Putting Alice Back Together

by Carol Marinelli

  And as my head turned back to the television, I saw Hugh was staring at me agape.

  ‘Four people are dead, Alice.’ He stopped himself then, he didn’t say ‘You selfish, self-absorbed bitch,’ but I know he thought it.

  It wasn’t a great night.

  Roz went home for a row of her own, because Lizzie texted and said she was on the train and could her mum pick her up? Then Hugh got called into work and I took some Kalmas and lay in the dark and waited, wondering if he’d come back and if he did, if he’d sleep in Nicole’s room.

  But, no, he came in at three and his body was cold as he slid into bed. He pulled me in to him and he kissed my cheek and my shoulder and then he did a really nice thing, he pulled up the duvet and tucked it in around me. He cuddled me so hard, but it wasn’t for sex.

  He thought I was asleep and he really cuddled me.

  Apart from the Russian dolls, it was, on reflection, the nicest thing ever done for me. Okay, nicer than the Russian dolls, except it was sad too.

  He kissed my cheek.

  Then I realised I wasn’t even pretending to be asleep.

  I can’t explain it.

  My body was limp, my eyes were closed, as in sleep, and my mind for once was fairly quiet. It was like I was hovering over the bed and watching him holding me.

  He was stroking my hair, but I could see it rather than feel it.

  He was tucked into me and I was the cold one now and he kept me warm.

  I know he was awake for a long time.

  I know he was thinking.

  I know we had, by then, moved into injury time.

  I didn’t want it to end; I didn’t want it to happen.

  But it was, of course, inevitable.

  Forty-One

  I hated being by myself.

  I’d been really looking forward to having the house to myself while Mum and Bonny were in France. It sounds babyish, but at seventeen, very nearly eighteen, I’d never actually spent a night on my own.

  Well, Mum rarely went out and if she did, say, she had a nightshift, there was always Bonny, or sometimes Eleanor would come over with the kids. But this was the first time I had the house completely to myself for a whole night and I found out that I didn’t like it one bit.

  It was Sunday night and a week till my music practical exam, but on Friday Bonny and Lex left for Australia and I didn’t know what I was dreading the most.

  Both.

  I didn’t want it to be next week, I didn’t want her to be gone, so I tried not to think about it.

  Mum rang in the evening—it sounded like they were having fun. I heard Bonny laughing in the background and I lay on the bed and spoke to Mum for a bit, said that everything was great. Then I headed to my piano and practised for hours—played and played and tried to get it right. It was fantastic. I hadn’t got it completely right, and I accepted that could never happen. You never actually do with music—unless you’re brilliant and write a masterpiece—and I doubt you could repeat it every time. In fact, I doubt it could ever be repeated again.

  It’s perfect energy.

  I’m close to heaven.

  I’m alone with my music.

  I just glimpsed it.

  I will never hit perfect, because it isn’t about hitting G or F or hand rollovers—it’s how you hit the notes, how the fingers hit the notes. More than that, it’s the emotion that floods sometimes through your fingers.

  You do the lessons.

  You practise.

  You practise more and more.

  And you can play and play and spend a lifetime trying to re-create the sound that is heaven.

  And you’ll never quite get there.

  But if you practise, and then you let it come, you get to glimpse it.

  It almost aligns.

  A sound that lasts longer than you can hear it, a sound that carries on long after it is lost to us. It vibrates up to heaven: it has to, because it is real, it existed and you made it.

  It has to go somewhere.

  It’s energy and energy can’t die.

  It can’t.

  I think I learnt that in physics.

  I couldn’t stand the emotion of my real life.

  I could not bear to examine it.

  I poured it out here on a secondhand piano that had just been tuned, but needed it again.

  It was never going to be perfect.

  I never could get it completely right.

  I understood that.

  I got close though.

  I glimpsed it.

  I had energy and it coursed through me that night.

  I felt so close to the music; it was all coming together and I kept playing and playing till the neighbours banged on the wall, and given it was after midnight I really had no choice but to stop. Anyway, I was tired now. My back was hurting from sitting so long on the piano stool.

  The energy had gone.

  I tried to do some theory but I couldn’t concentrate.

  There was nothing on the television, just news and someone selling a foundation that came with a brush set and a religious show. I flicked back to the make-up, not that I was watching it. Even though I had it on loud, I could hear every noise, every creak. I paced around. I couldn’t think of going upstairs to bed. It was nearly two a.m. and I couldn’t think about sleep. The blinds weren’t closed in the kitchen and I was sure there was someone in the garden, so instead of going to check I closed the blinds.

  I filled a mug with some wine and hoped it would make me sleep. Then I remembered that I couldn’t drink, so I tipped it down the sink and wished it was seven a.m. and morning, and that I wasn’t on my own, that Lex was back…

  But then I didn’t want to be on my own with him, because he asked too many questions.

  Maybe I should tell him?

  He’d hate me; he’d hate me so much because Bonny wouldn’t go.

  I knew that she was looking for an excuse, any excuse not to go, and this would give her one.

  Maybe I could go with them.

  My brain lurched with new possibility. I headed for the kitchen. Surely I could have some wine.

