Putting Alice Back Together

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘Go to bed.’ He was picking bits of china out of the sink, throwing them in the bin. ‘They said you should rest.’

  ‘Lex…’ I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know how I felt, but unfortunately I wasn’t numb enough not to notice the contempt in his eyes when he turned his face to me.

  ‘Alice, please go to bed. I can’t talk about it.’

  ‘Lex…’

  ‘I can’t talk about it!’ He stared at me. ‘I can’t even tell my wife, Alice. The worst fucking thing in my life and I can’t share it with her.’

  There was nothing I could say. I tried ‘Sorry’ but he didn’t nod, he didn’t accept, he just stared. So I went to go.

  ‘Who was he?’

  I carried on walking.

  ‘Surely I deserve that?’

  I kept on walking.

  ‘Do you even know?’

  I stopped at the bottom of the stairs—and realised that, yes, he did deserve that.

  ‘Gus.’

  I couldn’t look at him so I didn’t turn around.

  ‘Your piano teacher?’

  ‘He’s not a teacher.’

  ‘Yes, Alice.’ His voice followed me up the stairs. ‘He is. He’s married, isn’t he?’ I could hear his feet behind me on the stairs. ‘Wasn’t he the one with the pregnant wife…?’

  ‘Leave it, Lex.’

  ‘Did he know?’

  ‘I told him.’ My teeth were chattering. ‘He told me to sort it, said that he didn’t know it was even his—but it was only that time. That was the only time I’ve…’

  He stopped the barrage of questions then. He drooped, as if all anger and fight and fear had gone out of him. His face was putty-grey, his lips were white, and without another word I went to bed.

  I lay there. I could hear Lex throwing up in the bathroom. And then I heard the poor bastard trying to sound upbeat when Bonny rang.

  Fifty-One

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I stared up at the best friend I had ever had—a woman I’d treated like dirt when I’d found out her secret. The same woman who had raced round in the middle of the night to find out mine. ‘I was so mean. I was so embarrassed that you were gay…’

  ‘My own family hated me.’ Roz gripped my hands. ‘At least you kept talking to me, so talk to me now.’

  And I did.

  I told her; I sat as she held me and I told her—about the wedding and then about Gus and then about the baby. I told her my shame, how scared I had been, and she understood, because she had been seventeen and scared and pregnant too.

  ‘You told someone, you got help. You did the right thing,’ I said to her.

  ‘And fucked up so many lives…’

  It was Roz who cried and I felt like it was me. ‘I didn’t want to be gay,’ she howled loud enough for the neighbours to hear. ‘I couldn’t tell her,’ Roz said. ‘Alice, I couldn’t tell my mum either. She was a little bit relieved, I think, that I was pregnant. I think she’d been worried that I wasn’t girly enough, and then when she found out about Andrew, well… I think she was actually relieved. And Andrew did the decent thing. He said he’d marry me straight away. How could I turn around and say that I didn’t want that—that I didn’t fancy him, that the only reason I’d slept with him was to get rid of the rumours, to somehow prove to myself that I wasn’t different?’

  And we both cried some more.

  ‘We were seventeen,’ Roz said, ‘and scared.’

  We spoke all night; I thought we would never stop talking.

  We spoke through till the next morning and then Roz put me to bed, and when I woke up that evening, when I stared at the devastation, quite simply I couldn’t talk any more.

  Roz took two days off work.

  My phone rang a lot. Dan, Roz would say when she looked at it, but I didn’t pick up, and a couple of times it was Bonny, but I didn’t pick up for her either. I didn’t once jump or lurch in hope that it was Hugh.

  She answered the house phone too.

  Told them all I was sick and that, yes, she would pass on the message, but I was unwell and would get back to them just as soon as I was able.

  I lay in my bed and occasionally got up for the loo.

  I wasn’t hungry and I wasn’t thirsty and I didn’t want to talk any more—I felt like I was staring down a long cardboard roll and looking at my life and my past and watching it but not feeling it.

