Alice Through the Plastic Sheet (3 page)

And instead he found a rage within him he’d long forgotten, or never even guessed he had.

He stood his ground.

“Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never”—“You
fucks
!” he screamed at the music. “You selfish
fucks
! I’ve got work in the morning! And a wife, and a son, and a dog—we’ve all got work in the morning!”

And up on the first floor he saw a curtain twitch—a little chink of light, then gone.

“I see you!” he raged. “I see you up there! Do you think I can’t see you?” He picked up a loose piece of crazy paving, he ran towards the house, towards that noise, he hurled it up at the window. It struck. For a moment he thought he’d broken the glass, terrified he had—then he
hoped
he had, hoped he’d smashed the whole fucking pane in—and was disappointed when the paving bounced back harmlessly.

“I’m coming to get you!” Alan screamed.

“We’ll take a cup of kindness yet, for the sake of auld lang syne . . . !”

He raced out of their garden and into his own. He scrabbled at the door of his garage. He pulled out a metal stepladder, it clanked in his grasp. He felt his jacket rip under the strain, but that was too bad,
fuck
Alice for making him wear a jacket in the first place. For a terrible moment as he lugged the ladder out into the darkness he thought the song might have stopped, and he didn’t want that, then what would he do?—but no, it was back on for another bout, ‘Auld Lang Syne’ was ringing in another new year, just so loud, just so selfish, just so fucking festive. He dragged the ladder out of his garden, first pulling on one side then on the other, it looked as if the two of them were dancing together to the music.

And now he was leaning the ladder against their house—no,
slamming
it against the house, and up he went, the metal rungs creaking under his weight—“I’m coming to get you!” he shouted again, but perhaps less confidently than before, and he knew his rage was still powering him on, but maybe it was starting to ebb away, who knows, just a little? And he looked down once, and he wished he hadn’t, because the night was so black now, everything was so
black
, and he couldn’t see the ground below. But still he climbed, “I’m coming to get you,” but almost softly now, like it was a secret, and suddenly there were no more rungs to climb, he was at the top, and—look! happy coincidence!—he was right by the window. And there was no light behind, the curtain was closed tight. “Hey!” He banged upon the glass. “Hey! Open up! Open up!” And this close to the music he thought it was buffeting him, that the force might knock him from the ladder, but he was strong, he was holding firm—nothing could stop him now, and any terror he might be feeling in his gut, that was just a
private
terror no one could see, right? Right? “Open up! One last chance!” And he banged again—

And the curtains opened.

And the music stopped.

Later on, he would doubt what he saw in that room. He would suspect that he’d misunderstood it at some fundamental level. Alice would ask him about what had happened that night, and he’d lie, he’d just say he never got a glimpse inside the house at all. That the neighbours had resolutely refused to show themselves, that he still had no idea who their enemies were. It was so much easier that way. He almost began to believe it himself.

The curtains pulled back all the way, they opened wide and he was blinded for a moment in the light of the room. So maybe that’s why he couldn’t see who had opened them, because someone had to have, surely, they couldn’t open themselves? But there was no one in the room—no one—Alan thought there was at first—he gasped when he saw those figures, they looked so human—so lifelike—but . . .

But they were dummies. Dummies, the sort you’d get in clothes shops, modelling the latest fashions. There was a child wearing sports gear, and he was lying on his back, his body splayed out over cardboard boxes. The child looked dead in that position, or wounded, that wasn’t a natural way for a body to lie—so why then was he smiling so widely? There was a man, and he was in a business suit (and, Alan noted, not a suit as good as his, this dummy didn’t have someone like Alice to dress him, quite clearly!)—and he was almost standing, propped in the corner of the room, head swivelled towards the window, almost facing Alan but not quite, almost grinning at Alan, almost grinning
because
of Alan, but not really, not quite. And the third figure—the closest figure—oh—she was naked, and Alan felt such guilt suddenly, here he was staring at her, like she wasn’t a woman at all, just an object, a slab of meat—but wait, she
was
just an object, just a dummy, what was the problem? And her breasts were perfect symmetrical mounds, and they looked quite inhuman, so why did Alan want to look anyway?—and her legs were long and smooth and had no trace of hair on them, the (frankly) pretty face locked into a smile too, but it was a cautious smile, a demure smile—it made her look so innocent, as if she needed protecting—or, wait, did it just make her look stupid? She was bending over, her arse in the air, one hand dangling towards the floor as if in a painful yoga position—and now it looked to Alan as if the man in the corner was
inspecting
that arse, as if he were examining it critically, and his grin was because he had that job, who wouldn’t grin if their job was arse-examiner?—and the little boy in the sports clothes was rolling around on the floor laughing at the fun of it. And all three of them wore Santa hats, little red Santa hats, as if they weren’t just part of some Christmas revelry but were Christmas decorations them very selves.

