“Are you OK?” Gina asked me quietly.
I nodded.
We drove on in silence for a while, the three of us lost
in our thoughts, just drifting along to the hum of the engine and the hypnotic rush of the road. As I gazed through the rain-snaked window, I found myself wondering at the chain of events that had brought us all together—me, Candy, Gina, Mike, Iggy. How did it happen? Was it fate? Karma? Destiny? Did it mean anything? Or did it just happen, like everything else just happens?
What’s the difference?
I thought.
However it happened, it still
happened
, didn’t it?
I looked up and saw Mike watching me in the rearview mirror. I nodded at him.
He nodded back, then cleared his throat and said, “The big guy at the club…I take it that was Iggy?”
“Yeah.”
“What about the others?”
“I don’t know…I saw them in the pub across the road earlier on. I think they might have been in McDonald’s when I first met Candy.”
He nodded.
I said, “I heard them talking in the pub…They were looking out for someone.”
“Candy?”
“I didn’t hear any names, but I suppose it must have been.”
Mike nodded again. “They found her, called Iggy, and he came to get her. How’d they know where she was?”
“I don’t know…I gave her a poster for the gig…Maybe she left it lying around somewhere and Iggy found it.” I looked at Mike’s eyes in the mirror. “What do you think he’ll do with her?”
“I don’t know. Not much, probably. She works for him.
He’s not going to do anything that stops her earning…” He looked at me again. I nodded, letting him know that I knew what he meant. I didn’t
really
know, but I assumed he meant that Iggy wouldn’t hurt her too much—at least, not where it showed.
“Is there anything we can do to help her?” I asked him.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know…How about calling the police?”
“No point,” he said, shaking his head. “We don’t know where she lives, we don’t know where Iggy lives. And even if we did, there’s not much the police can do unless she makes a complaint about him, and she won’t do that, because she needs him. She’s an addict and he provides her with drugs. And besides, it’s not as if he’ll have her locked up or anything. She’ll have her own flat, probably…and there won’t be anything to link her with Iggy, anyway—he’ll have made sure of that. He knows what’ll happen if the police get hold of her—they’ll lock her up for a day or two, then let her go, and she’ll go straight back to him.”
I didn’t want to believe him, but I knew he was right.
“What about her parents?” Gina asked me. “I mean, do you know where she comes from or anything?”
“Heystone, believe it or not,” I said. “That’s what she told me, anyway. She said she had some problems with her mum and dad and she left home to live in London. I think she’s got a place around King’s Cross somewhere.”
“You don’t know where?”
“No.”
“Phone number?”
“Nothing—it’s dead. Disconnected or something.”
Gina looked concerned now, but I couldn’t tell if it was concern for me or concern for Candy. I hoped it was a bit of both.
She turned to Mike. “Are you sure there’s nothing we can do?”
“I could ask around, I suppose,” he said. “See if anyone knows anything. But I’m not sure it’ll make any difference. If she’s addicted…” He shrugged. “She won’t leave him—she
can’t.
That’s how it works.”
The rest of the journey was quiet. Gina spoke softly to Mike now and then, and occasionally she’d look back at me and ask if I was all right, but apart from that, it was a time for silence. The rain had started again, pattering faintly on the roof of the car, and the sound of it seemed to bring out the tiredness in me. I didn’t
want
to be tired, I wanted to think, but my eyes were so heavy…my mind so dull…my body so drained…
I couldn’t think.
Couldn’t imagine…
And maybe that was for the best.
Because Candy was somewhere…doing something…and no matter how hard I tried to think, no matter how much I imagined…
There was nothing I could do to help her.
We got home around midnight. Dad was out, the house was quiet, and the rain was still coming down. Gina took Mike into the kitchen and started seeing to his battered face—cleaning the blood away, disinfecting the wounds, checking his head for unseen damage. I watched them for a while, but then I began to feel as if I was intruding.
I said, “I think I’ll be off to bed.”
“Don’t you want any tea or anything?” Gina asked.
“No…I’m really tired.” I looked at Mike. “I’m really sorry about everything—”
“Not your fault,” he said kindly. “Shit happens.”
