The Great Escape (32 page)

Puccini’s looks just as he remembered. There are still plastic red-and-white checked tablecloths, pleasingly mismatched wooden chairs and oil and vinegar dispensers on each table. Three of the dozen or so tables are occupied by people at various stages of lunch. ‘Okay if I just have a cappuccino?’ he asks as a waiter approaches him.

The man nods and motions for Spike to sit at the nearest table. Disconcertingly, although Spike has placed his order, the waiter continues to stand over him with his small grey pad, his hair slicked close to his almost spherical head. ‘Um, actually, I think I will have something to eat,’ Spike mutters. He takes a quick look at the menu. ‘A small margherita pizza please, and a cappuccino.’

The waiter nods and returns to the kitchen. Christ, what was that about? Perhaps he’s a bit smelly from being trapped in an ambulance with those prepubescent musicians. While he waits, Spike weighs up his options as to what to do next.

He could head straight round to the girls’ hotel – he has the address – or call Lou and find out what they’re doing right now. Yet if he alerts her to the fact that he’s come all this way, and she
has
been up to something with that fuckwit Felix, she’ll have a chance to cover her tracks. A sense of unease creeps over him as he fears he’s made a terrible mistake. After all, Lou has never done anything to make him distrust her. Oh, there was that one time in her kitchen in Garnet Street, when he’d glanced in and seen her in a horribly intimate clinch with Johnny – but surely that hadn’t meant anything.

Spike’s pizza arrives, the dimples in its cheesy topping forming rock pools of yellowy oil. He hacks into the burnt crust, then abandons his cutlery, tears off a hunk and gnaws at it. Whilst mildly more palatable than that sausage last night, it’s a pretty poor excuse for a margherita. His coffee, too, is unsatisfying, becoming oddly grainy as he reaches its murky depths. Spike starts to crave one of Lou’s stir-fries with prawns, noodles and leafy bits which she flings so artfully together. Having gamely choked down what he can, Spike abandons the remaining half of his pizza and requests the bill.

At least the place is still cheap – £7.60 for the pizza and coffee. As the waiter turns to squirt the next table with something chemical and presumably germ-zapping, Spike slips a hand into his jacket pocket.

No wallet. He tries his other pocket, then the inside ones and the pockets of his jeans. ‘Shit,’ he whispers, bending down to open his rucksack on the floor and rifle through its contents as surreptitiously as possible. One pair of Levis, one T-shirt, one pair of fake Calvin Klein boxers. Toothbrush, toothpaste, razor and roll-on deodorant tightly wrapped in a plastic bag. And that’s it. Spike is sweating now as the waiter prowls the vacant tables.

To affect a relaxed demeanour, he continues to sip from the coffee cup, even though there’s nothing in it apart from some tarry residue. He keeps on pretending to sip until the waiter disappears into the kitchen.

This is it. His only chance. Spike stands up slowly as if he might be about to stretch. He looks at the exit, just a few strides away. Then, taking care not to make any sudden movements while slipping his rucksack onto his shoulder, he glances anxiously towards the kitchen door. It’s still closed, and the waiter’s in there, probably plating up another slab of oily dough. Spike springs for the exit, flying out into the street past a newspaper vendor and a large group of old people who veer back as he charges past. ‘Oi!’ is all he hears as he darts down a side street, which stinks of garbage, and up a small ramp and down again into the bowels of a multistorey car park.

Spike leans back against a concrete wall, his breath coming in painful gasps. His wallet. His soft black leather wallet, a present from Lou, with £32.47 in it. Gone, just like that. He must have dropped it, or maybe someone nicked it. He wants another cigarette – his body is crying out for nicotine – but he fears that the waiter is prowling about in the labyrinthine car park and might smell it and track him down.

Spike bides his time until it seems safe to leave, then makes his way out, checking the street first in case that waiter’s out there. He walks briskly with his head down, telling himself that of course his wallet is sitting waiting for him in the superloos at the station. All he has to do is retrieve it and everything will be fine.

FIFTY-ONE

Sadie really needs to phone Barney. Apparently she kissed the face off some stranger last night – she knows that this is what Hannah and Lou really mean by a little peck, a bit of
innocent fun
– and she needs to hear her husband’s voice to reassure her that her life isn’t over. Just talking to him for two minutes will stop her from freaking out that he knows what she’s done, that images of her attached to the face of some man in glasses haven’t been transmitted on Sky News.

