Putting Alice Back Together

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘Just relax, Alice. Let your knees flop.’

  I can’t. My legs are shaking and I can’t let them flop, but eventually I do just enough, and I lie there with my eyes screwed closed and her idle chatter does nothing to soothe me—I just want it over.

  Every cervix tells a story—I’d read it in one of the magazines. I hated anyone looking. I mean, I was careful and everything. I always used condoms. I was so paranoid about getting pregnant and, given the transient nature of my lovers, no matter how pissed I was I always made them dress for the occasion.

  Dr Kelsey asked the same questions—had I had any problems, any procedures or pregnancies?—just as she had done last time. She asked about my medical history in the UK and I answered as I had done last time—nothing. I scaled down the number of sexual partners because, well, given they always wore condoms, she really didn’t need to know, and anyway this last year there’d been hardly anyone.

  Well, anyone down there.

  ‘Okay, all done!’

  I dressed behind the curtains as she tapped on the computer and chatted away to me as I walked over and sat down.

  ‘I don’t like to prescribe Valium without counselling. I’ll give you a script but I want to see you again soon.’ I could feel a flood of relief as she started typing up my script. ‘But I’m not going to give you any more without you seeing Lisa again.’

  ‘Can you recommend anyone else?’ I asked.

  ‘She’s excellent,’ Dr Kelsey said.

  ‘She’s expensive,’ I attempted as Dr Kelsey typed up a very long letter. I was trying to peek but the screen was angled so that I couldn’t really see.

  ‘We’ll put you on a mental health plan,’ Dr Kelsey said (bloody cheek!). ‘You’ll get a decent rebate. I’ll get the receptionist to make you an appointment, but I’m not giving you any more till I’ve heard back from Lisa. Okay?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said, because she didn’t really give me much choice.

  Lisa had a cancellation for the day after tomorrow, Saturday morning as it turned out—and because Dr Kelsey was at the desk I nodded and said that would be fine and then I stepped out onto the street and went to the chemist.

  Fifty-five mg and no repeats.

  I was relieved, of course, to get them, but instead of the euphoria of before I knew that these would only last me a few days.

  I opened my purse to pay and there it was, tucked inside, the letter from the hospital.

  It was almost as comforting as paying for my pack of Valium.

  Eighteen

  When I went back for my next lesson, neither Gus nor Celeste were home. I’d had my hair straightened again. I was nervous but looking forward to seeing him, sort of. There was no answer at the door and, even though Gus had mixed up my lesson times once before, this time I knew it was no mistake.

  I also knew I couldn’t tell Mum.

  That she would ring him and ask for an explanation.

  And when, on the next Thursday, it happened again, I knew that Gus didn’t want to see me. I rang him, but he just hung up. So for the next few weeks I practised hard on my own, and took the money from Mum. I did go to his house once or twice, but in the end I would just spend the evening sitting in the park.

  I never worried at first that I might be pregnant—I was just consumed with wanting to see him. I knew how hard it must be for him, I mean, he had a wife and a baby on the way and was moving back to Australia soon, but I couldn’t believe it could just end like that. He had told me I was beautiful and sexy. I knew for a fact that he wasn’t happy with Celeste—if I could just see him again then it would all be okay.

  He was all I thought about.

  I practised on the piano all the time. It helped me to think of him, to remember, and I liked remembering, so I practised some more.

  I should have been worried, of course, when my period didn’t come, but I was sort of numb from worrying and I told Mum that I’d run out of tampons and she bought me some more. I remember flushing them one by one down the loo unused over the next couple of days so that she could see the packet getting smaller, and I felt safe—I’d got away with it.

  Nineteen

  Even though he was away, even though I normally hated spending a night on my own, I was quite enjoying this one.

  In a wretched, maudlin, suicidal way.

