Looking for Alex

by Marian Dillon

  ‘So, Anita,’ she said, with a tight smile, ‘or should I say, Beth? What brings you here?’

  She knew me! I stared at her, open-mouthed, feeling stupid and exposed. I was like a rabbit in the headlights as I looked back at the woman in front of me. Her hands lay folded in her lap, thin wrists protruding from the cuffs of her blouse. I stared at them and then up at that slender neck. Slowly something shifted. I remembered stairs winding up to an attic room. I saw a young woman; bony wrists and a stalk of a neck; a hidden life. Click.

  ‘Celia?’ I couldn’t believe what I was saying, what I was seeing.

  ‘Well done. That didn’t take long.’

  My gaze slid away from hers for a moment, recalling sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, skeletal arms and legs, bleached blonde hair then; looking back I saw it was her, a fleshed-out version.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  They say that at times of shock you fall back on the obvious and that was all I could think of to say. The silence lasted for several seconds. During this time my eyes were held by hers, still and steady, but my mind was in free fall, hurtling back through the years to retrieve more images of Celia: there she was, leaning against the sink, spooning yoghurt out of a little pot; and there, standing her ground in a row with Pete; or later, almost friendly, helping me carry all Fitz’s records up the stairs to her room.

  ‘What’s going on here? Where’s Alex?’

  ‘I am Alex.’

  ‘No. You’re Celia.’

  ‘Was. I was Celia.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She sighed, as if having to explain something to a child. ‘I was Celia. I am Alex.’

  ‘But that’s…you can’t just go round changing who you are!’

  She shifted slightly in her chair. ‘Actually, I can. That’s exactly what I’ve done.’

  I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. ‘I sent an email, to Alex Day.’

  ‘Yes. And you got my reply, I assume. I thought you’d give up.’

  ‘Hoped I would.’ She assented to that with a nod. ‘Celia, this is totally bizarre. I really don’t understand. You’ve taken Alex’s name?’ She stared at me coolly, with faded grey eyes. A tense silence grew, enveloped us, while the clock on her table ticked, like a pulse. Celia is Alex. Celia is Alex. Celia is… ‘Why? Why would you do that?’

  ‘Let me ask you first,’ she fired back, ‘why are you Anita Jones?’ She was looking at me hard. ‘It’s a fair question. Is that any different?’

  ‘Of course it’s different,’ I said. ‘That was just to get myself in this room, because—’

  ‘Because it suited you to be someone else, for today.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Well, it suits me to be someone else for the rest of my life.’

  ‘By stealing someone’s identity?’

  ‘I haven’t stolen anyone’s identity,’ Celia said dismissively. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’

  ‘Too right, I don’t. I don’t know what the hell’s going on.’ There was a voice in my head telling me to slow down, calm down, I was only going to antagonise her. ‘I just want to try and understand this, Celia.’

  ‘I don’t think I have to explain myself. I haven’t done anything wrong. It’s all legitimate.’

  ‘And would Alex agree?’

  ‘Alex…’ she began, and then stopped, pressing her lips tightly together. Her eyes fell away from mine to look down at her hands, clasped in her lap. She was chafing one thumb against another. Suddenly I was scared.

  ‘Alex is dead. She died and you took her name.’

  ‘No.’ She looked up sharply. ‘No, that’s not… Alex isn’t dead.’ She stared at me for a moment longer. ‘Alex knows.’

  ‘She’s in on this? She knows you’ve done this?’ She pursed her lips; there was still something she wasn’t telling me. ‘So Alex knows you’ve taken her name, and she doesn’t mind, because…’ And then it was as though a switch got thrown in my head as a flash of understanding jumped from one synapse to another, and another, making the connection. ‘Because she’s taken yours?’ Celia spread her hands, giving in. ‘Christ.’ I sagged back in the chair and shut my eyes for a moment, too dazed to speak.

  ‘If you open Pandora’s box,’ Celia said, ‘you must expect the unexpected. And I can tell you I’m not too thrilled to have you march in here and demand to know things that aren’t your business.’

  ‘All I wanted,’ I said sharply, ‘was to see Alex.’

