Putting Alice Back Together (32 page)

Actually, I know I couldn’t.

Dad, Lucy and Charlotte had been away over Christmas and were heading off skiing for New Year and could cram me in for a couple of hours on our way to the wedding.

After the wedding I was heading back to Mum’s for a couple of days and Roz would be picking up Lizzie and doing the touristy stuff.

‘Stay for another week?’ Mum asked, and I really wanted to. I wanted more time with her, but I had shifts lined up at the supermarket and I knew that I couldn’t.

‘You should think about coming out soon for a holiday,’ Roz said for the umpteenth time, only this time I realised that Mum was actually considering it.

‘Where are you and Lizzie staying?’ Mum asked.

‘Bed and breakfasts and a couple of pubs,’ Roz said, and her face was going pink with pleasure and pride as her new friend Gloria continued.

‘Why don’t you both stay here?’

Dad wasn’t home.

Nope, he was freezing on the golf course, but Lucy assured me he would be there soon.

She made us coffee, and she’d bought nice cakes from Marks and Spencer and made a little selection plate for us.

And then she offered us some wine.

‘No, thanks,’ I said.

‘Sure?’ she checked, sloshing some into her glass.

‘Not for me,’ Roz said.

And it had nothing,
nothing
to do with being strong. I just knew that if I scraped even the top off my inhibitions I would rip in two.

Charlie came home.

She has a pony, you see, so couldn’t be there to greet us.

All long-limbed and buck-toothed (not the pony, Charlotte, but the teeth were about to be corrected by Noel, Lucy hurriedly pointed out), she opened the present I had bought as an afterthought at the airport, then dashed off. She had Lucy’s tiny frame and Dad’s air of confidence and she was quite a stunning mix.

It was pretty tense, like sitting in the dentist’s waiting room, so I excused myself and headed to the loo, then came back down the stairs and Lucy was waiting.

‘He just rang.’ She gave a too-bright smile. ‘He’s on his way; he’ll only be five minutes.’

‘No problem.’

‘Alice…’ I so did not need this, I so wanted to keep walking, but she didn’t read the signs and kept talking. ‘I’m sorry this is awkward.’

‘It’s not,’ I assured her. ‘Dad will be here soon.’

‘Yes,’ she insisted, ‘it is awkward.’

‘It’s really not,’ I said.

‘I know you hate me…’ And thank God I hadn’t had a drink or I’d have punched her lights out. ‘For taking him from your mother.’

I didn’t say the first thing that came into my head. There was a pause, because that’s what I do now—I employ the pause where I think, where I stop, where I step back before I speak.

You took him from me, you stupid bitch
.

You justify it because my mother was too fat, too lazy, too slow. You don’t blame him for not wanting her, but what man doesn’t want his kids?

Did you think about that?

When he should have been a father, when he should have been dealing with teenagers and angst and doing what a father bloody well should, you took him from that. You took him away and you stopped him from being the father he should have been
.

You had your baby while his grandchild died
.

Thank God I hadn’t had even a thimble of wine. Instead of punching her lights out, instead of saying all that, I just looked at her. And Lisa had taught me well—too well, perhaps—because in that slice of time I knew it wasn’t really about her. It wasn’t, in fact, her fault. He was probably treating her just as poorly as he had my mum—the blame lay with my dad.

I understood all that, and I might have learnt a lot of lessons, but it doesn’t make me Mother Teresa—I can still be an utter bitch.

‘You didn’t take him.’ I frowned, and then there was a strange, almost sympathetic laughter in my voice, as if
to say,
You poor deluded fool, is that what you’ve thought all these years?
‘You don’t
take
people.’ I watched her blink. ‘Clearly my dad wanted something else—all through the marriage he wanted something else and he regularly got it. You didn’t take him, Lucy, he just walked away—from his wife, from his children, from his responsibilities—to someone younger, sexier and prettier.
You
were just the one who happened to be there. It wasn’t even about you, Lucy, so why would I hate you?’

I might as well have slapped her, because I knew the words had hit, but then the door opened and there he was.

‘Hi, Alice.’ He didn’t say
Hi, baby girl
, because I wasn’t his baby any more. He had Charlie.

