Looking for Alex

by Marian Dillon

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Would you have still gone to Ireland? If you hadn’t met me. Would you have left Sue now, if it wasn’t for me?’

  He rubbed one hand over his face and stared at me. ‘How can I answer that? I can’t answer that. Joe may never have offered me the job if I hadn’t sounded desperate last time I talked to him. But if it hadn’t been you, who knows? It might have been someone else.’ He blinked. ‘Sorry, that was a bit brutal.’

  He drained his coffee and stood to put the mug in the sink, then stared out of the window for a while. His back looked rigid; I watched him ease his shoulders up and down, rolling his head from one side to another. He turned to face me. ‘How was last week in London?’

  For a moment I was tempted to tell him all about Alex, and Celia, but it was too much and too complicated for the short time we had left. I’d have had to make a decision too, whether or not to mention Fitz; I wouldn’t want Phil to think that meeting Fitz had anything to do with my decision about Ireland. But then if I said nothing it would carry the resonance of a guilty secret. I told myself I’d go over it all some other time.

  ‘Fine, no problems,’ I told him.

  ‘Only me.’

  ‘Yeah, but I can live with that.’ I got a smile.

  He came over, nuzzled his lips into my neck. ‘Pity we haven’t got longer,’ he muttered, looking over my shoulder at his watch. ‘It’s time I wasn’t here.’

  At the door he hung back and then all in a rush said that Sue had asked him to leave the house, told him it didn’t feel right any more if he was with someone else. ‘I’ve got to find somewhere to live until I go to Ireland.’

  He was looking at me hopefully, one of his big puppy-dog looks.

  ‘Phil, I can’t. Sean’s home for the holidays soon. He doesn’t know anything — it would be a bit of a leap to make, from nothing to you living here. And my mother too—’

  ‘So I’m to be hidden away?’

  ‘No, of course not. I want them to meet you but just…one step at a time, you know?’

  He frowned. ‘You sure?’

  ‘What about a friend?’

  ‘No. It’s okay. I can go to my parents. I suppose that’s better — Lauren and Emma can come round there. I just thought…’

  ‘Go,’ I said gently, reaching past him to turn the latch. ‘Don’t be late for Emma.’

  After he’d gone I sat on the bottom step of the stairs and gazed vacantly at the door, until eventually, as if to underline the reasons I gave for not going to Ireland, I decided it was time to give my family some attention. First I phoned Sean, who’d been partying hard since exams finished.

  ‘You’re still alive, then,’ I said. ‘Not pickled in alcohol yet?’

  ‘Ha-ha, Mum, very funny.’

  He told me he planned to bring a friend home for a couple of weeks, when he came back for the summer. I asked if the friend was male or female.

  ‘It’s a girl, Mum,’ he said, ‘and, no, you don’t need to make up the spare room.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. This is new. ‘Any more information?’

  ‘Her name’s Monique. I think you’ll like her.’

  ‘Not that you’re biased,’ I teased. ‘French?’

  ‘Yep. She’s on an Erasmus year, an exchange.’

  With a bit of encouragement he told me that they’d been ‘sort of together’ for two months and that she’d be going back home in the summer, but his voice was neutral so I couldn’t tell what he thought about that. We arranged that I’d pick them up at the station. After ringing off I tried to imagine the conversation in reverse.

  ‘Sean, is it okay for me to bring someone home? His name’s Phil and he’s just left his wife. I think you’ll like him.’

  Next I went to see my mother. We sat in her small garden on two ancient but comfortable sun-loungers, with cups of tea and hefty slices of her Victoria sponge. She fixed me with a look as I refused another slice.

  ‘You’ve lost weight,’ she said.

  ‘I’m fine, Mum. Just busy.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  My mother could make that sound signify almost anything; just then it meant ‘I’m not stupid’, but she didn’t pursue it. There would be another time; she’d choose her moment to probe a little further. We’d got closer lately, my mother and I, after a long period of what seemed like her permanent disappointment in me, beginning with that night in the kitchen of Empire Road right down to my divorce from Tim, which to her was further evidence that I would never make anything work, never settle to anything. With parental wisdom she once — and only once — said, ‘It was all that business in London that did it for you. That was where it all went wrong.’

