He nodded.
“With Mum?”
“I’m meeting her up there.”
“What time?”
“This evening…”
“So what time do you have to leave?”
He frowned at me again. “Why all the sudden interest?”
“No reason…I was just asking.”
His eyes narrowed. “Look, you’ve done really well this week. You haven’t asked to go out, and—as far as I know—you haven’t tried sneaking out. But you’re still grounded, don’t forget, and you’re still only halfway there, so don’t go spoiling things by taking advantage of my absence. You’ll only be letting yourself down if you do—you know that, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“You can lie to me, but you can’t lie to your conscience.”
Wanna bet?
I thought.
“It’s all right, Dad,” I said. “You can trust me.”
He kept looking at me for a while, then looked at his watch, hurriedly drained his coffee, and got up from the
table. “Right, then,” he said, fetching his suitcases. “I’d better go. Tell Gina I’ll call her midweek, and don’t forget to put the bins out on Wednesday. There’s plenty of food in the fridge. I’ve left some money in the drawer. If you need me for anything, you’ve got my cell phone number, and I’ve put the hotel number in the pad on the hall table.” He started patting his pockets, looking for his car keys. I picked them up off the table and passed them to him. “Right,” he said. “Well, I should be back next Saturday.”
“Have a good time,” I said.
He paused for a moment, gave me another long look, then rattled his keys and left.
Half an hour later I was standing on the platform at Heystone station, waiting for the London-bound train.
I
didn’t know what I was doing. I hadn’t
planned
on going to London to look for Candy. I hadn’t been waiting all week for Dad to leave. I hadn’t been thinking about it—scheming, plotting, biding my time—I hadn’t planned
anything.
Not knowingly, anyway. I suppose the idea must have been there all along, just drifting around inside my head, waiting for me to accept it…or maybe I
did
know it was there but was afraid to recognize it, just in case it was all I had and something went wrong and took it away…
I don’t know.
I just didn’t know. My actions seemed distant and disconnected, as if my body had a mind of its own. Contradictions made sense: The world was blurred, I was sharp; I was fast, the world was slow…
It was pretty weird.
But utterly normal, too.
As soon as Dad left, I picked up the phone and called school. My voice remained calm as I explained that I
wouldn’t be coming in, that I wasn’t feeling well, that it wasn’t anything serious, and that no—I’m sorry, my father can’t come to the phone, he’s away on business. Good-bye.
I got my coat.
Left the house.
Got on a train.
Got to London.
Got off the train.
Got on the tube.
Got to King’s Cross.
Got off the tube.
Got myself back to where it all started.
Like I said, I didn’t know what I was doing—but I knew I was doing it.
Outside the station, the pavements were crowded and the streets were as busy as ever. The chaos roared all around me—cars, buses, taxis, speeding bikes, flashing lights, roadworks, cranes, building sites, pedestrian crossings, signposts, junctions, commuters, street people, mad people, blank-faced hippies with long dirty hair and scabs on their faces—and I just stood there, immersed in the roar, letting it all wash over me.
I was standing outside Boots, as close to where I’d first met Candy as I could remember. I knew it was irrational. She wasn’t going to be there…not this time. No matter how long I stood there, hoping to hear the sound of her voice, sweet and clear, cutting through the chaos like a diamond-tipped knife…no matter how many times I looked over at the doorway, hoping to see her standing there, leaning against the wall, smiling at me…hoping to see those lips, those teeth, those dark almond eyes…
She wasn’t going to be there.
I knew that.
But I had to start somewhere, didn’t I? And what better place than the beginning?
So I waited.
And I waited.
And I waited…
And, after an hour or so, I began seeing things I hadn’t noticed before. Hidden things, things within the chaos…things that took time to see. The guy in the dirty green jacket, for example—going into the station, coming out, looking around, going back in again…or the beggar with the muddy gray blanket, cold and sleepy but never closing his eyes, always watching the streets, looking out for trouble…and the well-dressed women, waiting for friends but never waiting too long and never too pleased to see them…
It was a world within a world. An underworld. Another world. And simply by being there, I was slowly becoming part of it.
At eleven-thirty, a skinny kid in a stained black coat came scuffling up to me. It was hard to tell how old he was, but he couldn’t have been much more than fifteen. His face was thin and his eyes were sunken and glazed.
“Where’s the score, John?” he said, looking over his shoulder. He was white, but he talked black.
“What?” I said.
His head snapped around and he leaned toward me, lowering his head and staring up into my eyes. “What’s up? You looking for business?”
