Kitabı oxu: «Putting Alice Back Together»

About the Author

The two great discoveries that changed CAROL MARINELLI’s life were the Sat Nav and writing. Born with no sense of direction, Carol spent way too long poring over maps, missing turns, getting utterly and completely lost and hoping that she’d get there in the end—which she invariably did, but usually flustered and late. The arrival of Irish Sean into her life changed many things. She soon learnt that if she just carried right on sooner or later he’d re-navigate and she’d reach her destination.

Carol also spent way too long poring over application forms—she’s been a typist, a nurse, a fruit-picker, a backpacker, and has also applied to be a policewoman and to study midwifery, psychology… the list goes on. They all appealed—just not enough. Since the age of eighteen she’s dabbled with writing, but it was a rather sporadic effort at first—then finally she decided to take it more seriously. The biggest thrill in Carol’s writing life (and it still is to this day) was typing, for the first time, the words “The End”. For so many years there had been chapters and outlines and endless stop-starts, but having a full story, from start to middle to end, gave her a rush she had never expected. Of course it was rejected, but she’d got the bug and kept going till she was accepted.

These days she takes an awful lot of fish oil, and keeps a pen and paper by her bed, in her bag, in the kitchen, in the car. She loves that she can talk to friends at length about the people who pop into her head and not get looked at too strangely for it. Being published, sitting down to write every day—finally she found direction and a whole lot of new friends. A whole new way of life, really. Now, no matter what life throws, when she pushes the button for home the answer is always the same: at the end of the day, sit down and write.

Find out more about Carol at www.carolmarinelli.com

Putting

Alice Back Together

Carol Marinelli

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For Sam, Alex and Lucinda with love always xxxx

Acknowledgements

Mostly I have loved writing this story, but there are times I have just wanted to walk away—actually, a few times I did walk away, so there are loads of people to thank for helping me to keep going till I felt Alice’s story had been told.

First of all I want to thank my children (not that I ever want them to read my work)—I have to confess that it worries me a little that they think it’s perfectly normal to have a mum crying and laughing at the computer keyboard and that they have all, over the years, individually asked how Alice is doing!!

I have a brilliant friend, Helen Browne. There is no way I would have finished without her—not only does she help with the ups and downs and logistics of my life, but she also has an amazing ability to keep her eyes from glazing over as I bombard her with my plot and to nod in all the right places—better still, she tells me the bits that she doesn’t like (brave woman indeed)!

I want to thank the wonderful team at MIRA for taking Alice’s story on, especially Kimberley Young and Jenny Hutton, who have pushed me to make it the best that it can be and who have been so patient.

Thanks, too, to my mum and my sisters Anne and Helen, who put up with my long phone calls. I have the best mum and despite the distance we are so close and she comes over and is a huge support. A special thanks to Anne and my gorgeous niece Hannah, who came all the way over to Australia from the UK when I needed it the most.

I have a wonderful group of friends, they go by the name Maytoners—we push each other and support each other, well, they do me and I hope I give the same back—they all know who they are, but I cannot not mention Anne Gracie, who read a shaky draft of this book at a time when she really had every reason not to and then took the time to contact me and give me words of encouragement—it meant an awful lot. Nor can I leave out Marion Lennox, who lent me a very patient ear as I worked out where Alice’s pregnancy was going.

I would like to thank Stuart MacDonald for his enthusiasm—he is a wonderful friend and an endless source of wisdom. Thanks, too, to Shane Burns, a gifted musician and all around nice guy and also thank you to Annemarie and John for breakfasts, lunches and love and also to Raelene and Leanne too.

Yasmin Boland has been wonderful—not only letting Alice read from her fantastic book Cosmic Love, but also providing me with insightful, wonderful horoscopes every day at www.moonology.com

Then there’s Sarah Morgan, a brilliant writer and an amazing friend. If there is one advantage to living on the other side of the world, then it has to be the time difference with e-mail. I can pour out my worries at night—when the book has stalled, when things catch up, when life feels hard—and then wake up the next day and it is as if the fairies have been and I have a reply filled with love and support and an awful lot of laughs.

Anyway, these are my thank yous—they really are heartfelt, but first, last and always my love and thanks goes to my children.

Prologue

Little Alice

‘That’s the Munchkins sorted.’ Mrs Evans smiled. ‘Now we can move on to casting the main parts.’ Everyone was nudging, all sitting cross-legged on the gym floor—a mix of eager and dejected faces, because anyone left after this would be in the chorus. ‘The Wicked Witch of the West…’ Mrs Evans announced, and I held my breath. If I wasn’t going to be Dorothy I didn’t actually mind being her, but I could feel the sweat beading on my forehead as Debbie Carter got the part.

‘The Lion…’ I knew this next lot of roles would go to the boys.

It was between Louise and me—she was so pretty and blonde she’d be lovely as the good fairy.

I knew I was good at drama. I knew I had a role and that there were only two girl ones left—and with my curly hair I wouldn’t make a nice neat calm fairy. And given that my hair was red too…

I was going to be Dorothy!

Jonathon Phillips actually walked like the Tin Man as he stood up.

