by Watson, S J
I glance around the car park. There’s no one here, but still I don’t want to do this in public.
‘Not here. Can we go in?’
‘Sure.’ He takes out his key, glancing back as he unlocks the door to the village hall. He’s grim-faced; he looks worried now, he knows something’s wrong. For a moment I wonder what Tanya didn’t tell me, whether I’m as safe as I think I am.
‘What is it?’
I close the door behind me, wipe my feet on the mat in the lobby. There are toilets off to the left; on the right a door leads to a small kitchen. The whole place smells vaguely: disinfectant and stale coffee.
‘How long have you been here? In Blackwood Bay?’
‘I told you,’ he says quickly as we enter the hall itself. Fluorescents hang from the ceiling and there’s a serving hatch through into the kitchen. At one end sits a small stage. He turns to face me. ‘Almost a year. Why?’
‘I’ve been told you’ve only been here a couple of months.’
He closes his eyes, then nods, slowly. It reminds me of Aidan; it’s what he used to do when I’d caught him out after he’d told me he wasn’t high, he hadn’t had a drink, he was fine. I can’t decide whether it endears him to me or not. ‘By whom?’
‘Liz,’ I say. ‘Why did you lie to me?’
He hesitates. ‘I … well, I wanted to help you. Show you around, you know? Just wanted to be helpful. I’m sorry.’
‘Gavin. I spoke to Tanya.’
He grimaces. It’s almost comical.
‘What?’
‘She told me.’
He runs his hand through his hair. ‘Told you what?’
I’ve decided to take the risk. ‘Everything. She told me what you did.’
His head falls to his chest. He mumbles something I don’t quite catch. It might be Shit. Or Bitch.
‘Gavin?’
He doesn’t answer.
‘If you want me to trust you, you’d better start telling the truth.’
‘It wasn’t my fault.’
What wasn’t? I think. Tell me.
‘That’s not what she said,’ I say instead. ‘Is it true?’
He pushes a chair over towards me. ‘Let’s sit.’
We do so. He faces me. He looks contrite. Disappointed. Angry, too. He begins to pick the skin round his thumbnail, twisting it as he does. It looks painful. Soon he’ll draw blood.
‘I want to hear your side of the story.’
He closes his eyes and draws breath. It’s a gathering of energy, and when he looks back up his eyes are moist. Tears glisten in the harsh light.
‘I was angry. I mean, my boss, of all people. She couldn’t have picked anyone else?’
I look straight at him. An affair? It must be.
‘How long?’
‘She said it’d been a few weeks. But who knows?’
I imagine bolshie Tanya in her corporate suit and her neat blouse. She seems the type, I think, but then I realise what a ridiculous thing that is. The type? Aren’t we all the type, in the right circumstances?
‘So? When you found out …’
‘I didn’t mean it to get … physical.’
I go into fight or flight. It’s not what I expected.
‘You hit her?’
‘Is that what she told you?’
‘What, then?’
‘I hit him.’
I almost laugh with relief. I try to imagine it, try to see him waiting outside for his rival, or perhaps visiting him at home. I try to imagine how it happened. Perhaps he threw a punch, calculated and cold, shaking as he did so, worried about where it would lead but feeling there was no alternative. Or maybe his anger came out of nowhere, clouding everything out. I wonder if he surprised himself, looked down and saw the other man on the floor and only then realised what he was capable of.
‘You hit your boss.’
‘He said he’d ask for the charges to be dropped if I quit. So I didn’t really have a choice.’
Level-headed Gavin won out. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
He tries to laugh it off. ‘Looking back, I wanted a change anyway. I just didn’t see it at the time.’
His cheer is clearly false, for my benefit if not his own. But I say nothing. Part of me is relieved; the truth isn’t as bad as I’d feared.
‘Anyway,’ he says wearily. ‘It’s history.’ He looks up. ‘I know who you are, by the way.’
The air rushes out of the room. My vision splits, the image distorts. It’s as though I’m looking at Gavin through a cracked lens.
