Putting Alice Back Together

Five

I hate airports.

You know at the beginning of Love Actually where Hugh (Grant, not the ginger one that’s coming to stay) says you just have to go to the Arrivals at Heathrow to witness love, or something along those lines?

Well, there’s a flip side to that.

Departures.

If there is a hell, then for me it will be Departures at an international airport.

I won’t be shovelling coal for eternity into a furnace. Instead, one by one I’ll have to say goodbye to everyone I love and watch them disappear. It will be constant, it will be perpetual, and once I’ve said goodbye to everyone, just when I think I’ve got through it—it will start over again.

That’s my hell.

And contrary to Arrivals, after which you drive home with your loved ones and you can’t stop talking because there’s so much to catch up on, so much to say, the drive to Departures is a nightmare.

Every time.

Nicole was furious with me because I didn’t get back till ten to six and she wouldn’t let it drop.

‘I wasn’t late!’ I could see the picture of an aeroplane on the road signs for those who can’t read or can’t speak English. I needed to change lanes or we’d miss the turn-off, and I actually thought about it—honestly, that would have given her something to moan about. ‘You said we had to leave by six and we did!’

‘You’re so bloody selfish sometimes, Alice. You didn’t even answer my texts. Could you not just have come home? What was so important?’

‘I got stuck at work.’

I heard her snort and I turned and glared at her, which wasn’t a good idea, given I was going at a hundred down the freeway. ‘What? Just because I’m not some hotshot lawyer, I can’t be busy at work?’

‘Alice!’ Nicole was shrinking back in her seat and I turned my attention back to the road, but I was so angry I could spit. Just because I didn’t work in some top-notch job she assumed I couldn’t possibly know busy.

‘Why didn’t you tell me Paul rang last night?’

‘What?’

‘You know what, Alice?’ I didn’t want to know, but she told me anyway. ‘I think you’re jealous. I think you’re jealous of me and Paul.’

It was me snorting then.

I couldn’t stand Paul.

I mean, I could not bear him.

He was the most arrogant man I’d ever met.

And he’s stupid.

I’ve nothing against stupid people—but stupid people who think that they’re clever just set my teeth on edge. Never mind Nicole’s a lawyer, he’s opening a coffee shop. It’s all he talks about. From the day I met him till the day he—thankfully—went back to the UK, it’s all he spoke about.

He’s going to have a loyalty card for his customers. For every ten coffees they get a free one and—wait for it—on their birthdays, if they have their driver’s licence with them and can prove that it is their birthday, well, they’ll get a free one on that day too. Oh, and he’s got this really good idea about providing the daily papers and current magazines for his customers. I kept waiting for the punch line. I kept waiting for him to walk into any other coffee shop in any other street and have a complete breakdown because someone had stolen his idea. Honestly, I have sat there cross-eyed listening to him droning on and on so many times.

And Nic thought I was jealous.

‘You’ve done everything you can to dissuade me from going.’

‘I’m driving you to the airport,’ I pointed out.

We were at the turn-off and I felt like pulling over and dumping her stuff on the side of the road and letting her walk.

‘You knew I was worried that he hadn’t called, you knew I was panicking he was having second thoughts whether he wanted me to come, and you didn’t even tell me he’d called. You didn’t even write it down.’

‘I forgot, okay?’ We were at the short-term car parking and I wound down my window to press the button.

‘Use your credit card,’ Nic said. This, from a woman who pays her monthly balance in full and sometimes a little extra too on the day her statement comes. ‘It’ll be easier for you getting out.’

Not with my credit card. I pushed the button and took a ticket and I heard her irritated sigh because I hadn’t taken her advice.

I couldn’t stand this.

She was going.

In an hour or so she’d be gone and I didn’t want it to end on a row.

‘I just…’ We were through the barrier and going up the levels. ‘He rang just as I was dashing out. I knew you were waiting and I couldn’t find a pen—I just forgot, okay? I’m sorry.’ The place was packed and we drove around but ended up going up another level and I knew I hadn’t mollified her.

I didn’t want her to leave on a row.

I didn’t want her to leave on a row because it would make it easier for her to never come back.

