by Nicci Cloke
She shrugged, all cross. ‘I don’t know, Fitz! I’m not a bloody psychic! They’re probably sick of her! We’ve got problems of our own, all of us.’
I got all hot in the face then, which was a bit because I don’t like being shouted at or arguing but also a bit because I felt cross – because I was hard pushed to see what problems Jelli or Pippa had. But I supposed she had a point in her own Jelli way. Not everybody’s world revolved around Saffy, and it wasn’t their fault I’d only just realised way too late that my world really really did. I trudged over and sat next to her. There was a stone in my shoe so I took it off and shook it out while I tried to get everything straight in my head.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing much we can do. She’ll turn up.’
‘What are you on about, Jel?’ I said, because I suddenly had this horrible sinking big cold feeling that Saffy was gone for good.
‘This is what she does, Fitz,’ she said, leaning back against the steps, bored. ‘She runs. She hides. Sooner or later, and emphasis on the sooner, she’ll be back and sorry and maybe they’ll send her back to the cuckoo’s nest for a few weeks and she’ll eat up all her peas like a good girl and then they’ll pack her off home to you and she’ll be your problem again.’
‘But I don’t want her to hide,’ I said, feeling a bit whiny and sad. ‘I don’t want her to be scared.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘not much you can do about that. Enjoy the peace and quiet while you’ve got it I say.’
‘C’mon, Jel, you can’t mean that. We should be out looking for her. Help me out here – where would she go? We could go look together, take my car, or yours, whatever.’
She turned to look at me with one pointy eyebrow raised. ‘Do you actually not know my sister at all?’ Which was starting to seem like a good question but I didn’t need to answer because she just carried right on. ‘Saffy does things her way or no way. If you go after her, she’ll just keep on running. She’s not coming back until she’s decided that coming back is a good idea.’
We both sat and chewed on that for a while and watched the sea licking at the stones. I wanted to tell her that she was wrong, but I wasn’t sure I could. Jelli had known Saffy ever since she’d been alive; I’d only known her for a tiny time compared to that. Maybe waiting for her to come back was the best thing. Maybe she was already on her way home and when I got back she’d be waiting for me. I looked at my phone but there was nothing, just a plain black screen next to the plain black sea. I still felt all nervous and confused in my stomach so I tried to make conversation to see if it would go away.
‘So what’re you doing here anyway?’ I said.
‘Didn’t you hear?’ she goes, laughing. ‘I’m in exile.’
‘You what?’ I said, cos I had a vague idea what that meant but I’ve been wrong about those things quite a few times and Jelli wasn’t the kind of person you wanted to get your words mixed up around.
‘Mum sent me away.’ She was leaning back on her elbows and looking up at the stars. She was pretty, Jel, in a dirty sort of way, not good dirty more like a bit in need of a wash, with dirty blonde hair in waves and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off and a greenish cardigan wrapped round her and bracelets jangling halfway up both arms. ‘I’m hanging out here till the WI find something better to talk about.’
‘Why?’ I asked, and it was bound to be good, Jelli was always getting into trouble from what I’d heard off Saf: chucked out of school once for cutting off a girl’s hair who was sat in front of her and then making her eat it, but she got back in because Pippa was on the board, whatever that means.
‘Oh, just a bit of fun,’ she said, but then she looked at me with a little cat wink. ‘Mr Grubbins,’ she goes.
‘Grubbins! The old perv next door?’ I was shocked I can’t deny.
‘Oi,’ she said, giving me a little push but she was only messing.
‘Jeez,’ I said, getting my face together. ‘He must be sixty, easy.’
‘Don’t be ageist,’ she said. ‘He’s still got the moves.’ But you could tell she wasn’t all that bothered.
I laughed but maybe that was more out of surprise than anything else. ‘Bugger me, Jel,’ I said. ‘Talk about pushing the boat out. You trying to get your mum in an early grave? She doesn’t even drink tap water.’ And then we both laughed.
‘What’s it like living with your nanna?’ I said. ‘Rock and roll, eh.’
She laughed again and dug her feet into the stones right up to the ankles. ‘Nanna’s pretty cool,’ she said.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ she goes. ‘She was a WAAF, you know.’
