‘Hello? Are you Guy? I’m Caspar. I want to see you.’
She watches him as he listens intently, nodding.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘She came home today.’ Then, after listening some more, ‘All right.’
He puts down the phone.
‘He’s coming to see me.’
‘What! Here?’
‘Yes. Tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Blimey.’
‘What does blimey mean?’
‘It means I’m surprised.’
Alan now emerges from his study where he retreated to deal with his emails as soon as he got home. It turns out he travelled on the same train from London as Alice, which is a bit spooky.
‘Dad,’ says Caspar, ‘have you stopped using your computer?’
‘For now.’
‘Can I go on it?’
‘Okay. But just for half an hour.’
Caspar hurtles away to Alan’s study.
‘Bloody computer games,’ sighs Alan.
‘How was the meeting?’ says Alice.
‘Oh, you know. The usual. Pretty damnable, actually. I have to start again from scratch, more or less.’
‘Oh, Alan.’ She’s had this conversation with him so many times before. ‘You shouldn’t be doing film work. You should go back to writing plays.’
He smiles and shrugs. He looks so defeated she wants to hug him.
‘How was your term?’
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I’m glad it’s over.’
‘No better than that?’
‘I like my course. I’ve made some friends.’
‘But no one special.’
‘Not yet.’
‘You will. There aren’t many out there like you, but there are some.’
He takes her in his arms and they have a hug.
‘You’re my special friend,’ says Alice. ‘You and Mum.’
‘I’m your stepfather. You’re supposed to hate me.’
‘I don’t hate you. I love you.’
So easy in his arms. Why aren’t there boys her age like Alan?
‘Guess who I met on the train?’
‘Who?’
‘Chloe Redknapp.’
‘Chloe Redknapp!’ Alan was their teacher, all those years ago. ‘The blonde bombshell.’
‘She’s exactly the same, only now she plays her games on boys.’
‘She was a monster. She used to bully you.’
‘The funny thing is she seems to have no memory of all that. She was really quite friendly.’
‘I’m all in favour of Chloe Redknapp. You and I bonded over her. That’s why you fixed me up with your mother. For which I’ll be eternally grateful.’
‘Oh, Alan. I just wish you were doing the writing you like. You look so miserable.’
‘What have I got to be miserable about? I’m lucky to be in work.’
‘Does Mum know?’
‘Oh, I’m always moaning to her.’
She takes his hands, looks solemnly into his eyes.
‘You’re to say to her, I’m packing in the films, I’m going to write a new play. We’ll have less money, but we’ll be fine, and I’ll be so much happier.’
He says nothing for a long moment.
‘Like I said,’ he says at last. ‘There aren’t many out there like you.’
Alice goes to her room and unpacks her suitcase, slowly reestablishing her presence in the familiar space. She hasn’t said so to Alan, and she won’t say so to her mother, but she hates her hall of residence in London. Her room there is small and anonymous, and London makes her feel lonely. It came as a shock to find in her first few days that she was homesick, just at the time she was supposed to be having the most exciting week of her life. She forced herself to go to the freshers’ events, but every night that week, alone in her narrow and unfamiliar bed, she cried herself to sleep.
This is not something to share with anyone. Alice is ashamed of her own social failure. She’s ashamed that she’s never had a real boyfriend. The hurt of it goes so deep and has been in her for so long that it’s got out of proportion with reality. So as well as confiding in no one, she does not confide in herself. When she catches herself brooding on her failure she reprimands herself sharply, often aloud, saying, ‘That’s enough of that! Snap out of it!’ She has learned to cope by expecting nothing to change, by shutting the doors on that part of her imaginings, and walking away. But all the time it’s there, waiting, the unvisited house with its empty rooms where she had once dreamed of finding love.
She pulls out her laptop and plugs it in to charge.
Her phone beeps. A text from Chloe.
Operation Jack under way.
Alice sits down on her bed and closes her eyes. Why is Chloe doing this? Her first instinct is to text her back and tell her to leave her alone, get out of her life. But she does not text Chloe back.
