Someday Find Me (19 page)

In the end I slept like a log on Mrs-Truelove-call-me-May’s sofa. The next morning I found myself sat at the little table in the kitchen drinking milky milky tea while Anjelica was in the shower and her nanna was pottering about brewing yet more tea, which she put on the table and sat down across from me. I smiled at her and tried to think of something to say, maybe about Philip and Holly off
This Morning
, when she piped up, leaning forward over her cup of tea, ‘So what’s going on, then? Have you and Saffia split up?’

‘No,’ I said, a bit taken aback. ‘Well, sort of, I s’pose.’

‘She been having it away?’ she said, looking wise.

‘No!’

‘Have you?’ she goes, in a cross voice.

‘No!’ I said. ‘Nobody’s been having it away. It’s just – well, she was getting ill again. And we thought she oughta go home for a bit.’ I felt all sheepy and confused again but without knowing why.

‘Oh dear. Have they sent her back to that dreadful place?’ she said, taking a gulp of tea, ‘Honestly, whatever is Philippa thinking? I’ll never know.’

‘Oh, no, Mrs Truelove,’ I said.

‘May,’ she said, interrupting.

‘Sorry, May I mean, no, she’s not back in hospital … she’s, erm, well, she’s gone away for a bit.’ I didn’t know what to say
and the tea was too sweet to think properly and I really wished Jelli would hurry up and get out of the shower so she could do the talking.

‘Oh, right, done a runner, has she?’ she said, patting my hand. ‘Well, in that case, I wouldn’t worry, dear. She’ll soon be on the phone pining for you. She thinks she’s full of fire, Saffia, like this one,’ she pointed to where the shower sounds were coming from, ‘but all she needs is love and care. She’ll just want to come home. I’d bet you have a phone call in a day or so, if I were a gambling woman. Which I’m not,’ she said, with a wink. ‘Well, apart from the odd flutter on the geegees but we’re all human, aren’t we, dear?’

Couldn’t argue with that so I just nodded.

‘Well,’ she said, standing up, ‘you get her home, darling, and look after her, won’t you? I’ve got my hands full taking care of the scandal
du jour
.’ She looked over at the shower noises again. ‘Always keeping me busy, my granddaughters. If only they all had a nice fellow like you to look out for them,’ she goes, pinching my cheek. ‘Just like my Archie you are.’ And then she wandered out into the garden with her tea.

I sat and watched her out the window for a bit, looking at each of her flowers and picking off dead petals and stopping to smell one of them every now and again, sipping her tea and strolling around like it was a day in the park. I could just see her doing that with a little Saf toddling about behind her, maybe feeding the ducks, probably Jelli in the background somewhere killing birds or something and Ella off playing the harp or whatever. Nice to think of an old lady who did nice things with kids that didn’t end up as reruns on the True Crime channel. Jelli came in then in cut-off-jeans and a strappy top with her hair dripping water all over and she had freckles on her shoulders as well, which gave me a horrible ache in my chest and for a minute I couldn’t breathe.

‘Morning,’ she said, looking in the cup of tea May had left on the table and making a yuk face and putting it back. ‘Sleep well?’
she asked, clicking the kettle on and looking in the cupboard and getting coffee out from right at the back.

‘Yeah, good, ta,’ I said. ‘I’ll be getting off in a min.’

‘Back to London?’ She got another cup down.

I didn’t say anything then because either the ache in my chest or something else was stopping me and I couldn’t actually make my mouth say yes, and neither did she for a minute, putting a spoon of coffee in the cup and putting the lid back on the jar and the jar in the cupboard and looking at the kettle while it bubbled away. It worked itself up and then clicked off and she poured it in and stirred her coffee and I watched May stroking a fluffy white flower.

