Free Looking for Alex by Marian Dillon Page A

her into a corner. And then—’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘No, say it.’
    ‘I’m wondering how much you actually want to see Alex. Last night you didn’t seem so sure.’
    ‘No. I’m not. But it’s tempting too. If it is her. Straighten things out somehow.’ My face in the mirror reflected my doubts. ‘I’m not even sure why that’s important, now.’
    ‘Let sleeping dogs lie?’
    ‘You think I should?’
    ‘I don’t know. I’m just going with your thoughts.’ I remembered how good Fitz used to be at offering insight that made everything seem so clear. Not as Linda does, when I talk to her about Phil, not by listing pros and cons, but by going straight to the heart of the matter. ‘This is your call,’ he was saying now, when what I wanted was direction. ‘But you’d have to be prepared for anything. Anything. Like it or not.’
    There was the sound of a spoon tapping the side of a pan. I wished I could see inside Fitz’s head. ‘What are you cooking?’
    ‘Chilli. A wicked hot one.’
    ‘You still make them like that? Once you made one so hot we had to stick our tongues in saucers of milk — do you remember?’
    He laughed, said yes, he remembered.
    ‘Fitz, don’t ask me to rationalise this, but I just think it is Alex. I’ve got a feeling.’
    ‘Beth…’
    ‘Hmm?’
    ‘I can’t tell you what to do.’
    ‘Okay, I know that.’
    It seemed like I’d been dismissed, and I soon made an excuse to finish the call.
    ‘I’ve got a table booked for dinner,’ I said. After we’d rung off I went down to the bar, where I ate a microwaved meal alongside two other solitary diners.
    That night I dreamed of Alex and me, some jumbled stuff that involved dark rooms, blood on walls, and then running slowly down a long street, legs like lead and our panting pursuer catching us up. When I woke up, at three in the morning, I was hot, soaked in sweat. I got up to pee and drink some water, then lay wide awake until there was light creeping round the edge of the curtains, the dream lingering soupily in my skull, conjuring up a long-forgotten memory.
    *
    It’s cold; the air is heavy and damp. A February Sunday. We had set off walking, itching to get out of the house, and found ourselves way up on Crookes, in a small park, just a patch of rough ground really, wandering around like two lost sheep. We’re at that age — twelve or thirteen — where the playground has lost its appeal but we’ve found nothing much as a replacement. Our breath rises up into the foggy air as we sit on the swings and scuff our feet on the ground, gossiping about friends and boys and pop stars. And clothes, which is our new obsession; today we are lookalikes, in bomber jackets and flared jeans, our hair fringed and bobbed. We’ve been there a while when Alex points to some terraced houses that run down the hill.
    She says, ‘That’s where me and Lee saw the witch-house.’
    ‘Yeah, sure.’ I remember some odd story she came into school with one morning before Christmas. I didn’t properly listen, trying to ignore the fact that she had a sort-of boyfriend and had been going out without me. It came to nothing though, with Lee, and I was glad to have her back to myself. I forgot about the witch-house.
    ‘We did,’ she insists now, and when Alex insists it’s hard to get her off the subject. Lee showed her an empty house, she says, and they looked through the window at the back and saw strange symbols scrawled on the wall. ‘There are such things as witches, modern ones.’
    ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘I know. But they don’t live in a house in Crookes, do they?’
    She laughs. ‘Where do you think they live? In the woods? Come on.’ She jumps off the swing, with a loud clank of chains. ‘I’ll show you.’
    I follow her slowly, reluctant but curious too, as she takes me out of the opposite entrance to where we came in and down streets I’ve never before explored. I soon realise that Alex doesn’t exactly know where