‘Hello, Ben,’ she said as he came level with her table. He was wearing a navy shirt which brought out the blue of his eyes and the dark red of his hair. ‘Is there something I can help you with?’
At first, he didn’t seem to notice her. There was nothing unusual in that, of course, and Alice tried not to take it personally but then he turned round and looked at her – really looked at her.
‘Have you done something to your hair, Anna?’ he asked, his head cocked to one side as he studied her.
‘No,’ she said, stroking it self-consciously. ‘And my name’s Alice,’ she said, feeling confident enough to tell him that now.
‘Pardon?’
‘My name’s Alice – not Anna,’ she said with a little smile as if she was the one with the apology to offer.
‘Really?’ he said.
‘I think so. At least it’s been Alice for the last twenty-odd years.’
Ben’s face seemed to fall. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s not important,’ she said, straightening the files that were sitting on her desk.
‘Not important? But it’s the most important thing in the world!’ he said, moving towards her and instantly setting her pulse racing.
‘It is?’ she said.
‘Yes!’ he said earnestly, staring so deep into her eyes that she felt quite dizzy. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I was just heading out for some lunch. Perhaps you’d like to join me?’
Alice’s eyes doubled in size. ‘Me?’
‘Of course you!’ Ben said with a little laugh.
Alice smiled and pushed the dusty folders to the back of her desk, grabbed her handbag and nodded before Ben had a chance to change his mind.
It was the strangest feeling in the world leaving the office with Ben Alexander. Alice swore that both the receptionists did double takes as the two of them swiped their security cards one after the other and shared a compartment in the revolving door, and Sara Fitzgerald from the finance department, who’d once been caught in a compromising position with Ben behind a Swiss Cheese plant at the office Christmas party, looked particularly cross when she saw them walking down the street together.
So, this was what it felt like to be one of the beautiful people, Alice thought, as they walked through the crowded streets of Norwich together, although she guessed that it was Ben people were noticing and not her. It really was very amusing to see the looks the women were giving him – little nods and whispers to one another as they saw him.
But he’s with me, Alice thought to herself with a big smile.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I want to show you my favourite haunt.’
They walked into the centre of town until they reached the colourful canopied market where Alice loved to lose herself whenever she needed to top up her kitchen supplies. She adored the bright displays of fruit and flowers and could never resist a quick peep at the book stalls too but, today, they marched right past and turned right down a tiny alley.
Wheeler’s was a small establishment that sold very expensive health food and the tiniest cups of coffee Alice had ever seen, but it was a cut above your average eatery and had wonderful views across the deckchair-like canopies of the market. More importantly, she was there with Ben and he was paying her more attention than he’d ever put her way over the long years she’d been working under the same roof as him.
After ordering lunch, they chose a table by the window and sat down. Alice bit her lip and then smiled at him.
‘Wow!’ he said. ‘I do love the way you do that.’
She giggled. If that was the reaction a smile got then what would happen if she started to flirt with him for real she wondered? ‘You’re staring at me!’ she said.
‘I can’t help it,’ he said, tilting his head to one side. ‘Smile again.’
‘You’re making me feel self-conscious,’ she said.
‘Well, you should be – conscious of how beautiful you are.’ That made Alice smile and Ben laughed. ‘There it is!’ he said. ‘Men would pay good money for that smile. They’d sail ships across oceans to see it!’
Alice rolled her eyes in mock annoyance but she was really lapping up every minute of praise that he was lavishing upon her.
‘I bet you tell all the girls that,’ she said, knowing full well that he’d dated half of the building society whilst the other half were just biding their time.
He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘because they’re nothing compared to you. Nothing!’
Alice laughed again. She knew these were dreadful clichés tumbling out of his mouth but there was such conviction in the way he said them that it was hard not to believe him and she did so want to. How many years had she spent gazing at him as he walked into her department, wondering what it would be like if he turned to look at her one day and smile? Now, here he was paying her all the attention she’d ever wanted and she couldn’t believe it.
‘There’s something quite—’ Ben paused, a serious expression on his face, ‘quite radiant about you. It’s as if you’ve swallowed a rainbow or something.’
Alice buried her head in her hands. ‘Don’t say such things!’ she said.
‘Why not?’ he asked, crestfallen.
She looked up and saw how earnest he looked. ‘It just sounds so fake,’ she said.
‘But I’m being honest, Alice. I just want you to know how special you are.’
‘But I’m not.’
‘You are!’ he said, grabbing her hands across the table so that they were hovering precariously over her bowl of tomato and basil soup. ‘I don’t know what it is about you,’ he continued, ‘but you’re different from everyone else.’
Alice swallowed hard. She didn’t want to say that she was probably the only one woman in Norwich having had a wish granted from the goddess of love. ‘Let’s talk about something else,’ she said.
‘I can’t think of a single subject other than you when you’re sitting so close to me.’
‘Try, Ben,’ she said.
He took a deep breath and let go of her hands. ‘Okay, then,’ he said. ‘What do you want to talk about?’