  *

  My withdrawal from life was absolute. My mother must have despaired; from being a promising A-level student I’d gone to lying in bed for weeks on end. And the things I did after that brought her no joy either. ‘When are you going to stop drifting about?’ she used to say. Not for some years, as it turned out.

  It was a job in a record store that had got me out of my bed and back into some sort of normal life, work that I liked because it made me feel a fraction closer to Fitz. I’d wander round tidying up the vinyl, seeing records that we’d listened to together, trying to imagine which new bands he’d like. I spent most of my wages there and existed in a little bubble, which seemed perfectly fine to me, until the day I heard that Alex had been spotted in Madrid, and went off on my wild goose chase.

  I lived in Madrid for two years, picking up nannying jobs and a little English teaching, and then, at the invitation of an American I’d met, headed off to Greece. He was fun to be with and we worked in bars and clubs, in Athens and Crete. I stayed for three years and never thought I’d go home. When he moved on I imagined I’d meet someone else, or that maybe I’d go back to London, but I drifted and drifted and one morning woke up in Paris, penniless and alone. It sounds glamorous, but it was dire. The girl I’d gone with had suddenly decided to go home and I was left high and dry with a month’s rent to pay and no money, in a freezing January. I remembered staring out of the window at grey buildings in a cold, foggy street, wondering what on earth to do. I couldn’t quite think how I’d come to that, how the Beth who’d followed Alex to London had been washed up in a strange flat in Montparnasse.

  I had to throw myself on my parents’ mercy — there was no other option. They drove over to fetch me and then let me live at home again. They lent me money and helped me work out what I was going to do next, and to their credit refrained from saying, ‘We told you so,’ even though it was stamped on their foreheads. I did think then about trying for university, or doing the drama course I never did, as a mature student, but while I was deliberating my father found me a temporary job in the local authority. This became permanent and led onto some work in training. There I met Tim, and drifted into marriage. For a while I did persuade myself I was in love, although looking back it seemed like nothing more than a comfortable fondness.

  And if I told my mother that, I thought, watching her refill my cup, she’d say it was enough.

  *

  I checked my emails one last time before bed, to find that one had just landed in my inbox, from Alex Day. My heart raced, until I remembered that Alex is Celia and Celia is Alex.

  Beth. I’ve talked to Celia and obviously it came as a shock to her. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. Anyway, I’ve done what I promised and I’ve left your email address with her, she said maybe she’ll contact you. Regards, Alex.

  What a bare, dispiriting message, with that ‘wasn’t sure’, and ‘maybe’.

  I went out into the kitchen and picked an orange from the fruit bowl, peeled it slowly and deliberately, and then ate it segment by segment, letting the sweet-sharp juice flood my mouth as I bit each one. The fridge was making its funny whirring noises, and outside I could hear the cry of a screech owl. Idly looking round the kitchen, I thought of the one in Empire Road, with its gummy, chequered floor, its grimy cooker, and
cracked sink; for a few weeks it had been home to me. I pictured Celia, spreading the thinnest of layers of Marmite onto crispbread, dispensing advice to me about Alex; I could hear her voice as she talked to Alex herself, pithy words that crackled with unspoken envy. How did Celia, dry, cold Celia, persuade Alex to go along with her crazy scheme to swap names? Alex was impulsive, I could see how the idea would hook her in, but carrying it out would need resolve.

  Although I shouldn’t be too surprised; after all, it took nerve to leave home with a backpack and ten pounds, trusting herself to a man she’d met just a few weeks earlier.

  I went back to the email, but it had nothing else to offer up, no insight that I’d missed. Shutting the laptop down, I thought that if I had Celia’s surname I could do a search, but she hadn’t told me and I never knew it. Did I? Lying in bed later, I scoured my mind for any information that might turn out to be useful, but only succeeded in confirming that I knew absolutely nothing about Celia and that I’d have to rely on Alex getting in touch. That was what it came down to now: whether Alex wanted to see me.

  It wasn’t until the next morning — showered and dressed and eating breakfast — that the memory swooped into my mind. I froze, a piece of toast halfway to my mouth.

