Alison Wonderland

by Helen Smith

  She’s twitchy with pleasure as she shows me what is inside. ‘I feel like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s when I come here,’ she explains, raking her fingers through handfuls of costume jewellery. It’s like being a guest at a dinner party at which you have to say goodnight to the host’s precocious daughter and you’re trapped there playing with her in her bedroom until someone notices you’re missing and comes to find you.

  ‘Here’s a pearl in an oyster,’ she says, holding up a clear container the size of a tin of tuna. Inside there’s some blurry water swirling about and I can make out an oyster. The writing on the container announces the oyster contains a freshwater pearl from San Francisco. ‘Did you ever see Singin’ in the Rain, and there’s that scene where they always order oysters because they want to find a pearl and then they find one? My husband gave me this because he knows I like the film.’ I wonder whether there is a best-before date on the lid and squint to try and see. It strikes me as a bit unhygienic.

  ‘Is this real?’ I ask about the jewellery.

  ‘I pretend it is.’

  ‘What’s this?’ I have found a piece of parchment, yellowed and curling. It is very mysterious. Someone has written on it in ink, in spidery writing:

  Del *.*

  ‘My mother gave it to me. She said the symbols are very powerful. One day I may have to use it. When the time comes, I will know.’

  ‘D E L star dot star?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is it like a spell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The address book is there and when she holds it, Taron’s face changes as if she’s in love. ‘This was my whole life, once,’ she says softly.

  As she flicks through the pages, I can see she’s used symbols against most of the names. ‘What are those?’

  ‘They’re runes. This one means f, so if I put it next to someone’s name it means fun or freaky. This is d for don’t. Like when they’re dead from the neck up. This is h for horny. This means g for gagging.’ There are lots of g symbols. ‘This is e, and this is t for tranny. Trannies are really popular at straight parties because the straights think they’re in for a really wild night if they see a few men wandering around in big hair and sticky lipstick…This one is r for rocking.’

  ‘What’s e for?’

  ‘E is for E. It means they can usually sort you out at a party if you give them a call first.’

  Our trip to the bank is a pleasant interlude, but when we come home and start to phone people to warn them that they and we are in danger, we get frightened again and start to feel tense. What if someone breaks in while one of Taron’s friends is at home? Would they tie them up or kill them? What happens when they don’t find anything—will they come back for us when we’re at home?

  The phone calls follow the same pattern. ‘Hi, it’s Taron. How’re you doing? Great. Great. Chat, chat. Listen, some guy stole my bag and he’s bothering my friends and me. Sorry about this but he’s got my address book. Watch out for yourself, OK? Just in case. Let’s catch up, soon. Take care.’ Taron doesn’t want to go into too much detail because she doesn’t want people thinking she’s bringing bad shit into their lives. On the other hand, it’s only fair to warn them.

  One call is dramatically different.

  ‘Hi, it’s Taron. How’re you doing?’

  ‘Taron. Darling. Long time no hear. I’m doing shit. I’m terrible.’

  ‘What? You sound very muffled, it must be a bad reception on your mobile. What’s the matter, babe?’

  ‘No, I just sound muffled because my mouth’s all swollen. I got beaten up.’

  ‘No, that’s terrible. What happened?’

  ‘Two men were in the flat. It was unreal. Very unpleasant. They were like James Bond baddies. Dressed in black from head to toe and carrying weapons. I didn’t know whether to run for cover or ask for the name of their tailor.’

  ‘Alvin, no. How horrible. What did they want? Why pick on you?’

  ‘Oh well, that was the odd thing. They kept asking about some woman I didn’t know. When I couldn’t tell them anything, they kicked forty shades of fuck out of me. I kept hoping they wouldn’t puncture anything because I didn’t want to decorate my very tasteful brand new pale rug with my own leaking bodily fluids.’

  ‘Alvin. And did they? Puncture anything?’

  ‘No, they bruised me terribly. I’ve still got a map of Asia Minor on my left buttock. They broke some of my teeth, too. Three years of cosmetic dentistry fallen down through the cracks in my stripped floorboards.’

