Flip

by Martyn Bedford

  Alex smuggled himself deep inside a thicket of shrubs in the darkest, remotest corner of the waste ground and settled down as best he could. It wasn’t camping, as such, but it was close enough. He and Dad had been all over the place with that two-man tent, out into the Kent countryside and Surrey and down to the south coast. Boys’ weekends. Sam as well the last few times, now that he was older. It was a squeeze. But Alex loved it. The breeze against the tent, the sound of the trees, Dad’s rough breathing and their feet bumping together through the sleeping bags. Waking up to birdsong. Peering out the flaps at the mist, the dew on the grass, the light leaking into the sky. Dad, already outside, frying eggs and bacon. The smell of coffee.

  As he lay there, drifting off in his makeshift den, Alex tried to think of that Dad, not the one who’d jabbed him in the chest and bellowed up the street after him.

  By eight-fifteen the next morning, Alex was sitting on a bench on the footpath he’d used often, walking to and from school. The steady flow of pupils had already begun; of course none of them recognized him. Even so, he dipped his head and avoided eye contact. Mostly he was ignored, beyond idle curiosity about a boy of school age, in the wrong uniform, sitting on a bench. Some of the girls looked his way longer than they needed to; his fourth day as Flip, and he still hadn’t got used to that.

  David would be along anytime. Without being too obvious, Alex scanned the faces for his friend’s, hoping for a glimpse of the pink day pack that no amount of teasing would cause him to dump. (It’s not pink; it’s purple. Faded purple.) Alex felt rough. Rough and crumpled and smelly. At least it hadn’t rained in the night. To have woken up soaked, as well as stiff, cold, ill-slept and midge-bitten, would’ve been too much. The high of the previous evening’s discovery was wearing off, giving way to a kind of reality check. He was alive.… Now what?

  Two things to do. The first was to intercept David before he got to parents and teachers. For Alex to have any chance of persuading David to believe his story, he had at least to talk to him. The second was to go to the hospital. St. Dunstan’s was the big one, locally. How he would blag his way in, he wasn’t sure. But he had to go that morning, while Mum and Dad were at work and there was no risk of running into them. He had to see himself. To stand at his own hospital bedside and … what? No idea. Freak out, probably. Just the thought: seeing his own body, touching it. All the same, Alex had to go there.

  He spotted David from a hundred meters away. That bag, the slouchy walk. David was by himself, which was good. Alex stood up, waited at the side of the path. Tried to keep calm. Typically, David was in a world of his own, and Alex had to repeat his name before his friend looked his way, slowed, focused on the unfamiliar boy who’d addressed him. His glasses were new—cool wire frames instead of the old black ones.

  “David, can we talk?”

  Maybe Alex wasn’t a stranger to him after all. The big lad with short dark hair, stubble, a kink in his nose, a split lip and a Yorkshire accent … If Dad had described Philip Garamond to him on the phone the night before, David would now be matching those details to the real thing. The shift in his expression from confusion to appraisal to hostility was swift. Hostility, but also apprehension. Alex wouldn’t have fancied his chances against David in a scrap, but Flip cut a different figure.

  “Stay away from me.”

  “David, please. I’m not some kind of mental case. I just need to talk to you.”

  David wheeled away, kept walking, faster. Other kids noticed them. Seeing that it would be a mistake to grab hold of David or anything like that, Alex jogged after him and fell into step beside him on the path.

  “Those e-mails, David—”

  “How d’you know my name? How do you know me?”

  Alex could smell the oil David flick-combed into his Afro. “How did I know that other stuff?” Alex said. “About the chess.”

  “I haven’t got anything to say to you. Just leave me alone.”

  “How come, David? How come I know all of those moves?”

  No answer. David, beside him, walking, walking, eyes dead ahead.

  “Come on,” Alex said. “Just five minutes. Give me a chance to explain.”

  They were almost at the school. The blocky main building, with its seventies-style panels and too many windows and angular metal, loomed at the end of the path like a vast Rubik’s Cube, bar-coded by the high perimeter fence.

