by Ruth Dugdall
Fifteen
1981
It was the most beautiful thing Alice had seen, ever. And Mummy had made it for her. “I’ve been knitting it at night while you were asleep,” she told Alice, “it’s taken me ages.”
Alice touched the beautiful lilac wool, fingers the smooth pearly button. She snuggled it with her face, feeling the softness on her cheek, and closed her eyes. It was perfect.
“Try it on, then!” said her Mummy, “it might be a bit big.” But it wasn’t. It was perfect. “You can wear that when you start nursery next week. I’ll put a name tag in it so it doesn’t get lost.”
“I’ll never lose it,” said Alice, throwing her arms around her Mummy’s neck and kissing her. “I’ll wear it forever.”
“Wear it now, Alice. It’s going to be chilly outside.”
It was cold, too cold to be playing outside, but they went to the park anyway. There was a swing, a roundabout, a red slide and it was theirs alone. The rest of the world was at home, in the warm. Alice wore her lilac cardigan, and over it a navy coat. On each arm she had a reflective orange band to warn traffic, to keep her safe as she walked, hand clasped to her mother’s.
Mummy wanted to go home. She had chapped lips, which she ran her tongue over, only making them worse, and cold hands from pushing the swing. But Alice was determined. “Again, Mummy! Push me again!” Her mother’s hands cradled her back, over her shoulder blades like wings, pushing her higher, higher. Alice stretched out her legs, pulled them back, tried to propel herself into the air. She wanted to fly. What if the swing went all the way up and over the bar, would that be flying?
The swing stopped abruptly, mid-air, as her mother grasped the rubber seat, stopped it dead. “Enough now. Let’s go home.” She lowered it, reaching into the swing to lift Alice, who jumped up. In the confusion mother and daughter were knocked against each other and Alice’s head hit Mummy’s chin. There was blood. Alice was dropped, and the mother crouched on the ground, hand cupped over her mouth. Red spots on the black tarmac.
“Mummy?” Alice was scared and confused. Was Mummy angry?
“My tongue,” her mother said. “You just whacked my jaw up and I’ve bitten my tongue.” She stuck it out. It was pink with red blood blooming around the edge, like a swollen tulip. There were several marks where her teeth cut the muscle. Then Mummy started to cry. Noisy, so very noisy, and the girl wanted it to stop, but the sound and the tears carried on, until she was crying too.
Alice knew it was her fault. She silently prayed Mummy would still love her. Then she remembered that she was wearing her special lilac cardigan, which Mummy knitted, and knew that she did.
Alice was on the bed, curled around a pillow, watching her favourite lunchtime programme. She’d been up all morning, and was starting to feel sleepy. There was jam on her top and her hair was tangled. On the screen a man dressed as a giant dolphin danced with a boy and they sang about life in the ocean.
The front door rapped with the noise it made when the post arrived. Nothing had arrived for them in the morning post, and her mother had said they must stay in, to wait for the lunchtime delivery. She was waiting for something important.
Mummy opened the door, walked to the end of the hall, and Alice followed her. Downstairs was a snare of paper stuck out of door’s mouth like teeth. She watched her mother’s rapid feet on the stairs, rushing to grab the paper.
Mummy sifted through the pile, discarding white and brown envelopes on the floor, the post for the other people in the house. Finally, she held one in her hands. She walked back upstairs with it, her feet heavy, and returned to the cramped room. She sat on the bed. Alice wondered if it was the special money called a ‘Giro’ that arrived by post. The Giro meant food in the cupboard, maybe even crisps. Mummy put an arm around her but still stared at the envelope. It was long and thin like a shark’s tooth, and her mother held it, as if afraid it would bite. On the TV the giant dolphin told the boy about all the fish that live under water, and what they eat. In blue letters on the screen was the word FOODCHAIN. Mummy began to tear the envelope.
Alice held her breath without knowing why, perhaps to make amends for her mother’s over-rapid breathing. The only noise was the singing of the dolphin and the boy. Mummy pulled the paper, and unfolded it slowly. Then she made a sound in her throat, like there was too much water and the girl thought of when she washed her hair in the bath and the water got up her nose. But Mummy’s face was dry and sad, like when Alice started at the toddler group and clung to her, not wanting her to leave.
“Is it our Giro, Mummy?” asked Alice, looking at the paper, which had a shield at the top and a funny line of words in a strange language.
Mummy whispered, “It’s a summons. The catalogue company. I owe them a lot of money.” She turned to her daughter. “I have to go to court.”
“Can I come?” said the girl, thinking of Cinderella in her pretty dress and the glass slippers.
“It’s only for adults. You’ll have to stay here.” Mummy folded the paper up, into three, sliding it back in the ripped envelope. Alice touched the sticky jam on her top, and felt her knotted hair. She wanted to go with Mummy.
*
Alice didn’t like Mr Wilding, but he liked Mummy and they had to walk past his door to get to their own. He always seemed to be about to go out just as they went by, his door just opening. She didn’t like going into his room, but Mummy said she couldn’t go to the court with her. She must wait with Mr Wilding and be good.
