About the Author

The two great discoveries that changed CAROL MARINELLI’s life were the Sat Nav and writing. Born with no sense of direction, Carol spent way too long poring over maps, missing turns, getting utterly and completely lost and hoping that she’d get there in the end—which she invariably did, but usually flustered and late. The arrival of Irish Sean into her life changed many things. She soon learnt that if she just carried right on sooner or later he’d re-navigate and she’d reach her destination.

Carol also spent way too long poring over application forms—she’s been a typist, a nurse, a fruit-picker, a backpacker, and has also applied to be a policewoman and to study midwifery, psychology… the list goes on. They all appealed—just not enough. Since the age of eighteen she’s dabbled with writing, but it was a rather sporadic effort at first—then finally she decided to take it more seriously. The biggest thrill in Carol’s writing life (and it still is to this day) was typing, for the first time, the words “The End”. For so many years there had been chapters and outlines and endless stop-starts, but having a full story, from start to middle to end, gave her a rush she had never expected. Of course it was rejected, but she’d got the bug and kept going till she was accepted.

These days she takes an awful lot of fish oil, and keeps a pen and paper by her bed, in her bag, in the kitchen, in the car. She loves that she can talk to friends at length about the people who pop into her head and not get looked at too strangely for it. Being published, sitting down to write every day—finally she found direction and a whole lot of new friends. A whole new way of life, really. Now, no matter what life throws, when she pushes the button for home the answer is always the same: at the end of the day, sit down and write.

Find out more about Carol at www.carolmarinelli.com

Putting

Alice Back Together

Carol Marinelli

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For Sam, Alex and Lucinda with love always xxxx

Acknowledgements

Mostly I have loved writing this story, but there are times I have just wanted to walk away—actually, a few times I did walk away, so there are loads of people to thank for helping me to keep going till I felt Alice’s story had been told.

First of all I want to thank my children (not that I ever want them to read my work)—I have to confess that it worries me a little that they think it’s perfectly normal to have a mum crying and laughing at the computer keyboard and that they have all, over the years, individually asked how Alice is doing!!

I have a brilliant friend, Helen Browne. There is no way I would have finished without her—not only does she help with the ups and downs and logistics of my life, but she also has an amazing ability to keep her eyes from glazing over as I bombard her with my plot and to nod in all the right places—better still, she tells me the bits that she doesn’t like (brave woman indeed)!

I want to thank the wonderful team at MIRA for taking Alice’s story on, especially Kimberley Young and Jenny Hutton, who have pushed me to make it the best that it can be and who have been so patient.

Thanks, too, to my mum and my sisters Anne and Helen, who put up with my long phone calls. I have the best mum and despite the distance we are so close and she comes over and is a huge support. A special thanks to Anne and my gorgeous niece Hannah, who came all the way over to Australia from the UK when I needed it the most.

I have a wonderful group of friends, they go by the name Maytoners—we push each other and support each other, well, they do me and I hope I give the same back—they all know who they are, but I cannot not mention Anne Gracie, who read a shaky draft of this book at a time when she really had every reason not to and then took the time to contact me and give me words of encouragement—it meant an awful lot. Nor can I leave out Marion Lennox, who lent me a very patient ear as I worked out where Alice’s pregnancy was going.

I would like to thank Stuart MacDonald for his enthusiasm—he is a wonderful friend and an endless source of wisdom. Thanks, too, to Shane Burns, a gifted musician and all around nice guy and also thank you to Annemarie and John for breakfasts, lunches and love and also to Raelene and Leanne too.

Yasmin Boland has been wonderful—not only letting Alice read from her fantastic book Cosmic Love, but also providing me with insightful, wonderful horoscopes every day at www.moonology.com

Then there’s Sarah Morgan, a brilliant writer and an amazing friend. If there is one advantage to living on the other side of the world, then it has to be the time difference with e-mail. I can pour out my worries at night—when the book has stalled, when things catch up, when life feels hard—and then wake up the next day and it is as if the fairies have been and I have a reply filled with love and support and an awful lot of laughs.

Anyway, these are my thank yous—they really are heartfelt, but first, last and always my love and thanks goes to my children.

Prologue

Little Alice

‘That’s the Munchkins sorted.’ Mrs Evans smiled. ‘Now we can move on to casting the main parts.’ Everyone was nudging, all sitting cross-legged on the gym floor—a mix of eager and dejected faces, because anyone left after this would be in the chorus. ‘The Wicked Witch of the West…’ Mrs Evans announced, and I held my breath. If I wasn’t going to be Dorothy I didn’t actually mind being her, but I could feel the sweat beading on my forehead as Debbie Carter got the part.

‘The Lion…’ I knew this next lot of roles would go to the boys.

It was between Louise and me—she was so pretty and blonde she’d be lovely as the good fairy.

I knew I was good at drama. I knew I had a role and that there were only two girl ones left—and with my curly hair I wouldn’t make a nice neat calm fairy. And given that my hair was red too…

I was going to be Dorothy!

Jonathon Phillips actually walked like the Tin Man as he stood up.

‘Choose me, choose me…’ I had my fingers crossed under my little fat shaking knees. I was trying to pretend I didn’t care, that the lovely gingham dress and ruby shoes didn’t matter so, except they did. I made my wish at the wrong second, though. Everyone was cheering. Louise was patting me on the back and Mrs Evans was grinning widely as, red in the face, I stood up and crashed my way through all the crossed knees.

I was Alice Lydia Jameson—the Scarecrow.

One

‘How could she not know?’ Roz snorted.

Hugh was at the table, filling in tax forms.

Roz and I were watching the news when a story came on about some woman who hadn’t known she was pregnant and had flushed it down the loo…

‘For God’s sake.’ Roz, lovely Roz, who was usually non-judgmental, was so opinionated and scathing as she said it again. ‘How could she not know? How can she say that she didn’t even know?’

And I gave a half-laugh, topped up my wine and carried on watching the news. But my face was burning, just as it did during a love scene at the movies when I felt as if the whole cinema was watching me and gauging my reaction; just as it did when Dr Kelsey asked all those questions.

I couldn’t hear the scratch of Hugh’s pen any more and I was sure he was watching me.

I just felt as if he knew.

