Putting Alice Back Together

Eight

‘Hey!’ Gus gave a smile of appreciation as I walked in. I had washed in the sink for two days, avoiding steam from the bath, and even dragging a couple of emerging curls out with the hairdryer myself in anticipation of this moment.

And it was worth it.

Oh, it was so, so worth it.

‘You look great,’ Gus said. ‘How was the wedding?’

‘Great.’ I beamed, because the wedding had been awful, but at the end of the reception I had got off with this guy, Lex’s best man, in fact, and finally had a decent snog and then a bit of a fumble in the loos.

Celeste didn’t comment on my lovely hair, just scowled up at me from the kitchen where she was standing. I didn’t smile back—I had heard them rowing from the street when I arrived, and it made Gus’s smile all the more worth it, that he could manage to be nice, unlike Celeste.

We went through and I set up my music.

It was my favourite piece.

Tchaikovsky, ‘January’, from The Seasons.

I’d been focusing, amongst others, on this piece for a good few months now. It was for my exam and it was so bloody hard.

Not so much technically, but my playing strength is emotion and that is the hard part to explain. At home when I was practising, every now and then I got it. Sometimes I played it so well, even I cried. I just had to work out how to do that for my exam.

You see, my sisters think it’s just a matter of playing. They can’t understand that it might take a year to learn one piece of music, but Gus understood, and he was so patient—except he wasn’t this evening.

‘You haven’t been practising.’

‘I have.’ I screwed up my face as I lied.

‘Pianissimo!’ he said. ‘It’s supposed to be soft but it’s like a herd of fucking elephants.’ I didn’t mind that he swore—it made me feel older. I knew he wouldn’t swear with some of the little kids. Over and over we went but we never got past the first page—and I could hear the mistakes and feel him wince. It must have given Celeste a thumper of a headache, because when we went over the hour, she came in.

‘How much longer, Gus?’ She didn’t even look at me.

‘When I’m done!’ Gus didn’t look at her either, just sat in silence as Celeste slammed the door.

‘I’m sorry.’ I felt as if the row was my fault; I mean, it wasn’t exactly a row, she’d just slammed the door, but I knew he was proving a point when, instead of closing my music, he told me to go from midway.

God, I loved this bit; there’s a lot of hand crossing and I ached to play it right—I yearned for the day I did it perfectly, but still I messed up. He was behind me, and he played the right hand and I played the left. He did it so much more easily, and then he mucked up too—well, he had an excuse because he was over me, and not sitting down, but he laughed at his own mistake and then I laughed too, and everything suddenly felt a bit better.

Anyway, there we were, me trying to sort out the hand-change thing and he was still leaning over and I messed up.

His hands went over mine to show me a move, just as he did in every other lesson, I guess, but it was different, I could feel his fingers. Before it was like he was showing me, but now I could feel them.

He moved his other hand so that his arms were under my armpits and he played for a moment. I could feel his arms against my breasts. They were sore; my period had finished so it wasn’t because of that. It was a nice sore, sort of heavy, and achy.

I was looking down at his fingers, but all I could see were my breasts. The nipples were sticking out, and it was like I’d never seen them before. They were like thimbles under my dress and he was still playing the tune. I could feel his breath on my cheek but I had no breath. I wasn’t breathing; my breasts hurt and as his arms pulled back his hands brushed them.

It was like watching in slow motion. His hands had the palms facing inwards, and as they slid from my chest they stroked the sides and I don’t know if they paused; as I lay in my bed that night I wondered if they had, but I don’t think so. They just slid against the sides and I wanted them to slide back, but they didn’t.

‘Okay.’ His voice sounded normal. ‘Let’s leave it there for now. Practise, Alice.’ I was closing up my music and I dropped a couple of sheets and I turned around to pick them up—I was head level with his crotch and I saw his erection. I wanted to touch it, but of course I didn’t. I stood up.

I pretended that I hadn’t seen it.

I wasn’t even sure if I had, but as I lay in bed that night all I knew was that I was having another lesson in a couple of days.

Nine

I hated my own company.

That’s not what I said to Big Tits because I knew it wasn’t how I was supposed to be. I knew, because I’d read all the self-help books. I was supposed to have inner reserves, to be able to spend a thoughtful evening alone, lighting candles and playing music that meant something to me, as I spoiled myself by soaking in an aromatic bath with a deep and moving book. But the simple fact was, I hated being by myself.

Hated bouncing questions I already knew the answers to.

Hated watching a film when there was no one to pass the tissues to and share the ending.

And where was the fun in candles and soft music and bubble baths when you were alone?

Anyway, the flat didn’t have a bath.

