Can't Let Go (20 page)

The flat was tiny: even smaller than my place in
London. There was one bedroom, almost filled with a
double bed. Zoey's suitcase sat on the bed, some of the
clothes half-unpacked. Just off the hallway I found the
world's smallest bathroom – well, shower room – like a
cupboard, or the toilet on the Sausalito houseboat. And
the only other room was the kitchen-living room. A big
sash window filled the room with light. There was a sofabed,
a small TV, a chair, a table and a tiny kitchen area. I
found some pizza in the fridge – what looked like the
remains of Zoey's lunch – and I ate it while watching
television. I made a mug of herbal tea. And then I found a
blanket in the wardrobe in Zoey's room, curled up on the
sofa and fell sound asleep.

'So this is the room,' said Zoey. 'What do you
think?'

She was bouncing around on a small wooden
stage at one end of a low dark cellar that was seemingly
dug out of the foundations of a tall old building. The walls
and the low curved ceiling were painted black and there
were rows of low benches facing the stage. I figured that
forty or fifty people would fit in, as long as they didn't
mind bunching up together and losing their personal
space.

I touched one finger to the wall to see if it was as damp
as it looked. It was. I wiped the finger on my jeans and
tried to think of a suitable way to tell Zoey what I thought
of the room. It was her venue for the Fringe. She was
planning to be standing on that stage at twenty past ten
every night until almost the end of August, the end of the
Fringe, trying to make people laugh.

Zoey was excited. It was a good venue, she told me; and
twenty past ten was a fantastic slot. 'Well, a little earlier
would have been better, or maybe lunchtime or early
evening. But ten-twenty is great, especially if we can
spread the word. Maybe you could help me out with the
flyering?'

I nodded, although I had only a dim idea of what she
meant by flyering. I was tired and confused. Was it only
yesterday that I'd caught the train up here? It felt like a
lifetime ago. I wasn't even sure how we'd got to this
room. We'd crossed a bridge near Waverley Station, the
kind of bridge that in any other European capital city
would cross a great river – the Danube, the Seine, the
Thames. I had looked down on to a jumble of railway
lines far below us. We'd walked up a busy road full of
dawdling tourists, and then there was the Royal Mile. It
was pretty much a solid mass of people, trying to hand us
bits of paper. A s we crossed, we nearly got knocked down
by a cyclist pedalling a rickshaw. Then there was another
street, and then we were on a bridge looking down at yet
another street far below us, as if it was another city
entirely. I couldn't work out how the two streets could be
connected. There was a tall grey institutional-looking
building, and noticeboards outside covered with posters
for comedy shows – faces smiling or gurning or looking
straight at the camera, photos of people holding umbrellas
or leaping in the air or pretending to eat bunches of
flowers. There were newspaper clippings stapled to the
posters, with printouts of reviews and star ratings.

Zoey had steered me through an open door and
instantly I could smell damp. We walked along a corridor,
down a flight of stairs and another, and another. It felt like
we were descending into the bowels of the Earth. Every
wall, every ceiling, was covered with posters for comedy
shows. There were people on every floor, forming queues
outside doors, tickets in hand, even at this early time of the
day. Three or four floors down, a bar. No windows. Same
musty smell. Zoey had pushed me towards a saggy sofa
and I slumped onto it. She went off somewhere, in a
huddle with someone. It was midday. Groups of people
were eating nachos from paper plates. There were lots of
young people in T-shirts and baggy combat trousers.
There were boys with feathery 1970s Rod Stewart haircuts.
Older people, forties, fifties, reading
The Guardians
Fringe supplement. I saw a guy I thought I recognised as
one of the team captains on a Channel Four comedy panel
show. I didn't see Rivers Carillo or anyone who looked
like him. It was crowded and claustrophobic and
confusing, but it also felt safe. No one knew who I was.

