He was up against a tree on the village green, a cigarette in his mouth, burning away. From time to time it kept dropping out, before someone fetched it and put it back in. Suddenly, Toby got up.
'Alice', he said. 'I have to get to Alice', and stumbled off in the direction of the school, the back of his trousers muddy, and his shirt untucked.
Alice clutched her handbag and waited. The dance floor had filled up and the party was in full swing. Everyone was there apart from Toby, Jack and Cal. When she saw Jack and Cal arrive, her heart leaped, expecting Toby to be with them, but he wasn't.
'Where the fuck is he?' Alice said when the boys came over.
'Come with me', Cal said.
'What the fuck?' Lisa said.
'Come too if you want.'
They'd left Toby slumped in the corner of the bike sheds, promising to bring Alice to him, if he stayed put. He'd since leaned over, and there was another watery pile of puke next to him, which was slowly creeping towards his body.
'What the fuck?' Alice said, going to him quickly. 'Toby?'
Toby was struggling to do anything but retch.
'What the fuck have you done to him?' Alice said.
'He's kind of done it to himself', Cal said.
Lisa was laughing.
'Lisa', Alice remonstrated.
'Sorry, I can't help it', Lisa said.
'Help me get him up', Alice said.
'We got him here man, he's your responsibility now', Cal said. 'I'm going inside to dance. I paid ten quid for this thing.'
Lisa went with him, and soon enough Alice and Toby were alone. It wasn't the romantic meeting she'd expected, nor the memorable goodbye.
'Toby, what the fuck?' Alice said. 'Way to fucking go and ruin everything.'
'Sorry Alice', Toby managed to say finally. He retched again and then spat. 'Help me up, please', he said.
Alice put her hands under Toby's arms and lifted him up as best as she could. When he was upright, he tried to look at her, but his eyes were wandering all over the place. Alice put her hand over her mouth, partly because of the smell, and partly because she was now crying.
'Don't go Alice, please', Toby said. 'I love you, please don't go.'
Alice was shaking her head at the mess she saw in front of her. 'This is what you do because you don't want me to leave?' she said. 'All you care about is getting fucked up.'
Toby was leaning against the bike sheds, because he couldn't stand up properly.
'Please Alice', Toby said, and launched himself at her to try and hug her. He was much quicker than Alice's reactions, and held on to her for a while until she pushed him away. It was long enough for him to transfer a large amount of the sick he had on the front of his blazer and hands onto Alice's dress, and completely ruin it.
Toby bent over, put his hands on his knees and puked all over the floor. It splashed up onto the bottom of Alice's dress, before she could get out of the way.
Alice was horrified. She stumbled backwards away from him, and then ran back to the front of the school, into the dance and straight into the loos.
Clare and Lisa watched her go, but neither one of them went after her.
'Fuck it', Lisa said. 'She's going tomorrow anyway.'
Her dad came right away to pick her up, and despite Alice spending the whole car journey back home crying, he still gave her a lecture about why he was right all along about Toby. He almost went to find the boy himself, until Alice begged him to just leave it, and take her home.
At home, she tore the dress off, threw it into the washing machine and cried herself to sleep.
Mr Benfield was the one who found Toby, alerted by some of the other students. Had it been Mr Talbot, who was also patrolling that night, things might have been a little bit different. Mr Benfield gathered Toby up, took him to the art room, cleaned him up and plied him with coffee. By 10pm, it was as though Toby had undergone an incredible transformation. He was obviously still drunk, but had finished puking and could walk and talk as though he weren't. The sick smell had been craftily camouflaged by the deodorant that Mr Benfield kept in his office, and the sick itself had been washed out with some of the milder artistic cleaning fluids he kept in his cupboards. At about 10:15pm, Mr Benfield walked Toby to the entrance, and made sure he got in without any hassle. Mr Talbot was there and gave him the once over, but couldn't detect any issue.