‘A WAAF?’ I said. ‘Is that like a WAG?’
‘Ha,’ she goes. ‘No. Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. In the war.’
‘Oh,’ I went. ‘Didn’t even know that was allowed.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ she goes. ‘Went off when she was nineteen, no intention of settling down and getting married like her parents wanted her to. She’s always been like that.’ Then she said, with a rare little real smile on her face, ‘We’ve got a lot in common.’
‘That’s nice,’ I said, with my own little smile because it was nice.
‘Hey,’ she said, sitting up to squeeze my arm. ‘Why don’t you stay here tonight? Go back to the flat tomorrow and wait a few days and she’ll be back. You look knackered.’
‘Oh, ta very much!’ I said, but I nodded and suddenly I did feel really tired and being around Jelli was making it seem like maybe she was right and maybe everything would be okay and right about then I felt like clinging to that as tight as I could. ‘Yeah, that’d be good. Thanks, Jel.’
By the time we got back over the railings and up the hill I really was knackered and the nanna had gone to bed so Jel grabbed a nannish flowery quilt out of the airing cupboard and I bedded down on the sofa. After she’d gone I lay there for a bit, and I thought it was nice for Jelli, having somewhere else to go, and I wondered where Saf was and if she was okay. And I thought about my nan a bit, which I never really did because I don’t remember her, apart from this time when I was five and we got taken in to see her and I hid behind my dad’s legs but Hannah was braver and she went up and gave her a kiss on her yellow wrinkly cheek but she cried the whole way home after. No one had really mentioned Granny Brown for years, not till Han and the terrorists, and then for weeks Granny Brown was all Mum would talk about, Granny Brown and the curse. Well, that sounds exciting, doesn’t it, like I’m a council-estate Harry Potter? Well, ’fraid not, nothing exciting like that, no, ‘Ooh, you’re a wizard, William’, although it would’ve been good come to think of it if a nice friendly giant had delivered the news that my family were batshit crazy, rather than my mum from behind a snotty tower of J-cloths. There’s no point beating about the bush, is there? My mum’s nan – well, you’d have heard of her. I hadn’t but then I never did pay much attention to the news or history or anything. Charlotte Brown (Charlie to her mates) kiddie-killer and great-nan. Out on the moors and all over the papers and that. Anyway, for years and years people used to scratch things on the house or on her grave after she’d died, you know just ‘murderer’ and ‘devil worshipper’ that kind of thing. Well, it was a bit much for my nan to put up with, as it would be for most people, I guess. She started hitting the sherry and Mum’d always be coming home in her school uniform and finding her mam drunk and lying on the linoleum and that. One of the times, Mum told me once when she’d had a sherry herself, she went to go and move the glass out of her mam’s hand when she’d fallen asleep with her head on the table, and just as she leant down her mum suddenly jerked up and her eyes were open and she goes, ‘The devil’s in you, Anna my girl, it’s in us all,’ and then she vommed brown sherry sick all on the plastic tablecloth. And that’s gotta freak anyone out. In fact it was freaking me out then, lying in the dark with the flowery quilt up to my ears and the smell of sea-salty Grandma in the air, so I closed my eyes tight and went to sleep.
In the end I slept
like a log on Mrs-Truelove-call-me-May’s sofa. The next morning I found myself sat at the little table in the kitchen drinking milky milky tea while Anjelica was in the shower and her nanna was pottering about brewing yet more tea, which she put on the table and sat down across from me. I smiled at her and tried to think of something to say, maybe about Philip and Holly off This Morning, when she piped up, leaning forward over her cup of tea, ‘So what’s going on, then? Have you and Saffia split up?’
‘No,’ I said, a bit taken aback. ‘Well, sort of, I s’pose.’
‘She been having it away?’ she said, looking wise.
‘No!’
‘Have you?’ she goes, in a cross voice.
‘No!’ I said. ‘Nobody’s been having it away. It’s just – well, she was getting ill again. And we thought she oughta go home for a bit.’ I felt all sheepy and confused again but without knowing why.
