Looking for Alex (24 page)

When the house lights came on most of the crowd went through to the main bar, swapping places with the Shamen fans, who started to colonise vacant tables. I stayed put and waited, a little self-conscious, a middle-aged woman in white linen trousers surrounded by Death’s-Head T-shirts. As Midnight Blue began to dismantle their equipment Alex said something to the drummer and walked off stage towards me. I swallowed hard as nerves tightened my throat.

‘Hello, Beth.’ Alex stopped short of the table, cradling her guitar in front of her. ‘I wondered if you’d track me down.’ She nodded towards the stage. ‘Did you like it?’

You’d think I’d just seen her yesterday. She stepped forward, a little nearer, and now I saw the threads of grey in with the red, and fine grooves etched around her eyes and mouth.

‘It was excellent.’ There was a pause. I’d imagined this moment so many times, wondering what I’d say, rehearsing opening lines, but in the face of Alex’s nonchalance all the momentous words faded away. ‘It’s good to see you.’ She dipped her head, some kind of assent. ‘You’ve got a great voice.’

‘Thanks. I never thought so but Steven persuaded me I can sing.’ Alex glanced round. ‘He’s the drummer.’ She sees me looking. ‘He’s just a friend.’

Just then he called across. ‘Celia?’ She turned, and as I fleetingly wondered why, the reality of the name swap properly hit me. She went over to check something out with him and when she returned I asked if she wanted a drink. There was the briefest of hesitations.

‘Thanks.’ She put one hand on my arm. ‘To the band I’m Celia. Okay?’

Before I could reply two glasses were set down on the table.

‘One pint and one glass of wine.’ Alex’s head shot up and I watched her eyes widen, the dark pupils dilating. ‘Hello, Alex,’ Fitz said. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘Fitz!’ The shock on Alex’s face was absolute; my satisfaction at finally getting a response seemed almost cruel. Her gaze switched from one to the other of us in total confusion.

I quickly said, to dispel any doubt, ‘We just met up, by chance. I happened to be working with Fitz’s cousin, Dan. Remember Dan?’

‘Yes.’ She seemed now to be avoiding eye contact with Fitz. I remembered how he’d described her leaving:
slamming the door and screaming abuse
. ‘Is this why you got in touch?’

‘Kind of. I suppose we were both curious to see if we could track you down.’ Thinking this sounded both lame and intrusive, I added, ‘There were other reasons.’

She threw me a look but didn’t press me on that. ‘Well, this is bizarre. Fitz, as you’re offering, I think I’d like a large glass of white wine, please.’

I passed mine over. ‘Here, have this.’ She tried to refuse but I insisted and Fitz went off to get me another. ‘You look like you need it,’ I said.

‘Too right.’ She sank heavily onto a chair and took a large gulp. ‘So you got your own back, Beth.’ I must have looked puzzled, and she threw me a wicked smile. ‘I mean, I guess it was a bit of a shock, to walk into that room and it was Celia, not me.’ I said that was the understatement of the year and she laughed and raised her glass. ‘Well, here’s to us all. However many years on — too many to mention.’

The lights went down as Shamen began their set with a number that promised to be as raucous as the barman had warned; Alex pulled a face and drew one finger across her throat. We stood and made our way into the crowded main bar, where a group at one table offered to squash up. There was room for two, so that when Fitz brought my drink he hovered uncertainly beside us, until a man on the other side of the room called across, ‘Fitz! Hey!’ Fitz made his way over; I thought he looked relieved.

‘So how are you, Beth?’ Alex asked, her eyes searching mine. ‘How has life treated you?’

For a while we did no more than play catch-up, giving each other the essence of our lives. Neither of us strayed into the past too much, except when I explained something fundamental — my marriage to Tim, my father’s death three years ago. Alex didn’t mention her family and I didn’t ask. The bare details I gathered were these: she worked for a children’s charity; she had never married; she lived with someone called Adrian and had done for years; she had a son, Jamie, who lived in Rome and taught English. She was learning Italian as she thought he might stay there a while. I asked how old he was and her eyes flickered. Twenty-two, she said, and that it was his birthday last week.
Not Pete’s, then
. She went on, ‘Adrian’s not his father, but he’s been like one to Jamie.’