‘Choose me, choose me…’ I had my fingers crossed under my little fat shaking knees. I was trying to pretend I didn’t care, that the lovely gingham dress and ruby shoes didn’t matter so, except they did. I made my wish at the wrong second, though. Everyone was cheering. Louise was patting me on the back and Mrs Evans was grinning widely as, red in the face, I stood up and crashed my way through all the crossed knees.

I was Alice Lydia Jameson—the Scarecrow.

One

‘How could she not know?’ Roz snorted.

Hugh was at the table, filling in tax forms.

Roz and I were watching the news when a story came on about some woman who hadn’t known she was pregnant and had flushed it down the loo…

‘For God’s sake.’ Roz, lovely Roz, who was usually non-judgmental, was so opinionated and scathing as she said it again. ‘How could she not know? How can she say that she didn’t even know?’

And I gave a half-laugh, topped up my wine and carried on watching the news. But my face was burning, just as it did during a love scene at the movies when I felt as if the whole cinema was watching me and gauging my reaction; just as it did when Dr Kelsey asked all those questions.

I couldn’t hear the scratch of Hugh’s pen any more and I was sure he was watching me.

I just felt as if he knew.

‘Of course she knew!’ Roz insisted, even though I wasn’t arguing, and I wanted to turn around and correct her. I wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up, but instead I took a swig of wine and almost missed my mouth, my hand was shaking so much. She turned her attention to him. ‘What do you think, Hugh?’

Only I didn’t want to hear what Hugh thought.

I didn’t want his educated opinion.

Do you know, every time some poor cow flushes a baby down the loo, or it turns up in a rubbish dump, or she arrives in Emergency with abdo pain and produces a babe, or pops a foetus into her hand luggage and tries to head for home, the comments are the same—she must have known.

No.

No.

No.

She didn’t know.

She couldn’t know.

Because once she did, then it was real.

I didn’t need Hugh’s opinion and I didn’t need Roz’s either.

I could see how it happened.

I knew how it happened.

Because, Once Upon a Time, it had happened to me.

Two

Alice

It’s not something you can just blurt out, though.

I mean, when do you slip that little gem into the conversation?

You can’t.

Ever.

Not to anyone.

You just learn to live with it.

To run from it.

To live your life around it.

There’s so much that hinges on silence.

I don’t really know where to start.

If I go back even just a few weeks, it wasn’t something at the forefront of my mind. Really, I didn’t think about it at all, or I did everything I could not to—I was too busy being normal. I had a job, a fantastic wardrobe, brilliant friends, massive credit-card debt, all the usual stuff. Okay, I had a few problems, but don’t we all? I spent a lot of my lunch breaks in the self-help section at the bookshop, looking for the book, the answer, the reason. I’d tried Reiki, hypnosis, Indian scalp massage…

Forgive me if it’s jumbled at first, I suppose I was too.

Nic was leaving for the UK; her cousin Hugh was coming to stay at the flat. There was a small leaving do for her, which I was a bit late getting to—see, I was just busy being normal.

‘You’ve met Christopher,’ Nicole said, as she made the introductions, and though I’d heard her moan about her boss often enough, we’d never actually met, which Christopher quickly pointed out.

‘Actually, no.’ His voice had that bitchy upper-class ring to it and I wasn’t sure if he was English, as Nicole and I are, or if he’d been privately schooled here in Australia. As he shook my hand he held on for just a fraction too long. ‘I’d certainly remember.’ He smiled that capped smile and I returned it, but only briefly. I mean, he was way past forty, for God’s sake—I was so not flirting with him.

‘Where’s Dan?’ Nicole asked.

‘He’s working.’ Christopher’s eyes were still on me as I made Dan’s apologies, but there was no real need—I could see the relief on Nic’s face when I told her that Dan couldn’t make it.

‘And Roz?’

‘She’ll be here soon,’ I said, and I knew Nicole wished that Roz wasn’t coming—Nicole hates her friends and colleagues being together. She jumps out of her skin if we meet someone we know out shopping or at a bar. It is as if she’s terrified they might find out she actually has a life outside law—that she isn’t always this poised and groomed.

That she can actually talk about something other than work.

Oh, God, you should have heard them. It was Nic’s leaving do. Well, she’s not leaving—Nicole’s been in Melbourne for five years and she’s taking six weeks’ annual leave to catch up with her family and new boyfriend, who she met while he was on holiday here. But, instead of enjoying the party, they’re talking about some sub-clause in some clause or something. And for all their money, they were mean. No one offered to buy a drink. They just sipped on their tasteful choices and I knew it was going to be a long, mind-numbingly boring night or worse, as I saw a couple of them glancing at their watches, it was going to be a short, complete fizzler of a night, which would kill Nicole.

Why did I feel that it was my problem?

That I had to make conversation, do something to entertain—that it was up to me to salvage the night from being a disaster?

Because Nicole’s my best friend, I guess.

I went to the bar and looked at the wine list. My pay should have gone in and though I knew I couldn’t afford it, I ordered two of the second cheapest bottles of sparkling wine and ten glasses.

‘I’ll take care of that.’ Christopher made his way over and I felt a mixture of annoyance and relief as he changed my order and took out his credit card. ‘You’re Nicole’s flatmate?’

