Alice by Accident

by Lynne Reid Banks

  Later I thought about why she didn’t take him to court before he went to live in Holland if the law is on her side. I asked her and she said she hadn’t wanted to get him then, because Gene was helping us, but now she wants to get him. But she can’t because the law isn’t on our side in Holland and we have to find another place to live.

  Last night I heard Mum talking on the phone. I couldn’t hear the words but I could tell she was not just talking to a friend. So I crept out on to the landing to listen. It took me about five minutes to relise she was talking to my dad. I couldn’t believe it. She must of phoned him to Holland. She was saying he should let us have this house because he owed us and that he was my father and he was responsible for helping us. I wished I could hear what he said back but anyway Mum did most of the talking. She really went on at him, really critisising like with Pierre-Luc only much worse. I wanted to stop her because I just knew it wasn’t going to work. Nobody does what you want them to if you go on at them, that’s what she’s always telling me. After about half an hour I got so sleepy I had to go back to bed. She was still going on at him. I wondered why he didn’t just put the phone down like Gene sometimes did with Mum when she went on too long.

  When I was back in bed just before I fell asleep I thought, if my dad tells Gene what Mum said to him, how she slagged him off about not looking after us and nagged him to give us the house, Gene will be more against her than ever, because my dad is her son like I’m Mum’s daughter and mothers are always on their kids’ side.

  Gene used to be my number two person after Mum but she’s not any more. You can’t have a Number One and a Number Two who don’t like each other. You’ve just got to choose and of course for me it’s Mum. I haven’t really got a Number Two now.

  I’m going to make a list of all the things Gene did for me when she was my Number Two.

  She bought me two bikes – one for the country and one for here – and clothes and took me to the ballet at Covent Garden (Copelia) and we had smoked samon sandwiches and to lots of plays at the Unicorn and the Polka, and to a real opera (“Carmen” – my favourite) and we did lots of other things together like go in boats on lakes, and once we went to the fair on the peer at Brighton with Mum, and Gene did the rides with me because Mum didn’t want to. Even Mum said Gene was very sporty and brave for her age (she’s actully very old, she’s 66).

  The best things though were she taught me to swim and ride a bike, which was hard work because she had to run after me holding the saddle, and she taught me to read. She told me about the magic E and gave me lots of books. One was called “Purple Hair I Don’t Care” and that was the first book I read by myself, well sort of. I knew most of it by heart I admit.

  Gene came to London to take me out when Mum needed a rest and between oh pairs. Mum didn’t like oh pairs, she had rows with them and they didn’t usually stay long. Then there was last summer. I spent most of it with Gene and Grandad in the country.

  I haven’t written much about Grandad because I didn’t feel comfortable with him like I did with Gene (most of the time). I always thought he didn’t really like me and only put up with me because Gene made him. Not that he ever said anything, he was quite nice to me, but it was more like polite than loving.

  I know Gene and him used to fratch about me sometimes. Once I was coming down the stairs at their cottage and I heard Grandad say, “You spoil that child rotten.” I stopped and listened, I couldn’t help it, I wanted to hear what Gene said back. What she said was, “I don’t spoil her, I just try to make things up to her because she hasn’t got a father.” Grandad said, “That was her dam mother’s choice. (My heart jumped when he said that.) What choice did he have? Nobody told her to have a baby.” Gene said, “Nobody told our son to be so selfish and careless.” I didn’t know what she ment but it made me feel really bad, like I had two bad parents. I crept upstairs again to my room. Luckily Copper was there and I cried on her and she licked me better. Later of course I pretended I hadn’t heard and everything was normal. That was one time I didn’t tell Mum everything afterwards like I usually always did.

  They’ve got a swimming pool that I learnt to swim in when I was six and a big garden with a den that Gene made me in some bushes and a vegtable garden where I was allowed to pull up carrots and dig up potatoes and pick peas. They have a horsey neighbour called Marion. She lives in a manor house and has ponies and I learnt to ride there on an old pony called Biddy. She’s 26 years old now but she can still trot-on and I’ve had lots of rides on her ever since I was five.