Do I really want this to happen?
She tries to understand her own chaos of intense feelings. There’s longing there, a heartbreaking cry that says, ‘Oh, if only it could work out.’ There’s gratitude, even to Chloe Redknapp, for taking action, for compelling her to leave her lonely room. And there’s fear, because surely nothing will come of it but failure and humiliation.
Of course she knows Jack Broad. She hasn’t kept up with him, but they’ve met from time to time. She saw him only last summer in Bill’s Café, they talked for a few minutes. He was clutching a book by W. G. Sebald, which he recommended to her, but she hasn’t read it. He was friendly and rather thoughtful. His hair was long, she remembered, not in a cool way, more in a way that showed he didn’t really know what to do with it. She liked him for that.
She opens up her laptop and logs onto Facebook. She goes to Jack’s page. There are several pictures of him at Cambridge: on a bicycle by the river; with two friends, both male, at a party; in his room, surrounded by books, holding an imaginary gun to his head. No evidence of a girlfriend.
He has a sweet face, still boyish. He seems to be always wearing the same clothes, jeans, check shirt, black jacket. Sometimes a stripy scarf wound round his neck. His Facebook status reads: Jack is working too hard and his brain hurts.
She can feel it starting, growing unbidden within her, the secret hope that looks so plausible but is really no more than a fantasy. Why do I do this to myself? When will I learn? But this time it’s different, because there’s a third party. Chloe’s intervention gives the absurd little dream some dressing of reality.
I’m not just making this up. Chloe is doing it too.
How ridiculous to invest so much authority in a person she barely knows, and neither likes nor respects. Alice wants to say that Chloe is an empty-headed fool. That she’d be ashamed to be like her, chasing boys and jumping from bed to bed. And it’s true, she doesn’t want Chloe’s life. But for all this, she bows down before Chloe and acknowledges her superiority: because she’s pretty, because boys want her, because all other pursuits and achievements in life seem worthless without this one elusive essential, love.
Why should I care so much? Why do I mind so much about not being pretty? Why can’t I see that having a boyfriend is only one among many ways of leading a rich and fulfilled life?
Her mother says to her, ‘Why do you say you’re not pretty? You’re beautiful.’ But when Alice looks in a mirror and sees that sad long face peering uncertainly back at her she knows her mother is lying. ‘Don’t lie to me,’ she says. ‘I look like a donkey.’ Then her mother gets annoyed and says she’s not lying, it’s true, she is beautiful. So apparently it’s true for her. That’s how it goes. To your mother you’re beautiful, to everyone else, not. So what does that tell you about beauty?
Her mother enlists Alan on her side.
‘Of course she’s beautiful,’ he says. ‘She’s worth more than the lot of them put together.’
Alice knows that she’s clever, and hard-working, and maybe more: maybe she’s original, maybe she’s creative. Secretly she’s begun to do some seri
ous writing of her own, just a short story, just dipping a toe in the water. With a mother a journalist and a stepfather a playwright it would be odd if she didn’t try out her own abilities. But she would rather die than show either Liz or Alan her work in progress.
Her story has no title as yet, and it certainly isn’t autobiographical. People say, ‘Write what you know.’ Alice chooses to do the opposite. She is writing about someone as unlike herself as it’s possible to be. Her central character is a boy, quite a young boy, who doesn’t yet know that it’s impolite to speak openly of the unhappiness of others. He can see quite clearly how miserable everyone is, but he doesn’t understand why they’re so miserable. He asks them awkward and insightful questions, which make everyone embarrassed. In a way he’s like one of Dostoevsky’s holy fools, only he’s young, still a child. Then one day something happens that hurts him terribly, and after that he understands, and the questions stop. So it’s a story of first unhappiness. The inverse of all the stories of first love.
