One song in particular hit me hard. It was called ‘Where Did You Go? (Uncensored version)’ and as I listened it was as much as I could do not to weep. I could almost have written it myself.
Where did you go?
Why did you leave me?
I thought it was love.
Where the fuck are you?
Free me!
* * *
I held off visiting Billy’s parents’ house for almost a month. Some days, I’d wake up thinking that I had to see him, that it wasn’t a desire, but a need, and other days I’d wake up drenched in sweat from some nightmare about the horror of seeing him. On those days I felt convinced that seeing Billy would be like pulling the pin from a grenade – a grenade that could destroy my life. But the truth is that one way or the other I thought about Billy every day.
He could pop into my thoughts at any moment – I could be hanging out the washing, playing with the kids or sitting on the loo, and suddenly there he’d be. He even popped into my mind once or twice when I was nestled in Rob’s arms, in bed.How would that feel?I wondered, despite myself. Snuggling with Rob felt as lovely as ever, but since Lou’s birth any desire for sex had vanished. Would it have been the same had it been Billy’s stiffy pressed against my buttocks instead of Rob’s? The thought made me feel guilty; it actually made me feel like I was beingunfaithful. But I couldn’t stop myself from wondering all the same.
In the end I put together a lie that was intricate enough to make everything seem OK: I was happy with my life with Rob, Lucy and Lou. In fact I was so happy with the choices I’d made that there was no danger in pursuing a friendship with Billy. After all, that’s all it was and all it could ever be – a friendship. I was lucky enough to know a pop star and it would be a waste not to make the most of it.
It was a Saturday when I finally cracked and went round there, and I’d convinced myself I was just going for a walk around Dane Park. I had baby fat I needed to lose, after all. It was time to get serious about getting trim.
Lucy ran around after the pigeons while, on a bench, beneath a shawl, I fed Lou. But all I could think about the whole time was Billy and how unlikely it was that he’d be there anyway.
And he wasn’t there, either. To my dismay his parents had moved away, a year before. The open garage now housed nothing more than a rusty Renault5.
A young woman, also with a baby strapped to her chest, answered the door. ‘It’s the Ruddles you’re after then?’ she asked once I’d explained.
‘It’s Riddle,’ I said, ‘but yeah, that’s them.’
‘No, it’s definitely Ruddle,’ she said. ‘I remember from all the paperwork when we bought the place. Mr and Mrs D.Ruddle.’
‘Ruddle,’ I repeated. ‘Gosh.’ Even his name had been a lie. Itwaspart of his pop star persona.
I asked if she had a forwarding address but she didn’t. ‘I think they did one of those redirection things,’ she said. ‘So maybe if you wrote to them here, it’ll get forwarded. I’m not sure. It was a while ago.’
‘And you’ve no idea where they went? Not even the town?’
‘Yeah, it was…’ She frowned and hitched her baby a bit higher. ‘He’s heavy!’ she said as an aside.
‘Your first?’
She nodded.
‘They get heavy really fast,’ I agreed.
‘It’s that place where they had them little steam trains,’ she said. She pronounced littlelickle, which in an adult seemed strange, but kind of touching. ‘D’you know where I mean? I’m trying to think of the bloody name. Down near Folkestone.’
‘Steam trains?’ I repeated.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Oh! Hythe and Dymchurch, that’s the one. Me dad used to take us there all the time. Obsessed with trains, he was. That’s why I remembered it. The Hythe and Dymchurch railway.’
‘So they moved to Hythe?’ I asked. ‘The Riddles – Ruddles. Or Dymchurch?’
‘Dymchurch, I think,’ she said. ‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was Dymchurch.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘That’s great.’
I started to walk away but she called me back.