  Last summer I learnt to rise to the trot and I cantered a bit but that was because Biddy took off. She’s not a bit like an old lady pony, Marion says she has a will of iyon. When I told Mum this she said, “just like another old lady we know.” She ment Gene.

  Marion’s daughter Jessie is three years older than me and she wouldn’t play with me last summer cos she’s a teenager nearly, but she did when I first started to go there. She has a swing and a slide and a tree house which was brilliant. At first I was even scared to clim the ladder but Jessie made me. Marion and Gene would bring picnics up to us and we had dolls and animals tea parties with little tea cups and stuff. Up among the leaves, it was brilliant. I used to dream I was up there in a kind of fairyland or heaven or some place far away from everything having adventures. (Gene used to say I didn’t have enough adventures because Mum was too frightened about me being safe.)

  In the Christmas holidays I went although I always came back in time to have Christmas with Mum cos she would be lonely. Once Gene asked her to come. There was no room in the cottage so Mum stayed with Marion at the manor, and came to be with us every day, but it didn’t work. She went into one of her funny moods and suddenly after about three days she was gone when I woke up. Gene said she’d walked from the manor in the night and asked to be taken to the railway station. I could see Gene was annoyed. She said you’ve got a moody old mum I must say. I phoned Mum strait away (she was home by then) and I told her off but she said “I’m sorry Alice, I couldn’t stand it. I felt really antsy there.” That means ants in your pants but she ment, not comfortable. The manor is very very comfortable and she had a double bed and her own bathroom and everything, but I think she ment comfortable inside, about being around Gene and Grandad. (Specially Grandad who I could tell didn’t like her.)

  She told me to stay on so I did and we did the Christmas play at the manor like we did for three years. I played a spoilt princess one year and I was a snow-girl the next year and a space invader last year. Jessie’s friends used to be in them too. Gene wrote the plays and was the producer, she was very strict at rehearsals but if she hadn’t of been the plays wouldn’t of been any good. Jessie’s dad always played Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and another girl’s dad did Santa and he was always a bit drunk and never knew his lines, and Gene got furious. I heard her in the kitchen really shouting at Santa for being drunk but she never got mad at me. She treated me the same as the other kids at rehearsals but later she told me I was a real actress like her and a good singer (there were always songs Gene made up, I loved those, but my best thing was helping paint the scenery on big sheets of paper. I helped Marion do a really good snow scene the year we did “The Snow Children”.)

  The last time I was there at Christmas I found out something. It was when I told Gene one night when she was kissing me goodnight that I’d rather stay with her over Christmas than go back to Mum. Mum gets nervous at Christmas. She doesn’t like spending money on a tree and decorations and stuff because she never had a proper Christmas when she was little and I knew I’d have more fun and maybe more presents if I stayed. Gene does Christmas really well.

  Gene said, “darling I’d love like mad to keep you here but you can’t stay. Mummy would be very lonely, and besides.” I said besides what, and Gene said well, Christmas is a time when children come home to their parents, even grown-up children. I didn’t know what she ment at first and she wouldn’t say any more but just as I was going to s
leep it kind of burst inside my head. She ment that my dad was coming home.

  I jumped up and ran downstairs where Gene and Grandad were watching television and shouted “Is my dad coming?” and Grandad got up and said, “Off to bed!” and pretended to chase me, but I saw from Gene’s face I was right.

  I thought so much about my dad coming I couldn’t sleep and when I was ment to be going home, which was the day before Christmas Eve, I pretended to be ill so I wouldn’t have to go. It wasn’t for presents now it was so I could stay and meet my dad. But Gene just touched my forehead and looked at my tung and then said, “good try Alice but it’s no go I’m afraid.” She was on to me, she knew me so well.

