Looking For Alex

‘I didn’t say that. I said she told me she went there once. She’d had a row at home.’

DS Burton looks at me intently. There’s silence in the room, broken only by the sound of balls on racquets from the tennis courts. The air is warm, liquid.

‘Well, all my information tells me that Alex is a bit of a rebel. Are you getting me? It’s almost like, why wouldn’t she run away?’

I stare down at my hands, neatly folded in my lap. They look demure but the palms are warm and sweaty. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ I hear myself say, surprised by my own daring.

‘Oh, is it? Well, tell me, then, Beth, why did Alex get on a bus to London exactly two weeks ago today?’

My head shoots up so fast I feel a sharp pain jab the back of my neck. DS Burton looks faintly gratified at the reaction from both myself and Mr Cue, who pushes sharply away from the window and says, ‘What?’

Out of the corner of my eye I see the woman constable who’s taking notes throw me a sympathetic look. Burton sits down in Mr Cue’s chair and leans over the desk.

‘So you’re telling us the truth, then, Beth. You don’t know any more than we do.’

I can’t speak, can’t form any thoughts that seem to make sense.

‘You know that for certain?’ Mr Cue asks and Burton sticks his chin out, runs one finger round his collar.

‘We found out early this morning. One of the drivers saw the article in The Star and came forward, remembered seeing her on his bus. I kept it back, for obvious reasons, and Beth here has just told me what I wanted to know. So, what we now have is a young girl who’s left home of her own free will and without telling anyone where she’s going.’ He glances at me, sees my face, and maybe my despair. He coughs, and his voice changes, morphs into a ‘giving bad news’ version of itself. ‘It does mean, I’m afraid, that there’s not much else we can do. Alex is seventeen, so legally old enough to live by herself, and she’s not done anything under duress. We have to assume that she’s chosen to leave home. She’ll stay on the missing persons list but…’ he shrugs ‘…that’s all.’

His words jangle uselessly in my head — own free will, she’s chosen to leave home — and the cold chill in my stomach is almost as bad as when I believed something terrible had happened to her.

*

For the next few days, I walk around in a daze, telling myself I should be happy, that now I can stop imagining Alex being dragged into a car and unspeakable things happening to her, that there was no random attack, no sudden blow from a hammer. But although I do feel relief — who wouldn’t? — those sickening thoughts seem to have got swapped for ones that are somehow, in an insidious way, worse. I veer between disbelief and shocked hurt, until all I can think is: how could she do this and not tell me?

My parents, although concerned at how desolate I am, have their own take on things. I see it in their faces and hear it in whispered words. We might have expected something like this; typical of Alex. I even sense a slight relief, once they know she’s not been raped or murdered, that now she’s out of the way I can get on with my studies, get my grades and go to university.

Only I’m not so sure that’s what I want to do.

Two letters arrive for me, both big, fat envelopes. One is a prospectus from Leeds University. The other is a brochure from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, in London. I’ve been expecting the first — my parents are encouraging me to apply there — but not the second, and it causes a row with my mother.

‘I thought we agreed that you’d go to university, get your language degree, and then do your acting afterwards.’ She’s ironing, her flushed face bobbing up and down.

‘We didn’t agree,’ I say. ‘It’s just what you and Dad think I should do.’ I’m staring at the cover of the brochure, at students in white masks and black cloaks, wondering why this has been posted to me. ‘I haven’t decided yet.’

‘You need something solid behind you, Beth, so that—’

‘Yes, I know, for when I end up as yet another failed actor.’

‘Actress,’ she corrects, always the keeper of correct grammar, and clunks the iron down on its stand as she tugs my dad’s shirt into position.

‘Actor. Actress is patronising.’

She tightens her lips and says nothing more. Watching the iron sweep from left to right, I sense that she’s holding back because of my distress about Alex but I’m too cross with her to be grateful.

‘And anyway, I didn’t even send for this.’ Not yet, although I had intended to. ‘I don’t know why it’s come.’

My mother parks the iron and comes over to pick up the Leeds prospectus. ‘Oh, this looks very good, Beth.’

I flick the pages of the Guildhall brochure, seeing a montage of student life there — rehearsals, dance lessons, mime, productions — and a faint flutter of excitement, like the wings of a moth, begins to stir the gloom that has settled on me. Then something catches my eye, a loose piece of paper. I turn back to find it, a piece of Basildon Bond notepaper Sellotaped in near the end. I recognise Alex’s handwriting and the shock jolts through my entire body, nearly emerging as a sharp squeal. Quickly I snap the pages shut.