  I’d got my credit-card statements and two phone calls from recovery agencies, so I’d turned down the phone and was letting it go straight to the answering-machine. The period Dr Kelsey had said was imminent had arrived by the time I’d got home from the doctor’s surgery, and even by the next night it was still sending my uterus into spasm. Still, the Valium combined with wine was helping. I had my little Russian dolls all out beside me. I was reading a New Age book, but I was tired of all the affirmations and crap about loving my inner child, so I’d given up. I lay on the bed, tackling the never-ending problem that was my bikini line with a pair of tweezers, tossing up whether I’d get the Brazilian keratin treatment or get my pubes lasered away when my ship came in, and watching for maybe the fiftieth time The Holiday.

  I love that movie—not the Kate Winslet and the other guy bits, but Jude and Cameron. I want to be her. I want to lie with kids who think I’m a princess, staring up at the sparkles, or look sexy as I swig out of a wine bottle. I want to have sex like that and wake up and he’s still sexy even in his glasses.

  Like Hugh.

  I paused and rewound—watched Jude all bumbling and so lovely he made my toes curl and had a giggle to myself, and then I heard the bedroom door open.

  ‘Alice?’

  I felt as if I’d been caught.

  I had been caught.

  Lying on top of the bed, drinking wine, eating chocolate and wearing a pair of knickers and a vest top. Thankfully the face mask was off, the tweezers down and the nails were painted, but this was so not how I wanted to be seen.

  This was my night in.

  And I was supposed to be out.

  ‘Hey.’ He sat on the edge of the bed as I turned over my book so he wouldn’t think my life needed healing (he was a psychiatrist after all). ‘What are you watching?’

  ‘Just a movie.’ I flicked the pause button again, didn’t want him to know that I was home alone and watching a romantic comedy. I’d far rather have been found watching a documentary or reading something highbrow. ‘How come you’re back?’

  ‘I think jet lag hit.’ He shrugged; he was wearing his glasses and he looked a bit tense. ‘Well, that’s what I said to them—they’re nice and everything, but they’re friends of Gemma’s. It just got…’ He gave another shrug. ‘It’s complicated. People want answers and I don’t want to give them. Probably because I don’t know them. Look, about before, Alice…’

  ‘Forget it,’ I said, and I was being very grown up, because even though I fancied him rotten, even though I hated Gemma with a passion, I didn’t want to mess with his head, I mean, we were talking an eight-year relationship.

  I just never imagined what would come next.

  ‘I can’t forget about it.’ Hugh sat on the edge of the bed. ‘I’ve got a headache from trying not to think about it—the thing is, I don’t want to forget about it.’

  Thank God the main light was off because my face was burning. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t really understand what Hugh was saying, so he clarified a touch.

  ‘When I asked Gemma for a break—I meant from each other. I never thought I might meet someone else while I was here. I have to tell her.’

  My eyes jerked to his and he just stared; he stared at me and I looked back. And what I saw was so unfamiliar that it was scary. I could see his want, his desire, his affection for me, see what I had never actually seen in a man’s eyes before, and I didn’t know what to do with it.

  I just didn’t know how to respond, so I turned my eyes back to the screen.

  I stared unseeing at a frozen image on the screen and I wanted to pause my life. If there had been a button I could push, I think I w
ould have done it then.

  You see—I had wished for this. I had demanded it, in fact, had read that book and put in my order for the perfect man, and here he was. The only thing was, I liked him.

  Which should be a given, except I really liked him and that also meant, I guess, that I cared for him.

  This gorgeous, talented, educated, sexy man was sitting on my bed and weighing up tossing in eight years on one kiss.

  One kiss, for God’s sake—hell, he should be shagging his way through the next ten months, not agonising over a kiss.

  I snog anyone. A few drinks and I snog. That’s what I do.

  He didn’t know me and that’s what worried me most.

  How would he feel if he did?

  ‘So, what happened to your night out?’ he asked. (I had lied and said I had plans.)

  ‘Oh, I just didn’t feel like it,’ I said airily.

  ‘What are you watching?’

  I had no choice but to tell him because he was already reading the cover of the DVD. Then he asked if he could watch too and sort of sprawled on the bed beside me. I guess I could have said no, only it would have seemed stupid. I mean, if it was Roz or Dan or anyone else, I would have been begging them to stay, but it was Hugh, and I felt uncomfortable.

  Especially at this bit.

