I loved him more than anything else I’d ever known. How was I to know he was a gift I couldn’t keep?
Early on a Saturday morning at Alice’s flat, the phone starts to ring. John is lying in bed, flicking through the pages of a weekend supplement, a glass of water propped up beside him. Alice is in the bath. John looks across to the phone doubtfully. ‘Shall I get that?’ he shouts.
‘Yes. Could you?’ Her voice comes back through the wall.
John leans over and picks up the receiver. ‘Hello?’ he says.
There is a hollow silence at the end of the line. The narrow acoustics of the bathroom send the sounds of splashing running round the walls of the whole flat.
‘Hello?’ he says again, louder this time.
‘Is Alice there?’ The voice, female, is terse and slightly outraged. Alice’s mother. Has to be. John puts down the glass of water on the bedside table. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘she is.’ He is aware that, for some nebulous maternal reason, the fact that a strange man has answered her daughter’s phone early in the morning means that Alice’s mother must automatically dislike him, as well as be as rude as she possibly can.
‘Well, can I speak to her, then?’
‘I should think so,’ he says and then, purely to annoy her, enquires, ‘Who shall I say is calling?’
‘It’s her mother,’ she snaps.
He has to put down the phone and rush across the room so she doesn’t hear him laughing. ‘Alice,’ he calls through the bathroom door, ‘your mother’s on the phone.’
She appears from the steam, a towel wound around her head. John climbs back into bed and watches as she pads across the room and picks up the receiver. Alice is my girlfriend: he tries out the idea. My new girlfriend. The language for these situations frustrates him. ‘We are going out together’ — he hates that phrase. ‘Girlfriend’ seems hopelessly teenage and inadequate. What then? ‘Partner’ is too business like, ‘lover’ a bit racy for everyday parlance. ‘Friend’? Sounds like he has something to hide. ‘Special friend’ - oh, please. None of these words is enough because what he really wants to say and wants to tell everyone is—
John loses his train of thought at this point because Alice’s conversation is gaining momentum and ferocity. It’s become a vicious game of verbal ping-pong.
‘Who? I’m not telling you.’
A pause while her mother’s voice twitters out of the receiver.
‘I know what time it is, thank you.’
Another bout of twittering.
‘Because it’s none of your business.’
And it goes on like this for a few minutes, Alice barking every few seconds: ‘Yeah, right . . . What I do is up to me . . . Why don’t you just keep out of it?’ ... I know I didn’t tell you . . . No . . . No . . . Yes . . . No ... I think I’m old enough to decide . . . If I wanted your advice, and believe me I don’t, then I’d ask for it . . .’ Then it ends with Alice shouting, ‘Just go to hell!’ and hanging up. There is a short silence. Alice stares at the phone, motionless. It starts to ring again. She picks it up as if she knew' all along that would happen. ‘What?’ she snarls.
John starts laughing. This is incredible.
‘Why?’ she shrieks. ‘Why? Because I knew you’d react in exactly the way you are doing . . . Don’t start with that shit again ... I am! . . . No . . . What’s the point in being cautious? . . . Love? Love? How can you use that word? You wouldn’t even know what it was if it came and slapped you in the face.’
This time there is a monotonous buzzing from North Berwick: her mother’s hung up. Alice bangs the receiver down again and starts bouncing round the room like a ball of lithium on water. ‘How dare she? How dare she?’ she rants. ‘God, if she thinks she can just ring up here and start lecturing me about—’ She stops, lets out a kind of screeching growl and, ripping the towel from her head, flings its sodden length to the floor.
‘Jesus,’ says John, from the bed, ‘does this happen a lot?’ ‘This is nothing,’ she says, with a grimace, ‘we’re just warming up.’
‘So what was it about?’
‘You.’
‘Me?’
‘Who you are. What you’re doing answering the phone in my flat. How long I’ve known you. Why I hadn’t told her that I’m involved with someone again. As if,’ she shouts, ‘that’s any of her business.’
‘Well . . .’ he ventures ‘. . . I mean, she is your mother. It is kind of her business, isn’t it?’
