Looking for Alex

by Marian Dillon

  He shrugged. ‘I was trying to persuade her that you hadn’t talked, that you hadn’t betrayed her, but she insisted it was obvious you had, from something her mother said. And then suddenly she decided she wanted to hear your side of the story, wanted to contact you. I asked how she’d do that when she also wanted to stay hidden. She thought she could write to your home address and ask you to meet her somewhere.’

  ‘But that would have meant putting her trust in me again, when trust was the issue.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So she never did.’ I picked up my glass and drank. The wine is rich, heavy, and it’s loosening my tongue. ‘I tried to find her, you know.’ He looked gratifyingly surprised. ‘I went to…’ I stopped. It would sound crazy.

  ‘Went to…?’

  ‘I went all the way to Madrid, looking for Alex.’

  ‘Madrid?’ His eyes widened. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because a friend told me she’d seen Alex there, working as a nanny. I thought if I did the same I’d be bound to bump into her and I was in this dead-end job, so…’ I smiled, at Fitz’s incredulous face. ‘I hated it. Not Madrid, but the family, they treated me like a slave, the children were brats, and I was still—’

  I stopped abruptly.

  ‘Still…?’

  ‘I suppose I was homesick.’

  Fitz studied my face. ‘No. You were about to say something else.’

  I shrugged. ‘I was lonely. I mean, I made a few friends, but basically I was still missing you.’

  His eyes changed; he leaned forward.

  ‘Why do you think I got into this thing with Alex?’ I shook my head, surprised by the intensity of his question. He started talking fast, the words tumbling out. ‘Because it was a connection with you. When Alex said she was going to try to contact you I thought I might even get to see you again. But then, we started arguing, bickering a lot, and she moved out.’ He drained his glass and set it down in the hearth. ‘The night she left she said she knew I still thought about you. She was going to give me your address so I could write, but then I said something to upset her and she got into a foul mood and just went, slamming the door and screaming abuse.’ He was watching me carefully. ‘She did that a lot.’

  For a moment I couldn’t speak as I took this all in: Alex, so angry; Fitz, and me; that opportunity snatched away from us.

  ‘And you never knew if she’d talked to me or not.’

  ‘No,’ Fitz said. ‘I never knew.’ He turned his head towards the window, where the sky had gone very dark, a bruised purple. He got up to switch on a couple of lamps. ‘Bit of a mess, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Would you have written?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. I think so. Why not?’

  His phone rang, from the kitchen. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, and then I heard him talking to Kirsty. She’d phoned to say she got home safely. Fitz talked quietly, and I heard him laugh once or twice but not much of what he was saying.

  It’s all too fucking late, I thought savagely.

  When the phone call was finished he stayed hesitantly in the doorway, hands shoved in pockets, staring down at the floor. I thought I should go, and stood up, put on my jacket.

  ‘Beth…’ He stopped, and I waited. ‘Do you really want to open this all up again?’

  When I didn’t answer he said, ‘Look, it meant nothing to me. I don’t care what she might say about me. It’s you I’m thinking of. She could be so…vicious.’

  ‘Let me worry about that,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep in touch, Fitz.’

  *

  6th August, 1977

  At the end of my allotted two weeks, with my parents’ holiday over, I board the bus back to Sheffield, with eighty-three pence and an aching heart. Fitz comes to see me off; we cling onto each other like a proper Romeo and Juliet and all my doubts about his feelings are swept away — some consolation for being separated. Only when the driver starts up the engine do I get on the bus, with the promise that somehow I’ll come back down.

  Earlier, when I said goodbye to Alex, and that I’d be back, she half-jokingly said why didn’t I just stay, join her there, stay with Fitz and bugger A-levels, bugger everything? We played around with the idea for a while but we both knew I wouldn’t. But now, as the coach swings out of the station and Fitz becomes a black dot in the distance, I promise myself I will somehow snatch a few more days at Empire Road before the end of the summer. Anything else is unthinkable.

  We keep in touch, but it isn’t easy. I write to Fitz every day but tell him not to write back — scared that my mother will think they’re letters from Alex and start snooping — and we manage a couple of phone-calls, not from home, but from one phone-box to another. None of it seems enough.