‘That’s right.’ I felt a bit awkward, obliged to stay and talk to him now that he was paying for the drinks.

‘You’re English too?’ he checked as he waited to sign the bill and, instead of noticing his blond hair or blue eyes, I saw the fan of lines around his eyes and the acne scars on his jaw.

‘I am.’

‘Nicole never said.’

I gave him a very brief smile, thanked him for the wine and made my way back to the group. Normally, there would have been a quick reminisce, or a moment taken to find out where the other was from, how long they’ve been over, that sort of thing, but he’d got that sharky look, like a real estate agent sensing a deal, so I headed back to the table and took a seat on the sofa furthest away from him.

Nicole seemed to have developed a tic—her head kept twitching in the direction of the toilets and once the champagne had arrived and we’d all wished her well for her trip back home, I excused myself and headed over there. Maybe fifteen seconds later Nic flew in.

‘Where the hell were you?’

‘I had to go back to the flat and get changed.’

‘Any messages?’ she asked, and I shook my head as I touched up my lipstick. Peering into the mirror, I could see a good quarter of an inch of ginger roots, so I fiddled with my parting to mess it up a little and made a mental note to see Karan. ‘Thank God, you’re here,’ Nic carried on, and even if she didn’t want Roz and Dan along, clearly she was relying on me. ‘It’s been awful. They’re all just sitting there. Any minute now they’ll go.’

‘Nobody’s going,’ I soothed. ‘Let’s just get out there and have a good time.’

‘Alice, you have to do something…’

See—it was my problem. As much as Nic didn’t want her worlds colliding, I was supposed to be the entertainment. I was the one who had to ensure that everyone had a brilliant time. I just didn’t get why it always fell to me.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We can’t have a party in here.’

‘Don’t let me drink too much,’ Nicole begged, and that made me smile. Nicole practically gave up drinking the day she met Paul. She used to love a night out, or a night in with a couple of bottles. Now she was constantly putting her hand over her drink, terrified you might fill it.

‘And please, Alice, be nice to Christopher.’

‘He’s awful.’

‘I know.’ Nicole cringed. ‘But please, just be nice.’

‘I am being nice.’

‘You just gave him the brush-off.’

‘I didn’t.’

I hadn’t!

Okay, I hadn’t engaged in conversation. I hadn’t asked when he was next going back to the Mother Ship and if he could get me some clothes from Next and some of that amazing moisturiser from Boots, but I hadn’t given him the brush-off.

Or had I?

‘He’s a sleaze,’ I pointed out, because he absolutely was. ‘Did someone take an ice pick to his face thirty years ago?’

‘Alice, please,’ Nicole begged, even though she laughed. ‘He’s been a right bastard since he found out I was going back to see Paul. He knows I might…’

And I felt my throat tighten as her voice trailed off. Nicole had never admitted it, but I knew, I knew that she was thinking of moving back to England—she had just confirmed it. I couldn’t believe she’d give everything up for Paul but, then, that’s what she does with men, over and over.

God, Nic knew how to pick them.

Nic always thought she was in love.

Always insisted that this was the one.

Until he dumped her, hit her, or his wife found out.

Nicole’s love life was like a really bad soap opera. Every weeknight at six-thirty she flew through the flat door with the latest instalment and, even though you knew how it was going to end, knew it was heading for disaster, still you found yourself watching from behind your fingers, scarcely able to believe someone could really be so stupid where men were concerned.

And she was surely heading for disaster.

Big time.

Which meant, yet again, yours truly would be left to pick up the pieces.

‘Christopher was a manager at the London office,’ Nic said, but I just added another layer of lip-gloss. ‘He knows everyone there. I don’t want to leave on a bad note.’

‘You’re not leaving, though—you’re going for a holiday.’ I gave her a smile. ‘It’s going to be a great night—just relax and enjoy it.’

‘The thing is, Alice…’

I just didn’t want to hear it here—I mean, it was supposed to be her party. ‘Come on,’ I said instead. ‘We’d better get back out there.’

The champagne hadn’t buoyed the mood and I knew it was going to be hard work. We were all sitting on low sofas and I told a couple of funny, indiscreet stories about the newspaper where I work—and I don’t know how I do it, Nicole doesn’t either, but the mood was suddenly lifting. People started to open up, to loosen up and then Jason—or was it James?—shocked everyone by admitting that his wife had left him at the weekend and Christopher, well, he had the gift too, because he laughed and said, ‘That’s a reason for more champagne,’ and called the waiter over. I could see Nicole beaming, relief starting to flood in, because her leaving night was going to be a success.

‘There’s Roz…’ I waved out of the window to where Roz was sucking down the last of her cigarette and Roz waved back and carried on puffing away.

She just didn’t get it.

I smoked sometimes, but it’s so unfashionable these days, you didn’t do it at places like this. If you did, you went right away from the window and doused yourself in perfume and sucked mints before you came inside. But not Roz. She came to the door blowing out the last of her smoke, and she was so out of place there that for an appalling moment I thought the doorman was about to refuse her. I called out her name loud enough for him to hear and, realising she was with the posh, champagne-drinking lawyers, he let her in.

‘Christ!’ Christopher soon showed his bastard colours. ‘Who the hell is that?’

