Putting Alice Back Together (18 page)

He loved it.

In fact, we didn’t get to the beach till four…

Thirty

It never moved when I played.

The world moved on. Gus had left, my exams drew closer. Lex’s company gave him an extension, which meant he had a few more weeks, but it wasn’t a relief.

Bonny just unleashed her fears more.

She didn’t want to leave Mum.

She didn’t want to go.

Lex tried to help. He bought Bonny and Mum a week in France at the end of May with his bonus money, as something to look forward to, except Bonny refused to look forward.

She wanted to stay right where she was.

The house was chaos. Dad was now married, and Mum was ironing like some Chinese laundry slave. I was handing out toys and asking people if they wanted fries and doing school and just getting on, I guess.

My solace was practice.

I still hated the lessons.

I had my music teacher from school and the usual scurf-ridden vegan as an extra and I still sang in the choir but I couldn’t manage to get to choir practice.

I was studying for English Lit and hated
Macbeth
—I hated it all.

I just loved to play.

And you must have liked to listen because you never once moved when I did.

You were still and quiet as my fingers stroked that ebony. You let me be and I just flew.

Music drenched me.

I heard it, I played it, I felt it.

It calmed and excited.

I stared at my fingers sometimes, heard the sound that poured out, and couldn’t really believe that it came from within me.

I was so lucky—I could read music—I just could, and some were stressing about that, but it was obvious to me.

Yes, I hated the lessons and the theory but I did them, because then I got the reward.

I got to play.

I got to watch my fingers and hear it.

And sometimes it happened.

It.

This sound that came if I let it.

A sound that came from somewhere and was delivered through me and then moved beyond.

A place where I could go and I know you went there too, because not once, not one single time as I sat at the piano, did I feel you move.

You allowed me to forget.

Thirty-One

I can say, without doubt, it was the best weekend of my life.

It wasn’t just that there was no phone, no mail.

It wasn’t just the brilliant sex.

It was more than I can begin to explain.

Idyllic?

No, because that sounds like it was a dream and it wasn’t—it was real and it was fun and it was us.

Perfect?

Yes, but it was more real than perfect—it didn’t have to be perfect to be perfect, so I don’t choose that word either.

It was us.

Us.

Not Hugh.

Not Alice.

But this new person (I don’t think I can explain it, but I am trying) we became when we were together.

Or maybe not a person—a
version
of us when we joined up.

A better version of Hugh and of Alice.

That’s the best I can do.

Together we were a better version.

I was. Certainly.

I listened, I actually listened when he told me about Gemma. My hackles didn’t rise at the threat either. He loved her; they had been together for ages.

Lived together.

He had declined marriage—it wasn’t necessary, he said.

Then she had started talking about babies.

He knew they were in trouble because, yes, he had always wanted one day to have kids, but that meant for ever and he was wondering if he could do for ever with her.

If that was
it
.

And then a temporary position had come up in Glasgow—a junior consultant’s position for six months—and he had jumped. He hadn’t been sure it was bad enough to end it, but neither had he been sure it was good enough for life, but the offer had been withdrawn and then this maternity leave position had come up in Australia.

Ten months to sort his shit out—to decide what he wanted with Gemma.

But he had met me.

And he was starting to wonder if this was actually it.

We talked and we learnt and we grew.

I popped a few pills, but really (comparatively) not that many. We had some drinks, but it felt normal rather than necessary.

And we laughed so many times.

I laughed.

If I close my eyes this second, I can see me, waist high in the waves with Hugh, bracing myself to body surf and then falling and then rising out of the ocean. My hair is everywhere, salt water coming out of my nose. I’m gagging and choking and then laughing. He is holding my shoulder as I cough and then laugh and then he is laughing too.

I could never forget it.

I remember it, the same way I remember to breathe—sometimes it hurts to breathe, sometimes I have to think to do it, sometimes it happens naturally, but still I do it, just as for ever I will remember that moment.

If I get to be old, when I’m mad and can’t remember my name and there is nothing else left, I will be content if all I have is that memory.

I never want to lose it.

Me, waist high in the waves with Hugh, bracing myself to body surf and then falling and then rising out of the ocean. My hair is everywhere, salt water coming out of my nose. I’m gagging and choking and then laughing. He is holding my shoulder as I cough and then laugh and then he is laughing too.

Sorry to repeat, but it’s what I do with it.

It’s my one clean, perfect memory.

Thirty-Two

Planes don’t just crash.

Planes don’t just fall out of the sky for no reason.

Even if it seems instant (and I hope for those souls it happens to that it is) there is generally a moment.

Where it drops.

Where it veers.

Where that bell pings too many times.

The oxygen masks fall down.

The captain says something.

I watch the shows and it says the same thing over and over—that there was a series of incidents.

Errors made.

It can be callous acts unnoticed, or pay cuts that left bags unchecked, or lack of experience that meant a four-inch bolt should have been six inches. Then there’s computer errors and fatigue and fuel wastage and taking off on reduced thrust to save costs… and the more the crash investigators look, the more it seems obvious, the more it seems blazingly clear this was going to happen.

We tut and shake our heads and are furious on those souls’ behalf (while mightily relieved it’s not us).

We console ourselves that they will learn from this.

That flying will now be safer.

That the same mistakes will not be made.

But they are.

Over and over they are.

And that’s just flying.

I’m talking about living and that’s more complicated than aviation.

So, of course,
of course
, there were signs and warnings.

You read this and it’s obvious, it’s so obvious I should have seen them.

Guess what?

I could.

I had set the timer, knew the bomb was about to go off, but I had changed my mind and I wanted to somehow defuse it.

That weekend, I thought I had.

I
almost
thought I had.

I can’t tell you Hugh’s story.