‘Of course she knew!’ Roz insisted, even though I wasn’t arguing, and I wanted to turn around and correct her. I wanted to tell her to shut the fuck up, but instead I took a swig of wine and almost missed my mouth, my hand was shaking so much. She turned her attention to him. ‘What do you think, Hugh?’

Only I didn’t want to hear what Hugh thought.

I didn’t want his educated opinion.

Do you know, every time some poor cow flushes a baby down the loo, or it turns up in a rubbish dump, or she arrives in Emergency with abdo pain and produces a babe, or pops a foetus into her hand luggage and tries to head for home, the comments are the same—she must have known.

No.

No.

No.

She didn’t know.

She couldn’t know.

Because once she did, then it was real.

I didn’t need Hugh’s opinion and I didn’t need Roz’s either.

I could see how it happened.

I knew how it happened.

Because, Once Upon a Time, it had happened to me.

Two

Alice

It’s not something you can just blurt out, though.

I mean, when do you slip that little gem into the conversation?

You can’t.

Ever.

Not to anyone.

You just learn to live with it.

To run from it.

To live your life around it.

There’s so much that hinges on silence.

I don’t really know where to start.

If I go back even just a few weeks, it wasn’t something at the forefront of my mind. Really, I didn’t think about it at all, or I did everything I could not to—I was too busy being normal. I had a job, a fantastic wardrobe, brilliant friends, massive credit-card debt, all the usual stuff. Okay, I had a few problems, but don’t we all? I spent a lot of my lunch breaks in the self-help section at the bookshop, looking for the book, the answer, the reason. I’d tried Reiki, hypnosis, Indian scalp massage…

Forgive me if it’s jumbled at first, I suppose I was too.

Nic was leaving for the UK; her cousin Hugh was coming to stay at the flat. There was a small leaving do for her, which I was a bit late getting to—see, I was just busy being normal.

‘You’ve met Christopher,’ Nicole said, as she made the introductions, and though I’d heard her moan about her boss often enough, we’d never actually met, which Christopher quickly pointed out.

‘Actually, no.’ His voice had that bitchy upper-class ring to it and I wasn’t sure if he was English, as Nicole and I are, or if he’d been privately schooled here in Australia. As he shook my hand he held on for just a fraction too long. ‘I’d certainly remember.’ He smiled that capped smile and I returned it, but only briefly. I mean, he was way past forty, for God’s sake—I was so not flirting with him.

‘Where’s Dan?’ Nicole asked.

‘He’s working.’ Christopher’s eyes were still on me as I made Dan’s apologies, but there was no real need—I could see the relief on Nic’s face when I told her that Dan couldn’t make it.

‘And Roz?’

‘She’ll be here soon,’ I said, and I knew Nicole wished that Roz wasn’t coming—Nicole hates her friends and colleagues being together. She jumps out of her skin if we meet someone we know out shopping or at a bar. It is as if she’s terrified they might find out she actually has a life outside law—that she isn’t always this poised and groomed.

That she can actually talk about something other than work.

Oh, God, you should have heard them. It was Nic’s leaving do. Well, she’s not leaving—Nicole’s been in Melbourne for five years and she’s taking six weeks’ annual leave to catch up with her family and new boyfriend, who she met while he was on holiday here. But, instead of enjoying the party, they’re talking about some sub-clause in some clause or something. And for all their money, they were mean. No one offered to buy a drink. They just sipped on their tasteful choices and I knew it was going to be a long, mind-numbingly boring night or worse, as I saw a couple of them glancing at their watches, it was going to be a short, complete fizzler of a night, which would kill Nicole.

Why did I feel that it was my problem?

That I had to make conversation, do something to entertain—that it was up to me to salvage the night from being a disaster?

Because Nicole’s my best friend, I guess.

I went to the bar and looked at the wine list. My pay should have gone in and though I knew I couldn’t afford it, I ordered two of the second cheapest bottles of sparkling wine and ten glasses.

‘I’ll take care of that.’ Christopher made his way over and I felt a mixture of annoyance and relief as he changed my order and took out his credit card. ‘You’re Nicole’s flatmate?’

‘That’s right.’ I felt a bit awkward, obliged to stay and talk to him now that he was paying for the drinks.

‘You’re English too?’ he checked as he waited to sign the bill and, instead of noticing his blond hair or blue eyes, I saw the fan of lines around his eyes and the acne scars on his jaw.

‘I am.’

‘Nicole never said.’

I gave him a very brief smile, thanked him for the wine and made my way back to the group. Normally, there would have been a quick reminisce, or a moment taken to find out where the other was from, how long they’ve been over, that sort of thing, but he’d got that sharky look, like a real estate agent sensing a deal, so I headed back to the table and took a seat on the sofa furthest away from him.

Nicole seemed to have developed a tic—her head kept twitching in the direction of the toilets and once the champagne had arrived and we’d all wished her well for her trip back home, I excused myself and headed over there. Maybe fifteen seconds later Nic flew in.

‘Where the hell were you?’

‘I had to go back to the flat and get changed.’

‘Any messages?’ she asked, and I shook my head as I touched up my lipstick. Peering into the mirror, I could see a good quarter of an inch of ginger roots, so I fiddled with my parting to mess it up a little and made a mental note to see Karan. ‘Thank God, you’re here,’ Nic carried on, and even if she didn’t want Roz and Dan along, clearly she was relying on me. ‘It’s been awful. They’re all just sitting there. Any minute now they’ll go.’

‘Nobody’s going,’ I soothed. ‘Let’s just get out there and have a good time.’

‘Alice, you have to do something…’

See—it was my problem. As much as Nic didn’t want her worlds colliding, I was supposed to be the entertainment. I was the one who had to ensure that everyone had a brilliant time. I just didn’t get why it always fell to me.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We can’t have a party in here.’

‘Don’t let me drink too much,’ Nicole begged, and that made me smile. Nicole practically gave up drinking the day she met Paul. She used to love a night out, or a night in with a couple of bottles. Now she was constantly putting her hand over her drink, terrified you might fill it.

‘And please, Alice, be nice to Christopher.’

‘He’s awful.’

‘I know.’ Nicole cringed. ‘But please, just be nice.’

‘I am being nice.’

‘You just gave him the brush-off.’

‘I didn’t.’

I hadn’t!

