Telling Lies to Alice (18 page)

He didn’t move. He looked hypnotized, staring at the film—at himself.

“It’s Lenny, isn’t it? The other man . . . it’s Lenny.”

“Yes.”

“You
bastard
. I don’t know why you’re trying to humiliate me, but you’ve succeeded. I hope you’re happy.” I made for the door. He jumped up to stop me. I tried to hit him—scratch him, anything—but he grabbed my wrists. “Let me go,” I spat at him. “I hate you.”

“Alice, wait. I know how it looks, but it’s not—”

“No, you don’t, you don’t know anything.” We struggled in silence while the projector carried on whirring. In desperation, I put my head down and tried to bite his knuckles.

“Pack it in! All right, I don’t know anything, but you’ve got to stay and watch the end.”

“Why? So you can really rub my nose in it? Listen, I know Lenny wasn’t exactly faithful to me, but you don’t have—”

“Alice, stop it. Calm down.”

“Why should I?”

“Because if you don’t, I’m going to slap you.”

“Oh, please, be my guest! You nearly knocked my head off with that bottle tonight, once more won’t make any difference. Let—me—go!” I shook my arms from side to side, trying to break free of him, but he hung on.

“Alice, I’m warning you, if you don’t behave yourself, I
will
slap you, and it’ll hurt.” I glared at him. “Come on, listen to me for a minute. I’m sorry I upset you. I didn’t mean to. It was crass, I know that, and I’ve said I’m sorry, but you’ve got to watch it to the end. After that you can hit me or call me a cunt or do anything you like, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Again. Look at me this time.”

“I said
okay,
okay?”

“If I let go of you, will you stay put?”

“Yes.”

“Promise?”

“Yes,”
I snapped.

“Fair enough.”

He dropped my wrists and readjusted the tablecloth round his waist. “Now,
watch
.”

More close-ups. Splotches and starbursts flashed over a wriggling knot of legs, hips, torsos . . . fingers with coarse black hair—Jack’s—flattened against a breast, a wrist with a watch—Lenny’s—came to rest on the woman’s stomach, long fingers with painted nails stroked his arm—“Who is she, Jack?”

I needn’t have asked. A second later, the bodies disengaged themselves and the screen was suddenly filled by the back of the woman’s neck, dark hair draped across the nape, and then her hand came up and swept it backwards in a glossy slither as she turned her head—and there she was. I should have guessed: Bunny Kitty, looking straight into the camera with smudged lips and a glistening, triumphant smile.

Then she was gone. The film ran out and the loose end slapped and flapped against the projector as the take-up spool carried on turning. Jack walked over, turned it off, and looked back at me. There was silence except for the noise of the fan.

“Can I go now?”

“Alice?” He started towards me. “Come here.” He opened his arms as if he wanted to hug me and the tablecloth slipped from his waist and fell in a sort of moat round his ankles.

I stared at him for a moment, then said, “I’m going to have a bath.”

“Alice, wait—”

“Leave me alone. And put some trousers on. You look ridiculous.”

He didn’t follow me. I ran a bath and soaped myself mechanically and washed my hair—half a dozen times? I don’t remember. The water was grey and disgusting, but I didn’t want to get out. That look on Kitty’s face—I could almost see it in front of me, a disembodied head hovering above the taps, smirking. Like that cat in Alice in Wonderland, disappearing and leaving its grin behind . . . So pleased with herself.

I wasn’t naive about Lenny. He was handsome and funny and there were lots of opportunities . . . I never expected him to be a saint. I always forgave him, though. In a weird way I quite liked that, making up, because he was always really sweet and there’d be flowers and presents and I used to think, if he ever
stops
telling me, that’ll be the time to worry . . .

Seems like another life. Sometimes I look back and think, was that really me? But if you love somebody, it makes you act differently. I mean, I put up with so much from Lenny, but with my husband, Jeff, when I found out he’d been unfaithful to me almost from the word go, I just shrugged my shoulders,
oh well, that’s it, then
. . . I knew it wasn’t worth fighting for.