  I always get embarrassed watching kisses on screen—even on my own. I can feel this sort of knot in my stomach. At the movies too. As if everyone in the cinema is watching my reaction, watching me blush, as I watch them make out.

  As if.

  Lying on the bed next to Hugh, as Cameron and Jude’s tongues mingled I was exquisitely uncomfortable, because I knew Hugh was sort of watching my reaction.

  Because I could sense his.

  Knew without looking that he was turned on.

  I pulled up my knees, the cramping in my stomach at odds with the fire in my groin.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’ve got my period.’ Better to be honest, I decided, better to just say it. Better that he knew that this wasn’t going anywhere.

  ‘Do you want some paracetamol?’

  ‘Wine will do.’ I didn’t swig out of the bottle, I’m no Cameron Diaz, but I took a very grateful slug of my glass and lay back on my pillow as he went to top it up. The bottle was empty and he padded out to the kitchen. I lay there, not so innocent.

  You see, I am an over-thinker.

  I just am. As I said, I don’t mind stupid people, I just get irritated at stupid people who pretend to be clever.

  Hugh isn’t stupid.

  Hugh, I knew, had been a touch worried when he’d found those Valium.

  Well, since then I’d had the script dispensed and had replaced those empty blister packs. They were now lying in the same white box he had seen that morning, near the top of my handbag.

  Okay, I had left them, intending him to find them when he came home from his trip, but when he walked back into the bedroom with a bit more of a spring in his step, I guessed he had been rummaging in my bag just now.

  I didn’t blame him for snooping.

  I’d have done the same.

  Clever, you see.

  ‘So, what are you allergic to?’ (Told you he looked.)

  ‘No idea…’ I shrugged, but my blasé demeanour lasted about point seven of a second as I felt his lips on my shoulder. ‘They thought it was hazelnuts. When I was seven Dad took us to a pub and then…’ I couldn’t really continue. His tongue was in my clavicle.

  ‘Then?’ He paused for oxygen, but not for long. His fingers were pulling the strap of my top and his lips were nudging my skin.

  ‘Well…’ I was doing my best to speak normally, except Cameron and Jude had stopped talking and Hugh was kissing this bit of skin near my neck and I was finding it really hard to speak let alone think back twenty years ago. ‘Bonny started screaming and my dad came running. I couldn’t breathe.’

  ‘Poor little Alice,’ Hugh said, and then we kissed. We were just legs and arms and mouths and tongues. We kissed and then we’d stop and smile and then dive back for another one. We kissed for ages, like two teenagers. We just lay on the bed and kissed and all I can say was that it was delicious.

  ‘I’ve got my period,’ I said again a little while later. I was on my back; he was on his side and one leg was over me.

  ‘Is that why you stayed home?’

  ‘Mmm.’ He hadn’t got my message. His hand went to my stomach, massaging the ball of tension that was my uterus. At least now I had a reason to be stuck home on a Friday night and I relaxed a touch.

  I watched his hand, his fingers still stroking my skin and then digging in a bit, sort of kneading. My knees were still up and he pushed them down.

  ‘Relax.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I admitted, because I couldn’t. I had my shagging period and he was in bed next to me with this massive erection pressing out of his jeans.

  My phone bleeped—I have never in my life been so grateful for the distraction. I leant over and frowned as the name Marcus appeared on screen and then remembered that an hour or so ago I’d succumbed to an advert and texted to find out the name of my ideal lover, hoping it would be Hugh.

  ‘Just Roz.’ I turned off the phone.

  ‘It’s so good she’s got you.’ Hugh sort of pulled me in as I rolled back on the bed. ‘She’s really struggling.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I groaned.

  ‘You’re a good friend,’ Hugh said, his lips diving back to my clavicle. ‘Fuck, imagine coming out at thirty-four…’

  ‘What?’ I sort of pushed him back. I pushed him away a fraction, my lips so ready to correct him, so nearly there, and then I checked myself. I lay in his arms on my bed and about fifteen hundred sentences that I’d heard in the last few months all seemed to crunch into some sort of line. The writing appeared on the wall, and I was the bloody idiot who hadn’t seen it.

