Putting Alice Back Together (29 page)

They called the police!

I stood in my dressing gown and I laughed when I opened the door.

I stood there and laughed as a policewoman gave me a warning and then the sexy copper beside her grinned too.

All the debauchery that had gone on at the flat and the police had been called when I was finally being good.

So good I didn’t slip him my phone number.

(I was, I admit, tempted.)

Sixty-Four

I was at the Conservatory. Roz and Dan were there too, hanging around in the gardens as I did my aural and theory and then it was time for my recital.

As I set up my music I had a sudden panic—with good reason.

‘January’ is about winter and January is in summer in Australia.

Gawd! Why the hell didn’t I think of that?

Then I blew out a breath and realised it was too late to do a thing about it.

My moment was here.

I got through it. Most of it, I think, rather well, at least technically; and then it came to ‘January’, my last piece. If I wanted to nail it, I had hopefully left the best till last, because even if the other pieces were more complicated, this was the one where I shone.

Or rather, I had shone.

Did I play it for Hugh or for Lydia?

No.

Because no matter how much I loved them, it didn’t count if I didn’t first love me.

So I played it for myself.

I wasn’t that eager little girl begging for them to please just choose me.

I could hear the music I was making and it was the very best I could do—it was the very best of me. If it wasn’t good enough for them, then that was okay; my best was the best I could do. My fingers stretched and they slid and I was back in January, when she had been made. I was there with the cold and the lows and the still that is winter, the light and the dark and never-ending grey. It was like a transfusion, that is what music played from the soul is like, like my bone marrow was being infused. I was the best I could ever be, I was in the zone, I was over the rainbow. I wasn’t Alice Lydia Jameson—for a moment there, I got to be Dorothy.

I knew I had stepped into my future; I could see it in their faces and I knew it had moved them, because no matter how many times you hear a piece, when it comes from the soul and it vibrates up to heaven, it is more than music, it is like oxygen.

Roz burst into tears when we stepped outside and even Dan’s eyes were glassy. They had heard me and knew I had held the room and I knew something else too…

My life was starting again.

Sixty-Five

Here’s a shocking fact for you.

You know those stools the checkout chick sits on when you pay for your groceries?

Well, in Australia she stands!

Can you believe it?

I couldn’t.

I had lived there for ten years and never noticed.

On my first day at the supermarket I asked for my stool and the fifteen-year-old who was training me up just laughed.

It was fun, though, in a back-breaking, ankle-swelling way.

Beep, beep, beep.

And after two days there I had worked out that I wasn’t the first, neither would I ever be the last, who had their credit card declined.

I wore my red blouse and my name tag with something very close to pride, even though it clashed horribly with my hair, which was tied back all the time but still
managed to work its way out to form an orange halo by the end of my shift.

I was an official redhead again.

I had the type of hair that caused little old ladies to look up from their shopping and tell me how wonderful it was, though of course, they beamed, I probably hated it.

Some days I did and some days I didn’t, it all just depended.

Lisa had never mentioned my changing hair colour or my curls and neither had she mentioned the photo of me as a child, until a few weeks after my recital. I had a five p.m. appointment after a very long shift (standing). I was quite relaxed about going. In fact, I had bought a large latte and smiled and stood when she came out and called my name.

I followed her into the little room, sat in my middle seat, didn’t take a sweet because I was
really
putting weight on. It wasn’t just about vanity. I couldn’t afford a new wardrobe.

We chatted and had an update. I had seen her only once since my crazy six weeks; I had told her about the recital and said that I was still waiting to hear. I also told her about my job. I had made a couple of friends, or rather friendly acquaintances. They were older than me and had children and really we did not have much in common, but we went and had coffee together in our twenty-minute mandatory break.

I don’t know why she chose that day. It was late, I was tired, but instead of banging on about my dad or the divorce or her latest favourite—
boundaries
—we spoke about me.

Or rather Little Me.

She handed me the photo of myself and asked me what I thought of her. I filled up with tears because I wanted to say that I loved her, that, hey, actually, I had been quite cute. But all I could see was a pinched face and scruffy hair and eyes that were angry.

‘I don’t know.’

I could feel her thinking. I could feel her tentative silence, feel her weighing things up, deciding perhaps whether to leave it for now, and I fervently hoped that she would.

‘I’ve had to bite my tongue these past few weeks…’ I stared at the photo as Lisa spoke. ‘I didn’t know you had curly hair till Roz brought you in that day—I was aware you always made an effort with your appearance, but I hadn’t quite grasped to what extent. Every time I have seen you since then, my first instinct is to comment on your hair.’ I sat there and stared at the photo. ‘I think it is gorgeous, by the way, but I am telling you this because I have given it some thought. Always, I want to comment on your hair. I expect you get that a lot.’ I gave a shrug. ‘It’s striking, Alice—you have red hair and wild curls and it is, however you feel about it, the first thing people notice. People comment, strangers discuss it in front of you—I am quite sure of that because, when I spoke to Roz and she told me you were in a bad way, when you stepped out of the car and walked into the office, despite all that was going on, I noticed your hair. Despite your obvious devastation, still I felt inclined to comment, and I’m very glad now that I didn’t.

‘Sometimes I am sure you didn’t need the attention, especially growing up. You stand out. No matter what
sort of day you are having, no matter what is going on in your life, your hair is the first thing people notice.’

It was true.

It was true.

‘I hated my hair.’ I stared at the photo and all I could see was why.

‘Alice, you seem to think your first sexual experience was when your hair was straight and you were sleek and groomed.’

‘It was.’

‘No.’ Lisa’s voice was firm. ‘Gus was grooming you already. You could have looked like Worzel Gummidge that day and the outcome would have been the same. He had already been completely inappropriate.’