Mr Wilding told Mummy that she looked pretty in her flowery dress, but Mummy just tugged at the neckline and said it’s out of fashion now, but he kept looking anyway.
Mr Wilding’s room was smaller than theirs, and the curtains were never opened properly, but in the dull room she could see piles of boxes.
“Video players,” he said, gesturing with a green and gold packet. “I’ll give you one for a kiss?” Alice jumped away, but he laughed like it was a joke. He went back to rolling the paper of his cigarette.
When Mummy arrived home she grabbed Alice’s hand. “Thank Mr Wilding for looking after you, Alice.”
“She was no bother,” he said. “So what happened?”
“I’ve got to pay all I owe, plus fifty pounds costs, in twenty eight days.” Mr Wilding looked thoughtful, and his red tongue licked his lower lip. “You got that sort of money?”
“Oh yeah,” said Mummy, “I’m loaded. Can’t you tell?”
“I could help you, Matty. If you want, that is.”
Mummy held Alice’s hand tight, so she yelped. Mummy shook her head, and she looked worried. Mr Wilding said, “You just think about it, Matty. For the girl’s sake.”
Alice was glad when their bedroom door closed behind them, although Mr Wilding’s door made no sound. He was still standing there, in the hall.
That evening he brought round fish and chips, with a sausage in batter for Alice, and when she was going to bed he came back with a bottle of wine. Mummy didn’t even have a bottle opener, but he’d thought of that. Alice lay on the bed watching them drink, seeing how Mr Wilding touched her Mummy on the arm, and rubbed his leg against her, when he spoke. The more Mummy drank the less she seemed to mind.
Sixteen
“I brought your things,” Cate says, handing over the bag. She can’t help staring. Of course, I’m wearing faded, old clothes, so unlike anything she has seen me in before. Just three days ago I was immaculate. The Alice before her is not the Alice in Lavenham. I no longer match my house and I’m not Alice the academic. This is mad Alice. Cate peers at me, searching for signs of my breakdown.
I grab the bag, rush the zip, and pull out indigo jeans and a baby blue cashmere jumper, then seize on the assortment of knickers and bras.
“Thank God you remembered underwear.” I disappear behind the curtain screen on wheels.
When I come out she looks relieved, and I know from her face that I am no longer a madwoman. Smart clothes indicate a woman in control of her life. Packagin
g over content. She watches me comb out my hair, twisting it and pinning a loose chignon at the nape of my neck. So suddenly sophisticated, incongruous in this institution. Nothing mad about me. But she is not so gullible, surely. She has been to my home. She will have seen the broken glass on the floor.
“Have you tried to harm yourself, Alice?” Her eyes search my arms, the thin strip of exposed flesh at my wrist. She must see the red scratches. “Are you suicidal?”
I sit on the bed, delve into the makeup bag she brought me, and begin to apply lip liner. I don’t smudge it, despite the boldness of her question. I finish my Cupid’s bow. “No. I’m not suicidal. I was just having a bad day on Tuesday. I shouldn’t be here. This is all a terrible mistake.” I sift through the makeup bag and choose an eye shadow, using the compact mirror to apply a layer of ivory to my eyelid with my ring finger.
She watches me closely. “But Dr Gregg decided to section you. He said you held broken glass to your neck?”
I continue staring in the mirror, blood in my cheeks like a blush. “Maybe I seemed to be worse than I actually was.” I look up, “But you can see, can’t you, that I shouldn’t be here? I want to go home now.”
“Then talk to me,” she says, “tell me why you agreed to help David Jenkins commit suicide. Why did you reply to his advert? When we met at the university you said that time is the enemy of love, not death. I want to understand. Maybe then I can help. You said it was an act of love. What did you mean?”
“So many questions, Miss Austin. I’m not sure I have any answers. After all, I’m not a psychiatrist. But I can tell you this: I wasn’t looking for Smith. He found me. When I read his advert it was like a call. I don’t know if you can imagine such a thing. A message on a screen, sent by a stranger. A connection that touches something inside another complete stranger.”
“Didn’t you think the advert could be a prank?”
“He spoke of a journey, of needing a beautiful woman to help him to die.” Catching my reflection in the mirror, I think he wouldn’t have chosen me as I look now. Eyes bruised from broken sleep, skin sallow and jaded by stale air and crap food. “I’ve spent a lifetime analysing words. Poets choose every word with care, Miss Austin, and Smith had done the same with his advert. I knew that he was seeking a special death. The biblical quote told me his journey was a spiritual one. I was willing to help.”
“It sounds straightforward. As if you read his advert and the next thing was to arrange a date for the deed.”
“It may sound that way, but life is never simple. We hadn’t yet met, remember. And we may not have been attracted to each other. The whole thing could have ended there.”
*
It’s time for you to meet Smith. Where was I? Ah, yes. I was waiting on the platform in the bitter wind.
He stepped off the train at the far end of the platform, the only passenger. We were alone, walking slowly towards each other. I didn’t feel the cold anymore, and my jacket hung open. I was hot under the arms and my face burned.
