by Sue Fortin
‘Did you have your underwear?’ I ask.
‘Oh, Clare, you are such a lawyer,’ Alice says and grins at me. ‘No, but I wasn’t gonna let her know that. Anyway, it worked, as neither of them laid a finger on me again. And when Daddy died, she gave me your address. Said she found it in his things, but I think she had kept it all that time and only gave it to me once she realised she wasn’t getting her hands on the rest of Daddy’s money.’
‘You’ve been through so much. You’re so brave. Are you okay? I mean, really okay?’ asks Mum.
‘Sure. I mean, nothing that a bit of therapy won’t sort out. Well, that’s what I’ve been told but, if you wanna know the truth, I think you and Clare and Clare’s family are the only therapy I need. Your love is enough to heal all the wounds.’
It’s uncharitable of me to think this sounds a bit OTT and clichéd, but then I remind myself that, to all intents and purposes, Alice is American and therapy is far more widely spoken about and accepted over there.
‘Anyway, enough of all that,’ says Alice. ‘It’s in the past. This is a new beginning for me. For all of us.’ She gives Mum’s hand a squeeze and looks at me with a smile, which I return.
I have to admit to being impressed by her resilience. Her ability to push the negativity away so easily is quite outstanding. I’ve seen it with some clients who have sat in my office or in a police rape suite and had to recount an awful attack they’ve been subjected to and sometimes there can be a certain amount of detachment. However, I’ve never seen detachment quite like this. It’s almost as if Alice is talking about something much more trivial. I can’t help but think if she was one of my clients and this was a courtroom, I would be urging her to show more emotion.
I want to quiz her further, as if I were preparing one of my clients for court and how the defence might try to discredit her, but Mum moves the conversation on far too quickly, asking Alice about school and education, which Alice skims over. I get the feeling she doesn’t want to talk about her past too much and, I suppose, who can blame her after everything she’s been through? I end up telling Alice more about my childhood and my friends, how I met Luke at school, and so on.
‘You must have lots of friends if you’ve always lived here,’ says Alice.
‘Maybe not as many as you’d think. Most of the people I went to school with have spread their wings a bit further afield than Little Dray. I’m good friends with one of the mums from Hannah’s school, Pippa Stent. Her daughter, Daisy, is friends with Hannah. We’re both on the board of governors. I’ve never really done the whole mums-playground-coffee-circuit thing, mainly because I’m hardly ever there. What with work and everything, Luke knows the other parents better than I do.’
‘Don’t you miss being a mum?’ asks Alice.
Instantly, my hackles rise and I can feel a surge of defensive anger shift inside me. I look Alice straight in the eye when I answer. ‘I am a mum. Just because I don’t do the school run, it doesn’t make me any less of a mother.’ I’m not sure whose face I want to slap. Alice’s for questioning me as a mother or my own for getting so angry about it. Jesus, Alice is only young, she doesn’t have any children and it sounds as though she had a shit role model. What does she know about motherhood?
‘I’m sure Alice didn’t mean you weren’t a good mother,’ says Mum. ‘She probably just meant the school run, didn’t you Alice?’
‘Sure, of course. Sorry, Clare, I really didn’t mean to offend you.’ She bites her lip and both Alice and Mum look at me expectantly.
‘Hey, forget it. I’m tired. I didn’t mean to snap.’ I force a smile. I could do with going up to bed, but if I go now it will look as if I’m flouncing off. And although I’m still pissed off with what Alice said, I don’t want to upset Mum or leave with an atmosphere hanging between us all. I’ll be the one ending up looking like a bloody idiot.
I fill the next half an hour telling Alice about work and manage to elicit a few laughs with anecdotes about strange clients and the obscure reasons they’ve sought legal advice.
‘The worse was the couple who were having an affair at work and stayed late one night to, how shall we say, cement their relationship.’ I sit in the armchair with my feet tucked up underneath me. ‘They ended up having sex across the office desk, but in all the excitement, they somehow managed to bundle off the desk and she hit her head on the filing cabinet, which made the boss’s golfing trophy topple off and knock her out stone cold. They had to call an ambulance and everything, but the best of it is, she came to see me wanting to sue her workplace for industrial injury due to poor health and safety standards!’