'Good to see you made it Toby', he said, and Toby smiled before making his way into the assembly hall, keen to lose himself in the craziness of the dance floor. It wasn't the same without Alice, but he was determined to have a good time anyway. He danced like a maniac, fuelled by the huge amount of alcohol still in his blood, and angry at Alice for abandoning him. When the slow dances came on at the end of the night, he snuck outside for a cigarette, not wanting to be a spare part in everyone else's fun.
Lisa wasn't going to have that though. She pulled him back inside, and her, Cal and Toby, all danced together as a threesome, not caring about breaking conventions. Afterwards, when it was all over and everyone was being kicked off the school grounds, Toby went back to where he'd started, on a mission to finish the booze that they'd stashed away earlier in the night. There was a group of them by now - Jack, Cal, Lisa, Clare, Jonny, Catherine, Nicky, Peter, Jenny and a rejuvenated Toby.
Toby had arranged with his dad to let him stay over at Cal's house so he had all the time in the world to get fucked up again. The group passed around the rest of the booze, smoked spliff after spliff, and slowly burned the night away.
Jonny and Catherine were the first to leave. Jack left with Clare soon after, and Cal went with them, his face almost as white as a sheet from too much weed. He gave his keys to Toby and put his hand out for Lisa to take it.
'I'm going to stick around here for a while longer', she said.
'Alright', Cal said. 'Don't smoke too much and don't make too much noise when you come in.'
Nicky, Peter and Jenny went after the next spliff, which left Toby and Lisa sat there alone, stoned and a little bit drunk.
'Don't worry about Alice', Lisa said putting her hand on Toby's knee. 'There are a thousand girls much better than her.'
'Do you think?' Toby said.
'I can show you if you like, Lisa said, and closed the gap between them.
Alice's father woke her up. She walked through a house full of packed up boxes and down into the kitchen. The removal men were already there, and buzzed around her carrying boxes and furniture as they set about their work like well coordinated ants. It was all happening too fast.
Outside, her prom dress hung on the line, swinging about in the breeze like a black ghost. Her mother had hung it there earlier that morning hoping it would dry, so she went out to check it, and found that although it was no longer wet, the sick stains still hadn't quite come out from the wash. She didn't bother with breakfast - had she wanted it anyway she wouldn't have been able to because everything had been packed up - and left the house, with the intention of calling for Toby.
'Where are you going?' Alice's dad called after her. 'Alice?'
'Leave her Peter', Alice's mum said.
'Hasn't she learned her lesson already? That mess of a gypsy boy.'
'He's not here I'm afraid Alice', Toby's dad said. 'He stayed at Cal's last night. He should be back later on though. Do you want me to tell him you called?'
Alice was almost crying again. 'No, it doesn't matter.'
At home she went up to her bedroom with the telephone. While she was at the prom the day before, her parents had packed up all of her things, and already it didn't seem like she lived there anymore. Out of her window, she could see the edge of the blue bell woods, and the lake where she'd lost count of the number of times she'd climbed into the reeds with Toby, mocking her from afar.
'Cal?' Alice said when the line had connected. 'Is Toby there?'
'He was I think', Cal said, 'but he isn't here now. He must have left like really early this morning or something. I don't know where
he's gone. Hang on.'
There was a pause, before Lisa came on. 'Hi Alice', Lisa said.
'Oh hey Lisa', Alice said.
'How's it going?'
'Pretty shitty to be honest. You don't know where Toby has gone do you?' Alice said.
'I'm afraid not', Lisa said, 'but I'm glad you've called, I was going to call you anyway.'
'Yeah?' Alice said.
'Yeah, look, the thing is, Toby and I, we kind of, you know, we kind of. We fucked last night.'
'What?' Alice said. 'You did what?'
'Yeah, it kind of just happened. He wanted it, I wanted it, you know. Just don't tell Cal, obviously he doesn't know about it. The fucking idiot was so stoned he slept like a log until the morning.'
'What are you saying Lisa?' Alice said, shock settling in.