  ‘Yes, of course. But would she want to see you?’

  I remembered how Celia liked to provoke. ‘Stop playing games, Celia. Just tell me what’s been going on.’

  She closed her eyes and sat so still and for so long that I thought she was willing me to go away, as though I might just disappear.

  ‘All right,’ she said, at last. ‘If you want to understand, I’ll tell you. It’s nothing that you don’t already know, about Alex anyway.’

  I waited.

  ‘Imagine,’ she said, ‘that all your life you’ve been told that you are shit. That everything you do is shit. That you are a waste of space, that you’re stupid, that it would be better if you’d never been born. You have never heard anything else expressed, never been praised, or encouraged, or loved for who you are. You try to gain approval, to get recognition for the things that deep down you like about yourself, but in the end the negativity wins. Those words, those opinions, they sink into your very soul, until you believe them. You know you are worthless. You know you are stupid. You know you are shit.’ Her hands were agitated, smoothing her skirt, over and over; she looked up and gave me a thin smile. ‘Well, I think you get the picture. You’re an intelligent woman, Beth. You can imagine what that does to people.’

  ‘You and Alex,’ I said. ‘Both.’

  ‘Yes. We dealt with it in our different ways. I stayed in the home that was destroying me until I was twenty — that’s when I met Pete — but I stopped eating when I was fifteen. Whereas Alex, she did what anyone would do who needed to survive. She got out. As you know too well.’

  She paused there. My thoughts were racing but time seemed to have slowed down; an illusion. The clock showed the minutes steadily ticking by. I was impatient, wanted more information.

  ‘So how did you two — I mean, you weren’t exactly best of friends — how did you do all this? How did it happen?’

  She shook her head. ‘I can’t tell you everything. Just that we needed to be someone else, someone new. That was how we felt. But we didn’t want to completely wipe out our names — that would have been like wiping ourselves out. So we gave them to each other.’

  ‘And now here you are. Alex Day.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Alex is Celia…?’

  She smiled, shook her head. ‘Just Celia, for now, to you. And yes,’ she said, answering a question I hadn’t asked, ‘we keep in touch.’

  I felt a tiny thrill, a fluttering under my ribs. A link to Alex. Maybe.

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘you must tell her about this. I want her to know I tried to find her. Ask her to call or email me.’ I groped in my bag for one of my business cards. Celia took it and held it lightly between two fingers. ‘I really need to see her. Please.’

  She looked at the clock. There were fifteen minutes left but we both knew we’d finished.

  ‘All right,’ she said, and her eyes were kinder now. ‘I’ll tell her.’

  I asked a couple more questions, got no answers, and then I was out of the attic door and down those winding stairs. As soon as I stepped onto the street and felt cool air on my face a reaction set in. I had to stand for a moment or two, a little shaky, damp with sweat. I breathed hard, trying to push away an overriding image of Celia tearing up my card.

  *

  On the train back from Norwich I sat quietly stunned for the entire journey, doubting what I’d seen with my own eyes. At some point Fitz texted.

  Was it Alex?

  Yes. And
no. Tell you later.

  The Champagne Bar was busy. I waited outside, under the sculpture, impatient for Fitz to arrive, then suddenly he was there in front of me, apologising, telling me how his mother rang and wanted to chat, that she was off to Ireland.

  ‘Her annual visit, to family,’ he said as we went to the bar. He ordered then stood back to look at me properly. ‘Yes and no. That was pretty obscure. So?’

  My drink arrived and I took a swift gulp of gin and tonic, which was an excellent one, sharp and juniper-fragrant. ‘Let’s get a table,’ I said as the barmaid topped up Fitz’s pint, ‘then I’ll tell you properly.’

  He listened without interrupting, hardly moving, his eyes focused on mine. When I was finished he picked up his pint, pulled hard on it. ‘Unbelievable.’ He wiped the foam from his mouth. ‘And do you — believe her?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, surprising myself. ‘I think she was telling the truth. But how the hell did they get to the point of agreeing to do such a huge thing? Why would they even come across each other again?’