  Of course Roz couldn’t ring in sick for ever, and she had an important class tonight. I knew soon I would be left alone—and for the first time I wanted to be.

  I just wanted to lie there and close my eyes and sleep.

  I didn’t need a drink or a Valium; I didn’t need anything. I had found the place I was seeking—I was finally completely numb.

  ‘I have to go to uni just for a couple of hours.’ She was hovering by the bed. ‘Are you sure you’ll be okay?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Bonny rang, I said you had the flu—do you want me to ask her to come over…?’ Her voice trailed off. If Bonny saw me like this she’d freak.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, she’s coming over anyway,’ Roz said. ‘Tomorrow, apparently.’

  I could not face Bonny.

  I could not, could not face her.

  As Roz was on her way out, because my mobile must have died Dan rang the house phone, and I stared at the wall without blinking as I heard Roz’s practical voice.

  Hugh was gone.

  Alice wasn’t doing too well, apparently, then a pause.

  ‘It’s not Hugh she’s upset about, Dan.’

  Then another pause.

  ‘It’s not my place to say.’

  And then, with mammoth effort, I blinked at what I heard next.

  ‘I’ve been worried for a long time too.’

  And then another pause.

  ‘That would be good. I’ve got to go to work.’

  And one final pause.

  ‘Please.’

  Fifty-Two

  I wanted grief.

  I wanted the curtains closed and everything to stop. But I had chosen silence so the world just carried on, unaware that it was without her.

  ‘I’m the one emigrating.’ Bonny sat on Dad’s old chair and poked her tongue out at the stairs she’d come down after a row with Lex. ‘What is his problem?’

  ‘He’s been here for two years,’ Mum said. ‘It’s a lot to say goodbye to.’

  Lex had already left his job, but today he’d put on a suit and tie and said he was going into the office.

  ‘I’ll come…’ Bonny said. ‘It will be nice to say goodbye.’

  ‘There’s no point,’ Lex said, pulling on his jacket. ‘I’ve just got to go in to sign some papers.’

  ‘Well, we can have lunch after.’

  ‘Just leave it, Bonny!’ Lex snapped, and Bonny did a dramatic flounce off and stomped back up the stairs.

  I was lying on the sofa, where I’d been for the last couple of days.

  Mum thought I was depressed that Bonny was leaving.

  Funny, the world didn’t revolve around her.

  She thought it did, of course.

  Actually, had I had the energy to think about it, the minute Lex had more on his mind than worrying about Bonny’s latest mood, almost the second he’d seemed less urgent to get her to Australia, said it might be okay to stay for another month, the moody cow perked right up—almost as if she realised she’d got her way and suddenly didn’t want it.

  Now she was hanging off his shirt and wanting to go to lunch.

  ‘Alice,’ Mum said. ‘Lex is talking to you.’

  I stared in his direction because I still couldn’t look at him.

  ‘I thought you wanted a lift into town…’ His voice was almost steady. ‘If you get dressed quickly I can drop you off.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Lex pushed. ‘I can wait.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Alice, you said…’

  ‘Just leave her, Lex,’ Mum
soothed. ‘She’s upset about tomorrow, and with her exam and everything on Monday.’

  He went and Bonny came downstairs and I stood up.

  I went over to the window and saw Lex climb into the car. The traffic was thick so it took for ever for him to get out of the drive, and I wanted to run out, still in my dressing gown, to climb in the car and go with him.

  ‘What is his fucking problem?’ Bonny asked again, throwing herself on the sofa. ‘I’m the one who’s emigrating!’

  ‘I’m going to lie down.’

  I closed the curtains in my bedroom and curled up on the bed.

  There was a tiny pathetic trickle of milk that had come through this morning, as Fi had warned that it might, and my breasts hurt a bit now.

  I was glad they did.

  I knew where Lex was. I knew he had been giving me one last chance to go.

  I wanted to scream and wail but I lay there in silence.

  I had never been to a funeral.

  I had no idea what happened at one.