She looks at him, astonished, as if this had never occurred to her. ‘But she’s just interfering for the hell of it. She always comes over all weird with me and men. Always.’
‘All weird?’
‘Yeah, all over-protective and censorious. Goes on and on and on and on about how I should be careful and cautious, not get hurt, make decisions over time, how passion isn’t necessarily what’s good for you in the long run. Et cetera, et cetera.’
‘Isn’t she like that with your sisters as well?’
‘Not really. But they have sensible, long-term boyfriends and then get married.’
He is tempted to remind her that only one of her sisters is, in fact, married, but doesn’t. ‘Are you going to call her back?’ he asks instead.
‘No!’
As an experiment, John goes out of the room. In the bathroom he picks up his toothbrush and the toothpaste. Before he’s finished brushing his teeth, he hears Alice dialling and then: ‘Mum? It’s me.’
When he comes back, she is combing out her hair, bending over, the wet ends almost touching the ground.
‘How did it go?’ he asks, sitting down on the edge of the bed.
‘Oh, fine.’ The comb travels rhythmically down. ‘It doesn’t mean anything, really. It’s all just . . . fireworks.’
She shifts position, passing the comb into her other hand. ‘Did you mean what you said,’ he asks, ‘. . . about her . . . and . . . love?’
There is a hesitation in the combing. Her face is obscured by her hair. She shrugs, then resumes with twice the vigour. ‘Yes.’
‘So . . . what about your father?’
‘Hmm. I’m not convinced. Sometimes I reckon she just used him as a stud.’
‘Stud?’
‘For us.’
‘Us?’
‘Not you and me, John,’ she says patiently. ‘My sisters. And me.’
‘Really? You really think that?’
She tosses back her hair and stands upright, frowning, looking down at him. ‘My father would do anything for her, but she—’ She breaks off, seeing the expression on his face. ‘It’s OK, you know. It just makes me more determined.’
‘In what way?’
‘Not to be like her.’
John is woken by a violent movement in the bed beside
him and a large hank of Alice’s hair being tossed across his face.
‘Alice? Are you all right?’
‘Can’t sleep.’ Her voice is small, tight and querulous.
He puts out a sleep-heavy arm to feel for her. His palm meets the curve of her hip. She is on her side, on the edge of the bed, facing away from him. He moves over and curls his arm about her. ‘What’s wrong?’
Suddenly she has shrugged him off and is sitting upright, rigid with indignation. ‘It’s this fucking futon. It’s so uncomfortable,’ she bursts out, close to tears.
He blinks in surprise, trying to clear his head and understand why she’s so upset. ‘Oh.’
‘It’s so . . . so hard and it hurts . . . my kneecaps.’
He laughs. He can’t help himself. ‘Your kneecaps?’
She thumps him. ‘Don’t laugh at me,’ but then she begins to laugh too. ‘It hurts my kneecaps. There’s nothing unusual about that, is there?’
‘Well, yes. I’ve never heard of anyone having sore kneecaps from sleeping on a futon.’
‘If I lie on my front my kneecaps ache because the mattress is so hard.’
He wriggles under the duvet and starts rubbing her kneecaps.
> ‘Is that better?’
‘No,’ she says, still obscurely annoyed.
He very gently kisses them in turn. ‘Is that better?’ he asks again. There is a pause.
‘A bit,’ she says.
When she arrives the next evening after work, he makes her put on a blindfold in the hallway.
‘Why?’ she asks. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Wait and see.’ He propels her up the stairs before him, making sure she doesn’t trip, fixing her hand on the banister, holding her steady. He stops her in the doorway of the bedroom. ‘Ready?’
‘Yes, yes. What is it?’
He pulls off the blindfold. In the bedroom, in place of the maligned futon, is a new king-sized bed. She shrieks and leaps on to it. ‘John! It’s amazing!’ She bounces up and down exuberantly. Pillows fly and the duvet rumples under her feet. He watches her, leaning against the door jamb. ‘And is it of the desired softness for madam’s precious kneecaps?’