“Yeah, I suppose…”
“Hey, try not to worry too much—OK? You can’t do anything about it right now…and she’ll probably be all right, anyway.”
“You reckon?”
“Yeah.”
I nodded. I didn’t believe him, but I appreciated what he was trying to do.
“Look,” he said. “I’ll do what I can—all right? Like I said, I’ll ask around and see what I can find out. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know—OK?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
He nodded his head.
I said good night and made my way upstairs. In my room, I tried Candy’s phone again, but there was still no tone—just an earful of emptiness. I got undressed and turned off the light and lay on the bed, staring into the darkness, trying to sleep. My body was aching with tiredness. My limbs were numb. My sightless eyes were crazed with lights.
I was dying for oblivion.
But it wouldn’t come.
I didn’t think I’d ever sleep again.
O
ne of the worst things about feeling helpless is the constant intrusion of doubt. Even when you
know
there’s nothing you can do about something, even when you’re absolutely
sure,
even when you’ve considered every possibility, over and over again, knowing full well that you’re wasting your time…even then, you
still
can’t help feeling that maybe you’re wrong.
There must be
something
you can do.
Surely…
There’s
got
to be something…
That’s how it was with me, anyway. I wanted to do something about Candy. I
had
to do something. But what? What
could
I do?
That’s all I kept asking myself:
What can I do?
I don’t know where she is…
How can I do anything when I don’t know where she is?
How can I find her?
What can I do?
There must be
something…
But there wasn’t. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t think of
any
thing. But that didn’t stop me thinking, though. Even if I’d wanted to, I
couldn’t
have stopped thinking. Thinking, thinking, thinking…thinking of Candy…all day Saturday, all day Sunday, sitting in my room, staring through the window, thinking, thinking, thinking…asking myself the same old questions…getting no replies…wondering pointlessly what might have been…
If only I’d given her my phone number.
If only I’d asked where she lived.
If only she hadn’t come to the gig.
If only we could start all over again.
If only…
I knew I was wasting my time, wishing that things were different, but time was all I had. I was still grounded, and Dad was keeping a close eye on me, so I was stuck in the house all weekend, then back to school on Monday, then straight back home after school, back to my room, back to the window, back to my staring, back to my thinking…
I kept on trying to ring her, of course. Two or three times every day, I’d key in her number and pray for the phone to ring. I didn’t know who—or what—I was praying to, and I didn’t really care. I would have worshipped the Devil if he’d answered my prayers. But he didn’t.
No one did.
There was no one there.
The days passed, as they do, and life went on.
Tuesday: I bumped into Jason, Chris, and Ronny. They were in the year above me, so we didn’t often see each other at school, but that Tuesday lunchtime I had a meeting with the careers adviser, and his office was in the building where Jason and the rest of them spent most of their time, and on the way back, as I was passing an empty classroom, I heard Chris’s voice calling out to me.
“Joe! Hey, Joe.”
I stopped and looked through the door. All three of them were sitting at a table across the room, eating sandwiches and reading magazines. I hadn’t spoken to them since Friday night’s gig, so I didn’t know what they thought about my unexplained and sudden departure from the club. I knew that Jason would still be pissed off with me and I could tell by the look on his face that he was, but—at first glance—the rest of them seemed OK. They didn’t look
delighted
to see me or anything, but at least they were acknowledging my existence.
Chris beckoned me over, and I went inside and joined them at the table.
“All right?” Ronny grinned.
“Yeah…”
“What are you doing?” asked Chris.
“Not much.” I looked at Jason. He was pretending to read his magazine. I turned back to the others. “Sorry about Friday,” I said. “It was a family thing…I really had to go—”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Chris. “It would have been better if you were there, but it didn’t really matter in the end. They still want us.”
“Who?”
“Dead House—the record company. They’re owned by EMI—”
“What—they’ve offered us a contract?”
“Well, not exactly…” He glanced at Jason, looking for support.
Jason pretended not to notice. He kept on reading his magazine for a moment, then he looked up casually, as if he hadn’t been listening, and raised his eyebrows at Chris.
“What?” he said.
“I was just telling Joe about Dead House…” Chris told him.
“And?”
Chris blinked.
