Peter May - Runaway

‘I told you, she’s gone.’

I sighed my exasperation. ‘Gone where?’

‘Just gone, Jack. Away from you. Away from all of us. Just gone. Forget her.’

The door swung open, and Dave came in, breathing smoke from his final cigarette. ‘We’ve missed the last train tae Glasgow. Next one’s no’ till the morning. We’re gonnae have tae spend the night here.’

‘Shit.’ I banged my head back against the wall and closed my eyes.

Dave sat down opposite and sucked on his cigarette. And I heard Luke’s voice, quiet but filled with determination.

‘I’m not going back.’

I opened my eyes wide and turned to look at him. ‘How do you mean?’

‘I’m staying here.’

‘In London?’

He nodded. ‘We left nothing behind at Onslow Gardens to identify us. Some dirty linen, a couple of guitars and a melodica. Those goons in the Lake District ripped up Jeff’s driver’s licence, so they won’t even know who he is. You can go back home and just pick up your lives where you left off.’ He paused. ‘Not me. I’m not going back to them . To my parents. To the Kingdom Hall and tramping the streets in all weathers. For better or worse, this is where I’m going to make my life.’

‘You’ve no’ got any dosh,’ Dave said.

Luke shrugged. ‘I’ve got a few quid. As much as I’ll save on my train fare, anyway. I’ll survive.’

I looked at him with his wide green, innocent eyes and remembered all the good times we’d had. The laughs. The madness. And I thought about Jeff, and his Veronica. Five of us had run away that fateful night more than a month ago. Only three of us would be going back. And nothing, nothing would ever be the same again.

And so we spent that night in the waiting room at Euston Station, knowing that we wouldn’t sleep, and yet drifting off in moments of overwhelming fatigue to dreams of Jeff, and his poor broken body impaled on the railings in Onslow Gardens. I don’t know how often I replayed the moment when he launched himself into space, believing he could fly, and searched for something I might have done to stop it. But it always ended in the same, tragic conclusion.

Again, and again, and again.

In moments of waking misery, I saw Rachel’s black, black eyes gazing at me out of the darkness, the light in them conveying, in turn, love, hurt and betrayal. And I cursed my cowardice.

Morning brought no relief from the torment. Luke went and bought our tickets for us, and we gathered on the concourse as the station came to life around us. A new day. The first without Jeff. Or Rachel. The sounds of trains revving on their platforms. The hiss of brakes. The monotonous announcement of arrivals and departures reverberating around the rafters.

Luke handed over our tickets and each of us in turn solemnly shook his hand. Because boys, especially boys from big macho Rain Town, didn’t hug. At the last, I took his right hand in my left, and pressed a bunch of folded notes into his palm.

‘What the hell’s this?’ He withdrew his hand as if I had burned him, and he looked in confusion at the notes he was holding.

‘That’s everything we’ve got among the three of us,’ I said.

‘I can’t take this!’

‘Of course you can. What bloody use do we have for it? Can’t spend it on the train, and won’t need it at the other end.’

He was touched and embarrassed. ‘Thanks,’ he muttered. Then, very quickly, as if he didn’t trust himself to say more, ‘See you sometime, then.’

And I saw his eyes filling up just before he turned away to walk briskly across the concourse, shoving his hands deep in his pockets.

‘And I never saw him again until we stepped off the bus today at Victoria Coach Station.’ Jack’s voice died in the dark, to be replaced by a very long silence. And he began to think that Ricky had fallen asleep. ‘Rick?’

‘I’m here, Grampa. Just...’ His voice was hushed. ‘Poor Jeff.’

‘Yes. Poor Jeff.’

‘You never hugged Luke back then, but you did today.’

Jack couldn’t resist a smile that no one would see. ‘I did. Times have changed, Rick. Not sure how, or why. Seems we have permission to show our emotions, these days.’

‘You could have stayed. I mean, fifty years ago. When Luke did.’

‘I could. And maybe if I had, things would have been different. But, you see, I didn’t have Luke’s courage, Rick. I was afraid. I wanted to go back. I wanted the safety of the womb. The security of the family.’

Ricky could hear the bitterness in his grandfather’s voice.

‘So I went back to a life shaped by fear.’ He turned his head on the pillow, trying to see his grandson in the dark. ‘And that’s the biggest crime you can commit in life, Rick. To be afraid of living it. It’s the only one we’ve got, and you’ve got most of yours still ahead of you. So don’t waste it, son. Trust me. You don’t want to be looking back on it fifty years from now and wishing you’d done things differently. There’s nothing more corrosive than regret.’

A further silence settled between them, but neither of them was ready for sleep.

Ricky said, ‘What happened when you got home?’

‘It was a long five-hour train ride, Rick. Maybe the longest five hours of my life. I’m not sure there was a single word passed between any of us all the way up through England and back into Scotland. It was as if anything we said might be an acknowledgement that Jeff was gone, and that Luke was no longer among us. I think we felt, all of us, diminished. Like we’d lost limbs. It’s hard to explain.’

For the first time in many years Jack felt like a cigarette. A fleeting longing for the comfort that sucking smoke into your lungs can bring, the nicotine hit that both stimulates and calms. He had not felt any desire to smoke since giving up more than thirty years before, and was startled by the sudden and unexpected craving.

He said, ‘When Luke went off to buy the tickets and we divvied up our remaining cash to give him when he got back, I left the others to make a phone call. A reverse-charge call to my folks.’ He remembered the hushed sense of disbelief in his mother’s voice when he had said, It’s Jack, Mum. I’m coming home . ‘So my dad was waiting on the platform when the train got into Central Station. Platform One. It’s strange, because we never discussed this. But he must have called the other families. They were all there. Maurie’s dad, and Luke’s. And Jeff’s. Not Dave’s, though. My dad had to give Dave a lift home.’

Jack hesitated, remembering the moment as clearly as if it had been yesterday. His dad stepping forward to shake his hand. Well done, son. I’m glad you had the courage to come back . And Maurie’s dad shaking his son’s hand and saying almost the same thing. As if it had been discussed and rehearsed. And Luke’s dad and Jeff’s, standing there, puzzled, fearful. Lost.

‘We never did tell Jeff’s folks what happened to him. Just that he had stayed in London with Luke. Which was true in a way. And I suppose it was kinder to let them go on believing that their son was alive somewhere, making his way in the world. How could we have told them the truth? It was hard enough to carry it in our own hearts.’

Jack clenched his teeth hard and pressed his lips together to stop the emotion that welled up inside him from spilling over. That would have been embarrassing in front of his grandson.

‘The rest of my life you pretty much know all about.’

Another lengthy silence drifted in the dark before Ricky said, ‘So, if this actor, Simon Flet, didn’t kill Rachel’s boyfriend, who did?’