  “Five minutes, David. That’s all I’m asking.”

  David stopped, adjusted his not-pink-but-purple bag on his shoulder and half turned to face Alex, not quite able to meet his gaze. He took off his glasses, cleaned them methodically with a tissue and put them back on. “I’ll be late for register.”

  “Meet me later, then. At morning break.”

  Even as he said it, Alex realized he wouldn’t be able to get into the school to see David, and David wouldn’t be able to get out. He saw his friend mulling it over, clearly still not sure about meeting him at all, never mind how or when. By now, his gaze was somewhere on the ground, between their feet. Alex decided to stay quiet, not to force the issue but to let David come to any conclusion by himself.

  At last, his friend said, “Nine-forty, then. Junkies Corner.”

  He started to explain, but Alex interrupted: “S’okay, I know where that is.”

  It should’ve been obvious what David would do, but Alex didn’t realize it till it was too late. He was too distracted, planning what to say. Too trusting, thinking of David as a friend—his best mate—and thinking of himself as Alex. To David, though, he wasn’t Alex. He was Philip, the psycho stalker.

  So it came as one of those surprises that wasn’t really a surprise at all. Like the end-of-the-movie twist you should have seen coming.

  A sitting duck, hanging out at Junkies Corner, waiting for David.

  JC, as it was also known, lay behind the sports hall, in a blind spot between security cameras, where local dealers and runners came to supply Crokeham Hill High kids with whichever drug was their thing. Cash and stash being passed through the gaps between the bars of the perimeter fence. Deals were usually done at lunchtime, not morning break, so Alex had the place to himself. He’d settled himself on the grass bank, bag stowed between his feet. He checked his watch every few seconds as break time ticked away, with no sign of David.

  It was 9:48 when they came. Two cops, from two directions. Alex didn’t even have time to stand up, let alone run.

  They let him sleep in. It had been a little more than forty-eight hours since he’d left; it felt more like forty-eight days, but also like he hadn’t been away at all.

  So much for never setting foot in this house again.

  When Alex went downstairs, Flip’s father was in the living room with Beagle, watching tennis. Alex stood in the doorway, unsure of the reception he would get. The dog lifted his chin from the armrest, barked once, then lowered it again and carried on wheezing. The dad, newspapers strewn about him on the sofa, sat up like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. He was baggy-eyed and unkempt after the long drive to south London the previous morning, the long drive back again; Alex reckoned that Mr. Garamond (Mrs., too) hadn’t slept much the past two nights. All on account of him.

  “Morning,” Alex said.

  “Afternoon.” Flip’s dad muted the TV. “What’s with the growling?” he asked, addressing Beagle. “You can’t understand the commentary anyway.”

  “He likes the sound of their voices,” Alex said. “And when the crowd claps.”

  He stayed where he was, neither inside the room nor outside. He didn’t know if it was true, what he’d said about the dog. It was something to say; that was all. Better that than a silence, straining under the weight of Your Trip to London. There hadn’t been much said on the journey north the night before, just occasional exchanges that didn’t really lead anywhere, mixed in with periods of stunned silence. By the time they got back to Tyrol Place, it was too late; they were all too bushed.

  The talking wo
uld come that day. Not right then, though.

  “Remember that holiday in Norfolk—the cottage with the tennis court?” the dad said. “Beagle, sitting there by the net like he was the umpire.”

  Of course Alex had no such memory, but smiled all the same. Flip’s dad was perched forward on the sofa, hands clasped. Trying so hard to keep it “normal.” It was as though Alex—that is, Philip—was a soldier invalided home from war with some terrible psychological trauma.

  “Where … where’s Mum?” Mum. He’d managed to say it.

  “In the back garden, I think. Weeding.”

  They stared at the television screen, at the players moving silently about. “I’ll go down,” Alex said. “Make myself some breakfast. Lunch, whatever.”

  “Okay. Okay, then.” Mr. Garamond looked almost relieved.

  Alex lingered in the doorway. The urge to apologize surfaced, but he had said sorry so often he was sick of hearing himself say it. Instead, he said thank you.

