Putting Alice Back Together (16 page)

An abortion would be kinder to the baby.

You get the gist.

I could give it nothing.

I
was
nothing.

And then I watched him leave. I just stood there and watched him leave.

And if he could walk away, if he could deny its existence, then so could I.

And so I did.

In the background I knew that I was—I even made plans. I had always dressed neatly, but I started to wear big sloppy T-shirts long before I had a bump, so that people were used to it for when I did. I also, even though I was studying for my exams, went for an interview for a job in a burger place, even though Mum was furious, but I knew I would get bigger, and that gave me a good reason to be putting on weight and a good reason to be out of the house.

So, yes, I sort of knew, but I hoped it would go away, that I’d wake up and I’d be bleeding, or that it would just die and be absorbed. I never let myself actually think that I’d have it and what I’d do with it if I did.

I simply refused to think.

Twenty-Five

The massage took longer than expected, and by the time we got to the hair and beauty salon we were way over our appointment times. I had my hair washed and sat watching my finger- and toenails turning the most glorious shade of coral—and having my eyebrows waxed and eyelashes and brows dyed. Then make-up was applied as the hairdresser dried Bonny’s hair, and then it was her turn to go and get the finishing touches as I slid into the seat.

The hairdresser rubbed some serum into it. I was really feeling nice and relaxed and then the hairdresser picked up and attached that stupid diffuser thing and I stopped her. ‘No, I want it straight.’

She frowned down. ‘There’s too much product in it for it to be straight.’ She’d weighted it down with thick waxy product. I hadn’t been paying attention and realised that she’d been intending to leave it curly.

‘There isn’t really time…’ She was waving the diffuser over me and I wanted to rip it out of her hands.

‘Make time!’ I glared. If I’ve learnt one thing in this
life, don’t pretend you’re happy with a hairdresser when you’re not. Kick and scream and cry if you have to—and I was about to—she could shagging well wash the product out and start again. I didn’t care if my make-up was done and it was already six p.m. I was not going out with curly hair.

But then Bonny chimed up, ‘It looks great, Alice, and anyway we don’t have time.’

It was no big deal to her, she didn’t realise I never went curly, and I wouldn’t have that night, but Bonny was laughing as she chatted to the beautician. Bonny was actually laughing and having fun and we had a table booked in an hour. I couldn’t bring her down. I had tears in my eyes as I stared at my fuzzy hair.

‘It looks fantastic!’ the hairdresser said firmly. ‘Look.’ She was pulling the long ringlets out through her fingers, arranging them around my face—and she’d actually done a bloody good job, it was just that I hated it so.

I hated it.

And even if I could put up with it for tonight, for Bonny’s sake, I couldn’t stand the thought of Hugh seeing me like this tomorrow.

He was going out, I remembered, going cycling or something—I’d ring Karan perhaps and tell her—ooh, I could tell her the goss about Roz. It was Bonny’s night, so I didn’t make a fuss that for the first time in ten years I would be out in public with curly hair. In fact, when we got back to our room and Bonny opened another bottle of champagne I cheered up immensely and gave her her present.

‘You shouldn’t have!’

‘Don’t be daft.’ I was nervous as she unwrapped the
parcel. I’d put loads of thought into this present and it had cost way more than I’d intended but, hell, it was for Bonny. And the thought of her coming out on the town in those shagging black pants. Well, I’d read every how-to-look-good book and had come up with the perfect dress for her.

Embarrassed, when I’d asked her her size a couple of weeks ago, she’d confessed to being a size sixteen, so naturally I’d bought a size eighteen, and when Bonny frowned at the label I hurriedly assured her that the assistant had told me that this designer’s sizes came in tiny.

Well, as she unfurled the dress I saw her blink a couple of times.

It was black, but it had a really low neckline and was sort of ruched, and belted in at the waist. The best I can describe it is like a German beer
fraulein
, and then it tapered in a bit at the skirt and then there were all these sort of ruffles.

Like a gypsy German beer
fraulein
.

And I have to congratulate Trinny and Susannah and Gok, because when Bonny slipped it on, with her hair done, and ringlets gleaming, she looked fantastic.

I’d bought her some fishnets and she put them on too, and, yes, she was huge, but I felt drab beside her.

