Looking For Alex

Upstairs the smell of damp gives way to something sweeter, the scent I’d caught on her when we hugged, a musky perfume maybe?

‘This is where I sleep,’ Alex says, and throws open the door to a room with a double mattress, covered with two zipped-together sleeping bags and scattered with assorted clothes. On the bed a pair of Alex’s pants lies tangled up with some black Y-fronts. Neither of us says anything, me trying desperately not to appear shocked and uncool in front of this strange person that was my Alex. She whisks me off along the landing and points out a heavy green curtain that drapes onto the bottom step of another staircase. ‘Celia sleeps in the attic. She doesn’t like people going in her room when she’s out. Well, not at all really. Here, this is the bathroom.’

I peer in at bare boards clogged with dust, a rusty claw-foot bath and a toilet with no seat. There’s a rank, fusty smell in the room. Alex walks over to the sash window and pulls down the top half.

‘I keep telling them to leave this open.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘It’s the drains.’

I suppress my need for the toilet, decide to come back later.

‘You’re going to sleep here.’ She flings open the next door along. ‘Oh.’ A young guy is kneeling on the floor by the window, flicking through a stack of LPs. ‘Fitz! I thought you were out,’ Alex says, a little thrown. ‘It was so quiet.’ She turns to me. ‘Fitz can’t exist without music.’ To him she says, ‘This is my friend, Beth.’

Fitz peers up at me above a pair of shades that perch on the end of his nose. ‘Hi, Beth,’ he says, and goes back to his search.

Alex wanders over to a mattress on the floor, plonks herself down. There’s another jumble of records there and she begins to sort through them. I put my bag down on the floor but remain resolutely standing. The room is small and stark: more floorboards, one hessian rug, a mattress on the floor, two blue milk-crates with clothes neatly folded into them, and the stereo. This takes up some space, with its smoked-glass deck, an amp that looks like the control desk of a plane, and giant speakers. The walls have been partly stripped and have become a mosaic of two or three different patterns. They give off a distinctive smell, an earthy scent of crumbling plaster, torn paper and dried paste. In one corner stands a little army of candles melted onto saucers.

‘Where’s that one you were playing yesterday?’ Alex asks.

‘Which one was that?’ He has a soft, Irish accent.

‘You know, the one about a storm.’

‘You mean The Doors?’

‘Yeah. I loved that. Go on, play it, Fitz.’

I’m not entirely focusing on this exchange, too busy trying to contain a rising, cold anxiety. What did Alex mean, you’re going to sleep here? Does she expect me to roll out my sleeping bag on a complete stranger’s floor?

I watch Fitz as he selects a record and places it lovingly on the turntable, with a careful wipe of his sleeve. He is dressed all in black but somehow I get the impression he always wears black and it’s nothing to do with how everyone else is dressing right now. His body is lean and wiry and I think he can’t be very tall, although it’s hard to say when I haven’t yet seen him standing. He has short hair that curls a little wildly; it shines coppery in the sun as he leans over the turntable, positioning the stylus above the last track. I can see all the bumps along his spine, under stretched cotton. The stylus lands scratchily onto plastic and he rocks back on his heels. He takes off his shades and now I can see his face more clearly, although with the sun behind him his eyes are in shadow. He has a thin, bird-like nose that has taken a hit at some point; it’s skewed to the left. You wouldn’t have said he was handsome but there’s something that draws me to watch him, covertly, as he stands and goes to the window.

Crackling settles into a rhythmic hiss and it takes a second to realise that the sound of the stylus on plastic has become the shush of rain falling on tarmac, which in turn gives way to a soft crash of thunder. The music that follows — drum and bass stepping out together, then the cool, rippling descent of keyboard — churns something up inside me, a sense of ‘something’s about to happen and I don’t know what it is but I can’t stop it now’. Thunder rolls and the song slides into the room. It seems oddly exciting and calming at the same time.

Pete brings the tea up on a tray and sets it down on the floor. The tray is all nicely set out, with teapot, milk jug, sugar-bowl and a plastic strainer in a dish. There are four proper cups and saucers, which he begins pairing up, and an old biscuit tin next to them. It’s all quite unreal — a little fancy tea party in this half-derelict house.

‘Don’t mind me,’ Fitz says, watching Pete lay things out. The way he speaks, there’s an edge to it. I feel somehow responsible — that it’s because of me his room is being invaded. Pete ignores him, leaning forward to take the lid off the tin. I see little cakes inside.

