to the kitchen she blinked back the tears that were threatening to fall, “Don’t you dare cry now Callan Victoria you promised Dave you wouldn’t” she murmured to herself. Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and a glass from the drainer she quickly made her way back to her room to find Dave out on her small balcony smoking,

“Is this ok?” he gestured to the cigarillo in his hand.

“Yes it’s fine” she replied stepping through the door to join him, With a trembling hand she poured the water managing to fill the glass half way without spilling too much of it and handed it to him, “Here you are.”

“Thank you.” Carefully he took a couple of sips before handing the glass to her “Do you want some?”

Callan took the glass from him taking a small drink before setting it down on the small table. Silently they stood together looking up at the stars as Dave lit another cigarillo and drew heavily on it.

“Dave?” she asked in a small voice after a while “What did you mean about you should be dead by now?”

She watched as Dave stubbed the cigarillo out “let’s go back indoors and I’ll finish yelling you.”

They both sat on her bed “Dave if you want to stop talking about it we can leave it, if it’s too painful”

“No, I need to finish telling you, I’ve got this far now. One weekend Mom and Jack were with me, I was at the point where I couldn’t look after Jack on my own anymore, so I made up some excuse about feeling ill and she came over to help, so I was there taking stuff whilst all the time lying to her and telling her that I was ok that I was just ill. Anyway when I’d put Jack to bed one night I got my stuff out and shot up again, I came to the next morning realising I’d left all my stuff out.”

“God Dave no, Jack didn’t get his hands on it did he?”

“No nothing like that thank God, but perhaps if he’d have been younger he could have, anyway I rushed to the lounge and it was gone, Mom told me she had thrown it all out, I ended up scrabbling around on my kitchen floor going through all these bin bags that belonged to the whole block looking for my gear, still lying to Mom and Jack.” He paused and wiped a hand across his eyes the strain showing on his face.

“Dave are you sure you are alright?”

“I’m ok”

“Here take a sip” she handed him the glass and watched as he took a sip before handing it back to her.
“Mom found me shooting up in the bathroom and even then I still lied to her, told her I was taking steroids then I just crumbled, I couldn’t do it any more and that was when I told her.”

“What did she say?”

“She already knew, everyone knew by then, the worst part was when Jack came in.”

“Jack?”

“Yeah he sat down with me told me he didn’t want his Dad to be ill anymore, that he wanted me to get better.”

“And that was when you went into rehab?”

“Eventually yes, Mom rang Jo and she took Jack home whilst Mom stayed and got me sorted it took a while for me to admit it. I went into rehab came out clean and then after a couple of weeks I started the whole cycle over and over again, you know drinking the drugs. It got to the point when Theresa left me and I got fucked over by my friends that I thought why the hell bother, I’m useless, I don’t want to be like this anymore, I felt that I had no one in the world who cared anymore.”

“Then what happened?” she asked gently

He looked at her unable to bring himself to say the rest right then, she’d heard enough about everything else, I’ll tell her another day he told himself.

“I’d gotten to the stage when I was taking speedballs, that’s heroin and cocaine mix..”.

“It’s ok” she whispered “I know what one of those is.”

“Ok, well one day I overdosed, the people I was with phoned the paramedics, whilst they were treating me I had a heart attack”

“David” she whispered, trying to stop the tears that were threatening.

“It’s ok, sweetheart I’m still here aren’t I? I’m ok. Calli do you believe in near death experinces?”

She looked at him surprised at the question has she nodded “Yes I do actually why?”

“That night I had one, that night I was dead for a few minutes but I could see the paramedics working on me and I was telling myself I don’t want to die I’m not ready to leave yet.”

“So is that when you went you came off it for the last time?”

“Well after a while yes, can you believe I was so fucked up that I came out of hospital and started using straight away again, it all came to an end when everyone else got involved. Kess took over after a while and told me I had no choice and that I was going into rehab, then I knew it was going to be my last chance, some how I made it through, I came back from that place with Mom and Jen’s help.”

“You knew Jen then then?”

“I met her in rehab of all places, I needed someone who knew what I was going through, what I was feeling, she was what I needed then.”

“And now how do you feel?”

“I still have days when I’d love to have a drink but I’m aware that if I do what could happen, there is no way I’m going to be that guy again, I’ve got too many good things in my life to risk going down that path again.”

“Rosie?” She whispered

“Yes, Rosie, Jack and Jimmy, my music, the band, my life, I’m never going to let them go not for anything.”

“Dave” she put her arms around him and pulled him to her “Thank you for telling me everything.”

Next chapter

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