‘I see.’ She shakes back her hair. ‘That is a bit of a problem.’
‘Mmm. At least I can kid myself that I was doing research for it tonight.’ He nods in the direction of the cinema.
‘We-ell,’ she rocks back and forth on her boots, ‘I think I’ll head home, then.’
‘Where is it you live?’
‘Finsbury Park. How about you?’
‘Camden. Can I give you a lift?’
‘You’ve got a car?’
‘Yes. It’s my one luxury in life. I need it to get to assignments, or that’s what I tell myself. Do you disapprove?’
‘Not at all. It’s pure envy.’
‘Would a lift help you with your envy, or make it worse?’
He sees her hesitate, unsure. ‘Alice, don’t worry, I haven’t been drinking. I’m not a mad axe murderer and I solemnly promise not to molest you.’ Unless, of course, you want me to, he adds mentally.
She lets herself get as far as closing the car door before she says, ‘Do you want to come in for a minute? If you need to get off, then maybe—’
He is out of the car in seconds and even takes the keys out of her hands and opens the door for her. ‘Up here?’ he asks, heading for the communal staircase.
‘Right at the top.’
He waits by the flat door for her. ‘Do you live on your own?’ he asks, only a little tensely.
‘Yeah. I prefer it. I shared with some friends for a while but found I never saw them apart from when we met to argue over whose turn it was to clean the bathroom. Then I lived with my boyfriend, my ex-boyfriend I should say, which didn’t exactly work out.’ She says this avoiding his eye, feeling his interest crackling between them. ‘This place is only supposed to be temporary, but I’ve been here five months already.’
She is surprised at how curious he is, poking his head into each room of the tiny flat.
‘It’s a bit grim, isn’t it?’ she shouts.
‘It’s OK. I’ve seen worse.’
He comes into the kitchen. ‘Is that you?’ He is peering at a photo of her and Beth on a beach. They are in swimming costumes, lying on their stomachs in a rock-pool.
‘Oh, God, don’t look at that.’ She comes to stand behind him, looking over his shoulder. ‘I was about eighteen, I think. That’s my younger sister, Beth. I always liked that photo of us and I lost the only copy I had ages ago. Beth sent me this reprint last week. It’s funny, I never thought then that it was one of the last times I’d be living at home with my sisters. I was desperate to leave home, but didn’t really notice when I did. It just kind of happened.’
He has pulled it off the wall and is holding it close to his face in one hand; in his other he rolls the Blu-tack that held it to the wall. ‘Have you always had long hair?’ he asks.
‘Not always. Not when I was little, and I cut it soon after that picture was taken.’
He turns to her and she realises how close they’re standing. The atmosphere changes in that instant.
‘How long did it take to grow again?’ he murmurs.
‘Er.’ She can’t remember anything at all right now. ‘About four years,’ she hazards.
He puts out a hand to touch her hair and slowly winds a strand of it around his finger. She shivers.
‘Are you cold?’
‘No.’
He bends towards her, curling his fingers around the back of her neck. His mouth brushes hers very gently. It feels surprisingly soft and warm. She allows herself to lean into him, bringing her arms up to the small of his back to press him closer. She can feel the thud of his heart through his jumper and she closes her eyes.
‘Shit,’ he says, with a sudden violence, and pulls away. She is unbalanced, both by his movement and the shock. She nearly falls and puts out a hand to steady herself, catching the soft mound of flesh at the base of the thumb on the corner of the table. Her hand begins to throb all the way up to her elbow and she raises it to her mouth.
John has hurled himself, rather over-dramatically, Alice feels, into the kitchen chair and is clutching his head between his hands, elbows resting on the table. She is determined not to speak first. When his voice does come, it is muffled: ‘Alice, I’m so sorry.’
She cannot answer and stands there, her hand pressed to her mouth. He looks up. ‘Did you hurt your hand?’
