Alice and the Fly

by James Rice

  Contents

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part I

  13/11

  17/11

  20/11

  21/11

  22/11

  23/11

  Date Unknown

  24/11

  26/11

  27/11

  28/11

  01/12

  04/12

  05/12

  06/12

  07/12

  08/12

  09/12

  Date Unknown

  Part II

  11/12

  12/12

  14/12

  16/12

  18/12

  Date Unknown

  19/12

  25/12

  28/12

  30/12

  Part III

  31/12

  01/01

  Part IV

  07/03

  Date Unknown

  Acknowledgements

  Reading Group Questions

  About the Author

  Alice and the Fly is James Rice’s first novel. He also writes short stories, several of which have been published, and writes songs with his friend Josh. When he is not writing, he works as a bookseller in Southport.

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2015 by

  Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © James Rice 2015

  The right of James Rice to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 1 444 79011 5

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For my parents, who are not the parents in this book – you are amazing and you raised me well.

  Also for Nat, who is my favourite human being.

  I

  13/11

  The bus was late tonight. It was raining, that icy winter rain, the kind that stings. Even under the shelter on Green Avenue I got soaked because the wind kept lifting the rain onto me. By the time the bus arrived I was dripping, so numb I couldn’t feel myself climbing on board.

  It was the older driver again, the one with the moustache. He gave me that smile of his. A hint of a frown. An I-know-all-about-you nod. I dropped the fare into the bowl and he told me I’d be better off buying a weekly pass, cheaper that way. I just tore off my ticket, kept my head down.

  The bus was full of the usual uniforms. Yellow visibility jackets, Waitrose name badges. A cleaner slept with her Marigolds on. No one who works in Skipdale actually lives here, they all get the bus back to the Pitt. I hurried up the aisle to my usual seat, a couple of rows from the back. For a few minutes we waited, listening to the click-clack of the indicator. I watched the wet blur of rain on the window – the reflection of the lights, flashing in the puddles on the pavement. Then the engine trembled back to life and the bus pulled off through Skipdale.

  I got a little shivery today, between those first couple of stops. Thinking now about all those passengers on the bus, it makes me wonder how I do it every night. It’s not people so much that bother me. It’s Them. I heard once that a person is never more than three metres away from one of Them at any time, and since then I can’t help feeling that the more people there are around, the more there’s a chance that one of Them’ll be around too. I know that’s stupid.

  We soon reached the Prancing Horse. Even through the rain I could make out the small crowd huddled under the shelter. The doors hissed open and Man With Ear Hair stumbled through, shaking his umbrella, handing over his change. He took the disabled seat at the front and made full use of its legroom. Woman Who Sneezes was next, squeezing beside a Waitrose employee, her bulk spilling over into the aisle. A couple of old ladies showed their passes, riding back from their day out in the crime-free capital of England. ‘It’s such a nice town,’ they told the driver. ‘It’s such a nice pub, it was such nice fish.’ Their sagging faces were so expressionless I could have reached out and given them a wobble.

  And then there was you, all red curls and smiles, stepping up to buy your ticket, and the warmth rose through me like helium to my brain.

  You were wet today. Shivering. You smelt of disinfectant, stronger than any other work-smell on the bus. Is it legal for you to work there? The landlord probably doesn’t realise how young you are. You look older. You’re not the prettiest girl in school, conventionally speaking. There’s a gap in your teeth and your hair’s kind of a mess with your roots coming through, and you always wear those thick black sunglasses, which is kind of weird. You have an amazing smile, though. Once I walked right past you and you smiled, right at me, as if we knew each other. It was only a slight smile, your cheeks bunching at the corners just the right amount, but it made me want to reach out and stroke them, brush them with the backs of my knuckles, like Nan used to with mine. I know that’s sad but it’s true.

  You took your seat, on the front row. Working after school must tire you out because you always drift off as soon as you sit, sunglasses clinking the window with each back-and-forth roll of your head. We pulled off through the square, past Hampton’s Butcher’s. I couldn’t help thinking of your dad and the others, shivering with all that slippery meat while I was on the bus with you.

  Then we turned onto the dual carriageway and sped out to the Pitt.

  I wonder what it’s like, living in the Pitt. Do you tell anyone? I can’t think of a single kid who’d admit to living in the Pitt. It’s odd you have Skipdale friends, very few Pitt kids get into Skipdale High and even then they tend to stick to their own. Their families are always trying to set up in Skipdale but it does its best to keep them out. We have a Pitt neighbour: Artie Sampson. I’ve lost count of the number of times Mum’s peered out of the dining-room window and complained about him. She tells Sarah and me to keep away. ‘He’s trying to climb too high in the property market. He’ll fall and he’ll break his neck.’

  There’s a physical descent into the Pitt, ear-popping and stomach-churning at the speeds the bus reaches, which might be why you choose to sleep through it. My father calls it the ‘Social De-cline’. I remember when I was little I’d play a game along the Social De-cline where I’d try and count how many houses were boarded up, how many were burnt out. Sometimes I’d find a house that was boarded up and burnt out. It was hard because Mum always drove the Social De-cline so fast, even faster than the bus does. It was as if the very air could rust the BMW.

