‘I won’t. I’m sorry, the bus was late. I’m sorry,’ Alice repeated as he walked away.
‘Alice!’ exclaimed Charlotte, when Rob had disappeared into a corridor of sci-fi books.
The sharp tone in Charlotte’s voice almost made Alice jump. Turning towards her colleague she saw that she was holding a copy of the Daily Mirror. Alice squirmed.
‘Look!’ said Charlotte, continuing in a shrill, voice. She pointed to the picture on the front page of the newspaper. ‘Look at that girl. She’s the spitting image of you!’
The headline read: “Plane Crash Survivors Speak Of Air Tragedy.”
‘Er... she does look a bit like me,’ replied Alice, fumbling with her words. She hoped Charlotte would change the subject.
‘A bit!’ Her colleague laughed excitedly. ‘She must be your double. Everyone has a double somewhere, apparently.’ Charlotte continued to stare alternately at the newspaper and then at Alice as if she were comparing the two girls.
‘She doesn’t look that much like me, and anyway, the picture is unclear; it’s all grainy,’ said Alice defensively. She was glad when a customer approached the counter to purchase a book, forcing Charlotte to put the newspaper to one side.
***
Alice had left her flat at the usual time for work that morning. She’d been walking past the local newsagent’s on the way to the bus stop when she’d noticed the headline on the front page of the Daily Mirror, on the rack of newspapers outside the shop. Still curious about the details of the plane crash, she moved closer and then noticed the picture on the front page. Her first reaction was shock; looking at the girl in the photograph was like looking in a mirror. The resemblance was overwhelming. As if in a flashback, Alice’s mind returned to the night of the crash and she began to feel dizzy as she stared at the newspaper.
Taking a deep breath, she took the newspaper out of the protective plastic cover on the rack and read the words printed below the picture. The girl’s name was “Jane Forester”. Upon reading that, Alice gasped loudly. A man wearing jogging pants and a bright red T-shirt was walking past her at just that moment and he noticed her anxiety. Turning to look at her, he saw the newspaper in her hand. ‘Yes, that was a shocking accident, wasn’t it?’ he said, looking sympathetic. ‘I’m flying to America next week. Makes you think, doesn’t it?’
Alice nodded at him. She was glad when he disappeared into the shop. Looking back at the paper, she again saw the name “Forester” as if it were the only word printed on the page. Her father’s surname was Forester. The thought flashed through her mind, Could this be my sister? Almost immediately she felt foolish for thinking it. But something was nagging her. Her father had never kept in touch; her parents had separated when she was only two years old. He’d never tried to contact her. Alice had often wondered whether he’d remarried and had children, so it was unsurprising her train of thought would lead her to think this girl might be her sister: she looked so much like her.
Alice had never tried contacting her father for fear of upsetting her mother. But as she continued to stare at the picture in disbelief, she couldn’t help feeling the need to find out more. She looked up and saw the man in the red T-shirt exiting the shop. Feeling self-conscious and not wanting him to see her still holding the paper, she rushed to place it back in the holder.
As she turned around, she saw her bus disappearing into the distance; she hadn’t even heard it arrive...
***
Whilst Charlotte was busy serving the customer, Alice folded the newspaper and placed it out of sight under the counter, wanting to avoid any further discussion about the photograph. Charlotte turned to face Alice when her customer had left, and her eyes searched the counter, looking for the newspaper.
‘I’ve been invited to a party,’ said Alice, hoping that this would distract her.
‘Oh? Tell all!’ Charlotte sat on a stool facing her, waiting for her to continue.
Alice blushed as she remembered that Andrew would be at the party. She coughed to try to hide her embarrassment. ‘It’s a friend’s birthday party.’
‘What are you going to wear? Now let’s see... do you have a gold dress? It would set off your eyes so well, and you look so good in dresses. You should wear them more. You’re always in jeans. And you’ll need to wear make-up. I bet there’ll be lots of boys at the party, right? You want to look your best. It’s time we got you a boyfriend.’