‘Oh dear. Have they sent her back to that dreadful place?’ she said, taking a gulp of tea, ‘Honestly, whatever is Philippa thinking? I’ll never know.’
‘Oh, no, Mrs Truelove,’ I said.
‘May,’ she said, interrupting.
‘Sorry, May I mean, no, she’s not back in hospital … she’s, erm, well, she’s gone away for a bit.’ I didn’t know what to say and the tea was too sweet to think properly and I really wished Jelli would hurry up and get out of the shower so she could do the talking.
‘Oh, right, done a runner, has she?’ she said, patting my hand. ‘Well, in that case, I wouldn’t worry, dear. She’ll soon be on the phone pining for you. She thinks she’s full of fire, Saffia, like this one,’ she pointed to where the shower sounds were coming from, ‘but all she needs is love and care. She’ll just want to come home. I’d bet you have a phone call in a day or so, if I were a gambling woman. Which I’m not,’ she said, with a wink. ‘Well, apart from the odd flutter on the geegees but we’re all human, aren’t we, dear?’
Couldn’t argue with that so I just nodded.
‘Well,’ she said, standing up, ‘you get her home, darling, and look after her, won’t you? I’ve got my hands full taking care of the scandal du jour.’ She looked over at the shower noises again. ‘Always keeping me busy, my granddaughters. If only they all had a nice fellow like you to look out for them,’ she goes, pinching my cheek. ‘Just like my Archie you are.’ And then she wandered out into the garden with her tea.
I sat and watched her out the window for a bit, looking at each of her flowers and picking off dead petals and stopping to smell one of them every now and again, sipping her tea and strolling around like it was a day in the park. I could just see her doing that with a little Saf toddling about behind her, maybe feeding the ducks, probably Jelli in the background somewhere killing birds or something and Ella off playing the harp or whatever. Nice to think of an old lady who did nice things with kids that didn’t end up as reruns on the True Crime channel. Jelli came in then in cut-off-jeans and a strappy top with her hair dripping water all over and she had freckles on her shoulders as well, which gave me a horrible ache in my chest and for a minute I couldn’t breathe.
‘Morning,’ she said, looking in the cup of tea May had left on the table and making a yuk face and putting it back. ‘Sleep well?’ she asked, clicking the kettle on and looking in the cupboard and getting coffee out from right at the back.
‘Yeah, good, ta,’ I said. ‘I’ll be getting off in a min.’
‘Back to London?’ She got another cup down.
I didn’t say anything then because either the ache in my chest or something else was stopping me and I couldn’t actually make my mouth say yes, and neither did she for a minute, putting a spoon of coffee in the cup and putting the lid back on the jar and the jar in the cupboard and looking at the kettle while it bubbled away. It worked itself up and then clicked off and she poured it in and stirred her coffee and I watched May stroking a fluffy white flower.
‘Give it up,’ Jelli said eventually, leaning back against the counter and blowing at her coffee. ‘Seriously, Fitz, don’t waste your time. You’re a nice kid,’ she said, taking a sip and sticking her tongue out because it was still too hot, and I was older than her but I didn’t bother saying. ‘Don’t get hung up on Saf. She lives on her own planet most of the time, her and Bluebell actually, but that’s the bloody tree house I reckon. Find yourself someone new, hun, without any issues. Saf’s sweet but she’ll always put herself first, it’s just the way she’s wired.’ She took another drink of coffee and crossed one ankle over the other. In the silence after that the ache in my chest grew bigger and bigger and my hands and feet felt itchy and I realised all of a sudden that the Saffy her family knew wasn’t her – maybe it was the old her, maybe it was a her they’d just made up to explain it all away but whatever it was, it wasn’t her. My Saffy was the real Saffy, and I knew her better than any of them ever would and there was no way in hell I was letting her just leave or be alone or be afraid and it was time that someone, for once in her life, didn’t let her go or didn’t just say she’d be back or that was just her, but went after her and didn’t let her run and told her they loved her over and over until she believed it. My cheeks got all hot and I couldn’t believe I’d wasted a whole night letting my whole life get away from me. ‘Nice day, isn’t it?’ Jelli said, staring out of the window.