And Lisa was right, I realised as I watched her swirl in the mirror.

She should be doing this in front of Lex.

Still, Lex or no Lex, we had a brilliant night—we actually got chatted up by two Qantas pilots. It was so much fun, too much fun actually, ‘cos for a moment there I seriously thought Bonny was going too far. She
was flirting and just
reckless
. I know I can be reckless, but I don’t have Lex at home.

And Lex was paying for this too, I thought angrily as I saw one of them pressing his leg against her. They were bloody sober, of course, but Bonny was roaring drunk and I felt a sort of panic for her, she had a desperate look in her eyes that unsettled me.

The other one was buying me drinks and normally, well, I don’t know, ‘cos normally I’m not in such a lovely hotel with pilots buying me drinks, but a couple of weeks ago I’d have been in his room by now. Maybe not, given I was with Bonny—but there was Hugh and there was Lex and for the first time in my life I felt like the grown-up.

It was a relief when he texted me.

Hi.

Hi.

Are you having a good time?

Yep. You?

Call me.

Can’t. Too noisy.

I clicked off, but I wanted to call. I’d played it cool, too cool with him, and I made my excuses and dashed to the loos. They were very nice loos too, with fluffy towels and a place to sit, and I rang him. I could see my strawberry blonde curls and I didn’t like them, but I sort of did…

‘Sorry about that,’ I said.

‘No problems. I shouldn’t have called.’

‘I’m glad you did.’

‘So what are you doing?’

‘Getting chatted up by two pilots.’ I laughed then blinked, because I heard his silence, knew he was worried, and it felt sort of nice. It had only been a few days and yet it was way more than that. ‘Well, I’m trying to get my sister safely to bed before she does something she regrets.’

‘How about tomorrow we go for dinner?’ Hugh said. ‘Just us.’

‘Okay.’ I was sort of glowing inside.

‘You choose where.’

‘No, you choose,’ I said, and it was a date.

I was sort of glowing as I walked back—but I couldn’t find Bonny. I did a bit of a frantic search, then dashed back to the loos and then back to our table. The pilots had gone and I caught sight of myself in a mirror again, my curls bobbing, my face worried, and that swarm of bees was chasing me again, only this time they caught me.

As I searched for Bonny, they surrounded me.

Each memory a sting.

Because it hadn’t been the hazelnut torte—Dad had told Bonny and me to sit quietly while he went downstairs for a drink. Margo, the landlady, had brought us in cake and cream, but I took a bite and I didn’t like it. I wanted ice cream like Dad had promised and I went to find him. Normally if I stood on the stairs one of the bar staff would see and get him for me.

Only I never made it to the stairs. I could hear something down the hall, a low voice that sounded like Dad, and I walked down the corridor, saw Dad and Margo kissing against the wall, her skirt round her waist and Dad pushing at her. I knew I shouldn’t have seen it. I
ran back to the room, and saw Bonny’s panicked face at my expression—and I knew I couldn’t tell her, knew I couldn’t talk about it, must never mention it. She was crying and calling for Daddy, for someone to please come, Alice couldn’t breathe…

There was a whoosh of relief as I saw Bonny walking towards me, the bees dispersing and the panic fading. Lisa had just unsettled me. Of course things were okay.

‘Where were you?’

‘Looking for you,’ Bonny said. ‘Where the hell did you go?’

‘To the loo.’

‘I’ve just been to the loo and you weren’t there.’

It was a mix-up, a stupid mix-up. I told myself that—then told myself again as we drained our drinks and headed to the lifts.

I chose not to mention that her lipstick was smeared all over her face.

Chose not to tell Bonny that she shouldn’t worry—she was nothing like Mum.

Instead, she was her father’s daughter.

Twenty-Six

‘So you’re not actually living together,’ Big Tits said as my stomach tightened. ‘He’s just staying at your flat…’

It was my fifth visit.

My fourth week with Hugh and my life was brilliant.

Well, not brilliant.

I was seriously broke and I couldn’t even ask Roz for a loan because, well, we were hardly talking, or rather I was hardly talking to her.

Karan hadn’t reacted the way I thought she would when I told her the gossip about Roz—in fact, she’d made me feel a bit small. She told me that Roz was a good friend and that she needed me now. Then she’d added twenty dollars to the bill, saying it was because it was a Sunday, but I knew she thought I was being mean.