Alice finds writing her story both very difficult and very exciting. In her head it’s all real and true, but as it emerges onto the laptop screen it reads as false and unconvincing. But still she persists. If only the words would start to come out right, there’s something there, just ahead, almost within reach, that is more intense and satisfying than anything in existence. That something gives worth and meaning to her life even if she has nothing else. It shines on her like the sun, it seduces her like a dream of paradise. What to call it? Pure consciousness, perhaps. Enlightenment. Or the simplest strongest name of all: truth.
So what price love? Truth trumps love every time.
But love is so insidious. It slithers into so many of the corners of life. Love is company, and conversation, and someone to go to see a film with and talk about the plot with afterwards. Love is not eating alone. Love is touch and kiss and hold tight. Love is joy in nakedness. Love is sex. Love is babies, and family, and a shared home, and not growing old alone.
And all this mighty lifelong edifice begins with the stupid frightening unmanageable game of getting a boyfriend. So easy for Chloe Redknapp, so hard for Alice.
Operation Jack under way.
She hears the slam of the front door two floors below. Her mother is home. She leaps up and bounds down the stairs.
‘Mum!’
Liz Dickinson wraps Alice in her arms, kisses her warm face with her cold face.
‘Darling. I got home as soon as I could.’
They look at each other, smiling, hunting out the little changes. Alice knows her mother almost as well as she knows herself.
‘You’ve had a bad day.’
‘Yes.’ Liz sighs, unbuttons her coat. ‘Not one of my best.’
‘You need a drink.’
‘Coming up.’ This is Alan from the kitchen, bottle in hand. ‘One unit of alcohol for the lady.’
They join him in the kitchen. Liz keeps hold of Alice’s hand.
‘I’ve missed you so much, darling. You have no idea.’
‘Oh, Mum. You’ve got Alan, and Cas.’
‘But you’re my little girl. There’ll never be anyone like you for me.’
Alice bursts into tears. She smiles as she cries, feeling foolish, but both Liz and Alan are looking at her as if they understand. Liz takes her in her arms again, and whispers their secret.
‘Love you, Addle.’
‘Love you, Mum. Love you the most and the longest.’
‘The most and the longest.’
After that she dries her eyes and they all have a drink to celebrate Alice’s homecoming. Alice talks about her term, making herself be light and cheerful, turning it into a joke, because she can see how tired Liz is. Caspar appears to ask for more time, just five minutes, maybe ten, so he can make it to the next level of his game, and Liz says yes. Alice sees the way her mother’s eyes avoid Alan’s as she grants this permission.
‘No point in being too rigid,’ she says.
Alice remembers Caspar’s phone call.
‘I think Guy may be coming tomorrow.’
‘Here? Why?’
‘Cas called him. He wants to see him.’
‘Why on earth does Cas want to see Guy?’
‘I don’t really know.’
‘I have to work tomorrow, I think. I wish I didn’t.’
Tomorrow is Saturday. Alice is long used to her mother’s irregular hours. Liz turns her attention to Alan.
‘How’s it been for you, love? How was your meeting?’
‘Triumphant. They like my work so much they want me to do it all again.’
‘Oh, no.’
Alice says, ‘I’ve been telling him to stop doing film work. I’m right, aren’t I, Mum? He hates it.’
‘Yes, of course. Let’s all stop. I’m so sick of doing stupid interviews with stupid people. I was kept waiting for two and a half hours yesterday before being granted the unique privilege of fifteen minutes with guess who? Alexandra Burke. And she’s not even allowed to say anything bitchy about Simon Cowell.’
‘Who is Alexandra Burke?’ says Alan.
‘Oh, Alan,’ says Alice. ‘Even I know that. She’s the one who sings “Hallelujah” on The X-Factor.’
Alan gives a shrug. It all means nothing to him.
‘Anyway,’ says Liz, ‘I expect I won’t have to suffer much longer. Everyone at work is expecting the knife to fall. They’re talking about cutting four hundred jobs.’
‘Might you lose your job, Mum?’
‘Of course. None of us is irreplaceable.’
‘But you’ve been there for ever! And you’re so good!’
‘Well, we don’t care, do we?’ says Alan. ‘If they don’t want her, we don’t want them. I’ve got money coming in. We won’t starve.’
