‘Then don’t hurt me,’ he said. ‘Don’t go. Stop thinking of yourself, think of the girls, think of me – how shall I deal with all the pressures at work if I also have to deal with this?’
Ali looked at him then with a mixture of pity and disappointment. ‘You’ll cope,’ she said, and then on the threshold of the door she told him she was going first to see Thea in Melbourne, to explain everything, and from there to Portugal, to see Stella, who she thought should get a different story, an edited one, because Stella was too far away from home to be told the full truth.
‘Good God, aren’t you the selfish and calculating bitch?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I’m not, I really am not.’ She was still shaking, but her resolve was made from pure steel. ‘I need to do this, Michael. I’m going to do this,’ and Michael, shaking his head, speaking with contempt, said, ‘That guy is nobody, he’s nothing.’
‘No,’ Ali said. ‘He’s not. I think he might be everything.’
In Melbourne, faced with the reality of hurting her beloved eldest daughter, she baulked at first at the truth and said only that she was going away for a while, to the UK. But when Thea said, at once, ‘What about Dad?’ Ali plunged in and said well, yes, they needed some time apart from each other. Then Thea had flung herself sideways on to her bed, and wailed, ‘You’re splitting up!’ and cried messily, and it was an hour before she’d listen to any kind of reason, and even then she sniffed and glowered at Ali over the top of her balled-up hankie, and sided one hundred per cent with her dad, her poor dad, who shouldn’t be left alone in Adelaide now Beatriz was dead. This was Thea being thirteen again, demanding that life remain on her terms and no one else’s, but Ali just persisted in treating her as an adult, and told her a few scant details about Dan, and about her own miserable girlhood in Sheffield, her alcoholic mother, long dead, the brother she’d told none of them about, and how she’d left unresolved so many problems from her past that it sometimes felt as if Alison Connor and Ali McCormack were two different people, strangers to each other. Thea listened without interruption, then when Ali finished she said, ‘Are you leaving Dad for this other man?’
‘All I know for sure right now is that I need to see Dan again, and deal with that part of my life I’ve always refused to address. But I’m not leaving you, Thea. I’ll be back, I promise you that.’
Thea chewed her bottom lip. She looked so young. ‘When we were little, you told us you had no family, other than us.’
‘I know. I suppose that was me taking the easy road. I’m sorry.’
‘Are you telling Stella all this?’
‘No,’ Ali said. ‘Some of it, not all of it, and I’d like you not to tell her either while she’s travelling, OK?’
‘But you’ll tell her you’re going away?’
‘Yep, seeing her the day after tomorrow, in Lisbon.’
‘Then going to England?’
‘London, yes. Then, I’m not sure. Sheffield, perhaps.’
‘What if your brother’s dead, as well as your mother?’
‘Well, then at least I’ll know.’
‘And what about Dad? Is he OK?’
‘Well, he’s still getting his head round everything,’ Ali said, thinking: understatement of the year. She saw in her mind’s eye his face when she’d finally left the house, his expression a study in stony dislike as he summoned the healing power of his anger to sublimate the distress, the hurt, the fear. ‘You know what I’ve realised?’ he’d said. ‘You don’t have the first idea what it means to love someone.’ Then he’d closed the door before she’d turned away, as if he couldn’t wait to get her out of his sight.
She arrived at Heathrow, exhausted and uncertain. Seeing Thea, seeing Stella, the crossing of time zones, the surprising anxiety of travelling alone, the stress of connecting flights and the ordinary mayhem of international airports: all these elements conspired to bring her low, and she felt absurdly tearful in the luggage hall, as if this odyssey across the world hadn’t been what she wanted, hadn’t been what she intended at all. And then, as she waited for her rucksack to appear on the carousel, she delved into her handbag for her phone, and it wasn’t there. Nor was it in the pockets of her jacket, or her jeans. Disbelieving, increasingly frenzied, she patted the same pockets again, emptied the chaotic contents of her bag on to the floor, then sat in the midst of the detritus and let hopelessness claim her. Uppermost in her unravelling mind was a song she’d received in Lisbon from Dan only thirty-six hours ago, a blessed, unexpected song, ‘Sunshine Superman’, a longed-for miracle. Its arrival had placed healing hands on her anxious, aching heart, but she’d been with Stella so hadn’t responded to him, and then, alone at Lisbon airport, she’d seen her phone’s battery was perilously low so she hadn’t been able to reply at all: had instead switched off the phone, to save its last gasp of life for London. And now the phone was gone, and the loss of it made her feel sick with a kind of exhausted grief: made her remember, too, an encounter on the way to the departure gate, a young woman with vacant eyes, carrying a silent baby on her hip. She’d asked Ali for money, spare euros, small change, anything; and Ali had emptied her pockets, poured a handful of coins into the young woman’s outstretched hand, and as they parted she’d felt a light, momentary collision, a hasty apology, too fleeting to seem significant. There was no proof, of course, but she was as sure as she could be that in those moments of distraction and contrived confusion her phone had been taken. So, she thought now, with a feeling of rising despair: how am I ever to find Daniel Lawrence?