Zoey had returned with a key and we'd continued
downstairs until we eventually emerged onto the pavement
of a dark, narrow street where we'd found ourselves
surrounded by tall grey buildings. I looked up to where
we'd come from. Way up high there was a bridge
across the street. I felt dizzy, as if I was in an Escher
engraving.

Zoey had led me along the street and up a cobbled alley
under a tunnel. T o our right, another tall grey building; to
our left, another wall completely covered with comedy
posters. At the far right-hand end of the alleyway, as it
widened out into a kind of tenement courtyard, Zoey
unlocked a door. We ducked into the doorway, through a
tunnel with dust and dirt and uneven paving stones
underfoot – like some kind of archaeological dig in the
foundations of a castle. And finally, just as I wondered
where on Earth she could possibly be taking me, just as I
started to feel scared, the passageway opened out into this
dark, dank cave of a room.

Zoey was still waiting for me to say something about
the space. It was a dump, I wanted to say; or a dungeon or
a prison cell or a crypt. I shivered, feeling the damp
coldness go down my spine and raise goose pimples on my
arms. 'It's really cool,' I said, meaning it literally;
meaning, what a relief after the hot summer we'd had;
choosing the one positive I could think of to describe the
place. But Zoey assumed I meant 'cool' as in, well, cool, in
the figurative sense. Her face cracked into a huge smile. 'It
is, isn't it? It's so cool.'

She jumped up and down on the stage like Tigger. 'Oh
my God, Beth!' she shouted, in a voice that echoed and
bounced off the walls. 'The Edinburgh Fringe. I'm
playing the Edinburgh Fringe! This is it. I've made it. I'm
here. And no one can stop me.'

She bounced over to where I was standing, grabbed
hold of me and we bounced around the room together
until we tripped over one of the benches. Her joy was
infectious. I loved her at that moment. I felt full of love for
Zoey and her enthusiasm and her wild curly hair and her
refusal to be afraid of anything. And as we jumped up and
down, and hugged each other, and grinned at each other,
and I allowed myself a crazy smile, I realised something: I
could get lost here. Well and truly lost. I could hide in the
crowd and mingle and have fun and be a normal person,
and no one would be able to find me. No one knew I was
here.

Except . . . there were six missed calls on my mobile.
One was from my mum, just her weekly check-up;
wanting to know that I was still alive. Two more were
from my sisters, both of them 'just checking' that I was
okay; I wondered what Jem had told Sarah to make her
phone me. The other three missed calls were from Danny.
Danny, my only just ex-boyfriend; Danny, the guy I'd
said I'd still be friends with; Danny, the sweet, kind
person who still wanted to hang out with me. I thought
that I at least owed him the courtesy of returning his
phone call.

'Where on earth are you?' Danny's voice sounded
puzzled, rattled maybe, but not quite cross.

I was sitting at an outside table at a tiny hole-in-the-wall
hummus-and-falafel place in a side street just off
the Royal Mile. I was with Zoey, and with Laura and
Suze, two other comedians who were doing a show
together at the same venue. There was some showbizzy
talk about sharing publicity, doing 'joint flyering', 'crosspromoting'
their shows, which I didn't quite follow.
Laura was late twenties, blonde, skinny and very pretty;
she was very 'on' – a little shrill and shrieky. I got the
sense that she liked to be noticed. Suze was older, calm, a
large but rather beautiful woman with creamy skin. She
didn't seem like a comedian – not like the ones I'd met so
far, anyway. She was very quiet, almost dull; but she had
a serenity that was quite peaceful. Neither of them seemed
to know Zoey very well, but they were all trying to get
along, falling over themselves to offer to pay for lunch. I
wondered what it would be like by the time the Fringe was
over at the end of August. Would they be best buddies?
Would Zoey cast her spell on them?

I stood up and walked away from them to concentrate on
my phone call. I perched on a low concrete bollard.
'I'm
in
Edinburgh,' I said, trying to put a laugh in my voice; to
indicate that it was just a quirky, last-minute decision.

'Edinburgh? Why? How come?'