“No…”
“You doing?”
“Nothing—I’m just waiting for someone.”
He licked his lips and smiled. “Wait somewhere else—OK?” He looked over his shoulder again, then turned back to me, his eyes suddenly cold. “You still here?”
I didn’t move. I said, “Do you know a girl called Candy?”
He didn’t answer, just kept on staring at me.
“How about Iggy?” I said. “Do you know anyone called Iggy? He’s a big black guy—”
“What’s the matter with you?” the kid said, suddenly getting agitated. “This ain’t for you. Look at you, all clean and pretty…shit. You want some of this?” He thrust his face at me, giving me a close-up view of his rotting teeth and his scabbed skin and his dirt-yellow eyes. I almost gagged on the sickly-sweet smell of his breath.
“Nice, eh?” he said coldly, moving back.
I looked at him, trying to hide my distaste but probably not succeeding. Not that it mattered. I guessed he was trying to warn me off and that I was
supposed
to feel disgusted, so it didn’t really bother me that I did. He didn’t care, anyway. His face was hard and blank now, not showing anything, just staring me out, waiting for me to go.
I could have tried again, I suppose—asked him some more questions. But I was fairly sure he wouldn’t tell me anything. So, with a parting nod, I turned around and walked away.
Across a busy road, onto a traffic island, across to the other side…looking around, getting my bearings…recognizing the junction, the traffic island, McDonald’s…remembering the last time I’d been here…remembering Candy…her
face, her eyes, her lips, her legs, her skin…rippling lightly around her midriff, like the gently lapping surface of a pale white sea…
God’s sake, Joe…
Don’t even
think
about it.
I was facing Pentonville Road now. I knew where I was, but I didn’t know where to go. Streets branched off in all directions—big streets, little streets, quiet streets, busy streets—offering me all the options I could ask for: north, south, east, west…but it didn’t make any difference. I still didn’t know which way to go. All I knew was that Candy lived “about ten minutes’ walk from King’s Cross station in a nice little third-floor flat in a refurbished Victorian house,” which wasn’t a lot to go on. Without knowing the right direction, ten minutes’ walk could take me anywhere. And that’s if it
was
ten minutes. It might be five minutes or fifteen minutes…or it might be that Candy had made the whole thing up. I mean, for all I knew, she didn’t live anywhere
near
King’s Cross, she lived miles away, and all I was doing was wandering aimlessly around irrelevant streets, wasting my time…
Yeah,
I told myself,
but you’re
not
wandering aimlessly, are you? You’re not
wandering
at all. You’re just standing aimlessly in the same place, which really
is
a complete waste of time. And, besides—what else are you going to do? Give up? Go home? Forget about it? No, this is the best chance you’ve got. It’s the
only
chance you’ve got. So, make the most of it. Stop thinking and start walking.
I spent the rest of the afternoon walking in ever-widening circles around King’s Cross. It wasn’t much fun, and it wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever done, but I couldn’t think
of a better way of doing it. I’d forgotten to bring the A-Z with me, but even if I
had
brought it, it still would have been hard to trace
perfect
circles around the streets. I constantly found myself getting lost, or walking the same street more than once, or walking in the wrong direction and ending up back where I started…
But it didn’t really matter. As long as I kept going, covering as much ground as I could, searching as thoroughly as I could…
That was the main thing.
It
was
pretty depressing, though.
The weather was dull. Leaden skies, gray and low, a lumbering mishmash of nothing. It wasn’t hot, it wasn’t cold, it wasn’t windy, it wasn’t calm, it wasn’t wet, it wasn’t dry…it wasn’t anything. Just dull. And the streets themselves were strangely lifeless, too. I don’t know what I was expecting—probably an orgy of sex shops and brothels and rough-looking pubs—but most of the streets weren’t too bad. There were
some
sex shops—squat little buildings with blanked-out windows—and there were quite a few rough-looking pubs, and a few dodgy saunas, and some very weird-looking clubs…but there weren’t
hundreds
of them or anything. There weren’t hordes of scantily clad women standing around on street corners, or brightly dressed pimps driving around in Cadillacs…there were just lots of dull streets and lots of dull people…and only the occasional glimpse of the underworld.
A drugged-up guy with a badly shaved head, giving me the eye.
A couple of very young girls, sitting in a car with a middle-aged Arab.
Syringes in the gutter.
Stone-faced bruisers in dirty little doorways, checking me out as I passed them by.