Okay, I hadn’t engaged in conversation. I hadn’t asked when he was next going back to the Mother Ship and if he could get me some clothes from Next and some of that amazing moisturiser from Boots, but I hadn’t given him the brush-off.

Or had I?

‘He’s a sleaze,’ I pointed out, because he absolutely was. ‘Did someone take an ice pick to his face thirty years ago?’

‘Alice, please,’ Nicole begged, even though she laughed. ‘He’s been a right bastard since he found out I was going back to see Paul. He knows I might…’

And I felt my throat tighten as her voice trailed off. Nicole had never admitted it, but I knew, I knew that she was thinking of moving back to England—she had just confirmed it. I couldn’t believe she’d give everything up for Paul but, then, that’s what she does with men, over and over.

God, Nic knew how to pick them.

Nic always thought she was in love.

Always insisted that this was the one.

Until he dumped her, hit her, or his wife found out.

Nicole’s love life was like a really bad soap opera. Every weeknight at six-thirty she flew through the flat door with the latest instalment and, even though you knew how it was going to end, knew it was heading for disaster, still you found yourself watching from behind your fingers, scarcely able to believe someone could really be so stupid where men were concerned.

And she was surely heading for disaster.

Big time.

Which meant, yet again, yours truly would be left to pick up the pieces.

‘Christopher was a manager at the London office,’ Nic said, but I just added another layer of lip-gloss. ‘He knows everyone there. I don’t want to leave on a bad note.’

‘You’re not leaving, though—you’re going for a holiday.’ I gave her a smile. ‘It’s going to be a great night—just relax and enjoy it.’

‘The thing is, Alice…’

I just didn’t want to hear it here—I mean, it was supposed to be her party. ‘Come on,’ I said instead. ‘We’d better get back out there.’

The champagne hadn’t buoyed the mood and I knew it was going to be hard work. We were all sitting on low sofas and I told a couple of funny, indiscreet stories about the newspaper where I work—and I don’t know how I do it, Nicole doesn’t either, but the mood was suddenly lifting. People started to open up, to loosen up and then Jason—or was it James?—shocked everyone by admitting that his wife had left him at the weekend and Christopher, well, he had the gift too, because he laughed and said, ‘That’s a reason for more champagne,’ and called the waiter over. I could see Nicole beaming, relief starting to flood in, because her leaving night was going to be a success.

‘There’s Roz…’ I waved out of the window to where Roz was sucking down the last of her cigarette and Roz waved back and carried on puffing away.

She just didn’t get it.

I smoked sometimes, but it’s so unfashionable these days, you didn’t do it at places like this. If you did, you went right away from the window and doused yourself in perfume and sucked mints before you came inside. But not Roz. She came to the door blowing out the last of her smoke, and she was so out of place there that for an appalling moment I thought the doorman was about to refuse her. I called out her name loud enough for him to hear and, realising she was with the posh, champagne-drinking lawyers, he let her in.

‘Christ!’ Christopher soon showed his bastard colours. ‘Who the hell is that?’

‘Roz,’ I answered tartly. ‘She’s a friend of ours, she works with me at the paper, she’s studying accounting…’ My voice trailed off, because he wasn’t actually interested in Roz.

His reaction was a familiar one—he’d dismissed her instantly.

Before she’d even walked through the door.

She was in cargo pants and a sloppy T-shirt and sandals that were about to snap from lugging her bulk around and she’d put on more weight. Her divorce had just come through, all her old friends and even her daughter had turned against her, and though she insisted that she was happy that her marriage was over, every day she seemed to go under a little bit more. She was really letting herself go.

Dan didn’t like her. He said she brought me down and he couldn’t stand the way that she looked. Yes, elegant and chic weren’t two words that sprang to mind when Roz was around, but I wished people would take a bit of time to get to know her. Roz was the kindest person I knew, she’d do anything for me, for anyone.

She’s just lovely.

‘I can’t imagine her as an accountant.’ Christopher made some caustic comment about her not fitting in and I bristled as Nic’s face coloured up, not in anger at Christopher but in embarrassment at her friend.

‘No,’ I agreed with him, ‘because she’s not boring enough.’ Out of the corner of my eye I could see Nic tense, and I remembered then that Christopher was a financial lawyer, but instead of offending him I’d made him laugh. I didn’t see the acne scars any more, or the lines around his eyes. His eyes were blue and he was smiling at me and I found myself smiling back.

‘There’s drinks here.’ I dragged my eyes away and I called to Roz because I knew she hated going to the bar. I moved along on the sofa to make room for her.

‘I’m Christopher.’ He introduced himself and poured her a drink and he was being really nice to her, but somehow I knew it was for me. I knew, because he apologised that he couldn’t hear what Roz was saying and came over to our side of the table and squeezed in between us.

There was a frisson of excitement that flooded my veins, an awareness, and even though he was talking to Roz, and I was entertaining the table, I knew he felt it too.

I knew because I could feel the press of his thigh on mine.

An hour ago I’d have stabbed him in the leg with my keys.

I didn’t press back. I pretended not to notice.

But I didn’t move my leg away either.

I was half listening as they spoke about their children. He had a sixteen-year-old too, it turned out, and a twenty-year-old.

He must be ancient.

I mean, Roz had Lizzie really young and she’s thirty-four.

The table was becoming rowdy and everyone was chatting away, me included, but my head was like an abacus, trying to work out his age. As he dropped his phone, I expected the brief brush of his hand on my calf and he delivered.

It was my turn to have the nervous tic—I tried to catch Nicole’s eyes to get her to come to the toilets and tell me how best to handle this. I mean, there’s being nice and being nice—what the hell was I supposed to do?

‘I won’t be long.’

I excused myself—I had to side shuffle along the sofa to get out and I was acutely aware of my bottom passing his face. They must all have thought I had a bladder the size of a thimble, but I just wanted to escape. I walked calmly to the toilets even though my heart was hammering. I wanted to be away from him.

He must have been mid-forties.

Nicole had missed my frantic signals because she didn’t follow me in. I waited a few minutes then I started to walk back out to the party, deciding that I would wedge myself in beside Nicole.

‘Alice.’

I heard his voice from the disabled toilet.

I turned. And, to my shame, I went in.

I’ll spare you the details.

I’m trying to spare myself from the details too.

It didn’t take long.

He went back and I stayed there for a moment or two.

I tried not to look at myself in the mirror as I put on my lip-gloss and sorted out my hair.