Roz had taken her weary liver out on her date and Dan hadn’t returned my phone calls all day. By evening I resorted to texting him saying I was really worried about work and needed his advice and he eventually texted back and said he’d come over.

You see, Dan’s a careers counsellor: he goes around schools telling sixteen-year-olds they can be whatever they want to be and he takes it all very, very seriously, so I knew if I dangled that little carrot, he’d bite quickly. That he might manage to tear himself away from Matthew for five minutes.

Yes, Matthew.

Sorry to disappoint you—believe me I felt the same when I found out too.

Worse!

Dan, you see, was possibly the love of my life.

Lisa, I’m sure, if she knew about Dan and me, would say that I was comfortable with Dan because he was gay, that because there was no sexual tension I was able to be myself and to relax with him.

Bullshit.

I loved him long before I knew he was gay.

I wasted months, wondering what the hell I was doing wrong.

You just wouldn’t spot it—okay, the fitted shirt, the Pilates and, I guess, the fact that he exfoliates might have been missed clues—but loads of guys look after themselves now.

His friend Michelle was my flatmate at the time—they weren’t going out or anything—and Dan used to come around and I’d pull out all the stops.

Then he became more regular at the flat and I stopped pulling out all the stops and he still liked me. I could answer the door in baggy pyjamas, still orange from a new spray tan and walking with my toenails splayed with cotton wool because I was painting them, and he still liked me.

Then I got drunk and slept with some football player to make him jealous. Well, suffice to say it ended in tears—with a blotchy face and a rather fat lip (the football player did have anger issues). Dan was the one who held the ice pack.

Dan was appalled when I confessed that I’d done it to make him notice me.

And then he’d told me the truth.

And he also told me just how much he hated the truth.

That he’d rather slash his abdomen and dissect his own intestines than fess up and tell the world that he was gay.

At first it had been a whoosh of relief—so that was why he didn’t fancy me.

Then I had decided that, if I tried harder, one day he might—he had assured me he wouldn’t.

He wasn’t bisexual; he said it as a warning.

He was gay.

So I got angry…

And we fell out, but we missed each other and made it up, though we hadn’t yet come full circle. There was still this… this… bitterness there on my part.

I mean, how unlucky was I, that the perfect guy for me, the one guy who actually loves me, just wasn’t technically wired that way?

I hated all the crap about ‘Oh, I’m not homophobic—my best friend’s gay’.

I actually HATED it that he was gay.

I cried at every episode of Will and Grace.

I hated it that I would love the smell of him coming out of the shower for ever, that he could make me laugh with just a twitch of his lips, that he’s just the most amazing guy in the whole wide world, that he can pull me in his arms and make me feel safe—and that, faults and all, somehow he loves me and yet somehow he can’t.

He loves me.

Just not in that way.

However, Dan had been a bit off recently. Every time I rang he was always just on his way out, and call me paranoid if you must, but whenever I got the answering-machine I swear he was home, hovering over the receiver and not picking it up because it was me. It wasn’t fair. We’d been through everything together. When he was in the closet, he’d been only too happy to drag me to every family function imaginable and pass me off as his girlfriend and then, when he was coming out, night after night had been spent metaphorically holding his hand as he worked up the courage to tell his family and friends. And once out! Oh, yes, he’s Mr Bloody Sensible now, but he was wild for a while there, dragging me along to gay bars where I’d sit and pretend not to notice how long it took him to go to the men’s room.

Now, though, when I needed him, he was too busy being happy with Matthew.

I was making lime margaritas—there was a mountain of limes that I was juicing and I had all the ingredients lined up to whizz in the blender but Dan filled the kettle.

‘I’m not drinking,’ he said, which meant that he wouldn’t be staying.

‘I got a couple of movies, though.’ More and more it was getting like this with Dan. Since he had started going out with Matthew I was slotted in, like a dental appointment or a quick dash to the shops on a lunch break. ‘Stay the night, Dan, you haven’t for ages.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Okay.’ I knew not to push it. ‘At least stay for a while, have a drink…’

‘Actually, no.’ He looked uncomfortable, six feet two and in his suit he looked bloody gorgeous but, actually, nervous. ‘You and I…’ he gave a tight smile ‘… well, it’s causing a few problems with Matthew.’

‘What?’ I was about to turn on the blender, but instead I laughed. ‘How, for God’s sake? We’ve established you don’t fancy me. Can never fancy me… Surely to God you’re allowed friends.’