I was watching – being watched by – a silver-painted
living statue who seemed to have decided to start a staring
match with me. 'For the Festival. You know, the Fringe?'
I still hadn't grasped what the difference was, if there was
one. There was a Festival and a Fringe, and I didn't know
if they were officially part of each other or separate.
'There's all this stuff on. Like comedy and plays and art
and stuff.'

'How long are you staying up there?' Danny was still
puzzled, verging on annoyed now.

'Just a few days. Probably. I came on a whim.'

'Are you with that Zoey friend of yours?' Danny's
voice changed, subtly, to something a little harder and
colder.

'Well, yes, but not like that.'

'Not like what?'

'Not like your tone of voice suggests you think it might
be like.' The statue was still staring at me. I wanted to tell
it to go away, to leave me alone.

'You can read the tone of my voice?'

'Like a book.'

'Then tell me what tone of voice this is. Have you
forgotten about my mourning jacket?'

Annoyed, definitely. Perhaps a little hurt. 'What about
your jacket?'

'My Morning Jacket. The band. We're supposed to go
and see them tomorrow, remember? You said you were
really looking forward to it.'

I'd completely forgotten about them. Danny had been
playing me their album for the past few months. He had
been putting their songs on the mix CDs he made for me.
Big, swirly rock music with a bit of a dance beat.
Unintelligible lyrics sung in a dramatic high voice. Kind
of passionate-sounding but not really my thing. But
because I was so adept at pretence Danny had thought that
I really loved the band and couldn't wait to see them live.
After I'd dumped him, after we'd split up, he'd been quick
to say: 'You'll still come to see My Morning Jacket with
me, won't you?' And I had said that I would.

'Danny, I'm so sorry. Really. I forgot all about them.
Can you find someone else who wants the ticket?'

'I could sell it for about four times its face value outside
the venue, no problem. But that's not the point. I wanted
to be there with you. I like going to gigs with you. It
makes them special.'

'Danny, I'm sorry. But we're not going out any more,
okay? I know I'd said I'd come with you. But I can't.
Sorry. But, you know, I'm not your girlfriend any more.
Please, find someone else to go with you.'

'But we're still friends?'

He sounded so disappointed and betrayed that I felt as
if I was about to cry. I needed to end the call there, before
he sussed how upset I was and tried to push further.
Breaking and ending my relationship with Danny was one
of the hardest things I had ever had to do, and I needed all
my strength to follow it through. I made my voice as icy
as possible. 'Sorry, Danny. What can I say to make it
better? Look, I'll see you when I get back, okay? We'll
talk more then.'

That bloody statue was still staring at me. I stuck my
tongue out at it, a stupid, childish gesture. I hated this. I
hated what I was doing to Danny. But how could I tell him
why I'd run away? How could I tell him why I had broken
off our relationship? I stomped back to the cafe table.
Zoey flashed me a concerned look as I sat down. I took a
big mouthful of falafel and blamed the water pooling in
my eyes on the heat of the spices.

Zoey thought it was funny how much I enjoyed
flyering. Apparently most comedians thought it
was a chore, and worse. Zoey certainly did. It
involved walking the streets with piles of flyers – leaflets
advertising comedy shows – and handing them to passersby.
Zoey's flyer was a glossy sheet of A5 paper featuring a
photo of her that had been taken as she hung upside down
from something, so that her hair stuck straight up in a
shock of curls. T o flyer properly you needed to strike up
conversations with people and try to persuade them to
come to the gig or gigs that you were promoting. Comics
hated it, it seemed. But it seemed to me that many of them
were intrinsically shy and awkward in their dealings with
people. Given my quiet persona and my general air of
unobtrusiveness it surprised Zoey – and sort of surprised
me – how good I was at it.

