Looking for Alex

by Marian Dillon

  The driver is huge, face like a bulldog, and he’s going all the way to Brighton. Halfway there he insists on buying us breakfast from a transport café. ‘You both look half starved,’ he says. We file in behind him, watched by truckers and bikers. We eat bacon, eggs and fried bread, and drink mugs of strong tea.

  ‘That was the best breakfast ever,’ I say as we climb up into the van, and the driver boasts that he knows all the good stops from here to Brighton. For the rest of the way he tells the filthiest jokes, apologising to me after each one, and gets us to Brighton by eleven o’clock.

  I’ve never hitched before. I love the way that one minute we’re in the middle of London and the next sniffing the salty air, watching seagulls wheel across the sky. The first thing we do is walk along the shingly beach under scudding clouds; we take our shoes off to tread gingerly over pebbles and paddle in the cold sea, gasping as cold water closes around our feet. Then we skim stones across the water, counting the bounces. I find I have a knack for it and count to eight one time, although Fitz doesn’t believe me because he doesn’t see it, too busy hunting for the perfect stone. After the beach we head for the pier, where we look at photos of the variety show — Freddy Starr, Des O’Connor, Pan’s People — and use up a whole pound feeding coins into slot machines, winning nothing. We walk along to some gardens, play crazy golf, and have our meagre picnic. The afternoon is spent wandering in and out of bric-a-brac shops in The Lanes, where Fitz yearns after an old pocket-watch and I fall in love with an emerald brooch. Towards six o’clock we return to the seafront and sit on a bench, looking out to sea. We splash out on fish and chips, and then have a smoke. My feet hurt from all the walking, but I’m happy.

  Later we wander back onto the beach, a can of cider apiece, and walk down towards the marina. I collect pebbles to take home until my pockets weigh too much, then I get rid of them all except one, whose marbled pattern is shaped like a B. Darkness settles, the grey sky deepening to indigo and the sea to inky black. I start to fret a little about getting a lift this late. Fitz says that if the worst comes to the worst we can sleep on the beach.

  ‘Ouch. On all these pebbles? Romantic though.’ I turn to him, pull him towards me. ‘Come here. I want you.’

  ‘You already have me,’ he says, nuzzling my neck.

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  I lean into him. We look around, smile at each other conspiratorially. The waves are sucking at the shingle; they make a long, dragging sound. It’s ten o’clock and there’s hardly anyone around, just a man with a dog and an older couple down at the water’s edge. We remember seeing some beach huts and Fitz says it’s worth a try, someone may have forgotten to lock up. We wander along and furtively try the handle on each door. To our delight one of them gives a little, and when Fitz pushes harder it opens. We stumble inside and shove the door shut, then stand there in darkness, giggling, listening. Gradually our eyes adjust and we can make out the things inside. Everything seems to be fold-up — table, deckchairs, umbrella, sun-lounger. We look at each other. Sun-lounger. Then Fitz shakes his head.

  ‘We’d fall off,’ he says, and I burst out laughing.

  ‘Shh!’ He puts his hand over my mouth.

  We search around, feeling with our hands, and find a couple of thin blankets, stashed on a shelf. We spread them on the floor and lie down, and right at that moment, in the warm, stuffy silence, broken only by the distant shush of the sea, I think I’m going to die with unadulterated joy.

  ‘There will never be another moment like this,’ I say solemnly as Fitz slides his hand up my skirt.

  ‘Well, that’s a bit pessimistic,’ he says. ‘Let’s hope you’re wrong.’

  When we make love the floor beneath us jars against my spine, gritty sand scratching at my skin; we’re quick, and greedy.

  Afterwards, we unfold two deckchairs and sit in the doorway, looking up at the night sky, where stars now pinprick the darkness between gaps in the cloud, until finally we decide it makes sense to stay here until morning.

  ‘Better than getting stuck somewhere by the side of the road,’ I say.

  We do the best we can with the blankets and a pile of towels for bedding, curled up together to keep warm.