I had been furious about Kitty, though. Coming back to the flat after Granddad’s funeral and finding her things all over the place, that was
horrible,
and the thought that they’d been in our bed made me feel really sick. We were apart for . . . what? Two months? I made him buy a new one after that, sheets and everything, before I agreed to move back in. That was after he’d been on that TV show with Jack, he rang me up and asked me if I’d seen it and would I come out to dinner. He was on his best behaviour all evening—even pretended to be drinking tomato juice, although I knew it wasn’t—and things went on from there, really. But that was hard to forgive—also because I was upset about Granddad, and Lenny didn’t tell me, I just found these knickers under the pillow and makeup and stuff in the bathroom . . . and because it was
Kitty
. When I saw her afterwards, in the changing room at the club, she’d had the same smile on her face, so self-satisfied . . . I couldn’t help imagining them together and it made my skin crawl. I didn’t know if he was still seeing her—he’d denied it afterwards, and I’d believed him, but
now
. . . He could have been lying. When did they make that film? And
where
? You couldn’t see much of the room . . . I thought back. Worn lino on the floor, grubby-looking bed, and I’d caught a glimpse of a buttoned headboard and a few streamers of plastic—one end of a fly strip—in the doorway. Probably rented by the hour. I imagined Jack and Lenny striking a deal with a seedy little man, Kitty all curves and legs in her minidress, hovering behind them while they handed over notes . . . Lenny staring at her bum as she swayed ahead of him up a dingy Soho staircase, Jack fondling her on the landing, impatient while the seedy man unlocked the door, pushing her against the wall—scuffed paper, chipped paint, his hand up her skirt—and then . . .

Thinking about it was unbearable, almost painful—actual physical pain—so instead I reached for the pumice stone and rubbed my shins viciously—“God, I hope—it’s you, Kitty—in that car—I really, really hope—it’s you—I really, really—do”—until my legs were raw and it hurt too much to carry on. Then I threw the pumice stone across the bathroom and burst into tears. The memory of it—how unhappy I’d been, how devastated—going to work at the club after I’d left Lenny, seeing that smug look on Kitty’s face when we stood side by side in front of the changing-room mirror, our eyes meeting and sliding away again as we put on our makeup and pinned our ears in place—that
look,
even with a hair grip between her teeth, Kitty the cat who got the cream . . . I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping, and having to see
her
every time I went in to work . . . “I hope it
was
you, Kitty, you bloody deserved it.”

I wiped my eyes with the flannel. Of course Lenny was going to swear he hadn’t seen her again in the time we were apart, except when he’d taken her to the party. He’d have said anything, because he wanted me back, didn’t he? He’d been all over me for a while, and of course I was over the moon about it. Not that I’d let him know it. I’d thought I was being so clever, Miss Sophisticated, playing it cool—being in control, for once. Those first few weeks when we were back together, I even thought—
un
believable—that I could get him to stop drinking. God, I was stupid. But one thing’s for sure, that film—it couldn’t have been made after we’d got back together, because Kitty’d disappeared by then, hadn’t she? Even though we never actually worked together at the club—she was usually in one of the gift shops—I was going to change my shift so I didn’t have to see her, but then I thought, why the hell should I rearrange my life because of
you
? To be honest, I probably
would
have changed it, because there was a real atmosphere, but it was only for about two weeks and then one day she didn’t show up and that was that.

I used to literally
pray
that she wouldn’t come back. I wasn’t the only one, either—there were a lot of people she hadn’t got on with, so they weren’t going to lose any sleep over it. But it was great for me, because it meant I could enjoy my job again . . . I mean, okay, so I’ve done a few things I’m not particularly proud of, but not on film, for God’s sake—well, not so far as I know. And she knew, all right. It was probably her idea in the first place. Pretty stupid, because what’s the point of filming it, anyway? I mean, it’s not exactly one to show the grandchildren, is it?

At least Lenny hadn’t kissed her—not in the bit I’d seen—that really would have been unbearable. I wrapped my arms round my legs and put my head down on my knees. This cannot be real, I told myself, it’s too horrible.

Jack must have a copy of that film, I thought. He’d obviously seen it before or he wouldn’t have known what it was. It might have been his idea, and he could have persuaded Lenny to set up his cinecamera. Perhaps it wasn’t the first time they’d done it. . . .