‘What?’ I wonder briefly whether I can run.
‘You can’t keep secrets here. Not for long … What’s wrong?’
‘What did you hear?’
‘Oh, just that it was your film. How come you told me you were only helping out?’
Relief surges through me again. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘No reason. It’s just …’
‘Being modest? I read all about you. Didn’t realise you were so famous. Black Winter, wasn’t it?’ He’s clearly been Googling and I’m flattered, despite myself. ‘I haven’t watched it yet.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I want to.’
He does, too. I can tell. He’s not just trying to butter me up. Or, if he is, he’s being very subtle. We sit for a moment, each regarding the other.
‘It seems we’ve both been telling lies.’
I scan the roof. There’s a bright green balloon way up in the rafters, half deflated. ‘Looks like it.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Me too.’
He lowers his voice. ‘I do want to help, you know. Find out what’s been going on here.’
I know, I think. He’s determined, I’ll say that for him.
‘I saw Liz,’ I say. ‘She climbed into my car. Virtually hijacked me.’
His jaw drops. ‘What?’
‘She wanted to show me something. Out on the moor.’
I watch for a reaction. There isn’t one, just a slight nervous twitch, patience as he waits for me to continue.
‘She thinks Daisy is buried there.’ I pause. ‘Or Sadie.’
‘Sadie?’
‘Yes.’
‘But Sadie ran away.’
I tell him Liz’s story and, when I’ve finished, he whistles.
‘It sounds crazy.’
‘I know. But what if they got to Daisy’s body? When it was washed up. Before the police, I mean. Buried it to cover the evidence.’
‘Who’s they? What did the police say?’
‘She hasn’t told them.’
‘Then we should tell them.’
I shake my head. I can’t have that. I can’t have the police involved. They’d find out who I am.
‘No.’
‘No?’ He stands up. ‘There’s an unmarked grave, for heaven’s sake!’
I need to backtrack. Quickly.
‘It’s not a grave, it’s just a sick joke. Some flowers under a bloody tree. It seems her father wasn’t making much sense, towards the end.’
‘But—’
‘Sadie can’t be buried there.’
‘Why?’
‘Just trust me.’
He looks at me quizzically.
‘So what’s your connection? To this place? Blackwood Bay?’ he asks.
I look down at my lap. My instinct is to deny it, to say none, nothing, but I know it’s too late. He would never believe me, not now. He’d never leave it alone.
I sit as still as I can. I scratch my forearm, but feel nothing.
‘I know Sadie’s alive. I knew her. Down in London. We were on the streets. Homeless. We met in one of the hostels. So one thing I’m sure of is that Sadie can’t be buried there.’
‘Unless she came back.’
‘She didn’t.’
‘You seem very certain.’
‘I am.’
‘Why? What happened to her here?’
She doesn’t know, I think. That’s the problem. She wishes she did. She t
hinks it might have something to do with why Daisy died.
But I can’t tell him that.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You never asked?’
I fix him with a stare. ‘No. I didn’t. People will tell you, if they want to, when they’re ready. You don’t push.’
I’m not sure he understands. This man, with his neatly pressed clothes and his career that I’ve no doubt he could return to if and when he wants to. He thinks little Sadie got fed up one day, a bit miserable, someone stole her pencil case or called her a nasty name, so she packed a bag and hitched first to Sheffield and then to London. One day, I’d like to tell him how it really is. I almost envy him his solidity, his certitude that there are clear moral lines.
‘You don’t know where she is now?’
‘We lost touch.’
‘I thought you were friends.’
‘I didn’t say we were friends. And anyway, it was a long time ago.’
He sits. Silent. I wish he smoked; I’d ask him for one. Now would be the time to start again. I close my eyes briefly and imagine it, the cigarette between my lips, the spark of the lighter, drawing that first, head-spinning drag, feeling it scour the back of my throat, gently abrasive.
He waits for a moment, then says, ‘Did Liz mention Zoe?’