I could not have hated myself more. I wasn’t even pissed—I’d had two glasses.

How did I get here?

How had my life got to this point?

Why was I like this?

I wanted to hit rewind. I wanted to go back and start the night all over again.

How did he know? I mean, of all the women out there…

I wanted to go home. I wanted to go out through the rear of the restaurant. I wanted to hide, to curl up on the disgusting floor—anything rather than go back out—but instead I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Or tried to.

I couldn’t get the air in.

I scrabbled in my bag but I couldn’t find them. There was an appointment card for 4.30 tomorrow, which I tossed back, and searched some more, then felt the relief as my fingers closed on a thin white box. It was a short-lived relief because there was only one left and after that there would be none.

Alice Lydia Jameson

Diazepam 5 mg.

One tablet twice daily as needed.

Avoid alcohol.

I didn’t know if they worked, I really didn’t, or if it was just knowing I had them that helped—because even before the little yellow pill had dissolved on my tongue, I felt calmer.

I headed back out there, scorching with shame but trying to act as if nothing just happened.

‘Where did you get to?’ Roz asked, but she didn’t wait for my answer. ‘Are you coming out for a cigarette?’

Nicole was enjoying herself. Christopher, having ordered more champagne for the group, was saying goodbye, though he didn’t extend a farewell to me.

‘Have a great night, Nicole.’ He kissed her on the cheek and she smiled back at him.

‘Thanks for coming.’

Only then did he smirk in my direction. ‘It was no trouble at all.’

I stood outside with Roz and I didn’t have a cigarette, I just breathed in the cool night air and tried not to think about what I’d just done.

‘I can’t believe she’s going into work tomorrow…’ Roz was chatting away. ‘She’s flying tomorrow night…’

‘That’s Nic.’ I went into my bag for my cigarettes and I pulled out the appointment card too.

‘I’ll come back to the flat with you after work and we can all—’

‘Actually…’ I hesitated. I didn’t really know how to tell Roz. ‘I’m leaving work a bit early tomorrow, I’ve got an appointment.’ I knew she was curious, that she was waiting for me to explain, but I didn’t and Roz would never push. ‘I’ll be back in time to pick up Nic. You can meet me back at the flat.’

‘That’s fine,’ Roz said. ‘I’ll just meet you at the airport.’

I’d been intending to cancel.

Or just not show up.

I had no intention of examining my past, but I needed a prescription and, I reluctantly admitted, perhaps I should speak to someone—not about it, of course, but about other things.

Maybe this Lisa could help.

Three

Another Alice

I liked the piano. It was my first instrument, the violin my second, but it was the piano I loved.

I hated the lessons, but I sort of understood I had to have them.

Young Mozart I was not—but I could read music.

I just could.

To me, it was easier than learning to read English—a quaver was an eighth of a whole, that dot meant you lengthened the note.

I supposed I had not talent as such but, as my mother would tell everyone she met, her youngest daughter had an ‘ear for music’.

I lived and breathed music—the classics, hymns, anything I heard I wanted to play.

And as a teenager it had been considered nerdy.

Seriously nerdy.

Especially as I’d also sung in the church choir.

Of course I’d got teased at school and hated it when people found out about my other life, but I loved hymns and singing and a couple of times I even played the organ.

Yep—a serious nerd.

There’s nobody musical in my family. Mum’s a nurse, dad’s in sales and marketing, Eleanor is my oldest sister and basically does nothing apart from look good—well, she has to, she’s married to a cosmetic dentist. Then there’s Bonny the middle one, who takes after Mum and is a nurse too. It really took a lot of convincing from my teachers for Mum to realise that she wasn’t being ripped off when the school suggested that if I wanted to pursue a career in music, then I needed some extra private tuition. (I was fifteen then. Dad and Mum had just broken up so it caused a few rows, Dad said he was paying Mum plenty—Mum said… well, plenty.)

So, with things a bit tight, instead of more lessons with my regular music teacher, Mum found various students from a school of music to coach me. I was doing fairly well and looking at a career in teaching. As well as lessons and choir and choir practice, I had to practise my instruments for hours every day—though I didn’t mind practising the piano. In fact, I lived for it. It was the lessons I hated.

Still, as I said, I understood that I had to have them and just put up with them, I suppose…

Till Bonny’s wedding loomed, when everything changed.

As far as I can remember, Eleanor’s wedding just seemed to happen without fuss. I was ten and, along with Bonny, I was a bridesmaid, but I don’t remember the whole world stopping in preparation for Eleanor’s big day—I just remember the church and the party afterwards.

Oh, and the gleaming teeth in the photos.

One minute Eleanor was dating Noel and the next we were in the church, or so it had seemed.

Whereas Bonny’s wedding was the full circus.

Bonny’s life was a full circus, but the wedding and the preparation were the worst.

It was to be a New Year’s Eve wedding—it was the only way Lex’s relatives could all get over for it, and Mum, devastated that her middle child would be moving to Australia as soon as she took her final nursing exams, would do anything to please and appease. And, as much as I love Bonny, boy, did she take full advantage of the situation.

I was seventeen and full of teenage angst and wondering if I’d ever lose my virginity, especially since I’d never even been kissed. I was heavily in love with Gus, my latest music tutor, and I was also very aware that I was behind on piano practice and my exams were just a few months away. Which sounds ages, but it really wasn’t.

Not that any of this mattered to Bonny.

Lex, Bonny’s fiancé, was a sexy six-foot-three Australian who worked for some international pharmaceutical company and was helping to compile statistics both here and in America. They had met at the hospital Bonny worked at, had fallen in love and within three months had got engaged.

Everyone said Bonny was too young to marry, but Lex refused anything less. He didn’t want to live with her—if she was going to take the leap and move to Australia, then it would be as his wife.

He’s a nice guy, Lex.

A really nice guy, and even if Bonny was a bit young, I could understand why she didn’t want to let him go.

I had a crush on him—of course I did—I had a crush on everyone!

Bonny went a touch crazy in the weeks before the wedding: it was colour schemes and flowers and cakes and invitations. The whole house was wedding central. I couldn’t practise my violin or piano for two weeks before the big day. Really, I didn’t mind missing the violin, I could make up the time later, but I don’t think I’d ever been even two days without playing the piano. I didn’t just practise… I played. If I was tired, if I was depressed, if I’d been teased, if I’d had a shit day, I’d play. It didn’t lift me, instead it met me. I could just pour it out and hear how I was feeling.