She flops down on to her stomach, giggling. ‘Yes. It’s perfect.’ She rolls on to her back and sits up, awkward all of a sudden. ‘Thank you so much, John. You didn’t have to, you know ... I mean, not just for me.’
He is aware that they both know the bed is a bit of a sign. Neither of them has, as yet, said anything about the future, and he has been surprised to find that he’s a bit impatient about this. ‘No, I did, really,’ he says, in a serious tone, testing her reaction. She blushes furiously and avoids his eye. OK, Alice, he thinks, have it your way, the time is not now. He comes across the gap between them and sits down on the bed. ‘I did have to,’ he continues, in a lighter tone of voice, ‘to stop you going on at me in the middle of the night.’
She laughs. ‘I’m really sorry about that. I just couldn’t sleep and I get all cross when I can’t sleep. I’m sorry, John.’
‘Well,’ he says thoughtfully, ‘there is one way you can make it up to me.’
She begins to smile that wicked, slow smile that never fails to give him an erection. ‘Oh, yes?’ she says. ‘And what would that be, then?’
‘You could shag the living daylights out of me on our new bed. ’
Ann stands in the doorway, watching Alice. Her daughter’s face is tense, set into that all-too-familiar defiant scowl as she removes that ridiculous, moth-eaten feathery thing that Elspeth gave her and lays it carefully on the bed. It’s Elspeth who encourages this kind of behaviour in Alice, not setting a good example, not laying down boundaries, which is what a wayward girl like Alice needs. Imagine being sent home from school for being — what was it the headmaster’s letter said? — ‘inappropriately dressed for academic study’. Ann watches as Alice buttons up a white shirt of Kirsty’s and puts on a skirt of a rather more demure length.
‘Tights,’ Ann commands grimly, pointing at the hole above Alice’s left knee. Alice, simmering with suppressed fury, strips off her tights and pulls a fresh pair from her drawer.
‘Tie,’ Ann says, holding out at arm’s length the regulation red and black striped tie of the High School. Alice shakes her head. ‘Tie,’ Ann repeats more firmly.
‘I’m not wearing a bloody tie.’
‘I will not have you using that gutter language to me, young lady. And if I say you’re to wear a tie to school, you’re to wear a tie.’
Alice shakes her head again. ‘No.’
Ann sighs. She actually can’t be bothered arguing about this
one. To tell the truth, she’s quite surprised at how easily Alice has given in to agreeing to change. An hour ago she’d come through the door saying she was never going back to school. ‘Right. In the car. I’m going to drive you back.’
‘I’ll walk,’ Alice says sullenly.
‘I said I’m going to drive you. In the car. Now.’
Ann decides to make the most of the five minutes she has her daughter trapped in a confined space. ‘Your father and I are sick and tired of your present attitude. You’re difficult, rude, uncooperative, uncommunicative, unhelpful. You look ridiculous and I for one am glad to see that the school agrees with me. I want to see a big change in your behaviour, starting from now. I think that—’
Ann is momentarily distracted from her flow by a car lurching in front of her at a junction. It stalls. Ann is forced to brake suddenly and she almost swears. Luckily, she remembers just in time that she is delivering a lecture on good behaviour and stops herself. ‘And another thing,’ she begins again, less convincingly, trying to remember where she left off, edging the car towards the junction outside the school.
‘Shut up, shut up, shut up,’ Alice mutters, her hands over her ears.
‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ Ann rasps, warming again to her theme.
‘I don’t know what your problem is,’ Alice shouts heatedly. ‘I get the sodding grades, don’t I? That’s all you and Dad care about anyway!’
‘I’m not going to warn you again about your language, Alice. Your grades at school are not the issue here.’ Ann is distracted again, but this time by a boy standing at the school gates as they pull up. Tall, in a black sweater, his bag slung over his shoulder. It’s his son. Undoubtedly. His eldest. Ann slams her foot abruptly on the brake and peers through the windscreen to get a good look at him. Looks like his bloody awful mother. She is aware that next to her Alice is swinging open the car door. It is slammed violently and Alice walks away without saying goodbye. Ann’s anger has all drained away, Alice’s misdemeanours forgotten, in the face of this morbid curiosity in the boy. He has his father’s stature, but his mother’s colouring and that dreadful cutesy, curly hair.
