Alphabet (24 page)

Meanwhile, pictures flicker on the TV screen: an old black-and-white movie from the forties, women in tight skirts and elaborate blouses, shoulder-length, curled hair that doesn't move with the rest of them. Men in suits, the bad guy smoking in his dressing gown. Then, the ads, saturated with colour.
Washing powder, shampoo, banks, an amazing black horse
galloping across apple-green fields. News: Princess Diana and Aids. An IRA bomb in a barracks in Kent. He keeps the sound just below properly audible, a murmur, punctuated with strains of music.

‘You had me worried, all right.' David leans in the doorway.
‘You went down like a pack of cards.' He walks over and crouches down beside the bed. ‘This came while you were on your rest cure,' he says, proffering a large brown envelope.
Inside it are a picture postcard and another, smaller envelope, flecked pale blue on white. Simon nods and tucks both items into the back of the book he can't get started on. ‘Thanks' would help him out right now and bring things to a close, but he can't quite rise to it.

‘Someone's taken the trouble,' David says, ‘Read it. See what she's got to say. Go on.' Simon's inner voice is out of practice too, or else it would be saying something like ‘Bollocks.'

Ten o'clock comes, then eleven; he can't sleep, probably because he's been doing nothing for days. It's very windy outside, the kind of wind you can not just hear but almost feel, pushing against the walls, getting worse, rather than better, making it impossible to concentrate. He closes
The
Savage God
, and the letter and card fall out, so he picks them up and looks over the card again. It's a picture of some jungle; rising out of it is a stepped building made from greyish stone. A string of tiny people in bright clothes are on their way up to its flat summit. He admires the sheer density of the palm trees surrounding the building, the bright blue sky. It's like something in a film . . . Fancy just up and going to a place like that!
He turns it over. There's a stamp with some bald bloke on, MEXICO, and the postmark says August 13th. Mexico?
What's T for trouble doing there? And before Simon knows it, he's reading.

Stunning place
–
huge fruit and palm trees
,
fat white lizards
running on the ceilings
. It seems harmless enough and he closes his eyes a moment to picture what she describes. There wasn't even an envelope, he rationalises, it was right there for anyone
to see, so he might as well continue.
Really gross insects that take
off in front of you like jump jets
,
straight up
,
as big as lobsters
,
brilliant
like butterflies
.
Am here with Mum
,
her new partner Leo
,
my friend
Jo
,
wish I could show it to you! Miles of fantastic beach! Jo and I nearly
got drowned
,
Tasmin
.

Who is Jo? Simon registers a twinge of curiosity, along with a faint feeling of pleasure that things seem to have turned around for Tasmin. So, he thinks, End of Story. Good. Outside, the wind drops for a moment, then roars again. He opens the curtains and watches for a few moments the agitated shrubbery in the courtyard and then it is only at the last moment, when he goes to file both items in the shoe box he keeps on his desk, that he notices on the top left corner of the blue-flecked envelope, written in neat capital letters, the word EMERGENCY.

Hang on! Something inside him says. He hears, but all the same, takes the letter back to the bed, sits down, unaware, now, of the storm outside. He reaches in, takes the letter out.
He holds it, still folded for a moment or two.
Emergency
, he tells the warning voice. How can I ignore that? Even now he could still turn back, but he won't, because, he realises, this feeling of stepping into another world, the whisper of a voice coming from elsewhere, even if it is an emergency, is just exactly what he wants:

Simon, Like I said before, I am very sorry about what my dad did. I know it's hard for you to reply to me, and maybe you can't? Maybe they don't even give you these letters, but I think even just knowing you
might
be there reading this will make me feel as if I am not so alone trying to work out what to do. The thing is, I am pregnant & have got to make up my mind what to do for the best.

Christ! The word leaps from his mouth and into the cell, surprising him.

