I have had several long-term (longer than one night) relationships, the most recent of which ended recently (tonight) and amicably (he is still alive), and while there is still a chance that the two of us might get back together, I wanted to alert you to my current availability. I am going to try and track him down (using the GPS mobile phone tracing app I downloaded on his phone while he was in the shower), but I’d guesstimate there is only about a 50% chance of that resulting in a marriage proposal.
In the meantime, I am sending you this c/o your agent in L.A. I don’t know your home address, but you can rest assured that I WILL find out. You can call me back on 004477669756330 at your convenience (within 24 hours of receipt of this letter) and let me know when and where you want to meet.
Yours sincerely wetly,
Alvina
P.S. I forgot to mention, I look like a younger, sexier version of Angelina Jolie, only a lot skinnier and blonder and better-looking. I would include a photograph with this letter, but I don’t have one.
P.P.S. I’ve changed my mind about you calling me Al; it might make you think about Al Gore, which is sure to result in erectile dysfunction.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I would like to thank my parents for creating me. Without them, I wouldn’t be here today and I would never have been able to write Mad. Thanks for your support throughout my education and beyond. Mum, Dad, DO NOT READ the trilogy. Just wait for the movies to come out and close your eyes for the naughty bits. Deal?
Thank you to my seriously sexy Italian husband, Paolo (who is in no way the inspiration for any of the seriously hot Italian men in the novels). Thank you for all your support when I said I was going to quit my job and write a novel; it was very nice of you to pay all the bills. Ti amo.
Third, I would like to thank my amazing tutor at the Faber Academy, Richard Skinner. Richard, thanks for telling me not to censor myself, for giving me the confidence to write a character as delightfully deranged as Alvina Knightly, and for all your wisdom and friendship ever since. Go, Team Skinner! (Guy’s a LEGEND.)
Thanks to all my colleagues on the Faber Academy course for the fun and fantastic feedback. I couldn’t have asked for a more talented or committed group of writers with whom to share the journey. Lydia Rose Ruffles, Felicia Yap, Michael Dias, Ilana Lindsey, Sam Osman, Helen Allen, Sarah Edghill, Paola Lopez, Gina North, Margaret Watts, Kate Vick, and Ally, you mad, gorgeous bunch! I love you.
Thanks to all my lovely friends who read and commented on the manuscript: Clare, Chris, Sophie, Alex, Ezzat, Alessandra, and others. Special thanks goes to Lisa Taleb; your kindness and encouragement really meant the world to me. You are more like a sister than a friend, and I couldn’t have done this without you.
Thanks to my agents, Simon Trewin, Erin Malone, Alicia Gordon, Annemarie Blumenhagen, and Tracy Fisher at WME. Wow, what an incredible team! I have been consistently delighted by your insight, wisdom, and professionalism, and working with you has been a joy. I am eternally grateful.
Thank you so much to my wonderful and indefatigable editors, Jessica Leeke and Maya Ziv at PRH. Working with you on this trilogy has been an absolute dream. Your dedication and belief in this project has been overwhelming. If these novels are any good, it’s thanks to you!
C XXX
Keep reading for an excerpt from the next book in The Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know trilogy
BAD
Coming soon from Dutton
DAY ONE: PRIDE
DAY TWO: GLUTTONY
DAY THREE: LUST
DAY FOUR: SLOTH
DAY FIVE: ENVY
DAY SIX: GREED
DAY SEVEN: WRATH
DAY ONE: PRIDE
“I am a motherfucking tidal wave.”
@AlvinaKnightly69o
Chapter One
Monday, 31 August 2015, 11:55 a.m.
Mayfair, London
I can just hear Beth now:
“Alvie? Why are you vomiting in the sink?”
Because I’m shitting in the toilet!
“What, at the same time?”
Yeah, at the same time. It’s called alcohol poisoning. It’s super exciting. You should try it sometime. Bitch.
I crank my heavy eyelids open, just a crack. I’m blinded by Daz-ad brilliant white: the porcelain bowl. I close them again; that hurt. I rest my cheek on the cold, hard rim and ride the waves of nausea. I am a surfer acing barrels in Hawaii, gliding over swell and crashing into whitewater. Oh no, here it comes, again. Neon-yellow bile streaks the back of the sink like a kid messing around with a new can of spray-paint. I vomit what’s left of my dwindling stomach acid, hurling and spewing again and again and again and again and again:
“I’LL GET YOU FOR THIS, GIANNINO MARIA! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!”
