Looking for Alex

by Marian Dillon

  They were supposed to be best friends…

  It’s the summer of 1977, Beth and Alex did everything together. Until the day seventeen year old Alex ran away from home. A missing persons report has been filed, but Beth knows that there must be more to Alex’s disappearance. So she follows Alex, to punk-era London, determined to bring her best friend back home.

  But the Alex she finds living in a Camden squat isn’t the same Alex. And memories of those weeks in London haunt her to this day: falling for Fitz, her first love; tasting a new kind of freedom, and the fateful day that her parents finally tracked them down and took her away.

  Alex knew then that Beth had betrayed her trust, and disappeared once more, severing their friendship for good. And now, years later, it’s time for forgotten secrets to be shared once and for all. Because after all this time, Beth’s never given up on finding Alex…

  Looking for Alex

  Marian Dillon

  CarinaUK.com

  MARIAN DILLON

  Originally from Northampton, Marian moved to Sheffield as a student and has lived there ever since, enjoying life up north. She has published several stories for children and young people.

  This novel, Looking for Alex, had been a story in her head for a long time, and was written as a major part of her studies for an MA in Creative Writing. She’s thrilled to have finally completed it and to see it go out into the world. She is now looking forward to spending more time turning other half-formed ideas into novels.

  Aside from all this she has worked in teaching and now as a counsellor. She is married, with two grown-up sons, who have had to put up with her disappearing into the study for hours on end!

  Thanks to Linda Lee, Kate, Louise, Louis and Sarah for all their help and encouragement

  For my family

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Title Page

  Author Bio

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Endpages

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  13th May 2013

  There had been moments like this before. It might be a single word that did it, random words, like disappeared, squalid, bruised. It could be a smell, of bonfires say, or sandalwood. Sometimes it was a song: Suzanne, maybe, or London Calling. The pull that I felt at these times — low in my gut, a complicated yearning — was always transitory, pushed back down or brushed aside. I’d done with reliving all that.

  But this time there was no avoiding that trawl into the past; a stranger waited as I gaped like a fish, stunned by his question.

  ‘Are you the Beth that was a friend of Alex?’

  He took a few steps into the room, a tall, loose-limbed man with big glasses and untidy hair. ‘Beth Steele. Right?’

  I nodded, dumbly. It didn’t take much working out — Beth Steele Training being plastered all over the material I was sorting into piles — but clearly he knew not just my name, but me. How?

  ‘You won’t remember me. I would have been about ten. You were older…sixteen, seventeen?’

  He stood quite still, smiling, waiting to see if I’d place him. I searched his features for some clue but there was an empty space where a name should have been. He took off his glasses.

  ‘Is that better?’

  Slowly I shook my head. Although, as I took in the narrow, deep-set eyes and a mouth with laughter lines at each end, like a pair of speech brackets, there was now a dim flutter of recognition. Ten years old. The boy who’d lived above the corner shop? The milkman’s son, who’d helped on the rounds in holidays? I began to notice details: a scattering of freckles, a small scar on one cheekbone, the faint smile that seemed to be gently mocking my confusion. The shape of his mouth was somehow familiar, but finally it was the scar that dredged up a distant memory. I saw a falling bike, flailing arms and spinning wheels, a trickle of blood.

  ‘Not…Dan? Was that you?’

  ‘Depends — which Dan you mean.’

  ‘The house in Camden? ‘77?’

  ‘So it is me you’re thinking of,’ he said, his smile deepening, and something in the crease of his eyes settled it. ‘I work in IT.’ He held out his hand. ‘Dan Walker.’

  ‘Christ!’

  He laughed out loud as I stared rudely now, trying to picture the boy I knew, conjuring up a snapshot image of a cheeky face, long-fringed hair, and a Scooby-Doo T-shirt, a boy in shorts permanently straddling a red Chopper bike.

  ‘I saw your name on the training schedule,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d come and see if it was the Beth I used to know.’ The speech brackets expanded as he grinned. ‘You look a bit different now.’