  *

  Pete is in the kitchen waving a brown envelope at Celia, that look of amused condescension on his face. She sits at the table with a mug of coffee, which she puts down to take the letter from him. Pete teases her with it, holding onto one end as she takes the other, only letting go when she frowns up at him.

  It’s for you, Celia, he says. They know where you are, Miss Celia Bowman.

  *

  Grabbing my plate and mug, I practically ran to my laptop, then waited impatiently for it to start up, deliberating between Google and Facebook. Facebook, I decided. There were eight names that matched both Celia and Bowman. None of them were Alex, I was sure of that, not unless she’d had radical plastic surgery. A further attempt on Google took half an hour to sift through unlikely sounding websites, and finally I sat and frowned at the screen, gnawing at a hangnail, thinking hard. Celia Bowman. Was that really what I heard Pete say? Had I made the whole thing up? Wait. Maybe something that sounded like Bowman… I typed in Beaumont and scanned the results. There was one for a band called Midnight Blue, with the name Celia Beaumont in the tags. A grainy photo caught my interest, and I followed a YouTube link to an R&B band, where there was the same photo only larger. I wouldn’t know about the voice; it was hard to remember what she sounded like when we used to sing along to records or on the back seat of a coach. But the shadowy face in the photo, the singer at the front, I thought it was her.

  Next I Googled Midnight Blue and they turned up on the website of a pub in Hammersmith, on a list of gigs. They would be playing in late June, when I’d be next down.

  ‘Yes!’ I switched back to the photo, stared hard at it.

  ‘Found you.’

  *

  25th August 1977

  Little by little, on that first evening and the following day, my story comes out to Jenny. It’s a relief to tell it to someone. It’s a relief to be away from it, too.

  The Welsh weather is kind to us. Hot sun chases away the puddles on the ground and gives Michael and Jenny’s little cottage garden, at the front of the house, a Mediterranean feel. This is mainly due to the yellow broom by the hedge, whose seed pods keep splitting open with a loud crack as they dry.

  Jenny shows us round the farm. Behind the house is a vegetable patch and beyond that a field that slopes upwards, overgrown with long grass. Another field to the right is dotted with sheep, and an old caravan sits at the bottom. There’s a large shed in the yard where they keep tools and machinery, most of it ancient and rusty, gradually being repaired or replaced. Next to it is a hen-house and a shed for five geese. I admire these hissy creatures from a safe distance, although Jenny promises to teach us how to herd them before we leave.

  ‘It’s easy,’ she says. ‘You just hold one arm out, like this, or this.’

  She demonstrates while we watch the geese obediently waddle where she wants them to go. The last one into the pen turns and hisses but she shoos it in briskly and shuts the gate.

  ‘Amazing,’ Fitz says admiringly. ‘You were obviously a goose-girl in another life, Jenny.’

  An old cow barn stands to the left of the house, and some tumbledown greenhouses. Jenny says they plan to renovate the greenhouses over the winter, and then to grow tomatoes and a vine and cultivate seedlings. She and Fitz talk enthusiastically about all this; the morning after we arrive he spends a lot of time out there helping her plan things. I watch them, see how easy they are with each other, and feel envious of the past they shared. I want everything about Fitz to belong to me and here’s something I hardly know about.

  I often feel Jenny’s eyes on me too. I’ve told her a lot but there are bits missing, and I sense that she’s busy trying to fit the pieces of the jigsaw together. She doesn’t know that police were involved when Alex left home because I don’t want to risk her phoning them. She doesn’t know about the bruise on Alex’s face because I think her reaction would panic me. But she knows enough to be concerned at the idea that Alex is somewhere alone with Pete; I see she likes him as little as I do.

  Michael doesn’t say much, just, ‘It’ll run its course.’

  In the afternoon they take us to a small bay, Llangranog. We park the camper van at the top of the steep road that leads to the bay, where cars aren’t allowed. At the bottom are a pub, a shop, a café, rocks to scramble over and a sandy beach to lie on. And the sea. Calm and glittering and lapping onto wet sand. The air is fresh and the sand feels gritty and cool under my feet. I think of Hilary and Rachel in Minehead, and how uncomplicated life would be now if I’d gone with them as planned.