‘Well, Andrew will be there,’ said Alice turning away towards the counter, hoping she hadn’t turned too red.
‘Is he that boy you fancy? All the more reason for you to dress up and try to catch his eye. Don’t worry, I’ll give you some great tips. He won’t be able to resist you.’
Charlotte chatted away happily, dishing out advice to Alice in between serving customers. She soon forgot about the picture in the newspaper, and so did Alice; her mind far away dreaming of Andrew.
***
Alice passed by the newsagent’s on her way home. Once more, she felt overwhelmed by the feeling that she had to find out more about the plane crash and about the girl on the front page. She decided to buy a copy of the newspaper.
When she got home, she scoured the newspaper, reading every word of the story about the plane crash survivors. She wasn’t sure what she was hoping to see written in the paper, but was left feeling disappointed. The only mention of Jane Forester, apart from her photograph on the front page with the other survivors, was a quote from her, when asked about her experience. ‘It was very frightening. We thought we would all die.’ The paper described her as “traumatised” and “tearful”. Alice read the paragraph at least three times, and then stared at the photograph again. She took the newspaper with her into the kitchen to prepare her dinner.
As she stood stirring her pasta, her mind was going over the possibility of Jane Forester being related to her father. She knew her father’s parents lived in America—she had heard her mother talk about it when she was younger. She was sure she could remember her mother saying that they lived in Boston. But the information was very fuzzy in her mind, almost as if she had made it up to suit her purpose. Could she ask her mother about it? She felt unsure. If it was true, perhaps Jane Forester had been to Boston to visit her grandparents and was returning when the plane crashed. Or, could Jane be an American cousin? Maybe her father had brothers or sisters in America. The newspaper had not said whether she was American or British. Alice felt excited, but also slightly confused and disconcerted because she didn’t like the way she seemed to have developed a fascination with the plane crash and this girl. A splash of boiling water hit her hand and she was awoken from her daydream to see that the water in her pasta had started to boil over while her mind was miles away. She shook her head as she turned down the heat.
Just as she sat down at the table to eat her dinner, the telephone rang.
‘Hello, darling, it’s me.’
‘Oh, hi, Mum. How are you?’
‘I’m fine. I was just calling to make sure you’re okay.’
‘Yeah, I’m fine.’
‘Good. Listen, I’m sorry I couldn’t spend much time with you yesterday. I feel bad.’
‘Oh, that’s okay.’
‘Are you working tomorrow, Alice?’
‘No.’
‘Great, why don’t you come over and spend the day with me? I’m not going in to the salon; I’m taking a couple of days off.’
‘Okay, great, because I was meaning to come and see you anyway. I’ll come over at about ten, is that okay?’
‘Yes, that’s fine. I’ll see you then. Bye.’
‘Bye, Mum.’ Alice placed the handset back onto the telephone and as she did so, she felt the sharp pain in her right arm again, starting from the wrist and ending at the elbow. She screamed out loud and grabbed her arm. This time the pain lasted for about ten seconds and she could hardly bear it. Her arm felt stiff. She rocked backwards and forwards until the pain stopped. When it did stop, her mind was filled with concern. There
had been no reason for the pain and it had come on so suddenly without warning. The day before, when it had happened, she thought it was because she had stretched her arm too far reaching for the table, but she had not had to stretch her arm at all when she replaced the handset just now—the telephone was right in front of her.
She sat at the kitchen table, hesitating to pick up her fork to continue eating her meal, half-expecting the pain to return; she was on edge as if waiting for it. But it seemed to have disappeared as quickly as it had come. She slowly flexed her arm and it felt fine, so she decided to try to put it to the back of her mind.
