The Great Escape (36 page)

Hey, Spike,
the girl’s husky voice starts,
hope you’re okay
…
It’s me, Astrid, Saturday teatime-ish … look, hon, I’m really sorry. I should probably have been straighter with you but there’s a couple of things … well, you already know I felt a bit weird after running into Lou that day …

Lou feels as if her heart has stopped.

… I mean, Spike, you’re a lucky guy! She’s such a sweet girl and I don’t think you should throw it all away
… A short pause. Lou’s breath is coming quick and shallow as, still clutching Spike’s phone to her ear, she lowers herself back onto her bed.
… There’s another thing too. Something I should have told you about. It’s nothing serious but I’ve kind of met someone through work. Still early days but I’d feel bad, you know? And it’s not like me and you were ever going to go anywhere …

Tears are falling now as Astrid says
bye, lots of love
– not because of the cheating, which Lou should have known about, she should have spotted the signs. No, Lou’s tears are for all the time spent, the years wasted. She’s crying for the life she’s stumbled into, for every minute she’s spent at Let’s Bounce in a synthetic brown tabard and for every squashed nugget she’s scraped off the floor.

SIXTY-ONE

‘Hope you got what you needed,’ Terry says with a grin as Spike hands him the guitar.

‘Yep, did pretty well,’ Spike says, ‘considering I haven’t done it in a long time.’

‘Bit rusty, were you?’ Terry chuckles, opening the case and lifting out the guitar.

‘Well, you know what it’s like …’

‘… Like riding a bike,’ Terry remarks, pausing to frown at a chip in the wood on the side of the guitar. Spike blinks at the mark, praying that it’s just a trick of the light. ‘What’s this?’ Terry asks.

‘Er, I dunno,’ Spike murmurs, sounding amazed. Hell, it must’ve happened when he’d lunged at that arsehole, Johnny-bloody-Lynch. Spike is horribly aware of his nasal breathing as Terry frowns at the chip.

‘Mike’ll go mental when he sees this.’

‘I’m sure it was there all the time,’ Spike says quickly, still conscious of a faint smarting in his right knuckles from where they collided with Johnny’s cheekbone.

‘I don’t think it was, mate. God, Spike, I thought I could trust …’

And so it starts: the wrangling, with Terry saying Spike will have to pay something as the guitar can no longer be sold as new.

‘It’s just a tiny scratch,’ Spike protests, wondering now if this is his favourite shop after all. ‘I mean, it’s hardly visible to the naked eye.’

‘My eyes are naked,’ Terry huffs, ‘and I can see it a mile off.’

‘But I told you, I don’t have any money. My wallet was nicked …’ Spike is starting to sweat now, and a faint thudding has started up in his temples.

Terry frowns at him. ‘What about your busking money?’

‘I don’t have it,’ Spike mutters.

‘What, you didn’t make any?’

‘It was nicked,’ he growls.

Terry blows out a loud gust of air and throws Spike a pitying look. ‘Not your day, is it? First your wallet, then all your takings … hang on a minute. I’ll see what Norm thinks, maybe we can fix it …’ Terry places the guitar in the open case on the floor and mooches off to the back room to find his colleague.

Spike stares down at it. He could wait, and perhaps they’ll be able to smooth out the dent with some kind of magic filling stuff, but he isn’t prepared to stay and find out. For the second time that day, Spike runs, taking the carpeted stairs two at a time and bursting out onto the street before fleeing towards Lou’s hotel.

It’s only a few doors away. He dives in, startling the girl at reception and barks, ‘What room are they in?’

‘Sorry?’ the girl says, frowning.

‘Er, I think Hannah booked it. Hannah McShane – there’s three of them. One’s my girlfriend. What’s their room number?’

The girl blinks at her screen. ‘It’s 232 but I’m not supposed to –’

‘Thanks,’ he says, turning to run up the stairs to the second floor. He arrives at the girls’ door and gives it a firm rap. ‘Lou?’ he says in an urgent whisper. ‘It’s me! Quick, let me in …’

There’s a muffled exchange inside the room, and an agonising few seconds tick by as he waits. As the door opens slowly, he’s already spilling it out: about the chipped guitar and Terry being different these days, totally over-reacting, wanting
money
off him … Spike tails off and peers around the room, first at Lou who’s perched on the edge of her bed like a little doll – a doll with red, puffy eyes. ‘Lou?’ he croaks. ‘What … what’s up?’

Lou remains silent, her mouth set in a firm straight line, and beside her, Sadie regards him with a caustic gaze. ‘I think you know what’s up,’ Lou spits out.