‘Roz,’ I answered tartly. ‘She’s a friend of ours, she works with me at the paper, she’s studying accounting…’ My voice trailed off, because he wasn’t actually interested in Roz.

His reaction was a familiar one—he’d dismissed her instantly.

Before she’d even walked through the door.

She was in cargo pants and a sloppy T-shirt and sandals that were about to snap from lugging her bulk around and she’d put on more weight. Her divorce had just come through, all her old friends and even her daughter had turned against her, and though she insisted that she was happy that her marriage was over, every day she seemed to go under a little bit more. She was really letting herself go.

Dan didn’t like her. He said she brought me down and he couldn’t stand the way that she looked. Yes, elegant and chic weren’t two words that sprang to mind when Roz was around, but I wished people would take a bit of time to get to know her. Roz was the kindest person I knew, she’d do anything for me, for anyone.

She’s just lovely.

‘I can’t imagine her as an accountant.’ Christopher made some caustic comment about her not fitting in and I bristled as Nic’s face coloured up, not in anger at Christopher but in embarrassment at her friend.

‘No,’ I agreed with him, ‘because she’s not boring enough.’ Out of the corner of my eye I could see Nic tense, and I remembered then that Christopher was a financial lawyer, but instead of offending him I’d made him laugh. I didn’t see the acne scars any more, or the lines around his eyes. His eyes were blue and he was smiling at me and I found myself smiling back.

‘There’s drinks here.’ I dragged my eyes away and I called to Roz because I knew she hated going to the bar. I moved along on the sofa to make room for her.

‘I’m Christopher.’ He introduced himself and poured her a drink and he was being really nice to her, but somehow I knew it was for me. I knew, because he apologised that he couldn’t hear what Roz was saying and came over to our side of the table and squeezed in between us.

There was a frisson of excitement that flooded my veins, an awareness, and even though he was talking to Roz, and I was entertaining the table, I knew he felt it too.

I knew because I could feel the press of his thigh on mine.

An hour ago I’d have stabbed him in the leg with my keys.

I didn’t press back. I pretended not to notice.

But I didn’t move my leg away either.

I was half listening as they spoke about their children. He had a sixteen-year-old too, it turned out, and a twenty-year-old.

He must be ancient.

I mean, Roz had Lizzie really young and she’s thirty-four.

The table was becoming rowdy and everyone was chatting away, me included, but my head was like an abacus, trying to work out his age. As he dropped his phone, I expected the brief brush of his hand on my calf and he delivered.

It was my turn to have the nervous tic—I tried to catch Nicole’s eyes to get her to come to the toilets and tell me how best to handle this. I mean, there’s being nice and being nice—what the hell was I supposed to do?

‘I won’t be long.’

I excused myself—I had to side shuffle along the sofa to get out and I was acutely aware of my bottom passing his face. They must all have thought I had a bladder the size of a thimble, but I just wanted to escape. I walked calmly to the toilets even though my heart was hammering. I wanted to be away from him.

He must have been mid-forties.

Nicole had missed my frantic signals because she didn’t follow me in. I waited a few minutes then I started to walk back out to the party, deciding that I would wedge myself in beside Nicole.

‘Alice.’

I heard his voice from the disabled toilet.

I turned. And, to my shame, I went in.

I’ll spare you the details.

I’m trying to spare myself from the details too.

It didn’t take long.

He went back and I stayed there for a moment or two.

I tried not to look at myself in the mirror as I put on my lip-gloss and sorted out my hair.

I could not have hated myself more. I wasn’t even pissed—I’d had two glasses.

How did I get here?

How had my life got to this point?

Why was I like this?

I wanted to hit rewind. I wanted to go back and start the night all over again.

How did he know? I mean, of all the women out there…

I wanted to go home. I wanted to go out through the rear of the restaurant. I wanted to hide, to curl up on the disgusting floor—anything rather than go back out—but instead I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Or tried to.

I couldn’t get the air in.

I scrabbled in my bag but I couldn’t find them. There was an appointment card for 4.30 tomorrow, which I tossed back, and searched some more, then felt the relief as my fingers closed on a thin white box. It was a short-lived relief because there was only one left and after that there would be none.

Alice Lydia Jameson

Diazepam 5 mg.

One tablet twice daily as needed.

Avoid alcohol.

I didn’t know if they worked, I really didn’t, or if it was just knowing I had them that helped—because even before the little yellow pill had dissolved on my tongue, I felt calmer.

I headed back out there, scorching with shame but trying to act as if nothing just happened.

‘Where did you get to?’ Roz asked, but she didn’t wait for my answer. ‘Are you coming out for a cigarette?’

Nicole was enjoying herself. Christopher, having ordered more champagne for the group, was saying goodbye, though he didn’t extend a farewell to me.

‘Have a great night, Nicole.’ He kissed her on the cheek and she smiled back at him.

‘Thanks for coming.’

Only then did he smirk in my direction. ‘It was no trouble at all.’

I stood outside with Roz and I didn’t have a cigarette, I just breathed in the cool night air and tried not to think about what I’d just done.

‘I can’t believe she’s going into work tomorrow…’ Roz was chatting away. ‘She’s flying tomorrow night…’

‘That’s Nic.’ I went into my bag for my cigarettes and I pulled out the appointment card too.