  ‘I’m really sorry. You sound really bad. I’ll think about you. I’ll send some good vibes down the line. Oh. By the way, who was the woman?’

  ‘There was no woman, sweetheart. Just the Men in Black.’

  ‘No, the woman they were asking you about.’

  ‘Oh, God. Well that’s unreal, too. It made me think of hammy old Roger Moore. Templar, I think. You know, like that series in the sixties, The Saint. His name was Simon Templar. Did you ever see it?’

  ‘Didn’t they tell you her first name?’

  ‘Alison. Alison Templar. ‘Tell Alison,’ they said. I was in no position to argue, curled up on the floor with my bits between my legs and my hands over my ears. Can you believe it, Taron? They were kicking me in the knackers and I had my hands over my ears. I’m too frightened to go home. Well, you know me. I’m a lover not a fighter.’

  ‘Like Michael Jackson.’

  ‘Yes. I’m staying with Jane Memory. Do you know her? She writes bits and pieces for the style mags. She might do something on my suffering. We must catch up. Give me a call.’

  ‘Yes, we must catch up. Take care.’

  Taron puts the phone down and turns to me. ‘Alison, let’s get out of London.’

  ‘I have to work.’

  ‘You heard what happened to Alvin. We don’t want to risk something like this. It’s a warning. Take a holiday. If you’re worried about doing some work, you can help me find a baby.’

  ‘Taron, you’ll never find one.’

  ‘Help me look, though.’

  ‘I suppose it’s a good idea to get away and think for a while. We can put things in perspective. What do we have to do before we go?’ I start listing things, to make me feel organized and professional. ‘I’ll have to speak to Mrs. Fitzgerald and let her know what’s going on. I’ll have to tell Jeff…’ That’s it really. They are the only important people in my life, apart from Taron.

  ‘I’m not gonna say anything to my mother yet, until we have some good news. I’ll go back to my place and call a few more people and pack. Pick me up tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Where shall we go?’

  ‘As it’s a holiday we should go to the seaside, but somewhere we’re likely to find a baby.’

  I’ve been checking the news reports and there are plenty of babies found in and around London, in hospitals, in dustbins, outside newsagents. Someone left one in the ladies’ toilet at Heathrow recently. This doesn’t really get us out of London, and anyway Taron wants us to target the coast. I plan to head south towards the warmth, and finally I decide on Weymouth as it looks as if it’s on the end of a fairly straight road from London. Project Brown Dog’s ‘unethical activity’ is in that area so maybe I can poke around. Prince Andrew was once stationed nearby at Portland naval base; perhaps we’ll run into him in a nuclear submarine. Taron has something of the look of Koo Stark back in the days when she had forsaken a modelling career to step out with Prince Andrew, so maybe she’ll land herself a royal now he’s single again.

  I walk downstairs to tell Jeff we’re going away. ‘Why’ by Annie Lennox is on the CD player. He’s kneeling on the floor making a mosaic surround for a mirror. It’s one of the things he does for money until he cracks it with inventing.

  ‘Do you know what a yabbie is?’ he asks.

  ‘No.’

  ‘There’s something I saw in the paper. I meant to keep it for you. Yabbies are a type of freshwater crayfish they only get
in Australia. Geneticists in Warrnambool University in Victoria have bred a super yabbie. They’ll grow faster to larger sizes in brighter colours, and they’ll breed more. It made me think of that picture you keep in your wallet.’

  ‘Why would they want them to be brighter? I shouldn’t have thought they worried about aesthetics. Perhaps it’s just a by-product. I came down to tell you I’m going away with Taron tomorrow.’

  ‘Why?’

  As the chorus builds on the song he’s listening to, it seems as though Annie Lennox is asking the same question: ‘Why?’

  ‘We need a bit of a holiday after The Raid.’

  ‘No, I mean why with Taron?’