He reaches out but she steps back. He flinches. They stay like that in silence for a minute or two — Alice standing and John looking at her imploringly. He takes a deep breath: ‘The thing is . . . the problem is . . . This sounds so awful ... I’m kind of . . . with someone else at the moment . . .’
She nods, but feels as if her body is beginning a sickening, giddy slide down a steep incline.
‘It means nothing to me, Alice . . . It’s not what you think . . .’
‘Please don’t. Let’s . . . let’s just forget it.’
‘It’s not what you think,’ he repeats urgently, ‘I guarantee you.’
‘And what is it that I think, according to you?’ she asks. The words sound odd to her — over-enunciated, clipped.
‘That I’m a two-timing bastard,’ he says. ‘It’s not that. The thing is—’
‘Forget it,’ she interrupts him, ‘just forget it. It doesn’t matter. You’ve got a girlfriend. Let’s leave it at that.’
He pushes his hand through his hair. ‘Sophie’s not my
girlfriend . . . not really . . . and the point is . . .’
‘Please,’ she turns and walks to the window, ‘I really don’t want to hear about it.’
Four floors below, cars zoom past, their headlights sweeping over John’s car, parked just outside her flat.
‘I think you should leave now,’ she says.
If she stays here with her back to him, he’ll go and she’ll never have to lay her eyes on him again.
‘You don’t mean that,’ she hears him say behind her, and she whirls round to face him.
‘I certainly do mean it. Get out of my flat. Now.’
He doesn’t move from his seat at her table. Alice stares at him, incredulous, meeting his gaze for the first time since -when was it? — he’d been touching her hair and they’d been about to kiss. Time seems to have splintered and it feels as if that was hours ago.
‘I want you to leave,’ she says, with deliberate slowness, as if explaining something to a foreigner. ‘I don’t allow anyone to fuck me about.’
‘You have to believe me,’ he says, ‘I’m not fucking you about. I really am not. Just let me explain—’
‘Explain?’ she demands. ‘What explanation is there? That things aren’t going too well with your girlfriend so you thought you’d try it on with me instead? Well, don’t worry. Nothing’s happened. There’s nothing you’re going to have to lie to her about.’
He is looking down at the table top now. He lays his hands on the fake teak surface, palms down, fingers splayed out. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? Sophie’s not my girlfriend. She’s nothing to me. She doesn’t really give a shit about me, it’s just—’
‘Sex?’ Alice suggests.
‘No.’ He looks up, outraged. ‘I wasn’t going to say that.’ He stands and comes across the kitchen towards her. She looks away from him and folds her arms across her
‘And how can you say,’ he says, ‘that nothing has happened here tonight?’
She pushes past him, strides down the hallway and wrenches open the door. ‘Get out. I’m not going to tell you again.’
She sees him hesitate, then reach for his keys on the table and come towards her. He has to pass very close to her to get out of the door, and as he does so, he clasps her arm and goes to kiss her cheek. She pulls away as if he’s burnt her, bumping her head on the door edge. He puts his hand over hers, presses it to the side of her forehead. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers, next to her ear.
Alice feels tears rising to the surface, and she pushes his hand away.
‘Just go. Please,’ she says, looking down at his feet.
‘I’m going to sort things out and call you tomorrow, and then I’ll explain everything, OK?’
She shrugs.
Then he is gone and there is a cold draught blowing through her open door. She shuts it, listening to his feet drumming down the stairs. Then the front door slams and it’s only after she hears his car start up that she moves away from the door.
She walks into the bathroom and turns the hot tap on full. The pipes gurgle and cough out tepid water. She keeps her hand under the flow, and when it feels hotter, she pushes the plug into place. As the room fills with steam, she stands in front of the mirror.
You’ll never see him again, she tells herself. The places where he touched her — her neck, her lips and her arm — seem raw, almost painful. She looks herself right in the eye, daring herself to cry. Then she presses her hand against her shirt, over her heart, and says, in what she thinks is a strong yet offhand voice, ‘I never want to see you again.’ She can detect only the slightest quickening in her heart’s beat, only the faintest tightening of her throat. She’ll have it perfect by tomorrow.