Sometimes I glimpsed it—this zone, a place, like a gap that I stepped into and filled with a sound that was waiting to be made.

There’s no one else I can talk about it with, except for Gus—he gets it. Gus says that playing is a relief.

He’s right, that’s what it feels like sometimes—relief.

An energy that builds and it has to be let out somewhere.

It’s more than relief—it’s release.

Or it would be if it didn’t upset Bonny.

Everything upset Bonny.

Everything was done to appease her.

Which was why I had been forced to wear pink.

A sort of dusky pink, which was fashionable, my mum insisted—as if she would know. As if a size twenty, middle-aged woman with bad teeth and the beginnings of a moustache would know.

I hated it—I hated it so much, there was no way I was going to wear it. But my threats fell on deaf ears. It was Bonny’s Special Day—and what was a bit of public humiliation to a seventeen-year-old as long as the bride was smiling?

So I wrote reams of pages of ‘I hate Bonny’, ‘I want to kill Bonny’ and ‘I want to gouge out her eyes’ as I lay on my bed the afternoon before the wedding with the beastly pink dress hanging up in plastic on my wardrobe. I had my period and was having visions of flooding in the aisle, and to add to the joy, the hairdresser was here and, as anyone with frizzy red hair would understand, I wasn’t looking forward to that either.

I lay down and imagined that it was me getting married and not Bonny.

That sexy Lex only had eyes for me.

Then I felt bad—I mean, I might hate her but she is my sister—so I moved my fantasy over to Gus instead.

Except he was already married…

Apparently you couldn’t wash your hair on the day of the wedding, because the spectacular style Bonny had finally chosen after several screaming trips wouldn’t stay up on newly washed hair. So she was being blow-dried while I washed my hair and then the hairdresser would dry it with a diffuser and put in loads of product and then pin it up tomorrow. We’d had a practice a couple of weeks before and it had looked suitably disgusting but, again, I’d been told to shut up and not complain because it was Bonny’s Special Day.

So I washed my hair and I sat sulking in the kitchen as Bonny’s hair was being blow-dried, and then Eleanor’s was blow-dried too. Mum wasn’t having hers put up, so she was getting ‘done’ tomorrow, and as I moved to the stool, perhaps seeing my expression when the hairdresser took out her scissors, Mum tried to appease me. She couldn’t give a shag that I hated hairdressers and hated, hated, hated getting it trimmed—no, she just didn’t want me making a scene and upsetting Bonny.

‘It’s just a little trim,’ Mum warned, clucking around and trying to pour cold water on the cauldron of hate we were all sitting in before it exploded. ‘Oh, I didn’t tell you, I rang Gus and you can have an extra piano lesson,’ Mum said to my scowling face. ‘He’s working over the holiday break and he can fit you in on Monday.’

Now, that did appease me.

You see, Gus wasn’t like the usual, scurf-ridden, vegan tutors that Mum had found for me in the past. He was as sexy as hell, with brown dead-straight hair, no hint of dandruff and dark brown eyes that roamed over me for a little bit too long sometimes. He smelt fantastic too. Sometimes when he was leaning over me, or sitting beside while I played, I was scared to breathe because the scent of him made me want to turn around and just lick him! Like Lex, he was from Australia (they must make sexy men there—I was thinking of a gap year there to sample the delights). Gus spoke to me, instead of down to me. He spoke about real things, about his life, about me. Once when his moody bitch of a wife walked in on our lesson and reminded him that he’d gone over the hour, it came as a surprise to realise that we had. Instead of playing, for those last fifteen minutes we’d been talking and laughing and I felt a slight flurry in my stomach, because I knew that when I left there would be a row.

He started to tell me more and more about his problems with Celeste and I lapped every word up and then wrote it in my diary each night—analysing it, going over and over it, looking for clues, wishing I’d answered differently, wondering if I was mad to think that a man as sexy as Gus might somehow fancy me… but I felt that he did. He told me that he had intended that the sexy Celeste, who—and Gus and I giggled when he told me—played the cello, would be a fling. Well, she was now almost six months pregnant, his visa was about to expire, and he and Celeste would be going back to Melbourne once the baby was born—but for now he was broke and miserable and completely trapped. The sexy cello player he had dated was massive with child and the only thing, Gus had told me bitterly, that was between her legs these days was her head as she puked her way through pregnancy—not her cello, and certainly not him.

I loved Gus—he wasn’t like a teacher. And even though I knew Mum was paying him to be one, for that hour, once a week, I was more than his pupil. I was the sole focus of his attention—and I craved it.

He was so funny and sexy, and I couldn’t stand the thought of him going back to Melbourne, or even understand why the hell he put up with Celeste and her moods.

She was a bitch. She didn’t say hi to me, didn’t look up and say goodbye when the lesson was over. Occasionally she’d pop her head in and say something to Gus and look over me as if I were some pimply teenager, which of course I was. She thought she was so fucking gorgeous, wearing tight dresses and showing off her belly and massive boobs, but I knew how Gus bitched about her.

Actually, at our lesson yesterday he’d told me a joke. He knew I was as fed up with Bonny’s wedding as he had been with his and as I packed up my music sheets and loaded my bag and headed for the door, he called me back.

‘Hey, Alice.’ He smiled up at me from the piano stool. ‘Why does a bride smile on her wedding day?’

I could feel his dark eyes on my burning cheeks and I shrugged—I hate jokes, I never get them, oh, I pretend to laugh, but I never really get them.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Because she’s given her last blow job!’

I didn’t really get it. I laughed and said goodnight. I knew what a blow job was, sort of—I hadn’t even kissed a guy. I even told Bonny the joke when I got home but she wasn’t too impressed.

It was only that night as I lay in bed that I sort of got it, that I realised he was talking about Celeste.

I lay there feeling grown up—thought about Mandy Edwards and her snog with Scott, thought about Jacinta Reynolds and her fumble with Craig, a boy in lower sixth.

Gus was twenty-two.

It made me feel very grown up indeed.

Four

I was expecting offices. Nice, bland offices, but as I turned into the street I saw that it was a house, and better still there was a large sign that displayed to all and sundry that I was entering a psychologist’s practice.