  ‘I like her. I know she can be a bit weird sometimes. I can never believe anything she says, she makes it up as she goes along. It doesn’t matter. I find it quite difficult to trust anyone anyway after I caught my husband cheating on me, so I might as well be friends with someone with a fairly relaxed grip on the trust. She’s a lot of fun, though. She’s always up for it.’ Jeff is quiet, still working. ‘I didn’t realize how much time I spent on my own until I started seeing her. I wasn’t lonely, exactly. I spent a lot of time on my own, though. I’ve got you, of course. I like spending time with you, too. Thanks for telling me about the yabbie thing. That’s funny. I’ll call you while we’re away. I’ll miss you.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll miss you, too. Take care.’ He’s still bending over the mosaic. Annie Lennox is still playing on the CD player. The light is quite bad so he’s probably straining his eyes. Perhaps I should buy him a lamp while we’re away.

  I scuttle back upstairs and call Mrs. Fitzgerald’s voicemail to tell her we’re going away tomorrow. Then I go to bed and fall asleep trying to work out whether Prince Andrew is counted as part of the establishment Taron says we’re against or whether he’s exempt because of his wealth and privilege. I dream that I take a lamp down to Jeff to help him work on the mosaic and when I look closely at the green, gold and copper squares he’s cemented to the circular frame, I see the mosaic is actually made up of an interlocking pattern of exquisitely coloured super yabbies.

  Chapter Fifteen: The Drive

  I make Jeff a cup of tea so I can take it downstairs and talk to him about watering my garden while I’m away. I forgot to mention it in the midst of all my confused stutterings about Taron last night. My bare feet slide over a piece of paper.

  DUST

  Dust your citrus spangled love

  and make me shine with it

  Catch the sun in lemon drops of love

  Make you mine with it

  Dust will fall from the moon

  and cover my heart

  Before I consider leaving you

  I love you

  Dust my heart with sugar

  Melt me

  I’m syrup

  I can taste lemon on your mouth

  When I kiss you

  Your love for me

  Is like dust

  Fine and light

  Dust your citrus spangled love

  and turn my tears to stars

  I love you

  But you know that anyway

  Pale sunshine in the morning

  When I leave your house

  Without you

  Blurs lemon patches on the clouds

  I’ve seen sand that colour

  On a beach

  Very far away from here

  I’d like to go away with you

  To a place

  Where the sea catches stars at night

  Dust your citrus spangled love

  My tears are stars

  I can’t go with you

  But you know that anyway

  I take the poem back into my house and put it with the others. Then I take it out and read it again, sipping from Jeff’s cup of tea, which I still have in my hand. I don’t take sugar in my tea but he has two. I enjoy the sweetness for a change. The poem makes me feel very sad. I rub the side of the teacup against my bosom to remove any germs and walk back downstairs again to find him. I walk straight into the flat as I always do. I never worry that I will disturb him, that he will be naked or fucking someone or in a bad mood. I always expect to find him alone and amenable, inventing things that I secretly find amusing. It’s as if he doesn’t exist except when I’m there and then only in a role that suits me. I know that this is egocentric and therefore a personality flaw.

  Jeff is rubbing his pyjama trouser legs nervously when I go in but he accepts the half-measure cup of tea gratefully enough. I had decided to talk to him about the poetry but he’s bare-chested, and as he isn’t wearing his trademark grey T-shirt I find myself commenting on this instead. ‘Well, you have lovely muscles on your arms, and no hair on your chest. That’s nice,’ I say. Perhaps Jeff was expecting me to dust him with my citrus spangled love, but my comments are so inane that he’s jolted with surprise and the moment to exchange further confidences passes.

  ‘Come and have some breakfast.’ He has no choice but to follow me miserably upstairs as I take him by the hand and lead him to my kitchen. I’d like to make him bacon and eggs but I have neither, so I get hold of some of the porridge that I keep in the cupboard to treat him on special occasions. It’s making him unhappy to see that I’m making such an effort. I line up maple syrup, golden syrup and condensed milk on the table in front of him with a flourish of schadenfreude. You always hurt the one you love. Except that I don’t love him. I put plenty of milk in the porridge so it will be creamy. Well, I always have so much milk around now that I get it delivered because I only really need it for tea and coffee. I wonder whether to make him a strawberry milkshake but remember that I have no strawberry flavouring, no strawberries and no ice cream, so it would be a bit plain. Taron says that milk is the only thing guaranteed to put out fires caused by lightning but Jeff and I have yet to find an opportunity to test this information.