  And what happened at a funeral for a tiny baby?

  Was it even a proper one?

  Thank God for Lex.

  The airport is just a blurry memory.

  Heathrow, big and noisy, tears and taxis, Bonny guzzling gin and Lex looking grey. I dashed off to the loo and changed my pad and swallowed a few Nurofen and came back and Dad was there and so too was Lucy.

  She stood back from the throng, nervous and shunned, tiny and dainty, but glowing and nursing her bump.

  I know what your baby looks like, I wanted to blurt out, but I stared instead and felt her blush because I couldn’t help staring at her. I know that its eyes are like little golf balls and that it has no pigment yet and that the skin is thin and red and that it moves and, if it was born this very minute, it would breathe and gasp and then die. She gave me an embarrassed smile and I looked away. But then I found myself staring again. My baby died, you see.

  Eleanor was there with Noel and their two angelic kids.

  Perfect Eleanor.

  Who ate a bar of chocolate and a muffin and a BLT sandwich and then another bar of chocolate in the airport café as Noel frowned. Still he amused the kidlets for her when she disappeared to the toilet for twenty minutes and came back reeking of mints and no doubt minus a layer of tooth enamel.

  There were a few aunts and uncles, and Mum in flat shoes with her ankles spilling out over the top and her stomach spilling out over her skirt. She hadn’t bothered with make-up because she knew she’d be crying—but, hell, could she not have made some effort? I mean, her ex was there, with his stunning new wife, and Mum couldn’t even do her skirt up.

  We were just one of many families, crying, saying our goodbyes—a normal family, or so I thought.

  It took me more than ten years to realise we were that, oh, so commonly bandied-around word, that the Jamesons might possibly be…

  Dysfunctional.

  Fifty-Three

  ‘Get up.’

  Nurse Dan was there within fifteen minutes, flinging open the curtains and opening the window. He pulled a face when the light hit and he saw mine.

  ‘You’re having a shower.’

  I didn’t want to get up. The duvet was too heavy to lift anyway.

  I didn’t want to wash.

  It’s my nervous breakdown and I’ll lie if I want to.

  Except Dan didn’t believe in nervous breakdowns.

  He didn’t know what was wrong and he didn’t care—but not in a bad way. All he cared about was me.

  ‘I will not let you do this, Alice.’ He pulled back the duvet and hauled me out of bed; he did a lot of flapping with his hands and told me I smelt and I didn’t even care.

  All I knew was that my body ached like it did when I had the flu. I knew that I could not walk down the massive hall—even though our flat is tiny—I could not turn on a tap, let alone stand and have needles of water on my skin.

  The thought was exhausting.

  ‘You’re having a shower,’ Dan said as I shuffled down the hall. He turned on the taps and I stood there. ‘Don’t make me have to undress and wash you. Have you any idea the damage it would do to me?’

  The muscle in the bottom of my lip stretched—I couldn’t call it a smile. My lips, I’m sure, barely moved, but I felt a tiny spasm of a muscle and, no, I didn’t want him washing me.

  Every button took for ever and I could hardly lift my feet out of my pyjamas.

  I stood naked for ages before I summoned the strength to step into the water.

  I stepped under the shower but I wanted a bath; I wanted to lie and soak and remember feeling her, but we didn’t have a bath, so I stood.

  ‘Wash your hair.’

  He was guarding the door.

  I understand depression; I understand now complete fucked-in-the-headness, ‘cos I stared at the bottle of shampoo and it seemed too heavy to open.

  I thought my arms would fracture.

  I could not do this.

  I could not get through this.

  I couldn’t even wash my hair.

  I stood as the water pelted me.

  And then Dan shouted through the door, ‘Wash it, Alice, or I’ll come in.’ And though I wanted to sink I think it was then that I realised I wouldn’t, then that I started a painful ascent to the surface. I did wash my hair, but it exhausted me.

  Wrapping a towel around myself exhausted me.

  But I did it.