‘Excuse me, do you need some help?’
This was an elderly Englishman, a fellow traveller, waiting for his luggage. He looked at Ali with a sort of cheerful sympathy.
‘Oh, not really,’ she said, standing up at once, pulling herself together. She stooped to begin gathering up her possessions, and he did the same, handing her a used tissue, lip balm, an Adelaide metro card, a compact mirror. ‘I lost my phone, that’s all.’ She felt awkward, sharing the contents of her handbag with this gentlemanly stranger.
‘Ah, gosh, that’s a disconcerting feeling, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘How we all depend upon our phones, even myself, who once swore I’d never use one! Would you like to borrow mine, let someone know you’re here?’
She smiled, wanly. ‘I’d need to log on to Twitter,’ she said. ‘But then it’ll send a security passcode to my phone, and of course I don’t have it.’
‘Pardon? Log on to what?’
‘Never mind,’ Ali said. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Ah,’ said the man, looking crestfallen.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort something out – but look, there’s my bag, I’d better go.’
‘Well, leave a number at lost property,’ he said, determined to help one way or another. ‘Someone they can call if it’s found?’
‘Yeah,’ Ali said, although there really was no one, because she possessed no phone numbers and not a soul on this island was expecting her. ‘Thanks for being kind.’ She hauled her rucksack from the belt and waved goodbye to him before making her way through customs, then following signs for taxis, thanking God that she still had her cash and her cards. She had no real sense of where Heathrow was in relation to the rest of London, or, in fact, where Dan’s boat was moored, but that’s where she hoped to head, because it was a start. She’d heard of the famous wisdom of London cab drivers, so she climbed into the first in line and sat down, and when the driver said, ‘Where to, darlin’?’ she said, ‘I’m kind of hoping you’ll tell me.’
‘Come again?’ he said, looking at her through his mirror.
‘Excuse me?’
‘What did you say, love?’
‘I need to get to the canal, to a narrowboat on the canal.’
All she knew was that Dan’s boat was called Crazy Diamond and that Lisa and Frank and Jim lived on either side of him, on the canal. In Adelaide, this might’ve possibly been sufficient information, but she felt a fool now, coming so ill-equip
ped to this teeming capital city.
‘Right,’ said the cabbie. ‘I might need a bit more info from you, darlin’. Where’s it moored, this narrer-boat?’
‘On the canal?’ As opposed to the River Thames, she meant, but oh God, this was humiliating.
The driver pulled away from the taxi rank to free up the cab behind him, then parked again in a nearby bay. He talked to her through the rear-view mirror and his eyes twinkled with a kind of merry sarcasm when he said, ‘See, there’s quite a lot of canal in London, love. There’s a fair few places to float your boat. Limehouse Basin? Battlebridge Basin at the back o’ Kings Cross? Ring any bells?’
‘No, I’m so sorry.’ She knew she was batting her lashes at him, hoping he wouldn’t give up on her and ask her to get out.
‘Lisson Grove? Little Venice? Cumberland Basin?’
‘Oh!’ she said, brightening. ‘I think it might be that Little Venice one.’
‘That Little Venice one, right-oh, very nice, so let’s take a chance that it’s on Blomfield Road then,’ he said, pulling smoothly away from the parking bay.