We all laugh at the story and when I’m confident that the equilibrium has been restored, I make my excuses and head up to bed.
Whether it’s the revelations of what Alice has been through, the fact that she still has my T-shirt or that she and Hannah seemed as thick as thieves earlier, I don’t know, but I find myself waking from a restless sleep. I look at the LCD display of the clock-radio. I’ve only been asleep two hours. I stretch my hand out across the bed, more to confirm the fact that Luke isn’t there than to see whether he is.
I decide to go down and see him. Despite being in a house full of people, I’m feeling lonely. I put it down to a rather traumatic evening and the sadness that I feel for Alice. Although Mum and I had never said it, I’m sure we’d both hoped that Alice had had a good life in America with our father. That she had been loved and cared for.
I think at times it was the only hope that kept Mum going. I dread to think how she would have coped if she had known about the harrowing ordeal Alice had endured. I can’t even begin to image how she must have felt. A young girl who had no one to turn to when she needed it most. It was all credit to her that she had come out of it without being affected too badly. Maybe that’s why she has been keen to bond with us here so quickly. Now our father is dead and her stepmother out of the picture, she has no one other than her friend. No wonder she wanted to bring Martha over with her. Still, I’m glad she came on her own in the end. I resolve to put any negative feelings I might have been cultivating to one side. Alice needs us.
As I walk down the hallway towards Luke’s studio, I’m surprised to hear the soft burr of voices coming from behind the closed door. I can’t make out what is being said, but a small giggle punctuates the air. My heart does some sort of double beat and my chest feels as if it’s going to burst with the extra air that has filled my lungs. I puff out a long breath and, snatching at the handle, push open the door.
At first I think I’m seeing things, looking at my own reflection. Sitting on a stool in the middle of the room is Alice, still wearing my T-shirt but now her hair is pulled back into a ponytail just like I wear mine to work. Just like it is tonight. Luke has his back to me, facing Alice with a canvas on the easel between them. He turns around and, at least has the decency to look sheepish, but Alice speaks first.
‘Oh, hi, Clare.’ She smiles at me. ‘Are you okay? I thought you had gone to bed.’
‘I did, but I couldn’t sleep,’ I say, surprised at how I appear to be having a civil conversation when what I really want to do is scream at both of them and demand to know what the fuck is going on.
‘Me neither,’ says Alice, jumping off the stool. ‘I think it’s the jet lag. I came down to get a glass of water and noticed the light under the door.’
‘Alice was just having a look at some of my work,’ says Luke.
‘Tell Clare the truth,’ says Alice, giving Luke a coy smile.
My heart does that funny two-beat thing again. The truth? What is she on about? ‘Well?’ I look at Luke.
He steps to one side so I can see the canvas he’s working on. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it when I first came in. I was so busy throwing evil looks at the pair of them that I didn’t take in anything else. Alice comes and stands beside me, slipping her arm through mine. We both look at the beginnings of a portrait. A portrait of Alice.
‘I wanted
to surprise you and Mum,’ she says. ‘I wanted to have a picture done as a present.’
On the canvas I can see an outline of what is clearly Alice’s face, made up from abstract colours that will all blend in eventually, to make the perfect composition. It’s more than just a couple of hours’ work. I’ve seen enough of Luke’s paintings to know that what is in front of me didn’t just appear in the last hour. ‘How long have you been working on this surprise?’ I ask, emphasising the last word.
‘Just tonight and last night,’ says Luke. He taps the end of the brush against the palm of his hand. There’s an awkward silence. I gaze at the canvas, but I’m not taking in the detail. I’m using it as a diversion for the anger I’m trying to tamp down; that green-eyed monster which makes me so angry. ‘What do you think?’ asks Luke eventually.
What do I think? He so doesn’t want to know what I think. ‘It’s nice,’ I say, unable to inject any enthusiasm into the word.