  Of course, you slept right through. Every pothole, every bend, every sudden break at traffic lights that threw us from our seats. The bus jerked and rattled so much it felt as if it might come apart, but you just slumped there, face pressed to the window. We stopped by the retail park and Old Man BO got on and sat right beside you but even then you didn’t wake up, didn’t even squirm from the stink of him. You stayed slumped, lolling like a rag doll, completely at the mercy of the rhythm of the bus. I watched you in the mirror for as long as I could, only looking away when the driver caught my
eye.

  We turned at the lights, past Ahmed’s Boutique. As always you woke the moment we passed the church, Nan’s church, just in time to miss the large black letters spanned over its sign:

  LIFE: THE TIME GOD GIVES YOU

  TO DECIDE HOW TO SPEND ETERNITY

  You rang the bell. The bus pulled up at the council houses behind the Rat and Dog. You stood and thanked the driver, hurried down the steps with your coat over your head. I wiped the mist from the window and watched you blur into the rain. I felt that pull in my stomach, like someone clutching my guts. I wished you had an umbrella.

  The trip back was even harder. I got shivery again, goose-pimpled. There were a lot of gangs out tonight, mounting bikes on street corners, cigarettes curling smoke from under their hoods. I nearly fell out of my seat when one of them threw a bottle up at the window. I wasn’t too bothered about people any more, though – all I could think about was Them. I lifted my feet up onto the seat. I knew they were everywhere I wasn’t looking. I had to keep turning my head, brushing any tickles of web on my neck, checking the ceiling and floor. They’re sneaky.

  We ascended the Social In-cline. The houses grew and separated. Potted plants congregated in front gardens. The rain eased. Eventually we came back through the square and the bus hissed to a stop at Green Avenue. As I stepped down the driver gave me that smile again. The smile he always gives me when I get off at Green Avenue. The smile that knows it’s the same stop I got on at just half an hour ago.

  17/11

  Miss Hayes has a new theory. She thinks my condition’s caused by some traumatic incident from my past I keep deep-rooted in my mind. As soon as I come clean I’ll flood out all these tears and it’ll all be OK and I won’t be scared of Them any more. I’ll be able to do P.E. and won’t have any more episodes. Maybe I’ll even talk – and talk properly, with proper ‘S’s. The truth is I can’t think of any single traumatic childhood incident to tell her about. I mean, there are plenty of bad memories – Herb’s death, or the time I bit the hole in my tongue, or Finners Island, out on the boat with Sarah – but none of these caused the phobia. I’ve always had it. It’s Them. I’m just scared of Them. It’s that simple.

  I thought I was in trouble the first time Miss Hayes told me to stay after class. She’d asked a question about An Inspector Calls and the representation of the lower classes and nobody had answered and so she’d asked me because she’d known I knew the answer because I’d just written an essay all about An Inspector Calls and the representation of the lower classes and I’d wanted to tell her the answer but the rest of the class had hung their heads over their shoulders and set their frowning eyes upon me so I’d had to just sit there with my head down, not saying anything.

  Some of them started to giggle, which is a thing they like to do when I’m expected to speak and don’t. Some of them whispered. Carly Meadows said the word ‘psycho’, which is a word they like to use. Then the bell rang and everyone grabbed their things and ran for the door and Miss Hayes asked me to stay behind and I just sat there, waiting for a telling-off.

  Miss Hayes perched on the edge of my desk (which worried me at the time, it still being wobbly after Ian and Goose’s wrestling). She crossed one leg over the other and then crossed one arm over the other and said she’d given me an A- for that An Inspector Calls essay. She said I was a natural at English. I wish I’d said something clever like, ‘Well, I’ve lived in England all my life,’ but I can never think of these things at the time so I just nodded. She said she’d spoken to the school nurse about me and about Them and about my condition and she wanted to know if I’d come with her to her office for a little chat. I didn’t know what to say to that either. I just nodded again.

  Since then I’ve been waiting behind every Tuesday for a little chat in Miss Hayes’ office. We never chat, though. We tend to just sit in silence. I pick the dry skin from my hands while she twists that ring on her finger, like I’m an old-fashioned TV set and she’s trying to turn up the volume knob. It doesn’t bother me, silence. People talk too much. They make awkward talk every five minutes about school or my parents or how my sister’s dancing’s going. It’s nice to sit in silence for an hour in the same room as Miss Hayes, just knowing we’re both there experiencing that silence together. It gives me a bit of a warmth.

  Miss Hayes doesn’t think silence is very progressive. A couple of weeks ago she gave me this little leather book and said writing stuff down might help me express myself. I asked her what I should write. She said, ‘This isn’t an assignment, just write down your thoughts. Your feelings.’

