by Lucy Diamond
‘Thanks, Jen,’ Alice said faintly, still rather taken aback. ‘That’s really kind of you.’
‘No worries,’ Jen replied. ‘That’s what friends are for, right? Me and Mags will get you through this.’ She patted Alice’s arm. ‘Better get back to my rabble. But remember what I said – call me if you need me, okay?’
‘Thanks, Jen,’ Alice said again. ‘Really – thanks.’ She shut the door feeling touched. That’s what friends are for, Jen had said. And all those goodies she’d brought round! How sweet was that? How thoughtful!
A small burst of optimism flared inside her again as she unpacked the bag of treats. She had Iris. She had friends. Whatever happened with Jake, she would be fine, she knew it …
The phone went quiet at around six, thankfully. Even journos stopped their pestering for Friday night drinks in the boozer, it seemed. She had stopped picking up the calls long ago anyway, was screening everything on the answerphone. The only time she’d answered had been to assure her mum that yes, she was still alive and fine, and that no, she wasn’t the cause of Jake’s split with Victoria. Not as far as she knew anyway, although she couldn’t help wondering and hoping. She’d found her mobile and had charged it up, trying not to jump every time the text-message alert sounded. But nothing from Jake either.
She’d just got Iris off to sleep and was trying to tear open the packet of Starmix when the ringing started up again. She knew the drill now. Six rings, then the answerphone would start. On came the automated voice. There’s no one here to take your call, so leave a message after the tone.
BEEP!
‘Hi … Alice? Hi. Are you there? It’s me, Jake.’
The bag tore open and she dropped the sweets all over the kitchen floor with a start, then ran through to the living room. She stared at the phone as if it had just landed from Mars, not quite able to believe what she was hearing.
‘I’m just ringing to say—’
She couldn’t hold back. The one and only time he’d phoned in over a year. She couldn’t wait a second longer. He might change his mind and hang up, and then all would be lost again. She snatched up the receiver. ‘Hello? I’m here,’ she said, trying not to pant. Calm down, she instructed herself, but her head had turned to jelly.
‘Hi,’ he said, sounding slightly thrown at the interruption. ‘Um … hi. Georgia’s paid me a visit,’ he went on baldly. ‘Gave me a bit of a bollocking, actually. Told me I should call you.’
Alice was silent for a moment, digesting this. Georgia was involved? Then surely there would be a catch. ‘What – and that’s why you’re ringing? Because she told you to?’ she asked, unable to help a scornful note creeping in. ‘What is this, are you two cooking up some story for her paper together now?’
‘No! God, no,’ he said. To be fair, he sounded horrified. ‘Sorry. Don’t know why I mentioned her. Just … nervous.’
Nervous? Ha. That would be a first then. And was he drunk? He sounded all over the place. She bit her lip. This wasn’t quite the perfect make-up call she’d been hoping for.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ she said after a moment’s silence. She held herself very still, almost not able to breathe, trying to work out how she felt. Disappointed, partly. She had longed for him to make contact for so long, but now that he had, it was like talking to a stranger.
‘Yeah, it’s a bit weird, isn’t it?’ he said, and an ache started up inside her. She could picture him standing up with a phone to his ear – a flash new one, probably. His eyes would be soulful and melty, she guessed. His voice was as deep and rich as ever.
God, she had missed him.
‘Yeah,’ she said, a lump in her throat. She felt confused, torn in two. Part of her seemed to be dissolving to goo, a great thick slurry of emotion. Any second now she’d start begging him to come back. The other part still had a shred of dignity and managed to hold off. ‘So …’ she said, then stopped. So what happens now? she wanted to ask, but left it unsaid. It was not up to her to do all the legwork this time.
‘So … can we meet?’ he asked. ‘Can I meet her?’
Wham. There. The words she’d longed to hear. And yet …
‘Who, your daughter?’ She couldn’t help the jibe. ‘She does have a name you know.’
‘I know. And she looks beautiful from the photos you sent. Gorgeous.’ He sounded animated for the first time. ‘She’s got your eyes and chin, and oh, definitely your dad’s nose.’
