Marian Dillon - Looking For Alex

‘Sounds perfect.’

We turned onto Marylebone High Street, sidestepping a twin buggy with wide-eyed occupants. Dan quizzed me about my company, seven years old this month and doing well, despite these scary times for winning bids. I told him how I won this NHS contract on the back of some work in other London boroughs. It’s a two-week block of training and workshops, and I’d decided to stay over on the week-nights, returning for the middle weekend.

‘Just you?’ Dan asked.

‘No, there’s my colleague, Linda. She’ll travel from Sheffield on a daily basis. She’s juggling some work we have there.’

Dan took my arm briefly to steer me across the road. ‘This is so weird,’ he said. ‘I remember that summer very well. Mainly that I was quite jealous of this girl who suddenly took up so much of my cousin’s time.’

I laughed, told him that the feeling was often mutual. ‘You used to turn up out of the blue and ask Fitz to mend your bike, do you remember?’

‘That old thing, yes. I went everywhere on it, till it fell apart.’

Suddenly I realised I’d started searching for Alex’s face again. Once it was a habitual response any time I was in London, to scan the crowds, straining to catch a glimpse of her — on Oxford Street, in Hyde Park, on the tube, in shops — convinced she would still be here somewhere. And Fitz, of course Fitz. But then the years passed and the two of them became ghosts somewhere in the back of my mind. I’d had no expectation of seeing either of them again, and thinking of Alex only ever brought up old anxieties, which today Dan had stirred, all those ‘what ifs’.

The King’s Head looked unpromising from the front — an ugly red-brick building that sat squashed between two large office blocks — but the garden was a delight, full of colour and scent, and surprisingly peaceful. We found ourselves a table. As Dan went off to get the drinks my phone rang.

‘Hi, Phil.’

‘Hi. Had a good day?’

‘Yes, fine, no problems.’

‘Where are you? Back at the hotel? Sounds noisy.’

‘I’m in a pub garden.’

‘Imagine that,’ he said dryly. ‘Who with?’

I don’t know why I lied. Something to do with not having the energy to start explaining things.

‘Just someone from HR.’

‘Right. The Sylvia woman?’

‘Yes. We’re talking over a few things before I go back to the hotel. How’s your day been?’

‘Well, you know, same old same old. Actually, pretty bad. I had double 9KF today.’

‘Oh, that’s bad.’

‘Then we had a staff meeting about some crap initiative that’s being rolled out so now we’ve all got to rush round inventing hundreds of aims and objectives.’

I made a sympathetic noise, somewhere between ‘poor you’ and ‘bastards’, imagining him sitting in his Ford Focus in the school car park, the car all warm and stuffy in the sun.

‘I wish you were here,’ he said.

‘Well, even if I was you wouldn’t be able to see me, would you? Haven’t you got all sorts of things to take the girls to this week?’

‘I know. But I still wish you were here.’

‘I’ll see you on Saturday?’

‘Should be okay.’ I saw Dan walking towards me, pint in one hand and a large white wine in the other, its glass clouded with condensation. ‘Beth…have you thought any more about Ireland?’

‘I…look, Phil, sorry, it’s difficult to talk now. Could you call back later? I mean, can you?’

‘Okay.’ He was put out. ‘I’ll try, but I can’t promise.’ Dan sat down. ‘I think it’s Sue’s turn to pick the kids up from dance so maybe while she’s out.’ It seemed to me then that Phil were was shouting, his words clear and damning, leaping out of the phone. Dan pointedly studied his beer, intent on not being intent on my conversation. ‘If I can’t manage it I’ll ring tomorrow. She’s got yoga. Or maybe on your lunch—what time do you break?’

‘Around one-thirty.’

‘Okay. I’ll ring you when I can.’ He paused, then added, ‘Love you.’

‘I have to go, Phil, I’ll speak to you later.’ Ringing off, I stowed the phone in my bag and took a large gulp of wine. Only after that did I look up at Dan, who had an apologetic half-smile on his face but said nothing. ‘Sorry,’ I said, feeling exposed, feeling heartless.

Dan waved one hand dismissively. ‘No worries.’

We sat quietly for a moment, until Dan leant forward, hands cupping his pint, furrows of concentration on his brow. ‘The last time I saw you was that day I fell off my bike and Alex’s mother was there and there was a lot of crying and shouting going on. You were trying to calm them down but no one was listening. And then…’

‘And then her mother walked out and Alex turned on me.’

‘Yes. And Fitz told me to make myself scarce — “piss off home, Dan” I think his exact words were. I have no idea what happened next. And then I didn’t see Fitz for a while so my knowledge of where he went after that is a bit patchy.’

‘He went away?’

‘Yeah, to Wales. He knew people there.’

So he went back.

‘He had to leave the squat anyway — the police came and threw everyone out. He dossed on people’s floors and then went to live in Wales and I didn’t see him for about three years.’

‘How long after?’ I heard my voice, calm and level, trying not to betray how this new information had got hold of me like a fist, slowly squeezing the air out of me. Dan looked puzzled.

‘After what?’

‘After that day, the day Alex’s mother was there, how long till they got thrown out?’

‘Oh, about a week, I think.’ One week. Seven days, maybe ten. The fist squeezed tighter. ‘He stayed with us a couple of nights. I even gave up my bed for him.’ Dan’s grin was wide and infectious. I was remembering how he hero-worshipped his cousin and thinking; Fitz never got my letter. That was why he never replied, to the address I gave him, belonging to the one friend I could trust. On good days I’d let myself believe he didn’t want to risk making things worse for me; the rest of the time, which was most of the time, I’d told myself he just hadn’t cared as much as I did.

I had a sudden vision of Fitz as I first saw him, the day I arrived in London, peering up from rifling through his stack of vinyl, annoyed at being disturbed. The image was gone almost as soon as it came, so that when I tried to bring it back all I could summon was a blurred impression of mirror shades, a thin face, and wiry curls.

‘What happened after Wales?’ I asked.

‘Oh, various things. He travelled, he stopped travelling. He married, he stopped being married. He moved back to London and got a job. Works in a school now, as a teaching assistant. He did the last time I saw him anyway.’

‘When was that?’

‘Last November. At my father’s funeral.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He acknowledged this with a nod. ‘And you?’ he asked. ‘When did you last see him?’

‘Me? Oh, the next morning my parents pitched up and dragged me home. I never saw Fitz after that — there was no way.’

Dan took a drink. He set it down, glanced at me and said, ‘Is that, no way , or just, there wasn’t any way?’

I wiped moisture slowly off the side of the glass.

‘I was in Sheffield, he was in London — or so I thought. And my father would have killed him.’

‘Right. I see your point.’ There was a brief pause. ‘Fitz’s love-life was always complicated. Either that or non-existent. Like now. I mean, he couldn’t just meet someone from the next borough. He has to choose a woman who lives in Cornwall.’

Before I could ask any more he got a text, opened it and replied in a matter of seconds, then raked his hands through straw-coloured hair and smiled. I saw his mouth was like Fitz’s, how it curved up more at one side. Our glasses were nearly empty and I knew if I had another I’d feel very slightly drunk, but we’d hardly started on the past. Quickly I calculated that tomorrow would be an easier day for me as I’d be joined by Linda, who would do most of the delivery. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to turn up with a hangover. Then again, why go back to an empty hotel room when I could talk nostalgia with Dan?