I wasn’t, though.

She should have told me.

At work I couldn’t look at her without blushing and her eyes filled up with tears and she looked away.

At home she kept texting me.

Over and over.

I should have told you.

I didnt know how. (Roz can’t do apostrophes on her phone.)

Im sorry.

Im so sorry.

Talk to me Alice.

I just couldn’t.

Dr Kelsey had reluctantly, extremely reluctantly, given me another script, which had already run out. But if there was one thing going swimmingly it was a certain Dr Hugh Watson. The universe had aligned for me there. Nicole had emailed (the house phone was permanently turned down by now) to say that she was staying in the UK for an extra two weeks and Hugh and I were delighted.

We were in our little bubble of love and we wanted no one to pierce it.

Bonny tried. She kept calling and she warned me to be careful, told me that I was getting my hopes up and it was way too soon to be serious. And Lisa clearly didn’t see it as a good thing either.

‘He’s your friend’s cousin?’ Big Tits checked her notes. ‘How long has he been in Australia?’

‘A month now.’

‘And you’re sleeping with him.’ I could hear the implication—knew she thought he was using me, but she had no idea, no idea at all.

God, I didn’t need to justify myself to her.

Except that was what I found myself doing.

You see, I had told her a bit about my rather vast sexual history, or rather she wormed it out of me, but Hugh was nothing like any of them.

Nothing.

She just refused to separate him from them and there was no point being there, I realised as she droned on and on—Dr Kelsey wasn’t going to give me another script anyway. I didn’t actually need another—I was fine. The only problem I had now was her and, I glanced at the clock, in twenty minutes she would be out of my life.

For ever.

And maybe she sensed it, because she let me have it.

‘This is not a relationship, Alice.’

‘You have to set boundaries, Alice.’

I was paying two dollars a minute to hear this!

‘Just because a man takes you for dinner, or asks you to dance,’ Big Tits persisted, ‘it doesn’t mean you have to sleep with him.’

Christ, what planet did she live on? She was stuck in the 1950s—in a world where a guy walked up and asked you to dance.

‘So he should,’ was her response when I told her the same. ‘You deserve more,’ she insisted to my rigid face. Next she’d have him pinning orchids on my chest.

‘Why should they expect to have sex with you?’ Big Tits demanded. ‘Why would you let them?’

I hated this consultation—hated it the most, sitting there with her telling me I should bestow my favours on men who were worthy, on men who would respect me. ‘You deserve better, Alice!’

‘I know that now.’ I was having great trouble keeping
my voice even. ‘Hugh’s not like that. We’re serious about each other.’

‘Is he serious about Gemma too?’

I could have slapped her.

‘You’ve only been seeing him for four weeks. You slept with him the first week you met!’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Sorry.’ She flicked through her notes as my face burnt with shame, as she reduced the one good thing in my life to a meaningless shag. ‘The second.’

Fuck you
.

I didn’t have the guts to say it, though. I just stared at her sixty-year-old creped chest and
how
I hated her for not understanding. Then I picked up my bag and walked out as the bubbly receptionist called me back to pay.

‘I’ll send a cheque,’ I called over my shoulder, and then I got into the car park and I tried to breathe. I tried to get the keys in the ignition, and then I jerked out of the car park and nearly hit a kid on his bike.

And
how
I hated her for not understanding.

Twenty-Seven

They were wrong. All of them.

And when I got home to Hugh, he proved them wrong.

‘Come.’ Hugh was shoving clothes in his case. ‘It will be fun.’

‘I could have done with a bit of notice.’ I gave a nervous laugh.

‘I didn’t know I’d be crazy about you then.’

He was going to some psychiatric convention that was being held in Coogee—a beachside place about ten kilometres out of Sydney. Three nights away with Hugh. God, I was tempted, but I hadn’t prepared. Okay, I was waxed and ready, but the thought of stripping off on Bondi bloody beach—where Hugh wanted to go—and displaying my body to the beautiful locals had me breaking out in a sweat. And what about my hair? I had a blow-dry booked for nine a.m. tomorrow. Three days of surf and sand and Hugh might just work out that my straight hair actually wasn’t straight at all.