Putting Alice Back Together

by Carol Marinelli

  Lex came over and I couldn’t look at him.

  Bonny was beside herself—apparently she’d come to the door and had glimpsed me in my catatonic state.

  ‘You need to tell her,’ Lex said as Dan held my hand.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ll leave you out of it.’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Alice, I can’t live with it any more… it nearly killed our marriage once.’

  My eyes jerked to his.

  ‘That fight when we first got married.’ His face was grey with the memory. ‘When I got arrested.’

  ‘Gus?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I beat the crap out of him. I think I would have killed him if someone hadn’t pulled me off. She was my niece!’

  No wonder Gus had looked so petrified when he saw me.

  ‘It’s been eating me up,’ Lex said. ‘I even went to see my GP.’

  Christ, so Dr Kelsey had known too.

  ‘Can I be the one to tell Bonny?’ Lex asked.

  I nodded.

  Can you guess what happened next?

  Bear in mind I’m trying to have a nervous breakdown, I am probably clinically depressed and that she’s seen me catatonic on the bed.

  So she came over and burst into tears, cuddled me, loved me and held me, right?

  Er, no—this is Bonny we’re talking about.

  She burst into the flat about two hours later, pushed past Roz and stood there, all big and jiggly and white with fury, and scarily angry.

  Dan was holding my hand, but I was holding his too.

  She really was scary.

  ‘You selfish bitch!’

  She called me a few other names, and Lex told her to calm down, but she wouldn’t listen.

  ‘Have you any idea the damage you caused? No, because you’re so fucking selfish. Don’t ever ask my husband to keep a secret from me again.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ I glanced over at Lex, who gave a grim smile, and I knew there had been a row about something that had happened ten years ago.

  ‘She was seventeen and scared and didn’t know what to do. I’ve got four younger sisters,’ Lex said, and Bonny closed her eyes and breathed out.

  ‘We don’t have secrets. We don’t have any secrets—that was the deal,’ she insisted. Her eyes opened and flicked to mine and she closed them quickly, because maybe she was realising that they did have secrets.

  Maybe I was realising it too.

  And then, when she’d calmed down, she burst out crying and she loved me again.

  Lex went home and so did Roz. Nurse Dan got a night off and Bonny stayed.

  I didn’t know what bits to tell her—or what bits to leave out. I told her about Gus and I told her about the pregnancy and when she was born—and how I’d begged Lex not to tell (I exaggerated that part a bit).

  And Bonny hates silence; Bonny always fills in the gaps or pushes me to get to the point. But she didn’t this time.

  I couldn’t look at her. I just looked at my hand, which she was holding. I saw tears that came from us both.

  ‘You could have come to me…’

  ‘I didn’t want Mum to know.’ It wasn’t quite true. ‘I didn’t want to stop you going to Australia.’

  And then we cried, because at the centre of it all was a girl, just a girl, who hadn’t known who she could turn to.

  I really don’t think I’m physically wired to be able to have a nervous breakdown.

  And even if I was, no one would bloody let me.

  Because they had problems of their own. It was, Sorry, Alice, I know you’ve got some stuff on your plate, but I kind of need you too, and when I’d stopped telling my story, Bonny suddenly needed to tell me hers.

  ‘Nothing happened!’

  I frowned over at her. I was so deep in me, I had no idea what she was talking about, no idea that there was something other than me at the forefront of her mind. ‘That night. With that pilot…’ Her lips were white and I realised she was sweating. I could see the fear that I had felt so many times mirrored in her eyes as she spoke on. ‘He tried it on and I said no. I told him I was happily married.’ She started to cry and I put my arms around her. ‘Which I am—well, sort of… It’s just sometimes… sometimes…’

  ‘Sometimes what?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She righted herself. ‘It’s nothing. I’m fine.’ Bonny sniffed. ‘I just had too much to drink that night, and Lex would freak if he knew that we had guys chatting us up.’

  ‘Bonny?’

  ‘Leave it,’ she begged.