‘It’s a bit early, isn’t it, Pete?’ Alex says. She sounds nervous again but I can’t see why.

‘In honour of Beth,’ he replies, beginning the business of pouring milk then tea into each cup. Wispy strands of hair hide his face; he loops it back behind his ears.

‘Not for Beth, not yet,’ she says, and it’s as if they’re talking in code.

‘Who are you to speak for Beth?’ he says and she frowns, as though he’s caught her out.

I glance over at Fitz. He’s standing by the window with his eyes closed and appears to be listening intently to the last bars of the song. Sunlight slants over his shoulder but the room is filled with the fading sound of rain and thunder. Anxiety catches in my throat.

Pete finishes pouring the tea and hands everyone a cup. Then he holds out the tin of cakes, offering me one first. They are fairy cakes in paper cases and as I lean over to look I breathe in a sweet, smoky aroma. Now I think I can place it.

‘Um, Beth—’ Alex begins, but then Fitz cuts her off.

‘I wouldn’t, Beth. They’re hash cakes.’

I look up. He stares right back. Pete tuts.

‘Hey, Fitz, don’t spoil the fun. Go on, Beth. I baked them myself.’

‘Pete, Beth’s never even smoked weed.’ Alex sounds defensive. ‘Don’t make her.’

I’m suddenly annoyed with Alex, that she’s let me walk into this with no warning. I’m torn between not wanting to seem boring or naïve, and the risk of feeling even more out of control.

‘That’s not true, Alex. I’ve had dope before.’

‘Where? You mean at Bestie’s party? Like two drags?’

‘Beth, if you want some I’ll roll a joint later.’ Fitz comes and sits on the floor with us and I see now that his eyes are green, cat’s eyes. ‘And then afterwards you can go to bed and sleep it off. The way Pete bakes cakes there’s no way of knowing how much is in each one. It’s unpredictable.’

‘But it’s much more fun,’ Pete drawls, unwrapping one of the cakes. He takes a large bite, then picks another out of the tin and tosses it over to Alex. She catches it and lets it lie in her lap.

‘I’ll have it later,’ she says, and her attempt at compromise makes Pete smile.

‘Well, you’ll have some catching up to do,’ he says, stuffing the last of the cake into his mouth.

Alex shrugs, peels the cake’s wrapper, and eats it.

The afternoon wears on into early evening. Its rambling conversation — from how to cook Bolognaise sauce to is there any such thing as ‘free love’ since someone always ends up paying — is punctuated only by more pots of tea and the flipping of LPs on the turntable. I take little part in it, still shy, but Fitz, who does not have one of the cakes, becomes quite animated and seems to forget his earlier irritation. At some point my need for the bathroom overcomes my caution. While I’m in there I hear footsteps going up the attic stairs; if it’s Celia she obviously doesn’t want to join the party. Pete eats another cake and as he grows more stoned he drops the faintly mocking superiority and becomes kinder to Alex. They lie side by side on Fitz’s bed, hands entwined, like a medieval stone knight and his lady.

Fitz and I seem unable to find anything to say to each other then and the growing silence between us unnerves me. We listen to the whole of Dark Side of the Moon without speaking at all. Fitz lies on the floor and I sit very quietly, not moving, knees drawn up to my chin and my hands clasped around them. I have no idea what’s going to happen next and feel further apart from Alex than ever.

At about seven Alex and Pete go off to their own room. ‘Back in a bit,’ says Alex, vaguely.

Fitz looks over at me then, his head on one side, considering. ‘Don’t look so worried,’ he says.

‘I’m not,’ I lie as panic creeps icily through me. ‘It’s just all weird. I want to talk to Alex and I can’t get near her.’

‘She won’t go home, you know.’

I ignore that and brave the question that’s bothering me. ‘Why did Alex say I was sleeping in here?’

‘Because I’m going to sleep downstairs.’ There’s no way of telling whether he minds.

‘I could go downstairs,’ I say. ‘You don’t have to give up your room.’

‘Don’t worry. I’m used to sleeping in odd places. You might get spooked down there on your own.’

There’s some truth in that.

‘Are you hungry?’ Fitz asks, and I realise that breakfast at home is the last meal I had. My stomach growls in response and we both grin.

‘Starving.’

‘Come on, Beth. Let’s go eat.’