I do not know when the warning light pinged on for him—I don’t know what happened to alert him, I just know something did.

I wasn’t expecting it.

As I said, we were, for want of a word, close to perfect.

There was nothing major (apart from euphoria) and nothing trivial (well, I found out I like Earl Grey tea).

We were ticking all boxes after my perfect memory and then we got back to our towels and our place on the beach and his phone must have got sand in it ‘cos it wasn’t working.

He didn’t freak or curse or anything really. He sat down on his towel and turned it on and off and then pulled it out of its case and blew into the little thingy that joins it to the charger in case there was sand in there.

And he could surely do that at the hotel.

The knot was starting in my stomach and I wanted to go back to the hotel.

And he was sitting on the sand, blowing into a phone, and I really wanted to go back to the hotel.

Or rather my make-up bag, which was in the bathroom.

So, finally,
finally
we headed back and I was happy to leave him sitting on the bed playing with the phone, except he followed me into the shower. I really wasn’t in the mood and neither was he because he went back to his beloved phone. I got to my make-up bag and the tiny glitch was over.

But Hugh was minus a phone—I just didn’t see it coming, didn’t realise that there was so much riding on that four-inch bolt that should have been six.

We were getting the red-eye in the morning at 05.50 hours and we both had to be at work at nine, Hugh preferably by eight (or seven if he could possibly make it).

We made good time. We were in the flat before eight and as I walked in I could see the phone in the hall blinking rapidly.

Hugh didn’t notice.

He downed a coffee.

Brushed his teeth.

Kissed me.

‘Can I ask a favour?’

‘Sure.’ I was a bit unsettled. The bloody answering-machine
was like a strobe light flashing and I imagined all the debt messages.

‘Can you buy me a phone in your lunch break?’ He quickly kissed my frown. ‘Just a cheap one—any one…’

‘Sure.’

He went then and, I have to say, the little break had left me calmer because I was brave enough to check my messages, to see what they were threatening now.

There were none from the credit-card people, which should have cheered me up, but it didn’t.

There were about ten from Gemma.

She couldn’t get him on his mobile: she needed to talk to him.

Could he just pick up the phone?

Hugh, please pick up the phone.

Hugh, don’t do this.

It was then that my warning light pinged on.

I just can’t believe how quickly it happened after that.

How something so good rapidly turned so very bad.

Thirty-Three

I would have got his phone in my lunch break except I had an unexpected appointment.

‘I just didn’t get the grades that were expected.’

‘By who?’

‘By anyone.’

I had sworn I wouldn’t go back, and I still hated her with a passion, but I sat in Big Tits’ office, because…

I don’t know.

It didn’t help: it was making things worse.

I knew, though, that I was looking for answers.

But I didn’t give her the questions.

I wanted to talk about Hugh.

I wanted to fix it before it unravelled.

Because of my tantrum the previous week, I had to pay for my last session and pay up front for this one.

It would be worth it for some insight into Hugh, I told myself.

Not that she’d let me talk about him.

Instead, she kept asking about me.

‘Did you expect better grades?’

‘Not really.’ I shrugged. ‘I mean, I can play the piano, but I’m not brilliant…’ I struggled to explain. ‘It was a difficult time. Bonny was emigrating, Dad’s girlfriend was pregnant.’

‘So you didn’t expect good grades?’

I didn’t answer.

‘So who did?’ Big Tits said. ‘You said you didn’t get the grades that were
expected
’

For fuck’s sake.

‘I didn’t get the grades I had aimed for.’ No bloody wonder kids topped themselves—ten years on and I had to explain why I had flunked my music A-level. ‘I wasn’t sure what to do—I could maybe have scraped into university on the second round, I was hoping to be a music teacher, but I was tempted to take the exams again…’
To be all that I could be
. I didn’t say that bit, I heard it. I heard my voice say it to me and I wanted to cry. I wanted to fold up in two on the chair and cry and to say it.

To be all that I could be.

And I hadn’t been.

‘What did your mum want, Alice?’ Her voice was for once gentle, kind even, but I remembered then I hated her. I wanted to talk about Hugh.

‘Alice. What did your mum want? What did she say about your results?’

‘Mum wasn’t actually that bothered…’ That halted her. ‘She was worried because Bonny and Lex were struggling. Bonny was homesick, Lex had been arrested…’ I saw her lips purse, as if Lex was some sort of scum. ‘He’s nothing like that,’ I rapidly explained, ‘that was why it was such a shock, it was completely out of character. He got in a fight at some pub, but the
charges were dropped. Of course, Bonny was upset and she was threatening to come home…’

She didn’t fill the silence.

‘I can’t remember who, if it was Bonny or me or Lex, but it seemed a good idea for me to take a gap year—and to come to Australia and cheer Bonny up while I worked out what I do.’

‘What did you do?’ Big Tits asked.

‘I came to Australia and I got a job.’

I moved into the youth hostel and I got pissed and partied
.

I didn’t have to come home and I didn’t have to answer to anyone, so I did it some more
.

I got a job, which meant I could party harder, so I did
.

And I had friends and I got a flat and I partied some more and then the friends moved on and so I got some more. I partied and I got drunk and then when they moved on I partied harder
.

I didn’t say it, of course, but my answer was the most honest I had ever given Big Tits.

‘Pretty much what I’m doing now.’

Not that she appreciated my honesty—she asked about Eleanor and I could not think of much to say. She asked about dad’s daughter Charlotte, who is nearly ten now and I’ve only seen her a couple of times so there wasn’t much to say about her either.

‘Alice.’ Lisa gave me a tired smile. ‘Being a psychologist isn’t like being a car mechanic.’

My head hurt.

‘It’s not like a car, where it doesn’t matter if you have no idea what’s going on under the bonnet.