  My eyes slid away from his, staring down the years at my seventeen-year-old self. I saw Alex and me in front of my old dressing-table mirror, posing in crotch-tight jeans and ripped T-shirts, painting purple lips onto corpse-like faces and coaxing hennaed hair into spikes with an ancient pot of Brylcreem.

  ‘The blonde hair threw me a bit.’ Dan’s words brought me back. ‘But your face is the same.’

  ‘Right, if you don’t look too closely.’

  ‘And your voice. Your voice hasn’t changed.’

  ‘Well, yours is a bit deeper,’ I joked. ‘I would never have known it was you.’

  ‘I did have the advantage,’ he said. ‘Back then you only knew me as Dan, I guess, but I knew your full name, Beth Steele. That hasn’t changed.’

  Oh, but it did. It became Beth Williams for a while, although I’d never grown used to it. I liked having Steele back in my name, liked the way it gave an edge to the softness of Beth.

  ‘Fancy you remembering,’ I said.

  He grinned. ‘Could be something to do with Fitz once having written it all over a steamed-up window.’

  The memory flooded in. It had rained all day without stopping and when Fitz cooked one of his curries the kitchen became a warm little den of steam. He wrote my name in large letters from one side of the window to the other, and it stayed there while we ate until Dan had climbed up onto the draining board and wiped it with his sleeve.

  ‘Is it going all right?’ Dan asked, with a nod at the circle of chairs, and I said yes, so far, while images of those weeks in London flickered through my mind like an old reel of film. ‘Are you going for coffee? I’ll walk along with you.’

  By the time we got there I’d made the connection. ‘You were Fitz’s cousin.’

  ‘Still am.’

  ‘Do you—?’

  ‘See him? Yes. Now and then.’

  From inside the hospitality room came the buzz of voices, reminding me that I should be in there, mingling with the group I’m here to train. The HR director looked over, caught my eye, held one hand up to draw me in.

  ‘I’d love to talk to you,’ I said to Dan, ‘about all that.’

  ‘Well, let’s go for a drink after work. We can catch up properly.’

  ‘That would be great.’

  Dan glanced at the crowd in the room, then back at me, his eyes bright with curiosity.

  ‘Fitz never told me very much. Your friend….wasn’t she in some kind of trouble? Run away from home or something?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What happened to her? Was she okay?’

  ‘I don’t know. She sort of…disappeared.’

  ‘What, totally?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve never seen her since.’

  ‘Good grief.’

  I saw his eyes widen, and was touched by the fact that we must have all meant something to him, even though he was
just a boy.

  ‘Now I’m curious,’ he said. ‘Catch you later.’

  *

  If ever I told anyone the story, of how Alex ran away from home, they would always say, but you must have known, she must have talked about it, you must have known something. And I would think back to those times, looking for clues I might have picked up, convinced I should have. Full of guilt that I hadn’t. But Alex was very good at concealment, and the fact is that I only ever found her entertaining, interesting, and always, always, fun.

  We’d been friends since we were eight years old, since the day she moved into my school. She’d scooped me up and rescued me from sitting on the sidelines, where I’d found myself after my best friend had moved away. On the surface we were an unlikely combination — Alex all fiery and quick to quarrel, and me hating rows of any kind — but somehow we hit it off, became best of friends. We operated like oil and water: when Alex sparked up trouble I’d smooth things over; in return she gave my life a nice sheen. Later, at Storrs High, Alex began to push the boundaries more and more, earning a reputation with the teachers. These days she’d be called ‘challenging’, and maybe someone would try talking to her and find that there was hurt behind the bravado. Back then she was just labelled a trouble-maker. Our science teacher, a blunt man, put it succinctly one day when he rudely told her to stop being so bloody-minded. I sometimes worried that she’d get tired of me pulling her back from the edge, that she’d move on to a different crowd, but somehow I retained my status: best friends with the girl who would say what others only thought and was generally regarded as cool.