  I try to keep busy, going to work at Woolworths each day and sometimes out with friends. Not that I want to see friends; I feel so removed from them, and whenever Alex’s name comes up I get anxious, and have to bite my lip or say I don’t want to talk about it. But then sitting in my bedroom missing Fitz isn’t much fun either. Besides, I have this gut instinct that a point may come when I need my friends’ help, one way or another.

  Towards the end of this time I send Fitz a parcel of books, some that I’ve read and think he’ll like, because he said that he was bored without me. In my last letter I tell him I’m coming back and to meet me off the bus in two days’ time.

  *

  Fitz looks small in the crowds, almost insignificant, and I have a moment’s panic that after two weeks it will all be different, that the magic will have gone. Then he comes over and gives me such a fierce hug I feel my ribs protest. Instantly the excitement is back, a kick in my belly. His hair is newly cut, short, so that the springy curls are tamed. Alex did it, he tells me. The milky skin of his arms shows up freckles, from time spent in the garden. These are the new things I notice. The rest is the same: black jeans and black shirt, with rolled-up sleeves and shades dangling from his back pocket; the tilt of his head, the sharp little nose and the skewed smile as he looks me up and down; the scent of sandalwood from soap I brought with me last time. That smell, together with a trace of the earthy must from the walls in Fitz’s room, brings my spirits right up after a coach journey full of bad thoughts. The bus was delayed in holiday traffic and I’d sat there stewing in sun and guilt.

  ‘Your shirt smells of the house,’ I say, burying my nose in it.

  ‘Is that good or bad?’

  ‘It’s good. I like it.’ I laugh, giddy with seeing him again. ‘Never thought I’d say that!’

  We walk along to the tube, me glorying in having him by my side and in the new delight of being taken care of, the heavier of my bags swinging in his free hand. When we reach the platform he puts his arm round my waist and kisses my neck.

  ‘I like having you back.’

  ‘I’ve got a whole week,’ I say. ‘But, Fitz, I’ve told so many lies. They just kept coming out of my mouth.’

  ‘How did you manage this?’ he wants to know, as we sit side by side on the tube, rattling through darkness.

  ‘More lies,’ I say. ‘That and the amazing coincidence that the friends I lied about going camping with actually asked me if I wanted to go on holiday with them. They’re going to Butlins, the one at Minehead. My parents are really busy at work and my dad said, well, you came back from camping in one piece, so why not? So this morning I got on a coach with Hilary and Rachel. That’s it!’

  Fitz looks round at me, pauses for a beat. ‘So how come you’re here and not in Minehead?’

  ‘Because—’ I grin ‘—we had to change at Victoria. And I told them I wasn’t getting on the other bus. I was staying in London.’

  ‘Wow. Devious,’ Fitz says, admiringly. “But dangerous. What did your friends say?’

  ‘Well…they were just a tiny bit annoyed with me.’ I can still see the outrage on both their faces. ‘I had to give them a story about meeting someone while I was camping with my parents. I said my parents didn’t like him but I really wanted to see him agai
n and that his family had asked me to stay.’ I squeeze Fitz’s hand. ‘Mostly true.’

  ‘And you trust them?’ Fitz is looking worried. ‘They won’t say anything?’

  ‘Sure. Why would they? They wouldn’t want to get me into trouble. And they hardly know my parents.’

  I look away, picturing Rachel’s incredulous expression as I talked her and Hilary into covering for me.

  ‘You’re not coming back?’ she asked, and I said, ‘Yes of course I’m coming back, but maybe not quite the same time as you.’ ‘What will you tell your parents?’ she wanted to know and I said I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

  But now, as I contemplate the web of lies I’ve been spinning a wave of cold panic pours over me.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this.’

  ‘Too late for that. And I’m as guilty as you now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your parents would say I’ve encouraged you.’

  ‘Well, I’d tell them you didn’t.’ He’s staring fixedly at the tube map. I reach up and pull his face round towards me. ‘Do you wish I hadn’t come back?’

  He squeezes my hand. ‘Of course not.’

  I look away. ‘I felt so bad at home. All those lies.’