‘It’s Crazy Diamond, if that helps,’ Ali said. ‘The name, I mean,’ and he laughed and said, ‘Okey-doke, darlin’, very rock and roll. It’s not Dave Gilmour’s boat, is it?’
‘No, but good guess,’ she said, smiling back at him, feeling that she might have chanced upon London’s friendliest cab driver, or were they all this chirpy? And he was so sure of his route! None of the cabbies in little old Adelaide ever knew the way anywhere without recourse to Google Maps, but this guy was off like a rocket, away from the airport and weaving through traffic as if there was someone on his tail.
‘Where you from, love?’ he asked.
‘Adelaide,’ Ali said.
‘Where’s that then?’
‘South Australia.’
‘Blimey O’Riley, you’re a long way from home.’
‘Yeah, about ten thousand miles, but they do say home is where the heart is, so.’
‘Oh, right!’ he said. ‘Right! Who’ve you come to see, then? Who’s the lucky feller?’
‘A guy called Dan,’ she said. ‘He’s not expecting me.’
The cabbie winked appreciatively at her in the mirror. ‘Well, he’s got a nice surprise coming then.’
‘Hope so,’ she said. ‘Hard to say.’
She could see a willow tree nodding at its own reflection in the dark water, a pair of regal swans carving a path through vivid green duckweed, and Crazy Diamond, a pretty, navy-blue boat with brass-framed porthole windows, her name a flourish of canary yellow on the bow. She could also see that the boat was empty; padlocks on the double doors and a tarpaulin pulled tight over the stern deck, but Ali waved off her new pal in the taxi, because she’d arrived at her destination and the fact that Dan wasn’t here was immaterial. She’d sort of known he wouldn’t be. It was Sunday, he’d be in Edinburgh, doing weekend things with Katelin, but for the time being, she had nowhere else to go, and no better idea than to stand in Blomfield Road and simply will him to appear, to saunter towards her along the tree-lined street, just as he would in the movies.
She lowered her rucksack on to the pavement so that she could rest against the black metal railings and study this idyllic place, and admire Crazy Diamond, and mourn her emptiness, her blank-eyed, dormant state. What had she expected? Of course Dan wasn’t here, and anyway, he probably hated her for humiliating him, and she couldn’t blame him for that, and she might never see him again, in spite of coming to him as he’d come to her. She was considering this bleak possibility when a languid, disembodied voice broke her desolate reverie. ‘Hey, babe? You’re Alison, right?’ and Ali spun round at the sound, although she didn’t really know where to look, and left or right, there wasn’t a soul on the towpath.
‘Up here, babe.’
And there she was, on the flat roof of the boat next door, partly obscured by the arching willows, a slender old lady with dip-dyed hair and dungarees, kohl-lined eyes, henna hands, bare feet, crossed legs, dozens of silver bangles on each wrist and a rope of azure beads wound around her throat. Lisa, thought Ali. Dan’s Lovely Lisa. She smiled, and Lisa smiled too.
‘You came,’ Lisa said, nodding sagely, as if she’d known all along.
‘I did.’
Lisa stood up and raised her arms into the air like a celebrant, and her multitude of bangles slid against each other with the chimes of tiny bells. ‘Welcome,’ she said, and she hopped lightly down from her perch on to the path. ‘You’ll stay with us, until Dan gets here.’
‘He doesn’t know I’m here,’ Ali said. She was mesmerised by Lisa, whose embrace smelled of patchouli oil, and whose bare feet were bejewelled with silver toe rings.
‘Then you must tell him,’ Lisa said. She took Ali’s hand and led her on to the foredeck of Ophelia. ‘Come, say hello to Frank.’
Dan stared at the text message, which had bloomed on to the screen of his phone, plain as day for Katelin to read. It had Jim’s name attached to it, Jim from Veronica Ann, and this was simply inexplicable, but hardly more so than the message itself, which read, Hey Daniel, this is Alison, I’ll be at the bar of the Warwick Castle, 8pm tonight, saving you a seat xxx.
He was in the hallway, just outside the kitchen, and Katelin was raging in there, really raging, while Rose-Ann’s voice was another layer of sound, soft and constant, a blanket of soothing platitudes, and meanwhile Duncan had opened the door and was hissing at him: ‘What the fuck, what is it, what’s happened?’ Dan looked at him, without really seeing.