  I soothe him by reading from the local newspaper: ‘A pit containing seventy poisonous vipers has been uncovered in a garden in Streatham. Police are trying to determine whether the snakes were being bred for sale or kept as pets.’

  I put my hand on his shoulder and kiss him very lightly near his mouth before he takes the stairs back to his basement to invent something else.

  It’s still early when I collect Taron in the car (honk, honk) so we can set off on our adventure. One of the things I like about Taron is that every time I see her she does something that astonishes me. I cannot get over the fact that she has packed a set of elegant luggage you would associate with a post-war cruise. The luggage is beautiful, the material stiff enough for me to knock on it and make a tok-tok sound, which I do. There is even a hatbox, although I don’t really think it’s suitable for our journey.

  Taron says she wouldn’t want Prince Andrew under any circumstances because he’s dorky and fat. ‘Don’t you know that rock stars are the new royalty and comedians are the new rock stars? Don’t you read GQ magazine?’

  ‘What about film stars?’

  ‘Same as always, they’re really cool and everybody wants one.’

  We stop off for petrol and sweets before we get onto the motorway. I buy two large packets of liquorice allsorts and a packet of milk bottles, which are chewy white sweets covered in a fine white powder. Our snack selection is completed by packs of Wagon Wheels, Jaffa Cakes and Walkers crisps. When I first learned to drive and I bought petrol, I went to great lengths to trickle the final drops into the petrol tank so it cost a round amount of money like ten pounds. Now I try and spend £19.87 or £20.04 or some other amount that I hope will disturb the cashier’s sense of neatness and uniformity. I’m bluffing him, hoping he’ll think I cannot control the petrol trigger properly because I’m not a man.

  It takes a while to get out of London but soon the houses and offices roll back and we see the countryside. I do the driving. Taron doesn’t drive following an incident she’s reluctant to discuss in which she captured a black cat and rode around with the intention of releasing it i
n front of some unhappy people to bring them luck. The cat leapt onto her shoulders and caused her to lose control of the car, and she’s since lost her nerve about driving.

  Taron’s small, squarish feet are resting on the glove compartment. She told me once that she bites her toenails but they look neat enough to me, painted with silver nail varnish. Occasionally she smokes a cigarette. The smell as she first lights each one is very sweet as the tobacco heats up, a comforting smell like dogs paws when they wake up from a long sleep indoors. It reminds me of car journeys when I was a child and makes me feel nostalgic. I grab handfuls of milk bottle sweets from the bag on her lap and chew them as we drive. The dust gets on my black trousers and when I try to brush it away, I seem to drive it further into the grain of the fabric. We’re very happy, lost in our individual thoughts. We’re playing easy listening music, love songs that make me think of my husband for the first time in years. I’ve talked to Taron about what he was like but I haven’t really thought about the way I felt when I was in love with him.

  If I think too much about him I could fall in love with him again, so instead of thinking about him as someone real, alive and difficult to pin down as a slippery silverfish, I’ve objectified him and trapped him in The Story of the Unfaithful Husband. In the story I don’t have to explain why I loved him, only why I left him. The trouble is that he didn’t change any of the reasons I had to love him, only added some reasons to hate him. I miss his arms around me. Or any man’s arms, in fact. I wish I’d cuddled Jeff this morning before I left him. He must be lonely. I think I’ll upgrade our relationship to include some neighbourly hugs when I get back home. Smoking makes me feel guilty and the guilt makes me feel melancholy. I’ve just finished one of Taron’s cigarettes and perhaps it’s the melancholy that makes me realize how much I would miss Jeff if he found himself a proper girlfriend and started loving her instead. The only emotion I’m afraid of is regret. If I have time while I’m away, I’ll write him a poem to let him know I care and keep him interested.