Wish You Were Here

by Victoria Connelly

  ‘Are you okay?’ she said. ‘You’ve gone quite pink!’ She reached out a hand to touch his arm and he leapt in the air.

  ‘Alice!’ he said, breathing out her name in an alarming manner, his voice seeming to have lowered by at least an octave.

  ‘Wilfred?’

  ‘You’re wonderful,’ he said, his eyes scarily huge in his face as his postal bag dropped to the ground.

  She frowned. What on earth had got into him this morning? ‘Wilfred – you’re scaring me! Do you want to sit down?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I feel I could fly when I’m with you, Alice! Why would I want to sit down?’

  ‘I really think you should go home. You don’t sound normal,’ Alice said, genuinely concerned.

  ‘That’s right! I’m not normal because I’ve realised something for the first time in my life!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That I’m in love!’ he said, his pink face now practically glowing. ‘And it’s with you, Alice! You!’

  ‘I’ve got to get to work,’ Alice said quickly, perturbed by the strange behaviour of her normally dour postman.

  ‘Don’t leave me!’ Wilfred said, grabbing hold of Alice’s arm as she walked away. ‘You can’t leave me like this!’

  ‘Wilfred – let go of me!’ Alice tugged and her arm was free. ‘Go home,’ she told him. ‘Please go home!’

  She shook her head as she walked away. What on earth had got into him? She had never seen him like that before. She glanced back quickly to make sure he wasn’t following her but luckily he wasn’t. He’d picked up his bag once again and was off on his round as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

  Alice made her way to the bus stop. Bruce was standing there, half-hidden behind his newspaper as usual. He turned around to give Alice his usual nod but then something strange happened and he did a double take so fast that Alice felt sure his neck would snap.

  ‘Hello, Alice!’ he said.

  She started. She hadn’t been sure if he’d even known her name before because this was the first time he’d used it.

  ‘God, you look great,’ he said, shaking his head from side to side as if he didn’t quite believe the image standing before him.

  ‘Do I?’ Alice asked.

  ‘You look amazing. Amazing! What? I’ve never told you that before?’ he asked.

  ‘No, Bruce – you haven’t.’

  ‘Haven’t I?’ His eyebrows shot into his hairline and he looked genuinely appalled by this declaration. ‘Well, you’ll have to forgive me. You will, won’t you?’

  ‘Bruce – this is all very—’

  ‘Alice! You must forgive me!’ He dropped his newspaper to the ground and took hold of both of her hands in his, wringing them tightly. ‘I couldn’t live with myself if I thought I’d done you wrong.’

  ‘But you haven’t!’ Alice assured him, eager to put a stop to all the nonsense.

  He shook his head. ‘I fear I must have done if I’ve never told you how wonderful and special you are to me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You must know that, mustn’t you? I mean, a woman like you can’t go through life without knowing the effect she has.’

  ‘Bruce – I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  He took a step towards her and she instinctively backed away.

  ‘Alice,’ he said, his voice raspy and laced with intent.

  Luckily, the bus arrived at that precise moment and Alice leapt onto it and sat next to an elderly woman, leaving no room for Bruce to pursue her further. Fifteen minutes later, she hopped off and lost herself in the crowds in the centre of Norwich, hurrying to work before she could be accosted by any more mad men.

  What had got into Wilfred and Bruce that morning? Wilfred usually did nothing but moan about his aching joints and the woes of the world and Bruce never even noticed her so what was so different about this morning?

  Reaching the office, Alice made a hasty retreat to the ladies’ where she stood gazing at her reflection in the mirror above the sink. What was going on? She’d never got so much male attention in her life before but why now? It was more than the fact that she’d got a bit of a tan and a few highlights in her hair from the Greek sunshine, wasn’t it?

  Of course it is, a little voice said. It’s the wish.