‘Does he see his father?’

‘Yes, sometimes.’

After this we were quiet. I thought we could either go on asking trivia or get to the point. We each took a drink. Sneaking a glance at Alex over the rim of my glass, I saw that she was gazing across the room at Fitz. She looked thoughtful. Fitz was talking animatedly but caught us looking and raised one hand. Back in two minutes, he signalled.

‘So what’s with you and Fitz?’ she asked.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing with me and Fitz.’

She inclined her head towards him. ‘Is he married?’

‘No. He was. And he has a girlfriend.’

‘It must be pretty weird, to meet up after all this time.’ She winked. ‘Is there any of the old spark there?’

I stared down into my glass, twisting it by the stem. ‘He told me about you two.’

When I glanced up her smile had slipped, replaced by a watchful look. She picked up her wine and drank. ‘I see.’ She turned her head to look for the other members of her band. They were finished lugging equipment, having a pint at the bar. Steven saw her looking and raised his eyebrows; she gave a slight nod. ‘He probably shouldn’t have.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean you didn’t really need to know. It was just a stupid mistake.’

Across the room Fitz was standing up, shaking hands with the man, at the same time as Steven appeared at Alex’s side. She introduced me as an old friend, which I thought was rather understating things, but then what else could she say? There was an awkward moment when Steven asked how long I’d known Celia and for a fraction of a second I looked blank; and another when I almost called her Alex and changed it at the last minute. In an effort to play safe I asked him about the band. The next minute Alex had given Steven her seat and walked over to Fitz, so that I was left trying to concentrate on what Steven was saying while watching those two out of the corner of my eye. They stood close, heads bowed, talking earnestly, and a sudden hot wave of jealousy shot through me, as though I were fifteen years old and back at school, watching in despair as another girl talked to the boy I liked.

It wouldn’t have been Alex, though. She’d have been too loyal.

Next to me Steven had just said something and was patiently waiting for a response. He had a smile on his face, obviously aware that I didn’t have a clue what he’d asked.

‘There’s something going on here, isn’t there?’

I sighed apologetically as Fitz and Alex walked towards us. ‘Sort of.’

Alex picked her shoulder bag up off the back of the chair. ‘I have to go. Steven’s giving me a lift.’ At this cue Steven stood up. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It was great to see you, Beth. Lovely, really.’

Her guitar was leaning on the wall; as she reached for it I put my hand on her arm. ‘Is that it?’ She looked startled. Steven and Fitz moved tactfully away, stood chatting by the door. ‘After all these years, that’s it?’ She hesitated. I pressed on. ‘Alex, I wanted to sort things out with you. I know it seems bizarre, now, but it’s important to me.’

‘What things?’

‘Like all the rows we had. All the misunderstandings. What happened to us. We were best friends and I missed you like mad when you disappeared. I wanted to just talk a bit longer.’ She was frowning, chewing her lip. ‘Maybe we could meet up again, somewhere on our own?’

To my intense relief she agreed, although a little warily, and we arranged to meet in two days’ time, Saturday. It meant I’d have to stay an extra day in London and I was supposed to see Phil that day. But that was what she offered and I didn’t argue. I let her choose the place to meet, somewhere she knew in Covent Garden. Neither of us suggested swapping phone numbers. To me it felt too delicate, as though she were a horse that might bolt, but then after she’d left I felt that I somehow needed to secure her turning up. I went after her, urging Fitz to wait inside.

She was halfway across the car park. I called, remembering just in time that Steven would hear.

‘Celia.’

She turned and stopped while Steven carried on to his car. The tail lights flashed orange when he unlocked it, briefly lighting Alex’s face, and as he got in I walked across to her.

‘I didn’t tell your mother where you were.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know.’

‘You know?’ Even to me my voice sounded incredulous.

‘Yes. She told me what happened.’

‘She told you? When?’

Alex looked amused. ‘You still do it? That parrot thing? Look, we’ll talk on Saturday. I’ll see you then.’

Before I could say anything else she was in the car and gone.

*

It was closing time before Fitz and I rolled out of the pub, having spent the last hour talking things through and sampling the whiskies behind the bar. In the cool night air I felt drunk on a tide of alcohol and high emotion, elated to have finally talked to Alex but pushing down a growing anger, something to do with the tough coolness she’d displayed towards me. That and the fact she would have just walked away at the end. But mostly it was because she’d found out she’d been wrong and could so easily have put things right between us, but had never bothered.