I got pregnant the same day I last wrote to you! Also on that same day Jo and I nearly drowned because we went out beyond the waves and there was an undertow. No one could hear us, we swam for our lives and we made it. Then at night we had dinner and afterwards in the dark I was sitting at this table that was literally on a platform right over the creek with the forest all around watching the giant moths and writing cards. The owner of the place, Manuel, came back and sat down next to me. He asked could I hear the sea and I stopped very still to listen, and he kissed me. I ended up going into a spare studio with him. The sexual part of this was really incredible, nothing like it was with the boys I did it with when I was in that phase a while back.
And I liked him because he had made the place so beautiful.
Now I hate him but I don't want that to get in the way, do you understand? He said there had been a wonderful thing between us. He said he and his girlfriends were free with each other and lived for the moment . . . I know this was a load of shit but there was still this kind of magnetism between us, and you could hear the sea now and all the animals rustling outside, it was fantastic, so I ignored that feeling and we did it again and fell asleep. When I woke up, he'd gone and later, he just treated me like any other guest.
Maybe you think I'm a real idiot.

‘You are a rich girl,' he told me when I phoned the hotel from England. ‘You can pay to make your life how you want it.' I just hung up.

I've done the test three times. I don't want to destroy a baby just because I'm afraid of what people might think of me or say but even though I am fifteen now I don't know if I am really mature enough to look after a baby properly. People say it ruins your life, but then my life seems already a bit of a mess and I haven't got any definite plans except to travel and maybe a baby could just come along with me? But maybe I would just get stressed out. I don't know what to do for the best. I am writing because even though you only wrote to me a few times (please believe me how sorry I am that I did lie to you about my age), I trusted you straight away and there is no one else who can help me decide because Aunt Jay would have to tell Mum and Dad and I don't have many friends except Jo and she just panics. So I will wait as long as I can, in case I hear from you. Please write back.

He checks the postmark: almost a month has passed since she sent it, from Edinburgh, on September 15th. August 12th was the day of the postcard, the night it happened. If, that is, it happened: remember, he tells himself, she lied before. It's a definite possibility.

He stands in the cell a few moments, listening to the wind.
He's alert, feeling clearer-headed than he has for weeks. Obviously, he needs to get the whole picture. He gathers the unread letters, arranges them in chronological order. The first, almost incoherent, was a note inside a Christmas card, sent from Oxford: she was very sorry about what had happened and would wait for him to be ready to be with her. She was in a prison just like him, but she was determined to escape . . .

Then, a brief scrawl saying just that she was on the run, from Edinburgh, and offering best wishes. In April, a long letter folded inside a greetings card, sent from York. It explains in detail how she had spent three months in a private mental hospital full of messed-up rich kids and detoxing junkies, walked out, got caught two weeks later, taken paracetamol of all dumb things, but had her stomach pumped in time. Back home, her father let slip that he had read her letters, which led to a big family row. Her mum, Olivia, walked out. Since then, she has been going to a fancy co-ed boarding school,
expensive
but still much cheaper than the loony bin
! Olivia visited her there in a new car and announced that her father had already moved to Manhattan – new job, new wife to be; she was going to get the Chiswick house but wanted it completely remodelled.

I'll be grown up by the time they sort themselves out. For now, I'm staying with my Aunt Jay in York. Actually, I like her. She and I agree nether of them are honest with each other, and for sure, neither of them know what Love
is
and meanwhile, I just got my hair done in this really great asymmetrical cut and I came off the anti-depressants after I read about them being addictive and actually stopping you from dealing with your real problems, so I think I'm doing pretty well considering, my hands still shake a bit sometimes but it's really OK. Mum keeps my money topped up. I can get whatever I want from the university library, where Jay works. I'm reading this amazing book called
Freedom
, about how there are infinite possibilities. But Freedom is, actually, commitment which most people don't realise. Jay says I should decide what to go for at university. But I'm not interested. You can always read the books . . . I want to travel, I mean,
really
travel. See things as they are.