  This remark doesn’t go anywhere near describing the complete sense of dislocation I experienced, sitting in the bedroom I’d decorated that spring — all orange and brown, with large flowers on one wall, posters on a huge pin-board, and a new Anglepoise lamp on my desk — imagining Fitz in his with its crumbling plaster, splintered floorboards and candle-light. I tried hard to pretend everything was normal, but the things I knew and the things I’d seen just wouldn’t stay stuffed down inside me. And I missed Fitz so very much, missed the sex so much, I was aching to see him. All of this made me either bad-tempered or silent. My mother kept casting around for reasons: late nights while I was away; missing Alex; a boy I’d met on holiday. There was truth in all of them and then there were other truths that I couldn’t reveal. My mother sensed me holding back, and, as her experience of me was that I told her most things, she appeared hurt.

  Coming out of the tube at Camden we buy two cans of 7 Up and walk round to Surrey Gardens, a little patch of green surrounded by houses and fenced in by iron railings. There’s a lock on the gate but Fitz sussed out ages ago that it was broken. We’ve been there before. On one side of it are a few vegetable plots, where today a man is bent over a row of something or other, weeding. He doesn’t seem to hear us come in, just works on stoically. On the other side a couple of mums watch over their toddlers in a sandpit. They look up idly but no one questions us, or tells us to go. We sit on a bench under an overhanging beech tree, out of view.

  ‘I bumped into Alex’s mum,’ I tell Fitz. ‘Outside the post office. I’d gone to post you those books.’

  He turns to me. ‘Go on.’

  ‘She looked bad, really bad,’ I say. ‘I took one look at her and thought, you are going through hell. She was so thin and pale, and her eyes were…you know how someone’s eyes look when they have a really bad headache, like a migraine, sort of far back in your head? That’s how she looked.’

  ‘Do you think she knows?’

  ‘Well, she can’t do or she’d have quizzed me or something.’

  ‘No, I meant about Alex’s dad — stepdad. About him hitting her.’

  I swirl my can around, hear the liquid fizzing inside. ‘I don’t know. But the things she did know were bad enough.’ I think of Alex’s summing-up — ‘He was a complete bastard to me and she did nothing.’ ‘She asked me how I was and I said, “Fine,” and, “How are you?” out of politeness. She shrugged and said, “Well, you know.” Then she gave me a strange look and after a long pause I realised she was waiting for me to ask about Alex. That’s what you’d do if you didn’t know anything, isn’t it? So I said, had she heard anything?’

  ‘Which she hadn’t. Which made you feel bad.’

  ‘Right… I just stood there thinking, I could put her out of her misery right now. One word from me and she’d at least know Alex was alive and well. And then I thought of that day when Pete got beaten up — you know, when he left Alex like a hostage in that flat? I was thinking, what’s worse, to be dragged home to an abusive stepfather or to be used like that?’

  ‘Does it have to be either or?’

  I screw my nose up. ‘What other option is there?’

  ‘If her mother knew where she was she might be able to fix up somewhere else to live, so she didn’t have to depend on Pete.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ I’m doubtful that Alex would contemplate that. I wonder why Fitz is suggesting this now. ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘No. I just thought it was worth saying.’

  A leaf twirls down from the tree and falls onto my lap. I brush it off. ‘But, Fitz, I haven’t told you. I was about to say goodbye and Alex’s mum fixed me with a stare and said, “Do you miss her, Beth?”’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘I know. I said, yes, of course, but she just smiled a strange smile and said goodbye and moved on. I think she must have thought I didn’t want to talk about her, which I didn’t, of course, I was so worried about saying something incriminating. And she found that odd.’

  Fitz chews his lip as he thinks about that.

  ‘But that doesn’t mean she’d think you were hiding something. She’s probably just thinking what a crap friend you are.’

  ‘Great. Thanks.’

  He crushes his can up and lobs it onto the top of an overflowing bin where it teeters, then slides slowly down the side of a greasy fish and chip newspaper and lands on top of a dog turd. We both laugh and Fitz kisses me, properly now. All thoughts of Alex’s mother fade away.