Alice fell into a grudging silence. It was true, all of it. So he had looked at the photos. He must have studied them, even, to pick out all of the resemblances. She tried to play it cool but her heart was pounding. ‘Yes,’ she said lightly. ‘Unlucky for her.’
He laughed, and she felt weak at the sound. ‘So, where can I find you?’ he asked. ‘Georgia said you were hiding out in the West Country. Is it … is it all right if I come and hide out with you?’
They’d chatted for a while longer, and the whole time Alice felt as if she were filling up with air, floating almost. Jake … coming to see her! Coming to meet Iris! Oh, he would just fall in love with his little girl, she knew it. And hopefully … oh, she almost didn’t dare hope! – but maybe, just maybe, he’d fall in love with her, Alice, again, as well. And then they’d all live happily ever after. The End.
She got the shivers just imagining. She actually felt sick with nerves. And then she looked at herself and the cottage and decided that if there was a chance for Happy-Ever-After, she had to pull out all the stops to get it. She had to give herself and her home a makeover to woo Jake into coming back to her. She had to give it everything she’d got.
No problem. She could do glam. She could do minxy. Hadn’t done it since Iris had been born, admittedly, but she could pull something off. She’d lost loads of weight since he’d last seen her – hadn’t Katie said how slim she was looking? – and she could slip into something tight that skimmed her flat belly. And she definitely had some sexy undies somewhere in one of her boxes – unless the moths had got to them first, of course.
Oh yes. Who needed Gok Wan anyway? Alice Johnson was going to make a big, big impression on Jake. He wouldn’t know what had hit him.
Seconds later, she’d launched Operation Foxy. She tied her hair off her face in an old paisley scarf and began on her eyebrows. Goodness, she’d neglected them! They were so bushy, straggling over her eyes like unkempt caterpillars. She bet Victoria had hers threaded, or waxed at one of the top salons. She couldn’t quite picture the leggy actress hunched over her own magnifying mirror, yelping and cringing like she was as she got to work with the tweezers.
But hey ho. Needs must. Next – a face pack. The tube of Clarins goo she’d always used back in the pre-Iris days, when she had still had longer than two minutes in the day to pamper herself, was crusty and slightly dried up, but she squidged the tube until it ran cleanly onto her palm. There. Dab, dab, dab. God, she’d forgotten how nice this was, applying unguents onto one’s own skin, rather than Sudocrem onto one’s infant’s bare bottom.
Just as she was sliding the grey goo up the bridge of her nose, there was a soft knocking at the door, and her heart almost stopped. Christ! Was he here already? Did Jake have his own private jet these days, à la Leo Stone, his character?
She went to the door. ‘Hello?’ she called through the keyhole.
‘It’s only me, Dom,’ came the reply.
She glanced at herself in the mirror – oh Gawd, what a sight! Her eyes looked big and frightened, circled as they were by the face pack. And it never really suited her, that hair-scraped-off-the-face look.
‘Um … I’m just in the middle of something, actually,’ she said cautiously.
He was jiggling the latch. ‘Mind if I come in? I won’t stop for long.’
She sighed. What the hell. Once he saw her, he’d probably run a mile anyway, and then she could start filling the bath and shaving her legs. And squeezing her blackheads and plucking her nose hair and all the rest of it.
She opene
d the door and he laughed. ‘Ahh. Okay. Fair enough,’ he said, his eyes crinkling at the edges. ‘You really are in the middle of something.’
She grinned. ‘Yeah – you’ll never guess what?’ she said, the words bubbling out in her excitement. ‘I’ve just had a call from Jake – you know, my ex? He’s coming to see me. And Iris too – he’s never even met her before!’
Dom’s face seemed to fall slightly at this news. Then he smiled. Well, kind of, anyway. His mouth tilted up at the corners, but his eyes seemed anxious. ‘Oh, right,’ he said, in a polite way. ‘And … and you’re pleased about this. Obviously.’
‘Obviously,’ she echoed, beaming again as she thought about it. ‘Hence the beautifying and the cleaning and the … everything else,’ she said, waving a hand behind her.