  She shook her head. The idea was ludicrous. Besides, she didn’t believe in wishes. She’d only made it because she’d been on holiday and it had been a bit of fun. It was nothing more than that. But what did you do if you didn’t believe in wishes but they came true anyway? Alice really wasn’t the kind of person to believe in such whimsy and yet she had placed her hand on the statue of Aphrodite and made that wish.

  She thought back to the holiday and remembered the boy on the bicycle, the dark-haired man in Kintos, the babbling gentleman outside the villa and the waiter at the taverna. Even the pelican had been amorous.

  ‘What did I say?’ she asked her reflection. ‘What were the words?’

  She thought back to the moment she’d been standing in the garden, her hand touching Aphrodite’s dress.

  ‘I wanted men to notice me,’ she said to herself at last. But the pelican wasn’t a man, was it? Alice shook her head. Maybe Aphrodite had a sense of humour. The Greek gods were well-known for being mischievous, weren’t they?

  Alice left the sanctuary of the ladies’ and made her way to her desk. Whichever way you looked at it, Aphrodite was just a statue – an inanimate object. She wasn’t a goddess who could grant wishes. She’d never even existed. She was a myth, a legend, a storybook heroine. Alice was just getting carried away. There was probably some perfectly logical explanation for the odd behaviour of Wilfred and Bruce. Maybe they’d had one too many the night before. Maybe their water had been contaminated. Or maybe it was just the fact that it was spring and they were exercising their masculinity.

  Alice switched her computer on and prepared herself for the boredom that lay ahead. Actually, she was quite looking forward to a morning of routine jobs after the extraordinary behaviour of Wilfred and Bruce but, by lunchtime, She realised that there was something seriously wrong. Her inbox was jam-packed with emails and they weren’t the normal kind of emails either. For a start, there were an alarming number from her boss.

  The first one seemed normal enough:

  Alice, I must talk to you.

  It sounded a little ominous, perhaps, but it was in Larry’s usual curt style.

  The second one was a little more concerning:

  I really must speak with you at your earliest convenience. It’s very important.

  What could be so important, she wondered? Was there a sudden vacancy they needed to advertise for? Had some vital piece of legislation been decided upon whilst she’d been away?

  The third message followed hard upon the heels of the second one:

  Alice – see me in interview room number one now.

  She looked up from her desk. What was it with all the emails? Larry usually just ordered her around from the comfort of his desk. She swallowed hard, left her desk and walked towards interview room number one.

  The door was ajar and she stepped inside and there, standing by the window with his back to her, was Larry.

  ‘Shut the door, Alice,’ he said. She did as she was told. ‘And sit down.’

  ‘Goodness, I feel like I’m about to be fired,’ she said as she sat down in the chair that was usually reserved for interviewees. ‘You’re not going to fire me, are you?’ she joked but then saw the expression on his face. He looked deadly serious. ‘Oh, dear! You are, aren’t you?’

  ‘Fire you?’ he said. ‘Are you kidding? I’m not going to fire you!’

  Alice sighed in relief. ‘You looked so serious. I thought I was in trouble!’

  ‘It’s nothing like that,’ he said.

  ‘What is it, then?’ Alice asked, completely confused now. She watched as Larry paced the room for a moment, loosening his tie and smoothing a hand over his bald head. Finally, h
e came to a stop and placed his hands on the table between them, his shoulders slumped forward.

  ‘I’m leaving my wife, Alice,’ he said.

  At first, Alice didn’t know what to say. Even though she had been working alongside Larry for the last three years, they had rarely spoken about their private lives so this sudden declaration was quite shocking.

  ‘Oh,’ she said after a moment’s silence. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ She really was too. She’d chatted with Monica Baxter at a few office parties and she’d seemed like a sweet soul and they’d been married for absolutely ages. In fact, Alice was pretty sure that their twentieth anniversary was coming up. Hadn’t Larry mentioned it just last month? Yes, she felt sure he had. He’d booked some fancy restaurant where you had to reserve a seat at least six months in advance. So what had happened?