  But later, as we leave the gardens, Fitz asks, ‘So what will you do?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He shrugs. ‘Do you think you need to tell Alex’s mother?

  ‘No way,’ I say. ‘I promised. And me and Alex, we don’t go back on promises.’

  Fitz wants to call at the newsagent, for some Rizlas and baccy, so we take a detour. As we round the corner to the little parade of shops we spot Alex and Pete at the other end, their backs turned to us, talking to a man. It only takes a second to realise that he’s having a go at Pete, shouting into his face. Pete’s saying nothing. Fitz and I stand quite still, hand in hand, watching the scene unfold. Neither of us speaks, neither of us moves, although I sense a coiled tension in Fitz, a readiness to move if he needs to. The man pushes his face further and further into Pete’s but he doesn’t touch him, until Pete grabs Alex’s arm and makes to walk past, away from him. Then the man pushes his shoulder, shoves him hard, and Pete swings round, fists coming up at the ready. He hits the man squarely on the cheek. And again, as he reels, hard in the stomach. Before any passers-by can intervene Pete has taken Alex by the elbow and hustled her away down a side street, leaving the man doubled up. People stand around, staring curiously, waiting to see if they’ll be needed but hesitating to get involved. Eventually a woman goes over, speaks to theman, helps him up and sees him on his way. He crosses the road and walks away from where we stand, one hand up to his face, the other folded across his stomach.

  ‘Ow!’

  I suddenly realise that this is not Fitz’s response to imagined pain but that I’m digging my nails into the back of his hand.

  ‘Sorry, sorry.’ I draw my hand away and then reach for his again and hold it up to inspect it, see little red crescents embedded there and smooth them over with my thumb. ‘Shit, who the hell was that? Do you think it’s the guy from the other night?’

  He’s taken his shades off to see better; now he puts them back on, and rubs the back of his neck, thinking. ‘Maybe. Could be someone else he’s pissed off, though.’ He nods affirmatively. ‘He does have a way of making enemies.’

  I round on him. ‘You said you thought Alex was safe here. You never said then Pete has a way of making enemies.’

  He sh
oves his hands into his jeans pockets. ‘Relatively safe, relatively, I said. What I meant then was that if Alex wasn’t here she’d be somewhere else. And that, possibly, wherever she was wouldn’t be very safe. I’m not a bleeding oracle, Beth.’

  I look down at my feet. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. Come here, you — don’t look so miserable. Pete always gets himself out of it. Nothing ever happens.’

  But something just did, I think as we carry on to the shops, and get the baccy, Rizlas and a bottle of milk. We’ve both gone quiet and stay like that all the way back to Empire Road, until just as we reach the back gate I hear Fitz mutter, half to himself,

  ‘Helluva punch.’

  Chapter Five

  20th August 1977

  It’s different now in the house; there are subtle changes in the atmosphere.

  Alex is subdued, and although she seems pleased to have me back there’s a look in her eyes that makes her appear separate, vulnerable. I don’t tell her we saw her at the shops; I don’t know why — maybe I don’t want her to think we spied on them.

  Pete has the air of a man who’s deeply pissed off, preoccupied. He hardly speaks to me, which suits me fine. We keep out of each other’s way.

  Only Fitz remains the same, despite the fact he’s got the sack and hasn’t yet found another job. He doesn’t seem to mind, says he’s living for the moment, but I feel guilty about our chickenpox scam.

  ‘Sure,’ he says as we lie in bed the day I get back, ‘and you had to tie me to the bed to stop me going to work?’

  ‘Watch it,’ I say, ruffling his hair, ‘or I might.’

  ‘Mmm, promises.’

  We laugh and kiss, and I tell him I have loads of money from my work at Woolworths and that he can be a kept man.

  That evening we make a meal for everyone. Dan’s there too, he turned up unannounced, and while Fitz is cooking Dan and I play noughts and crosses and battleships. We make paper aeroplanes, tearing pages out of an old newspaper. We fly them around the kitchen and one lands in the big pan of chilli and has to be fished out. Fitz keeps grinning over at me, crazily pleased that I’m back, and plays his music so loud that the floorboards hum beneath our feet.