  ‘We need to make sure we’re out of here early,’ Fitz says, ‘before someone arrives and gets a surprise.’ We needn’t have worried. We sleep very little, each of us waking the other as we try to get comfortable on the hard floor, and then are woken properly at half-past five by sun streaming through the window. An hour later we get up gingerly, rubbing cold, stiff limbs back into life. We tidy the hut so that everything is how it was, but just as we’re leaving Fitz turns and grabs a piece of paper and a felt-tip out of a basket on the shelf. He draws a cartoon head with a long nose, peeping over a wall. Kilroy was here, he writes underneath. He unfolds the little table and leaves the drawing there.

  ‘That’ll make them get a lock,’ he says as we sneak out, laughing, and pull the door to behind us. We walk back along the promenade, hanging around until we find an early doors café, where we spend the last of our money on bacon and eggs and mugs of tea.

  ‘No money for the tube now,’ I say. ‘We’ll have to just hitch all the way home.’

  Warmed and fed, we find the road we came in on and get taken to the outskirts in a plumber’s van. Here we get picked up by a travelling salesman, who has an eight-track stereo system in his car and plays Northern Soul all the way to London. He and Fitz talk music while I doze, with my head on Fitz’s shoulder. Lucky for us he drives us right back to Camden on his way to Hampstead, dropping us off at the top of Empire Road just before midday, and arm in arm we walk down to the house, laughing about yesterday’s Transit van man, and how he kept saying, ‘Pardon my French’ after every rude word.

  The bolts are drawn across the door but Pete’s up, and lets us in. Alex isn’t around.

  ‘Good day at the seaside?’ he says. He’s standing at the cooker, stirring a pan of beans and flipping toast under the grill. ‘Have you brought us some rock?’

  My stomach tightens and all the joy of the day seems to float right out of me. Fitz sits down and starts talking to him.

  ‘Where’s Alex?’ I ask.

  Pete doesn’t look at me. ‘In bed. She’s tired.’

  I make some tea, and then say I’m going to lie down. Passing their bedroom door, I loiter outside then lift my hand to knock softly. What if there’s been more trouble? After a moment or two Alex calls to come in. The room is dark; it’s one of the only rooms in the house to have proper curtains, which are still drawn. Alex is sitting up in bed, leaning against the wall, reading by the light of a candle.

  ‘Hi, Beth,’ she says, not looking up.

  ‘Hi.’ I go and sit on the edge of the mattress, stretch my legs out on bare floorboards.

  ‘Did you have a nice time?’ she asks.

  ‘Brilliant.’ I want to tell her about it but her eyes are still scanning the page. I wait for her to ask what we did, and where we slept the night, and when she doesn’t I say, ‘What are you reading?’

  She holds it up. Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

  ‘That’s a bit depressing.’

  ‘Yeah. Got it cheap on the market.’

  She carries on reading and I wonder if she’s annoyed with me.

  ‘Alex?’ I say, and she looks up quickly and then down again, but not before I’ve seen the dark bruise on her cheek. ‘Alex!’

  Her head comes back up. Her cheek is puffy and a red mark blooms on it, circling the outside of her right eye. She holds my gaze. ‘What?’ she says.

  ‘What do you mean, what? That’s what.’

  ‘All right, don’t get excited. It was an accident.’

  ‘An accident? How?’

  She sighs deeply and puts her book down. ‘Beth, you’re doing that thing, like an echo. It was an accident. Pete caught it with his elbow. We were messing about.’

  ‘Mess—’ I stop myself. ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Yes,
of course it hurts.’ Silence. ‘Did you like Brighton?’ she asks in a polite little voice, as though we haven’t known each other for years.

  ‘Yes. What were you doing? I mean, how were you messing about?’ Pete’s not the sort to ‘mess about’; it would be too undignified. ‘It must have been a real thump.’

  Alex folds her arms and presses her lips together. I know she’s lying, covering up. I stare at her, feeling rage bubbling up, hot, helpless rage.

  ‘Alex—’

  ‘Beth, don’t you dare say anything. It was my fault. I got in his way. All right?’ She’s on the verge of tears. ‘It wasn’t his fault, Beth, and if you say anything you’ll just make it worse. Please.’

  This isn’t right; I know that. I know I shouldn’t say nothing, do nothing. But I’ve been saying and doing nothing for the last two months and it’s a bit late to start having a conscience now. And anyway, what if I do make things worse?