The pair of us were working the Royal Mile, mostly,
with occasional forays into the maze of back streets in
student land, where – if you timed it right – you could
catch the punters going in or coming out of other shows.
At the Pleasance Courtyard, for example, or a building
nearby that I thought was probably the university
students' union and for the duration of the Fringe was
hosting a whole bunch of comedy shows. We approached
appropriate groups of people – bunches of women in their
twenties and thirties, for example – or thirty- and forty-something
couples. We were mostly promoting Zoey's
show, but if the punters proved interested we would also
add in flyers for Laura and Suze. They were doing the
same thing in return for Zoey's show.

Zoey and I would stage informal competitions to see
which of us could hand out the most flyers. I was proud of
some of the marketing lines I'd come up with. '
Desperate
Housewives
meets
The Vagina Monologues'
seemed to be
working well (I had never seen either of them). With
slightly older women and couples, I went for 'It's like
Sex
and the City
rewritten by an American Victoria Wood.'
With the cool kids, I described Suze and Laura as 'a bit
like French and Saunders. Only funny.'

Zoey's friend – ex-friend – Steve was around, handing
out leaflets for his own show, when he heard me say that.
'You're good,' he said. 'Want to flyer my show?'

I'd been to see Zoey's show a few times, and it seemed
to be going well. Zoey's material hadn't really changed
much since the first time I had heard her, but her delivery
seemed sharper and somehow more savage and biting.
She paced around as if she owned the stage: she used every
inch of that tiny wooden platform, and seemed to fill the
whole room with her personality. I liked to sit at the back,
and watch the audience leaning forward, their shoulders
hunched in expectation, and to predict when the laughs
would come. I was so proud of Zoey. Although I'd only
played a very small part in helping her out, I felt that I
almost owned part of the show. I felt more fulfilled than I
had in ages. It was a good feeling, one that I'd almost
forgotten.

I went to lots of other shows, too. I saw Steve's one man
show, and I was impressed. It was very different from
the material he'd done at that nightmare gig in
Southampton. It was just as dark and foul-mouthed but it
was full of bitingly intelligent humour. He was raging
about his Catholic childhood, and the state of the nation,
and other worthwhile targets, and I thought it was
excellent. We had a drink afterwards, and he asked about
Zoey. In my new, happy, fulfilled state of mind, I told him
to call her. I encouraged him to get back in touch with her.
I knew it would make her happy.

The Edinburgh Fringe wasn't cheap but I was putting
it on my credit card so it didn't really count. And then, late
at night it was Chinese or pizza or curry or kebabs back at
the flat with a whole bunch of people: Laura and Suze
sometimes, and some other people Zoey knew, some of
whom I recognised from the telly. And then Steve started
coming round as well, and occasionally he stayed the
night. It all seemed to be back on with him and Zoey. It
was a great, relaxed atmosphere, and it was the most fun
I'd had in ages.

I felt free. I had run away, I'd escaped, and I'd made it
to safety. There hadn't been a single menacing note. I
hadn't seen . . . him. Whoever he was. I'd had no sense of
being followed. No chills up my spine, no sense of being
watched, apart from by that silver-painted living statue. I
felt awful about Danny, and I missed him. But I knew that
I'd done the right thing and that he was better off without
me, even if he didn't know it yet. Occasionally I thought
about my flat back in London and all the stuff I had left
there. I wondered if I'd ever be able to go back. I thought
about the girls I taught, and on the day that the results
came out I wondered how they'd done in their exams. I
wondered if I would ever be able to go back to that school,
if I dared return to my job. And I worried about money,
and about my future, and about what was going to happen
to me – where I would go, what I would do – once this
glorious interlude came to an end. I found myself praying,
something I rarely did. The prayer went something like
this:
For now, please God, if you exist, just let me be. Let me
enjoy this holiday.

It was two in the morning. Zoey, Steve and I were
finishing off the dregs of a bottle of wine. ' T o the best
flyerererer ever,' slurred Zoey.

I blushed.

'Damn right,' said Steve. 'You're good at this. Who'd
have guessed Zoey's mousy friend was a wannabe?'

'What do you mean?'

'I've seen you out there. You're a performer. You love
it, don't you? You're a frustrated comedian.'