He looks at the card, a large abstract of circles in red and ochre and black. He quite likes it and finds he can easily imagine her taking her time to choose it in some art gallery shop, then moving over to the queue at the till, turning heads as she goes: in his mind, a tall, white-faced girl with jet black hair in a space-age cut, enormous grubby jeans belted around her waist, like all the kids on TV are wearing now, plus maybe a bright orange loose-knit sweater, blue eyes, long fingers. A girl-woman, pregnant, just as Bernie must have been the last time he saw her for real, when they stood opposite each other, not touching, and decided he would come here.

So, he decides, she's not lying. Where does that leave him?
Amanda, Vivienne, Tasmin, Bernadette – he feels as if they are all of them waiting, watching to see what he will do, as if this were some kind of test. Doing
nothing
isn't actually possible.
He pulls the blanket over, turns out the light, hears the cover on the viewing slot on his door click open, click shut.

32

‘Planning on talking, are you?' Johnny Lyndon asks, as Simon signs his name in the register.

‘Thanks,' Simon replies, as he pockets the green phone card in its transparent plastic sleeve. The voice that comes out is a little quieter than before, but perfectly serviceable.

In the queue, he has plenty more time to think the call over.
The thing about phoning is that it's immediate; also, it isn't writing a letter, which is what he agreed not to do. All the same, it is a crazy thing to be doing, unpredictable, distracting, not to speak of the fact that someone in an office somewhere might well be listening in and even if not it's probably being taped. But is there any alternative? File the letter and try to forget it? Get Alan over to talk it through, and you're talking a week, plus what does he know anyhow? This is an
emergency
.
It's the weekend; so with any luck she will be at the aunt's house.

‘Go to the Citizens' Advice,' the man currently on the phone is shouting into the handset. ‘I'll call you tomorrow.
Keep safe now . . .'

Simon has given up his turn twice so as to be last in line with no one listening in, but now he slides the card into its slot and presses out the long sequence of number keys. It rings five times and then a woman's voice says, ‘Jay here.' She sounds so crisp and so close that it's shocking and for a split second, his mouth almost balks at the job.

‘Afternoon. I'm trying to get hold of Tasmin.' He coughs into his hand. ‘Is she around?' If not, he'll promise to call back.
He'll say he's an old friend and please to tell her he called.

‘Just a minute.' The receiver goes down.

‘Who is it?' another voice, softer, younger, asks as the line explodes into life again.

‘Tasmin?'

‘Yes. Who – ?' Her voice is slow, with plenty of inflection.
The accent's very posh. It feels as if her lips are right next to his ear.

‘This is Simon,' he tells her. She must be able to hear his heart crashing about in his chest.

‘You
phoned
?'

‘I just got your letter,' he says. ‘The Mexican bloke was a bit of a bastard, eh?' He lets the words stand unmodified, even though they make him squirm. He shuts his eyes. It's possible to imagine that they are standing each side of a thin partition; they could even be standing in the same blacked-out room.
‘You OK?' he asks.

‘It's been driving me cra-azy. I feel better now, though.' She lowers her voice to a half-whisper. ‘I can't get over that you've called. It's just the most amazing thing! But I did know there was this connection between us. I was sure you didn't want to cut off like that just because –' She sucks in a breath. ‘Oh – sorry,' she says, ‘I'm going to cry –'

‘We haven't got long,' he says, ignoring the way her voice loses itself in a gasp, the swallowing sounds, sniffs. Again he checks the corridor both ways: no one.

‘Look, I'm in a different place, they forward stuff but it takes time. So I've just read your letter. I wasn't going to, but I opened it because it said
emergency
. I agreed I wouldn't write, but because you put that,
emergency
, I've phoned, OK?'

‘I feel so alone,' she says.

‘Tasmin,' he interrupts, used now, to saying the fancy-sounding name, ‘you've got a problem, right? You asked about what to do, right?' He glances over his shoulder again.
‘I can't tell you what's best to do. I can't even tell you what I'd do because I'm not you. I'm not even a woman, right?' She cuts in, something about he's been through a lot and how much she values his opinion. He ignores it, presses on: