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