‘Of course I am…’ He was working his way up to telling me something and suddenly I didn’t want to hear it, so I turned the blender on instead, but you can only blend a margarita for so long and after a moment or two I had no choice but to stop. I could feel his chocolate-brown eyes on me, but I didn’t turn and look at them, instead focusing a great deal of attention on salting two glasses as he spoke to my back.

‘Every time I come here I get smashed and end up staying.’

I had the salt in lovely perfect lines, the glasses were icy cold from the fridge, and I slowly poured two drinks before I answered.

‘Don’t get smashed, then.’ Now I did turn and look at him, angry, because how the hell was it my fault? Since when did his boyfriend decide it was up to me to police him? ‘I’m hardly pouring drinks down your throat and tying you to the bed, Dan.’

‘I know that.’

‘If you don’t want to be here, don’t use Matthew as an excuse.’ He closed his eyes and I could hear him drag in a deep breath.

‘I do want to be here.’

‘Then tell Matthew that.’ I was near tears, I was so angry I felt like crying—bloody Matthew was so jealous he hated Dan out of his sight for anything more than five minutes. Every time we went out he texted about a gazillion times and if Dan did have the guts to stay over, his phone would start bleeping at the crack of dawn.

‘I have told him,’ Dan said. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? It’s just…’ His voice trailed off and then, because he knows me, because he knew that even if I wasn’t boohooing, even if there were no tears, I was actually crying. We had promised, promised that no relationship would ever come between our friendship, and now it seemed one was.

Dan gives the nicest cuddles.

I stood in the kitchen and I just leant on him, I smelt him and it was the nicest place in the world to be and I didn’t want to let him go, I didn’t want him going back to Matthew, but I knew if I stamped my foot too hard, then it would be a long time till I saw him again. That Matthew would up the bloody curfew, so I trod carefully.

‘Make me a coffee, then,’ I said to his chest.

‘Serious?’

‘Sure.’ I felt him smile, felt him relax as I made it easier for him. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to ring Mum tonight and sometimes she talks for hours.’ He kissed the top of my head and then he loosened his arms and smiled down at me and I smiled back.

Dan, the only guy on this planet I can look straight in the eye.

‘I love you, Alice.’

‘I know.’

‘I am here for you.’

‘I know.’ Yeah, take that, Matthew, I thought, you can bitch and moan and whine, but you’ll never break up our friendship.

‘One won’t kill, I guess…’ He picked up the margarita and rolled his eyes in bliss as he took a sip.

‘You’ll get me in trouble with Matthew,’ I warned.

‘We just won’t tell him.’

I felt a rush of relief as he came back to me, a whoosh of euphoria as whatever crisis had loomed was somehow averted.

Dan was back and together we always had a ball.

We just didn’t that night.

He asked about my work, but I didn’t want to just talk about that. ‘I’m worried about Roz,’ I said, hoping that would get him going. He loved a gossip, but Dan rolled his eyes.

‘I really think she’s depressed.’

‘I’d be depressed if I looked like that,’ Dan said. ‘No wonder her husband left—you’d slash yourself if you had to wake up to that face every morning.’

‘But he didn’t leave her.’ I frowned as much as my Botoxed forehead would allow. ‘It was the other way around—Roz left him. Though God knows why, he was gorgeous. Gorgeous,’ I added for effect, and Dan shot me a look of disbelief. ‘She says they married way too young and that she felt stifled, that she needed to find herself.’

‘Find a bigger McDonald’s outlet more like.’ Dan pursed his lips and then he glanced at his watch and I felt a flutter of panic, so I quickly changed the subject to Dan’s favourite.

Me!

That was a joke.

My career, or lack of it.

I hated my job. I knew, I knew, in these times it was good to have a job—but, frankly, I didn’t know if I would for much longer. I did the website as well sometimes, thanks to Dan pushing me to do a course, but mainly I sat with headphones on, typing up birth, marriage and death notices, announcements, stuff for sale, jobs, that sort of thing. We used to do more dating ads, that was fun, but everything was moving to the internet, not just dating—and what with eBay (love it, love it), I couldn’t see my job lasting much longer.

So I told him all about my worries, that I was sure management was up to something, hoping he’d be so consumed by my problems, that he’d fill up his glass. ‘I’m probably just being pessimistic.’

‘You’re being realistic,’ Dan said, which made the knot in my stomach tighten. ‘Everyone’s cutting back. You need to get some real qualifications.’ I hadn’t really wanted a doom-and-gloom careers appraisal. I wanted him to say that I’d been there nine years, that of course my job was safe, but Dan had said all he was going to. He looked at his watch again and I knew, despite the win with the margarita, I was about to lose my audience. ‘I’ve got to go, Al,’ he said. ‘I’m exhausted.’