'I'm saying I fucked your boyfriend', Lisa said. 'I thought you wouldn't care, seeing as you're fucking off already.'
Lisa hung up, and Alice just sat there for a moment, the phone by her side, and her mouth open in shock. A moment later two removal men barged in, looking for boxes to take down to the trucks.
'Fuck off', Alice shouted at them, and burst into tears.
As the removal men packed up the very last of their belongings into the truck, and pulled away, leaving the house Alice had grown up in over the last eight years behind them, Alice's family following in the car behind, James excited, Peter smug, Pam sad to see her garden go, but ready to start again, and Alice distraught, feeling like her life was now over, Toby watched as he had done the trucks arrive, all those years ago. This time he had a spliff in his hand, a shaved head, tears railing down his cheeks, and what was left of last nights puke stains on the suit his dad had got married in.
Chapter 16
I left a message on Devizes's answer phone telling him to call me straight away. In fact, I left a series of messages, all of them peppered with a range of expletives that burst out of me between lengthy sobs.
'Sophia', I called, storming out into the living room. 'Sophia, he's changed my book.'
Sophia's door was shut, but I didn't let it stop me from barging in. This was much more important that anything else right now. Sophia, as I half expected, was in the middle of fucking someone. I could only see that someone's head from the back, so I couldn't work out who it was. It looked a bit like Tad, but I couldn't tell for sure, and this was Sophia we were talking about, so it could have been anyone. Sophia was sat on top with her eyes closed, and I don't think either of them cared that much that I was standing there. It certainly wasn't the first time I'd done it.
'Sophia they've changed it', I said in a whimper.
'Changed it?', Sophia said, writhing away.
'It's a completely different book', I said. 'They've even changed the ending.'
'No way', Sophia said.
'What am I going to do? The launch is tonight.'
'Ok wait one sec', Sophia said, 'I'll be right out.'
I sat in the living room and waited, while I let Sophia finish. She came out as soon as she was done, Tad in her slipstream. She sat up on the couch next to me and took the book from my hands.
'What have they changed?'
'Everything', I said. 'Everything is different, it's a completely different book.'
'That's fucked up', Tad said.
'Thank you Tad', I said. 'It is fucked up.'
'Why would they change it?' Sophia said. 'Didn't they like it the way it was. What did that woman say? 'The best book she's read all year.'
'Devizes said that', I said, wondering who I should believe. 'I thought they were going to correct the grammar, you know, dot the i's and cross the t's.'
'What does Devizes say?' Sophia said.
'I can't get hold of him', I said. 'He's supposed to be there for me when I need him.'
'Look it's pretty deceitful that they changed stuff without telling you, but it's still your book', Sophia said. 'The characters are the same, most of the story looks the same from the blurb, and it's got your name on it.'
'It doesn't feel like my book', I said. 'It feels like I'm a fraud, hiding behind someone else's work.'
'Did you read the new ending?' Sophia asked.
'Yes', I said. 'Katy and Will get together! That's not what happened.'
'Look, there's no point in worrying about it now. It's shitty that they didn't tell you, but it probably happens a lot more than you think. Try and get hold of Devizes, see what he says about changing it back. Otherwise I guess you've just got to suck it up and move on.'
'This is my book though Sophia', I said. 'My bloody book. I put my heart and soul into that.'
'And you and I know the real story. That will never change. Think of this as one interpretation of it. You never know, it might be what it needs to make it sell. They are the so called experts at the end of the day.'
'It's a false interpretation', I said, sulking.
'I had someone spray over a big piece of graffiti I did once', Tad said. 'That kind of hurt. It wasn't even an attempt to make it better either, it was just someone scrawling all over it because they didn't like what I'd done. I just forgot about it and concentrated on the next piece. In fact I think I just did the same one but on a different wall. I don't know why that matters, sorry, it was a shit image anyway.'
