One In A Billion (5 page)

'
Are you new?' Toby said again. 'I live at number twenty eight. It's not as big as this. What's your name?'

'
Alice', Alice said.

'
How old are you?'

'
Eight.'

'
Me too.'

'
Are you going to school?' Toby said. 'It's over there in the next village. Do you want me to show you around? I know all of the best places. Some people say it's boring, but it's not boring if you know what you're looking for.'

'
Ok', Alice said. 'that would be nice.'

When Toby smiled, his whole face lit up, and it made Alice smile too. His teeth looked like gravestones, because each one had space in between it, and they looked like they'd been put in at different times, so they weren't part of a complete set, but it made him look unique, and Alice liked it. His ears were so thin you could see the light coming through them, and the veins inside.

'
Who's your friend?' James said, standing with his arms crossed and leaning against a pillar at the entrance to the house, trying to look cool.

'
No-one', Alice said secretively, as though she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't.

'
That your brother?' Toby said.

Alice nodded. James stared at Toby with a look of mistrust.

'
Mum's looking for you', James said.

'
I've got to go', Alice said to Toby.

She ruffled Miro's hair, checked nothing was coming, and then skipped back across the street.

'
See you in school', Toby said and then went on his way, carrier bag of dead fish slung over his shoulder dripping slimy goo from a hole in the corner, all the way down the back of his T-shirt.

'
Who was that pansy?' James said on the short walk back towards the house, his arm around his sister's shoulder just to show her who was boss.

'
No-one', Alice said again.

'
Yeah well, didn't mum and dad tell you already, you can't trust anyone from the countryside. They're all inbred and stupid and if you make friends with him, he'll suck your brains out.'

Alice wriggled away from him and ran towards the front door. James set chase, but Alice got there first. She was a good sprinter, and had grown much taller at this age than James ever had, and was now only a few inches shorter than him. At the door, her father caught her in his arms.

'
Lunch time', Peter said.

The house was a mess. All of the furniture had finally been put where it belonged, the bed's were up and the essential items had been unpacked, but the two front rooms were chaos, the hallway was a nightmare of torn cardboard, unlabelled boxes and bubble wrap, and amongst it all somewhere were the car keys.

Over lunch, Alice asked her parents what inbred meant, and James couldn't help but snigger at the very specific definition her father gave.

Peter certainly didn't beat around the bush when it came to explaining things, and despite the rest of the world feeling uncomfortable with certain topics of conversation, he never seemed to feel embarrassed. It was a consequence of being a doctor, he would say, where he'd learnt from his years at university that giving someone a specific and detailed answer to a question was the only way to deal with it properly. There was no point in getting excited or embarrassed. He had, after all, given James the birds and the bees talk when he was 11, which James had passed on with certain pride to his sister, the bits at least that he could get across without laughing.

In the afternoon, James complained that he couldn't find his teddy bears, his racing cars, his action men and other vital everyday items he'd need in order to get through the rest of the day without issue, while Alice set up her room the way she wanted it, having made sure all of her boxes were labelled in advance and easy to discover amongst the assorted chaos of everyone else's stuff. Afterwards she read, and wrote in her diary that today two things had happened. She'd moved from the city to a house in the country, and she'd already made a new friend. A boy with sticky out ears and dirty hands, with a dog called Miro and a bag of mouldy fish. She knew the fish wasn't really mouldy, but she liked to add her own touch to the story, whether it was true or not. She was a writer after all.

She drew a picture of Toby emptying the contents of his bag onto the road, and made sure she enhanced both his teeth and his ears. She dotted freckles across his face and drew a pile of fish on the road under the bag.

The view from the window of her bedroom in her old house had been the 'George and Dragon' pub on the corner, and the neon lights of the kebab shop. Here she could see nothing but rolling fields and pollution free skies, and it made her happy. She could even see stars begin to twinkle as the sun fell away.

She thought about her best friend Kaylee, the rest of the people that sat on her desk at school, Lydia included, her old teacher Mrs Carr, and the headmaster Mr Pincer, and then she thought about her new school, the one that she'd be starting on Monday, and how excited that made her feel. She was happy she already knew Toby, but she hoped that he'd wash his hands at least before turning up.

While her parents spent a good part of the rest of the evening achieving very little else but moving the mess from the front two rooms to the back two rooms, Alice fell asleep, and dreamt about her brand new life.

She was young enough to be happy starting again, and hadn't really spent enough time in Earlsfield anyway to build up enough of a life to miss it. She was also an adventurous girl, much more so than her older brother, and seemed happy to try new things, while he was almost the complete opposite. James already knew what he liked, and there was nothing else he needed in his life apart from those things. He was going to be a doctor like his father, and work as a surgeon in the same hospital when he was old enough to do so. He was going to play rugby at the weekends, and if he was good enough and trained hard enough, he was going to play for England.

The only thing that Alice knew for certain, was that she was going to be a writer, and nothing else along the way mattered that much as long as she reached her goal. In fact, all the other things along the way would just make her better at what she did, because it would give her ideas for more stories. As long as she was writing things every day she knew she'd be happy, and the great thing was, that Alice knew writing was something she could do anywhere, and quite often did. She could do it tucked up in bed at night, she could do it on the bus to school in the morning, she could do it when she was daydreaming in class or while she was eating her dinner. She only needed a pencil and a piece of paper, and sometimes a rubber when she made mistakes. When she was old enough she was going to ask her parents for a typewriter, because that's what she knew would make her the best of all.