Jason looked at him, then turned to me, trying to look bored. “Yeah,” he said. “They want us to do a proper demo for them. They’re going to book us into a studio and bring in one of their producers to work with us. They want three tracks—‘Girl on Fire,’ ‘Candy,’ and something else.”
“That’s brilliant,” I said.
“Yeah…” He shrugged.
“Are they paying for the studio?”
“They’re paying for everything—studio, travel, expenses…they might even buy us some new gear.”
“Fantastic,” I said. “When do we do it?”
He shrugged again. “Couple of weeks, maybe—they’ll let us know.”
Ronny said, “Pretty good, eh?”
“Yeah…” I looked at Jason. He was still trying to appear nonchalant about the whole thing, but I could tell he was really excited. And I could tell he was still really annoyed with me, too.
What I
didn’t
know was that it was about to get a lot worse.
“So,” he said to me. “Are you all right for tomorrow?”
“What’s tomorrow?”
“Wednesday,” he sneered. “The day we practice—remember?”
“Oh, right…yeah…Well, the thing is…”
“What?”
“I’m grounded.”
“You’re
what?
”
“I’m not allowed out.”
His eyes filled with scorn. “You’re not allowed
out?
”
“It’s only for a week—”
“We need to
practice.
We’ve got to prepare for this demo—”
“Yeah, I know…I’m sorry, but—”
“Christ!” he spit. “I don’t
believe
it. We’re trying to get a deal here, we’re
that
close to making it. We
need
to practice—and you’re
not allowed out?
What do you think this is? A game? You think we’re
playing
at something here?”
I almost said yes, just for the hell of it, just to see what he’d do. But I couldn’t be bothered. I couldn’t care less, to be honest. Yeah, it was embarrassing—being grounded, treated like a kid. Yeah, it made me feel small and pathetic. And, yeah, Jason was probably right to be angry.
But so what?
What did I care?
To hell with him.
I stood up and walked out.
Wednesday: I should have been thrilled by the record company interest, I
wanted
to be thrilled about it, but I
couldn’t feel anything. Even if I hadn’t been grounded, and even if Jason hadn’t ruined the moment by putting me down and bawling me out, I’m still not sure I would have felt anything.
All I could feel was Candy.
Her absence, her mystery, her eyes, her smile…God, I missed her so much. She was filling my days with pain, and I wasn’t sure how much more I could take.
I tried talking to Gina about it. I really
tried.
But it’s hard to explain your feelings, especially when they don’t make any sense, and that was the problem—they
didn’t
make any sense.
I knew it, and Gina knew it.
She said, “I know how you feel, Joe. I know what it’s like to miss someone…but don’t you think you’re taking things a bit too far?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know…”
“What?”
She spoke gently. “You’ve only met her twice.”
“Two and a half times,” I corrected her.
“All right—two and a
half
times. But that’s still not a lot, is it?”
“It’s enough.”
“Come on, Joe…you hardly
know
her.”
“I know how she makes me feel—what else do I need to know?”
Gina looked at me for a long time. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to think of an answer, or if she knew the answer and was trying to decide whether to tell me or not. I was kind of hoping there wasn’t an answer at all.
Maybe she read my mind, because after a while she just
smiled at me and gave me a hug. “I don’t know, Joe,” she said. “I don’t know what to say. This kind of stuff—it just happens. There’s not much you can do about it. All you can do is let it happen. You might not always get what you want, but sometimes that’s how it goes.”
Thursday: Jason rang me in the evening. The conversation lasted about thirty seconds.
“Joe?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s Jason. I had a call from Dead House. They’ve booked us into a studio in London on the eighth and ninth of March. That’s the week after next—Saturday and Sunday.”
“Right…”
“We’ve hired the rehearsal hall for this Saturday and we’re trying to get it for an extra couple of nights next week. Are you in or out?”
“Sorry?”
“I need to know if you’re going to be there, because if you’re not, we’ll have to get someone else.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll be there.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want any more messing around…”
“I’ll be there.”
“You’d better be—this is your last chance.”
And that was it.
End of conversation.
Later on, in my bedroom, I was just sitting around strumming the guitar, hoping to lose myself for an hour or so, when Mike came in. I hadn’t seen him since Friday night. His face was still a bit mashed up and bruised, but
apart from that he looked fine. He came over to the bed and sat down beside me.