  ‘Alex!’ Pete’s shout makes us both jump. ‘Food’s ready.’

  ‘Okay!’ she calls. She picks up her book, turns down the corner of the page and shuts it. Then she stands and goes to the door, avoiding my eyes. ‘Don’t make trouble, Beth. You’re going back home. You’ll soon be back at school and then you can forget all about Pete. You’ll never have to see him again.’ Listening to her speak, I feel like a little girl. ‘I’ve got no choice but to live here, for now, and I can take care of myself.’

  She leaves the room and I hear her footsteps on the stairs. Once I judge she’s reached the bottom I go to the top, to eavesdrop. She’s putting on a little giggly voice for Fitz’s benefit, telling him how she and Pete were play-fighting and she walked into his elbow. In Fitz’s silence I hear his stunned disbelief. Then he asks if she has anything to put on it and she jokes that she’s sending Pete out to buy some steak. Pete’s talking kindly, telling her to sit down and eat, that he’ll get some arnica and aspirin soon, that arnica is the best thing for bruises. ‘Have some breakfast,’ he says. ‘It’ll take your mind off it.’

  When Fitz comes up I say what can we do, we have to do something, and he says we can’t do anything, there’s no proof that he hit her. We just keep an eye on her, he says. We watch them like hawks. But I don’t feel like watching them right then. Worried as I am, I don’t trust myself to be in the same room as Pete. Fitz goes to get us some food and brings it upstairs and that’s where we stay, for the rest of the day. We lie on the bed listening to music until, exhausted by all the travelling and sea air, we fall asleep.

  Somewhere in the early hours of the morning I hear movement downstairs. I nudge Fitz hard and he wakes with a start.

  ‘There’s someone in the house.’

  Fitz sits up, listening intently, then goes to the bedroom door and pulls it open a little. ‘It’s Pete and Alex.’

  We hear the sound of bolts being drawn on the back door. I get up quickly, pull one of Fitz’s shirts on and run downstairs, just in time to see them shouldering backpacks, about to leave.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  Pete sighs heavily. ‘You don’t need to know.’

  ‘Alex?’

  She looks at me, tilting her chin defiantly, her cheek red and shiny under the bare light bulb. ‘It’s only for a few days. I’ll be back at the end of the week, Beth.’

  ‘But that’s when I’m going! We’ve only got these few days before I have to go home.’

  She looks at me, then at Pete, as though weighing us against each other.

  ‘Why now?’ That’s Fitz, who has come in behind me.

  ‘A break,’ Pete says. ‘Let things settle down. And I need to see a friend. Come on, Alex.’

  He puts one hand under her elbow and guides her towards the door. Beside me Fitz takes my hand and squeezes it. I’m not sure if it’s to shut me up or give me courage to speak. Alex throws me a quick, slight smile.

  ‘I’ll be back before you go, Beth.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say, and lean against Fitz, who puts his arm round my waist. ‘See you.’ She hesitates then, halted I think by the sudden nonchalance in my voice. Tired of being made to care, I look steadily into her puzzled eyes. ‘See you then.’

  Before she can say anything else Pete opens the door and propels her out of the house. We watch their shadowy figures move down the garden and through the gate at the back, which drags and scrapes on the ground as it closes behind them.

  ‘Well, that’s that, then,’ I say, and I don’t even know what I mean by it.

  Chapter Six

  24th August 1977

  ‘Look.’ Fitz points to the road sign. ‘Not far now.’

  I peer through the rain-streaked windscreen and see, Croeso i Gymru. Welcome to Wales.

  The lorry driver changes down at the bottom of a steep hill and the engine whines in response. He’s driven from Plymouth that morning, on his way to Milford Haven, and picked us up just outside Bristol. He’s a Brummy.

  ‘Bloody mad if you ask me, all these Welsh road signs. Must have cost a fortune to replace them all. Who’s paying? That’s what I’d like to know. What’s wrong with plain English?’

  ‘Maybe because this is Wales?’ Fitz says, and the driver glances at him, not sure where Fitz’s sympathies lie.

  ‘I guess your road signs are all in Irish, are they?’

  Fitz grins. ‘No, they do use English in Camden.’