Chapter 4

'
You have got to be kidding me', I said, looking at the two playboy bunny outfits that Sophia was holding up.

'
I know, right', she said excitedly, 'aren't they cute?'

Some of the other waitresses were already dressed in them and looked ridiculous. Ok, they looked ridiculous to me, but I'm sure they looked exactly like the organiser of this event wanted them to look like to everyone else. Cute, sexy and erm, rabbit like?

I worked during the day in a small Italian restaurant, but every once in a while got roped in on one of Sophia's evening functions. This was some kind of charity do/award ceremony/who knows what, and I would have walked straight out of the door again if the money wasn't so good.

'
It's never going to fit me', I complained to Sophia, while she merrily stripped off to her panties and bra without a care in the world. Sophia would have done the whole ceremony naked if they'd asked her too, and she probably would have preferred it.

'
Just put it on', Sophia said, 'it's only a bit of fun. You'll look good.'

'
It's demeaning', I said. 'Why do we have to be playboy bunnies? Why can't we be, I don't know, women superheroes, or famous women writers.'

'
Women writers aren't sexy', Sophia said. 'And besides which, we all have to look the same.'

'
What is this thing for anyway?' I said, reluctantly pulling off my clothes.

'
Rich people', Sophia said, 'So make sure you smile when you pour the champagne, you might get a tip.'

'
That'll be the day', I said.

'
Fifteen minutes', Janice called out. She was our boss, and looked like she was made entirely of wire bent around itself several times to make a frame, over which someone had hung some clothes. She was at least seventy, but could have been double that, had smoked all of her life and spent all of the years I'd known her, and god knows how many before that, eating her food through a straw so she didn't mess up her lipstick. She came over to check us both out.

'Marvellous
Sophie', she said to Sophia, never able to get her name right. Sophia didn't let it bother her. 'Who's your friend?'

I had met this woman a handful of times, and every time we had the same conversation over and over again.

'
Alice', Sophia said, to save me the trouble.

'
She's older than most of the usual girls', Janice said, in a matter of fact way. It wasn't anything more than an observation, and she didn't mean to upset me by saying it. I refrained from telling her I'd been one of her most faithful staff members for several years now, because I knew there wasn't any point anyway. She'd only forget for the next time around.

Janice buzzed off and I finished getting dressed. The outfit was too tight of course, and it was made of that horribly cheap material that gave you a rash if you wore it for too long. Sophia by contrast looked amazing. She was one of those girls that looked amazing in everything. She wasn't conventionally attractive, she just knew how to carry herself with a confidence that made men, sometimes the right men too, fall at her feet and fight each other to kiss them. I was pretty jealous of how she managed that.

We were in the National Portrait Gallery, one of my favourite buildings in London, and somehow the organisers of the event had arranged to have access for their clients after hours. We were limited to a few of the rooms on the first floor, but it was pretty amazing to be here even if it meant wearing a playboy bunny outfit several sizes too small in order to do so, that made me mince around like a tightrope walker for fear of splitting the seams. There were about a dozen of us in all, some girls I'd worked with before and some new ones, all of whom looked much younger and much more suited to their costumes than I did. Sizes must have gone down, generation by generation, I reasoned. Either that or my outfit had shrunk in the wash.

Janice rounded us up, adjusted the costumes of a few of the girls, and then gave us instructions on what our requirements were for the evening.

'
Smile and have a good time', she said, 'and don't let me catch you drinking or eating on the job.' She winked at me when she said that one. 'If you need to smoke, you can have a cigarette every hour, just make sure you don't come back in smelling of smoke.'

Sophia smiled at me.

'
What?' I said, knowing exactly what that look meant.

'
He could be out there', Sophia said. 'You know, your one.'

'
Pass', I said. 'I've given up already.'

'
Didn't Marth text back?' she said his name as though he were a British Lord.

'
Yes', I said. 'He did. He texted, he emailed and he called six times. I had to block him.'

'
You obviously made an impression.' Sophia said.

'
To the wrong person.'

Sophia and I collected up trays of champagne glasses. They had these special paddles that made it much easier to carry them without the risk of dropping them all over the floor, like I seemed to have the habit of doing from time to time. Sophia wasted no time in guzzling down a glass, which gave her paddle a missing spot.

'
Soph!' I said.

'
Don't tell anyone', she said and winked at me.

We made our way to the door and the waiting guests. One round of champagne, one round of canapes. That was the cycle. We had to smile, make our way round the guests, pour champagne into empty glasses and collect others that had been left in random locations. It was a pretty easy job.

'
How do I look?' I said, just before we entered the lion's den.

'
Knockout', Sophia said with a smile, and we followed a chain of other girls out into the heart of the post event reception.

It was a mixed bunch. Some people in suits, some people in casual clothes, men and women of different ages. I didn't see anyone famous, not that I would have recognised them anyway, and I looked for Tom Conti again, but he wasn't there. I'm hopeless when it comes to films, and I'm not the typical girl who flicks through celebrity magazines and knows who the latest famous for five minutes foetuses are. I rely on Sophia for that, but even she was stumped that night.