‘I’ll come back to the flat with you after work and we can all—’

‘Actually…’ I hesitated. I didn’t really know how to tell Roz. ‘I’m leaving work a bit early tomorrow, I’ve got an appointment.’ I knew she was curious, that she was waiting for me to explain, but I didn’t and Roz would never push. ‘I’ll be back in time to pick up Nic. You can meet me back at the flat.’

‘That’s fine,’ Roz said. ‘I’ll just meet you at the airport.’

I’d been intending to cancel.

Or just not show up.

I had no intention of examining my past, but I needed a prescription and, I reluctantly admitted, perhaps I should speak to someone—not about it, of course, but about other things.

Maybe this Lisa could help.

Three

Another Alice

I liked the piano. It was my first instrument, the violin my second, but it was the piano I loved.

I hated the lessons, but I sort of understood I had to have them.

Young Mozart I was not—but I could read music.

I just could.

To me, it was easier than learning to read English—a quaver was an eighth of a whole, that dot meant you lengthened the note.

I supposed I had not talent as such but, as my mother would tell everyone she met, her youngest daughter had an ‘ear for music’.

I lived and breathed music—the classics, hymns, anything I heard I wanted to play.

And as a teenager it had been considered nerdy.

Seriously nerdy.

Especially as I’d also sung in the church choir.

Of course I’d got teased at school and hated it when people found out about my other life, but I loved hymns and singing and a couple of times I even played the organ.

Yep—a serious nerd.

There’s nobody musical in my family. Mum’s a nurse, dad’s in sales and marketing, Eleanor is my oldest sister and basically does nothing apart from look good—well, she has to, she’s married to a cosmetic dentist. Then there’s Bonny the middle one, who takes after Mum and is a nurse too. It really took a lot of convincing from my teachers for Mum to realise that she wasn’t being ripped off when the school suggested that if I wanted to pursue a career in music, then I needed some extra private tuition. (I was fifteen then. Dad and Mum had just broken up so it caused a few rows, Dad said he was paying Mum plenty—Mum said… well, plenty.)

So, with things a bit tight, instead of more lessons with my regular music teacher, Mum found various students from a school of music to coach me. I was doing fairly well and looking at a career in teaching. As well as lessons and choir and choir practice, I had to practise my instruments for hours every day—though I didn’t mind practising the piano. In fact, I lived for it. It was the lessons I hated.

Still, as I said, I understood that I had to have them and just put up with them, I suppose…

Till Bonny’s wedding loomed, when everything changed.

As far as I can remember, Eleanor’s wedding just seemed to happen without fuss. I was ten and, along with Bonny, I was a bridesmaid, but I don’t remember the whole world stopping in preparation for Eleanor’s big day—I just remember the church and the party afterwards.

Oh, and the gleaming teeth in the photos.

One minute Eleanor was dating Noel and the next we were in the church, or so it had seemed.

Whereas Bonny’s wedding was the full circus.

Bonny’s life was a full circus, but the wedding and the preparation were the worst.

It was to be a New Year’s Eve wedding—it was the only way Lex’s relatives could all get over for it, and Mum, devastated that her middle child would be moving to Australia as soon as she took her final nursing exams, would do anything to please and appease. And, as much as I love Bonny, boy, did she take full advantage of the situation.

I was seventeen and full of teenage angst and wondering if I’d ever lose my virginity, especially since I’d never even been kissed. I was heavily in love with Gus, my latest music tutor, and I was also very aware that I was behind on piano practice and my exams were just a few months away. Which sounds ages, but it really wasn’t.

Not that any of this mattered to Bonny.

Lex, Bonny’s fiancé, was a sexy six-foot-three Australian who worked for some international pharmaceutical company and was helping to compile statistics both here and in America. They had met at the hospital Bonny worked at, had fallen in love and within three months had got engaged.

Everyone said Bonny was too young to marry, but Lex refused anything less. He didn’t want to live with her—if she was going to take the leap and move to Australia, then it would be as his wife.

He’s a nice guy, Lex.

A really nice guy, and even if Bonny was a bit young, I could understand why she didn’t want to let him go.

I had a crush on him—of course I did—I had a crush on everyone!

Bonny went a touch crazy in the weeks before the wedding: it was colour schemes and flowers and cakes and invitations. The whole house was wedding central. I couldn’t practise my violin or piano for two weeks before the big day. Really, I didn’t mind missing the violin, I could make up the time later, but I don’t think I’d ever been even two days without playing the piano. I didn’t just practise… I played. If I was tired, if I was depressed, if I’d been teased, if I’d had a shit day, I’d play. It didn’t lift me, instead it met me. I could just pour it out and hear how I was feeling.

Sometimes I glimpsed it—this zone, a place, like a gap that I stepped into and filled with a sound that was waiting to be made.

There’s no one else I can talk about it with, except for Gus—he gets it. Gus says that playing is a relief.

He’s right, that’s what it feels like sometimes—relief.

An energy that builds and it has to be let out somewhere.

It’s more than relief—it’s release.

Or it would be if it didn’t upset Bonny.

Everything upset Bonny.

Everything was done to appease her.

Which was why I had been forced to wear pink.