I held the book in my hands and sighed. I felt awful. Perhaps Sophia was right about the changes, even though they weren't true. Perhaps they did make the book better - it was a work of fiction after all, not fact. Perhaps it was something that everyone in this business had to go through. Perhaps all of the books that got published were ninety percent written by authors, while the final ten percent was done by one, or even a series of editors, injecting in a special 'commercial' ingredient to hold all the other words together like glue and make the book more appealing to a wider market.
I couldn't get hold of Devizes all afternoon. I got through to Stephanie who told me he was in back-to-back meetings all day and had specifically asked not to be disturbed, even for me. I seethed at her and told her he better be at the launch later on, otherwise I'd cut his balls off. To pass the time, and to make my judgement a fair one, I read 'Fixing My Broken Heart.'
An original estimate of this being about ninety percent my book, was way off. They'd made Will a complete willy (I don't think a more appropriate word exists), he was no longer poor, didn't get bullied at school, and was nothing like Toby, whom I'd based the character on. Katy had remained pretty much unchanged, but they'd changed the ages. My family now moved into Toby's village when I was eleven, and they'd cut all of the stuff about the primary school. There was a sort of sub-plot romance with a Lily and a Pierre, and Will had a kind of affair with one of the German exchange students who his family looked after. None of that was in the original book. The ending started off the same, but the focus of the story was on Will making a choice between Katy, his soul mate and the girl who he should have been with, and Tina, the German exchange student, who was described as dangerously beautiful, and able to capture the heart of anyone she wanted to in seconds. Tina was the representation of Will's lust, while Katy represented true love. In the end of the book, true love won out. He didn't cheat on Katy, not like Toby did on me, and the two of them rode off into the virtual sunset. It was pathetic, and contrived, and I hated every single word of it, despite half of them having originated from the original book.
When it was time to go, I felt like an even bigger fraud than I had done earlier that morning, before I'd even read the thing properly.
I didn't feel like dressing up, or even going at all, but Sophia convinced me to do so. I don't know what I would have done without her. Ironically, searching through something to wear, in the same way I had done on the night of the first date with Devizes, I found my old prom dress. The one Toby had smothered his sick all over. It had been washed, dry cleaned and worn only once since that night, and was absolutely, one hundred percent, sick free. It seemed only right to put it on, and when I had, it looked incredible.<
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'Am I alright like this?' Tad said, looking down at himself, Sophia and I both in smart dresses. 'I feel a little underdressed.'
'You look amazing Tad', I said. He was wearing ripped denim shorts and an old T-shirt.
'I can go home and change if you like. I think I've got some jeans somewhere.'
'Honestly', I said. 'You look incredible.'
Jackson picked us up, and the three of us sat in the back of his car, passing Sophia's hip flask between us. I clutched my new book as though it were a bible, and Jackson threw all of us some strange looks every once in a while.
The launch was in the same place my dad had had his. It seemed to be the place publishing companies chose to launch their books. My family was going to meet me there - friends of the family and other friends of mine too. Since the posters had gone up, lots of people had sort of come out of the woodwork to get in touch and congratulate me. 'Is that you?!' Would be the normal thing I'd receive, either as a text message, email or facebook message, depending on which part of my life they used to belong to, instead of a simple 'wow, congratulations, about time someone believed in you, I knew you could do it.'
We pulled up at the venue, and just before we got out of the car, Sophia gripped my arm.
'Are you ok?' she said.
'Yes, I think so', I lied.
'Good luck', she said. 'You'll always be my favourite author no matter what.'
She gave me a kiss and took me by the hand to lead me into the store.
The venue was already beginning to fill out, and as I worked my way through the crowd, looking specifically for Devizes, I got caught several times by people I hadn't seen for ages, all of whom suddenly seemed to want to be my best friend. Sophia and Tad went directly to the bar, while I made small talk and excused myself about a hundred times, jack-knifing from old friend to old family member to the odd journalist from invited press.
Finally I found Devizes, who had somehow located my family, and was busy schmoozing every single one of them.
'Here she is', Devizes said, when he saw me. 'Look at you, you look amazing!'
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