He looked sad, then. ‘Alice – you look beautiful in your jeans with baby sick down your top,’ he told her. ‘And raspberry juice all over your hands.’ He pressed his lips together as if trying to stop himself.
She flushed. Thank goodness he couldn’t see it through the face pack! ‘Oh Dom, you are nice,’ she told him. ‘Thank you. But really – I should get on with making myself look presentable. I mustn’t blow it tomorrow, it’s really important.’
He nodded. ‘I understand,’ he said. He hesitated as if he wanted to say something else, then forced a smile. ‘Well … good luck.’
It was only as he walked away that she noticed the bunch of white flowers in his hand. A strange feeling swirled up inside her at the sight. He’d brought flowers again? Did that mean … ?
She banished the thought at once, blocked the white flowers from her mind. Jake was what she had to think about now. Jake was coming back to her and Iris, and they were going to get their happy reunion at long last! Now … was a home bikini wax going to be too painful?
Alice was half expecting to wake the next morning with a huge spot on her nose, or for Iris to have bellowed the whole night through, doubling Alice’s eye bags to suitcase size. But no. Fortune was smiling upon her. Her skin looked dewy and fresh. Her eyes were sparkling with anticipation. Her hair fell just how she wanted it to as she blow-dried it and she didn’t get a single breakfast splatter on her favourite pink top.
Perfect, perfect. Everything looked perfect. Even Iris didn’t complain as Alice brushed her soft tuft of hair and put her into a cutie-pie peach-coloured dress with matching over-nappy knickers. This was an omen. It was all meant to be. Daddy’s Homecoming … Jake’s knock on the door … his eyes would light up at the sight of Alice and Iris waiting there for him …
God, the tension was almost unbearable. When would he arrive? He had been vague on the phone last night, said something about his manager, Jed, helping him get down here incognito. Alice wasn’t keen on Jed, whose real name was actually Jeremy, and who’d been born with a whole canteen’s worth of silver spoons in his mouth. Jed was flash and shouty, all macho backslapping and braying haw-haws. But hey. If Jed was the means to the happy ending, then let the backslapping begin.
There was a knock at the door just after nine and Alice’s heart went into overdrive at the sound. Oh my God. He was here. This was it. Make or break. She had to get it right.
A bloom of sweat prickled up on her back and she grimaced. Sweaty patches was not a good look. She stared at herself anxiously in the mirror. How did she look? Was this a face Jake could fall in love with all over again?
Hmmmm. She looked petrified.
She practised a smile. She looked crazy.
The knocking came again. Shit, he would give up and go away again if she didn’t answer soon. ‘Just coming!’ she carolled, then hastily wet a finger and teased her eyebrows flat (the plucking hadn’t been too successful after all), glanced over at Iris, who was playing the part of Ideal Baby like a pro, sitting on the living-room floor and patting experimentally at a Baby Music Centre, and …
And opened the door. She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until it all rushed out of her in the anticlimax. ‘Oh. Hi Cathy,’ she said, unable to prevent her shoulders slumping. ‘Everything all right?’
‘Yeah – but are you? Dom told me your ex is on his way back! I just wanted to …’ She blushed. ‘Sorry, is this really nosy of me? I’m chuffed for you, that’s all. I just wanted to see how you’re doing.’
Alice smiled. ‘I’m good. No – better than good. Cathy, I’m so excited! This is what I’ve been dreaming about! I just can’t wait to see him. I’ve really missed him, you know. Really, really missed him. And now …’
‘So what did he say? I mean, did he just contact you out of the blue?’
A car drove by just then and Alice’s heart jumped at the sight. She froze as it passed – was it going to slow down, stop? – then relaxed as it went by. ‘Sorry. What? I can’t think straight. I’d ask you in but … but he might turn up at any moment, and …’
Cathy patted her arm. ‘It’s all right, I won’t stop. I want to hear everything later though, okay? And if there’s anything I can do – if you two want to go out this evening or something, I can babysit Iris, or …’
Alice couldn’t concentrate. Was that another car engine she could hear in the distance?
Cathy laughed. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she said. ‘Good luck, Alice. I hope it all works out for you.’