  Mum came on the train to collect me. While me and Gene waited on the platform for her train to come, I was upset because I knew my dad was coming, but Gene said, “Alice, I know it’s hard but all the stastistiks say it’s much worse to see your dad only every now and then than not at all.” And then she said “It’s better if you just don’t think about him.”

  I said “but I think about him alot and she said “If you had a picture of him in your head or if you’d ever been with him you’d think about him much more. I turned very red because of something that had happened the summer before, and so she wouldn’t notice I said “Just tell me something about him.” Gene didn’t talk for a bit but then she said he’s a very sweet person. He made a big mistake once in his life but he didn’t deserve to have to pay for it for ever.” I said but he might love me if he met me and she said that’s just what I’m afraid of, and that was all she would say. Then Mum’s train came.

  On the train going back to Brighton I told Mum the whole conversation in a very complaining way and Mum didn’t say anything for a long time and then she said, “Gene’s right this time, with dads it’s all or nothing.”

  Well, it wasn’t quite nothing with me.

  The reason I blushed so hard before was that I do have a photo. Last summer I’d noticed that at the manor there were lots of pictures of Jessie mostly riding ponies and I thought of all my school photos my mum puts up among the ones I paint. I thought, other mothers keep pictures of their children about their house and there are no pictures of my dad at the cottage, why not?

  And then I noticed some places on the walls where pictures might of been taken down. And one day when Grandad was at work and Gene was gardening I poked about in cupboards and draws and I found a picture of my dad in a frame. I just knew it was him. It wasn’t like when my mum saw her dad in the street in Liverpool. He didn’t look like me. But I just looked into his eyes in the photo and I knew he was my dad. He looked so gentle and nice just the way Mum said. And he was handsome.

  I just sat for a long time looking at it and I thought you’re my father. You’re my father. And he looked back at me and said yes I am and I’m sorry. I remembered when Brenda had said I should talk to the man doll and I couldn’t but I could talk to the photo and it answered. I said “where are you and why can’t I see you?” and he said “when you’re older perhaps we’ll meet and I’ll try to explain.” I said “do you love me?” but he didn’t answer that.

  I put the photo back in the draw and I went on poking about and I found an album and there were lots of pictures in there. They were under that clear stuff that you peal off so it was easy to take one. It wasn’t as good as the one in the frame but if I’d taken that I knew Gene would notice, so I sneaked an album one and hid it in my suitcase in a secret pocket. I felt very bad about stealing it because Gene often said, “I hate a thief.” I just hoped she wouldn’t find out and for a long long time it sat in my stomach like pizza when it’s not cooked but I thought it wasn’t fair that I didn’t even know what he looked like.

  And sometimes I take the picture out and stair at it and talk to it and sometimes he answers. But the hard questions like do you love me he doesn’t answer. I know why, because how can he love me when he doesn’t know me. I wonder alot if he’s got a picture of me. I don’t see how he could have, unless he’s stolen one from Gene the way I did.

  I’ve been thinking about Gene. I’m trying to remember good things, to stop from thinking maybe she’s forgetting me. I’ll write about last summer.

  I spent most of it in the country with Gene and Grandad. It was good, I did a craft and acting course in Bayport and swam and rode and Marion taught me to trot on Biddy and Gene and me listened to music tapes (my favourite was “Carmen Jones” and I learnt all the words and Gene and I sang them together). And Gene gave me writing lessons and we read to each other and she gave me comprehension tests. Then she got a job acting.

  Gene is a famous actress and plays big stage parts but this was a small part in a Spanish movie, she had to play an English duchess in one scene.

  First she said I could stay with Grandad. But when she phoned Mum to tell her she said she didn’t want me to be left alone with a man. Gene was furious and said, “What do you think he’s going to do, Rita, eat her?” which made me larf so much I had to go out. They had a long fratch and Gene banged the phone down. Then Grandad said he couldn’t look after me anyway, he had to work. So then Gene said she’d have a think. When she’d thought she said Alice how would you like to come to Spain with me?”