‘What? No … I really don’t …’ Something tightens in Spike’s stomach as he sees Lou inhaling deeply, drawing herself up, becoming stronger and a little less doll-like, in fact, no longer doll-like at all. She wipes a hand across her wet cheek and juts out her chin. ‘You missed a call while you were out,’ she tells him. ‘You left your mobile here in your rucksack.’

‘Er, did I?’ He quickly skims the room for it, trying to ignore Hannah, who’s staring at him icily.

‘It’s over there,’ Lou adds, pointing to the dressing table. ‘Astrid called.’

‘Uh?’ He tries to form an expression of incredulity, as if Astrid is someone he knows vaguely – has maybe run into once or twice – but that he’d be no more perplexed if Barack Obama had called him.

‘You know,’ Lou continues, her voice eerily steady now. ‘
Astrid
. She left you a voicemail message.’

‘Did she?’ he says faintly, finding it all too much being trapped in this dingy room with three pairs of eyes beaming hatred at him.

‘Yes, you’ll see it’s been played,’ Lou goes on, ‘but you can listen to it again if you want. It’s not good news, though. It’s definitely over between you two. She doesn’t feel good about you having a girlfriend, and anyway, she’s met someone else.’

‘Jesus,’ he blurts out. ‘It’s not … it’s not what you think, okay? It was nothing! Look, can we talk, Lou – just me and you? Can we go somewhere …’

‘
You
can,’ Lou cuts in, her eyes glistening with tears once more, but tears of fury, not hurt. ‘You can get out of here right now and go home.’

‘But … but I can’t!’ he cries. ‘Please. Hannah, Sadie, could you just give us a few minutes? We really need to talk about this. I can explain …’

‘
Why
can’t you go home, Spike?’ Hannah asks coolly.

‘Because I lost my wallet and all the money I made busking was gone by the time I went back to get the guitar case …’

‘Guess you’ll be walking to York then,’ Lou says firmly. ‘Now get out, Spike. Just get the hell out.’

SIXTY-TWO

The hotel pool is called ‘The Lap of Luxury’ which must, Hannah thinks, be someone’s idea of a joke. It’s deep in the bowels of the basement, is barely larger than the average tablecloth and has a distinct air of being underused. While there’s no discernable algae on the water’s surface, there’s a faint whiff of damp costumes and smelly feet.

Lou and Sadie are already in the jacuzzi by the time Hannah joins them, heads resting on its tiled edge. ‘You okay, Lou?’ she asks gently, stepping into the feebly bubbling water.

Lou smiles stoically. ‘Yes, I think so. I’m just sorry this has screwed up your weekend.’

‘It hasn’t,’ Hannah declares. ‘We’ve found Johnny again, haven’t we?’

‘Anyway,’ Sadie cuts in, placing a hand on Lou’s arm, ‘it’s not as if you could help it – Spike turning up like that.’

‘Maybe,’ Hannah adds tentatively, ‘it’s for the best, Lou. That you found out, I mean. Have you any idea how long it’s been going on?’

Lou shakes her head. ‘A while, I think. It sounded that way from her voicemail message …’

Hannah studies her friend, cautious of saying anything negative about Spike. She’s seen enough friends split with long-term boyfriends and have everyone pitch in with how despicable they always thought he was, only for them to promptly get back together again and make babies. ‘So,’ she says, ‘is this it, d’you think?’

‘God, yes.’ Lou looks at Hannah, her expression defiant. ‘You know my only regret?’ Her eyes moisten now, and she rubs her wet fingers across them.

‘What is it?’ Hannah takes hold of her hand.

‘There was this one time, years ago now, when I thought Spike might be having a thing with someone else. I can’t even remember her name, but she had a blonde plait coiled on top of her head like some kind of weird loaf thing. She came to that party we had – the last one in Garnet Street …’

‘I remember her,’ Hannah says.

‘There was something that night,’ Lou continues. ‘That girl spent most of the party smoking in the kitchen, but now and again I’d see her give Spike this look, and he’d give her a look back, and I just had this … hunch. And I told myself it was probably nothing, or I’d drunk too much and was feeling emotional because you were leaving, Han.’ She pauses, stretching her toes out of the water. ‘Now,’ Lou adds, ‘I know that hunches are usually right.’

‘Why didn’t you ask him about that girl?’ Hannah asks gently.

