Putting Alice Back Together (28 page)

I know we weren’t getting on so well before I left, and I’m sorry if I was moody—I know I was a pain but I had a lot of trouble at work and I can’t tell you how relieved I am to have left the Australia office.

I know you won’t believe this, I KNOW how old and sleazy he is, but a few months back, when I was in a bad place—well, I won’t go into detail, but Ice Pick Man and I…

I wasn’t with Paul then. In fact, we met just after
that. It’s just been hell, fronting up to work each day since then. He’s never made mention of it, I just couldn’t stand working there and seeing him every day knowing what I let him do to me.

I wish I’d spoken to you about it at the time. I was so ashamed, though, I didn’t know how.

Please email me or, better, pick up the bloody phone when I ring.

I miss you.

Nicole

I wish she had been able to speak to me.

Or that I’d been able to speak to her.

There’s so much I want to say.

Do these men just know when we’re feeling like crap? Do we have some invisible sign that only bastards can see?

I could see now how she ran straight into a relationship with Paul. I don’t know that Paul’s a bastard, but I know Nic deserves better than him, and I am honestly not talking about money.

You went straight into a relationship with Hugh
. I can almost hear Big Tits’ response if I talk to her about this, except I
know
Hugh’s not a bastard. For him, I kept up my façade too well—maybe his guard was down?

Maybe he was so confused about Gemma that he didn’t see the nice guys’ invisible sign that should have warned him this woman was trouble.

From: Alice

To: [email protected]

I’m sorry I’ve been quiet. I’m honestly not sulking. I’ve had some stuff…

Then I stop writing and I hit ‘Delete’.

I don’t know what to say. It’s not something I can put in an email and not something I can say on the phone. I don’t know, even if she was here, that I could tell her.

That I even want her to know.

She’s one of my best friends, yet I don’t want to tell her, so I fire back an email, taking care not to hit ‘Reply’ and making no mention of Ice Pick Man, just in case Wanker Paul checks it (I’m quite sure he does). I just say that I’m sorry for being a moody bitch too, and always glad to hear from her.

I don’t want to tell her.

‘You don’t have to tell anyone anything you don’t want to. Apart from me.’ Lisa gives her pussycat smile that means she’s just made a joke and I find myself smiling back, but she clarifies, because there are so many things I clearly don’t get. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.’

Instead of dwelling on Nicole, though, I talk about my decision to cram for my music entrance exam and my hope of studying further.

It was going to be, I told Lisa, the hardest three months of my life.

But since when did she agree with me?

‘I think you’ve already done the hardest bit, Alice.’ She gave me a brief upturn of her lips. ‘And you survived it.’

And she wasn’t talking about Dad or Hugh, or my sort of breakdown, or the bank or the job loss or…

She was talking about Lydia.

Okay, that should sustain me, I decided as I paid the annoying, perpetually bubbly receptionist.

I would do this for Lydia; I would practise and practise and practise some more—and it did sustain me, for a few days.

Then dark clouds gathered and I took fifty minutes off to prepare two-minute noodles and pore through endless emails about Nicole’s shagging wedding. I was an expert in procrastination and the wedding proved an excellent distraction from advancing my future. She had a coffee theme. I thought at first she was joking. I truly did.

I fired back witty one-liners, or words like latte, cappuccino or frappucino.

And, bloody hell, suddenly the bridesmaids were to be dressed on that theme.

Yes, I knew I should practise more.

I had D-Day coming up soon after all.

Do it for Lydia!

This was my chance, my one chance I had fought so hard for, and I should practise.

And I often did.

Hour upon hour I
did
practise. Just not enough.

I saw some improvement, but I was a ‘mature student’ (bloody cheek), and I would be getting in on my ability rather than my results—I had to offer more than a technically correct piece.

There was one piece in my head, one piece that maybe I could play well enough. It was the piece I would rather curl under the duvet and hide than attempt again.

I hid under the covers for way too many hours.

Roz would come home from work—and she loved me and she wanted me to do well—but she was scared for me too.

She had the pep talk written for when I failed.

And my hair went redder, thanks to Karan, but Lisa never commented. She didn’t comment either when, red in the face, I handed over a copy of the picture of Little Alice. She just clipped it into my (rather thick) file and started talking about my father.

And nothing got any better.

Six weeks into my three-month retreat I knew that I’d left it too late.

‘January’ from Tchaikovsky’s
The Seasons
was the only thing that could possibly save me and I still hadn’t looked at the sheet music.

‘I can’t do it, Bonny.’ I sat on her sofa and she offered me wine and I said yes. ‘There’s no way I can play it. I haven’t practised it—I haven’t looked at it for ten years. I should be working. I should just give up now and get a job.’

‘Alice.’ She held my hand and as always she supported me. ‘Do you want me to speak to Lex?’

I shook my head; I had let so many people down I couldn’t stand to let him down too.

‘I put in an application at the supermarket,’ I said. ‘Look, it won’t be for ever…’

‘Just till you get your confidence back,’ Bonny said. ‘Alice, you’ve tried. I am so proud of you for trying, you’ve given it your best. You know I’m always here.’

I hadn’t given it my best, though. ‘Maybe I should give it one last shot?’ I swung back to hope. For a second I danced in my head, for a tiny minute I glanced at those
examiners hearing my piece, hearing my soul, and then I turned to Bonny. ‘If I give it everything, I’ve got nothing to lose…’

‘Whatever you decide,’ she said. ‘Just don’t build up your hopes.’

I slept on her sofa and I felt like shit the next morning.

I always felt like shit after a night with Bonny.

As Dan had felt like shit after a night with me.