  The driver laughs out loud. ‘Ha-ha, very funny. I meant, where your family come from. You’ve got the Irish in your voice, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. And, yes, in Ireland they do have road signs written in Gaelic — it’s not been British now for over fifty years, after all.’

  ‘What do they call it now, Ayer?’

  ‘Eire, that’s right.’

  ‘What does that mean, then?’

  ‘Um, it means Ireland.’

  Fitz has his arm around my shoulders and I can feel him shaking with silent laughter. I dig one finger into his ribs, warning him not to get too clever, not wanting to get thrown out in the rain. We are perched high up in the cab, our fourth lift on this journey. The first was in a furniture van, making a delivery to Reading; after that there was a black Mercedes and before this a Ford Cortina.

  I’m getting used to hitching now, to standing on the roadside just in front of Fitz and holding up a soggy cardboard sign, just as I’m getting used to the randomness of where we find ourselves dropped off and who we’ll be picked up by. We never have to wait too long in the rain; people are kind. They either feel sorry for us or just want the company. We were treated to coffee and sandwiches by Mr Cortina, at Gordano services — although for this had to suffer seventy-five miles of the minute differences between Cortinas Mk 1 and 2. That was after listening to impressive stories from the young couple in the Merc, who were terribly well connected and name-dropped every five minutes. When we got out of their car we were hysterical and kept saying things to each other like, Darling, isn’t Mick Jagger just the sweetest guy? and Of course, Prince Charles is much better looking than in the photos!

  The sign for Wales rushes by and I have the sudden thought, This is unknown territory.

  Up to now if I’ve thought about my parents finding out where I was and how I’d justify any of it, I’ve had excuses prepared. I stayed with Alex to make sure she was safe, or I knew if I told anyone she’d run off again. Not that either of those would be acceptable. But they would, I hoped, be understood. However this is entirely different.

  It takes another hour to reach Swansea, where we part company with the lorry driver. We’ve dried out in his warm cab and now it has stopped raining. The air is fresh and still, with that metallic tang of summer rain. It’s five o’clock in the evening, the clouds are lifting and there’s a glimmer of sun in the sky. Fitz reaches into his backpack for another piece of cardboard and a felt-tip pen. He writes, Newcastle Emlyn.

  ‘When we get there Michael will drive in and pick us up,’ he says. ‘If we’re lucky we’ll do it in one.’

 
And we do. A little Mini Cooper stops, with a couple of lads in the front. They take us all the way to Newcastle Emlyn on their way to Cardigan, so we buy them a pint in the pub as thanks. I sit with them while Fitz goes off to find a phone-box. They’re students, at Liverpool University, who’ve been camping on the Gower and are on their way home for a week or two before term starts. They ask about me, and when I tell them I’m still at school, trying to choose between acting and university, it sounds like someone else’s life. I seem so far away from all that. They start to ask more, about me and Fitz, but I don’t want to say any more so I jump up and find a five pence to put in the jukebox, choose Fleetwood Mac.

  Fitz comes back in. ‘Michael’s coming over. He said half an hour.’

  New people to meet. I begin to feel anxious.

  ‘You’ll get on well with Michael and Jenny,’ Fitz said this morning, when he was persuading me to leave the house. I’d heard about them before; until last year they lived at the squat, but then Jenny’s father died, leaving her a fair amount of money. They went to Wales in a camper van, looking for somewhere to live, and eventually found a derelict smallholding that they are now renovating.

  ‘They want to be self-sufficient, if they can,’ Fitz told me, and I thought of The Good Life, and Felicity Kendall sliding around a muddy back garden, looking glamorously scruffy in dungarees. Fitz laughed when I told him that, and said that being glamorous isn’t high on Jenny’s list of priorities. She’s dead ordinary, he said, and he must have made them sound okay because I agreed to go. I’m surprised to think that it’s only this morning we left London, that only yesterday we were in Brighton.

  ‘We’ll come back when things have calmed down,’ Fitz said.

  But it’s this transition, from looking after Alex to living in Wales with Fitz’s friends, that I know would be unforgivable in my parents’ eyes. Even as I stared at the mess we found this morning, and later, when Fitz said, ‘Let’s get out of here for a few days,’ I imagined my mother’s incredulous voice saying, ‘But why didn’t you just come home?’