A sort of dusky pink, which was fashionable, my mum insisted—as if she would know. As if a size twenty, middle-aged woman with bad teeth and the beginnings of a moustache would know.

I hated it—I hated it so much, there was no way I was going to wear it. But my threats fell on deaf ears. It was Bonny’s Special Day—and what was a bit of public humiliation to a seventeen-year-old as long as the bride was smiling?

So I wrote reams of pages of ‘I hate Bonny’, ‘I want to kill Bonny’ and ‘I want to gouge out her eyes’ as I lay on my bed the afternoon before the wedding with the beastly pink dress hanging up in plastic on my wardrobe. I had my period and was having visions of flooding in the aisle, and to add to the joy, the hairdresser was here and, as anyone with frizzy red hair would understand, I wasn’t looking forward to that either.

I lay down and imagined that it was me getting married and not Bonny.

That sexy Lex only had eyes for me.

Then I felt bad—I mean, I might hate her but she is my sister—so I moved my fantasy over to Gus instead.

Except he was already married…

Apparently you couldn’t wash your hair on the day of the wedding, because the spectacular style Bonny had finally chosen after several screaming trips wouldn’t stay up on newly washed hair. So she was being blow-dried while I washed my hair and then the hairdresser would dry it with a diffuser and put in loads of product and then pin it up tomorrow. We’d had a practice a couple of weeks before and it had looked suitably disgusting but, again, I’d been told to shut up and not complain because it was Bonny’s Special Day.

So I washed my hair and I sat sulking in the kitchen as Bonny’s hair was being blow-dried, and then Eleanor’s was blow-dried too. Mum wasn’t having hers put up, so she was getting ‘done’ tomorrow, and as I moved to the stool, perhaps seeing my expression when the hairdresser took out her scissors, Mum tried to appease me. She couldn’t give a shag that I hated hairdressers and hated, hated, hated getting it trimmed—no, she just didn’t want me making a scene and upsetting Bonny.

‘It’s just a little trim,’ Mum warned, clucking around and trying to pour cold water on the cauldron of hate we were all sitting in before it exploded. ‘Oh, I didn’t tell you, I rang Gus and you can have an extra piano lesson,’ Mum said to my scowling face. ‘He’s working over the holiday break and he can fit you in on Monday.’

Now, that did appease me.

You see, Gus wasn’t like the usual, scurf-ridden, vegan tutors that Mum had found for me in the past. He was as sexy as hell, with brown dead-straight hair, no hint of dandruff and dark brown eyes that roamed over me for a little bit too long sometimes. He smelt fantastic too. Sometimes when he was leaning over me, or sitting beside while I played, I was scared to breathe because the scent of him made me want to turn around and just lick him! Like Lex, he was from Australia (they must make sexy men there—I was thinking of a gap year there to sample the delights). Gus spoke to me, instead of down to me. He spoke about real things, about his life, about me. Once when his moody bitch of a wife walked in on our lesson and reminded him that he’d gone over the hour, it came as a surprise to realise that we had. Instead of playing, for those last fifteen minutes we’d been talking and laughing and I felt a slight flurry in my stomach, because I knew that when I left there would be a row.

He started to tell me more and more about his problems with Celeste and I lapped every word up and then wrote it in my diary each night—analysing it, going over and over it, looking for clues, wishing I’d answered differently, wondering if I was mad to think that a man as sexy as Gus might somehow fancy me… but I felt that he did. He told me that he had intended that the sexy Celeste, who—and Gus and I giggled when he told me—played the cello, would be a fling. Well, she was now almost six months pregnant, his visa was about to expire, and he and Celeste would be going back to Melbourne once the baby was born—but for now he was broke and miserable and completely trapped. The sexy cello player he had dated was massive with child and the only thing, Gus had told me bitterly, that was between her legs these days was her head as she puked her way through pregnancy—not her cello, and certainly not him.

I loved Gus—he wasn’t like a teacher. And even though I knew Mum was paying him to be one, for that hour, once a week, I was more than his pupil. I was the sole focus of his attention—and I craved it.

He was so funny and sexy, and I couldn’t stand the thought of him going back to Melbourne, or even understand why the hell he put up with Celeste and her moods.

She was a bitch. She didn’t say hi to me, didn’t look up and say goodbye when the lesson was over. Occasionally she’d pop her head in and say something to Gus and look over me as if I were some pimply teenager, which of course I was. She thought she was so fucking gorgeous, wearing tight dresses and showing off her belly and massive boobs, but I knew how Gus bitched about her.

Actually, at our lesson yesterday he’d told me a joke. He knew I was as fed up with Bonny’s wedding as he had been with his and as I packed up my music sheets and loaded my bag and headed for the door, he called me back.

‘Hey, Alice.’ He smiled up at me from the piano stool. ‘Why does a bride smile on her wedding day?’

I could feel his dark eyes on my burning cheeks and I shrugged—I hate jokes, I never get them, oh, I pretend to laugh, but I never really get them.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Because she’s given her last blow job!’

I didn’t really get it. I laughed and said goodnight. I knew what a blow job was, sort of—I hadn’t even kissed a guy. I even told Bonny the joke when I got home but she wasn’t too impressed.