  A frown. “What for?”

  “For coming to fetch me.”

  The dad laughed awkwardly. “We couldn’t exactly leave you there, could we?”

  That had swung it for him, the Garamonds’ pitching up the way they had.

  Alex had been in the Crokeham Hill police station for hours by then and the cops’ tough line was showing no sign of softening. When Flip’s folks arrived, smartly turned out, well spoken and parentally concerned—profusely apologetic, deeply ashamed on their son’s behalf—the police became less hard-nosed. The Garamonds were decent people; anyone could see that. Middle-class professionals. Bewildered by what Philip had done, mortified by it—to think that a child of theirs … and so on. By association with them, Alex became a little less loathsome. Before, he’d just been some no-mark northern teenage hoodie (minus the hood) who had a bashed-up mouth and looked like he’d been sleeping rough. A piece of scum who’d pestered—stalked—the family and friends of that poor lad. That answering machine message at Mrs. Gray’s work (the cops had found out about it by then); those e-mails to David Bell, then Alex’s confronting him on the way to school; Alex’s tricking his way into the Grays’ home. What kind of boy did that? He hadn’t even cooperated at first—said he couldn’t remember his parents’ names, their phone numbers or where they worked. They’d wanted to nail him for something—harassment, gaining entry by deception, malicious falsehood, anything.

  Then the report came through from West Yorkshire that the cops up there had never had trouble with Philip Garamond; he went to a reputable school, was generally well thought of by staff and popular with other kids—star of the cricket team—and had a good disciplinary record. The head teacher vouched for him unreservedly. While Crokeham Hill police were still trying to match that version of the boy to the one in the holding room, the Garamonds turned up. And the clincher: the family liaison officer in the Gray case passed on the message that to avoid unwanted publicity, Alex’s parents had decided not to press charges.

  “You’re a very lucky lad,” was how one cop put it.

  After crossing a seemingly endless minefield of interrogation and not feeling lucky at all (more wrung out, despicable and about ten years old), Alex was released. They issued a “reprimand”—a formal caution, read by a senior officer and witnessed by the Garamonds; any further offenses in relation to Alex Gray would land him court. Flip’s folks talked over one another in their rush to thank the officer for his leniency, assuring him there would be no repeat of this behavior. They would see to that.

  Naturally, Alex had lied. To the police, to the Garamonds.

  The only way they could begin to make sense of what he’d done was to assume he had developed an unhealthy fascination with Alex Gray from the media coverage of the case. Going on fifteen, Philip was at a difficult age (hormones in a mess, no longer a child but not yet an adult, increased freedom colliding with greater responsibility, etc.). He’d been struggling at school, under pressure from assessments and two years of GCSEs looming; was a moderate achiever at a high-achieving school; had girlfriend trouble; and was losing form at cricket when he was set to break into the county juniors.… It’d been a period of stress, confusion, insecurity. To be honest, he’d been floundering these past weeks and months.

  This was the picture that built up in the interview room. Some of it came from them (the cops, Flip’s folks, the social worker who sat in on the questioning); most of it came from him. There was this boy down in London, Alex Gray, same age as him—same birthday, in fact—who’d been in a coma all this time. When Philip had seen the stuff about Alex in the papers and on TV … he couldn’t explain it, but it had got to him. Like the boy was a celebrity, and Philip the obsessive fan. He found himself drawn to this Alex, identifying with him, imagining what it was like to be unconscious for so long. He even started to wish he could do the same, just drop out of life for a while. A year earlier he’d formed a similar obsession with the cricketer Kevin Pietersen.

  There was no malice. It wasn’t really about the object of the fixation; it was about Philip himself. These inappropriate attachments were a cry for help, in a way. They were attention-seeking. It was delusional, of course. Philip saw that now. He had been acting out a bizarre fantasy—one which he’d taken way too far this time, and which had caused nuisance and distress. Being arrested was just the shock, the reality check, he needed to jolt him out of it. He was so sorry for what he’d done. More sorry than he could say. He encouraged them to think along these lines, to believe it. Played the part required of him, supplied the answers to fit the story. Lie after lie after lie.