Ben is finding it difficult to concentrate on what the doctor is saying. Behind him, illuminated on lightboxes, are cross-sections of Alice’s brain. He can see her eye sockets, her cheekbones, her forehead, her nose etched out in ghostly greyish photo-negative. The brain itself is a swirled, ridged confusion of dark patches, dips, valleys, folds.
‘There’s really nothing more I can tell you at this stage,’ the doctor says, spreading his hands as if finishing a magic trick.
‘But . . . but is there anything we should be doing?’ Ann asks.
‘You can talk to her, play music that means something to her, read aloud. It’s important to try to jog her out of this state.’ The doctor stands at this point, screwing up his face as if short-sighted, pacing up and down behind his desk. ‘You know,’ he begins, ‘the police and some of the witnesses are saying that . . . the accident . . . may have been ... a deliberate attempt on Alice’s part to ... to take her life. We don’t know this for sure yet, but . . .’
Ben’s throat is filled with a taste of straw. Out of the comer of his eye, he sees Ann uncross and recross her legs, lean forward: ‘You mean . . . suicide? Alice was trying to commit suicide?’
‘It’s a possibility. They’re not certain. But it is something we have to take into consideration.’
‘Into consideration?’ Ben repeats, dazed. ‘In what way?’ ‘It’s crucial to keep stimulating her.’ The doctor sighs. ‘What I’m saying is, she’s not going to wake up if there’s nothing to wake up for, is she?’
They sit at Alice’s bed without speaking. Ann’s hands are twisted into the strap of her handbag. Ben fingers the small clear zip-lock plastic bag containing the things Alice had on her at the time of the accident. The doctor had given it to them. Ben imagines that the doctor had been there as the things were pulled or cut from Alice’s torn, bloodied pockets: the wallet with exactly £2.80 in coins, half a packet of spearmint-flavoured chewing-gum (sugar-free), a platinum wedding ring and a key-ring with three serrated-edged latchkeys and two chunkier deadlock keys. Nothing more. Attached by its mouth to the key-ring is a small enamelled fish, tarnished with a mineral green, articulated with brass joints so the tail can flick from side to side. It’s Japanese, Ben knows, but can’t remember how he knows this. Did Alice tell him at some point? He extracts the wedding ring from the bag and holds it up to the light between his thumb and index finger. It feels light and warm. There is no inscription.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Ann says suddenly. ‘I don’t believe it. Alice wouldn’t do that.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Absolutely. They’ve made a mistake. She just wouldn’t do it. I mean, it used to cross my mind sometimes that she might. After John and everything. But it’s not Alice somehow, is it? She’s much too . . . defiant.’
‘Mmm. Maybe.’ Then Ben remembers something: ‘Kirsty said Alice was in Edinburgh yesterday.’
‘Edinburgh?’
‘Yes. I meant to tell you. Kirsty told me this morning on the phone.’
‘Alice was in Edinburgh yesterday?’ Ann is frowning, as if she thinks Ben is lying. ‘When yesterday?’
‘I don’t know. Alice phoned from the train, I think, and Kirsty and Beth met her at Waverley.’
‘Waverley?’ Ann’s voice cracks. ‘What time?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ben says again. ‘Alice stayed for about five minutes, Kirsty said, and then just got on a train back to London.’
Ann stands up so quickly that her bag falls to the floor. Purse, paper, comb, hankies, cigarettes, lipsticks, keys skitter over the tiles, under the bed, between the chair legs. She ducks down to pick the things up one by one, clutching them to her middle.
‘Are you all right?’ Ben asks, stooping to help her.
‘Yes. Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?’ Ann goes to the door and pulls it open. ‘I think I might go for a cigarette.’ ‘Right,’ Ben calls after her. ‘See you later, then.’
‘Alice, it’s me. Listen,’ his voice is trembling, ‘everything’s sorted.’
She curls her fingers more tightly around the receiver, but says nothing.
‘Alice? Are you there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then say something.’