I felt really sick. Why had Jack shown it to me? What was he thinking—that it would
turn me on
? The idea was so vile it made my stomach turn over. I couldn’t stand the thought of being in the same house as him, never mind the same room. Then I remembered—the day before, his eyes looking down into mine, and then me slithering down the bed, and him saying, “No, Alice, it’s no good, it’s no good, I can’t,”—On the film, him pushing Kitty’s head down and grinning—How I’d touched him,
consoled
him, even—That busy jumble of bodies—Oh, God. Stop it,
stop thinking
. . . I never wanted to see Jack again, ever. It was as if he’d crossed a line, somehow. That is
it,
I thought. The last straw.
And here I am, all over again.
So tired I barely exist. Not that there was much there in the first place, if you took away the ears and the tail . . .

Love, I thought. There was always love.

And look where it’s got me. I felt as if I’d been awake for a hundred years. It was almost light—six-fifteen. I hauled myself out of the bath, wrapped myself in a towel, and went upstairs to pull on some clothes. The house was still quiet when I came back down. The kitchen door was shut, and the dining room, but the sitting-room door was slightly ajar. I had no idea which one, if any, Jack might be behind. I hadn’t heard him go upstairs, but if I’d been running the bath, I’d have missed it anyway. I tiptoed back and forth across the carpet, stopping to listen. No sound from any of them. In the end, I stopped outside the sitting-room door, took a deep breath, and gave it a little push with my fingertips.

Jack wasn’t there. I turned on the light—the curtains were still drawn—and saw the projector, still on the sideboard. The film wasn’t in it, but there was a round, flat tin lying on the carpet, with
Eastman Kodak
embossed on the lid and a strip of what looked like Elastoplast stuck across it. When I picked it up, I saw a date, written in felt-tip:
19/8/69
. August 19, 1969. Lenny’d sworn he hadn’t seen Kitty while we were apart, and we’d been apart then. Must have been just before that party. He
had
lied to me. No wonder Kitty’d looked so pleased with herself. What a
bitch
.

I prised it open—the black tin spool of film was inside. I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. I’d tried so hard to hang on to all the good memories, the great times we’d had together, but right at that moment I couldn’t think of a single one. It was as if I was seeing it all from a different angle and everything seemed dirty and sordid and cheap and I’d meant nothing to him and . . . “Why did you do it, Lenny?”

I shut the door and went over to kneel in front of the fireplace. There wasn’t much kindling or paper in the basket, but it would do. I was just leaning over to grab the matches off the coffee table when I heard the sound of the latch being raised. “Go away!” I bellowed. “I mean it, Jack! Get away from me!”

There was a pause, and then the latch clicked back into place. Shaking, I lit match after match and tossed them into the fire, then I upended the tin and the spool of film fell into the middle of the blaze. I sat and watched it flare up and crinkle down to nothing. It didn’t take long.

As I got up, I caught sight of my face in the mirror over the mantelpiece. It didn’t look like me. Lopsided—one eyebrow seemed much higher than the other. The skin under my eyes looked raw and stretched. I hadn’t remembered to wash my face, and last night’s makeup was collected like seams of coal in lines I hadn’t known were there. I lifted the hem of my T-shirt and scrubbed at them. Better, but the hard stare was frightening. I tried a smile. That was worse, if anything. “Scotch,” I said to the woman in the mirror. “Scotch, Canadian, Bourbon, Rye . . .” She started to cry. “Irish, Gin, Vodka, Rum, Brandy . . .” I turned away and carried on, stumbling over the words. “Liqueurs, Mixed, Blended, Creamed, Beer, Wine, One for the money . . .” repeating the call-in sequence over and over again while I went outside and fed the hens and fetched hay for the horses and checked the water trough and did all the other things I usually do. I was probably only muttering, but the words were loud and strong in my mind—almost as if I was building a wall to keep the image of the three of them together out of my head.

By quarter-past eight I’d run out of things to do. Eustace bustled ahead of me into the kitchen, wagging his tail and hoping for breakfast.
Charley’s Aunt
lay on the table and remains of the phone were strewn across the floor, but no Jack. He’d been there, though—the door to the hall was open.

As I bent to pick up the shattered phone, I caught sight of the corner of the linen chest and remembered Lenny’s address book. I tipped the pieces into the bin, nipped across the hall, retrieved it, and fled back into the kitchen. Watts, Watts, Watts . . . nothing under
W
. D for Danny?
Diane
. . .
Debby
. . .
Denise
. . . None of them had surnames, apparently. I flicked over the page.
Daisy
. . .
Donna
. . . Bingo!—
Danny W.
An address in Ledbury Road, Notting Hill Gate, London W11.