  Energy depleted, I sat on the bed as Dan handed me clothes, or rather, some awful maroon leggings (I have no idea to this day where he got them from), and then he tucked me into a bed where the sheets had been changed and I braced for him to leave.

  He put on pyjamas.

  The sexiest gay man in the southern hemisphere had come armed with designer pyjamas and brought his own toothbrush along just for me.

  ‘I’d never wear these for a man,’ Dan said, and he climbed in beside me.

  ‘Matthew…’ I sounded drunk but I wasn’t. It was my first word in hours.

  ‘He knows where I am,’ Dan said. ‘He’s worried for you too.’

  I stared at the Russian dolls Hugh had given me. I had them all lined up on my bedside table.

  Maybe I should put them all together, tuck them all inside.

  It was too much effort.

  Dan didn’t ask what had happened.

  He didn’t go to sleep either.

  He turned off the light and he guarded me.

  I don’t know, and I still don’t, how to define Dan.

  There is not another man, or woman, on earth I would have allowed to see me like this.

  No way did I want Nicole or Roz climbing into bed and holding me, and I didn’t want Hugh either. So why was it okay with Dan?

  ‘Remember the night I told Dad?’ Dan pulled me in. ‘I couldn’t tell him at home ‘cos he’d beat the crap out of me. Remember how scared I was of my brothers?’

  In fog, I remembered.

  Standing at a bar.

  Hovering as he had the dreaded conversation.

  Feeding him gin.

  Then a strange fight broke out—a mass of brothers and trucks and testosterone. His dad was crying and I took Dan home.

  Brought him here.

  To this bed. And he was disgusted with himself but I was so proud of him and I knew there was nothing I couldn’t tell him.

  ‘I had a baby when I was seventeen,’ I said, and he didn’t answer. ‘Lydia.’ Still he said nothing. ‘She died and no one knew.’

  ‘Poor baby,’ Dan said.

  Yes, she was.

  ‘You,’ Dan said, and kissed my head. ‘You poor baby.’

  For the first time as I lay there with Dan I remembered the bit I had never remembered before.

  Not once.

  I hadn’t been fighting it, like I had the memory of her birth; I had never, since that day, thought about it.

  Fifty-Four

  Bonny and Lex rang us from their twenty-four-hour stopover in Singa
pore, which they loved, apparently.

  And then on their Monday night, which was our Monday morning, they rang to say they were in Melbourne.

  Bonny hadn’t seen anything because it was dark, but his family seemed as nice as they had at the wedding.

  No, there were no kangaroos or koalas, no beach she had glimpsed—in fact, it was the middle of winter in Melbourne, which meant it was freezing.

  It was hot here.

  And I had my final exam.

  My music practical, which had once been my centre.

  The most important hour of my life.

  But I was so zonked out that I almost missed my bus stop.

  My breasts didn’t hurt and I didn’t need a pad any more.

  There was nothing at all to show for her existence, which was what I had wanted, I reminded myself.

  The music A-level is a complicated exam—it stretches for ever—and today was the final part.

  To this day I can hardly remember the theory or the aural exams, or my English Lit that had come in the weeks before, but for ever I will remember sitting there at the practical.

  You see—I had given her up for this.

  For this vital day, for my vital future, I had denied her existence.

  So, it made sense, surely, that I should summon the magic now, should play from my heart, should play for her, should make the loss somehow worth it.

  I played.

  But I just played.

  Technically, I think it was okay, but all it was was fingers that made a noise that sounded like a tune that somebody brilliant had once written.

  I just played.

  And then, when it was finished, I collected my music and closed the piano lid and swore I would never play that piece again.

  That part of my life was over.

  Fifty-Five

  How come I don’t get to have a nervous breakdown?

  I got two days in bed and then I was hauled to the sofa.

  And Big Tits was wrong, I had no self-control, because when Dan made me soup and toast, one bite of that lovely buttery bread and I wanted more, more, more.

  I want to say that the days passed and I got thinner and paler and more interesting, but I got bigger and ruddier from crying, and probably I was really rather boring.