‘Erm, I think I’ll go to bed now,’ says Alice. ‘I’m suddenly feeling really tired.’ She smiles at Luke in that awkward way when someone is trying to pretend everything is okay, when it clearly isn’t. ‘Goodnight, Clare.’ She pauses, as if she wants to say something but then changes her mind and walks over to the door.
‘Yeah, night.’ I can’t bring myself to say her name. The door closes and I wait until I hear the creak of the stairs and I’m confident she has gone to her room.
‘Look, Babe,’ says Luke before I can say anything. ‘She genuinely came down last night and asked if I would do this as a surprise for you and your Mum.’
‘She may have done, but I tell you what, Luke, you’re letting a bit of flattery from a young woman go to your head.’ The seed that Tom planted earlier somehow has not just taken root but grown into a great big fucking tree without me even realising. Luke looks incredulously at me.
‘Are you serious?’ he laughs. ‘You can’t be. Fuck, you are. Oh, come on, Clare, what’s got into you? I was just taking the piss the other night about you being jealous, but you really are.’
‘What do you expect?’ I ask. ‘All this cloak and dagger over a flaming portrait. I don’t like it.’
‘The portrait?’
‘No! You two. I don’t like you two being all sneaky.’ I look at Luke and he has a small smile on his face. ‘And I don’t like the portrait either, now you come to mention it.’ I stick out my bottom lip like a child. Luke’s mock look of disappointment is making it difficult to stay cross with him.
He comes over and wraps his arms around me and kisses me, nuzzling my neck. ‘Are you saying you don’t like it?’
I make a half-hearted attempt to push him away. I want to be cross with him, but he makes it very difficult. ‘No. I don’t.’
‘Not even this?’ He takes his kisses down the side of my neck and moves the shoulder of my dressing gown over, where he kisses my bare skin.
I wriggle free and rearrange my robe. ‘That’s cheating.’ I look over at the canvas. ‘I still don’t like it.’
‘Clare, you’re overreacting. Look, I’ll wash up and then I’ll come up to bed.’
I know sulking is such a childish act, but I can’t help it as I retreat out of the room and back up to bed. When Luke comes up some ten minutes later I pretend to be asleep. I’m on my side with my back to him. He gets into bed and leans over and kisses the back of my head.
‘Night, Babe. I love you and don’t you forget it.’ He turns over and pulls the quilt up around his shoulder. It’s not long before his breathing slips into the deep rhythm of sleep, leaving me wide awake, battling the green-eyed monster again. How the hell did I become such an irrational and jealous person?
Chapter 11
It’s Saturday morning and although I’ve been really busy with work and helping Mum and Alice prepare for the little get-together we’re having this afternoon, I haven’t been able to stop replaying Alice’s confession in my mind. It’s not so much what she said but the way she said it and her body language. I just can’t make it all tie in together. And then, in the next thought, I’m chastising myself for being suspicious and reminding myself that Alice has already been through a lot in her life; maybe she has developed a coping mechanism and I’ve just become far too cynical in my job.
I’m also aware that I may have overreacted slightly about the portrait. I didn’t get a chance to apologise yesterday; Luke kept himself shut in his studio for most of the evening and I ended up going to bed alone. He’d come up some time in the night and I vaguely remember cuddling up to him.
When I wake up I can hear him in the shower, so I wait for him to come out and apologise for overreacting.
‘Hey, don’t worry,’ he says generously. ‘You’ve had a tough week emotionally and, I promise you, it was all totally innocent.’
‘I love you,’ I say, appreciating his forgiving nature. I stop in the bedroom doorway and kiss him.
‘I love you too, Mrs Tennison. Now, haven’t you got some baking to do for the party?’ He gives my backside a tap. ‘No soggy bottoms!’
I grin to myself as I go downstairs, feeling a surge of love for Luke.
I spend the next couple of hours with Mum and Alice preparing the buffet food for this afternoon. Luke takes the girls to the park to keep them out from under our feet and when he returns everything is ready and there’s an air of happiness about the place.
Mum has only invited a handful of people over to meet Alice. I had warned her about overwhelming Alice. Naturally people are curious to meet her, but I don’t want it to turn into a freak show. Mum understood and the guest list extended to Pippa and her family, Leonard, Tom and Lottie and a couple of Mum’s friends from the WI.
