Sara Foster - Come Back to Me

Alex nodded. ‘Of course.’ He watched as his mum and dad said polite goodbyes, the paper scratchy in his hand, then saw Ray out to the door.

Ray turned at the doorway. ‘Alex,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry if I was a bit harsh on you… in the hospital. I wasn’t thinking very clearly, and I…’

Alex didn’t know what came over him, but as Ray stood there on the doorstep he moved forward and patted him on the shoulders in an awkward semi-hug. ‘I understand,’ he said, pulling back quickly for fear of overstepping the mark, but Ray was smiling sadly at him.

Amy’s father turned to go. ‘Ray,’ Alex called.

Ray swung around.

‘Did she really not want to see me last week, or was that just you?’ he asked.

Ray shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Alex. She said she didn’t, but we know she’s not thinking straight, don’t we?’

Alex nodded, and Ray turned to go.

Jamie appeared behind him. ‘Happy New Year,’ he called to Ray’s retreating back.

Ray raised a hand in acknowledgement, but didn’t turn round.

‘Come on, Al,’ Jamie said once Ray had gone. ‘Let’s go. I’m desperate for a pint.’

The little street was dark, though there were lights shining intermittently from the few restaurants dotted about the place. Behind the street, the sea lapped gently at the narrow shoreline, a rhythmic watery lullaby you could only hear between gaps in traffic noise and voices.

This seaside Caribbean village felt incredibly peaceful. And that’s why Amy was here.

She did feel calmer, being away. And she felt sad about that, but it was so much easier, saying hello to strangers who knew nothing of her; being around people who didn’t care a jot, rather than the slow, constricting, suffocating love from those she had left behind. She wasn’t thinking long term, just trying to put one foot in front of another, get through the next hour, the next day. Seeing if she could heal from the inside as well as out, now the bruises had faded.

Yet she couldn’t help but make the phone calls earlier. It was New Year’s Eve, the Millennium, after all.

‘Amy, thank god,’ her mother had cried down the phone. ‘Where are you?’

‘I’m okay, Mum. I’m just letting you know I’m okay.’

‘Come home, Amy, it’s better for you here.’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘Your dad will be so sorry he’s missed you. He’s just popped out.’

‘That’s okay. Tell him I love him. I love you both.’

Her mother was sobbing down the phone. It was frightening. She rarely lost control like this.

‘Amy, you have to promise me one thing right now .’

‘Mum, I -’

‘PROMISE ME you’ll do no harm to yourself. If anything happened to you… well, your father and I, we would die too – do you UNDERSTAND, Amy?’ she said fiercely.

‘Yes,’ she replied.

‘Say you promise.’

‘Okay, I promise,’ Amy agreed, as yet unclear about the implications of this.

‘Right.’ Her mother sounded a bit calmer. ‘I want you to check in with us every day.’

‘Mum, that’s not realistic.’

‘Every day,’ she asserted.

‘Mum, I can’t,’ Amy said. ‘Look, I’ll do it every week, okay? Even then, my money…’

‘Do you have your bank card?’ her mother asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Then we’ll put money in your account, okay?’

‘Mum, I -’

‘Amy, the money will be there. Now, please tell me where you are.’

But she knew she couldn’t. Her father would be on the next plane, looking for her. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I can’t. Please understand. I just called to say Happy New Year.’

Her mother had begun to cry again. ‘We love you, Amy.’

‘I love you too, both of you,’ Amy told her. She couldn’t take any more, though. ‘I have to go,’ she said. And hung up.

Then she dialled the other number, quickly, before she could think too much.

His mum answered.

‘Is Alex there, please?’ she whispered.

There was a weighty pause. ‘I’m so sorry, Amy love, he isn’t,’ his mum said in a tremulous voice that told Amy she knew everything. ‘I can go and get him, though – can you ring back in twenty minutes? Or he can ring you?’

‘No, no, it’s okay,’ she said quickly. She knew where Alex was. She had been with him last year, in his local, where all his mates gathered to see in the New Year. She felt glad he was following the routine. It meant he was getting on with things. He was okay without her. He really was. ‘Please don’t tell him I called. Happy New Year,’ she said, then hung up before his mother had a chance to say more.

Mark had stormed out of the pub to try to find Chloe. But she’d already gone. With Risto, by the look of it. He was about to go inside again when Charlotte came flying through the door.

‘Mark, there you are!’ she cried happily.

He smiled reluctantly and made a move to step around her.

‘Where are you going?’ she pouted. ‘I thought you might take me home, for a little Millennium celebration of our own,’ she intoned, as seductively as she could while obviously trying hard to balance.

He looked her up and down. She was wearing a low-cut dark blue sparkly top with tight jeans and high heels. She looked fantastic.

She was asking him to take her home.

He had a choice. Find Chloe. Continue down that path, which made him feel so alarmed as his mind oscillated between Chloe’s confused face and his father’s furious expression. Find Chloe. Who, after all, had gone with Risto.

Or he could give it up and take Charlotte home. And, undoubtedly, other girls like Charlotte in the future.

‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘Where do you live?’

As they moved off, there was a chorus of voices as the countdown began in the pub behind them.

Risto dragged Chloe through the crowds in the small square near her flat. As they moved along, people began to chant. ‘Ten… nine…’

They stopped instinctively and joined in.

‘… two… one… HAPPY NEW YEAR!’

‘Happy Millennium.’ Risto smiled at Chloe as people hugged and kissed and danced around them. He leaned forward and kissed her quickly and softly on the mouth, politely but with a definite promise. And to Chloe’s surprise as he caught her off-guard, for just a moment the churning thoughts of Mark disappeared as she leaned into him.

The pub was a seething, rolling mass of drunken, sweaty bodies overbalancing as they revelled in the first seconds of a new year. A new century. A new millennium.

Alex was trying his best to pretend to join in as his mates danced round him, whooping and cheering. He could feel the note in his pocket; he’d memorised it already:

Al,

Thank you for your message. I understand this is difficult for everybody, not just me, but I need to get away for a while, to sort myself out. When I get back I will come to you.

I love you.

Amy

Where was she? he wondered. He wholeheartedly wished he were with her, not here in this claustrophobic press of people.

He forced himself out of his distraction as his mum and dad arrived, and he watched them make their way over.

‘Happy New Year, love,’ Alex’s mum said, hugging him. She pulled away from him, and looked at him with a strange expression, as though debating something.

‘What?’ He attempted a quizzical smile.

She paused, then the moment passed. ‘Nothing. Never mind.’ She smiled too and hugged Alex again, and his father leaned over and handed him another pint as the party went on.

The only way to tell the New Year had come was a truck with lots of young boys leaning over the sides, swinging their shirts and yelling, ‘Happy New Year’.