‘Yeah,’ I said, draining my tea and getting up. ‘Well, I’ll get off then. Thanks for letting me stay and stuff, Jelli.’
I stuck my head out the backdoor and shouted, ‘Thanks for having me, Mrs – May, I mean!’
‘’Bye, love,’ she said, looking up and waving with a rose in her hand. ‘Pop round again soon.’
‘Thanks again, Jel,’ I said, pulling my shoes on. ‘Hope you get things sorted with your mum and that.’
‘Thanks, hun,’ she said. ‘Think about what I said, yeah?’
I didn’t answer, just waved as I went out the door. The car started first time and I drove off down the road until I could see the green hill and the sea and then I parked and got my phone out.
Quin picked up on the fifth ring, and by then I was pretty much poking a hole in my cheek with one finger. ‘Morning, William,’ he said all chirpy. ‘What’s the story, doll?’
‘It’s Saffy,’ I said. ‘You gotta help me, Quin. She’s done a runner and I have to find her. Fuck, I have to find her. Today.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Calm down. You’ve no idea where she’d go?’
I looked out at the sea through the dodgy window. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Is she there? Have you heard from her?’
Quin was silent on the other end of the phone. ‘No,’ he said, after a long minute, and for such a small word it made a big thud in my chest. ‘Her phone’s turned off whenever I try it.’ There was a pause and then he said, in quiet words that made huge thuds in my heart, ‘I don’t think she’s coming back, William.’
As I waited for Quin to call me back with a list of places or an idea of people or an answer to it all I laid my head on the steering wheel and tried and tried to stop myself punching the seat with both of my fists. All my head was buzzing and I knew if I sat there any longer I’d probably start throwing Eddie’s collection of jungle tapes through the windscreen so I started the engine and drove back down the road I’d come along, feeling my lungs let in their first bit of air in ages as I kept going, following the road along the curve until I saw a turning for the town centre and I took it and parked in the first empty space along the neat little row of shops.
I got out with my phone clutched tight as anything in my hand, and wandered down the row looking for somewhere to buy more cigs and something with enough caffeine in it to keep me awake all day and all night for as long as it took to find Saffy. I told myself over and over that I would find her, I would, I had to, I wouldn’t go back without her. But deep down inside my head there was a little voice who wouldn’t shut up no matter how hard I twisted his arm or poked him in the eye or pulled his hair and he was saying that Saffy might h
ave hurt herself or worse. He didn’t say what worse was because he knew I knew. I told him he was a twat and I looked into the shop windows and watched the people going about their business to distract myself.
All the buildings around were little and old with dusty bricks and white walls and black wood but the row of shops were modern mostly, some of them with stripy bits outside to make them look a bit cuter. I walked past a little cheese shop and a baker’s and a butcher’s and a bike shop and a bank, and up ahead I could see a little swinging sign with a headline stuffed in, waiting for me on the pavement to show me where I could get a bit of nicotine to keep me going somewhere wherever that somewhere was. I hurried along, still holding my phone so tight it was making my palm sweat like a pervert. But then a flash from a window caught my eye and I stopped to look. It was an electronics shop, all big hi-fis and little gadgets and right in the window was a bank of TVs – two little flat screens, one widescreen, one portable kind of one like posh people have in their cars, one weird old-fashioned one that could’ve been new and was meant to look old or could have been just old. All of them had Fate Jones’s face on, with the word ‘Found’ underneath in a big red banner, and I felt my heart shrivel up. I stood and pressed my face to the glass even though I knew that the picture was bound to change any second to show the diggers and the police and the little white tent like they have on TV programmes. The sound was off so I couldn’t even hear what the newsreader was saying, could just see the picture of her face and the word ‘Found’, which had never looked like ‘Dead’ to me before but now always always would.
And then the picture changed. It wasn’t diggers or mud or yellow jackets or a white tent. It was a picture of a beach, with hundreds of people lying on sunbeds with colourful umbrellas dotted everywhere and a big belt of blue sea along the top. And I watched with my breath fogging up the glass and my fingers leaving sweaty prints as the little red line spelt out, ‘Missing girl Fate Jones found alive and well on Ibiza beach’.