I remember Tanya’s comment, her parting shot.
I shake my head. Gavin speaks softly. ‘We really should tell someone, you know?’
‘About the so-called grave? I said no. I said—’
‘No, I mean tell someone you’ve met Sadie. Her family—’
No, I think. No. I want desperately to find out what happened, why I ran, what I did to Daisy before I went, but I can’t go back. I can’t see my mother; there’s no way she won’t recognise me, and what can I possibly say to her when she does?
‘Her mother would want to know she’s okay.’
But she’s not, I think. She’s not.
‘I just … no.’
‘Alex,’ he says, softly. ‘That’s very selfish.’
Again, that certainty; he’s straight down the line. He’s right, I think. And maybe I’ve run out of options. Maybe she’s the one who can tell me why I ran, what happened between me and Daisy. She can finally give me the answers I need.
And if she does, if I can remember who hurt Daisy and why I ran, then maybe I’ll know who Liz is scared of, and what’s going on with Kat and Ellie.
‘How will we find her?’
‘There’s a way. Someone will know. Or we can look online.’
Of course. I’m running out of excuses. And maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible.
But then I think about her seeing me. Seeing through to who I really am. The life I’ve constructed for myself would fall apart.
‘Gavin?’ I say, and he looks over. For a moment he looks as though he’ll do anything for me. It’s as if by each sharing a secret we’ve moved into different territory, come together at the grey line that divides the light on the moon, night from day.
‘Yes?’ he says.
‘Will you be the one who talks to her?’
Then
26
Alex’s diary, Wednesday, 6 July 2011
I’ve found her! It’s not all good news, but at least I’m getting somewhere!
I’ve been going back to Victoria every day for a week. I haven’t been telling Aidan. I know he’ll disapprove. I’ve found a café on the other side of the road, almost opposite. It’s really posh, it sells fancy sausages and ham and organic lemonades (whatever that is!) and stuff, but it has seats in the window so I sit there with a coffee and watch the door that leads to the flats. Sometimes I film it on my phone. The woman who runs the café is okay, yesterday she gave me a sandwich and said it was on the house.
Anyway, today I finally saw the girl I recognised. She was coming from the other direction with a guy, wearing the same clothes from that first day, although I think I’d have recognised her anyway. Today I even thought I knew her name – Daisy – though it turns out I was wrong. I wonder if that’s the name of someone from before?
When I caught up with her I thought she was going to run again, but I asked her not to. The man she was with said ‘Sadie?’ and he sounded really surprised to see me.
‘Please,’ I said to them. ‘I need to talk to you.’
At first I didn’t think they would, but then the girl said I should wait, they’d be ten minutes. Then they went upstairs.
The girl came down by herself. ‘C’mon,’ she said, and we went back towards the coach station to a car park above a row of shops. ‘In here,’ she said.
It stank really badly in there, and there was pee everywhere, but we climbed the stairs to the first floor and found a spot near a big silver Volvo.
‘You’re back,’ she said, just like that. I felt excited, but scared, too.
‘What’s your name?’
She didn’t answer, just lit a cigarette. I had to ask her again.
‘Alice.’
Alice. I wondered if that’s the reason I chose Alex as my name, when I needed to tell Dr Olsen something. She gave me a cigarette and asked where I’d been. I told her as much as I could.
‘That was you?’ she said. It turns out I was on the news, in the papers. MYSTERY GIRL FOUND ON DEAL BEACH. I really hope no one back home in London saw it, though I still didn’t know why.
Then Alice said something weird. She said I shouldn’t be there, that I’d promised not to come back to Victoria, especially not back to the squat. When I asked why, she just said, ‘You’re in danger, girl.’
I asked why, but she wouldn’t say, so I asked if I’d done drugs at the squat. She just laughed, like it was obvious. She said she didn’t, but her friend, Dev, did.
Dev. The name rang a bell. She said it was the guy she’d been with. ‘He’s using again,’ she said, like I’d be really disappointed.