  And, for now, I was relieved to.

  Fifty-Six

  ‘I took your advice.’

  Roz was opening my bills and going through them.

  ‘What advice?’

  ‘That night, when you said I should just let her say it… let her talk to me.’

  I had no idea what she was talking about.

  ‘That the worst thing that can happen is if your kids can’t tell you how they feel.’

  Oh, God, I sort of could remember—now she said it…

  ‘Er, Roz, I was roaring drunk and probably mentally ill…’

  ‘Well, Lizzie certainly told me!’

  I winced for her.

  ‘She hates me; she’s ashamed of me; she thinks everyone will think she’s gay too. And I smell, apparently.’

  ‘Oh, Roz!’ God, I wished I’d been the one to tell her. I’d have done it so much better.

  ‘I stink, in fact, and my clothes are disgusting.’

  I waited for tears and I blinked when they didn’t come; instead, she turned her attention back to my mail.

  ‘It’s a mess.’ She had been collecting my closely guarded post for days now and was starting to see the true picture.

  Not once did she admonish me.

  Okay, once.

  ‘Botox!’ She stared at the statements littered round the table. ‘You bought home-brand everything and then you went and spent a grand on your face!’

  And then she laughed.

  I was a shell on the sofa and she wheezed and laughed.

  You either understand or you don’t, but my fear of envelopes was real.

  You get it or you don’t.

  And even if she didn’t, Roz did her best.

  ‘I’m sorry for what Lizzie said…’

  ‘No,’ Roz said, ‘you were right. She cried and ranted and raved but do you know what? She was there. She keeps getting on that train to see me, to row with me, to try and tell me how she feels, and now she finally has.’

  I didn’t understand.

  ‘I told her some stuff too,’ Roz said. ‘I’m not dressing like a dyke.’ There was a flash of tears in her eyes then. ‘I just didn’t care, but I do now.’ I watched a big fat tear spill on her cheek and I wanted to wipe it away, but instead I sat there. ‘I want to look nice for Karan; I want to look nice for me—I told Lizzie that I don’t know where to start.’

  I still sat there.

  ‘I told her I was sorry.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have to say you’re sorry for being who you are.’ (Gawd! The thing was, I actually meant that.)

  Roz disagreed.

  ‘I am sorry. Sorry for what I did to Andrew, what I did to Lizzie, what I did to me…’ She gave a wobbly smile. ‘I think I need to go and see Big Tits.’

  ‘Maybe you should,’ I said.

  There was no skirting issues with Roz: she looked me straight in the eye. ‘You should,’ she said, and she didn’t add maybe.

  Yes, I supposed I should.

  My hand was shaking so much I had to dial twice, but I needn’t have worried, I wasn’t going to get to see her. Big Tits was on four weeks’ annual leave.

  And, because it was all I seemed to be doing these days, I burst out crying.

  ‘We can put you in to see someone else.’

  I didn’t want someone else; I didn’t want to have to go through everything again, and I said the strangest thing.

  ‘Lisa’s the only one who will understand.�
��

  Fifty-Seven

  It was my first trip out of the flat.

  My hair was in chaos; I was wearing those awful leggings and a big jumper, and shoes that should not be worn with leggings. It seemed a long way from the flat to the car, but I got there and Roz drove. As we pulled up, so too did Big Tits.

  I could not believe she would break her holiday for me.

  After the way I had spoken to her, the way I had been, I could not believe that the receptionist would call her and that ten minutes later she would call me. (I didn’t go to the phone, as I was—as you can probably guess—on the sofa, crying.) Instead she spoke to Roz and Roz spoke to her and then apparently she said that she would meet me.

  So Roz brought me.

  And because she was so nice to break her holiday like that, I won’t call her Big Tits any more.

  Well, not so often.

  I wasn’t angry with her any more either; rather, I was relieved to see her.

  Roz sat on the sofa and I saw the receptionist’s curious look as I stood by Lisa while she took a message. Then she got her keys out of her bag, opened up her office and spent a few moments arranging furniture, opening a window and pouring me some water.