  ‘That’s easy. London’s a big city but everyone goes to the same places.’ He frowned. ‘So if this is all true, is Celia sure that Alex did change her name? I mean, kept her side of the bargain?’

  ‘Well, she said they’re still in touch, and then something about how odd it is to address a birthday card to herself.’

  Fitz shook his head, doubting still. He slumped back in his chair, legs stretched out under the table, arms folded. ‘So now what? Do you have an address, or phone number?’

  ‘No. I don’t even know her last name… Celia’s name. I don’t suppose you can remember?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘If I ever did know,’ he said, ‘it’s one of the cells that died.’

  I laughed. ‘Well, Celia’s going to talk to her and ask her if she’ll see me. I get the feeling she’s still here in London, but in reality she could be anywhere.’ I swirled the last drops of diluted gin around my glass. ‘All I can do is wait.’ I looked up at him. ‘If Alex never gets in touch, at least we know one thing. She’s okay.’

  ‘Would that be enough?’ he asked. ‘Would you stop looking for her?’

  ‘It’ll have to be. What else could I do?’

  We had another drink and talked some more, making up wild theories based on what little we knew before discounting them one by one. Finally I said I should go, tired from the long day and thinking about work tomorrow.

  ‘Your work down here finishes tomorrow,’ Fitz said. ‘Maybe you’ll hear from Alex by then.’

  ‘Yes. Maybe.’ I stood up. ‘I have some work in Shepherd’s Bush, in a few weeks.’ I say this lightly, not meeting his eyes. ‘If she does want to see me, and she is here, there’d be a chance to meet.’

  ‘Right.’

  There were things we weren’t saying; at least, that was how it seemed to me.

  Fitz went to the Gents and I looked at my phone, aware that I’d had a couple of texts. They were from Phil.

  Pls rng tmrw. Need 2 tlk.

  Then the next one, that had come soon after.

  Lauren saw us at wknd. V upset. And Sue. Sorry. Must tlk. Love u.

  Fitz found me staring at the phone, appalled by what I’d read, and when he asked what was wrong I passed him the second text. ‘Fuck,’ he said.

  ‘It was going to happen,’ I said. I put the phone straight back in my pocket. I needed to think before I replied. ‘Someone was bound to see us. But his daughter — I wouldn’t have wanted that.’

  Fitz walked me to the underground and came down to the platform, then waited with me until the train arrived. We stood side by side, not speaking. After a minute or two Fitz tucked one arm into mine.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I joked. ‘I’m not going to throw myself on the line.’

  When the train arrived he squeezed my arm and stepped back. ‘Let me know if you hear anything,’ he called as the doors slid shut. I sat down on the nearest seat, closed my eyes and gripped my hands together, feeling them slippery with sweat. I have to reply to Phil, I thought, and reached for my phone.

  *

  21st August 1977

  Crouched on my haunches, I prise thin slivers of glass from between the floorboards. I’m shaken, can feel myself shaking, at the amount of force used to put that chair through the window and the violation of somewhere I’ve accepted as safe.

  Alex tries to brush it off, with bravado as transparent as the remains of the window. She says that Pete has just got on the wrong side of somebody and will sort it. He isn’t around to ask, having left the house straight after putting his fist through the door. He doesn’t reappear for several hours, then at half-past seven turns up, stony-faced. He has an old sheet of hardboard under his arm that he nails over the broken window with furious hammer blows. He’s also brought back four large bolts, two for each door. There are already padlocks on, fixed there by a fellow squatter four years ago, that can be locked on the outside if you’re out, on the inside when you’re in. The bolts are added security. This doesn’t help to reassure me that while he was gone he sorted anything.

  Fitz helps him screw the bolts into place, top and bottom of each door, and when he asks Pete what’s going on the only reply he gets is, ‘Turf wars. It’ll calm down. Just taking precautions.’

  Later Pete sits alone in the boarded-up room, staring into space and smoking. Alex goes upstairs; Celia, as ever, stays in her room. It seems as if everyone is doing some hard thinking. Fitz and I make a big pan of vegetable soup and leave it there for anyone to help themselves.

  That night, in bed, I’m scared. I listen out for the smallest sound downstairs, or outside, but all we can hear is Pete and Alex arguing. I tell Fitz about the scene in the kitchen.