It was only that night as I lay in bed that I sort of got it, that I realised he was talking about Celeste.

I lay there feeling grown up—thought about Mandy Edwards and her snog with Scott, thought about Jacinta Reynolds and her fumble with Craig, a boy in lower sixth.

Gus was twenty-two.

It made me feel very grown up indeed.

Four

I was expecting offices. Nice, bland offices, but as I turned into the street I saw that it was a house, and better still there was a large sign that displayed to all and sundry that I was entering a psychologist’s practice.

Really. You’d think they’d be more discreet and write ‘Life Coaching’ or something.

A very bubbly receptionist greeted me and handed me a form to fill in. She told me to take a seat with the other psychopaths and social misfits and that Lisa would call me in soon.

God, I so did not belong here. There was a couple, sitting in stony silence, who were presumably here for marriage counselling (and from the way he rolled his eyes when she had the audacity to get up and get a drink from the water cooler, I didn’t fancy their chances much). Then there was a huge guy with a face like a bulldog who had probably been sent by the courts for anger management. There was, though, one fairly normal-looking guy, who was reading a magazine. He was rather good looking and he gave me a smile as he caught my eye, but I quickly looked away—I mean, normally I’d have been making conversation by now, but I had some standards, and refused to be chatted up in a psychologist’s waiting room. I mean, God alone knows what he was there for.

And what would you say when people asked where you met?

Mind you, I did feel guilty for snubbing him and when I saw him look at me again, I gave him a sort of sympathetic, understanding smile, just in case he was normal and was here for grief counselling. I started on the form and the disclaimers, telling them who my GP was, my job (er… why?) and filling in all the little boxes. I ticked my way merrily through the form—though it was completely unnecessary. What business of theirs was it where I worked? Or if I was at any risk of blood-borne diseases or had heart problems or had been involved in a workplace accident. I was here for a chat, not cardiac surgery. Mind you, I almost ticked ‘No’ to allergies, but quickly moved my pen to the ‘Yes’ box and in the bit below, where I had to elaborate, I wrote: ‘Hazelnuts—cause shortness of breath and lips to swell.’

And on the bit about current medication I made sure to remind this Lisa why I was here and boldly wrote my order.

Valium.

I put Roz down as my emergency contact, even though she had no idea I was here.

A woman, presumably Lisa, opened the door and gave me a patronising smile as she took my forms, then invited me to follow her.

On sight I didn’t like her.

I certainly couldn’t imagine myself relating to her, or her to me. She was a big woman, about sixty, with massive, pendulous breasts. Worse, she wore a really low-cut olive top, so you could see her crêpe chest and cleavage. Add to that a flowing A-line, snot-green skirt, green sandals. And she had accessorised with—in case we hadn’t noticed her colour choice for today—a huge jade necklace.

There were four seats for me to choose from. No doubt the one I chose would mean something, and I hesitated for a moment, before settling for the one in the middle.

‘Excuse all the furniture…’ She gave a pussycat smile. ‘I had a family in before you.’

Lucky them, then.

I put down my bag, checked my keys were there, zipped it up and sat back. There was a bowl of sweets on her desk, cola bottles, snakes, wine gums, all my favourites really, and I stared at them instead of her.

‘So…’ Lisa finally broke the silence. ‘What brought you here today?’

I so did not need this. Last night had been a one-off drunken mistake, I’d by now decided, and I’d learnt my lesson—I was never mixing alcohol with Valium again.

‘Okay,’ she said to the ensuing silence. ‘Why don’t you tell me about Alice?’ I could feel a really inappropriate smile start to wobble on my lips. I couldn’t believe I was sitting in a psychologist’s office being asked to discuss me in the third person. ‘Alice is English?’

‘She is,’ my twitching lips answered.

Well, we skirted around for a bit, I told her I had to leave promptly, that my flatmate was going to the UK and I had to take her to the airport.

‘Nicole’s English as well?’ Lisa checked.

‘She’s been here five years,’ I said. ‘She’d never leave.’

Lisa wrote a little note but I couldn’t make out what it was.

‘You’ll miss her?’

‘I guess,’ I admitted. Though lately we hadn’t been getting on too well. Not that I’d tell Lisa that, so instead I mentioned that Nicole’s cousin Hugh, a doctor, was arriving in a couple of days and staying till he found somewhere near the hospital to live.

‘You don’t look too pleased.’

‘I like my own company.’ I shrugged. ‘I was looking forward to a few weeks to myself.’

Actually, that had nothing to do with it.

Normally I’d be thrilled to have the good doctor to myself, but I’d found out from Nic that he was a redhead—need I say more?

I know that sounds anti-redhead, but I’m allowed to be, because I am one.

Think Ronald McDonald meets Shirley Temple.

I had the kind of hair that stopped old ladies in the street, made them pat it as they chattered away to my mother.

‘Beautiful hair. Of course, she’ll hate it later.’

I hated it already. By the time I was six it regularly reduced me to tears. Hour after hour was spent in front of my mother’s dressing-table mirror trying to brush out the curls. Night after uncomfortable night was spent sleeping with pins speared into my scalp in the hope of producing a straight fringe by morning. And as for the colour! I’d barely hit puberty before I bought my first hair dye and even now a very significant portion of my monthly pay cheque is spent on foils, serum, ceramic straighteners, regular blow-dries and, if I ever save up enough, I’m getting that Brazilian keratin treatment.