I shook my head. 'No, not at all.'

'Oh, go on,' said Steve. 'You can't tell me you've never
thought of doing this.'

'She tried,' said Zoey. 'She got stage fright.'

I thought back to that night in that claustrophobic
cellar in London; to the sense that someone was watching
me. I couldn't stop myself shivering.

'I bet you have done
something
on stage, though,
haven't you?' Steve's eyes were boring into me.

I fidgeted uneasily. 'I used to act a bit. A long time ago.
When I was at school.'

'Why did you stop?' said Zoey in a curious voice, as if
she genuinely wanted to know the answer to the puzzle.

It was too close to home. I said nothing. I left it a few
minutes and then I stood up, unsteadily, went over to the
kitchen area and put the kettle on. Time to end the
evening. Time to end the conversation. This was not the
time to talk about Lizzie Stephens. But the truth was that
I was starting to feel a bit like Lizzie again. As if I had
come back to life, as if I had burst out of my cocoon and
sprouted butterfly wings – whatever hackneyed simile
fitted the bill.

The next afternoon I was back on the Royal Mile. I was
standing in the heart of historic Edinburgh, at the centre
of the Fringe. Zoey was taking a break from flyering that
day, but I was holding the fort. It was a sunny day and I
was wearing one of Zoey's brightly coloured T-shirts,
because I had run out of clean ones. I hadn't felt this
relaxed and open and human since – well, since San
Francisco. There was a stage – a mini-stage – set up in the
centre of the Royal Mile. Three men were on the stage
dressed in swimming trunks and goggles, pretending to be
synchronised swimmers. Cardboard waves were playing
the part of the swimming pool. Next to the stage a row of
beautiful young oriental girls in embroidered silk robes –
Thai? Japanese? Korean? – were waiting for their turn to
perform.

I handed a flyer to a middle-aged American couple.
They told me that they were from Indianapolis and that
they loved
The Vicar of Dibley.
'Oh, you'll love this,' I
lied. 'She's American, but she's lived in Britain for years
so she's got that great British sense of humour, combined
with a big dollop of American sass.' Oh, what nonsense I
was talking. And oh, how relaxed I was. They'd said
'Indianapolis' and I hadn't even thought of Rivers Carillo
and the list I'd made of universities in Indiana.

A tall man, fortyish, slim, with fairish floppy public schoolboy
hair was hovering nearby, looking as if he
wanted a leaflet. He waited until I had finished with the
Americans. 'I'll take one of those,' he said.

'Not often that people ask for them,' I said, and I think
I sounded slightly flirty. He was good-looking, in a
diffident and faintly posh English way.

'It looks interesting.'

'It is.'

We stood there for a while looking at each other, and
I wondered if he was trying to chat me up. But he seemed
to think better of it, or was overcome by shyness, and he
mumbled 'Thanks' and turned away. I glanced idly at
the crowds. There was a man juggling with fire – with
batons that were on fire – surrounded by a crowd of
onlookers. There was a unicyclist making animals out of
balloons, and children were jostling around him, trying
to get their hands on one of the balloon animals. And
then I saw him. Him – someone – a dark curly head of
hair – Rivers Carillo. Someone like Rivers Carillo but
younger: the man in Russell Square; the kid at King's
Cross Station. His head was bobbing up and down
amidst the crowds, past the Thai girl dancers, past the
unicyclist and the fire juggler, moving relentlessly
towards me. And I panicked. Suddenly I remembered
how afraid I was.