I follow him down to the kitchen, hugely cheered at the thought of food — and a room to which I can later escape.

*

25th July 1977

Somewhere outside music jangles: Greensleeves. Mr Whippy music. Is this Sunday? Turning onto my back, I stare up blearily, trying to make sense of the strange angles and shapes of the room, none of which add up to my bedroom. Then I see my bag in the corner, slung down next to a pile of LPs, and my eyes snap open. This isn’t home. I’m in London. I’m in a squat with a bunch of strangers.

The house is eerily silent. Sunshine filters weakly through the thin cotton sheet over the window, casting pale shadows, but it could be any time of the day to me, not knowing east from west in this house. I lift one arm to peer at my watch, which tells me two things: that it’s past midday, and that my head is going to hurt like hell when I raise it properly off the pillow. Well, not pillow — grubby, thread-pulled cushion. I try to swallow and find that my tongue is stuck like sandpaper to the roof of my mouth, which makes me long for ice-cold water; this nudges a vague memory of someone saying, ‘Here, you’ll be needing this.’ Fitz. I turn my head towards the side of the bed, see a pint glass of water and sit up to drink it down in one go. Tepid, not ice-cold, but bliss. I slump back in the sleeping bag and close my eyes, waiting for the banging in my skull to subside and letting all yesterday’s events filter through my mind.

Things come back to me in a jumble of images: Alex squealing excitedly at the bus station; Fitz peering up from his stack of albums; the fantastic garden glimpsed through a ramshackle wooden door; Pete, smiling lazily at me, his arm around Alex. And then the bizarre tea party in this room, where I’d felt like Alice in Wonderland, huge and misplaced. After that there’d been helping Fitz make some food before Alex and Pete came down.

I peeled and chopped vegetables for him to scoop into a big pan, to be made into curry. As he cooked so he talked, in his London-Irish lilt. And as he talked he seemed to warm to me, open up a bit. I found out he was the eldest of six children and that his proper name was John Fitzallen. He was born in Waterford but his family came to England when he was five. They live in a crowded flat in a tower block in Bethnal Green and on turning sixteen he was turned out.

‘Not literally, not quite, but it’s what was expected. The place was bursting at the seams and there were too many arguments.’ He’d got a job in a hotel kitchen and a room that went with it. Two years later he was one of a few staff laid off. ‘I was on the streets,’ he said. ‘Didn’t have enough money for a deposit on a room and couldn’t claim dole ‘cos I didn’t have an address. The old benefit trap. Spent a few weeks sleeping rough, the odd night in a hostel. It wasn’t nice.’

I liked the effortless way he moved between cooker, cupboard and table, watched him sprinkle spices out of recycled jam-jars, judging it all by eye. Sometimes, thinking about something I’d asked, he’d stand still, one hand rubbing the back of his neck as he searched for what he wanted to say.

‘Couldn’t you have gone back home?’

‘Nah. My space had been filled — there were no beds left. I didn’t ever tell them. I just…well, I just didn’t. I was lucky though — someone told me about this place, took me along to meet Pete and I’ve been here ever since. It’s okay, a good squat. Pete keeps a tight rein on it, won’t let just anyone doss here.’

‘But what do you do for money? I mean, how do you buy food?’

‘I’ve got some work now, hotel down the road, twenty hours a week, more if I want.’

‘And Pete? Does he work?’

Fitz looked round from stirring the curry. ‘You don’t ask questions like that.’

There was no time to say any more, because right then Pete and Alex came down. Alex was wrapped in a vintage, print dressing gown, the sort you could buy cheap in Oxfam. With her wild hair and dark lips she looked vampish, like a silent-movie star. Someone produced a bottle of Hirondelle and I gulped the first glass down quickly; Pete gave me more. A second bottle was drunk with the curry, which tasted fantastic and exotic; up to then my experience of Indian food had been a Beef Vesta, which was like one of my mother’s stews with sultanas and too much pepper.

After eating we went into the room at the front and sat round on cushions and beanbags. Fitz brought down his stereo and some albums, and when that was all set up he rolled a joint and passed it round. I took a couple of drags and Alex giggled, threw one comradely arm round my shoulders. At first I felt nothing. Second time round I had some more, and slowly my head began to unravel; thoughts lost their shape, all crowded somewhere just out of reach. I felt blissfully connected to Alex and the others yet strangely far away from them. That part of me, the observer, was only faintly shocked now at how proficiently Alex rolled a second joint. No one spoke much, we just listened to music and smoked and drank more wine and then some of Pete’s tea. Fitz sat slightly apart, retreating into himself, listening to one record after another with his eyes closed, mostly stuff I’d never heard before, a jumble of soul and rock and punk. Eventually I stopped trying to think about anything and gave into drifting on a tide of music and dope.