  It was Alex who got me on stage, insisting that we join the drama club after finding out that Ian Wragg was in it. ‘You’d be really good, Beth,’ she said, with her listen-to-me face on. ‘You read so well in English.’ So we did, and I took to acting like a duck to water, amazed at first that I could do it, and then, as I was given bigger parts, by the highs to be got from being someone else. I loved it, and began to think of a career in theatre. Meanwhile Alex got off with Ian Wragg but went off drama after a row with Mrs Bull. People used to say she’d got thrown out; I always defended her and said she’d chosen to leave. There was truth in both versions.

  My friendship with Alex led to battles with my parents. As we got older there were times we stayed out too late, when they didn’t know where I was; times I came home from parties reeking of fags and drink; late-night trips to the bathroom to throw up. My parents began to encourage my other friends, but it didn’t work because it was Alex I liked best. We did everything together.

  Until the day she left home without me.

  *

  I could see Dan below, waiting as the glass lift sank smoothly down to the foyer. Outside we were met by a wave of heat. It was the middle of May, unexpectedly warm, and London was basking in twenty-four degrees, a few more than it would be back in Sheffield.

  ‘I know a nice pub garden,’ Dan said. ‘It’s not too far.’

  ‘Sounds perfect.’

  We turned onto Marylebone High Street, sidestepping a twin buggy with wide-eyed occupants. Dan quizzed me about my company, seven years old this month and doing well, despite these scary times for winning bids. I told him how I won this NHS contract on the back of some work in other London boroughs. It’s a two-week block of training and workshops, and I’d decided to stay over on the week-nights, returning for the middle weekend.

  ‘Just you?’ Dan asked.

  ‘No, there’s my colleague, Linda. She’ll travel from Sheffield on a daily basis. She’s juggling some work we have there.’

  Dan took my arm briefly to steer me across the road. ‘This is so weird,’ he said. ‘I remember that summer very well. Mainly that I was quite jealous of this girl who suddenly took up so much of my cousin’s time.’

  I laughed, told him that the feeling was often mutual. ‘You used to turn up out of the blue and ask Fitz to mend your bike, do you remember?’

  ‘That old thing, yes. I went everywhere on it, till it fell apart.’

  Suddenly I realised I’d started searching for Alex’s face again. Once it was a habitual response any time I was in London, to scan the crowds, straining to catch a glimpse of her — on Oxford Street, in Hyde Park, on the tube, in shops — convinced she would still be here somewhere. And Fitz, of course Fitz. But then the years passed and the two of them became ghosts somewhere in the back of my mind. I’d had no expectation of seeing either of them again, and thinking of Alex only ever brought up old anxieties, which today Dan had stirred, all those ‘what ifs’.

  The King’s Head looked unpromising from the front — an ugly red-brick building that sat squashed between two large office blocks — but the garden was a delight, full of colour and scent, and surprisingly peaceful. We found ourselves a table. As Dan went off to get the drinks my phone rang.

  ‘Hi, Phil.’

  ‘Hi. Had a good day?’

  ‘Yes, fine, no problems.’

  ‘Where are you? Back at the hotel? Sounds noisy.’

  ‘I’m in a pub garden.’

  ‘Imagine that,’ he said dryly. ‘Who with?’

  I don’t know why I lied. Something to do with not having the energy to start explaining things.

  ‘Just someone from HR.’

  ‘Right. The Sylvia woman?’

  ‘Yes. We’re talking over a few things before I go back to the hotel. How’s your day been?’

  ‘Well, you know, same old same old. Actually, pretty bad. I had double 9KF today.’

  ‘Oh, that’s bad.’

  ‘Then we had a staff meeting about some crap initiative that’s being rolled out so now we’ve all got to rush round inventing hundreds of aims and objectives.’