Fitz was quiet as we walked, absorbed in his own thoughts.

‘Where did you disappear to?’ I suddenly asked, having forgotten all about it until now. ‘When the band was on?’

‘I just sat at the back of the room, out of the way, keeping my head down. Literally. They’d started while I was at the bar and I didn’t want to put Alex off by walking through the crowd in the middle of her set. You, she might have expected, sort of. But not me.’

‘You had a long talk to her at the end.’

‘Yeah.’

There was a long pause. ‘Did she swear you to secrecy?’

He laughed. ‘No, nothing like that.’ He caught my arm and pulled me round; his eyes were not quite focused on mine, because like me he’d had one whisky too many. ‘Beth, how long did it take you to stop thinking about me every day?’

The question punched into my brain, demanding an answer.

‘A long, long time. Two years, three years.’

‘And then sometimes you forgot, and when you remembered it was with a sort of ache that you had to just stuff down inside?’

‘Yes.’

‘And dreams?’

‘Yes.’

‘So it was the same for both of us.’

I stood quite still, waiting for Fitz to kiss me and thinking, Is this why I asked him to come, to force something to happen? His kiss was light, undemanding, until I responded. We took a step towards each other and as we met there seemed to be this dull metallic sound in my head, that I could feel as well as hear, that jolted through my body. I thought of metal on metal, like points on a railway track. His mouth tasted of whisky and cigarettes and his skin was rough against mine. After we’d kissed he held me tight, arms wrapping me to him, and when we moved apart I was shaking. A group of teens went past, laughing and shouting out loud, and I imagined what we must look like, a pair of fifty-somethings in a romantic clinch. One or two stared rudely, grinning. I shivered, even though I wasn’t cold.

‘Let’s get you home,’ Fitz said and I thought: He’s regretting this already.

At the station we had separate trains to catch, me travelling east and Fitz westbound. He came down to my platform. Once there, he took hold of both my hands.

‘Come home with me.’

I shook my head, although not exactly meaning no, more like, let me think; staring over his shoulder at the curve of the tunnel wall, I was wondering what was being offered here.

‘What about Kirsty? Is this just for old times’ sake?’

He frowned. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure. I just want you to come home with me.’

‘Well, if you’re not sure—’

‘But neither are you. About Phil. You don’t know what you want, do you? The risk would be mine as much as yours.’

‘Who says I want to take a risk?’

He just looked at me, steadily.

Two things became clear: first, that inside my head I was already unfaithful; and second, if I got on the next train that would be where it stayed. I looked up at the electronic sign, at the red dots flowing across the screen, which as I watched morphed from
1minute
to
train
due
. I was so torn I actually imagined myself separating, one half getting on the train, the other, the shadow half, going with Fitz.

‘Tomorrow this will seem like a very bad idea.’

Abruptly Fitz stepped back, hands going into his pockets. ‘Sure. You’re right. I’m sorry. Put it down to the drink and the heat of the moment.’ As the train arrived he began to walk away.

There were only a few people on the platform, soon swallowed up by the train. I stood very still as it pulled out of the station and then walked quickly after Fitz.

*

30
^th
August 1977

I wake at five, feeling as if an axe has been buried in my skull, and I’m sick twice, retching and heaving until there’s nothing left to throw up. After that there’s no sleep for either of us. Jenny wants us to put off going but I insist I’m okay, and soon after eight they drive us to the outskirts of Cardigan and drop us off on the main road. When we say goodbye Jenny hugs me tight, and I almost cry. She says to come and see them again and I say of course I will. I know she thinks it will probably never happen but it’s nice of her to pretend it might. I’m going to miss her — the way she treats me like an adult and isn’t afraid to say what she thinks. Even though what she thinks is sometimes uncomfortable to hear.

I sit in a soporific trance most of the way back, too ill to talk but not too ill to think about Jenny urging me to act. I hold whole conversations in my head with my parents, telling them everything and justifying why I’ve kept quiet for so long. I even begin to picture myself turning up at Alex’s house in Sheffield, explaining it all to her mother.