The most feral and frightening human sound I have ever heard issued from between Maurie’s lips, and raised goosebumps all over my arms and shoulders. It was followed by the strangest hush as the anguish in his voice communicated itself to everyone on the street. I shoved my way through to him, turning him by the shoulders to lead him away. He offered no resistance, his face a mask of misery and disbelief.
‘He thought he could fly,’ I said.
And Maurie’s head turned slowly. He looked at me with such incomprehension.
The police siren was very close now. And the Stones were singing something about being afraid of what they’d find.
Luke said, ‘Nothing we can do for him, Maurie. We should go. We really should go.’
‘What about our stuff?’ Dave said.
‘Doesn’t matter.’ Luke’s eyes were open so wide with stress, I could see the whites of them all around his irises. ‘If we don’t want to get caught up in all this, we have to go.’
I nodded, and we almost dragged Maurie away along the street out of the light of the street lamps. Dave tried the gate to the gardens and it opened into darkness. A darkness that swallowed us as we ran off across cut grass that felt soft beneath our feet, through the shadows of trees towards the distant light and the sounds of traffic in Old Brompton Road.
Behind us I heard the wail of the siren as the first police car arrived, its blue light strobing in the night.
II
At this time of night the waiting room at Euston was all but deserted. Out on the concourse passengers stood in desultory groups of twos and threes, smoking, watching the arrivals and departures boards, times and platforms, names of places only ever seen on railway timetables, destinations known only to those who lived there.
Maurie sat between Luke and me in the far corner, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, face buried in his hands. He had wept inconsolably on the tube, and now seemed overtaken by inertia. Almost catatonic, like JP’s naked lady in Ohio. Luke had his arm around Maurie’s shoulder. He leaned forward and spoke so softly that I could barely hear what he said.
‘What happened, Maurie? In Dr Robert’s study.’
Whatever he had seen, he was a witness to murder. But he wasn’t saying anything. Neither then, nor in all the years since. He gave the slightest shake of his head, before straightening up, to stare straight ahead into the smoky gloom of the waiting room. His face was still shiny wet with tears, but his eyes were dry now. Red and puffy.
‘Poor Jeff,’ he said. ‘Poor Jobby Jeff.’
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. ‘Maurie, you have to tell me what happened to Rachel.’
His head swung slowly round and the pain in his eyes was almost too great for me to bear. I struggled to maintain eye contact.
‘I don’t have to tell you anything.’
But I wasn’t going to give up that easily. ‘Where is she?’
‘I told you, she’s gone.’
I sighed my exasperation. ‘Gone where?’
‘Just gone, Jack. Away from you. Away from all of us. Just gone. Forget her.’
The door swung open, and Dave came in, breathing smoke from his final cigarette. ‘We’ve missed the last train tae Glasgow. Next one’s no’ till the morning. We’re gonnae have tae spend the night here.’
‘Shit.’ I banged my head back against the wall and closed my eyes.
Dave sat down opposite and sucked on his cigarette. And I heard Luke’s voice, quiet but filled with determination.
‘I’m not going back.’
I opened my eyes wide and turned to look at him. ‘How do you mean?’
‘I’m staying here.’
‘In London?’
He nodded. ‘We left nothing behind at Onslow Gardens to identify us. Some dirty linen, a couple of guitars and a melodica. Those goons in the Lake District ripped up Jeff’s driver’s licence, so they won’t even know who he is. You can go back home and just pick up your lives where you left off.’ He paused. ‘Not me. I’m not going back to them. To my parents. To the Kingdom Hall and tramping the streets in all weathers. For better or worse, this is where I’m going to make my life.’
‘You’ve no’ got any dosh,’ Dave said.
Luke shrugged. ‘I’ve got a few quid. As much as I’ll save on my train fare, anyway. I’ll survive.’
I looked at him with his wide green, innocent eyes and remembered all the good times we’d had. The laughs. The madness. And I thought about Jeff, and his Veronica. Five of us had run away that fateful night more than a month ago. Only three of us would be going back. And nothing, nothing would ever be the same again.
III
And so we spent that night in the waiting room at Euston Station, knowing that we wouldn’t sleep, and yet drifting off in moments of overwhelming fatigue to dreams of Jeff, and his poor broken body impaled on the railings in Onslow Gardens. I don’t know how often I replayed the moment when he launched himself into space, believing he could fly, and searched for something I might have done to stop it. But it always ended in the same, tragic conclusion.
Again, and again, and again.
In moments of waking misery, I saw Rachel’s black, black eyes gazing at me out of the darkness, the light in them conveying, in turn, love, hurt and betrayal. And I cursed my cowardice.
Morning brought no relief from the torment. Luke went and bought our tickets for us, and we gathered on the concourse as the station came to life around us. A new day. The first without Jeff. Or Rachel. The sounds of trains revving on their platforms. The hiss of brakes. The monotonous announcement of arrivals and departures reverberating around the rafters.
Luke handed over our tickets and each of us in turn solemnly shook his hand. Because boys, especially boys from big macho Rain Town, didn’t hug. At the last, I took his right hand in my left, and pressed a bunch of folded notes into his palm.
‘What the hell’s this?’ He withdrew his hand as if I had burned him, and he looked in confusion at the notes he was holding.
‘That’s everything we’ve got among the three of us,’ I said.
‘I can’t take this!’
‘Of course you can. What bloody use do we have for it? Can’t spend it on the train, and won’t need it at the other end.’
He was touched and embarrassed. ‘Thanks,’ he muttered. Then, very quickly, as if he didn’t trust himself to say more, ‘See you sometime, then.’
And I saw his eyes filling up just before he turned away to walk briskly across the concourse, shoving his hands deep in his pockets.
2015
Chapter eighteen
I
‘And I never saw him again until we stepped off the bus today at Victoria Coach Station.’ Jack’s voice died in the dark, to be replaced by a very long silence. And he began to think that Ricky had fallen asleep. ‘Rick?’
‘I’m here, Grampa. Just...’ His voice was hushed. ‘Poor Jeff.’
‘Yes. Poor Jeff.’
‘You never hugged Luke back then, but you did today.’
Jack couldn’t resist a smile that no one would see. ‘I did. Times have changed, Rick. Not sure how, or why. Seems we have permission to show our emotions, these days.’