Now, trying to remember how last night ended, I realise I have no clear memory of going to bed. I look around me, frowning as I try to picture things, but all I can remember is Fitz setting the glass of water down by the bed. Fitz in my room. Shit. Shifting slightly in the sleeping bag, I put one hand down and explore myself gingerly. I have no experience of what I’ll find if anything happened, just a vague idea that I would feel sore, or tender, or maybe there will be blood. I find nothing.

I’m trying to ignore the fact that I need to pee, not wanting to be the first one up, not wanting to leave the security of this room, but when my bladder feels about to burst I emerge and scoot along to the bathroom in T-shirt and knickers. My head throbs sickeningly and a thin needle of pain keeps shooting into my right eye. I find I can suppress that slightly by pressing two fingers onto the skin just above it; I sit on the toilet like that for ages, and begin to think longingly of a hot bath. When I peer into the tub I see how pitted and stained it is, with a tidemark of grime, and chalky lime-scale where the taps are left dripping. Not exactly inviting, but I could live with it. Should I take a bath though, without asking? Maybe it won’t matter, while everyone is still asleep.

However the taps then fail to give up any hot water so I make do with a cold wash at the sink. Back in my room, easing a pair of jeans over my hips, I hear someone go along to the bathroom; peering round the door, I catch a glimpse of Alex’s robe.

‘Alex!’ I hiss.

She whispers back. ‘What?’

‘I need to talk to you, now!’

Squinting at me through mascara-smeared eyes, Alex nods. Even with her hair all flattened and messy she still looks cute, a tiny thing wrapped in her silky print robe that billows all around her.

‘Okay. But I need a pee. And tea, and food. I’ll be back.’

While she’s gone I fix my hair so that it will look more banshee than hedgehog, with the aid of some backcombing and my mother’s old compact mirror that I stole out of the drawer at home. I put eye-liner and mascara on, feeling naked without them.

Alex reappears in a while, carrying a tray of tea and a plate piled high with toast. We sit on the bed to eat it, me propped up against one wall, Alex on the other, her legs stretched out over mine. It’s how we always sat on my bed at home and there’s a moment of comfortable silence while we munch on toast.

‘This toast is the best ever, Alex. I’m so hungry.’

‘Yeah, hash does that.’ Her voice is still sleepy. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I feel shit. But the food’s helping. You look all right. You’re used to it, I suppose.’

‘Beth…’

‘Alex, look, it doesn’t matter, I don’t care. I just wish you’d tell me what’s going on.’ I stare down at my plate and chase crumbs around it. ‘I mean, home wasn’t that bad, was it?’

She doesn’t answer at first. I hear music start up downstairs; Fitz is awake.

‘Beth, have you ever noticed anything about my parents?’ I look up to find her staring at me, her eyes dark and intent. ‘Like my dad looks nothing like me?’

The image that swims into my mind is of her father stepping out of his car one day, just as I was leaving. Tall, big, heavy-set. Blond hair. Blue-eyed. Everything that Alex is not.

‘You’re joking.’

‘No, I’m not.’

I sit up straight. ‘Your dad’s not your dad?’

‘Hey, mastermind!’

I picture the rest of her family. Her mother, petite like Alex. And her brother, David. Fair, chunky.

‘But…he is David’s dad?’

‘There’s no mistaking that little blood bond, is there?’

‘And—’ I want to be really clear now ‘—your mum’s your mum. I mean, you’re not adopted?’

‘You got it.’

‘So…’

‘So who is my dad? Good question. I’ve never met him.’

‘Never? You don’t know him?’

‘Beth, if I did, and if I thought he was halfway interested in me, I’d have been out of that house a long time before this. All my mother’s ever told me is that he left when I was six months old and she’s no idea where he is.’

‘Christ! Could you find out? Don’t you know his name?’

‘Yes, I know, but I’m not bothered. Why go looking for him now? Greg’s been a shit stepdad, and I guess my dad’s a shit dad. He left us to fend for ourselves, Mum told me, living in a crappy little flat that was always freezing in winter. He never sent us any money.’