  ‘Roz seems nice,’ Lisa said. ‘She seems like a very good friend.’

  ‘She is.’

  And I told her.

  I told her and I watched for her reaction but she just sat there.

  So I told her some more.

  And then I told her some more.

  I told her everything I have told you and do you know what she said?

  ‘Thank you for sharing that part of your life with me.’

  It sounds so wanky and false, but it was said very kindly. Reading that back, it makes me gag, but it was actually, to hear, rather nice.

  And then I told her some stuff that I haven’t told you.

  You see, I had read all those self-help books and, as I have said, I’m not stupid. I get the bit about low self-esteem and self-loathing and why I did some not very sensible things and didn’t do things that, in hindsight, I wish now that I had.

  I waited for her to nod, but she didn’t.

  I understood, I said, that even though I had refused to analyse it for a long time, well, now I had and because of what happened with Lydia, I didn’t feel that I deserved a nice life.

  And she just sat there and I rambled a bit more.

  She had to get up at one point and turn on the light because it was getting dark outside.

  She didn’t once look at the clock.

  I told her I felt things would be better now.

  Still she didn’t nod.

  Now that I had told her, now that Bonny knew, now that I was dealing with it—well, now finally I understood why I was like I was.

  Please nod.

  We sat in silence.

  Please say that I’m almost sorted.

  ‘I think, or rather, I’m sure,’ Lisa said, ‘that you’re grieving. You know there are stages to grief?’ I felt my lips tighten, a smart response on my tongue, but I swallowed it. I wanted her to skip the long-winded explanations, to get to the bloody point.

  Which, I might add, I already had.

  I’d done her work for her, in fact.

  ‘Denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance—they don’t happen neatly, they often overlap, but I would say that you are coming close to acceptance.’

  Phew.

  ‘And to go through all that you did, practically alone, must have been an awful experience.’

  It was, it was, can we be done now?

  ‘The thing is…’

  Are we nearly there yet?

  She glanced at the clock.

  We were almost over.

  Oh, I knew I’d have to see her again, probably quite a few times, but the hardest part was over. Any minute now, she’d wrap it up.

  ‘While I agree with you, that you have low self-esteem and that’s, in part, why you do the things you do… or don’t do the things you should.’ She gave me a pussycat smile, to tell me she had made a little joke there. ‘It’s not about your pregnancy or grieving…’

  I blinked.

  I mean, I had told her the deepest, darkest part of me, and she still wasn’t satisfied. There still had to be more.

  ‘Why did you let Gus sleep with you?’

  Oh, God!

  ‘Hormones?’ I suggested. I mean I had been a teenager then.

  ‘Alice, the self-loathing started long, long before Gus came along. And though, absolutely, we need to work through your pregnancy, there are other things that need to be sorted out.’

  Big Tits!

  I shot her a look that said it.

  ‘My guess is you were a highly anxious, eager-to-please child—a sensitive child with superstitious thinking.’

  Please, please don’t say it.

  ‘I think we have to get to know Little Alice.’

  ‘You mean I have to learn to love my inner child?’ My words dripped sarcasm.

  ‘Absolutely.’ Big Tits smiled. ‘Perhaps you could bring a photo.’

  ‘I don’t have one.’

  ‘You don’t have any photos of you as a child?’

  ‘Because I emigrated.’ I whistled through my teeth. She read something into bloody everything.

  ‘Speak to your mum?’ Lisa said. ‘I’ll see you at my home on Thursday.’ She stood up and wrote down the address, and I paid her (with the money Roz had lent me) and she wrote a receipt and thanked me again for my openness today. Then she led me outside to Roz, who was asleep on the sofa.

  ‘How was it?’ Roz was all anxious as we got to the car. ‘Do you feel any better?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted, and then thought about it. ‘I really don’t know. I just need a few weeks to get myself sorted.’ I could feel the bubble of panic building—I hadn’t been to work all week, my sick leave was up, the bills were still pouring in, but, worse, I didn’t know that I could face going in to work. A trip in the car with Roz driving was making me anxious enough.