Though I digress, there is a point—my hair is now strawberry blonde and straight. For the first time in my life I’m actually pleased with my hair and I do not need a reminder of the au naturel version of myself walking around the flat.

Not that Lisa needed to hear that.

Honestly, it was the most boring, pointless hour of my life.

Yes, I suppose sometimes I did get a bit homesick.

Yes, I’d been here for nearly ten years now since my sister Bonny had got married and emigrated.

‘But you only initially came to Melbourne for a year?’

‘That’s right.’ I nodded. ‘I just loved it, though. I got a good job…’

‘Doing what?’

‘Working on the classifieds section at the newspaper. Well, it was a good job at the time.’

‘And you’re still there?’ She peered at the form I had filled in.

I felt myself pink up just a little bit. ‘I’m a team manager now and I do web updates.’ I gave a little shrug. ‘It’s not my ideal job, of course…’

‘What is your ideal job?’

‘I don’t know…’ another shrug ‘… something in music, I suppose. My exam results weren’t great. That was one of the reasons I came in the first place—to have a break and work out what I was going to do.’

We chatted some more, or rather she dragged information out of me. ‘And are the rest of your family here?’

‘Just Bonny. My mum and Eleanor, she’s the oldest, live back in the UK.’

‘And your father?’

I felt my face redden. I mean, I hadn’t meant to leave him out. ‘He’s in the UK too.’ I waited for her to scribble something down, but she didn’t. ‘They’re divorced. I speak to him and everything… it’s no big deal.’

‘When did they divorce?’

‘When I was fifteen.’

Well, it would seem that I had my Valium. She pounced on the fact my parents were divorced. Really, she worried away at it for the rest of the hour. How did I feel when they broke up, had there been rows? I couldn’t convince her that it hadn’t been that bad. I mean, you hear all these terrible tales, but the truth is, Mum let herself go after I came along, Dad met Lucy and left. We still saw him. Every Friday night we stayed over while Mum did a night shift, and then on Saturday lunchtime he took us to the pub for lunch, just as he had done when they were still married. Mum had been upset, of course—depressed, in hindsight—but it really wasn’t that much of a big deal at the time. I told Lisa that as she started jotting down a little family tree and making copious notes.

‘Look, I’m not here about that.’ And I supposed, if I wanted the prescription, I was going to have to tell her. ‘I had an anxiety attack.’ My cheeks were flaming as I cringed at the memory of Olivia’s leaving do last week. Everyone gathering around, offering me water, paramedics, being strapped to a stretcher and taken down in the lifts and out onto the street. ‘Really, I’m not even sure that it was an anxiety attack—the doctors at the hospital thought it might be an allergic reaction.’ She frowned. ‘I had a similar thing when I was seven and I ate hazelnuts.’ But still she just sat there. ‘The medicine they gave me at the hospital really helped, though.’

‘The Valium?’

‘Yes.’ I gave a little swallow. ‘I’m worried it might happen again, but if I had some Valium, just till I get the allergy tests done…’

‘You could just avoid hazelnuts!’ I swear her eyes crinkled. Honestly, I felt as if she was laughing at me, which she couldn’t be, of course.

But then she did.

She laughed.

I couldn’t believe it. She didn’t sit there and roar, but she gave a little laugh that made her shoulders go up. The type you do when you say something amusing, only this wasn’t funny.

I’d get her struck off.

If she didn’t give me my script.

‘Okay.’ She glanced at her watch and managed to contain herself enough for another little scribble on her pad. ‘If you can make an appointment again for about two weeks’ time. Now, don’t be surprised if you feel a bit unsettled over the next couple of days—we’ve touched on some sensitive areas.’

Which was news to me.

‘But what about…?’ I gave a nervous swallow as she stood. ‘The doctor said I should see a psychologist if I needed more Valium. He was only comfortable giving me ten.’

‘That’s very sensible.’

God, she wasn’t making this easy—I wasn’t asking her to buy them, just to write the bloody script.

I decided to go for direct. ‘Do you think you could write me up for some?’

‘I don’t prescribe medication.’

What the hell? My ears were ringing from her words as she droned on. I’d been through all of this, all of this, and she still refused to write me up for drugs—what did she suggest then? Was she some sort of alternative psychologist, was she going to suggest meditation? ‘I’m happy to write a note for your GP explaining that you are seeing me.’

‘But the doctor at the hospital said I should come and see you.’ I could hear my voice rising. I’d taken my last Valium yesterday and I had none left.

None.

‘The doctor was recommending counselling, Alice. Your GP, if she does feel you need medication, is likely to suggest the same.’ She read my stunned expression and twisted the knife. ‘Even if I thought you needed it, I’m not qualified to prescribe medication.’

Well, what was the bloody point of that? I huffed, as I paid and left.

I was late for Nic. I’d wasted an hour talking about a stupid divorce that had happened more than a decade ago, and she’d charged me one hundred and twenty dollars for the pleasure. I hadn’t even got a script—let alone a single bloody insight.

I was not best pleased, I can tell you.