‘Give it up,’ Jelli said eventually, leaning back against the counter and blowing at her coffee. ‘Seriously, Fitz, don’t waste your time. You’re a nice kid,’ she said, taking a sip and sticking her tongue out because it was still too hot, and I was older than her but I didn’t bother saying. ‘Don’t get hung up on Saf. She lives on her own planet most of the time, her and Bluebell actually, but that’s the bloody tree house I reckon. Find yourself someone new, hun, without any issues. Saf’s sweet but she’ll always put herself first, it’s just the way she’s wired.’ She took another drink of coffee and crossed one ankle over the other. In the silence after that the ache in my chest grew bigger and bigger and my hands and feet felt itchy and I realised all of a sudden that the Saffy her family knew wasn’t her – maybe it was the old her, maybe it was a her they’d just made up to explain it all away but whatever it was, it wasn’t her.
My
Saffy was the real Saffy, and I knew her better than any of them ever would and there was no way in hell I was letting her just leave or be alone or be afraid and it was time that someone, for once in her life, didn’t let her go or didn’t just say she’d be back or that was just her, but went after her and didn’t let her run and told her they loved her over and over until she believed it. My cheeks got all hot and I couldn’t believe I’d wasted a whole night letting my whole life
get away from me. ‘Nice day, isn’t it?’ Jelli said, staring out of the window.

‘Yeah,’ I said, draining my tea and getting up. ‘Well, I’ll get off then. Thanks for letting me stay and stuff, Jelli.’

I stuck my head out the backdoor and shouted, ‘Thanks for having me, Mrs – May, I mean!’

‘’Bye, love,’ she said, looking up and waving with a rose in her hand. ‘Pop round again soon.’

‘Thanks again, Jel,’ I said, pulling my shoes on. ‘Hope you get things sorted with your mum and that.’

‘Thanks, hun,’ she said. ‘Think about what I said, yeah?’

I didn’t answer, just waved as I went out the door. The car started first time and I drove off down the road until I could see the green hill and the sea and then I parked and got my phone out.

Quin picked up on the fifth ring, and by then I was pretty much poking a hole in my cheek with one finger. ‘Morning, William,’ he said all chirpy. ‘What’s the story, doll?’

‘It’s Saffy,’ I said. ‘You gotta help me, Quin. She’s done a runner and I have to find her. Fuck, I have to find her. Today.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Calm down. You’ve no idea where she’d go?’

I looked out at the sea through the dodgy window. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Is she there? Have you heard from her?’

Quin was silent on the other end of the phone. ‘No,’ he said, after a long minute, and for such a small word it made a big thud in my chest. ‘Her phone’s turned off whenever I try it.’ There was a pause and then he said, in quiet words that made huge thuds in my heart, ‘I don’t think she’s coming back, William.’

As I waited for Quin to call me back with a list of places or an idea of people or an answer to it all I laid my head on the steering wheel and tried and tried to stop myself punching the seat with both of my fists. All my head was buzzing and I knew if I sat there any longer I’d probably start throwing Eddie’s collection of jungle tapes through the windscreen so I started the engine and drove back down the road I’d come along, feeling my lungs let in their first bit of air in ages as I kept going, following the road along the curve until I saw a turning for the town centre and I took it and parked in the first empty space along the neat little row of shops.

I got out with my phone clutched tight as anything in my hand, and wandered down the row looking for somewhere to buy more cigs and something with enough caffeine in it to keep me awake all day and all night for as long as it took to find Saffy. I told myself over and over that I would find her, I would, I had to, I wouldn’t go back without her. But deep down inside my head there was a little voice who wouldn’t shut up no matter how hard I twisted his arm or poked him in the eye or pulled his hair and he was saying that Saffy might have hurt herself or worse. He didn’t say what worse was because he knew I knew. I told him he was a twat and I looked into the shop windows and watched the people going about their business to distract myself.

All the buildings around were little and old with dusty bricks and white walls and black wood but the row of shops were modern mostly, some of them with stripy bits outside to make them look a bit cuter. I walked past a little cheese shop and a baker’s and a butcher’s and a bike shop and a bank, and up ahead I could see a little swinging sign with a headline stuffed in, waiting for me on the pavement to show me where I could get a bit of nicotine to keep me going somewhere wherever that somewhere was. I hurried along, still holding my phone so tight it was making my palm sweat like a pervert. But then a flash from a window caught my eye and I stopped to look. It was an electronics shop, all big hi-fis and little gadgets and right in the window was a bank of TVs – two little flat screens, one widescreen, one portable kind of one like posh people have in their cars, one weird old-fashioned one that could’ve been new and was meant to look old or could have been just old. All of them had Fate Jones’s face on, with the word ‘Found’ underneath in a big red banner, and I felt my heart shrivel up. I stood and pressed my face to the glass even though I knew that the picture was bound to change any second to show the diggers and the police and the little white tent like they have on TV programmes. The sound was off so I couldn’t even hear what the newsreader was saying, could just see the picture of her face and the word ‘Found’, which had never looked like ‘Dead’ to me before but now always always would.