‘But Alan—’
He flashes Alice a look and she says no more.
‘The thing about film work,’ says Alan, ‘is it’s a pain in the bum, but it is quite sociable. And all those drafts they make you do are like a master class in craft. I’d never want to give it up altogether.’
Alice says nothing and Liz doesn’t seem to notice. She’s starting to forage in the fridge for something for their supper.
‘Stop that,’ says Alan. ‘Supper’s all sorted. I made a lasagne before I left, and I’ve just taken it out of the fridge and put it in the oven.’
‘Oh, you angel.’
He is too, thinks Alice. He’s a good man. He just notices things, and then quietly gets on and does what has to be done, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. And he loves Mum, anyone can see that. So it’s possible. Good men do exist. Unless he’s the only one.
She runs her mind over the boys she’s met in the last year or so. None of them comes close. Without exception they are dull and immature. Not stupid, some can talk very cleverly, on subjects she can’t even begin to understand. But they are all unaware, somehow enclosed, their senses dimmed, so that they have no idea what to say when she’s with them, how to behave. They don’t really perceive her at all. It’s like she’s on the other side of soundproof glass, and most of the time they’re not even looking. How on earth do people ever get together? We flounder about in the fog, crash into each other, cling on for a while, and so are presumed by others to be a couple. But no actual personal connection has been made at all.
So why do I care so much? If it’s all a fraud and a delusion, who wants it? Better to let ten years pass, and we can all grow up, and then try again when we’re capable of knowing each other. Liz was thirty when she met Alan. No, thirty-one. When she was Alice’s age she went out with Guy, and look what a disaster that was. So give it ten years. Let herself off. It’s not as if the boys are forming an orderly line.
But no harm in meeting up with Jack.
12
Belinda is the kitchen making the clafoutis for pudding because that’s what she planned and she can’t think what else to do. Chloe is upstairs on the phone, she can hear her voice shrilling away, the high
notes of her exclamations, but not the words. The red cabbage is simmering on the slow plate. The potatoes are in the oven. The steaks won’t go on until the last minute. There’s the table to lay before Tom gets back.
She pours herself another glass of wine and takes a big gulp. Getting drunk. The stage of numb paralysis has passed, and Belinda finds herself in an unfamiliar world where nothing is what she supposed it to be. Has she been blind for years? Does everyone know but her?
She keeps switching between panic and disbelief. She tells herself Lisa made it all up to hurt her, to break up her marriage, to get Tom for herself. Tom can’t be having an affair. They have a good marriage. So it’s not perfect, but it works, doesn’t it?
She argues with him in her head as she mixes the eggs and cornflour and sugar and cream and halved plums. You’re not having an affair, Tom. Don’t give me that crap. You’re not the type. If anyone round here is going to have an affair it’s me. Except I’m not, because I’d never do anything to hurt you.
Tell me you would never do anything to hurt me, either. Just say it. Say you wouldn’t fall for a younger woman and leave me alone and ashamed and a whole lot poorer. You wouldn’t do that, would you, Tom? Because that would be shit, shit, shit.
She sprinkles sugar onto the inside of a buttered dish and scoops the sticky batter into it from the mixing bowl. Tom loves puddings, wishes I made them more often. So here’s a pudding for you.
Shit, shit, shit. Of course he’s having an affair.
He’ll be back any minute. No, in half an hour or so. She’s timing dinner for eight-thirty, the cabbage and the potatoes will be done by then, and she needs a moment to freshen up.
When do I tell him I know? Not in front of Chloe. Chloe doesn’t have to know. Belinda realizes with a shock that she’s ashamed before her daughter. This is a kind of failure as a woman, she doesn’t want Chloe’s pity. Or Chloe’s pain.
What’s going on, Tom? Why are you pissing on all our lives? If you are.
Oh, Christ, I was going to do baked tomatoes.
Might as well get the clafoutis in. That way it can sit for an hour after it’s cooked. You don’t want to eat it hot.