  Tonight she asked if I’d written down any of my thoughts or feelings and I said I’d written one thing, last week, but it wasn’t much, only a few pages. I didn’t know what to write so I ended up writing about a bus ride I took.

  ‘It’s OK to write about a bus ride,’ she said. ‘You can write about anything.’

  I told her it’s hard writing to myself because I already know everything I have to say. I said that last time I pretended to be writing to someone else and that helped. She said that’s OK too. I don’t have to write to myself. Her diary’s called Deirdre and she finds Deirdre very easy to write to. I asked her who Deirdre was and she just swallowed and said, ‘Nobody.’

  Well, Miss Hayes may write to nobody, but I think writing to nobody’s pretty stupid. That’s why I’ve decided to keep writing to you. I hope you don’t mind, you just seem like a good way of getting the words on the page. I know you don’t know me, but nobody knows me, and by knowing that you now kind of know me better than anyone.

  My name’s Greg, by the way.

  20/11

  We live in one of the avenue’s corner houses with a total of ten rooms and every couple of months my father gives Mum his credit card and she goes to work on one. New style, new theme, new colour scheme. Sometimes she gets walls knocked down or fireplaces installed. Last summer she had little lights set into the dining-room wall like stars, but they looked too tacky so she had them ripped out and the foundations gave and I spent weeks with my head under my pillow while hairy Pitt people hammered and plastered and swore in loud voices.

  At the minute Mum’s re-envisioning the lounge. Everything’s hospital-white, from the carpet to the curtains to the candlesticks. There are piles of catalogues under the coffee table and Mum spends most of the day flipping through them, making phone calls. She’s still waiting for the Italian leather couch. She’s designed the room around it. It’s the most expensive item of furniture she’s ever encountered. My father said it costs more than the rest of the room combined, including the decorators’ wages. He’s had to take on three new clients to afford the initial deposit. The last time we saw my father was Sunday. Mum told me not to tell anyone this. I don’t know who she thinks I’m going to tell.

  Today’s decorators were a father-and-son plastering firm, smoothing over the cracks in the lounge ceiling. (My sister’s room is above the lounge. My sister dances.) By the time I was dressed and packed up for school they’d stopped for a coffee break. They were sitting on the dining-room window seat, the cafetière steaming between them. Both plasterers wore grey vests and khaki camouflage trousers. The father’s belly was slipping out of the bottom of his vest. He had a lot of moles.

  I sat at the top of the stairs and waited for them to get back to work. I wanted to slip down for breakfast unnoticed. Decorators make me nervous. They scratch their armpits and sniff their fingers. They speak loudly as if they don’t care who hears them. Sometimes they say stuff to me or try and joke with me and I don’t know how to reply. I always feel bad for not giving them a hand.

  They make Mum nervous too. If she saw one shopping in Waitrose she’d tut and give them her sour-face but when they’re in her home she’s all smiles and ‘Can I get you some more coffee?’ This morning she came to collect their empty coffee mugs and noticed the dustsheets they’d laid down were old bed sheets and joked, ‘Are you going to have to wash these before bedtime tonight?’ gri
nning like she was advertising toothpaste. They were pretty good-natured about it. They laughed along. Then they watched Mum’s legs as she stepped back out into the hall. The son spotted me at the top of the stairs and winked. I left without eating breakfast.

  The rest of the morning was pretty normal. I guess I don’t lead a very crazy life. If Ian Connor was writing this then he’d have all kinds of stories to tell you but all I did this morning was go to my lessons. First lesson was P.E. This month they’re doing football. I sat in the sports hall and watched them out on the field, breathing white and shivering. They still laughed, though. To be honest I’d be fine out on the field, but I don’t think Mr McKenzie wants me to join in with P.E. any more. Not after last time. He doesn’t even ask me for a note now, he just says, ‘You sitting out again, Greg, yeah?’ at the start of each class and I just nod and head for the sports hall.

  Second lesson was Chemistry. We sterilised the desks. We covered them in alcohol and set them alight, watched a blue tide of flames spread over the wood. I guess that’s exciting enough to write down.

  Third lesson was History with Mr Finch. We did nothing in History exciting enough to write down.

  Right now I’m sitting in the library. I come here every lunchtime. It’s quiet. I can hear my pen scratching the paper. There’s just the murmur of the crowds out on the playground, the tick of the clock, the steady waves of Miss Eleanor’s ultra-loud breathing: in and out, in and out. Sometimes she stops on an in and I hold my own breath waiting for the out. It always comes, eventually.

  I saw you a few minutes ago. You were sneaking across the field with Angela Hargrove. I stepped over to the window, as quietly as possible to avoid waking Miss Eleanor. You were wearing that coat again, the one with the red fur trim. You were wearing your sunglasses. You were laughing at some sort of impression Angela was doing, waving her hands about her head. When you laugh you always cover your teeth, try and hide the gap, which is stupid because the gap is the most unique and amazing part of your smile. That’s the third day in a row you two have snuck out through the gap in the hedge. Only sixth-formers are allowed to leave the grounds during school-time. I guess you know that.