We chatted—a bit but not much.

About how well his work was going, though regrettably it took him away a lot—lots of weekends away, which he hated, of course—I glanced over at Lucy, who sat there rigid.

We couldn’t talk much because his phone kept bleeping.

A few texts that he had to answer, and one call that he had to go out into the garden to take.

People do change, of course.

Just not my dad.

‘It’s been great…’ He ruffled Charlie’s hair instead of mine. ‘Maybe we’ll try and make it over there.’

I doubted it.

‘You enjoy the rest of your holiday,’ Dad said.

I hugged him goodbye and gave a small smile for Lucy; I felt a bit sorry for her. I didn’t resent Charlie
now: she wasn’t the baby I could have had, but the stepsister I’d ignored. And Christ knows what she was dealing with, with that pair as parents—and doing it without siblings too.

Eleanor and Bonny are right royal pains, but I wouldn’t want to do this life without them.

‘Here.’ I wrote down my email address and gave it to her. ‘I’m good at email.’

And then we were out through the door and it was a relief.

A relief to walk to our little hire car and head for the motorway.

‘Nearly there,’ Roz said a couple of hours later.

Yeah, just the wedding to get through..

And then the best bit. I had to face Hugh.

Some bloody holiday.

Seventy-Four

The hotel where all the wedding party were staying was something like three hundred pounds a night if you added early check-in and late check-out. Two nights in the pub over the road only cost about half of that.

And it was a lovely old-fashioned place that smelt like a pub, and I remembered when I was little and Dad would take us to a pub for lunch and I’d have steak and kidney pudding or ice cream while he chatted up the landlady. And it had been a nice memory, but it wasn’t at all nice now—he should have brought Mum.

Or at the very least left his kids at home.

We knelt up on our single beds and watched the wedding party arriving.

Nicole directing them with military precision.

Roz noted her hips and her boobs and so too did I.

There were bags, dresses, flowers and relatives, and though I watched in glee and chatted with Roz, all the time I looked for Hugh—but I never saw him.

‘We should ring Nicole,’ I said about nine p.m., when I was desperate to know for sure whether or not he was
coming. ‘Let her know where we are and maybe catch up for a drink.’

‘She’ll be busy tonight with her family,’ Roz said.

So I read one of Roz’s self-help books and learnt precisely nothing.

I was bored with self-help—I didn’t need help any more; I just needed it to be the day after tomorrow.

I am rather ashamed to admit that I slept marvellously. In fact, I was out like a light by ten—no fitful stirring, no waking up and thinking that soon I would see him.

According to Roz I snored my head off, and was woken at seven a.m. by the tiny kettle and Roz swearing like a sailor as she tried to divide three sachets of powdered coffee into two mugs.

Sorry—it really was as boring as that.

Seventy-Five

Roz had bought American Tan stockings.

I found them on the morning of the wedding laid out on the bed as she had her shower and I confronted her when she came out.

‘You’ll have to go to the shop,’ I said. ‘You need nude.’

‘I haven’t got time.’

She was dripping wet and my hair was done (well, almost), and my make-up was on, so I hauled on some jeans and a T-shirt and coat and raced to a shop that I thought we might have passed.

I was hyper-vigilant, just in case Hugh had run out of whatever it is that guys run out of a couple of hours before a wedding—nothing—so really I knew he wasn’t in there. I bought Roz some nude stockings and stood in the queue as the slowest cashier in the history of slow cashiers (I’m much faster, and I can smile while I do it too, and she had a bloody seat: I didn’t see what her problem was) took her time to scan some frazzled woman’s shopping. She had a baby strapped in the trolley who was wrapped up so tight that his arms stuck out in front
of him, and he had one of those caps on which covered the ears. I just sort of glanced over him and then I saw
her
.

She was about four, maybe five, and had the same affliction as me.

Worse, even.

She had a wild mop of ginger curls, all frizzy and knotty, and the poor thing looked as if she had the slap-cheek virus her face was so red. She had too the runny nose that often seems to come in red-headed children, and she must have been on her way to her ballet lesson because her coat was open and her little fat legs were in pink tights and she had a pink leotard on, which clashed badly with her hair.