And that’s when the dog began to bark, and it was loud, and it was fierce, and it was the fury of a dog defending its territory and its family from attack—and in a moment the curtains pulled back shut, impossibly fast—and Alan was lost again in the darkness, and suddenly the stepladder was falling one way and he felt himself falling another. “I’m going to die,” he thought, quite clearly, “I’m falling back into the black,” and down he crashed, and he wondered whether death would hurt. And he wasn’t bothered, and he wondered
why
he wasn’t bothered, and his brain said to him, “God, Alan, just how depressed
are
you?” but he put that out of his head quickly, he always put it from his head, he had no time for depression, and besides, he didn’t want that to be his final thought as he died. But he wasn’t dead—that fact now dawned on him—he hadn’t fallen that far after all—and he was lying in the little flowerbed that only so recently Barbara and Eric had worked at hard to make look pretty.

There was still barking, but it was definitely inside, so he was safe—but what if the beast burst through the door? And he hadn’t got time to pick up the stepladder, they could
keep
the stepladder—he stumbled to his feet, ran from the garden, so fast that it wasn’t until he reached his own bedroom he realized how bruised he must be and how much those bruises hurt.

“You got them to turn down the music,” said Alice, in the dark. She sounded snug and cosy beneath the duvet. “Well done.”

“Yes,” said Alan. “But I think I woke up their dog.”

That night Alan dreamed of the woman dummy. He couldn’t help it. He dreamed of her breasts, and decided quite formally that they were a lot firmer than Alice’s—from what he could remember of Alice’s breasts, that is. The dummy’s were too perfect to be human, too round, too sculpted—but inhuman was better than nothing, surely. He dreamed that there
had
been hair on that too smooth plastic skin, something soft there after all. He dreamed that the dummy was smiling at him.

And the next morning Alan woke up, and was surprised at how refreshed he felt. He was in a good mood. A cloud had lifted—he’d known the cloud would just go away if he didn’t think about it, and now he could be happy again, couldn’t he?—he couldn’t even remember why he’d been unhappy in the first place. He thought of the breasts and he smiled—and he looked across at the still sleeping Alice and he smiled at her too, oh, bless. He felt he could face the day with equanimity. And next door was quiet, no music, no barking, everything back to normal.

He went to his car. The stepladder was propped against the garage door. The neighbours had brought it back. That was kind of them. The neighbours had brought it back. The neighbours had been around and brought it back. All smiles, how kind of them, all smiles and breasts. The neighbours had been around, they had left that still dead house, they had stolen into his garden in the night, they had come on to his property, they could have come up to his very front door, they could have been leaving their footprints all over his welcome mat, they could have been wiping their plastic hands all over his door knocker. How kind. The neighbours—they’d been around—in the dark, whilst he slept, whilst his family slept, whilst they slept and would never have known. They’d brought the stepladder back. He could have it back. He could use the stepladder again. He was welcome. He was welcome. He could come over with his stepladder, and climb up, and look through their windows whenever he wanted. He was welcome.

Alan felt a pain in his chest, and had to sit down to catch his breath.

At work, sales continued to slump. Alan called a meeting for his staff. He told them to buck their ideas up. That everyone was counting on them. That he was trying his best to be harsh but fair, everyone could see him being harsh but fair, right? Some of them smiled, and promised Alan that they would indeed buck up, and a couple of them even seemed convincing.