  We swim, Fitz in a pair of Michael’s trunks and me in Jenny’s sister’s bikini that she left when she came to visit. I’m a strong swimmer, more confident than Fitz it turns out. I plunge straight in, laughing and flicking water up at him as he hesitates in the shallows, for once feeling as if I have the advantage. Then he ducks under the water and swims towards me, his wet hair slicked into little corkscrew curls. When he reaches me we tread water together, exchanging salty kisses, our legs tangling.

  After our swim Michael and Fitz go off to queue for ice creams while Jenny and I lie on our towels, side by side, letting the sun dry us off.

  ‘So you have to go back to Sheffield on Saturday?’ she says, after a few moments’ silence. And then, without waiting for a reply, ‘What’s going to happen to you and Fitz?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say, the familiar, dark dread shifting in me. ‘My parents obviously have no idea he exists. Even if they did they wouldn’t be thrilled at me going out with someone who’s on the dole and lives in a squat.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that,’ she says dryly.

  ‘We’ve talked about Fitz coming to Sheffield, that maybe he could get a job in a hotel, one where he could live in. Then I could pretend I’d just met him there.’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’ She doesn’t sound convinced.

  ‘I’m going to start looking at job adverts,’ I say quickly, ‘as soon as I get back.’

  ‘I hope it works out. He’s a nice guy.’

  I turn my head towards her. ‘You seem to get on well with him.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose because we helped him out a bit when he moved into Empire Road. Poor lad didn’t know if he was coming or going. He’d been homeless for a while. We’d moved in just before and Michael knew how to work the system.’

  There’s a question in my head that I’ve wanted to ask Jenny since we came down. I dance around it. ‘You’ve known Pete a long time, haven’t you?’

  Jenny sits up, begins brushing sand off her arms and legs. Her body is solid and toned.

  ‘My brother was at school with Pete. It was a private school, a bit out of the area. They travelled together on the bus, and I got to know Pete. When I met Michae
l, he and Pete hit it off at first, and then Pete heard we were skint and looking for a place to live.’ She looks round at me. ‘I suppose Fitz told you that my father left me some money?’

  ‘Yes.’ I sit up, interested.

  ‘Well, he didn’t believe in making things too easy for us while he was alive. We’ve all had to make our own way in life, me and my brother and sister.’

  ‘I suppose that’s good,’ I say. ‘You wouldn’t want everything handed to you on a plate, would you?’

  She grins. ‘It would have been nice sometimes. Especially when Michael’s business partner screwed him over for a load of money and he ended up with nothing. Anyway, we moved into the squat, but when Michael saw how Pete treated Celia he was shocked.’ She looks at me. ‘You know about Celia?’ I nod. ‘They began to argue a lot. We were glad to move out.’ She fishes in her bag and pulls out a bottle of Ambre Solaire, begins smoothing it onto her arms and legs until they glisten with oil. ‘I really want to make this work. I love it down here, working on the land. We’re going to get sheep next. I was telling Fitz. We could sell the wool — there’s lots of demand for Welsh wool. Then–’—

  ‘Jenny, what did you mean, how Pete treated Celia?’

  Her hands stop, for a moment. ‘The same way he treats Alex, I imagine. He’s a bully, always wants his own way. Doesn’t like to be crossed. But like a lot of bullies he can be nice too, which is how he draws them in to begin with.’ She squeezes suntan oil onto her belly and rubs it in, then asks me to do her back. Her skin is smooth and warm. ‘You know, Alex is way too young to be with him.’

  ‘I know. But there’s nothing I can do, and believe me I’ve tried. She won’t go home.’

  ‘Isn’t there anyone who could help? Grandparents?’

  ‘Her mum’s parents are both dead. I don’t know about her stepfather’s, but as he’s the problem…’ I finish Jenny’s back and she offers me the bottle. Squeezing some into one hand, I begin with my shoulders. ‘I’ve even offered for her to come and live at ours but she just wants to stay in London.’ I daub lotion onto my legs. ‘I’m not sure I’d even want that now. Things have changed between us.’ I glance at Jenny, wondering how much I can say, picturing the red mark on Alex’s face. ‘But I do worry, about what Pete’s doing to her.’