And I can promise you she hated the lessons and didn’t want to go, because beside the skinny, neat perfects she would stand out.

She was lost in her own little world for now, as her mum packed up the groceries, hop-hop-hopping on one leg, and I knew what she was doing before I checked.

Hop-hop-hopping on the floor tiles and trying to avoid the cracks.

Bear in mind I had wedding hair (loads and loads of product and a hot wand through some of the curls) and a good layer of foundation to spare my blushes from Hugh, and I was, apart from the clothes, dressed for a wedding. But we afflicted kind of stand out, because when she looked up I saw her do a double-take. And then I felt her staring at me as I paid for Roz’s stockings. I glanced over and her little pale blue eyes were staring at my hair and my face.

Normally I hate kids who stare; normally I’d have
poked my tongue out at her while her mum wasn’t looking. But I did the strangest thing. I smiled.

Not an embarrassed half-smile, but a proper smile.

She looked at me closer, a smile on her (ugly) little face, and I could almost hear her mind whirring.

She thought I was beautiful.

She was looking at me and thinking, hoping, praying that one day she might look as lovely as me.

I felt as if that pinched, embarrassed, cringing face that looked out of my photo was staring back at me too, that they were both pleading that one day it would all be okay.

So I gave a little nod.

That told her I understood.

That told her she would be okay.

Then I watched her mum yank her arm and drag her away and she kept turning around, staring and smiling, forgetting to avoid the cracks, and do you know what…?

She wasn’t ugly. She was, I suppose, kind of cute, striking, curious and funny.

Do you know something else?

I felt a bit lovely and beautiful too—a little like Cameron Diaz.

I felt as if I’d made it.

Almost.

Seventy-Six

I did Roz’s hair. Karan had taught me a thing or three, and I did an excellent job, if I do say so myself. Roz ditched the linen pants and put on the nude stockings I had bought and the palest grey dress and make-up. With a little flowery feather thing in her hair that was grey, black and white, and a splash of pink lipstick she looked like a different person.

I almost fancied her—well, not really, but she roared with laughter when I told her.

So we took a picture and texted it to Karan and then she put on a dressing gown because she’s always spilling things.

And it was my turn to get ready.

I didn’t have much left to do with my hair; I’d washed it last night and put in loads of stuff and now I just ran my fingers through it and added a bit more serum. I did use a curling wand and took a few strays and added several heavy ringlets. And my make-up was done, so I slipped on my dress and I would have killed for a Kalma, but I’d have to settle for a pep talk from Roz instead.

‘You look great.’ Roz gave me such a proud smile as I came out of the bathroom she could have been the mother of the bride.

‘Thanks to eBay!’

I was wearing an Emilia Hill fake—but a very good fake—willow-green, it clung in all the right places and had a sort of Spanish ruffle at the bottom, which matched the rather red ruffle of curls at the top. I’d put on weight and was feeling a bit of an Amazon, really, and was minus my usual spray tan—if Hugh actually recognised me he’d be prescribing iron tablets.

My stomach was in knots, but it was only eleven a.m. and good girls don’t drink at that time.

‘Here!’ Roz pulled out a bottle of champagne and expertly opened it. The bubbles fizzed over my hand because it was shaking so much that she struggled to line up the neck of the bottle with my glass.

‘You said I couldn’t have a drink before—’

‘That was before I had to face Andrew.’ We sat on the bed, in our dingy little pub room, drank champagne before eleven a.m., and never had we been more clean or more honest.

‘I rang Lizzie while you were out and she told me that Trudy’s pregnant.’ Roz took a big swig of her drink. ‘Which is what I wanted to happen—I mean, I want him to be happy, I just never expected it to hurt. I don’t fancy him, our whole marriage was a sham, but…’ She screwed up her face and for the first time I saw that, despite a serious lack of effort on Roz’s part, despite the fact she was a Botox virgin, there was hardly a wrinkle. Roz, now she was actually taking care of herself, was a very beautiful woman. ‘I couldn’t figure out why it
would hurt—then I realised that…’ She couldn’t finish, so I did it for her.