‘Let me see,’ my mother says, looking up.

‘No.’ I can think of no good reason why she shouldn’t. ‘You’ll only find something wrong with it.’

‘Don’t be silly, Beth.’ My mother sighs. ‘Look, acting is so hard to get into. It makes sense to get a degree first.’

‘No, it doesn’t. It makes sense to do something that I’ll actually enjoy doing and if that doesn’t work out I’ll think again. It makes sense to try for what I really want.’ My voice is gathering pitch until finally I shout, ‘Just stop going on about it!’ I turn my back on her hurt face and walk out of the room, clutching the brochure tightly to my chest.

Up in my room I sit down on the bed, breathing heavily and listening out for my mother’s footsteps on the stairs. Guilt and anger tumble over each other as I wait for her to follow me and carry the argument on. She doesn’t though, and after a while I hear the renewed clunking of the iron. Hurriedly I thumb through the brochure to find Alex’s short note. Reading it, I think I stop breathing for a few seconds; there’s a sharp tightness in my chest and the soft exhalation of breath when finally I release it.

‘I’m okay. Don’t tell. I’ll ring. 4 o’clock Friday. If you’re not alone say wrong number. I’ll try again Monday.’

Four o’clock Friday. A time that I’m always in the house on my own, which Alex knows. Today is Thursday. I lie down on the bed, staring up at The Stranglers on my wall where David Cassidy used to be. Excitement bubbles up inside, because Alex is back, back in my life, and it’s no longer just me and everyone else. A wide grin of delight splits my face.

Don’t tell. Of course not. How could I?

*

Her voice sounds far away, a small, tinny thing at the end of a wire.

‘Where are you?’ I demand. ‘Are you in London?’

‘Who said that?’

‘The bus driver remembered you.’

‘Oh, him. He kept asking stupid questions.’

‘Is that where you are now?’

There’s a long silence, then, ‘Uh-huh.’

‘Where? Whereabouts? Are you sleeping rough?’

‘No.’

‘Well, where, then?’

‘I can’t say, can I?’

‘But what the hell are you doing? And if you’re not sleeping rough who the hell are you with? I don’t get it, Alex. Why have you done this?’

‘Beth, don’t get mad. I can’t cope with you being mad at me.’

‘Well, what did you expect? “Hi, Alex, how nice to hear from you” — after three sodding weeks? Do you know what it’s been like for me? Do you have any idea how worried everyone is?’

‘Not everyone.’

‘What?’

‘Not everyone will be worried.’

‘Of course they will. Whatever’s gone on they’ll be worried.’

I hear the pips go and then the sharp clang of a coin slammed into the box.

‘Listen, I haven’t got much money. Don’t let’s argue, Beth. I just wanted to talk.’

‘Give me your number.’

‘What? No.’

‘Give me your number — I’ll call you back.’

‘They could trace it.’

I hesitate. ‘Not if I don’t tell anyone.’

‘They’d see it on the bill, all long-distance calls. That’s what…what someone told me.’

‘Who? What someone?’

‘Never mind.’

‘Alex — this is crazy!’ I shout, enraged by all the mystery and my exclusion from it. ‘You should come back and sort things out here. It’s not safe down there on your own.’

‘Who said I’m on my own?’

‘Well, it’s not safe for you to be shacked up with people you don’t know either.’

‘I do know them and they’re okay. And who’s to say I’m safe at home? You don’t know, Beth, you don’t know but I’m telling you there’s no fucking way I’m going home.’ The pips go again. This time no more coins are shoved in and there’s just time for Alex to say, ‘I’ll ring again from another box. Don’t tell anyone, Beth. Promise?’

I sigh. ‘Of course.’

So I keep quiet, ignoring police instructions and putting up with the guilt of knowing that her parents must be, to use my mother’s expression, ‘beside themselves’. I don’t know what else to do, but then I live in fear of her never ringing again and think that if she did turn up dead it would be all my fault. When she phones again the following week I tell her I think it’s not right and that I don’t see why she can’t at least let her parents know she’s safe.