“All right?” he said. “How’s it going?”
“Well, you know…” I shrugged.
“Gina said you’re making a record or something. Is that right?”
“Just a demo tape…”
“That’s pretty good.”
“Yeah.”
He scratched his head and looked around the room. It felt kind of strange, sitting so close to him. Strange…but OK. He was a big man, and I could sense his weight, his strength, his power. It felt good. Sort of comforting. The scent of his breath and his skin reminded me of the times when I was a kid, when Dad used to sit with me in my bedroom at night, before I went to sleep…
“I’ve been asking around,” Mike said quietly, “about this Iggy guy.”
“Right,” I said, trying to stay calm.
“I found some people who know him.”
“What people?”
He shook his head. “You don’t want to know…just people. The kind of people who know things.”
“How did you find them?”
He looked at me for a moment, then said, “You know I used to work the clubs around London—DJing, raves, that kind of thing?” I nodded. He shrugged. “Well, it’s a shady business…You meet a lot of shady people. Some of them are shadier than others—d’you know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Music, clubs, drugs, gangs…” He scratched his head. “There’s a lot of bad stuff going on out there. It’s all about money. Bad stuff, bad people…”
“What about Iggy?”
Mike looked at me. “His name’s Ignatius—Ignatius Ithacaia. No one seems to know very much about him. Either that or they’re too scared to talk. He’s a nasty guy. Very nasty. Very ambitious, too. From what I can gather, he started off as a small-time dealer, then moved on to supplying, and now he’s getting involved in just about everything. Girls, guns, protection…” He paused, wiping his hand across his mouth. “He’s a bad one, Joe…getting badder by the minute. He’s moving up fast.”
“What about Candy?” I said. “Did you find out anything about her?”
Mike shook his head. “Iggy’s got a lot of places—rooms, flats, houses. He runs a lot of girls. No one knows where he lives. He moves around a lot. Candy could be anywhere.”
I stared despondently at the floor. She could be
anywhere.
She
was
somewhere…doing something…
“I don’t understand it…” I muttered.
Mike touched my arm. “It happens.”
“That’s what Gina said, but I still don’t understand it. How did she end up with Iggy? How could she get involved with someone like that?”
“Guys like Iggy…they’re clever people. They know how to get what they want. They prey on your weaknesses. They give you what you think you want. They promise you the world, and then—before you know it—you’re chained to them. You can’t get away.” He looked at me. “I don’t know how Candy was taken in, but I’m pretty sure
she wouldn’t have known what was happening until it was too late.”
“Is it still too late?”
“I don’t know…I don’t think there’s anything we can do.”
“There’s got to be
some
thing…”
“It’s a shitty world, Joe.” He touched my arm again. “Sometimes you just have to let things go.”
I looked at him. “Would
you
let it go if it was Gina?”
That surprised him. He looked back at me for a moment, his eyes awash with confusion, then he lowered his head and just sat there, staring emptily at the floor. I guessed he was imagining how
he
would feel if Gina was lost to a man like Iggy.
“Sorry,” I told him. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No,” he said quietly, “you’re right. I wasn’t thinking of it like that…” He raised his head and looked at me. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.”
“If you were me, what would you do?”
His eyes were helpless. “I don’t know, Joe. I really don’t know.”
Friday morning, eight o’clock: I was sitting at the kitchen table when Dad came in carrying an overnight bag and a couple of suitcases. He put them by the door, sat down at the breakfast table, and poured himself some coffee. I looked at the bags, then at him. He was dressed for traveling—suit, coat, aftershave, tie, thoughtful face and preoccupied eyes.
“Where are you going?” I asked him.
“Hmm?”
“Where are you going?”
He looked up from the table. “You
know
where I’m
going, Joe—I told you. Edinburgh.” He frowned at me. “The conference?”
“I thought you were leaving tomorrow?”
“It
starts
tomorrow—that’s why I’m going today.” He sighed. “I
told
you all this. I told you about three times. I
knew
you weren’t listening—you’ve been acting strangely all week. What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing…I
was
listening. I just got the dates mixed up, that’s all.” I looked at the clock. “Are you driving?” I asked him.