I’m rather nervous about Tom meeting Alice, for some reason, and I’m not sure why. I suppose it’s a bit like taking your boyfriend or girlfriend home for the first time to meet your family. You’re never quite sure how it’s going to go and what you really want is for everyone to like each other and get on well together.
‘Hi, Tom,’ I say, opening the door when he finally turns up. ‘And, hello, Lottie. How are you?’ I give Tom a kiss on the cheek and then bend down to give Lottie a hug. ‘Hannah’s in the garden on the trampoline if you want to go through, sweetheart.’
‘How’s it going?’ asks Tom as Lottie skips off towards the rear of the house. He has a bunch of flowers in one hand and a bottle of red in the other.
‘Good,’ I say. I run my hands down the sides of my trousers, aware my palms are sweaty.
‘Not nervous at all, then?’ says Tom, nodding at my gesture.
I give a small laugh, which says it all. ‘It just feels really strange introducing you to Alice after all this time. I wasn’t like this when Luke met her.’
‘Deep breaths and relax,’ says Tom. He breathes in through his nose and slowly out through his mouth. I do the same. ‘That’s it. Nothing to be nervous about at all.’
We go through into the kitchen and Tom greets Mum with a kiss and presents her with the bottle of wine. The men get handshakes and Mum’s friends get his most charming smile. Finally, it’s Alice’s turn.
‘This is Alice,’ I say to Tom. ‘Alice this is Tom.’
‘Wow, you’re really here. Amazing. It’s just amazing,’ says Tom. He takes a moment to look at her and a small blush rises to Alice’s face. Tom steps forward and offers the bunch of flowers to Alice. ‘Hello, Alice.’ His voice is full of sincerity and he gives her a small peck on the cheek. ‘Welcome home.’
‘Hello, Tom,’ says Alice and accepts the flowers. ‘They’re beautiful. Thank you, so much. I’ve never been given flowers before.’
I look on and realise I’m smiling. That’s so thoughtful of Tom. I glance at Luke, who looks back and gives a smile and a slight raise of the eyebrows, which I interpret as Luke thinking Tom is being typically smooth and charming. I move over to him, snaking my arm behind him to reach a glass of wine on the counter. ‘Flowers, eh? Nice touch.’
‘I do far more ro
mantic gestures than flowers,’ mutters Luke in my ear. ‘I’ll show you later.’
‘I shall look forward to it,’ I reply before side-stepping and going back to Alice. ‘I think Mum’s just fishing out a vase for the flowers,’ I say, nodding in the direction of the utility room, where Mum has just disappeared to. ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ says Alice. ‘Tom was just telling me how you went to university together and now work together.’
‘Yeah, I can’t get rid of him,’ I say, winking at Tom. ‘He follows me everywhere.’
‘She loves it really,’ says Tom.
Mum comes over and relieves Alice of the flowers, her face glowing with happiness. It makes me happy to see the sparkle in her eyes. ‘Could you get the sausage rolls out of the oven for me, Clare?’
‘I’ll leave you in Tom’s care,’ I say and head over to help Mum.
The afternoon goes smoothly and everyone seems relaxed. The children play nicely in the garden.
As I collect empty glasses and used plates, I realise I haven’t seen Alice for a while. I scan the kitchen and then the garden but can’t see her. Come to think of it, Tom’s not about either.
I go out into the garden onto the decking. Around the corner, out of sight from the main party, Tom and Alice are there. They don’t notice me at first. They’re standing very close together, but something about their body language alerts me. Neither is smiling and Tom appears to be talking quietly to Alice, but I can see no gentleness in his expression.
Alice spots me first and then Tom looks up too. Both smile.
‘Everything okay?’ I ask coming over.
‘Yeah, sure,’ says Tom.
‘Alice?’ I say, looking at my sister.
She hesitates for a moment before speaking. ‘I’m fine, honestly. I just needed a bit of air. Sometimes I find crowds a bit overwhelming.’