And then the picture changed. It wasn’t diggers or mud or yellow jackets or a white tent. It was a picture of a beach, with hundreds of people lying on sunbeds with colourful umbrellas dotted everywhere and a big belt of blue sea along the top. And I watched with my breath fogging up the glass and my fingers leaving sweaty prints as the little red line spelt out, ‘Missing girl Fate Jones found alive and well on Ibiza beach’.

I don’t know how long I stood there, staring through the glass, but I wasn’t looking at the screens any more. I thought of Saffy’s gorgeous little face and I thought, Seeing that again will be the best thing I ever see with my eyes ever ever ever. And then the phone started buzzing in my hand again with a text from Quin and I thought, Thank you, God, or anybody who’s listening, thank you, and please let this be the answer, tell me where to go and find her and bring her home and cuddle her for ever. But before I could open the message, the phone started buzzing with a call so I picked it up without looking and said, ‘’Ello-’ello. Where is it? You reckon she’s there?’ But it wasn’t Quinton on the other end of the phone. It was Jelli.

‘Fitz?’ she said, and for some reason my heart sank right into the bottom of my shoes.

‘Jel?’ I said. ‘What’s up?’ I could hear the telly in the background and Jelli walking out of a room and closing a door and all the time my heart was sinking right down through my trainers and into the road.

‘I just spoke to my mum,’ she said, and she was being all careful with her words. ‘After talking to you, I thought I might as well apologise, seeing as the rest of my clothes are there and it’s not that long till my birthday.’

‘Okay,’ I said, and I didn’t see what in the name of arse any of this had to do with me because I was happy for her obviously
but I had to get going and I needed to pick my heart up out of the tarmac before I could do that because it was still sinking slowly down.

‘Look,’ she was saying, ‘I’m not sure if I should be telling you this – I don’t even know why I am telling you this – but … they’re putting Saffy back into Happy Blossoms.’ And my heart fell all the way through the road and through the super-hot core of the earth and all the way through the other side to Australia. ‘She doesn’t know,’ she said. ‘She’s staying with our cousin in Liverpool, and she thinks they don’t know where she is. They’re going to collect her tonight and take her straight there. They thought it would upset her less if it was quick like that.’ I could hear all this rushing in my ears and through that I could hear May coming into the room and saying something to her in the background and Jelli said, ‘Look, I’ve got to go, Fitz. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you. I just thought – well, I guess I thought maybe it would be good if you were there with them. It’s up to you. I’ll text you the address.’ And then she hung up.

I bent over and put my hands on my knees because all of a sudden I thought I might be sick and I let some of the wind blow in my face and let the rushing in my ears stop a bit. And then I held my phone even tighter and waited for the text to come through and while I did that I made a decision in my head. Jelli wanted me to be there to help Saffy know that it was okay for her to go back to hospital. But I was going to be there and I was going to run away with her and I was never going to let anyone take her away from me again ever and they could try all they wanted but I would put her in the front seat of that shitty little car and I would never let anyone in apart from us two and I would keep her safe even if it meant driving around the world three times over and never stopping.

And so I started running, running so my feet hit the ground hard and all the shops turned into a blur and all the time I was clutching my phone and waiting for Jelli to type out those few
little letters that made up the rest of my life. And when I got to the car I closed my eyes and let myself imagine what it would be like to get to her first, to hug her tight and put her in the car and not let anyone take her away, because they didn’t understand her but I did, and I would never let anyone take her somewhere she didn’t want to be again. I could even smell her hair as I thought about it, and feel her little arms round my neck, and I banged my head against the steering wheel a couple of times until my phone vibrated in my hand and I sat straight up in my seat, reading the text and I was already flicking through the massive road guide Eddie kept under the seat with the other hand. And then I was off, and I was praying to myself over and over again that things could only get better from here.