‘1 don’t know what to say.’
‘Just . . . just tell me I didn’t blow it last night.’
‘John, there’s nothing to “blow”, as you put it. You’re with someone else and you did an interview with me and we went to the cinema. Nothing happened.’
He is silent. She can hear the office behind him; the buzz of telephones and the gentle cacophony of keyboards clicking.
‘Alice,’ he says, with difficulty, ‘I’m not with someone else. I wasn’t before, not really, and I’m certainly not now.’
She doesn’t answer. He tries again. ‘Alice, please . . . you can’t say that nothing has happened . . . Look, I’m in trouble here ... I don’t go around doing this all the time . . .’
She removes the receiver from her ear. Her hand hovers. Hang up on him, she tells herself, hang up. To give herself strength, she tries to recall the sliding, slippery feeling of the night before when he pulled away from her.
‘Don’t hang up! Please don’t . . . Alice? I know you’re there. Please say something or ... or ... I’m going to go mad.’
‘Don’t be melodramatic.’
‘Oh, hello there. I thought I was on my own for a minute. Why are you being so stubborn?’
‘I’m not being stubborn. I just refuse to let you mess me about. Why should I? What about Sophie? What did she—’ ‘Fuck Sophie,’ John interrupts vehemently. ‘You must listen — she was nothing to me, I was nothing to her. She wasn’t the problem.’
‘Then what was?’
He hesitates. ‘I can’t tell you now.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t.’
‘Why? Because you’re in the office?’
‘No, it’s not that. It would just take too long to explain. Alice, please, just give me one more chance. Just one — that’s all I ask, and if I fuck up again I swear I’ll never darken your phone line again. I’m so sorry about last night. Just give me a chance to explain myself. Please.’
Her mind is whirring through possibilities — it’s not his girlfriend, he can’t talk about it in the office, it takes a long time to explain. What can it be? If it’s not another woman, then . . . no . . . surely not.
‘John?’
‘Yes?’
‘This problem of yours . . .’
‘Alice, I told you. I can’t explain now. I need to see you and then I’ll tell you everything. I promise.’
‘It’s not . . . You’re not . . . ?’
‘What?’
‘Are you . . . ill?’
‘111?’ he repeats.
She sighs with exasperation. ‘Are you HIV positive? Because if it’s that, then you might as well j
ust tell me now.’
He gives a short laugh. ‘God, no, nothing like that. No, I’m in perfect physical health, though I’m not sure about mental right at this moment.’
‘Oh.’
There is a long and strained silence. She scribbles furious, spiky doodles on the notepad in front of her in black biro.
‘Look,’ John says, ‘we can’t talk about this over the phone. Have you got a pen there?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘OK. Write this down: Helm Crag Hotel. That’s two words, H-E-L-M and crag, C—’
‘I know how to spell “crag”, but why—’
‘Just write it. Have you got it?’
‘Yes, but what—’
‘OK, that’s Easedale Road, Grasmere. Now, there’s a train leaving Euston at five-fifteen. Write that down too. You’ll need to change at Oxenholme and get a train to Windermere. From there you can get a taxi to the hotel, which is just outside Grasmere in a valley called Easedale. The reservation’s under my name.’
‘John, if you think I’m just going to—’
‘Now. I’ve got to review a play in Manchester tonight so I’ll be getting there a bit later on. It could be nearer two or three in the morning.’
‘What the hell—’
‘I know. I’m sorry about that, but it can’t be avoided. I’ll be driving, you see, all the way from Manchester. But you can have dinner and go for a walk—’
‘John! Listen to me!’
‘What?’
‘I never want . . Alice begins the first words of a long speech she rehearsed in the bath the night before, but immediately forgets the rest.
‘Anyway,’ he continues, as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘we can spend all of Saturday and Sunday together. I doubt I’m going to be able to take Monday off, otherwise—’
‘What are you talking about? There’s no way, absolutely no way, I’m coming to some hotel in the Lake District with you. I can tell you that right now.’
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