A few yards still separated us when he stopped. We considered each other. He was short, or seemed to be, but then I’m tall for a woman. He wore a long black coat, too thin to be wool, and carried a worn canvas rucksack. I noticed these things because I was scared to look at his face. But then he said, “Hello, Robin.” I liked his voice. Quiet and low, like water over pebbles. A steady voice.
I looked up.
He wasn’t like his photo, and I realised he wore different glasses, trendy frameless ones, that made him seem younger. I moved towards him, kissed his cheek which was clean-shaven and scented with basil. He was better than I’d imagined, perfect in his ordinariness. Everything was right: his white shirt, his plain suit, his cheap coat. His small eyes blinking behind the lenses.
Beautiful, but only to me.
I was shy in the car, but he soothed me, describing his journey in level tones, even his hellish commute across London. He admired my Midget, touched the re-stitched leather approvingly. The car was scuffed and unloved when I bought it but I’d made it new again. I would do the same for him. I felt him looking at me, but I kept my eyes on the road, thinking through my actions like a learner driver, calming myself with the mantra of mirror, signal, manoeuvre.
When I yanked on the handbrake he gazed up at my house and whistled softly. “Beautiful.”
I was embarrassed.
I couldn’t tell him the house was a bribe, that it was bought with blood money. He followed me upstairs, to the spare bedroom, placing his bag on the bed as if he’d done it a hundred times before. “Do you mind if I have a shower? I want to wash the city off my skin.”
I showed him the en-suite bathroom, the new towels on the rail, white and fluffy. All white, spa-like in its tranquillity. In the bedroom was a black iron bed, a mahogany chest of drawers. No mess, no clutter. Not even a picture on the wall. No distractions. Its minimalism calmed me.
I went down to the kitchen and fixed drinks. I hadn’t asked what he wanted, so I made my favourite, whisky macs, heavy on the ginger with a peaty single malt. I also grabbed some nuts, which had been lingering in the cupboard for a while.
When Smith came down his hair was wet at the ends, making it curl. He had put his shirt back on, but without the tie, and it was open at the neck. He was barefoot and looked relaxed and at home, sipping his drink.
“Islay malt?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re a connoisseur of whisky?”
I shrugged. “I’ve learned to appreciate it. I prefer to have fewer things, but have the best.”
He looked around the room, “So I see.”
The whisky warmed through my blood, loosened the skin from my bones and numbed my lips. I was heavy in my armchair, pulled my legs like dead weights under me, and rested my lolling head on the steep shoulder of the chair. Smith stretched out on the sofa, a hand trailing on the floor, as if he was dragging it in water as he was rowed along a river. The bottle was empty of whisky which coursed through our bloodstreams. If we had stretched out our hands we could have touched, but neither of us did. I wondered, abstractly, if we would spend the night like that. I wanted to touch him.
Smith retrieved his hand from the watery carpet, pressed his brow. “Oh God, the room’s spinning.”
Despite the deadening in my muscles, the room was the same as always to me. Only he made it different. He was like an animal I’d stolen from the zoo, an exotic creature that I didn’t know how to care for, one which might bite. I wished I wasn’t so drunk, although what else could strangers do, thrown together by one mutual desire but little else? I knew nothing about him. I waited for his touch, closed my eyes, and thought of his hands under the fabric of my clothes, wanting the warmth, the sensation of skin on skin. I wanted to get up, cross the room. I wasn’t a child, not a silly schoolgirl, but a practiced lover, with no reason to hesitate.
I opened my eyes, swung my legs free, slid to the floor and crawled towards Smith. His hand was still upturned on his brow, as if to shield his eyes from bright sunlight. I sat on the floor, my head level with his, and touched his dark hair. A curl wrapped my finger like a baby’s clasp. He didn’t stir. His breathing was deep, punctuated by the sonorous sound of air through too-narrow airways. Fast asleep. Releasing his hair, removing my hand, I left him to spend the night on my sofa and went upstairs, to my own bed.
Miraculously, neither of us had hangovers the following morning. Another reason to invest in top-drawer liquor. It was February, but the sun was high, a Saturday; there was every reason to be happy. I slipped into a floaty dress, too thin for the weather but I felt warmed by Smith’s presence. I listened to the sound of him showering, could hear him humming when the water stopped, the sound of his feet on wet tiles. It felt like my birthday and I wanted to celebrate, but I kept my feelings reined in, not sure of their appropriateness. After all, he’d come to me to die.
I looked at myself in the full-length mirror, trying to see through his eyes. I was tall and sle
nder, and the cotton skimmed my breasts and hips. Under the skirt, shorter than I would normally wear, my calves were shapely and pale, nails a pretty coral that accentuate my long toes. Moving up, as a man’s gaze might travel, I saw the faint line of my knickers, the lace of my bra. White on white. My neck, slender and long, and then my head, my face, long hair like a wave down my back. How often do we look at our faces and not see what’s really there? I tried to consider slowly, as if seeing for the first time, an artist studying his muse before starting a portrait. My eyes, almond shaped, looked grey that morning but are in fact green; the shade varies depending on what colours I wear. My nose, with a delicate tilt at the end, is feminine but I dislike the nostrils which are too small for my features, my sharp cheekbones, my domed forehead.
