by Tammy Bench
The cab slowed to a stop in front of one of them.
Not as far down the road as she remembered. But then she was on foot last time she was here.
‘This is it,’ the man consulted his meter, ‘call it six pounds.’
Alice looked out. In the driveway was a large black BMW. It was Neil’s car.
Alice slowly handed the driver the money and it was on the tip off her tongue to tell him to take her back… but she didn’t.
‘Thank you.’
No more thinking. This was it. Alice wrapped the coat around her a little more, breathed deeply and headed up the path. Her high-heeled boots, she was sure announced her arrival even before she had pressed the doorbell.
Ready?
It’s ‘Mrs Bouquet’ sounding chimes really didn’t fit well with the owner of this house. She doubted he had a gold carriage clock ticking away on the mantel or a large collection of well used Tupperware in the kitchen. He probably didn’t own a West Highland Terrier and insisted that all his food come from the M&S foodhall. It was funny how a simple sound did that – stereo-typed by a doorbell – weird?
She held her breath.
Seconds later she saw an arm on the other side of the frosted glass reach for the deadlock.
The door opened and Neil stared at her in obvious surprise.
‘Um… I… hi?’
‘Hi,’ she shifted her weight onto her left leg and fiddled with her hair.
‘Alice… isn’t it?’ he stumbled over the words but what else could he say?
‘Yes. Nice to meet you finally,’ her tone was clipped and she could tell he was on the back foot so pressed on with added confidence, ‘…is he here?’
She watched the colour drain from his face a little more, but he smiled anyway.
He was a handsome man, just not in the same way Tom was. He was quirky and what many women would describe as ‘cute.’ He still had jet black hair despite thinning a bit on top. He was lanky, but she could tell there was a strange strength about him. He looked his age, but it didn’t look bad on him.
‘Yeah, he is,’ he stepped aside and she walked in, ‘do you think this is a good idea though?’ he asked.
‘Did he?’ she answered flicking her head to one side and widening her stare.
Neil shrugged, ‘I don’t know what he was bloody thinking?’
It was an honest answer at least.
‘Where is he?’ she cleared her throat quietly, suddenly her mouth felt so dry.
‘The lounge,’ Neil pointed to the second door to his left. It was closed.
‘I’m sorry to barge in like this but may I speak with him?’ she asked.
Where was this bravado coming from?
‘Be my guest,’ Neil took a coat from the hat-stand, another thing that seemed out of place, and slipped it on. ‘Will you be okay on your own with him? I’ll pop out for a walk for a few minutes if you like?’
‘I think I’ll be fine.’
‘Are you sure?’ he asked again before opening the door.
‘I’m a big girl now.’
‘Yep, got it,’ he nodded, ‘I’d say go easy on him but I guess it’s not my place…’
He closed the door silently behind him and she watched his silhouetted outline walk away from the house.
Alice looked around her. A large impressive hallway of cream coloured nothingness. It badly needed a woman’s touch – had he never married? She felt woozy but at the same time stone cold sober. Her thoughts were clear one minute and clouded the next. She was in the same house as Tom… shit, she really was.
She tip-toed towards the lounge door and on the other side she could hear a television. She put her ear to it. It sounded like it was motor racing of some kind. He had never struck her as a TV watcher before, but then she had never really known the man wholly. Just the man he was when he was with her and of course the teacher.
She counted to ten slowly. Her hands were shaking as she pushed down on the door handle, closed her eyes and stepped into the room.
There was a Tiffany style lamp on in the corner of the room. Loud supercars raced each other around the large screen and a man was sat on the sofa in front of her, his broad back facing her.
Tom Chambers.
She stared at his head for a moment. All her senses were going into overdrive just millimetres below her skin. But on the outside she had somehow maintained an air of calm and tranquillity.
‘How long does it take to get a beer, man?’
She jumped when he spoke. Her hand darted to her mouth. Every dream she’d had about him since he left, they were never as real as those few words uttered in the lamplight. His voice, that was always so much of a lure was one of the losses she felt cut her the deepest.
And on hearing it now, what she feared the most had happened… she was that girl again.
She breathed in.
He raised the remote control towards the screen and paused the cars mid-race.
Her body felt alive, but not at all like her own. All thoughts of her everyday life were mere background noise now. Even though she wanted to yell at him and hurt him the way he had hurt her, it would just be a polished performance of a well-rehearsed part. Reading lines from a script that no longer held her interest. She didn’t want revenge or apologies… she just wanted him to speak again.
The truest fact was now staring her in the face no matter how much she wished it wasn’t so. She had finally come into contact once again with her potent drug of choice and the perilous force at which its effects hit her bloodstream was almost irrefutable.
She breathed out.
‘About fourteen years…’ she whispered.
FALLING DOWN…
Sunday 1st August
What in the world had made him think that this inconceivably bad idea had at some point in his warped mind been a good one?
Yeah let’s go on a fucking stakeout, let’s track her down and watch her fall at my feet?!
He had seen her and she had said no. As if it ever could have been any different?