  ‘I must admit that it’s come as a bit of a shock,’ he continued.

  Alice nodded, hoping that he wasn’t going to confess that Monica had been having an affair or something. She really wouldn’t know how to respond to something like that. She’d never talked to Larry before about anything more important than the photocopying.

  She waited for him to say something else, wondering how long he would keep her. He obviously needed to talk to somebody and she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.

  All of a sudden, he cleared his throat and sat down in the chair opposite her.

  ‘What is it?’ she dared to ask, seeing a strange look cross his face. Now she came to think of it, he did look rather flushed. He wasn’t about to have a heart attack, was he?

  ‘Alice,’ he said. ‘I’m leaving my wife.’

  ‘Yes, you said.’

  He frowned. ‘You don’t understand. I’m leaving my wife for you.’

  For a moment, the words hung in the air between them and Alice wondered if she had heard him right.

  ‘Pardon?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m leaving my wife for you,’ he repeated.

  ‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ Alice said with a nervous little smile.

  ‘I mean, I’m in love with you, Alice, and I can’t understand how I haven’t noticed it before.’ His forehead was ridged and furrowed as if he was in some sort of pain and his hands were reaching out towards her across the table like a pair of predators.

  Alice automatically leapt up out of her chair. ‘I can’t listen to this,’ she said, making a run for the door.

  ‘No!’ Larry yelled, springing up from his chair with the speed of a man half his age. He grabbed Alice’s arm and spun her around. She tried to wriggle free but his grip was too firm.

  ‘Larry!’ she shouted. ‘You’re hurting me!’

  He let go but placed a hand firmly on the door so that she couldn’t escape. ‘Listen to me, Alice. You mean the world to me and I have to be with you.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake – you’re a married man!’

  ‘Yes, but I’m married to the wrong woman.’

  Alice shook her head. This couldn’t be happening – it was just too surreal. ‘You really need to think about what you’re saying,’ she told him as she looked desperately around the room for some hidden exit that she hadn’t noticed before.

  A strange sound left Larry – part groan, part howl. ‘What have you done to me?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything!’ Alice said, hopelessly.

  ‘I didn’t feel like this when I left home this morning. You must have done something, Alice!’

  ‘What do you think I could possibly have done?’

  He clutched his head like a bad actor. ‘I’ve got to get out of here.’ He opened the door and charged out into the corridor.

  ‘Larry, where are you going?’ Alice called, following him as fast as she could.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, mopping his brow with an oversized handkerchief. ‘Home.’

  ‘You won’t do anything stupid, will you?’

  ‘You mean like leave my wife?’ he cried, causing a few heads to pop up from behind their computers in the open-plan office.

  Alice watched as he grabbed his briefcase from under his desk. ‘We’ll talk about this tomorrow,’ he said, stopping briefly and giving her a strange woebegone look before leaving the department.

  Alice stood dumbstruck. This was crazy. Larry Baxter had barely acknowledged her existence over the last few years and yet here he was professing his undying love for her and telling her that he was going to leave his wife.

  She returned to her desk and sat down, her hands shaking visibly in her lap. It was the wish, wasn’t it? First Wilfred, then Bruce and now Larry. It was too much to believe that it was a coincidence. She could see that now.

  It was then that something else occurred to her.

  ‘Milo.’

  She’d thought she’d met the man of her dreams and that they’d genuinely fallen in love but it had only been the result of the wish, hadn’t it? Sadness swelled her heart as she realised that, even if there hadn’t been the obstacle of him being married with an enormous family, he’d never really been in love with her anyway, had he?

  Alice closed her eyes and sighed. Milo was in the past now and she had quite enough to deal with in the present.

  ‘Oh, God!’ she whispered. ‘What am I going to do?’