As she ate her pasta, she flicked through the rest of the newspaper, trying to avoid the story about Jane Forester, but thoughts of her father taunted her mind. She wanted to find out more about him. Would her mother be willing to talk about him? In the past eighteen years, she had hardly spoken a word to Alice about him. The odd bits of information Alice did have had been gleaned from listening in to her mother’s conversations with her friends. As the years went by, her mother had lost touch with people who had known her when she was married. Whenever Alice had asked her mother about him in the past, she had found ways to skirt around the subject. She’d told Alice that the reason her father left was because they had drifted apart. In the past few years, Alice had been busy with her studies and her friends, so she had not been concerned about her absent father; she had settled into a pattern in her life and felt quite happy as she was. She’d always told herself that his rejection had never really affected her because she was just too young when he left home for it to have had an impact on her life. It was hard for her to relate to those people she would see on daytime chat shows who wanted to find their long-lost parents; his absence had not left a hole in her life. But now, suddenly, some part of her had been awakened, the curiosity too loud to be ignored.
As she lay in bed that night, she resolved to try to find a way to ask her mother about Roger Forester, the man who had once been a part of their lives. After tossing and turning in anticipation of what information she might uncover, she eventually drifted off to sleep. She dreamt she was in a large building, which looked like a hospital, and she saw a long needle. A doctor was trying to find a vein to give her an injection. She saw herself screaming. She woke up to find that she was actually screaming and grabbing her right arm. The pain had returned, but as soon as she realised what was going on, it subsided. She felt afraid to go back to sleep in case the pain came back again.
Chapter Four
Thursday 14th August 1997
Alice telephoned the doctors’ surgery in the morning to book an appointment to see her GP, Dr. Small. There was an appointment available for 3 p.m. that day. After booking it, she set out to meet her mother.
As Alice ascended the stairs at the Tube station, she saw a newspaper salesman standing outside. She then remembered that she’d forgotten to bring yesterday’s newspaper with her. It would have been easier to explain to her mother why she wanted to find her father if she could have shown her the picture of Jane Forester. Having the newspaper with her would have helped her to bring up the subject.
For a moment, she thought about going home to get the newspaper. As she stood, unmoving at the top of the Tube station exit, unsure what to do, busy commuters rushed past her. One man said ‘Sorry’, when his briefcase hit her leg; this roused her from her rumination. She noticed how everyone seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere. This focused her mind on the time. It was 10 a.m. Her mother would be wondering where she was, and she didn’t really feel like taking the Tube back home again. Shrugging her shoulders, she realised that she wouldn’t be able to talk to her mother about her father today. In a way, it brought a sense of relief; part of her didn’t quite feel ready to ask her mother about him.
Alice found her mother in the kitchen, eating breakfast. Stephanie was wearing a long peach-coloured silk dressing gown. ‘Darling!’ she exclaimed as Alice walked into the room. She stood up, still holding a slice of toast, and gave her daughter a hug and kiss. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine, Mum. How are you?’
‘Oh, I’m okay.’ Stephanie sat back at the kitchen table and gestured for Alice to sit next to her. ‘I’ve decided to treat myself to a couple of days off work. We’re not busy at the moment. Have some toast, Alice.’ She pointed to the pile of toast on the table—much too much for her to eat alone. It was obvious she had prepared extra for Alice, always worried that she didn’t eat enough.
Alice took one slice, even though she wasn’t hungry, so as not to offend her.
‘So, Alice, what shall we do today? We can go shopping; I could buy you some new clothes. Or, we could go to the cinema; there’s a new romantic comedy I want to see... what’s it called? Oh, I’ll remember in a minute. Or, we could go to the park.’ Stephanie leaned to look out of the window as if to check the weather. ‘It would be a pity to miss out on catching a bit of sun. It looks like it’s going to be a warm day again today.’
‘I don’t mind. Anywhere you want to go. But I have to be back early. I’ve got a doctor’s appointment at three.’ Almost as soon as she’d said it, Alice wished she could take the words back. She saw her mother’s face drop. Ever since Alice had been a young girl, Stephanie had worried too much about her, fearing the worst every time she had a bit of a temperature. Alice was kicking herself for mentioning the doctor’s appointment; her mother would now be imagining all sorts of things—it was bound to ruin her day.