‘You don’t have to tell them where you are,’ I reason. ‘Just a letter, or a postcard, to let them know you’re okay.’

‘No. They can go to hell.’

‘Alex!’

‘Come on, Beth…don’t pretend you like my parents.’

I think of her father, his ice-blond hair and cold eyes; of her mother, small and slight, the way she folds herself into the background. Neither of them ever seem to notice me.

‘I—’

‘Beth, don’t.’

There’s silence for a while; outside I hear the soft drone of a distant lawn mower. ‘Alex…what’s been going on?’

She sucks in her breath. ‘Too much and not enough.’

This strange answer gets to me. ‘Listen,’ I say, ‘why don’t I come down?’

‘What?’

‘I just want to see you. I need to know you’re safe.’

‘How can you? You can’t just take off.’

‘You did.’

‘Yes, but… I don’t know.’ Suddenly she laughs. ‘Okay! Yeah. Why not? That’d be cool. Just get on a bus and come and stay. Hey, it would be amazing.’ I listen, fascinated, to this new Alex, the way she says, hey, and amazing, with its drawn-out middle syllable. ‘You could make up some story, say you’re going on holiday with someone. Hilary will back you up.’

I close my eyes to think better. My parents are going on holiday soon, leaving my older sister Karen in charge. Karen is obsessed with her new boyfriend. She’ll appreciate having the house to herself, won’t ask too many questions.

‘I’m coming down,’ I say to Alex. ‘Ring next week and I’ll have it all worked out.’

*

24th July 1977

The first Sunday of the summer holidays.

I get up early and make my way to Pond Street bus station, where I board a bus to London under a slate-grey sky. I’m carrying a duffle bag, a holdall full of clothes, and a rolled-up sleeping bag tied with an old belt. On the inside I’m carrying a bundle of nerves.

I stare out of the window, half expecting to see DS Burton run up to the bus and haul me off, demanding to know where I’m going. I’m thinking of his last words to me as I’d left the head teacher’s study.

‘You will let us know,’ he said, in his gravelly, forty-a-day voice, ‘if you hear from Alex?’

I nodded. It was easy to say yes, then, when I still knew nothing.

The driver revs up and pulls out of Pond Street onto the Parkway roundabout, heading for the MI, and what’s been almost a game up to now suddenly becomes a reality that lurches into my stomach. I shut the Cosmopolitan I bought — making a mental note to read the ‘100 Tips for a Hot Sex Life’ at a later date, even though a sex life is something I have yet to acquire — but still the queasiness increases with every mile, until bile rises in my throat. A few times I think I’ll have to ask the driver to stop and let me throw up by the side of the road, but somehow, by remembering my father’s mantra — ‘keep your eyes on the horizon’ — I manage. I gaze at fields and factories and pylons, and think about Alex, imagining her on this same journey, how completely alone she must have felt.

But then when I picture her at home I know that alone could just as well describe her there.

It’s a long time since I’ve been to Alex’s house, but it always seemed full of shadows and silence. Set back from the park and surrounded by pine trees, it had a sort of chill, even in the summer. It never felt like a family home, more a collection of rooms where people led their separate lives; I don’t think I ever saw her family all together in one room. Her father was hardly ever there, always at work, or Masonic meetings, or rugby. Her younger brother David, who’s a small, chunky version of his father, plays every sport he can and I would mostly see him running in and out on his way to or from one of them. Alex’s mother was almost always home but still somehow absent; she never seemed to look at me directly. I would glimpse her flitting from one room to another, always busy, never stopping to talk. ‘Hello, er…Beth,’ is all she’d say, even though she’d known me for years. Not like my mother, who brings us biscuits, and Tizer, and asks Alex how’s this, that and the other.

When I first met Alex I accepted her family life in the way that you do, at that age. Then as I got older I did begin to question the lack of communication, the lack of warmth towards each other, but as it never seemed to bother Alex I didn’t let it bother me. Later still, I stopped going there, as Alex was always at ours.

*

When we reach the sprawling suburbs of London my armpits begin to prickle with nervous sweat. For distraction there’s only Radio 1 and the conversation the girl next to me is having with her friends in front. They’re all students, going to some party in London. They sound excited and I wish I were like them, on a coach with a friend, having a laugh. I wish Alex were here but then think that’s stupid, because I’ll be with her soon. Then slowly it begins to dawn on me that I’m not just anxious about the unknown but about the known, about seeing Alex again. Nothing about Alex is obvious any more.