Gin, wine, vodka martini, carrots (weird, I didn’t eat any carrots?), the acrid stench of sick. My breath echoes around the inside of the bowl; I sound like an asthmatic walrus, a paedo in a training pool. My head pounds and spins.
“I’m never drinking
Ever again. This time I
mean it.” Whatever.
I finally flop face down on the floor. The bathroom tiles rise up to meet me, smack me—whack—on the side of the face.
Did I actually just fall off the toilet?
My mouth floods with blood from a cut on my lip. I feel like death, but at least I didn’t die eating burgers on the john like Elvis Presley did. My body shivers on the black and white tiles: BO mixed with Toilet Duck and ocean-breeze bleach. I’m naked apart from Beth’s diamond necklace. Why am I still wearing that? I crawl, commando, like an infantry soldier, onto the warm and fluffy bath mat: my desert island in a hostile sea. I lie on my back and stare at the shower. It’s a walk-in shower, big enough for two. So close and yet so far away. I’d like to get in, but I’m not sure I’d make it. The extractor fan whirs overhead.
I’m shaking and sweating and rubbing my hands up and down my arms to stop the onset of hypothermia. I need someone hot to cuddle up to, a sleeping bag in an extra-high tog. I reach out and grab a folded white bath towel hanging from a rail by the sink. I spread it out all over my body, pull it up like a blanket under my chin. My teeth chatter. My nose sniffs. Goose-pimples all over my skin.
I sit up on my elbows and frown. I’m in a slick-looking en suite bathroom made entirely of marble and glass. Everything’s shiny. Everything’s new. There’s a swish Jacuzzi. Ritz-branded shampoo. Mirrors. Flowers. Towels. A loo. There’s a hiss as a tiny white plug-in air-freshener spritzes the room with synthetic magnolia. A wide-screen TV is stuck up on the wall. I grab the remote and turn on the telly. I have a vague feeling I should check out the news, a strange sensation in the pit of my stomach that isn’t alcohol related: let’s just call it a “hunch.” . . .
SHIT!
A picture of Beth on her honeymoon in Kenya; I turn up the volume to max.
“The body of a woman, believed to be that of British citizen Elizabeth Caruso, twenty-six, was discovered this morning in a wood near Taormina, Sicily. Elizabeth was reported missing on Sunday, the thirtieth of August, when reports of gunfire near her home caused her mother to become concerned. Our Italian correspondent, Luigi D’Alba, reports.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,
Fuck. THIS. SHIT. IS. BAD.
My cigarettes are by the sink; I spark up a Marlboro.
A balding man in a beige-brown suit stands among oak trees and chestnuts, holding a microphone just below his wobbly double-chin. (How the hell did he get on TV? He looks like a Scotch egg.) He gestures behind him to a clearing in the wood, waving a fat, white hand. A hole in the ground, cut off by police tape, a heap of earth and ton of bricks, piles of rubble, smashed-up concrete: my twin sister’s grave.
“The property had no planning per
mission. The unfinished building was poorly constructed, the house hidden deep in the Sicilian woodland. But it was an unusual scent that alerted the attention of Antonia Costa’s Alsatian this morning. Signora Costa, please tell us what happened when you took your dog, Lupo, out for a walk.”
The camera pans out to reveal a woman standing at Luigi’s side. Antonia is small and anorak-clad, her golden hair a frizzy halo. Her face is long with an aquiline nose. She looks a bit like her dog, I suppose. Lupo stands, panting, between her legs, his great, pink tongue lolling floppy and wet, his ears pricked up stiff and pointy. Luigi thrusts the microphone in Antonia’s face. She looks fucking terrified.
“Lupo . . . he sniff . . . he bark at the building. He is upset. I try to pull him . . . to pull him away, but he no move! He is a very good dog.”
Lupo barks.
“Shh! Lupo!”
She gives him a treat.
“He dig and dig and dig. He want to catch something under the building. Me, I think it is a topo, a . . . squeak, squeak?”
“A mouse?”