‘Thanks,’ Alice said, her ears almost on stalks as she tried to follow the sound of the car. ‘Me too.’
Hours went by and Alice began to feel as if she were a prisoner in the cottage. She didn’t dare go anywhere in case she missed his call. Even the back garden seemed perilous. She might not hear his knock, or him phoning, perhaps asking for directions. And to go out in the small front garden, even on the pretence of weeding, would appear desperate, as if she were waiting to pounce on him. No. She mustn’t go all bunny-boiler-esque.
The phone was still ringing – the Sunday papers all trying to get a quote from her now. She didn’t pick up the calls, but the messages on the answerphone seemed to rub salt in her wounds. ‘Alice, have you heard from Jake?’ ‘Alice, do you know where he is?’
No. She didn’t know where he was. She hoped he was on his way, but was starting to wonder if she’d made up the phone call the night before in a fit of madness. Or had it been some kind of a trick, orchestrated by Georgia and her rotten newspaper? A cruel wind-up, to get her going all over again?
Her spirits were sinking. Iris had pooed through her lovely peachy pants and had to be wrestled into a different outfit. And now the cottage would probably stink, and Jake might wrinkle his nose in horror and dash off again without staying very long, and …
Knock knock.
It was half past four in the afternoon. Alice’s hair had gone a bit frizzy in the heat, her face was shiny and her pink top had got a splodge on it from lunch. Oh, and the place stank of poo now, knowing her luck. Damn, damn, damn. Still, chances were, it wouldn’t even be Jake yet. Maybe he’d sent Jed to take a few photos of Iris on his behalf. Or it would be Mags or Jen, coming to see how she was doing.
She wiped her damp hands on her trousers, feeling queasy, and opened the door.
It was him, Jake, with an enormous fragrant bouquet of pink roses. He was smiling at her, his eyes soft and warm. ‘Hello Alice,’ he said.
She felt dizzy. Light-headed. She could smell his aftershave, clean and fresh. ‘Hi Jake,’ she managed to say. He was still as gorgeous as ever. Maybe even more gorgeous. Stop staring, Alice. Act normally. ‘Come in,’ she said, even though she felt as if she were going to stop breathing any second. ‘What lovely flowers, thank you. Come on in.’
Chapter Nineteen
You Are The One
Friday, 20 June 2008
Katie was feeling defeated. Typical, wasn’t it, that she hadn’t seen Steve’s note until right at the dog-end of the working week. She’d got on the phone to his office straight away but his department all seemed to have cleared off early. Or were they at this mysterious conference with him? Either way, the receptionist couldn�
��t find a single person who could help.
She’d read his letter through until she knew it off by heart, had analysed each and every legible word. He’d gone to get a train for the conference … well, that meant it was in the UK, surely? Otherwise he’d have been getting a taxi to Bristol airport. Unless, of course, it was a train for Heathrow because he was actually bound for New York, or Washington … The telecommunications firm where Steve worked had offices all over the globe. He could be anywhere. Shit.
His mobile didn’t seem to be working when she’d called that. Ironic, really, given his line of work. She’d called his mum, asked if Steve had been in touch, had told a tiny lie about losing the hotel number and did Steve’s mum have it? No. ‘Where is he, then?’ his mum had asked, sounding slightly anxious. ‘First I’ve heard of this.’
‘Oh, you know what Steve’s like,’ Katie had said uncomfortably. ‘Always off somewhere! Thanks anyway, hopefully we’ll see you soon …’
She’d got away with that one at least, but she knew Steve’s friends wouldn’t be fobbed off so easily. They were nice enough blokes, but she didn’t have the sort of relationship with them where she could just ring up out of the blue for a chat. And what if they took Steve’s side and closed ranks against her, refused to tell her anything? What if it was already too late?
If I don’t hear from you, then I’ll assume you feel differently, he’d written. So was there some kind of deadline going on here? Had he already written her off, assumed the worst? Well, she hasn’t phoned, so clearly she doesn’t care …
Her heart ached at the thought. She couldn’t think about that now. Mustn’t let the idea of it put her off. She just had to keep trying until she managed to get hold of Steve.