‘I’m not jealous, Nicole.’ I found a parking spot, it was narrow and it would be hell getting out, but I squeezed in. ‘I’m just…’

‘Just what, Alice? Go on, just say it.’

How, though?

‘Just what, Alice?’ She insisted to my rigid face. ‘Come on, if you’ve got something to say then I want to hear it.’

‘I’m worried about you.’ I turned and looked her square in the eye and she stared right back. ‘Remember how badly you took it when Dean broke up with you?’

‘Paul’s nothing like Dean.’

‘Off course he’s not,’ I said quickly, and then paused for a moment. ‘But he does live on the other side of the world. I’m just worried how you’re going to be if it all ends.’

‘It might not end,’ Nicole said firmly, ‘and if it does then I’ll deal with it. You don’t have to worry about me, Alice. I’m not like I was when Dean broke up with me. I know I was a mess, I know I must have been a pain to live with and how great you were and everything, but that was years ago.’

‘There have been others since then, though,’ I pointed out gently. ‘And you always seem so…’ I struggled to find a softer word than the one that was on the tip of my tongue, but none was forthcoming. ‘So devastated when you break up with someone. You’ve got so much pinned on this trip; I’m just scared you’re…’

‘Heading for a fall?’ Nicole asked, and I nodded, not sure how she’d take it, so I was infinitely relieved when she leant over and wrapped me in a hug.

‘Oh, Alice, that’s so like you.’ She hugged me tighter. ‘Always worrying about other people, and I suppose with my track record…’ She gave a little laugh and pulled away. ‘I know I’ve been an idiot over guys in the past, but I’ve grown up since then. I’m a lawyer, I see women every day moving on with their lives after their relationships break up—I’m not going to crumple in a heap if Paul and I finish.’

‘I know. I’m just concerned for you, that’s all.’

‘Well, you don’t have to be,’ Nicole said, but her words were gentler now.

‘I’m sorry I forgot to tell you he rang.’

‘I’m sorry for bringing it up, I was being stupid.’

And I left it at that.

We were friends again.

That was all that mattered.

We made an odd little group. We were rarely all together but Nic seemed genuinely delighted that we’d made the effort.

Dan was there waiting, the most beautiful man on God’s earth, and his face lit up when he saw me. I just fell into his arms and stayed there for a moment.

He knows me better than anyone.

He knew, more than anyone, how hard tonight was for me.

He just didn’t know it all.

‘She’ll be back,’ Dan said, and kissed the top of my head and held me for a moment. ‘How was last night?’

‘Great.’ My face burnt in shame against his chest for a full minute before I could bring myself to look up. ‘You missed a good night.’

Roz was there too. In contrast to Dan and his suit, Roz was in last night’s cargo pants and T-shirt.

‘Come on,’ said Dan as he let me go. ‘Let’s go and have a drink.’

‘I can’t, I’m driving.’

‘You can have one,’ Dan said, but I shook my head and the three of us found a seat as he went to the bar.

I never got that—I mean, what is the point of having one?

Why would you sit there nursing one gin and tonic when you know you can’t have another?

I’d rather just go without.

‘What time do you have to go through?’ Roz asked, and Nicole glanced at her watch.

‘Not for another hour.’

My lips pursed a touch—all that carry-on and we had to sit here for an hour.

Dan was up at the bar, ordering the drinks, and I was thinking that maybe I should have one after all, because sitting here trying to make small talk, trying to pretend that in fifty-six minutes we wouldn’t be saying goodbye with that awful music hitting every nerve, was more than I could bear.

You know those two-way mirrors at airports?

I assume you think, like I used to, that customs officers are standing behind them, checking you out. Watching how you walk in case you’ve got half a kilo of crack cocaine concealed in your privates.

Well, they’re not.

Instead they’re standing there pissing themselves laughing as they choose the next song and watch the public’s reaction.

I swear that’s what they’re doing.

It’s bad enough your loved ones are leaving, but to have to sit and listen to that…

I love music, I love songs, I love lyrics, I love notes, and every last one at the departure lounge is, I’m sure, designed to encourage suicide.

