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?’