‘Because,’ Lou shrugs, ‘I was in love, I was twenty-two and stark raving mad. And my parents thought he was awful, remember – some dirty old man who’d got me in his clutches and God knows what he was going to do with me.’ She laughs bitterly. ‘So I
couldn’t
believe he was cheating. I kept thinking, if I could push any niggling doubts out of my mind, everything would be okay.’

‘Well,’ Sadie murmurs, ‘I reckon you’ve had a lucky escape.’

‘You know what I think?’ Hannah adds.

‘What?’ Lou asks.

‘We need to get out for a bit. Blow the cobwebs away.’

‘What’ve you got in mind?’ Sadie asks.

‘Well …’ Hannah grins. ‘I hadn’t really planned to do this on our weekend away. But then, I hadn’t imagined any of this – us meeting Felix, finding Johnny again, Spike turning up …’

‘It should just be three of us for a while,’ Sadie declares.

‘I was thinking that too,’ Hannah says, ‘especially as Felix wants us to pop into the bar later tonight.’

‘Dare I go back?’ Sadie shudders.

‘Of course,’ Hannah laughs. ‘But let’s get dry and make the most of the rest of the day.’

‘Where are we going?’ Lou wants to know.

‘Just a little jaunt. We should get moving though, because we’ve got to to be at Felix’s at ten …’

‘What’s with the schedule?’ Lou asks, frowning.

Hannah turns to her and smiles. ‘You’ll see.’

The red-lipsticked girl at reception had told Hannah about the nearest car hire place, tucked away in an industrial unit by the Clyde. They are finally doing it – heading north to Loch Lomond, like they’d always planned to as students – music blaring as they leave the city behind. Hannah is driving, feigning confidence as she has never been behind the wheel of a Beetle before. There was no choice, though. In fact there’d only been one available – not red like Johnny’s dented old model but unashamedly pink. Hannah rarely drives in London but now, as the glassy-smooth loch comes into view, she realises she’s lost her customary nervousness behind the wheel. Lou inhales a lungful of cool air as they follow the twisting road alongside the loch. For the moment, Spike and her dingy flat feel a long way away. ‘I’m going to redecorate when I get back,’ she announces suddenly, turning to Sadie.

‘Are you? You mean, so it feels like a fresh start?’

‘Yeah.’ Lou laughs, her gaze caught by a speedboat zipping across the water. ‘Some people get their hair chopped short when they split up with a boyfriend. And here I am, thinking of light blue for the living room …’

‘You’re going to do it yourself?’ Hannah asks.

Lou nods. ‘Remember how many times we discussed getting rid of that orange wallpaper in Garnet Street?’

‘And all the times we said we’d persuade Johnny to drive us up here? We never got around to that either,’ Sadie chuckles. ‘Why didn’t we just do it?’

‘Too busy,’ Lou suggests with a smirk.

‘Too busy doing what?’ Sadie asks.

Lou looks at her friends, knowing they’ll have to turn back soon to return the car, and that this, like every tiny chapter of their lives, will soon be over. That’s the thing about being young, she reflects: you really do think everything will carry on, just the way it is, like the winding road they’re following now. But life changes and everyone grows up. None of them would dream of straining wine through tights any more. Well, maybe Spike would, if he was really desperate. ‘How could we possibly have thought we were busy?’ Hannah muses, slowing to take a perilous turn. ‘What were we doing anyway?’

Lou laughs, pulling out the band that’s been securing her hair. ‘Just living, I guess,’ she says.

SIXTY-THREE

For a brief period in his early twenties, Spike had been assigned a car and driver by his record company. This driver, an elderly man called George, was at Spike’s beck and call, ferrying him from venue to venue for interviews and TV performances. Although that was twenty-odd years ago now, Spike still recalls the Merc’s soft Caramac-hued leather and the back of George’s reassuringly grey, neatly-clipped hair as he drove. If he really concentrates, he can almost spirit himself back to those happier times, which is precisely what he’s trying to do now from the passenger seat of a van filled with rolls of carpet that’s being driven at a terrifying speed by a man called Ralph.

‘You like Judas Priest?’ Ralph barks, jolting Spike from a semi-slumber. He suspects it’s rude to sleep, or even feign sleep, when hitchhiking. Ralph probably only stopped and offered him a lift in exchange for some banter and a few laughs, but Spike feels that his store of humorous material is rather depleted right now.

‘Judas Priest!’ Ralph exclaims, giving Spike an agitated look. ‘D’you like ’em?’

‘Er, yeah,’ he fibs.

‘You into music?’ Ralph wants to know, swivelling his fleshy face towards Spike for longer than is probably recommended in the Highway Code.

‘I’m a musician actually,’ Spike says.