  What seventeen-year-old wouldn’t while their mum was away?

  It wasn’t as if I was throwing a wild party. Maybe I could go to Australia after the exams. I filled my mug as for the first time I saw an option. They could have it.

  It.

  I shouldn’t drink; I shouldn’t be drinking. I was pregnant and I shouldn’t be drinking.

  It was like worlds colliding. I threw the mug into the sink and it broke—and I felt like it was my brain cracking…

  I never thought about it.

  I never let myself think about it.

  But I was thinking about it all the time.

  It was like a noise in the background I was trying to ignore, but it just kept getting louder and louder and it was three a.m. now and it was screaming and I couldn’t turn it off.

  I wanted to drink the whole cask.

  I wanted it to stop, to just go the fuck away.

  I hated Gus. I was on my knees, and I cried so hard that I threw up. I hated him; I hated that Celeste would have his baby now.

  I hoped it was ugly.

  I hoped it screamed and never slept and that Celeste was a fat ugly cow and that he hated his life and would choose me.

  Me and my baby.

  My baby!

  It was like all the cracks joined up—all the thoughts I hadn’t had, or had ignored, just formed one big thought.

  I felt like I’d come out of a coma. I could see my puke on the kitchen floor and I cleaned it up. I was frozen cold and numb, but not numb enough, because my mind was clear and the noise had stopped.

  I was pregnant and I had to do something.

  I lay on the sofa and pulled a throw rug over me but I was still cold and I didn’t care.

  I pushed my hand on my tummy.

  I felt nothing.

  I pushed my fingers in.

  I felt a stab of fear that I ha
d left it too late, but then I got my reward, a flutter beneath my fingers. I rolled on my back and I watched my tummy move.

  You danced for me.

  I saw ripples in my tummy like waves rolling in.

  I couldn’t catch them but I was awash with them.

  There was an energy inside me—that energy was you.

  I didn’t care what Gus said, I was good enough.

  Or I would be good enough.

  I would try to be good enough for you.

  I was already a mother.

  I think I loved you.

  I would ring someone, or could I talk to Eleanor?

  Maybe I would go to Australia…

  Forty-Two

  I slept for two, maybe three hours, but then I woke up. I was the coldest I had ever been and I could smell sick in my hair. My back was killing me from all the piano practice and sleeping on the sofa.

  It was May, almost June, but I put on the central heating and because it was light now and the house seemed normal I went upstairs and ran a bath. I wanted to get warm and it helped my back as well. I lay there for ages, topping up the water, and I was scared but surprisingly calm.

  I could hear the traffic in the street and the world waking up and carrying on. I stared down at my stomach, my belly button was flat and big and it looked weird. I touched it, then I touched my stomach. I put both hands on it. It felt tight and hard and I wanted you to kick for me. I hated the bath usually, because that was when you moved, but you didn’t now.

  There was no hot water left when I tried to top up again, so I pulled myself out and felt this sting in my back… and suddenly I wanted to be sick again. I pulled my wet hair off my face and was sick in the sink. I was shivering and cold, even though my skin was red from the hot bath. I wrapped a towel around my shoulders and dried myself with another one. I just wanted to put on my robe and crawl into bed and then the towel was wet, a different wet, a gush of wet and I knew what was happening and I was back to being scared.

  I could hear someone humming and I knew it was me. I wanted to kneel down, but I knew if I did… well, I knew that I couldn’t. I just hummed for a minute or so, leant over the sink and hummed and shivered. I caught sight of my face—it was blotchy and red from last night’s tears and my hair was a mess, all wet and curly. And I was having you.

  I pulled on my robe—I had to get to a phone.

  Or not?

  I could just have it here.

  I could just kneel down like I wanted to, like my body was telling me to do. I could just crouch down and soon it would all go away and no one would ever have to know.

  Forty-Three

  ‘Let’s ring in sick…’

  I was spooned against him, eyes stuck like a stamp to an envelope, trying to peel them open, and hit the snooze button for the second time as Hugh dropped the bombshell.

  Had I suggested it, it wouldn’t have been a bombshell—I had suggested it every morning lately and often followed through—but for Hugh to say it was a first.

  He scooped me closer, the arm that was under me dredging me over the bed, sucking me towards him like a tsunami had struck.

  ‘We can’t.’

  ‘We can,’ Hugh said. ‘Let’s go out for the day. Just for a drive, we can find somewhere nice for lunch.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘We can talk.’

  He wanted to talk.

  I knew that.

  He kept trying to talk to me.

  ‘I have to go to work.’

  I climbed out of bed and so too did Hugh.

  He followed me into the bathroom.

  ‘Do you mind?’

  I closed the door; I couldn’t even pee in private in this place.

  I waited till the loo flushed, just in case he was outside, and then I went in the cupboard and took a couple of Kalmas.

  I could feel his eyes on me as I walked into the kitchen.

  ‘Better?’ he said, and handed me a coffee, but I swear he sneered.

  ‘I just can’t take a day off right now,’ I explained, but he just looked at me. I shook my head as if he didn’t get it, and then left for work.

  All morning the row unsettled me—okay, it wasn’t a row, but I had seen the dispproval in his eyes.