And that won’t end it though, oh, no, because suicide’s a sin, so you’ll end up in hell. A hell I’ve just upgraded, because not only will you perpetually be saying goodbye to your loved ones, they’ll have the music that most gets to you, playing over and over, as you do.

‘Here you go.’ Dan hadn’t listened to me and had got me my one gin and tonic and I was glad that he had.

I glanced at the clock.

Fifty-three minutes now.

Oh, and they were having fun in customs, they were really cranking it up.

We’d had Mike and the Mechanics, ‘The Living Years’.

And then the customs officers were all nudging and grinning behind those two-way mirrors because they’d unearthed an ancient New Seekers song, and, lucky me, it’s the one Mum played over and over when Dad left—’I Wanna Go Back’.

And I was really trying to smile and chat to Nicole, but I wanted to go back too.

‘I Wanna Go Back’. I couldn’t help it, I was starting to cry.

‘It’ll be sodding “Leaving on a Jet Plane” next!’ Dan grinned and put his arm around me.

‘I’m going to go through,’ Nic said, because she could see I was upset and, as she doesn’t smoke, she was quite happy to be on the other side trying out perfume in the duty free. I could tell Roz was relieved because she wanted to get outside for a fag.

And suddenly we were there at the silver doors and it’s the place I hate most on this earth.

One of my self-help books said that the universe repeats our life lessons till we’ve learnt them, or something like that. Well, I’d learnt it, thanks. I hated goodbyes. I hated this very spot, but over and over I found myself there. I hated saying goodbye to Mum, kissing her and knowing when I saw her again she’d be two years older.

If I ever saw her again.

‘It’s six weeks, Alice.’ Nicole hugged me and tried to reassure me, and I hugged her back and didn’t want to let her go.

It wasn’t six weeks.

She was going through those doors and again everything was changing.

She was changing.

She wasn’t coming back, or if she did come back it would just be to leave, and in my heart of hearts I knew that.

‘Be nice to Hugh,’ she warned. ‘You will remember to pick him up? I’m sorry Mum didn’t send a photo. You can just hold up a sign.’

I wouldn’t need a sign.

Ginger with glasses and a cousin of Nicole’s.

Oh, I wouldn’t need a sign.

She cuddled Roz.

Roz, all practical and stoic, reminded me of my mum the day Bonny had left for Australia. Overweight and trying to smile.

Lisa was right, it had unsettled me.

I didn’t want to remember that day.

But I was standing there doing just that: Bonny and Lex leaving for Australia. Mum spilling out of her shoes and skirt, trying to smile and failing, because Bonny was her baby, Bonny was her favourite and she had to let her go.

Nic had one of those hand luggage bags on wheels and she headed to the door, jaunty and shiny and ready. We waved her off and thank God Dan’s arms were around me as I did the right thing and forced a smile and made myself wave.

But I kept remembering.

Dad there with Lucy, his new girlfriend, dainty and pregnant.

Bonny bawled her eyes out and Lex hugged me, just briefly, even though I knew he didn’t want to, but it would have looked odd if he’d missed me out. I could feel the contempt and disgust as he reluctantly embraced me.

‘Take care, Alice.’ That was all he said. Lex still wasn’t able to look me in the eye and I couldn’t look at him either.

I didn’t want to think about it.

I couldn’t think about it.

So I blew my nose and I wished Dan would come back to the flat, but he had a new car and was taking it to visit his family. I couldn’t stand his father, so I was more than happy that he hadn’t asked me along.

‘I’ll come back with you,’ Roz said, because she’s nice like that.

She sort of mothered me a bit, I guess.

‘You should have used your credit card,’ Roz said, as I rummaged in my bag for money for the car-park machine. ‘It’s so much easier.’

I could see my hands shaking as I put in the coins and dropped one. I felt the impatience in the line behind me.

I couldn’t think about it.

Except I couldn’t stop thinking about.

And worse, I knew that lately, sometimes, Lex was thinking about it too.

One mistake, one stupid mistake. I wanted to live my life without having made it. I wanted to have my life back.

I didn’t want to remember, but details, details, details kept flinging themselves at me, chasing me, cornering me, and I knew they were about to catch me.

Why couldn’t Big Tits just have written up a script?