Right now, though, it’s impossible. Together with Lou, Hannah and Johnny, she is on a walking tour down memory lane, and every time she hangs back to try and make the call, someone cajoles her to stop dawdling and keep up, to check out that bar they used to drink in and see how posh it is now and
oh
look, Sadie, there’s that hairdresser’s where they put the thick yellow tramlines through your hair, remember, when you’d just wanted coppery highlights? And you wore a hat for a week until you could afford some home colour to dye it yourself?

Lou is equally keen to peel away from the group, not to call Spike to check up on his fresh vegetable consumption but to talk to Johnny alone. What was it like, she wants to ask him, splitting up with Rona when they had a child? As they walk in the sunshine, Lou keep stealing glances at him as he banters with Hannah, reassuring her that those kids
will
come round and accept her, and how could they not be delighted to have such a cool stepmum? The more Lou thinks about it, the more she’s convinced that she really does need a plan. Hannah is getting married – despite her doubts, Lou doesn’t believe for an instant that she’ll call off the wedding – and Sadie has a family of her own. But what does Lou have? A duff job and Spike on the sofa. If Johnny managed to part from the mother of his child, why can’t Lou disentangle herself when all she and Spike have to tie them together is a sixteen-year history and some crappy furniture? He cares for her though, she reflects as everyone heads into a charity shop. He really must do. Otherwise he wouldn’t have sold his guitar to pay for this trip.

Lou glances around the shop. She usually loves charity shops and this one is a cut above the rest, an explosion of colour with everything presented with care. Old vinyl records are displayed on a wall, and vintage clothing is artfully hung beside retro kitchenware and jewellery. Yet Lou is distracted. Johnny turns from a rail of jackets, catches her eye and smiles. Lou smiles back, conscious of her ears reddening as if he can read her private thoughts. How the years have changed him, Lou thinks as he moves on to the old Levi’s and checked shirts. He’s filled out just a little, softening his lanky frame and the sharper angles of his younger face, and it suits him.

They leave the shop, and Johnny touches Lou’s arm and points across the street. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘That’s the barber’s where one of the staff rushed out and asked you to marry him, remember?’ She laughs, having long forgotten the incident. Things like that don’t happen to her anymore.

They stop off for coffee, the rapid-fire catch-up between the girls and Johnny having slowed down to a more mellow pace. ‘So Johnny,’ Hannah says, putting an arm around his shoulders, ‘what happened with you and Rona?’

Johnny pauses. ‘Well, I used to think it was having Cal pretty young,’ he begins, swirling the wooden stirrer around his cup. ‘You know what it’s like, Sadie, with babies …’

‘Oh yeah. It changes everything. Not just the practical stuff, but the the way you are together …’

Johnny nods. ‘So there was all of that. We were young and thrown in at the deep end. But now’ – he glances at Lou – ‘I don’t think it was anything to do with Cal at all. Having a son is amazing, so I don’t regret me and Rona, not a bit. I just think maybe the two of us weren’t right, and never would have stayed together even if she hadn’t got pregnant.’

‘Johnny,’ Hannah says hesitantly, ‘why did you stop being in touch with us? We all tried to call, and I think Lou wrote to you too.’

Lou looks away as Johnny sips from his cup. ‘Yes, I know. It sounds pathetic now, but back then we were still trying to figure everything out, making it up as we went along really. And it’s what she wanted …’

‘Rona didn’t want you to be friends with us?’ Lou exclaims. ‘Why not?’

Johnny exhales. ‘She felt … threatened, I guess. She knew how close we all were …’ He turns to Lou and smiles. ‘I’m sorry. And yes, I did get your letter, Lou.’

‘Did you?’ She shuffles in her seat and wills Hannah to fire another pertinent question. But there’s just an awkward pause, and Lou senses Hannah and Sadie looking curiously at her, then at Johnny. Hannah removes her arm from around his shoulders and clasps her cup.

‘I should’ve replied,’ Johnny adds, ‘or at least explained.’

‘Oh, that was years ago now,’ Lou says quickly. ‘I’d forgotten all about it.’

‘Well, never mind,’ Hannah says briskly. ‘We’re all here together now and that’s all that matters. We won’t lose touch again.’