At home Alice would tell him that the barking was at its loudest in the afternoons. It’d start a little after lunchtime usually, and would continue throughout the day. The worst of it was that Bobby’s dog was incensed by it. He’d run around the house, yipping back in pointless fury. Alice said she could cope with one dog barking, maybe, at a pinch. But to have two in stereo was beyond her.

The dog next door would settle down each evening. That was when the music came on. It was always Christmas music, but you could only ever tell which song it was by standing out in the front garden. That way you heard not only the beat, but could get the full benefit of the sleigh bells, the choir, the dulcet tones of Bing Crosby, the odd comical parp from Rudolf the Reindeer’s shiny red nose.

They tried calling the police. The police took down their details. Said they’d drive by and see for themselves.

One evening the neighbours played ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ seventy-four times straight times in succession. Bing Crosby sang it. Bing sounded angry. Bing hated them and wanted them to suffer. When the song eventually segued into ‘Once in Royal David’s City,’ Alan and Alice felt so relieved they almost cried.

And in the day time, Alice would tell Alan, when Bobby came home from school, as he did his homework and his chores, he’d be humming Christmas carols under his breath. She asked him to stop. She screamed at him to shut the hell up.

At work, Alan was forced to call an emergency meeting. He had to use that word in the memo, ‘emergency.’ He told his sales force to work harder. He begged them. Or else he’d be obliged to take punitive measures. He had to use that phrase in the follow-up memo, ‘punitive measures.’ One or two openly laughed at him.

Alice said she’d called the police again, and that they’d just said the same thing as before. So Alan called them. He explained the situation very calmly. The police took down his details. Said they’d drive by. Said they’d see for themselves.

The neighbours were at last unpacking their belongings. Their front lawn was littered with cardboard boxes, sheets of plastic wrapping. The breeze would blow them over the fence. And each morning Alan would leave for work, and walk through a flurry of Styrofoam and polystyrene balls.

The dog continued to bark. Bobby’s dog stopped. Bobby’s dog couldn’t take it anymore. He’d hide in the kitchen when the barking started, and he’d whimper. He’d piss on the floor in fear. He’d throw up.

Alice told Alan that he had to speak to the neighbours again. To go over there, knock on their door, demand an answer. He suggested they should do it together, that as a family they would more represent a united front. Bobby asked if he could come too, Bobby got very excited, and his parents said no, and Bobby got disappointed and a little cross. Alan and Alice walked to the neighbours’ house. The music playing was ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ again, but it wasn’t Bing this time, it was some other version, so that was good, that was all right. The welcome mat read “Welcome—Welcome to our Home Sweet Home!” Neither Alan nor Alice wanted to tread on it. They stood in the porch and knocked and called through the letterbox. There was no reply. “We’re not giving in,” Alice told Alan, and he agreed. “We’re not going home until we’ve got this straightened out.”

But some hours later they had to.

The police told them they should stop phoning them. What they were doing, they said, was harassment. Not only to the neighbours, but to the police receptionist. Their neighbours were fine, good people; they shouldn’t hate them just because they were different. “But different in what way?” asked Alan, and he wasn’t angry, and he clearly wasn’t shouting, so he didn’t think he deserved the subsequent warning. “Just different.”

Alan and Alice tried knocking on the doors of other people in the street. Neighbours they’d never said hello to, not in all those years. But no one was ever in.

One evening Alan came home to find Bobby was in the front garden. He was playing in all the bubble wrap. “Look, Daddy,” he said, “I can make it go pop!” He was jumping on it, rolling around in it, setting off a thousand tiny explosions. He was laughing so much. Alan told him to get away from it, get inside the house. It wasn’t theirs, it was rubbish, get away. Bobby looked so hurt—but couldn’t he play in it, couldn’t he and Daddy play in it together? “It’s not safe,” said Alan. “You stupid boy, you idiot. It isn’t
clean
.”

And Bobby still looked hurt. His mouth hung down in a sad little pout. But then the pout became a scowl. His face contorted. It actually contorted. And slowly, Bobby raised his hand, he raised a single finger. He held it out defiantly at his father.