‘Bloody hell.’

I stand up, step off the marshmallow mattress and cross over to the window. It looks down onto the garden at the back. From here you can see those on either side. One is bare and functional, with a rough patch of grass littered with children’s toys; the other is completely overgrown. The richness of Fitz’s garden seems even more miraculous.

I whirl round; Alex is fiddling with the tie on her wrap, winding it round and round one finger. ‘Why did you never tell me?’

She looks surprised. ‘Because when I came to your house I could forget it all. Your family is so…normal. I just wanted to be part of it. I didn’t want to spoil things by going on about mine.’

It’s probably the first time ever that I’ve seen my life through someone else’s eyes and now I wish I’d had the imagination to picture Alex’s more clearly.

‘What did you mean, Greg’s been a shit stepdad?’

She shrugs. ‘Greg’s a bully, I’ve told you. You never saw because he made sure not to do it in front of people. He used to get mad at something I’d done — like leaving butter out instead of putting it in the fridge, you know, really bad stuff — then he’d rant and rave and tell me what a useless piece of shit I am.’

‘Jesus, Alex.’

‘And if he wasn’t bullying me he was ignoring me, and then my mum had to choose whether to talk to me and if she did she’d get the silent treatment as well.’

Fitz’s music stops. Somewhere outside a solitary bird sings, echoed by another, further away.

‘What about David?’

‘David can’t put a foot wrong. David’s his and I’m the cuckoo in the nest, aren’t I?’

I walk back over to the bed and flop down next to Alex. I take hold of one of her hands, gripping it tightly. ‘I feel so bad.’

She wrinkles her nose. ‘Why?’

‘That all that was going on and I didn’t know!’

‘How could you have known?’

‘You should have told me, Alex. I can’t believe you didn’t.’

‘Well…I nearly did, once or twice, but it was hard to know where to start.’ She stares at me, thinking. ‘If I’m really honest, I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want you to see me any different from to anyone else.’

‘Alex,’ I say, ‘you’ve always been different from to everyone else.’

She grins. ‘Fuck off!’ But I can see she knows I mean in a good way. ‘Anyway, one day he hit me when Mum wasn’t around and after that I just had to get out.’

‘So how—?’

I was going to ask about Pete, and how she’d met him, but there’s a knock at the door and his voice outside.

‘Alex?’

She looks at me and I nod. ‘You can come in,’ she calls, slipping her hand out of mine.

He pushes the door open and stands leaning against the frame. He has on the same patched jeans, with a black T-shirt and paisley waistcoat. His hair is greasy, tied back in a ponytail with a rubber-band.

‘We have somewhere to go today. Remember?’

‘Yeah. It’s still early.’

‘We need to go.’

‘Right now?’

His answer is to push himself off the wall and disappear; we hear his footsteps on the stairs. There’s a heavy silence after he’s gone.

‘Sorry, Beth. I gotta go but we’ll be back in a couple of hours.’ She scrambles up from the bed. Her eyes are hidden from mine as she loads our used plates and mugs onto the tray. ‘See you soon. Fitz’ll take care of you.’

I’m left staring at the half-open door, startled by her rapid exit. Is this how it is here, how it will be? Will Alex jump every time Pete clicks his fingers, and will I always be left waiting for scraps of time with her?

I close my eyes and lean my head against the wall, trying not to feel second best but already aware that the balance of our friendship shifted weeks ago, when Alex ran away; some of the old certainties, the old familiarities have gone. For a moment I almost wish that I’ll get found out, that the parental hand of authority will reach out and whisk both of us back to Sheffield, where everything would get sorted out in a comforting, adult way.

But I know that isn’t going to happen.

Chapter Three

16th May 2013

Linda led the sessions today, and as usual I sat back and admired her talent for winning over even hardened cynics, the ones who said in smug tones, it’s all just re-inventing the wheel, this, as though you’d never heard anyone say that before. By lunchtime they were not exactly eating out of her hand, but prepared to have a sniff.

After lunch I had something to discuss and went to find her, on a fag break at the back of the building. She stood huddled in a corner with one or two others. Linda was a little younger than me but over the years we’d worked together she’d become a good friend. She was blonde and jolly, with a wide smile, a laugh that cracked out of her and a laid-back manner that was deceptive. She was quite tough in most matters, grew up on the kind of estate where it paid you to be.