‘Anything,’ she said. ‘I don’t know a thing about you other than your job, of course.’ That wasn’t strictly true, Alice admitted to herself. She’d once looked in his file and knew that he’d studied Maths and Statistics at St John’s College in Oxford and that he was a Cancer born on the cusp with Gemini which might account for his flirtatious nature.
‘What do you want to know?’ he asked, taking a bite out of his wholemeal roll.
‘Anything you want to tell me.’
He took a sip of his coffee. ‘I was born in London and moved to Norfolk when I was eight. I’ve got a younger brother called James. He works as a teacher in a school in Ely. He’s got three children and I adore them.’ He grinned and Alice’s heart warmed at the sight of it. ‘I’d love to have kids,’ he said. ‘Hey! Maybe we can have some!’
‘Ben!’ Alice exclaimed.
‘Yeah! I’ve always wanted a large family. Like The Waltons, you know?’
She laughed at his enthusiasm. ‘I think it’s a bit early to talk about children.’
‘Don’t you want children?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Alice said, ‘only not before we’ve ordered coffee.’
He smiled. ‘Fair enough,’ he said.
‘Tell me about work,’ she asked. ‘Do you like it? You always seem happy at the office. Is it what you’ve always wanted to do?’
‘Is it ever what we really want to do?’ he said and he looked a little jaded. ‘I mean, I can’t remember thinking at school that I wanted to work in a building society. It’s not the stuff of daydreams, is it?’
‘No,’ Alice said. ‘It isn’t.’
‘I mean, don’t get me wrong – it isn’t as bad as some jobs. I know I bring in a pretty decent salary and there are plenty of perks and everything. I could be a lot worse off but—’ he paused and his blue eyes looked wistful.
‘What?’
‘I just get restless sometimes,’ he said.
Alice nodded in agreement.
‘And I have to get away.’
Alice remembered seeing the postcards Ben had sent his department over the years from different corners of the globe from India to Fiji, New Zealand to Brazil.
‘But I always end up coming back, don’t I?’ he said, popping a cherry tomato in his mouth. ‘I know! We should run away together,’ he suddenly said, his face lighting up with boyish enthusiasm. ‘Just take off and never come back. Wouldn’t that be brilliant? We could buy one of those old Volkswagen camper vans and drive and drive until the road runs out. What do you think?’
‘What do I think?’ Alice said, trying to look serious for a moment as she thought of taking off with Ben and spending whole days and nights with him, camping out under the stars and talking over baby names. ‘I think you’re completely mad – that’s what I think.’
‘Yeah!’ he said. ‘Mad about you.’
Alice blushed. She could have sat there all day listening to Ben but she caught sight of the clock above the till and realised that they were horribly late.
‘We’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘Larry will kill me.’
‘Not if I tell him you were with me doing some very important work.’ They stood up and Ben took her hand.
This isn’t real, Alice kept telling herself – the looks, the declarations and the hand-holding – they weren’t real. But, as they walked through the centre of Norwich, passing Jarrold’s on their way back to the office, Alice couldn’t help but pretend that it was and it felt wonderful.
Chapter 22
It was strange, Milo thought. One week had gone by since Alice had left Kethos and the whole island seemed empty without her. How could one person make such a difference to your day-to-day existence when you hadn’t even known they were alive two weeks before? It didn’t make any sense to Milo and yet here he was feeling as if the gods were punishing him for having fallen in love. Maybe it was Aphrodite’s fault. Maybe Alice had wished that he’d fall in love with her but then it would be unrequited. Perhaps Alice was some twisted soul who’d had her heart broken just before coming to Greece and had decided to wreak revenge on him.
He’d only seen Alice at the gardens twice but they weren’t the same without her. Every corner he turned, he expected to see her. He could imagine her standing there under the dappled shade of a tree or sitting by the edge of one of the pools, trailing her long fingers in the cool water, her sweet smile playing about her face.
Every time he passed the statue of Aphrodite, he would glare at it.
‘You’re torturing me, aren’t you? You are a cruel woman, Aphrodite,’ he told her. His torture wouldn’t end with him leaving the villa gardens either. It would follow him home and torment him there too.
What does she think about you? a little voice would taunt. You abandoned her without so much as a goodbye – that’s what you did in her eyes. She hates you. She despises the beautiful Greek ground you walk on.
‘She’s probably forgotten all about me,’ he’d say to console himself but he hadn’t forgotten about her, had he? He felt that he never would either.
If only I’d had a chance to explain, he said to himself. That didn’t mean to say that Alice would have understood, though, did it? She might have slapped him in the face and told him he was a despicable liar and it would have served him right too but he couldn’t help thinking that she would have forgiven him. It wasn’t in her nature to hold grudges, was it? She was kind and understanding.
Or was she? How was he really to know? They’d had so little time together that it was totally possible that the sweet, kind girl had all been an act. She might have been playing some game with him and he might have just been a holiday fling. So why was he getting so worked up about her? He had to put her out of his mind because he’d probably never see her again. It was true that Kethos had its fair share of what Milo called ‘Repeat Offenders’ – holiday-makers who would come back year after year – but he doubted if Alice would return. If she’d been playing games with him then she wasn’t likely to come back and, if she hadn’t been – if she’d sincerely had feelings for him – she wouldn’t return because he’d screwed things up good and proper.