It doesn’t help when she isn’t there to meet me.

I wait at the barrier of Platform 11, Victoria Coach Station, watching the last of the passengers disembark and pick up their luggage. Ten minutes go by and I try not to panic by telling myself that if Alex never turns up I’ll just get on another bus and go home. The burly coach driver notices me as he secures the bus to go for his break, Daily Mirror tucked under one arm and jacket slung over his shoulder. For a few seconds I see what he sees, reflected in the glass of the sliding bus door: a curvy girl in tight black jeans and pumps, skinny white T-shirt, leopard-skin belt, and my old school blazer with a Clash badge on one lapel and Siouxsie in studs on the back. I’ve tried to reproduce Siouxsie’s hair from a photo in NME — backcombed high with a little feathery fringe. The detail of my painstakingly drawn eye make-up is lost in the sheen of glass but the general effect is there — dark wings that wrap round my eyes like a pair of shades.

I surprised myself this morning, when I looked in my parents’ full-length mirror and saw what I could achieve when they weren’t around. You’re dressed to impress, girl, I told myself, grinning at my reflection. And then there was a heart-thumping moment as my gaze switched to the bedroom behind me. I stood quite still, taking it all in: little pots of cream and powder on the drawers; dressing gowns hung side by side on the back of the door; the faint scent of Youth Dew, my mother’s favourite perfume; the quiet ticking of the bedside clock. The room seemed to cling to me and its safe familiarity induced a rush of doubt that set my chest pounding. My eyes switched back to the girl in the mirror. What are you doing?

The driver interrupts my view, coming to stand right in front of me. Sweat trickles down his face and he wipes it away with his sleeve.

‘All right, sweetheart?’ he asks. ‘Someone not turned up?’

‘She’ll be here any minute,’ I say. ‘She’s always late.’

He shrugs. ‘Okay. Need any help the office is over there.’

He sets off across the concourse, unfurling his paper as he walks. A small queue is beginning to form for the next departure and my stomach knots itself a little more. Then I hear a soft whistle from behind and there’s Alex, lolling by a concrete pillar, grinning.

‘You’re bloody late!’ I cry, relief putting an edge on my voice.

‘No, I’m not… I’ve been here for ages. Just making sure.’

I drag my bags over. ‘Sure of what?’

‘That no one was with you.’

‘What? Do you think I’d do that?’

‘No — but I didn’t know if anything had gone wrong, did I? Suppose your parents had found out? You wouldn’t exactly be able to let me know, would you?’

We pause for breath, then Alex moves forwards and we hug the life out of each other, squealing and giggling. She smells of cigarettes and shampoo and something else I don’t recognise. She feels thin, but I’m not sure if that’s new; we’ve never really hugged that much. Stepping back, I look her up and down, noting small changes. She’s wearing her God Save the Queen T-shirt, a red tartan skirt and her Doc Martens, all of which I’ve seen before. But her hair is different — not spiky now, but a wild, tangled halo, on top of which sits a beret that matches the skirt. And although it’s warm she wears a leather jacket that’s crawling with zips and badges. That’s new.

‘Where d’you get this?’ I ask, tweaking it.

‘Camden Market. We’ll get you one. You’re gonna love it here, Beth. It’s so cool, there’s so much second-hand stuff and it’s dirt cheap.’ She nudges me. ‘Come on, we’re getting the tube.’

I let her lead the way, marvelling at her total ease in this huge city — that after a few weeks she knows where she’s going, what she’s doing and how everything works. As I follow her certain things begin to surface from a distant memory of my last visit, when I was just ten years old: the underground’s singular scent of warm dust and hot metal, the jostle of people on the street and the massive buildings that dwarf them, a feeling of ant-like insignificance and yet of being at the centre of the universe. The idea of having to negotiate all this on my own would be scary, but Alex shows no such fear. At times I’m almost running to keep up with her, along crowded pavements that buzz with alien accents and languages, trying not to gawp at the unfamiliar: groups of Japanese tourists with monstrous cameras slung round their necks, or Arabs in full sail, the women’s eyes peeping out from black shrouds, trailing their men like a brood of ducklings.

‘Poor things,’ I say. ‘Imagine living your life in a tent.’