Really. You’d think they’d be more discreet and write ‘Life Coaching’ or something.

A very bubbly receptionist greeted me and handed me a form to fill in. She told me to take a seat with the other psychopaths and social misfits and that Lisa would call me in soon.

God, I so did not belong here. There was a couple, sitting in stony silence, who were presumably here for marriage counselling (and from the way he rolled his eyes when she had the audacity to get up and get a drink from the water cooler, I didn’t fancy their chances much). Then there was a huge guy with a face like a bulldog who had probably been sent by the courts for anger management. There was, though, one fairly normal-looking guy, who was reading a magazine. He was rather good looking and he gave me a smile as he caught my eye, but I quickly looked away—I mean, normally I’d have been making conversation by now, but I had some standards, and refused to be chatted up in a psychologist’s waiting room. I mean, God alone knows what he was there for.

And what would you say when people asked where you met?

Mind you, I did feel guilty for snubbing him and when I saw him look at me again, I gave him a sort of sympathetic, understanding smile, just in case he was normal and was here for grief counselling. I started on the form and the disclaimers, telling them who my GP was, my job (er… why?) and filling in all the little boxes. I ticked my way merrily through the form—though it was completely unnecessary. What business of theirs was it where I worked? Or if I was at any risk of blood-borne diseases or had heart problems or had been involved in a workplace accident. I was here for a chat, not cardiac surgery. Mind you, I almost ticked ‘No’ to allergies, but quickly moved my pen to the ‘Yes’ box and in the bit below, where I had to elaborate, I wrote: ‘Hazelnuts—cause shortness of breath and lips to swell.’

And on the bit about current medication I made sure to remind this Lisa why I was here and boldly wrote my order.

Valium.

I put Roz down as my emergency contact, even though she had no idea I was here.

A woman, presumably Lisa, opened the door and gave me a patronising smile as she took my forms, then invited me to follow her.

On sight I didn’t like her.

I certainly couldn’t imagine myself relating to her, or her to me. She was a big woman, about sixty, with massive, pendulous breasts. Worse, she wore a really low-cut olive top, so you could see her crêpe chest and cleavage. Add to that a flowing A-line, snot-green skirt, green sandals. And she had accessorised with—in case we hadn’t noticed her colour choice for today—a huge jade necklace.

There were four seats for me to choose from. No doubt the one I chose would mean something, and I hesitated for a moment, before settling for the one in the middle.

‘Excuse all the furniture…’ She gave a pussycat smile. ‘I had a family in before you.’

Lucky them, then.

I put down my bag, checked my keys were there, zipped it up and sat back. There was a bowl of sweets on her desk, cola bottles, snakes, wine gums, all my favourites really, and I stared at them instead of her.

‘So…’ Lisa finally broke the silence. ‘What brought you here today?’

I so did not need this. Last night had been a one-off drunken mistake, I’d by now decided, and I’d learnt my lesson—I was never mixing alcohol with Valium again.

‘Okay,’ she said to the ensuing silence. ‘Why don’t you tell me about Alice?’ I could feel a really inappropriate smile start to wobble on my lips. I couldn’t believe I was sitting in a psychologist’s office being asked to discuss me in the third person. ‘Alice is English?’

‘She is,’ my twitching lips answered.

Well, we skirted around for a bit, I told her I had to leave promptly, that my flatmate was going to the UK and I had to take her to the airport.

‘Nicole’s English as well?’ Lisa checked.

‘She’s been here five years,’ I said. ‘She’d never leave.’

Lisa wrote a little note but I couldn’t make out what it was.

‘You’ll miss her?’

‘I guess,’ I admitted. Though lately we hadn’t been getting on too well. Not that I’d tell Lisa that, so instead I mentioned that Nicole’s cousin Hugh, a doctor, was arriving in a couple of days and staying till he found somewhere near the hospital to live.

‘You don’t look too pleased.’

‘I like my own company.’ I shrugged. ‘I was looking forward to a few weeks to myself.’

Actually, that had nothing to do with it.

Normally I’d be thrilled to have the good doctor to myself, but I’d found out from Nic that he was a redhead—need I say more?

I know that sounds anti-redhead, but I’m allowed to be, because I am one.

Think Ronald McDonald meets Shirley Temple.

I had the kind of hair that stopped old ladies in the street, made them pat it as they chattered away to my mother.

‘Beautiful hair. Of course, she’ll hate it later.’

I hated it already. By the time I was six it regularly reduced me to tears. Hour after hour was spent in front of my mother’s dressing-table mirror trying to brush out the curls. Night after uncomfortable night was spent sleeping with pins speared into my scalp in the hope of producing a straight fringe by morning. And as for the colour! I’d barely hit puberty before I bought my first hair dye and even now a very significant portion of my monthly pay cheque is spent on foils, serum, ceramic straighteners, regular blow-dries and, if I ever save up enough, I’m getting that Brazilian keratin treatment.

Though I digress, there is a point—my hair is now strawberry blonde and straight. For the first time in my life I’m actually pleased with my hair and I do not need a reminder of the au naturel version of myself walking around the flat.

Not that Lisa needed to hear that.

Honestly, it was the most boring, pointless hour of my life.

Yes, I suppose sometimes I did get a bit homesick.

Yes, I’d been here for nearly ten years now since my sister Bonny had got married and emigrated.

‘But you only initially came to Melbourne for a year?’

‘That’s right.’ I nodded. ‘I just loved it, though. I got a good job…’

‘Doing what?’

‘Working on the classifieds section at the newspaper. Well, it was a good job at the time.’

‘And you’re still there?’ She peered at the form I had filled in.

I felt myself pink up just a little bit. ‘I’m a team manager now and I do web updates.’ I gave a little shrug. ‘It’s not my ideal job, of course…’

‘What is your ideal job?’

‘I don’t know…’ another shrug ‘… something in music, I suppose. My exam results weren’t great. That was one of the reasons I came in the first place—to have a break and work out what I was going to do.’

We chatted some more, or rather she dragged information out of me. ‘And are the rest of your family here?’

‘Just Bonny. My mum and Eleanor, she’s the oldest, live back in the UK.’

‘And your father?’