‘She’s in London,’ he said. His head and gut swam with problems and possibilities, and the damage he’d done, and the damage he’d yet to do.
‘Then go, pal,’ Duncan said at once, reading such agony and conflict in his friend’s face that he was compelled to take the decision from him. ‘Just go. We’ll take care of Katelin.’
For a few seconds the two friends just stared at each other, and Dan imagined the blessed, irresponsible relief of simply walking away, then he said, ‘No, I need to try and deal with this,’ and he went back into the kitchen, where Katelin lunged at him, bringing her fists down on to his shoulders and chest, raining curses upon him, crying with a ghastly, broken abandon.
‘Oh my God, Katelin, please,’ Dan said. ‘Katelin, please.’ He caught hold of her hands and held them tight and still between his. ‘Please, come on, can you listen to me, can you?’ They were standing on shards of broken porcelain, and scattered roast potatoes, and gruesome pools of bloody juice from the beef, although the remains of the rib itself had been purloined by McCulloch, who was hunched over it in his basket, uncertain if this was legal. Katelin was quieter now, but there was no sense of a crisis passing, only of the briefest pause in violent hostilities. The atmosphere in the room was thick with mistrust and reproach and the terrible, weighty sense of an ending. Rose-Ann had one ineffectual hand in the middle of Katelin’s back and Duncan was trying to make no noise at all while moving glasses and plates from the table to the sink, in case she should reach for another missile. Dan released her fists and took her face between his hands, and they stared at each other with a kind of appalled grief. She knew him so well, knew the meaning of every expression she’d ever seen on his beloved, hated face, and she knew now from his eyes exactly what he was about to say.
‘Don’t speak,’ she said. ‘Don’t apologise. Just go.’
Rose-Ann and Duncan drew back a little, watching and waiting, uncomfortable spectators at a disastrous feast.
‘Katelin.’
‘Go. I’m sick of not trusting you anyway.’
‘I have to do this, and I don’t know where it’s leading, but first I want to try and explain why.’
‘I don’t care why, just go, fuck off, go on, go.’
Tears streamed down her face, this woman he’d loved, this woman who’d loved him, and he wanted to tell her that he wouldn’t change anything, that she was marvellous and magnificent and he was privileged to have sha
red his life with her, but that still, he had to go. He had to, had to, as if he’d been chipped and programmed, back there in Sheffield in 1979, to be with Alison Connor at any cost, if their paths crossed again, if he found her. It wasn’t fate or destiny, it was animal instinct, a primal imperative, as powerful and mysterious as the certainty that gives a swallow the strength for all those weeks on the wing, and leads it home. He didn’t speak, though. He hung his head for a moment, collecting himself, and then he picked up his jacket, his keys, his wallet, and he left the house. He was already on the street when he heard Duncan’s voice, calling him to hang on, so he waited, and his friend appeared with McCulloch on a lead.
‘She says you’re to take the dog,’ Duncan said.
‘Christ Almighty, Dunc, I’m not fit to be in charge of him.’
‘Still, though. She says you’re to take the dog. “Tell him to take the fucking dog, I’m not keeping it,” is what she said, actually. So.’ He held out the lead, and Dan took it.
‘Right,’ he said. McCulloch sniffed the afternoon air and waited for instructions.
‘You OK, pal?’ Duncan asked.
‘Not even slightly.’
‘Ring me, y’know, whenever.’
‘Thanks, mate. And keep an eye on Katelin, won’t you?’
‘You bet.’
‘Thanks, Duncan. I mean, really, thank you.’
‘No worries. Oh.’ He plunged a hand into his pocket. ‘I brought you these too. They were on the hall table.’
Earphones, oh God, he’d almost left without his earphones.
‘You’re a lifesaver, buddy, seriously,’ Dan said. ‘Look, I really should …’ He indicated the vague direction of Waverley Station with his free hand. He needed to get cracking, and he also needed a cab if he was going to make the three twenty to King’s Cross.
‘Go, yeah, course, go,’ Duncan said, but he still hung about, reluctant to go back into the house, knowing that at best he’d be a spare part in there, and at worst a hapless scapegoat for Katelin’s wrath.
Mix Tape Page 33