  ‘You don’t know?’ He frowned down at me. I could see the blaze of confusion—that his PC, Valium-free lover might not be quite as she appeared—and I knew I had to come up with something quickly.

  ‘Of course I know.’ His lips were there, tense, confused and pulling away, but I kissed them. Hugh pulled back and my mind whirred into sudden action. ‘I’m amazed she told you… she’s really shy about it…’ I was sort of showering his face with kisses. ‘It’s good that she’s started to say it.’ And I got away with it.

  His face was lowering onto mine and he was kissing me, his tongue stroking deep in my mouth. It was a deep kiss that made me curl inside, made me want to bring my knees back up, only he was sort of lying half on top of me, a lovely heavy weight gently pinning. Then his tongue was at the tip of mine, circling it and then sucking it into his mouth. I pulled back.

  ‘I can’t do anything.’

  He frowned, frowned as if he didn’t get it. God, maybe he was one of those guys who didn’t care and would just whip out my tampon. I hoped he didn’t want a bloody blow job, or worse.

  ‘You can do this.’ His tongue licked my lips, and from anyone else it would have been disgusting, but it was the single most erotic thing he could have done. He was licking my lips and then sucking my bottom one and my knees were pressing to come up but for other reasons now. He stopped. ‘Alice…’ His eyes held mine, lobbed the ball squarely into my court. ‘Do you want me to go?’

  ‘No.’ I flailed at my boldness. ‘But I can’t…’

  ‘Can’t what?’ He was kissing me again and he was so goddamned sexy, just this scent of DKNY and this deep, slow kiss that smothered the protests in my mind. He slid out of his jeans and lay next to me.

  He had on his hipsters and I could see the bulge pressing into my thigh and his finger was still stroking my stomach. Then his hand slipped down, stroking my clitoris and I was mortified. I mean I had my period, but all he was doing was stroking it and sort of pressing himself into me.

  When the movie was over he turned off the telly and turned off the lights. He took the bottle away and I lay
there staring at the black ceiling, wondering what was going to happen. I rolled onto my side as he went to the loo.

  And then he was back.

  I’d told him sex wasn’t on the agenda, yet I could feel his arousal as he spooned in behind me.

  I could feel the small, idle circles he was drawing on my stomach, I could feel his breath on my neck when his other hand moved my hair.

  The room was hot—I wanted to get up and open a window. I could feel the sheen of sweat on my body, could feel it on my scalp and neck, could feel my hair coiling at the nape, and then I felt his lips pressing into the back of my neck. They parted and he was kissing me deeper and his hand was still on my stomach.

  I couldn’t breathe. I ignored his mouth that was sucking and nibbling at my shoulder because I could feel his fingers, that idle stroking moving down, and I had my period, except his hand wasn’t urgent, just a lazy spiral, a never-ending circle on my stomach. I knew he had bruised my shoulder. I sort of wriggled away because for a second it hurt and then I wriggled back and felt him pressed into me.

  I really couldn’t breathe. Like those fucking self-help tapes. I couldn’t remember how to breathe, because his hand was moving lower and his groin was pressing harder.

  I was so tense. I can’t describe how tense I was. I knew that it wouldn’t stay like this. That soon I’d be on my back, with my knickers round one ankle, but his hand never moved. It just stayed on my lower stomach, making these strange, backward circles as I waited for his erection to nudge. It was there. I could feel it hard. In fact, I was now pressing against it, but he never moved, bar his hands, bar this lovely, lovely circle, bar me as I moved a touch against him.

  I pressed harder and so did he.

  And then I turned towards him, my legs wrapping around him. I was pushing myself against him, rubbing myself against him and kissing him. I could feel the contractions in my stomach, and a sort of choking sound that came from me. I knew he was going to come, but he didn’t. I knew he would stop kissing me, and moving the same as me, and pressing hard into me, but still he didn’t. I was coming and he wasn’t, I was pressing into him and he was rubbing so hard against me, but he wasn’t coming. My mouth was open and his lips were drinking from mine and his hand pressed me in and I was coming. I waited for the spill, for something, for nothing, he just kissed me.