I stared at the photo but I still loathed that little girl.

‘I don’t see an angry little girl when I look at that picture. I see a very worried little girl.’

I shook my head, because I hadn’t been worried—at least I don’t think so—I just hated having my picture taken.

‘She knew a secret,’ Lisa said, and my heart stilled. ‘A secret that would completely destroy her family.’ I felt my intestines turn to liquid. ‘And she knew that for a fact, because it had happened once before. If she told anyone what she had seen that day at the pub, if her mum found out her father was doing those things, then her family would surely break up again, her mother would be devastated…’ I could hear someone crying and I realised it was me. ‘What a terrible burden for that little girl.’

‘Mum would have fallen apart.’

She ignored what I said.

‘What a terrible burden for a little superstitious child
who catastrophises everything to think she held her family’s destiny in her hands.’

‘But I did.’

‘Alice.’ For the first time ever I heard sympathy in her voice. ‘I’m quite sure that your mum knew your father was cheating again.’

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’

‘Your mum had long since realised that nothing,
nothing
she could do would change him.’

‘It would have broken them up.’

‘Maybe,’ Lisa said, ‘though I doubt it—I’m sure your dad had a good few years in him still, of making sure your mother felt like shit.’

I know I swear like a sailor, but Lisa never does and my eyes jerked up.

‘Even if it had ended the marriage, that wasn’t your problem. You should have been allowed to be busy getting on with your childhood. They were grown-ups, it was their marriage to either make or break.’

And I stared at the photo and remembered, because if I got to be Dorothy, then they’d both go out together. They’d both come and see me, and I’d dazzle and be wonderful and it would all be okay.

‘Then a few years later you had your own secret. A secret that would ruin your life, end your promising career, devastate your mum, break up your sister’s marriage, your father would track down Gus and kill him…’ I was crying but it was just a choking sound. ‘Another catastrophe.’

‘Because it would have been.’

‘Why?’

‘I’d have ended up a single mum in a crap flat, with a crap job.’

‘Says who?’

And I was really crying then, because I’d fulfilled the prophecy, just minus Lydia.

‘Alice, your mother’s a nurse; she sometimes worked on Maternity. She should surely have been able to cope with a teenage pregnancy.’

‘She wouldn’t have.’

‘Then that’s her problem,’ Lisa said. ‘The same way if your pregnancy stopped your sister from moving to Australia, threatened her marriage, it would not have been your problem either. And if your father had managed to put in an appearance, he wouldn’t have killed Gus. Oh, he’d have made a few noises to petrify you…’ She shook her head. ‘Alice, with the right support you might have been just fine. You might have chosen an abortion, or you might have decided to keep the pregnancy; you could have looked at adoption, or you might have considered deferring your studies.’

‘It was more complicated than that.’

‘Of course it was,’ Lisa said. ‘Because you make it so, because that is the way you are wired and no one ever took that into consideration when they were dealing with you.’

And then she did something she had never done before, even when I told her about Lydia, or since, when I’ve had other stuff come out. She came and sat next to me and gave me a cuddle and I wept into that sixty-year-old crepe chest and
how
grateful I was for her understanding.

Sixty-Six

I was weary from revelation; it was twenty-five past six when I got home.

I would have killed for a drink, and I think I did deserve one, but for the shagging greater good and all that I chose to check my email.

From: Nicole Hunter ([email protected])

To: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Update

Hi Alice

Loads to tell you!

Not sure where to start.

I know I said that my job’s been great, and I guess it was. The thing is, the hours are ridiculous.

Part-time there would be like a full-time job anywhere else! As Paul pointed out, with the coffee shop opening in two weeks and the hours he’ll have to put in we would hardly see each other.

We want kids ASAP—and there is no way I can work and be the mum I want to be, so I have decided to
go in with Paul—just for the first couple of years. That way if we do have children I can bring them into the café and work as well. Then, once the café is more established, I can go back to law.

I’ve given this loads of thought and to tell the truth, now my decision is made, it’s actually a relief. Work has been so stressful. It’s going to be bliss having time with Paul and at least I’ll be able to concentrate on my wedding now.

I have enclosed the hotel prices where the reception is being held and a list of a few local pubs that are a bit cheaper. If you stay at the hotel you will need to book soon.

Love and hugs

Nicole

PS—give me some gossip about you. You’ve gone terribly quiet again. How is work at the shop?

Nicole’s love life was like a really bad soap opera. Every week night at six-thirty she flew through the flat door with the latest instalment and, even though you knew how it was going to end, knew it was heading for disaster, still you found yourself watching from behind your fingers, scarcely able to believe someone could really be so stupid where men are concerned.

And she was
surely
heading for disaster.

Big time.

Which meant, yet again, yours truly would be left to pick up the pieces.

I’m sure you’ve noticed I’m repeating myself lately.

I understand now that that’s what people do.

We make the same mistakes over and over.

We repeat and repeat and we fuck up and we mess up in the same old ways…

The universe
is
kind, though—it gives us chance after chance to grow, to put right, but it’s up to us to take those chances.

Well, I’m sure I’ve read it somewhere, and I tell Roz that when she comes in and swears and bitches as she reads the email from Nicole, and Dan does the same. ‘This has nothing to do with the universe and second chances,’ Dan says. ‘I told you—Paul’s just a wanker.’

‘So what should I do?’ I asked. ‘What should I say to Nicole?’

And it was then I realised the answer—precisely nothing.

Oh, I could point out that surely her full-time wage would be a good thing to fall back on, or that her fantastic new husband could surely afford an au pair if ever she did have kids, and, hell, it would have two sets of grandparents nearby, but I knew Nicole knew all that already.