‘I wouldn’t feel too sorry for them,’ Alex throws back at me. ‘They’re filthy rich and they own half of London. They’re part of the established order.’

‘The what?’

‘You know. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. They’re all in it together.’

‘They?’

Alex gives me an amused smile and I feel strangely anxious.

‘The rich. Capitalists. The property owners.’

I can’t remember her being too bothered by this before; our punk sensibilities had only stretched as far as despising songs by David Soul, or Abba, and scorning anything to do with the Silver Jubilee.

‘I don’t suppose the women have much say in anything. And I still wouldn’t want to be treated like I’m owned, like I’m someone’s property.’

We turn into the underground and the conversation gets lost as Alex shows me how to work the ticket machine.

On the tube she keeps up a torrent of questions, wanting to know everything that’s happened after she went. I feed her answers, knowing the questions I need to ask will wait. If it all seems a little narcissistic — What does everyone think of me? What did they say at school? What do people think has happened? — I let that go. She never once mentions her parents. Finally, as we emerge from Camden Town station into weak sunlight she seems to remember that I’m not just an extension of her.

‘Where do your mum and dad think you are?’ she asks.

‘At home.’

‘Huh?’

‘They went to Jersey for two weeks yesterday. After they’d gone I told Karen I was going camping.’ Alex turns her head, stares at me, nearly bumps into someone. We giggle, and I feel suddenly warm, proud of myself, pleased by the glow of admiration in Alex’s eyes. ‘I said if Mum and Dad ring tell them I’m with Hilary and Rachel. They like Hilary and Rachel.’ I realise how that sounds. ‘I mean, they think they’re sensible.’

Alex snorts with laughter. ‘Well, that’s because they are! Thank God for you, Beth.’ She tucks her arm into mine, and I pray that she won’t guess how far my liking for a little excitement is being pushed.

‘So how long have you got?’

I hesitate. ‘I told Karen one week.’ I don’t say that I’ve taken two weeks off from my Woolworths holiday job. If I decide to stay longer I’ll tell her then. ‘Karen’s supposed to be looking out for me, but I think she’s glad to get me out the way.’

‘She still with that Richard guy?’

‘Yeah.’

My head spins as I catch sight of a huge crowd of punks, moving along the road in a swarm of leather and tartan and chains, holding up traffic as they swagger across a busy street, their progress marked by crests of hair. I catch the eye of one of them and there’s a flicker of acknowledgment of my membership of the club, not so much a nod as a tiny tilt of the chin. Compared to them I’m on the margins, but, still, I like that he noticed me.

‘It’s punk city round here,’ Alex says. ‘I love it.’

A crowd of backpackers separate us for a few seconds.

‘Alex, who are you living with?’

‘Beth, look there. That’s the Post Office Tower.’ She grabs my arm, pointing up to where it sits in a gap between buildings. ‘The one with the revolving restaurant — it spins round while you eat.’ She pulls a face. ‘Think I’d be sick. And, Beth, see the Doc Martens shop? The Sex Pistols go there.’ She drags me over and peers in, as though we’ll see Sid Vicious lacing up his boots, winking at us through the window. The shop is full, alive with leather and chains and rainbow hair. ‘We’ll go in one day. Have a look round.’

‘Are you staying near here?’

‘Not far. Come on, let’s go. Give me your bag. I’ll carry it for a bit.’

We tear ourselves away from the window. After walking for another ten minutes we take a left and a right, past a warehouse and some lock-ups, finally turning onto a sorry-for-itself terraced street. Empire Road. The houses are big, four storeys high, with steps down to the basement and more steps up to the wide front doors. I guess they once housed wealthy families, with maids and servants. Now each house has a long strip of buzzers with the names to one side. There are one or two exceptions but mostly the paintwork is peeling, the masonry crumbling, and the tiny scabby gardens are dotted with litter and dog shit. Above our heads reggae spills out and two people argue loudly.

The excitement of being in London gradually recedes, replaced by a quiet dread that feels like a lead weight in my belly. I’m torn between an urgent need for a toilet, desperate to reach somewhere — anywhere — quickly, and a strong desire to turn back and head for home.

‘We’re just down here,’ Alex says. ‘Number twenty-two. The green house.’

I look down the street and see a house that’s distinguishable, not by the colour of the door, but by the bricks themselves, painted a sludgy, olive green.