“A mouse! But I scared. The house, it look strano . . . it look strange . . . and then I discover a long, blond hair here. It is here.” She points at the ground. “I hear the stories. I know la Cosa Nostra . . . So, I call the police.”
Luigi nods and reclaims the microphone. He eyes the dog now sniffing at his crotch.
“No! Basta!” says Antonia, tugging hard on Lupo’s lead. “Mi dispiace.”
“The police arrived at seven thirty this morning. They recognized the site as typical of the infamous Sicilian Mafia, the Cosa Nostra. They were unsurprised to find a dead body hidden within the concrete foundations. Mavis Knightly has identified the woman as her daughter Elizabeth Caruso, who had recently moved to Sicily from the UK.”
The camera cuts to a close-up of my mother’s perma-tanned face: perfect makeup, voluminous blow dry, matching twin set, pearls. She’s cradling a sleeping baby Ernesto (Hey! Hands off! That’s my kid!), looking straight at the camera, almost, it seems, looking straight at me. It’s the first time I’ve seen her in a couple of years. She hasn’t aged a bit, like Morticia Addams or the un-dead. A single tear rests on her cheek. She wipes it away with her finger.
“She was my only daughter, an angel.”
Oh for fuck’s sake.
“A mother couldn’t ask for a more beautiful, talented, generous child.”
Her voice has that Australian twang, but it jumps between EastEnders and Neighbours like it can’t quite decide where it belongs. Behind her, the remains of Elizabeth’s villa, blackened and broken by the fire, smolder, and smoke, like the scene of a plane crash. The swimming pool sparkles beyond her right shoulder. Someone has chucked a hosepipe in there.
“A young wife and new mother, she has left her son, Ernesto, an orphan. I am completely heart-broken. I am beside myself with grief. I am literally speechless . . .”
She opens her mouth to say something else, but the camera snaps back to a grave-looking Luigi. Sicilian woodland. The dog lifts up one of its hind legs and pees on the rubble.
“LUPO! NO!”
“The discovery of Signora Caruso’s body and her suspected murder call into question the apparent suicide of her husband, Ambrogio Caruso, twenty-nine, who died only three days before. The police are investigating evidence that Ambrogio Caruso was indeed murdered too. This is Luigi D’Alba, BBC News, live in Taormina.”
I turn off the tube with the zapper.
Great.
Now they’ll freeze her bank account. I can throw those credit cards away. And forget about claiming the insurance money for the villa. Ambrogio’s will. I wonder where they buried Salvatore? URGH! This is a mess.
I stagger up and off my bat hmat. The toilet flush sounds like a tsunami. I lean over the sink and run the cold water, splash some up into my face. They’ve got Beth’s body and Ambrogio’s. It’s just a matter of time; they’ll be after me. I glance in the mirror. Bad idea. I look like a girl in a Prodigy video, like Thelma or Louise after they drove off that cliff: blood on my lips, cracked mascara, wet hair matted and messy and limp. My skin is kind of gray. I look like the one that crawled out of a grave, like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill: Vol. 2. At least the necklace still looks pretty. The diamonds are glittering and bright.
This whole thing is just typical. Why couldn’t they have found Alvie’s body? My mum’s the only one who could tell us apart. Well, I guess that settles it, then. My sister is officially dodo. I’m going to have to be Alvie from now on. Fucking fabulous. Back to square one. How the hell am I supposed to find Nino if I’m stone-broke? I thought my life was already a train-wreck, but now, I guess, it just got worse.
What am I going to do?
I peer into bloodshot eyes and sigh. Come on, Alvie. You can do it! Nino’s out there running free. He’s got the Lambo and the suitcase with the money. That fucking stronzo stole my stash. Nino fucked me then he left me. But I’m Gloria Gaynor; I’m a survivor. I’m going to fucking make him pay. I am Hamlet, I’ll get my revenge! (But a girl: Hamlette? [No, that sounds like omelet.]) I’m finding Nino if it’s the last thing I do. Right now. Let’s go. Today.