Just as he was about to turn around and lay into Neil for no reason other than he was presently co-habiting in Tom’s wrong time and wrong place and he was angry at himself…
‘About fourteen years.’
Tom sprang to his feet, turned and stumbled back slightly.
What the fuck?
He looked at her.
‘Fucking hell, Alice,’ he breathed.
She was small, beautiful and even sexier than he remembered. She was a woman now. Her face was more defined and her lips a little less full. Her large emerald green eyes still dominated her features and her hair framed them in a golden coloured halo of tousled waves.
My bewitching little pixie…
She looked back at him unmoving.
‘Nice to know your language is still as blue as ever.’
He stumbled forward and she took a small step backwards.
‘I’m sorry about… Alice… about earlier. We were going to leave it and drive away, but you got out and…’ he rubbed his hand over his face quickly trying to wake himself up and get with it.
And that’s what you choose to say to her? – Impressive.
‘Were you even going to come in?’ her voice had that same airiness to it, a breathy quality that was so damn feminine he was finding it hard to concentrate.
He moved from one foot to the other, while she just stood and waited with perfect serenity. He was never worthy of her and now he saw that. He also fully understood the fool he had been.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ he replied honestly.
‘So you just wanted to look? Allowing that level of insight and judgment for yourself but not for me?’ she whispered.
What was the right answer to that question?
Tom swallowed hard, ‘Alice.’
‘Yes?’ she watched him.
‘It wasn’t like that. I didn’t want to rock any boats. I just wanted to…’ he stopped. Saying what he was about to say would c
ertainly rock boats.
‘What did you want?’ she snapped, tucking her hair behind her right ear and crossing her arms over her chest. He could see she was angry. What could he do? He was finding it hard enough excepting she was in the same room as him.
He waited a moment, ‘I just wanted to see you,’ he looked away, shook his head and cursed under his breath.
‘Well, now you see me. Did you really think I would just drive off and not want to talk to you or anything? Did you think it would be better to spy on me? Possibly let my husband see you? Chase our car down, was that the plan?’ her shoulders slumped a little and he saw the raw sadness in her eyes, ‘I haven’t seen or heard from you in fourteen years and now this?’
‘Alice, I’m shocked you would want to ever talk to me again? I wasn’t spying… there was no plan,’ thank God he hadn’t put on the night vision googles, ‘I just didn’t think you would want to see me. A lot happened…’
‘It was a long time ago, Tom,’ she’d said his name, ‘but yes, I would have wanted to see you. Of course I would. Just to see how you were doing? Put to bed old ghosts, be able to forget it,’ she bit her lip and stopped.
She hadn’t forgotten.
Tom pulled his back a little straighter. He needed to man up. Get his head in it quickly. He needed this to go right, otherwise she would walk out of here and never look back, with the knowledge that he was pathetic and weak. Part of him wanted her to be able to do that. The other part wanted her to remember and miss everything they had ever felt because that might be the only place that he still existed to her.
‘Have you got time now?’ he asked awkwardly.
It was a clumsy shot and soon as he said it he felt like a desperate school boy. What was that he was saying about manning up?
Alice frowned.
‘What for a cuppa and a chat?’ she backed away a little more.
‘Answers I suppose or questions, a drink, why not?’
Idiot!!!
‘Coming here was a mistake.’
‘No it wasn’t,’ he stared at her.
‘It was – how can I sit down with you and have a drink? That would be like cheating, I’m married you know?’
He watched her pull her coat around her body.
‘I know.’
‘Don’t you care?’
She was scared.
‘No,’ he didn’t care that she was married he only cared that she was here.
‘I’m going – goodbye Tom,’ she turned towards the door, ‘I’m glad I got to see you,’ she choked.
Goodbye?
Like hell that was it. Like hell she would come in here say a handful of meaningless words to him and then leave? If she thought that was going to cut it, she was wrong. Why was she trying to run away after just two minutes in his company?
Work it out you fool…
It had all meant something to her. The same as it meant to him. The years hadn’t eased any of that. They hadn’t taken the pain away. They had only placed new things on top of it until it was hardly visible anymore. She stepped in here probably without thinking and now she wanted a quick exit from the can of worms they had both been instrumental in opening. She cared enough to find him tonight and whatever else she wanted to hide from him, she couldn’t hide that.
‘Don’t go Alice, please,’ he said moving towards her.
Alice turned to face him. He stood a few feet away from her now. He could feel her energy. He wanted to touch her so desperately.
‘Don’t try to see me again. I can’t do this with you. This is it. We’re done. You can’t spy on someone and make them feel… weird, okay?’ she looked away from him quickly.
Neil’s idea of kidnap was now seeming like a good one.
‘Weird?’ he smiled.
She turned her body away from him, ‘just leave it.’
He watched her struggle to open the living room door, her fingers clumsily pushing at it instead of pulling. He knew in a moment of perfect certainty that he would try to see her again. They weren’t done. At least he wasn’t, not by any means.