I called Dan and he came over, bearing double-shot coffee. He sat with me as, shaking, I told him how little I had actually practised. How the only piece that could really sway things was ‘January’—that, in the past, I had worked on it so hard that maybe, just maybe…

‘Play it,’ Dan said, ‘and let’s hear what we’re dealing with.’

I was shocking.

No kidding—it’s a lovely piece but there are some challenging bits (remember the hand crossovers?), and I stuffed it all. It isn’t even that hard, but it was one piece that I had excelled at and now I clearly didn’t.

‘I can’t.’ I shook my head at the hopelessness of it all.

‘Play something else,’ Dan said. (That was how bad it was.)

‘I don’t know anything else well enough.’ I screwed up my forehead (easily now my Botox had long since worn off). ‘Not at that standard.’

‘But you play other pieces so well.’

He didn’t understand but he tried.

I sell on emotion—that is what I do best—and, quite simply, I could no longer convey it. Even if I did, I was so far behind technically…

‘How often did you used to practise?’ Dan’s voice broke into my despair.

‘Every night.’ It was useless; it was hopeless; I wasn’t really listening to Dan. I knew I’d left it too late.

‘That piece?’ Dan pushed. ‘How long at night did you practise it for?’

‘An hour.’ There had been other pieces I had had to work on, but ‘January’ had always got an hour. ‘At least—maybe even two.’

‘Let’s call it an hour,’ Dan said, ‘because you
have
played it to standard.’

‘Not in a decade.’

‘Seven hours a week,’ Dan said and he still didn’t get it.

‘Sometimes I just played it for me.’

‘Okay…’ He took a breath. ‘Let’s say ten hours on that piece a week.’

‘Five hundred and twenty hours.’

He stared at my bleached skin. ‘But you already know it, so say four hundred.’

I had no idea what he was talking about.

‘If you work for ten hours a day and take one day off a week, then in six weeks you’ll be at three hundred and sixty…’

‘You can’t play for ten hours a day.’ He did not have a fucking clue.

‘Says who?’

Said everyone.

Roz had been reading a book on psychology and was worried I was tipping into mania (I had a peek at that chapter and rather hoped that I was—at least I’d get a lot done). Bonny—well, Bonny said that she was seriously
worried now, that I should just let it go. And do you know who else didn’t think it was such a good idea?

Go on; guess who else wasn’t too keen on me giving it my absolute best?

From: Nicole Hunter ([email protected])

To: [email protected]

Subject: Worried

Alice

I don’t like the sound of this. I’ve really given it some thought. If you do get in, you’ve got three maybe four years of study and then what? You’ll be over thirty and just starting out. Maybe you should think about getting that job—how nice it will be to get on top of your finances—I know I’d love to have no debts. It’s scary the loan Paul’s taking on for the coffee shop—I am thinking of cutting down my hours to part-time to help out—early days yet. Anyway, enough of my stuff, this is about you. You have the chance for a clean slate—please think carefully.

I know you are probably thinking this is because I want you to come to my wedding—and, yes, of course I do, but it is not about that, Alice. This is about you.

Nic xxxxxxxx

From: Alice ([email protected])

To: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Worried

Hi Nic

Actually your email has nothing to do with me, and neither does it have anything to do with me
coming to your wedding. In fact, I’d go as far to say that it is all about you.

Do you remember when you accused me of being jealous? You were right. I was.

Well, I’m not jealous now.

Can I suggest that you are?

That you are really struggling with the realisation that you are thinking of giving up a fabulous career to work in a fucking coffee shop that, yes, you will own, but why can’t he just hire someone?

Yes, I know he needs cheap (slave) labour for a year or so, till the business is running, and that you are hoping you can resume your career, but there might be a baby too by then, or your job will have gone. You’ll be barefoot and pregnant in the sodding kitchen, Nic, and you know it.

Alice

Do you want to save the changes to this message?

No
.

From: Alice ([email protected])

To: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Worried

Hi Nic

I know you are worried about me, and I do appreciate it, but I have given this a lot of thought. I have one last chance to pursue my dream—yep—it might not work, but I’m going to give it my best.

I know how hard you worked for your wonderful
career and the hours after hours you had to put in to get to where you are. I’m just doing the same, Nic, albeit a condensed version. Don’t ask me to give it up.

Alice xxxxxxxxxxxxx

PS—how’s the dress coming along?

And I hit ‘Send’ and hoped she read it carefully, because just as her email hadn’t been about me, that email was actually all about her.

I had six weeks left.

For six weeks I had to let them all take care of themselves.

No booze, no gossip, no drama.

For six weeks I had to play.

I had a kitchen full of baked beans and two-minute noodles, but do you think they’d let me get on with it?

‘You’re doing too much.’ Bonny was worried. She came over and saw my ravaged face and unwashed body. I was six kilos heavier, thanks to all the carbs, and all I could talk about was ‘January’. I don’t blame her for being concerned—I mean, I was coming out of a mini-breakdown and had locked myself away with a piano.

She had every right to be worried.

I just didn’t need her to be.

I wanted her support and instead I ended up reassuring her. Always her visits drained me.

Roz was twitching about it too, though I don’t think it had anything to do with holding me back. It was more
that she had moved in and had to listen to it over and over and over and over.

I avoided Lisa as well.

I didn’t have time to focus on anything. I was in the zone and I played it, slept it, hummed it.

Dan insisted on one night off a week.

Karan added more foils to my hair on those nights; we ate pizza and we drank wine. But when Dan scuttled back to Matthew at eleven and Roz went off to bed with Karan (Ew! I was still a bit uneasy with that), instead of roaming the flat for more booze and distraction, I went back to my piano.

It was all I thought about.

The neighbours complained.

They banged on the walls; they came to the door. I had a man from the council come and finally, two weeks before my recital, the neighbours cracked and…