‘She’ll be back,’ Dan said, and it was a funny thing, because it was his new car that was blocking in mine. It was a sign, I was sure, that we were meant to be together perhaps, or, given how he’d parked, that he takes up all of the bed.

He gave me a cuddle as Roz waited.

I could hear the steady thud-thud-thud of his heart as mine leapt up to my throat and I wanted him to come home and lie down beside me.

‘Love you lots,’ he said to me.

‘Love you lots too.’

It’s our little thing.

‘It’s good she’s gone to see him,’ Dan added. ‘She might finally work out he’s a complete wanker.’

And I laughed, got into my car and I chatted to Roz.

Put my ticket in the machine and the boom gate went up and Roz and I headed for home, and Nicole wouldn’t be there.

Only it’s wasn’t Nicole that was upsetting me.

Somehow I knew that.

I didn’t want to think about it.

We stopped at the drive-through bottle shop on the way.

‘Are you okay, Alice?’ Roz checked when we got back to the flat.

‘I’m fine,’ I said, because I was pouring a nice glass of red, and I would be in a moment.

‘I know you’re upset about Nic going, but is there something else?’ Roz pushed. ‘Is there something on your mind?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, because I didn’t want it on my mind. I didn’t want to think about it.

Just, lately, it was all I seemed to do.

Six

As you can imagine, as I sat there in the kitchen, having my split ends trimmed and trying to block out Bonny’s moaning, another hour with Gus was such a nice thing to think of. So much so that as the hairdresser gave me a ‘little trim to tidy things up’, I wasn’t concentrating—instead I was having a lovely thought about Gus leaving miserable Celeste, and me and him setting up and playing piano and…

‘What the…?’ She’d given me a fringe… Okay, that doesn’t sound so bad if you don’t have curly hair, but if you do have really curly hair, you will know this was a crisis.

‘I’ve left plenty of length,’ the hairdresser was saying, but I could sort of hear the wobble of panic in her voice, because even if she had cut it to the bridge of my nose, as she tried to drag the wet curls down with her finger, they were already coiling up into knots in my hairline.

‘It will be fine.’ Mum was reassuring.

‘With lots of product.’ The hairdresser was plastering on serum to weigh the curls down. I was crying, not just at the prospect of the wedding but seeing Gus, and, worse, Bonny was screaming, completely hysterical.

‘Look at it!’ She was staring at my hair in horror. It was like the day the nit nurse at school found nits in my hair and I could feel everyone staring at me in disgust. I sat there humiliated as Bonny screeched out what a shit bridesmaid I’d make, what a mess I looked, how I’d ruin the photos.

For months I’d put up with her histrionics. For months I’d shut up and put up and been good…

‘I don’t want to be your bridesmaid.’ I didn’t.

‘I don’t want to wear that disgusting pink dress.’ That was certainly true.

‘And you don’t have to worry about people talking about your ugly bridesmaid.’ I ripped off the towel from my shoulders. I was so angry, so ashamed, so embarrassed that I couldn’t even cry. ‘They’ll be too busy looking at the back end of the bride and sniggering at her massive arse. I thought brides were supposed to lose weight before the wedding.’

Mum slapped me.

We’re not talking a little slap either, she slammed her hand across my cheek, and Bonny’s screams quadrupled—not, may I add, because her sister was being beaten (well, maybe not beaten, but it bloody hurt) but because someone had dared to mention Bonny’s increasingly ample figure. Her dress had been let out four times.

It was Eleanor who stepped in.

She took Bonny through to the lounge and Mum to the dining room. I was left with the bloody hairdresser. With much running from room to room by Eleanor, urgent peace talks were under way.

I, through Eleanor, reluctantly, extremely reluctantly, mumbled that I was sorry for calling her fat—which I believe was translated to ‘She doesn’t think you’re fat at all, she’s just jealous and you know how crazy she goes if anyone talks about her hair. She thinks you look fantastic.’

I don’t think Bonny apologised. All I got from Eleanor was ‘She’s just worried about tomorrow…’

And as for Mum, well, there was no formal apology—in fact, it was I who apparently apologised, through Eleanor, for upsetting Bonny on the eve of her Fucking Special Day… And then we were all back in the kitchen.