  ‘Sounds like she’s sussed things out, then,’ he says. We’re sitting up in bed, leaning back against the wall, smoking the last of some dope Fitz bought off Pete. ‘Pete’s getting an earbashing.’

  ‘Do you think Celia will stir things up more?’

  ‘If she gets the chance, who knows?’

  ‘I think that’s how it was today. She saw an opportunity and took it.’

  ‘Probably feeling frustrated.’ I ask Fitz what he means. ‘She and Pete were shagging.’

  ‘I thought they’d split up?’

  Fitz grins, and passes me the joint. ‘Beth, how come you’re still so innocent? Yes, they’d split up, but whenever Pete felt horny he’d go up to her room. Then it’d be back to normal, the two of them hardly speaking.’

  ‘Christ. No wonder she’s screwed up. Bastard.’

  ‘Well, she’s getting her revenge now. Either that or she wants to open Alex’s eyes. Or both.’

  ‘She keeps saying Alex should go home, and “don’t get stuck in his little world”. Like she wants to protect her. But maybe she just wants her out the way.’

  At the other end of the landing everything has gone quiet. Outside the wind is picking up, rustling the bags of rubbish by the back door.

  Fitz reaches for my hand. ‘We’ve got five days,’ he says. We’ve lit the army of candles in the corner and their wavering flames throw dancing shadows onto the wall and ceiling. It’s comforting, watching little haloes of light round each one. ‘We will still see each other, you know?’

  ‘I don’t see how.’

  ‘I was thinking, what if I come to Sheffield? Get a job?’

  I held my breath. ‘Could you?’

  ‘Maybe. I’d have to get some money together to move up. I’d have to get some work here first.’

  Suddenly there’s a flicker of hope.

  ‘I’ll get a job, save up,’ he affirms. ‘When you’ve gone.’

  ‘And after that,’ I say, excited now, ‘if I get into drama school in London we could both come back down.’

  Fitz turns his head to gaze at me, meditatively.

  ‘What?’ I say, self-conscious.

  ‘I can’t imagine you on the stage.’

  ‘That’s what everyone says,’ I tell him. �
��Because I’m quiet and people think I’m shy. But I like being someone else.’

  He takes my hand, starts twisting one of the rings on it round and round, its smooth metal slipping against my skin. ‘And here was me thinking you look more like yourself than you used to.’ I laugh and say he’s speaking Irish and how does he know how myself should look? ‘I mean, you’ve stopped trying to be like Alex.’

  It’s true that although my clothes still define me as semi-punk I’ve gradually given up the backcombed hair and thick eyeliner. I quite like this hybrid look: fading hennaed hair that’s now loose and free; almond-shaped eyes no longer concealed by layers of make-up; tanned, not pale skin, against the black.

  That’s when he says, ‘Let’s go to Brighton.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Brighton, you know, on the south coast?’

  ‘Fitz, I know where Brighton is.’

  ‘Well, let’s have a day out. Get away from the others.’

  I frown. ‘It would cost a lot to get there.’

  ‘We’ll hitch. I’ve done it before. It’s only a couple of hours away. Have you ever been?’ I shake my head. ‘Let’s go, then!’

  Mentally I run through how much money I’ve brought with me. We could take a picnic; we won’t have to spend much. ‘Okay. Let’s do it.’

  *

  We get up early and make sandwiches from whatever we can find — some old cheddar, a stub of cucumber, Marmite and salad cream. We pack them into an old bread wrapper, fill an empty lemonade bottle with some Kia-Ora that Fitz bought for Dan, and stow it all in my duffle bag. We leave a note on the table. ‘Gone to Brighton’ is all it says.

  The early morning air is cool, the wind still strong, and I shiver in my jacket and a short denim skirt. But it’s a good time to travel, before rush-hour hits. We take the tube as far as Brixton, then ask for directions to the A3 and find a good place to stand. Fitz holds up a piece of cardboard with Brighton written on, and almost immediately a Transit van stops for us.

  ‘Must be your skirt,’ Fitz jokes, watching it pull up a few yards down.