I didn’t feel threatened, exactly…but I didn’t feel too comfortable, either. I felt small and stupid and out of place. I knew I didn’t belong here, and I knew that everyone else knew it, too. It made me feel that I mustn’t stop walking, that if I stopped walking, something bad would happen.
So I kept walking.
It was tempting to keep my head down, my eyes fixed hard to the ground, but I knew I had to keep looking, no matter what. I had to keep looking for Candy…or Iggy…or a nice little third-floor flat in a refurbished Victorian house. The trouble was, I’d know Candy or Iggy if I saw them…but a refurbished Victorian house?
What the hell did
that
look like?
I had no idea.
So I just kept walking, kept looking, kept on going in the hope that something would happen. Otherwise…what? Start all over again? Keep walking in circles forever? Stop and ask someone?
Yeah, right…stop and ask someone. “Excuse me, I’m looking for a prostitute and her pimp…she’s young and pretty and addicted to heroin, and he’s big and black and
really
scary, and I think they live in a refurbished Victorian house
…”
Yeah, good idea, Joe.
Good thinking.
Why not ask those policemen over there…?
Policemen?
There were two of them, just up ahead, in a patrol car parked at the side of the road. They didn’t seem to be doing anything—they were just sitting in their car, looking
bored and mean—but the sight of them gave me a shock. What if they stopped me and started asking me questions?
What are you doing around here? Where are you going? Why aren’t you at school?
I couldn’t tell them the truth, could I? And, just at that moment, I couldn’t think of any suitable lies…
So—as casually as possible—I turned around and started walking back the way I’d come.
I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t seen the patrol car. Maybe everything would have turned out OK. Maybe I would have walked around King’s Cross for another couple of hours without finding anything, and then maybe I would have gone back home, and then maybe…
I don’t know.
Maybe something else would have happened.
But it didn’t…because I
didn’t
walk around King’s Cross for another couple of hours without finding anything. Instead, in my eagerness to get away from the patrol car, I found myself hurrying along the backstreets without really thinking where I was going, and it wasn’t until I was halfway across a busy main road, waiting for the lights to change, that I came to my senses and realized where I was—I was standing on a traffic island in the middle of Euston Road, directly opposite the main entrance to the station. I was right back where I’d started from.
And that’s when I saw Iggy.
He was coming out of the station. Walking tall, in a long black leather coat, with his head held high and his arms swinging confidently and his loaded eyes full of nothing. I
could see people avoiding his gaze, getting out of his way, instinctively afraid of his size and his strength and his total lack of feeling. And, although his face was blank, I could see that he loved it.
Without thinking, I shuffled back a few steps and got myself into a position behind some other pedestrians from where I could still see Iggy, but hopefully he couldn’t see me. With my heart pumping hard, I watched him—striding across the front of the station, passing the newspaper kiosks, passing Boots, moving with the effortless ease of a man who knows exactly where he’s going. And he
was
going. Veering off to the left, heading down behind the station…heading out of sight…
I pushed my way to the front of the traffic island, jostling through the bodies and praying for the lights to change. It was the rush hour now, there was too much traffic…I couldn’t cross the road. I looked up in panic. Iggy was disappearing around the corner…I was losing him…
Then the beeps sounded and the lights changed and the traffic stopped and I was off, running diagonally across the road, onto the pavement, dodging through the crowds, sprinting to the corner, skidding breathlessly to a halt…and then, vaguely aware of how stupid I probably looked, I poked my head around the corner and peered down the street. It wasn’t too busy—traffic was heavy, but the pavements weren’t overcrowded—and I spotted Iggy almost immediately. With his size and his height and his long black coat, he wasn’t hard to spot. He was about fifty meters away, walking along the pavement on the right-hand side of the road, swinging his arm, gesturing with his hand, as if he was talking to himself.
My head raced.
I wasn’t thinking.
I was set on automatic:
follow him, don’t let him see you, follow him, don’t let him see you, follow him…
I followed him.
I’m not sure how I did it. I’d never followed anyone before. I didn’t
know
anything about following people—How close do you get? What if they turn around? What do you do when they go around a corner?—but somehow I managed to keep on his trail without being seen. It probably helped that he didn’t know he was being followed. I mean, I didn’t have to do anything sneaky. I didn’t have to cover my face with a newspaper or pretend to be tying my shoelaces or anything. I just had to follow him: down the back of the station for a few hundred meters, then right into a narrow street lined with warehouses and office blocks, then left, then right again, over a waterway, into a maze of hidden backstreets…