Everyone agrees, and when Sadie goes up to the counter to pick a selection of cakes for everyone, Hannah insists on helping her. Lou can sense Johnny looking at her and it feels as if her heart has been put on hold.

‘We’re not going to lose each other again, are we?’ he asks gently.

‘No, Johnny,’ Lou murmurs, silently thanking Hannah and Sadie for taking a terribly long time to choose those cakes. ‘I really don’t think we are.’

FIFTY-TWO

Spike had forgotten it costs 30p to get into the superloos.
30p for a pee
. Promising he won’t use any of the facilities and only wants to get his wallet back, Spike gushes his thanks as the sympathetic attendant opens the glass barrier for him.

Of course his wallet isn’t sitting patiently beside the basin where he washed his face. It’s nowhere to be seen, which leaves him no option but to call Lou and admit that he’s followed her to Glasgow. ‘Why?’ she’ll ask, at best taken aback but more likely, he realises now, pretty pissed off. And what can he possibly say? That he blagged a lift because Johnny Lynch – whom neither of them has seen for over a decade – happened to leave a weird message on their answerphone, about seeing Lou out on the town with her supposed boyfriend? Spike’s head is pounding but he doesn’t even have the money for a Paracetamol. He’s overreacted like a complete idiot, and on top of all that he’ll have to explain that not only has he rocked up to gatecrash her girlie weekend, but also has zero pence to his name.

Spike has never felt smaller, or more foolish, in his life.

He leaves the loos and steps out into the smoky fug outside the station, trying to calm his racing thoughts. He’s stranded in Glasgow, a city in which he no longer knows anyone – at least no one he’s been in touch with for years now. He’s all alone.

Get a grip
, he tells himself angrily.
You know this city like the back of your hand.
First priority, he decides, is to get some money. The only way he might possibly do this – ruling out snatching a handbag or begging in the street – is to utilise one of his many talents.

The afternoon is turning warmer now, and Spike can’t remember seeing a bluer sky. As he lights a cigarette, an idea starts to form – one which offers him a glimmer of hope. Spike is starting to feel more human now, his hangover finally clearing as he heads away from the station. Taking care to avoid Puccini’s, he quickens his pace, determined to get himself out of this mess.

Spike rarely feels more at home than when he is in a music shop. There’s something about looking at row upon row of guitars and knowing that he can play any one of them that makes everything seem right in his world. He
loves
playing guitars in shops. Someone always listens, even though they pretend not to; it’s one way of gaining an audience these days.

While Sound Shack is a mess, strewn with dog hair and chewy bones, this cavernous, three-storey building is neat, professional and entirely dedicated to the discerning musician. The ground floor has all the woodwind instruments, and drums are up on the second; Spike is reassured to see that the basic layout hasn’t changed. Taking the stairs two at a time, he gallops up to the first floor where the guitars are displayed. Here, although he pretends to browse the instruments, he’s really checking out the staff. There are only two currently on the shop floor: a teenager in a shrunken grey T-shirt, and an older man with a gingery beard, taking a guitar from the wall and handing it to a middle-aged man in a baseball cap.

No, they won’t do. To them, Spike’s just any one random bloke who’s just happened to walk in off the street. The younger guy would have been in primary school or possibly nursery when Spike lived in Glasgow, and he can tell the bearded one has an attitude. Spike’s spirits sink, weighed down by the pizza in his belly and an unavoidable sense that he is well and truly stuffed. He’ll have to call Lou, he decides, studying a wire rack bearing packets of strings.

‘Spike?’

He spins round and hesitates for a second as a heavy-set man with a shaven head beams at him. ‘Terry!’ he exclaims. ‘You’re still here …’

‘Still hanging on for my sins,’ Terry says with a grin. ‘Should’ve got a proper job by now …’

‘Yeah.’ Spike chortles, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets. ‘Good to see you, though. How’s it going?’

Terry shrugs. ‘It’s
going
. Tough times but we’re okay, y’know? So what are you doing here? Thought you moved away years ago.’

‘I did, I have … just up for a visit.’

‘Right. Still got family up here?’

‘Not in Glasgow, no. The old folks have moved out – they’re in sheltered housing now, down on the coast …’

‘Aww, hope they’re doing all right,’ Terry says.