‘Why? What for? What’s wrong?’ Her mother’s eyes penetrated deep into her own.
‘It’s nothing, Mum, just a routine trip. Um... a blood pressure check.’ Would that ease her mother’s concern?
‘There’s nothing routine about a blood pressure check. Oh my God! I’ll come with you. Do you feel okay?’
It seemed that her little white lie had only made things worse. ‘You don’t have to come with me. I just got a pain in my arm a couple of days ago and it came back yesterday—’
‘A pain in the arm? Which arm?’ Stephanie’s eyes were open so wide, Alice could see the whites all around them. ‘A pain in the arm could be your heart. Is that why they want to take your blood pressure?’
‘They don’t want to take my blood pressure.’
‘But you said—’
‘I know; I only said that so you wouldn’t worry.’
‘Let me see your arm, where was the pain?’ She took Alice’s left arm and rolled up her sleeve.
‘It’s the other arm,’ said Alice tugging her arm away and rolling her sleeve down.
Her mother instantly took her other arm, only for Alice to pull it away. ‘Please don’t fuss, Mum. I think I just pulled a muscle or something. I’ll be okay.’
‘Does it hurt?’ asked her mother, her face full of concern.
‘No. The pain comes and goes. I shouldn’t have said anything; you always worry too much about everything.’
‘Of course I do; I’m your mother. You’ll understand when you have children of your own.’ Stephanie finished drinking her coffee. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you to the doctor?’ she asked, after five silent minutes had passed. Her mind had obviously still been ticking away, imagining what could be wrong with Alice.
‘No. I’m not a child.’
‘Right, I’ll go and get changed, then we’ll go out. I won’t be a minute.’ Stephanie disappeared into her bedroom.
Alice started to clear away the breakfast plates. There were a few old photographs displayed in one of the glass cabinets above the dishwasher. The photographs caught Alice’s eye as she was placing the plates and cups into the dishwasher. She had seen the photographs a hundred times but they somehow seemed more significant at the moment. Her mind went back to something Sophie Bairns had said at work the week before:
‘You see that painting up there,’ said Sophie, pointing behind her to the canvas depicting an old cottage by a stream. It was a fairly run of the mill type of painting, hung above the counter where th
ey served the customers. Alice hardly ever noticed it.
Alice looked at the painting and smiled at Sophie. ‘It’s nice,’ she said, as if seeing it for the first time.
Sophie nodded. ‘Yes, it is. The funny thing is, no one ever notices it; but today everyone has been saying to me, “that’s a nice painting”. Isn’t it odd?’ Sophie laughed it off as another customer walked up to the counter.
Odd. That’s how it felt to Alice now, looking at the photographs that had been in the background for years, but which now screamed out for attention. Two of the photographs were of Alice from her school days, the other was a picture of Alice with her mother, taken a few years ago. It suddenly occurred to her that, as far as she could recall, she had never seen any photographs of her father. That was definitely “odd”; after all, her parents had been together for years.
She now had an overwhelming desire to see a photograph of her father. In the past, she had not given much thought to him, perhaps because of the negative way he had been portrayed by her mother; a man who had walked out on his family, deserting his only child and never trying to contact her. Alice had grown up only knowing Stephanie and not overly concerned about not having her father around. Of course there were the times when she would visit her friends’ houses and watch them interacting with their fathers; at those times she had wondered what it would be like to have a father at home. When she had argued with Stephanie over one thing or another, she had sometimes wished she could leave her and go and stay with her father. At other times she had almost had a fantasy image of what he was like, and dreamed that one day she would meet him; but her thoughts of him had flittered in and out of her mind never really leaving any lasting impression. She had never seriously wanted to see a photograph of him, until now.
Just as she was turning on the dishwasher, her mother appeared in the kitchen. ‘Okay, I’m ready. Oh, Alice, thank you, but you didn’t have to tidy up, dear, I would have done it later.’