‘Is Alex there, please?’ she whispered.
There was a weighty pause. ‘I’m so sorry, Amy love, he isn’t,’ his mum said in a tremulous voice that told Amy she knew everything. ‘I can go and get him, though – can you ring back in twenty minutes? Or he can ring you?’
‘No, no, it’s okay,’ she said quickly. She knew where Alex was. She had been with him last year, in his local, where all his mates gathered to see in the New Year. She felt glad he was following the routine. It meant he was getting on with things. He was okay without her. He really was. ‘Please don’t tell him I called. Happy New Year,’ she said, then hung up before his mother had a chance to say more.
59
Mark had stormed out of the pub to try to find Chloe. But she’d already gone. With Risto, by the look of it. He was about to go inside again when Charlotte came flying through the door.
‘Mark, there you are!’ she cried happily.
He smiled reluctantly and made a move to step around her.
‘Where are you going?’ she pouted. ‘I thought you might take me home, for a little Millennium celebration of our own,’ she intoned, as seductively as she could while obviously trying hard to balance.
He looked her up and down. She was wearing a low-cut dark blue sparkly top with tight jeans and high heels. She looked fantastic.
She was asking him to take her home.
He had a choice. Find Chloe. Continue down that path, which made him feel so alarmed as his mind oscillated between Chloe’s confused face and his father’s furious expression. Find Chloe. Who, after all, had gone with Risto.
Or he could give it up and take Charlotte home. And, undoubtedly, other girls like Charlotte in the future.
‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘Where do you live?’
As they moved off, there was a chorus of voices as the countdown began in the pub behind them.
60
Risto dragged Chloe through the crowds in the small square near her flat. As they moved along, people began to chant. ‘Ten… nine…’
They stopped instinctively and joined in.
‘… two… one… HAPPY NEW YEAR!’
‘Happy Millennium.’ Risto smiled at Chloe as people hugged and kissed and danced around them. He leaned forward and kissed her quickly and softly on the mouth, politely but with a definite promise. And to Chloe’s surprise as he caught her off-guard, for just a moment the churning thoughts of Mark disappeared as she leaned into him.
61
The pub was a seething, rolling mass of drunken, sweaty bodies overbalancing as they revelled in the first seconds of a new year. A new century. A new millennium.
Alex was trying his best to pretend to join in as his mates danced round him, whooping and cheering. He could feel the note in his pocket; he’d memorised it already:
Where was she? he wondered. He wholeheartedly wished he were with her, not here in this claustrophobic press of people.
He forced himself out of his distraction as his mum and dad arrived, and he watched them make their way over.
‘Happy New Year, love,’ Alex’s mum said, hugging him. She pulled away from him, and looked at him with a strange expression, as though debating something.
‘What?’ He attempted a quizzical smile.
She paused, then the moment passed. ‘Nothing. Never mind.’ She smiled too and hugged Alex again, and his father leaned over and handed him another pint as the party went on.
62
The only way to tell the New Year had come was a truck with lots of young boys leaning over the sides, swinging their shirts and yelling, ‘Happy New Year’.
There were a few other people in the restaurant, mostly couples or groups, and everyone was pretty quiet. However, there was one woman on her own with a shock of curly hair and kind eyes, wearing the baggy shirt and trousers combo that was almost a traveller’s uniform. As the van full of screeching lads went past, followed by a car with a waving Santa perched on top, she came over.
‘May I?’ She indicated the empty seat.
Amy recoiled at first, but then suddenly craved company. She glanced at the other people in the bar. They weren’t going anywhere. And this woman didn’t look like she’d follow her, or attack her once she’d befriended her. Besides, Amy decided, she didn’t want to be watching over her shoulder all the time. And she could always move on. Now she was free to run away whenever she chose.
She wished she could be someone else; someone completely different.
Maybe that was the answer.
Immediately a person floated into her mind. The sunniest person at school. The girl everyone loved, who didn’t seem to have a care in the world. Who floated through life, smiling. What was her name?
The woman was looking at her curiously, still waiting for an answer.
‘Sorry.’ Amy shook her head and gave a small smile. ‘Of course.’ She gestured to the seat. ‘Happy New Year.’
‘Same to you.’ The woman sat down. ‘Amazing, isn’t it – the Millennium’s arrived in most parts of the world now, and so far nothing terrible seems to have happened. So much time spent putting the fear of god into people, and it nearly always amounts to nothing.’ She leaned across the table and held out her hand to shake. ‘I’m Sophie.’
Slowly, Amy lifted her arm and tentatively grasped the other woman’s fingers.
‘Julia,’ she replied.
PART THREE