I felt my face redden. I mean, I hadn’t meant to leave him out. ‘He’s in the UK too.’ I waited for her to scribble something down, but she didn’t. ‘They’re divorced. I speak to him and everything… it’s no big deal.’

‘When did they divorce?’

‘When I was fifteen.’

Well, it would seem that I had my Valium. She pounced on the fact my parents were divorced. Really, she worried away at it for the rest of the hour. How did I feel when they broke up, had there been rows? I couldn’t convince her that it hadn’t been that bad. I mean, you hear all these terrible tales, but the truth is, Mum let herself go after I came along, Dad met Lucy and left. We still saw him. Every Friday night we stayed over while Mum did a night shift, and then on Saturday lunchtime he took us to the pub for lunch, just as he had done when they were still married. Mum had been upset, of course—depressed, in hindsight—but it really wasn’t that much of a big deal at the time. I told Lisa that as she started jotting down a little family tree and making copious notes.

‘Look, I’m not here about that.’ And I supposed, if I wanted the prescription, I was going to have to tell her. ‘I had an anxiety attack.’ My cheeks were flaming as I cringed at the memory of Olivia’s leaving do last week. Everyone gathering around, offering me water, paramedics, being strapped to a stretcher and taken down in the lifts and out onto the street. ‘Really, I’m not even sure that it was an anxiety attack—the doctors at the hospital thought it might be an allergic reaction.’ She frowned. ‘I had a similar thing when I was seven and I ate hazelnuts.’ But still she just sat there. ‘The medicine they gave me at the hospital really helped, though.’

‘The Valium?’

‘Yes.’ I gave a little swallow. ‘I’m worried it might happen again, but if I had some Valium, just till I get the allergy tests done…’

‘You could just avoid hazelnuts!’ I swear her eyes crinkled. Honestly, I felt as if she was laughing at me, which she couldn’t be, of course.

But then she did.

She laughed.

I couldn’t believe it. She didn’t sit there and roar, but she gave a little laugh that made her shoulders go up. The type you do when you say something amusing, only this wasn’t funny.

I’d get her struck off.

If she didn’t give me my script.

‘Okay.’ She glanced at her watch and managed to contain herself enough for another little scribble on her pad. ‘If you can make an appointment again for about two weeks’ time. Now, don’t be surprised if you feel a bit unsettled over the next couple of days—we’ve touched on some sensitive areas.’

Which was news to me.

‘But what about…?’ I gave a nervous swallow as she stood. ‘The doctor said I should see a psychologist if I needed more Valium. He was only comfortable giving me ten.’

‘That’s very sensible.’

God, she wasn’t making this easy—I wasn’t asking her to buy them, just to write the bloody script.

I decided to go for direct. ‘Do you think you could write me up for some?’

‘I don’t prescribe medication.’

What the hell? My ears were ringing from her words as she droned on. I’d been through all of this, all of this, and she still refused to write me up for drugs—what did she suggest then? Was she some sort of alternative psychologist, was she going to suggest meditation? ‘I’m happy to write a note for your GP explaining that you are seeing me.’

‘But the doctor at the hospital said I should come and see you.’ I could hear my voice rising. I’d taken my last Valium yesterday and I had none left.

None.

‘The doctor was recommending counselling, Alice. Your GP, if she does feel you need medication, is likely to suggest the same.’ She read my stunned expression and twisted the knife. ‘Even if I thought you needed it, I’m not qualified to prescribe medication.’

Well, what was the bloody point of that? I huffed, as I paid and left.

I was late for Nic. I’d wasted an hour talking about a stupid divorce that had happened more than a decade ago, and she’d charged me one hundred and twenty dollars for the pleasure. I hadn’t even got a script—let alone a single bloody insight.

I was not best pleased, I can tell you.

Five

I hate airports.

You know at the beginning of Love Actually where Hugh (Grant, not the ginger one that’s coming to stay) says you just have to go to the Arrivals at Heathrow to witness love, or something along those lines?

Well, there’s a flip side to that.

Departures.

If there is a hell, then for me it will be Departures at an international airport.

I won’t be shovelling coal for eternity into a furnace. Instead, one by one I’ll have to say goodbye to everyone I love and watch them disappear. It will be constant, it will be perpetual, and once I’ve said goodbye to everyone, just when I think I’ve got through it—it will start over again.

That’s my hell.

And contrary to Arrivals, after which you drive home with your loved ones and you can’t stop talking because there’s so much to catch up on, so much to say, the drive to Departures is a nightmare.

Every time.

Nicole was furious with me because I didn’t get back till ten to six and she wouldn’t let it drop.

‘I wasn’t late!’ I could see the picture of an aeroplane on the road signs for those who can’t read or can’t speak English. I needed to change lanes or we’d miss the turn-off, and I actually thought about it—honestly, that would have given her something to moan about. ‘You said we had to leave by six and we did!’

‘You’re so bloody selfish sometimes, Alice. You didn’t even answer my texts. Could you not just have come home? What was so important?’

‘I got stuck at work.’

I heard her snort and I turned and glared at her, which wasn’t a good idea, given I was going at a hundred down the freeway. ‘What? Just because I’m not some hotshot lawyer, I can’t be busy at work?’

‘Alice!’ Nicole was shrinking back in her seat and I turned my attention back to the road, but I was so angry I could spit. Just because I didn’t work in some top-notch job she assumed I couldn’t possibly know busy.

‘Why didn’t you tell me Paul rang last night?’

‘What?’

‘You know what, Alice?’ I didn’t want to know, but she told me anyway. ‘I think you’re jealous. I think you’re jealous of me and Paul.’

It was me snorting then.

I couldn’t stand Paul.

I mean, I could not bear him.

He was the most arrogant man I’d ever met.

And he’s stupid.

I’ve nothing against stupid people—but stupid people who think that they’re clever just set my teeth on edge. Never mind Nicole’s a lawyer, he’s opening a coffee shop. It’s all he talks about. From the day I met him till the day he—thankfully—went back to the UK, it’s all he spoke about.

He’s going to have a loyalty card for his customers. For every ten coffees they get a free one and—wait for it—on their birthdays, if they have their driver’s licence with them and can prove that it is their birthday, well, they’ll get a free one on that day too. Oh, and he’s got this really good idea about providing the daily papers and current magazines for his customers. I kept waiting for the punch line. I kept waiting for him to walk into any other coffee shop in any other street and have a complete breakdown because someone had stolen his idea. Honestly, I have sat there cross-eyed listening to him droning on and on so many times.