  By lunchtime I’d talked myself out if it.

  Everything was fine, I convinced myself.

  ‘Do you want to go out tomorrow night?’ Roz put a massive take-out latte in front of me as I peeled off my headphones for a moment’s break and she waited for me to say no again.

  ‘Okay.’

  I could see she was surprised—Roz had been badgering me for weeks—but suddenly I could use a night out and it had nothing to do with Hugh being on call over the weekend and staying at the hospital. I genuinely wanted Roz.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Only you’re really pale.’

  ‘I just got the grandparents.’ The death certificates were in and relatives of the victims of the house fire had been ringing all morning; it was pretty grim going.

  ‘I just had an aunty,’ Roz said, and grimaced.

  I clipped back my headphones, took a massive swig of latte and took the next call.

  ‘I can’t send a fax,’ said the voice on the other end.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘The man said I should send a fax, but I can’t.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I keep crying. They are my babies.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ Roz had turned to go, but I grabbed her wrist. ‘Tell me what you want to say.’

  ‘Mum!’ I frantically mouthed at Roz.

  ‘Shit!’ she mouthed back. And she couldn’t hold my hand because I was typing, so she held my shoulder instead.

  ‘Mark—

  ‘We had a dream.

  ‘We had so many dreams.

  ‘Our children make them real.’

  ‘Make?’ I checked.

  ‘Made,’ she answered.

  It took an hour—she kept crying. She refused to let anyone do it for her—she wanted to do this herself, she said.

  So I sat there, as the woman I had seen being held back on the television news tried to sum up her three children in a few lines.

  I had to read it back to her over and over.

  I had to be professional and detached, and kind too.

  I had to listen to her grief and somehow not compare it to mine.

  Forty-Four

  ‘Hey, Alice.’ I was standing at the top of the stairs as Lex came in. I had my robe on, and I was as wet with sweat as if I’d just come out of the bath. ‘It’s like a bloody sauna in here.’

  He was so tired he looked grey. I knew he just wanted to fall into bed and I felt sorry for him. In my selfish world, there was this thought for another person and I felt so sorry for him.

  So sorry for what he’d come home to.

  ‘I’m having it.’

  He was fiddling with the heater control, not looking at me. I saw him still, watched him turn around so slowly—or maybe it was quick, but it seemed so slow. I saw every flicker on his face as he turned around, realisation descending. He blinked and I swear I heard the bat of his lashes, saw the dread as he opened his eyes and looked at me.

  ‘Lex…’

  I was humming again. He was going for the phone, but it wasn’t there and I remembered it was in the bedroom from when Mum rang last night but I couldn’t move to get it. I was holding onto the banister and making this funny noise.

  He was racing around, trying to find it and patting his pockets for his mobile, and then he raced outside.

  I followed him to the car.

  He was trying to find his phone and he looked at the traffic. I could see him judging it—the hospital was about five minutes’ drive away.

  ‘When are you due?’ Lex—lovely, lovely Lex, who never got angry, who never was anything but nice—turned and swore. ‘Alice, when are you fucking due?’

  ‘I don’t know.’
<
br />   There was a sign. Emergency was closer but he turned for the arrow that said Maternity.

  No.

  I wanted Accident and Emergency.

  I wanted quick—to be dealt with, not Maternity.

  But we were pulling up.

  I felt normal as I walked through the sliding doors; I felt normal, except for the frizzy hair and disgusting dressing gown.

  Except for the fact it was seven-thirty a.m.—and I was here.

  I wanted to go home.

  ‘Did you ring ahead?’ There was a bored voice coming from behind a desk. ‘Who’s she under?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I could hear Lex snap, knew he was going to lose it soon. ‘She’s having a baby.’

  ‘Is she booked in here?

  ‘Can I see her card?’

  ‘I didn’t even know she was pregnant!’ He was about to crack, but I didn’t really notice. The humming was back. I was leaning on the desk and I think she guessed I was about to throw up or kneel down and make a mess of the blue carpet because she pushed a bell—and there was a woman.

  Her bottom lip was too big. I swear, if she had chosen to, she could have stretched it right over her forehead.

  It was all I could look at and then the pain stopped but I didn’t go back to normal this time.

  She was practical; she took me to a little annexe just off Reception and asked my name. She asked when I was due, if I was seeing a doctor there, but I didn’t answer and Lex couldn’t answer either. He was just a mountain of panic, pacing the room and shouting at me to tell her. She put her hand on my stomach and I couldn’t stand anyone near me.

  ‘Get off me!’ I shouted at her, at Lex, at everyone. ‘Just leave me alone.’

  And then she came over.

  ‘Hi, Deb, do you need a hand?’ She had a jacket on and a basket and she was clearly on her way out. Her shift was over but she stopped.

  There was chaos. Lex was shouting at the receptionist to get a doctor, Big Lip was telling Lex that he wasn’t helping and to calm down… and she just stood there and put her arm around me.

  ‘I’m Fi.’

  That was all I heard.

  Well, I heard her saying she was taking me to Birthing Suite Two but it sounded different.

  I heard her asking Lex to wait outside and telling Big Lip that she would take it from here.