I ran. I ran up the Royal Mile, up Lawnmarket, up
Castle Hill, towards the castle. I ran over the cobbles and
the uneven pavement, pushing through the heaving mass
of people. And as I ran I could hear that he had started to
run too, with determined footsteps that echoed mine. I
threaded my way through the clumps of people who had
gathered to watch the street entertainers. I cannoned into
someone. I looked up, caught sight of a white-painted
clown's face. I waved an apology but didn't stop. I kept
running up that crowded street, past people trying to hand
me flyers and leaflets about fringe shows and sightseeing
bus tours and cheap restaurants. I pushed through a party
of tourists on a guided tour. I could still hear footsteps
behind me. Not just any footsteps, but definitely someone
running, someone following me, someone keeping pace
behind me. I was getting a stitch in my side, and my breath
was catching painfully in my throat and in my chest, high
up at the top of my ribcage. A centurion in full Roman
armour reached out towards me, grabbed my arm as I ran
past, offering to help or trying to stop an accident of some
sort. I shook him off. I didn't dare look behind me. I
dreaded to think what – who – I might see. I didn't want
it to be true but I knew it was. All I could hear was the
sound of those inexorable running footsteps, following
me up the hill.

An alleyway beckoned on my right, a tiny sliver of
space between two shops. I darted into it and leaned
against the wall, panting. It was quiet and dark. I stood
there for a while, listening out for footsteps, watching the
people walking past. I didn't see him, the dark-haired man
who was chasing me. After a few seconds, when I was
almost sure that I hadn't been followed, I tiptoed through
the alleyway, away from the Royal Mile, down some
uneven stone steps, towards the light at the other end. I
reached out a hand to the cold, clammy stone to steady
myself. And that was when I heard footsteps again, slower
this time but still distinctive. They were behind me; right
behind me, echoing on the flagstones underfoot. He had
found me. He was coming towards me. I felt his breath on
the back of my neck.

There was nothing I could do except stand there like a
statue. At the end of the tunnel was a dizzying vista – a
clear, cloudless blue sky, a steep hill down to the Princes
Street Gardens, brightly dressed people sitting on the
bright green grass. People enjoying themselves. People
and people and people, so many of them, without a care in
the world. So close, so far away. And there I stood with
my mystery stalker breathing down my neck. Suddenly
his hand was on my shoulder. My shoulders slumped
under his touch. I turned to face the inevitable. Rivers
Carillo, his son, his friend. Or one of those faceless young
guys from San Francisco: Elliot, Jason, Jonas. Whoever
my stalker was.

His face wasn't where I expected it to be. He was taller
than I expected. I turned and I was facing a chest, a neck.
My eyes climbed slowly. Pointed chin. Sharp nose. Blue
eyes. Floppy fair hair. 'I'm terribly sorry,' said the polite,
shy, posh Englishman. 'Did I scare you? You dropped
these when you ran off so suddenly.'

He handed me my pile of flyers. I stammered some
words of thanks. I was blushing furiously, feeling shaken.
Stupid, stupid, stupid,
I said to myself.

'It really does look good,' he said. 'I might come and
see it tonight. Will you be there?'

I nodded, unable to form coherent words. He gave me
a strange, concerned look, and then he turned and walked
back to the Royal Mile, clutching a copy of the flyer. I
flicked through the pile of leaflets in my hands, tidied
them and straightened their edges. I fiddled with them for
a while until I felt a little calmer. Then I set my shoulders
and headed back out towards the crowds and craziness. I
scanned the street before I emerged from the alleyway,
taking the kind of precaution I'd somehow forgotten since
I'd been in Edinburgh. There was no sign of the dark haired
man. Of course there wasn't: he had never been
chasing me. The dark-haired man was no one, nothing;
just a spectre in the crowd.

There was a good audience at Zoey's show that night.

I sat on my perch against the wall at the back of the
dungeon and watched them as they arrived. I recognised
some of the people I'd given flyers to. I nodded at the
American couple from Indianapolis, who waved excitedly
at me. I was hoping they'd enjoy the show that I'd talked
them into seeing. I was sure it was long past their bedtime.
Just as Zoey was about to come on stage a familiar figure
ducked into the venue. It was the tall polite floppy-haired
man from earlier today. I lowered my head, embarrassed.
I didn't want him to catch my eye. But he didn't look in
my direction anyway. He found a seat with a good view of
the stage on the end of one of the rows in the middle of the
cave and sat down.