◆
I tip-toe through the lounge like I’m walking on egg-shells. Miniature bottles litter the carpet: Smirnoff, Glenfiddich, Jack Daniels, Pimm’s. Half empty, topless, sad. Shards of mirror and broken glass: a smashed-up TV. I down 50 ml of Bombay Sapphire, the lone survivor in the fridge. I sucked the rest of the mini-bar dry before passing out late last night. Hair of the dog, that’s what they say. I wipe my lips with the back of my hand. There’s a complimentary chocolate shortbread perched on a tray by the teacups and saucers. Chrome-silver kettle. Sachets of Twinings. I pop the biscuit into my mouth and chew. Better. It seems to relieve the bitter taste of betrayal, sweeten the heinous stench of hypocrisy. Treachery. Villainy. Et tu, Brute? It’s like he stabbed me in the back with my own damn knife.
Nino, oh Nino,
I’m coming for you. Nino,
oh Nino, you worm.
I see his black fedora hat abandoned on an armchair, pick it upm and try it on. It’s still damp from the rain. Marlborough Reds, leather, sex: I close my eyes and breathe his scent. I can see him now, the back of him anyway, speeding away in Ambrogio’s car, racing off down Piccadilly, red taillights on the Lambo flashing. The twinkling lights of the town.
“If you expect nothing from anyone, then you’re never disappointed.” I should have listened to Sylvia Plath . . . I should have been a lesbian. I should have been a nun.
I whip off the hat and chuck it back on the sofa, catch the scent of a bouquet of roses standing tall in a vase by the door. How did they survive my late-night rampage? Raping and pillaging like a Viking. Smashing the suite beyond repair. Keith Moon or Keith Richards or some other rock star, trashing my room. Death and despair. I was a Tasmanian devil, a typhoon, a tornado: Hurricane Alvie!
I am knackered.
I steady myself on the back of the chair—I would sit down, but it’s tipped on its side—my head feels like the aftermath of a nuclear war. I’m aching everywhere from my head to my toes. I’d kill for some coke. Or a Lemsip.
Where the hell is it? It’s got to be somewhere. This suite’s a fucking mess.
Bloodred velvet crumpled curtains in a pile by the wall. Candelabras, crystal ornaments, copies of House and Garden magazine, all sprawled across the living room floor. At least there’s no chicken. Or tiger. Or baby. (Oh fuck, my bat-shit-mother’s got Ernie.) I feel like I’m filming The Hangover Part IV . . . I really fancy Bradley Cooper. Why are the Wolf Pack so mean to Alan? I guess they’re jealous of his beard.
My love letter to Channing Tatum lies beneath the Persian rug; I pull it out and have a quick scan. Oh my God, I’m not sending that, it’s way too embarrassing. I must have been wasted when I wrote it. Lucky I didn’t have a stamp. I scrunch up t
he letter into a ball and throw it at a distant wall. In the cold light of day, I think it’s much better if Channing meets me here in person, then he can fall in love with me properly. (Perhaps not love, if I’m being realistic. I’ll settle for a one-night stand.)
And I can barely stand.
Someone’s vacuuming the carpet in the hall outside the door. They’re humming something like Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah. It’s a wonderful day. Fuck off. Rain drums hard against the windows. Of course, it’s hurling cats and dogs. My stomach growls like a Yorkshire terrier that’s just seen a squirrel jump down from a tree.
Where is it? Come on. I need to find it.
I’d kill for a bacon butty.
I slide a copy of The World of Interiors away with my big toe.
There it is! Finally, I’ve got it. Beth’s iPhone (my iPhone) is poking out from beneath the chair. I grab it and stare at the screen. Nothing. I click Refresh once, twice, three times, four. The GPS app that I downloaded onto Nino’s mobile phone doesn’t seem to be working. His location isn’t showing up. I’m totally fucked. I kick the kettle into the fireplace, throw a teacup at the door. It cracks and breaks in two, like my heart. Doubt thou the stars are fire; doubt that the sun doth move . . . How the hell am I going to find him? This app’s my only viable lead. Come on! Come on, I need to know! So that I, with wings as swift as meditation or the thoughts of love, may sweep to my revenge. I take another look at the screen. The last place that douche bag showed up was somewhere inside Heathrow Airport, Terminal 5, but that was hours ago now. Don’t panic, Alvie. Take a chill pill. He probably hasn’t charged his phone. He’s traveling. Could be on a plane? I’m sure his mobile’s just switched off. I’ll check again later. It’ll be OK. Relax, babe. Unwind.
Mad Page 35