Put it behind you, he told himself. You have a life to lead – a good life – and you were perfectly happy before this girl from England arrived. But he couldn’t help but acknowledge the fact that everything seemed so drab and colourless now that she’d gone.
It had been a strange week, Alice thought. Ever since she’d arrived home from Greece, she’d felt like a different person – as if she’d slipped into the skin of somebody else completely. It was the wish, wasn’t it? All the male attention she was receiving was having a strange effect on her. At first, it had been baffling and a little frightening but she had quickly learned to enjoy it and let it take her along for the ride. It had given her a strange kind of confidence that she had never known before. She was no longer Alice the Gooseberry, watching other people falling in love and enjoying the pleasures of life. She was a main player now and she was loving it.
What did it matter if it was all because of some wish and it wasn’t real? She really didn’t want to think about what would happen if the wish suddenly fizzled out and she went back to being plain old Alice whom men ignored, because she was having too much fun in the here and now.
Things with Ben were going so well. Since lunch at Wheeler’s, they’d been out twice: once to the cinema to see a rather dreadful art house film called The Thirteenth Rejection about a struggling writer who commits suicide, and whose book then goes on to become a huge bestseller.
‘I thought it was going to be inspiring,’ Ben had said as they’d left the cinema and they’d both had to laugh about it.
The second date had been to a private view at a posh gallery in Tombland where Alice had almost got crushed to death and had had two different kinds of wine spilt down her dress.
‘I’m so sorry!’ Ben had said, ushering her out into the street. ‘But you liked the paintings, right?’
Alice had stood there for a moment not quite knowing what to say. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t quite make out what they were paintings of.’
Ben nodded thoughtfully. ‘Good point,’ he said and the two of them had giggled all the way to the nearest pub.
He’d kissed her for the first time that night. He’d dropped her off at home and had walked her to her door and, under a sky packed full of stars, he’d bent forward and his lips had brushed hers.
‘You’re amazing,’ he’d said.
As she’d closed the door behind him and listened to his car pulling away, she felt as if she was floating somewhere above the earthbound Alice. Life was suddenly very rosy. She even looked forward to going in to work, knowing that Ben would find the least excuse to come down to the department to see her.
But it’s not real, the voice kept telling her. It won’t last.
Alice shook her head in denial and did her best to put the little voice out of her mind.
With all the excitement of dating Ben, Alice had overlooked the fact that spring had arrived in her little corner of Norfolk and, leaving her house one day, she took a moment to enjoy it. There were primroses and daffodils everywhere and bright celandines glowed like gold along the banks. The air was lighter and sweeter and, although there were still weeks of frosty nights ahead, there was a real feeling that the bad weather was a distant memory.
So, Alice wasn’t that surprised to see Wilfred the postman wearing shorts that morning but she made the mistake of acknowledging the fact.
‘You’re looking very spring-like, Wilfred,’ she said innocently enough.
‘Alice! I’m so pleased you noticed,’ he gushed.
It was hard not to notice his great white knobbly knees when they were heading right towards you, Alice thought, but she didn’t share that particular thought with him.
‘It
’s a lovely day, isn’t it?’ she said, thinking it best to direct the conversation away from his knees.
‘Every day’s a lovely day when you’re close by,’ Wilfred said and his mailbag hit the ground with a thud. Alice gulped. ‘Alice!’ he said and, once again, his voice seemed to deepen so that it sounded as if it was coming up from somewhere south of his belly button. ‘I have to tell you something.’
‘Do you?’ Alice said with a little whimper. ‘Only I have to catch my bus.’
‘But that won’t be here for at least five minutes,’ he said, ‘and what I have to say can’t wait a moment longer. Not a single moment!’
‘Oh, dear,’ Alice said, almost involuntarily.
‘Although, I could fill all the hours of every day until I die telling you how much I adore you, but five minutes will have to do.’
For one dreadful moment, Alice thought he was going to go down on one knee right there in the middle of the lane but he merely grabbed her hand and started to kiss it.
‘Wilfred!’ she cried. ‘Please stop!’
‘I can’t,’ he said, slobbering on her hand some more. ‘I have to show you how I feel.’
‘Well, I wish you wouldn’t. Somebody will see!’
‘Let them see!’ Wilfred said. ‘I want the whole world to know how I feel about you!’
‘Even Mrs Myhill?’ Alice said as she saw a stern figure walking towards them with remarkable speed for a woman in her eighties.
‘What are you now doin’, Wilfred Cringle?’ she asked, her Norfolk accent strong and her glare penetrating.
‘I was just telling Alice how wonderful she is,’ he explained, letting Alice’s hand drop.
‘Well, I don’t know about that but I do know that you’re late with my post,’ she said, stabbing him in the shoulder with an angry finger.
‘Oh, I am sorry, Mrs Myhill,’ Wilfred said, seeming to recover himself. Alice seized the opportunity to escape round the corner out of sight and hurried along to the bus stop, silently praying that it was running on time and hadn’t got stuck behind a combine harvester like the day before.
Wish You Were Here Page 15