  The alternative, which was no alternative at all, was to tell the truth.

  He did make one amazing discovery, though, amid all the lying. As they quizzed him about his fascination with Alex, Mr. G. chipped in with his theory.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something to do with the hospital,” he said.

  Blank looks around the table. Flip’s mum glaring at her husband like he’d just broken wind; then a change in her expression as she caught on. “Yes, of course,” she said. Turning to one of the cops, she added, “We lived down here, years ago, when Michael held a lectureship at Goldsmiths.” She named a neighborhood only a couple of kilometers further out than Crokeham Hill. “Philip,” Mrs. Garamond continued, placing a hand on Alex’s arm, “was born in St. Dunstan’s—the hospital where that poor boy is.”

  So was I! Alex thought but just managed not to blurt out. So was I.

  Back at Tyrol Place the next day, the inquiry resumed. A “family meeting.” It had been going nearly an hour already but Flip’s mum was like a dog with a bone. “What I can’t shake out of my head,” she said, “is that you were going through all of this and not once—not once—did you feel you could come and talk to us.”

  “What boy his age talks to his parents about anything?”

  “About this, though, Michael. Something like this.”

  Mr. Garamond shook his head. “ ‘Mum, Dad, I’m obsessed with a boy in a coma living two hundred miles away.’ I can see why he wouldn’t tell us that.”

  “So, Dad,” Teri said, “is it the boy who lives two hundred miles away … or the coma?”

  The mother gave her a look. “Teri, you’re really, really not helping.”

  “It’s not a coma; it’s PVS,” Alex said. “That’s what the social worker said. A persistent vegetative state.”

  “Whoa, Psycho—you should know. You’ve been in one of those yourself for fourteen and a half years.”

  “You will not call your brother Psycho.”

  Flip’s sister shrugged. “Hey, I’m all for care in the community, but you know, I’m thinking: do we have a backup plan here, in case he starts fitting?”

  “That’s it. Get out of the room.”

  “Alanna, please. This is a family meeting. Teri needs to be here.”

  “I do? Shit.”

  “Language, Teri.” Mrs. Garamond sank back in her chair. “Oh, God, can we please all
just try to discuss this sensibly? For Philip’s sake.”

  They were gathered around the dining table, because the mum thought it would be more “businesslike” (and because the lounge reeked of Beagle’s farts). Flip’s father had suggested sitting in the garden, with it being such a nice day, but his wife just looked at him and said, “Neighbors.” They were on their second cafetiere and most of the HobNobs were gone. A hush had fallen after Mrs. Garamond’s plea. Coffee was sipped, eye contact avoided. Teri slotted another biscuit between her purple lips.

  At last, Flip’s mother said, “You know, Philip, the police think you ought to have counseling.”

  Alex looked at her. Counseling. “Do they?”

  “The one who read out the caution—I can’t remember his name—he took your father and me to one side while you were fetching your things. Said we might want to look into ‘getting some help’ for you. He seemed quite worried about you, actually.”

  “That’s the trouble with the cops,” the sister said, “they’re too kind.”

  “Sarcasm, Teri. Thank you. That’s just what we need.”

  The previous day, at the police station, the mother had been weepy on and off; today she was much more together. Shock and dismay had given way to practicality: There’s a problem to be solved; okay, let’s identify the problem, then solve it. Her son would come through this. Her family would come through this. She was an osteopath, Alex had learned when Mrs. Garamond and the social worker were chatting during a break in the interrogation. The neck and spine were her specialty areas, apparently. He pictured her dealing with this problem as though it was one of her patients: laying it facedown on the treatment table, so to speak, and clicking the bones back into place. As for the dad, he’d been the steady one the day before, in front of the cops. This morning, back on home territory, he seemed content to let his wife take the lead.

  Alex looked at them in turn. He was still trying to get his head round the fact that they’d lived near Crokeham Hill at one time—that he and Flip had been born not just on the same day, but in the same hospital. Another vital link, surely, in the chain of connections between them.