Ann watches him. He is gazing at a girl coming towards him, smiling nervously. Ann recognises that smile. She is about to give herself up to a little, maudlin weep when she suddenly realises it’s Alice he’s smiling at. As Alice reaches him, he pushes himself off the wall he’s slouched against and falls in step beside her. Ann stares at them, gripping the wheel. Do they know each other? Are they friends? Are they . . . ? No. Impossible. Why, out of all the three hundred-odd boys at the school, would Alice pick him? Ann sees him reach inside his bag and hand Alice something. He touches her lightly on the shoulder as he does so. Ann’s body freezes over in horror.
She cranes her head out of the window. ‘Alice!’ she shouts hysterically. Several people turn round, but not Alice, who is now half-way across the yard with that boy. ‘Alice!’ Ann shrieks again. Alice’s step falters but she carries on, faster this time. Ann leans on the horn. The sound blares out across the yard. Teenagers and teachers and primary-school kiddies turn round to look curiously at the Raikes sisters’ mother sitting red-faced in a car by the school gates, honking the horn. Alice turns and marches at a furious pace back across the yard, her colour high, her eyes flashing fire. The boy follows a few steps behind. Her face appears in Ann’s window. ‘What are you doing?’ she cries. ‘Go away, will you?’
‘Alice,’ Ann clutches her daughter’s wrist, ‘who is that boy?’
‘What?’ says Alice, appalled.
‘That boy.’ Ann jabs her finger at him.
‘It’s none of your business. Why are you doing this to me? Go away. Please.’
‘Just answer my question. Who is that boy? What’s his name?’
Alice is looking at her in incredulous fury. ‘You are so embarrassing,’ she hisses. ‘He’ll hear you. Why can’t you just go away?’
‘If you tell me his name then I’ll go. I promise.’
Alice stares at her, torn between her need for privacy and her desire for Ann to disappear. ‘Andrew Innerdale,’ she says.
Ann closes her eyes. She never in a million years expected this. Is this divine retribution? Alice starts to withdraw her arm from Ann’s grip. Ann clutches at it with renewed terror. ‘Alice, tell me, are you going out with that boy?’
Alice is really furious now. ‘Let go of me,’ she spits, ‘you promised you’d go. You promised.’
‘Just tell me. Are you?’
‘Why should I tell you? It’s none
of your business.’ Angry tears are springing into Alice’s eyes.
‘I want to know.’
‘No. No, I’m not. We’re just friends. OK?’
Ann looks past Alice at the boy who is hanging back, staring at them uncertainly. ‘And are you going to go out with him? Does he want to go out with you?’
‘Mum, please! Please can I go?’ Alice twists her arm in her mother’s grip. ‘Why are you doing this to me? I hate you, I hate you! You’re hurting my wrist.’
‘Answer me. Does he?’
‘Yes,’ Alice sobs, wiping her eyes with her free hand.
Ann lets go. Alice springs back from the car, rubbing her wrist, and runs across the yard into the school building, leaving the boy calling after her, ‘Alice! Alice! Where are you going?’
Ann does a U-turn in the road, causing a driver coming in the other direction to gesture at her, and drives at top speed back to the house. She shuts herself in her bedroom, in case Elspeth should come back unexpectedly, cradling the phone on her lap.
She still knows the number off by heart. Of course.
‘Can I speak to Mr Innerdale, please?’ she says, to his assistant. Then his voice is next to her ear and she is speaking and he is answering and she has to press her nails into her palms several times because she realises that nothing has changed, that despite the silence between them since she ended it — again — almost a year ago and despite the fact that she daily congratulates herself that she has managed to tear out the love she had for him by the roots, nothing has changed. ‘1 need your help,’ she hears herself saying.
‘Of course, Ann. Anything.’
‘You’ve got to keep your son away from my daughter.’