He stepped closer and put his hand out towards the door.
She turned to him sharply, ‘What’re you doing?’
‘Helping you,’ Tom pushed down on the handle, pulled it to and opened the door for her.
‘Thanks’ she walked past him into the hall.
‘My god, Alice,’ he sighed.
‘Please don’t, Tom.’
‘You look beautiful.’
‘Don’t,’ she didn’t meet his eyes.
‘You do,’ Tom stepped out into the hallway too.
‘Thanks. The years have been good to you also,’ her voice softened a little and she looked up at him again.
‘So they tell me,’ he winked at her.
Alice smiled in spite of herself. It was the same wide radiant smile. Then she laughed.
Don’t touch her.
God, his hands were twitching.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered solemnly as her eyes met his.
She stopped suddenly and shook her head slowly, ‘Tom,’ her voice was a warning.
Don’t.
She had looked up at him with the same eyes he had dreamt about forever. But she clearly didn’t want to go there again. He on the other hand was ready to pounce, but he did everything in his power not to grab her. Instead he rooted his feet to the ground and began talking.
‘I’m sorry, Alice, I can’t change the decision I made, but believe me I have wanted to a thousand times. If it at all helps you understand how much what we had meant to me then let me tell you, please…’
Alice lifted her hand to stop him, ‘Tom, don’t say anything else. I’m trying so hard just to stand here and be strong. Please I can’t hear anything else that’s nostalgic or sad or even honest about us. I can’t take much more memory lane tonight.’
‘I need you to know. I can’t let you leave with it unsaid,’ he pleaded.
He stared at her expression, waiting.
‘I can’t know, Tom. I really can’t,’ she answered.
THE RABBIT HOLE
Sunday 1st August
Tom, don’t smile at me. Don’t make a joke. Don’t be alive in front of me. Don’t say the things that you want to say to me. I’m not the same girl, don’t you dare make me wish I were.
‘I need you to know. I can’t let you leave with it unsaid,’ he urged looking into her eyes.
He was close to her now. They were maybe a foot apart. She could have reached out the smallest amount and her fingertips would have brushed his body and she had spent the last five minutes trying not to look at that body.
But she had looked at him. Probably more than she thought, and she hoped it wasn’t too obvious.
He didn’t appear smaller or pathetic or less awe inspiringly handsome as she had always convinced herself he would. She hadn’t remembered him as an impressive adult through her teenage rose tinted spectacles. She had remembered him exactly how he was.
Tom Chambers.
He was impressive.
If she could wolf-whistle she would have.
His face was older looking – a bit less school teacher and a bit more rugged huntsman. The strong jaw and angular cheek bones still made him appear arrogant. But he had a light stubble now which suited him. He messed with his thick chocolate coloured hair the same as he always had. His full lips still made him dangerous and that cool blue stare still danced over the face and dared her to jump right in.
If she had an ounce of sanity she wouldn’t be in this conversation with him. The grown up, married woman that she was now wouldn’t be thinking all these terrible betraying things, regarding him in the same silly way she used to.
The worst part was that despite every bloody thing he had ever made her feel and all the tears she had cried for him. Her stupid eyes looked into his stupid eyes and managed to forget it all. Did the small slither of a person inside of her that was still just Alice – the selfish and lustful, carefree and bre
athing part of her – seriously want to go there?
He still cares for you.
Alice told herself to shut up. He doesn’t. He just wants to make it right.
He wants you still…
Why would he? For the same reasons she thought herself unworthy of him when she was a teenager. Those reasons were ever present and still very obvious. She was her and he was beautiful.
She needed to leave. Being here was a dangerous game if the last few minutes of craziness were anything to go by.
‘I can’t know, Tom, I really can’t,’ she whispered.
Tom narrowed his eyes at her.
‘Just being here is bad enough. I’m married, happily. Standing here talking to you isn’t fair on Stuart. He wouldn’t like it,’ she continued.
Tom frowned, ‘Wouldn’t he?’
‘No Tom, he wouldn’t. He definitely wouldn’t want me in a house alone with you – that’s for damn sure.’
‘You’re your own person, you chose to be here,’ he reached out his hand. It hovered near her cheek.
Touch me…
Was she still that brain-washed she was encouraging her unmistakable and untimely fall down the obligatory rabbit hole and into a whole world of scary? Despite her body feeling electrically charged with a mind of its own she pulled back a little from his hand.
His face looked hurt, ‘Okay, if you have to go, I understand,’ he picked up a strand of her hair and carefully tucked it behind her ear without making contact with her skin.
I don’t have to go.
‘I really do need to go,’ she breathed.
Tom nodded.
‘I’ll walk you out. It was really something seeing you again,’ he looked deflated but he was doing well to hide it, ‘and I’m so sorry about Neil and the car and the… spying,’ he grinned a little.
As Alice walked next to him towards the door she looked down at their legs moving side by side. She felt panicked. It was a hot/cold kind of panic that she had never experienced before. Every step they took towards the door was a step closer to the goodbye she didn’t want.