  I made a sympathetic noise, somewhere between ‘poor you’ and ‘bastards’, imagining him sitting in his Ford Focus in the school car park, the car all warm and stuffy in the sun.

  ‘I wish you were here,’ he said.

  ‘Well, even if I was you wouldn’t be able to see me, would you? Haven’t you got all sorts of things to take the girls to this week?’

  ‘I know. But I still wish you were here.’

  ‘I’ll see you on Saturday?’

  ‘Should be okay.’ I saw Dan walking towards me, pint in one hand and a large white wine in the other, its glass clouded with condensation. ‘Beth…have you thought any more about Ireland?’

  ‘I…look, Phil, sorry, it’s difficult to talk now. Could you call back later? I mean, can you?’

  ‘Okay.’ He was put out. ‘I’ll try, but I can’t promise.’ Dan sat down. ‘I think it’s Sue’s turn to pick the kids up from dance so maybe while she’s out.’ It seemed to me then that Phil were was shouting, his words clear and damning, leaping out of the phone. Dan pointedly studied his beer, intent on not being intent on my conversation. ‘If I can’t manage it I’ll ring tomorrow. She’s got yoga. Or maybe on your lunch—what time do you break?’

  ‘Around one-thirty.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll ring you when I can.’ He paused, then added, ‘Love you.’

  ‘I have to go, Phil, I’ll speak to you later.’ Ringing off, I stowed the phone in my bag and took a large gulp of wine. Only after that did I look up at Dan, who had an apologetic half-smile on his face but said nothing. ‘Sorry,’ I said, feeling exposed, feeling heartless.

  Dan waved one hand dismissively. ‘No worries.’

  We sat quietly for a moment, until Dan leant forward, hands cupping his pint, furrows of concentration on his brow. ‘The last time I saw you was that day I fell off my bike and Alex’s mother was there and there was a lot of crying and shouting going on. You were trying to calm them down but no one was listening. And then…’

  ‘And then her mother walked out and Alex turned on me.’

  ‘Yes. And Fitz told me to make myself scarce — “piss off home, Dan” I think his exact words were. I have no idea what happened next. And then I didn’t see Fitz for a while so my knowledge of where he went after that is a
bit patchy.’

  ‘He went away?’

  ‘Yeah, to Wales. He knew people there.’

  So he went back.

  ‘He had to leave the squat anyway — the police came and threw everyone out. He dossed on people’s floors and then went to live in Wales and I didn’t see him for about three years.’

  ‘How long after?’ I heard my voice, calm and level, trying not to betray how this new information had got hold of me like a fist, slowly squeezing the air out of me. Dan looked puzzled.

  ‘After what?’

  ‘After that day, the day Alex’s mother was there, how long till they got thrown out?’

  ‘Oh, about a week, I think.’ One week. Seven days, maybe ten. The fist squeezed tighter. ‘He stayed with us a couple of nights. I even gave up my bed for him.’ Dan’s grin was wide and infectious. I was remembering how he hero-worshipped his cousin and thinking; Fitz never got my letter. That was why he never replied, to the address I gave him, belonging to the one friend I could trust. On good days I’d let myself believe he didn’t want to risk making things worse for me; the rest of the time, which was most of the time, I’d told myself he just hadn’t cared as much as I did.

  I had a sudden vision of Fitz as I first saw him, the day I arrived in London, peering up from rifling through his stack of vinyl, annoyed at being disturbed. The image was gone almost as soon as it came, so that when I tried to bring it back all I could summon was a blurred impression of mirror shades, a thin face, and wiry curls.

  ‘What happened after Wales?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, various things. He travelled, he stopped travelling. He married, he stopped being married. He moved back to London and got a job. Works in a school now, as a teaching assistant. He did the last time I saw him anyway.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Last November. At my father’s funeral.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  He acknowledged this with a nod. ‘And you?’ he asked. ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Me? Oh, the next morning my parents pitched up and dragged me home. I never saw Fitz after that — there was no way.’