  ‘You will get it sorted,’ Roz said, and glanced over. ‘But you do feel better?’

  It was easier to just say yes.

  Fifty-Eight

  ‘I went to the gym…’ Roz was sitting, still going through my paperwork, when Bonny rang that evening. Dan was over for a quick check on his patient. Actually, Dan and Roz were friendly now—he had known about Roz, of course, but given what he’d been through, he wouldn’t be the one to out her. ‘And I’m back on Weight Watchers,’ Bonny chatted on. ‘You’re sorting yourself out and I’ve decided that so am I.’

  ‘That’s great,’ I said, but maybe I’d had too much contact with Lisa, because a little voice in my head told me that it wasn’t just a diet or gym that Bonny needed.

  Still, it was a start.

  ‘So what did you do today?’ she asked.

  ‘I went to see Lisa.’

  ‘Lisa?’

  ‘My psychologist.’

  There was a silence as she struggled to make the right response.

  ‘Oh.’

  Bonny’s very English.

  There was another silence before she spoke again.

  ‘So what did you talk about?’

  ‘This and that,’ I said blithely.

  ‘Nothing about me, I hope,’ she said with a friendly laugh, but it was just a touch shrill.

  ‘Just me,’ I said, and then, because it was Bonny, I got off my high horse and had a bit of a giggle. ‘I have to learn to love my inner child.’

  ‘You’re not serious!’ Bonny snorted. ‘That’s so old.’

  ‘Lisa is old,’ I said. ‘She wants me to ask Mum for a photo of me—no way.’

  So we chatted on as she clattered about, talked about the gym and about her weight and how Lex was going away on another business trip soon. She sounded happier than she had in a long time and I was relieved that she knew now. I felt closer to her, I guess. And also relieved that it wasn’t all that we spok
e about.

  ‘Done,’ Bonny said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go and check your email.’

  I hadn’t turned the computer on in days and we chatted as I waited for my emails to download. There were loads to go through but I deliberately started at the end and there was one through from Bonny with an attachment.

  ‘Open it,’ she said. So I did and felt my stomach go tight; I felt my lips clench and the sting in my nose as Little Alice stared back at me.

  Flaming hair, flaming cheeks and I was red, red, red—even my eyes were red from crying because I hated having my photo taken. I couldn’t stand it. I mean, how the hell was I supposed to love that?

  ‘God.’ Bonny’s voice seemed to be coming from a long way off. ‘You’ve got your work cut out.’ She laughed. ‘Pre-product Alice—I’d forgotten what an ugly little thing you were.’ Then she must have remembered that I wasn’t in the best place right now and quickly she added, ‘You know I’m joking.’

  The thing was, I didn’t find it funny.

  ‘What are these?’ When I came off the phone, Roz held out two forms from envelopes I hadn’t even bothered to open. ‘From universities?’

  ‘Shred them,’ I said, but Dan took them and had a look and I cursed the night that I’d sent them off—too many lime margaritas and, fired up from Dan, I’d started to think it might be possible.

  ‘Close of applications next week.’

  I let out a breath of relief. ‘So throw them.’

  ‘You can still do a late entry.’ He made light work of the forms. ‘That would give you more than three months before you sat the entrance—’

  ‘Dan,’ I interrupted. ‘Three months is nothing—it would take a year at least.’

  ‘But you already know those pieces.’ Bloody Roz interrupted me. ‘I’ve heard you.’

  ‘I’m nowhere near exam standard. Nowhere near. I’d have to practise every hour of every day.’ I wasn’t making excuses; it really was impossible. ‘Shred them,’ I said, and when Dan still held onto them I did it for him and fed them into the shredder.

  ‘Next year,’ I said.

  I think I meant it.

  Next year, when everything was sorted; next year, when I was out of the mess I’d got myself into, I’d think about it.