  At first I was terribly excited. I’d only been abroad once before, when Gene took me to EuroDisney outside Paris when I was seven. Mum had to get me my own passport. EuroDisney was just so wonderful. I liked Casey Junior best and Thunder Mountain worst, but Thunder Mountain was what I remember most cos I was so scared and so was Gene, we just clung together and we both screamed our heads off as the train went like mad through the tunnels and we nearly fell out.

  We stayed three days and did everything. I liked trying to pull the sword out of the stone and seeing the dragon in his cave and meeting Yasmin from “Aladdin”. She shook hands with me. Gene did everything with me and we had a brilliant brilliant time.

  But going to Spain was different. I was suddenly scared to leave Mum. I thought I might never come back. I kept remembering she’d said in her funny moods that she thought Gene wanted me for herself and might try to keep me. Gene was crazy about me (she often said “I love you to distraxion”) so I thought it was possible. So I cried alot and wouldn’t tell Gene why which drove her mad. She said ring Mummy and talk to her, so I phoned her (Gene never listened to my phone calls but anyway I took the cordless right down the garden). I thought Mummy would say come home, but she’d forgotten about Gene maybe stealing me and said I had to go to Spain. She said it’s good for you to see other countrys and anyway I can’t have you home just now because I’m job-hunting in London. She sent my passport in the post.

  I still moaned a bit till Gene lost her temper and said you know I can’t stand all this cattawalling and if you don’t stop it I won’t take you and you’ll have to stay with Grandad and you know men don’t know how to plat hair. I don’t know why that made me larf, I could just imagine Grandad trying to do my pigtail and getting all tangled up and starting to swar.

  So then we flew to Spain and strait away on the plane it was great because we had our own little TV screens with cartoons and they gave me a present (a bag with crayons and a pad – I did a good picture of Gene sitting beside me and of our meal). A huge car met us and took us to the hotel in Madrid. I’d never been in a real posh hotel before. The part where you go in, called the foyay, was like a palace. It had a glass roof and lots of lights. The floor was one huge carpet with patterns on it. There were sofas and chairs with stripy seats and huge tables with golden legs and glass tops and huge big vases of flowers nearly to the sealing like in a painting. And mirrors with gold frames all carved with fat babies and fruit.

  When we got up to our room I couldn’t believe it. We both had double beds!!! The carpet was so soft I wanted to lie on it. There was a view of the city through the window, you could see the lights just coming on. You pulled the curtains shut with a string. There was more furniture in the room than we had in our whole flat. The bathroom was just s
o shiny!

  Gene put my suitcase on the bed and told me to unpack. I’d taken it from Brighton to Gene and Grandad’s house full of my old ordinary clothes for the country. I opened it and nearly fell over. It was full of lovely new clothes!! I said to Gene, did you go shopping, and she said no they’re Jessie’s that she’s grown out of, Marion gave them to you.”

  She picked out a black dress with white dots and a white collar and told me to put it on because we were going to have a posh dinner and I had to look nice. I don’t wear dresses much and I didn’t like it till I got it on and Gene buttoned it at the back and tied the sash and I looked at myself. I looked like someone else, like a rich girl in an old black and white movie. Gene said, “You are a very pretty child,” and I said “You’re a very pretty old lady,” and she said “oy, not so much of the old.” But she was pretty with her blonde hair and lots of make up and her smart suit and lots and lots of silver stuff, necklaces and earrings and rings. She did my hair with a black velvit scrunchy band at the back instead of a plat, and put a tiny bit of her sent on my rists and said I was fit to be a duchess’s grandaughter. The trouble was shoes, but she said my sandals would have to do and no one would see them under the table.

  The dining room was grand like a palace there must of been about a hundred tables there all with pink table cloths and napkins that matched and loads of silver knives and forks and spoons and beautiful glasses. A waiter came and held my chair while I sat down. I was so nervous I was all trembly but Gene held my hand and said in her deepest voice, “Stick with me, kid,” which is what she always said when we did anything new and I was scared.