  Chapter 21

  Alice spent a sleepless night tossing and turning in bed, her head full of the images that had assaulted her throughout the day: Wilfred’s pink face, Bruce’s haunting gaze and Larry’s grabbing hands. They couldn’t all be in love with her, could they? The idea was ludicrous. And then there’d been that strange incident as she’d walked past the playing fields on her way home from the village shop that evening. The local rugby team had been out practising and one of them had looked up and wolf-whistled at her. Alice had never been whistled at in her life and hadn’t been able to keep a smile from her face at the compliment whether it was politically correct or not. But then something strange had happened as, one by one, the other team members had stopped what they were doing and turned to look at her.

  ‘Hey!’ one of them had shouted. ‘Stop!’

  ‘It’s Alice,’ another one had said. She wasn’t sure who he was or how he knew her name but, as soon as the word had left his mouth, the whole field started chanting Alice, Alice, Alice until the air was quite full.

  Alice had begun to run which had been a mistake because the rugby team had begun to run too and, if it hadn’t been for the clumsy guy who had fallen over, and the two men who had started a fight, Alice would probably have been in the centre of a rugby scrum right now.

  She shook her head as she remembered fleeing from the scene with her carrier bag of potatoes. Never before had she witnessed anything as bizarre.

  As she lay in the dark of her bedroom, the sound of a fox calling from across the fields, she tried desperately to come up with a logical explanation for the events of the day but her mind always circled back to the same thing – the wish. The wish to be noticed by men – really noticed.

  It was then that something occurred to her. If this was all real then surely she couldn’t be the only one to have made a wish on the statue. Were there other people around the world who had made wishes that had come true?

  She swung her legs out of bed and switched on the lamp, pulling on her dressing gown and running through to the spare bedroom where the computer was. She switched it on and waited for the screen to come to life. She wasn’t really sure what she was looking for or if she would find any answers at all but surely she couldn’t be the only one who had fallen under the strange spell of the Aphrodite statue.

  Alice entered two things into the search engine: Aphrodite and Villa Argenti and, almost straightaway, discovered a forum that had been set up. She scrolled down the pages, reading the stories.

  ‘I wished for true love and met my husband a week later. We’ve been married for five years now and have twin girls!’

  Another one read:

  ‘I asked the statue to help me win back my g
irlfriend and it worked! We’re getting married next year.’

  There were so many. There were wishes for holiday romances, wishes for marriage proposals and wishes just to be noticed by someone, and each of the wishes had come true. But was it all to do with wishes or was it only coincidence? The sceptic in Alice told her that only the positive outcomes had been documented here and that there were probably hundreds or thousands of people whose wishes hadn’t been granted. How was she to know?

  ‘And does it really matter anyway?’ she said to herself.

  The more she thought about it, the more she couldn’t help wondering if she was completely mad for wanting to rid herself of all this male attention and for not taking full advantage of the situation she found herself in.

  As she switched the computer off and saw her reflection in the dark screen, she smiled to herself. If she was going to be the centre of all this attention, shouldn’t she just go along with it and enjoy it whilst it lasted? Having Larry Baxter trap you in an interview room might not be a dream scenario, and a hairy postman declaring his undying love to you might be a situation best avoided, but the experience with the handsome rugby team had been rather good fun and what would it be like if she suddenly caught the attention of somebody she really liked? What would happen the next time Ben Alexander walked into her department?

  Alice returned to bed and couldn’t help smiling at the thought of being able to seduce a handsome man. It was as if the spirit of Aphrodite was working its magic upon her.

  * * *

  When Alice walked into her department the next day, she caught Larry’s eyes and saw his face flood with colour and he promptly made a big fuss about moving his chair to the other side of the desk so that he’d have his back to her, which suited Alice perfectly. She didn’t want to be the constant recipient of his lustful looks all day. So, she was able to get on with things, only once having to ask his advice on something, which he managed to give without turning around.

  It was just before one o’clock when Ben Alexander walked into the department. Alice was about to take her lunch break which consisted of a flat, homemade sandwich eaten on a lonely bench in the local park, so she was in no hurry whatsoever.