They speared it down with pins. I was ordered not to cry any more or my face would look like a pizza. I think Mum did feel a bit bad for hitting me, because she even gave me a glass of wine to calm me down. It was not the usual thimbleful we got on a Sunday—so she can say she is sensibly introducing her girls to alcohol and it won’t be a mystery—no, I got a full glass of red. And when Bonny started getting upset again Mum pulled her aside and told her to calm down, that she was making things worse. I filled up my glass and felt calmer. It would look better in the morning.

I fell into bed, and bloody hoped that it would anyway.

I also hoped I’d have a bruise.

Enough that make-up would cover.

But enough, too, that Mum would notice.

It didn’t look better in the morning.

And, sadly, there was no sign of a bruise.

The pins came out and my hair was still orange, a mass of orange ringlets with a stupid crinkle fringe. I had a thumping headache, and just wanted to crawl back to bed and hide till it grew out (say around eight months or so), but the hairdresser was back earlier than planned and all bubbly and bright (and reeking of brandy), and had a much better idea.

‘We’ll straighten it.’ She pulled out a bottle and started squirting me with water. I protested but Mum gave me a warning look as Bonny came into the kitchen. She was even allowed to smoke inside because it was her Special Day. I sat there, as my head was dragged and jerked backwards and sideways, and my scalp burnt with the heat of the hairdryer. It took about forty minutes—I have loads of hair, just loads and loads of hair, but the strange thing was, as the hairdresser worked on, Bonny’s mood lifted. She had sworn to kill the hairdresser last night, and her entire family too, yet she was chatting away to her now, and Mum was beaming as they all stood and watched.

‘There!’ The hairdresser beamed, and so too did everyone. Even Eleanor, beautiful, stunning, gorgeous Eleanor, gaped as she walked into the kitchen.

‘Oh, my God!’ she screeched when she saw me. ‘Straight suits you.’

I ran up to the bathroom and stood there.

Yes, it was still bright orange, but it was straight, smooth and sleek and the newly created fringe fell over one eye and…

It was me.

For the first time in my life I felt as if I was staring at my reflection and recognised the person that was staring back.

Seven

I soon cheered up.

It was nice having Roz back at the flat but it wasn’t just her company I wanted. There was conversation that needed to be had.

Dan had a point.

In all honesty, I sometimes got a bit embarrassed when I went out with Roz.

It wasn’t just that she didn’t make an effort—it was as if she tried to look like she hadn’t made an effort, if you know what I mean. I knew she was hurting, I knew her ex-husband Andrew had displayed her as some sort of trophy wife and had got really narky if she put on a bit of weight or didn’t get her nails and hair done religiously, but to go so far the other way was only hurting Roz.

We chatted about Nicole. Then there was a half hour or so listening to her bang on about Andrew’s new girlfriend Trudy. Then I sat through the saga of Lizzie, her daughter, and their latest row and then, when she’d worn herself out talking about the bitch that is her daughter, she waffled on about Hugh.

‘He might be nice.’ Roz raised her eyebrows.

‘He’s living with someone called Gemma. (Nicole had told me after I’d agreed he could stay.) Nicole reckons they’re serious.’

‘Well, they can’t be that serious if he’s coming out here. He’s a consultant.’ Roz nudged. ‘You never know.’

Oh, I knew.

‘He’s Nicole’s cousin,’ I said, because it covered so many things—anally retentive, frigid, uptight, driven. ‘I only agreed because if Nicole told me one more time about Aunty Cheryl and her mother’s row, and how this would really help, I’d have strangled her.’ But we weren’t here to discuss Lizzie or the impending arrival of Dr Hugh Watson, so, rather skilfully I thought, I moved the conversation around to this fabulous new body moisturiser and a hot oil hair treatment I’d bought from my hairdresser Karan as Roz pretended to listen.

Yes, pretended.

I could sense her distraction and it infuriated me. I wasn’t doing this for my benefit—I didn’t have a halo of pubic hair on my head, I wasn’t slobbing on the couch in khaki oversized cargo pants and a T-shirt you could house a Third World family in.