Anyway, she said we’d met at Waterloo. I’d been living on the streets since I arrived in London, and I’d had my bag stolen so I had no money or anything. I wouldn’t tell her what had happened to me, though I said something had, something pretty bad. She said she’d got the sense someone had died. A suicide, but I’d said no, it was worse than that, but that I’d never tell anyone.
She’d managed to persuade me to go and stay in the squat. She said it’d taken ages, and when I asked why she said she didn’t know, but it was almost like I was scared of Dev.
But that’s all I know. We arranged to meet again, and she says she’ll tell me the rest then. I got the sense it was bad. It was the reason I disappeared to Deal. It was the reason she ran when she first saw me. I’m scared, but I’m glad I went, I’m glad I met Alice. The more I see of my old life, the more I seem to remember.
Now
27
The house is down a dirt track off the main road. I must’ve been here thousands of times, but I feel only a faint resonance. There’s a sign that reads Concealed Entrance which I don’t remember, the driveway has been newly gravelled and the house itself, standing alone as it does, seems somehow much smaller. I suppose it would’ve been the farmhouse once, back when there was a working farm here, though that thought never occurred to me when I lived here. We had four bedrooms, and it looks as though my mother has converted one of the outhouses into a fifth. At least that’s what I assume she’s done with it; I can’t think what other use she’d have for it – no need for a granny flat, or a home office – though it seems unlikely that she’d need all those beds, either.
‘This is it?’
Gavin seems surprised. I wonder what he’d expected. I lied and told him I’d done some digging, that it wasn’t hard to find Sadie’s address.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Looks very grand.’
I look out at the pots lining the driveway, ready for plants. All neat and tidy. I know what he means. It doesn’t look like the kind of house you’d want to run from. But what does he know? What do any of us?
‘I wonder if a
nyone’s in. No cars.’
The drive is empty, the house unlit, though it’s early, only just starting to get light.
‘Let’s wait here for a minute,’ I say, and stop the car opposite the house. I need to get my breathing down. Part of me wants to forget all about it, to stay as I am, lost memories and all. I don’t want to face it. But I can’t give in to that part. I’m in too deep; this isn’t even about the film any more, it’s gone beyond that, it’s about me now. Knowing who I was. What happened. How I’m connected to Daisy.
I look up at the house again. I wonder why so many of my memories of my time here are missing. I wonder what happened to me. Dr Olsen told me I was blocking the things that hurt the most.
It makes sense, I suppose. If you can’t remember it, then it didn’t happen.
‘Gavin? Maybe you could go in now?’
His eyes soften, just a touch. ‘Okay. I’ll go and see how the land lies, then, if she’s in, and if she’s happy to talk, I’ll report back and maybe you could go and talk to her then.’
I thank him. He opens the door, then looks back. His eyes are wide, expectant, and for a moment I think he’s going to try to kiss me, and know that if he does, I’ll let him.
‘Wish me luck,’ he says, then he gets out of the car. He walks up to the gate. That’s new, too. It was just a gap in the hedge when I was here last, big enough for the car. He unlatches it and I watch him approach the house. He rings the bell and after a minute a light comes on, a shadow appears, movement behind the frosted glass.
The woman who answers is young. She’s holding a baby. I watch – somehow both hugely relieved and bitterly disappointed – as they talk for a moment and then, without a backwards glance, Gavin goes inside.
I sit back in the seat. Dr Olsen told me once that it was common; people often didn’t remember the details of what had happened to them that made them run, just the generalities. But it seems I lost even those. I look again at the house. My bedroom was at the back, looking out over the fields, down towards the sea, though I couldn’t quite see it. At night, the lights of Blackwood Bay shone in the distance, the lighthouse visible beyond it.
But what happened in there? With my mother’s boyfriend? Was there anything? Why have I blocked it, overwritten every memory like a disk too full? And is it related to Zoe, to what’s happening now, to Kat and Ellie and the rest?