And Nic thought I was jealous.

‘You’ve done everything you can to dissuade me from going.’

‘I’m driving you to the airport,’ I pointed out.

We were at the turn-off and I felt like pulling over and dumping her stuff on the side of the road and letting her walk.

‘You knew I was worried that he hadn’t called, you knew I was panicking he was having second thoughts whether he wanted me to come, and you didn’t even tell me he’d called. You didn’t even write it down.’

‘I forgot, okay?’ We were at the short-term car parking and I wound down my window to press the button.

‘Use your credit card,’ Nic said. This, from a woman who pays her monthly balance in full and sometimes a little extra too on the day her statement comes. ‘It’ll be easier for you getting out.’

Not with my credit card. I pushed the button and took a ticket and I heard her irritated sigh because I hadn’t taken her advice.

I couldn’t stand this.

She was going.

In an hour or so she’d be gone and I didn’t want it to end on a row.

‘I just…’ We were through the barrier and going up the levels. ‘He rang just as I was dashing out. I knew you were waiting and I couldn’t find a pen—I just forgot, okay? I’m sorry.’ The place was packed and we drove around but ended up going up another level and I knew I hadn’t mollified her.

I didn’t want her to leave on a row.

I didn’t want her to leave on a row because it would make it easier for her to never come back.

‘I’m not jealous, Nicole.’ I found a parking spot, it was narrow and it would be hell getting out, but I squeezed in. ‘I’m just…’

‘Just what, Alice? Go on, just say it.’

How, though?

‘Just what, Alice?’ She insisted to my rigid face. ‘Come on, if you’ve got something to say then I want to hear it.’

‘I’m worried about you.’ I turned and looked her square in the eye and she stared right back. ‘Remember how badly you took it when Dean broke up with you?’

‘Paul’s nothing like Dean.’

‘Off course he’s not,’ I said quickly, and then paused for a moment. ‘But he does live on the other side of the world. I’m just worried how you’re going to be if it all ends.’

‘It might not end,’ Nicole said firmly, ‘and if it does then I’ll deal with it. You don’t have to worry about me, Alice. I’m not like I was when Dean broke up with me. I know I was a mess, I know I must have been a pain to live with and how great you were and everything, but that was years ago.’

‘There have been others since then, though,’ I pointed out gently. ‘And you always seem so…’ I struggled to find a softer word than the one that was on the tip of my tongue, but none was forthcoming. ‘So devastated when you break up with someone. You’ve got so much pinned on this trip; I’m just scared you’re…’

‘Heading for a fall?’ Nicole asked, and I nodded, not sure how she’d take it, so I was infinitely relieved when she leant over and wrapped me in a hug.

‘Oh, Alice, that’s so like you.’ She hugged me tighter. ‘Always worrying about other people, and I suppose with my track record…’ She gave a little laugh and pulled away. ‘I know I’ve been an idiot over guys in the past, but I’ve grown up since then. I’m a lawyer, I see women every day moving on with their lives after their relationships break up—I’m not going to crumple in a heap if Paul and I finish.’

‘I know. I’m just concerned for you, that’s all.’

‘Well, you don’t have to be,’ Nicole said, but her words were gentler now.

‘I’m sorry I forgot to tell you he rang.’

‘I’m sorry for bringing it up, I was being stupid.’

And I left it at that.

We were friends again.

That was all that mattered.

We made an odd little group. We were rarely all together but Nic seemed genuinely delighted that we’d made the effort.

Dan was there waiting, the most beautiful man on God’s earth, and his face lit up when he saw me. I just fell into his arms and stayed there for a moment.

He knows me better than anyone.

He knew, more than anyone, how hard tonight was for me.

He just didn’t know it all.

‘She’ll be back,’ Dan said, and kissed the top of my head and held me for a moment. ‘How was last night?’

‘Great.’ My face burnt in shame against his chest for a full minute before I could bring myself to look up. ‘You missed a good night.’

Roz was there too. In contrast to Dan and his suit, Roz was in last night’s cargo pants and T-shirt.

‘Come on,’ said Dan as he let me go. ‘Let’s go and have a drink.’

‘I can’t, I’m driving.’

‘You can have one,’ Dan said, but I shook my head and the three of us found a seat as he went to the bar.

I never got that—I mean, what is the point of having one?

Why would you sit there nursing one gin and tonic when you know you can’t have another?

I’d rather just go without.

‘What time do you have to go through?’ Roz asked, and Nicole glanced at her watch.

‘Not for another hour.’

My lips pursed a touch—all that carry-on and we had to sit here for an hour.

Dan was up at the bar, ordering the drinks, and I was thinking that maybe I should have one after all, because sitting here trying to make small talk, trying to pretend that in fifty-six minutes we wouldn’t be saying goodbye with that awful music hitting every nerve, was more than I could bear.

You know those two-way mirrors at airports?

I assume you think, like I used to, that customs officers are standing behind them, checking you out. Watching how you walk in case you’ve got half a kilo of crack cocaine concealed in your privates.

Well, they’re not.

Instead they’re standing there pissing themselves laughing as they choose the next song and watch the public’s reaction.

I swear that’s what they’re doing.

It’s bad enough your loved ones are leaving, but to have to sit and listen to that…

I love music, I love songs, I love lyrics, I love notes, and every last one at the departure lounge is, I’m sure, designed to encourage suicide.

And that won’t end it though, oh, no, because suicide’s a sin, so you’ll end up in hell. A hell I’ve just upgraded, because not only will you perpetually be saying goodbye to your loved ones, they’ll have the music that most gets to you, playing over and over, as you do.

‘Here you go.’ Dan hadn’t listened to me and had got me my one gin and tonic and I was glad that he had.

I glanced at the clock.

Fifty-three minutes now.

Oh, and they were having fun in customs, they were really cranking it up.

We’d had Mike and the Mechanics, ‘The Living Years’.

And then the customs officers were all nudging and grinning behind those two-way mirrors because they’d unearthed an ancient New Seekers song, and, lucky me, it’s the one Mum played over and over when Dad left—’I Wanna Go Back’.

And I was really trying to smile and chat to Nicole, but I wanted to go back too.

‘I Wanna Go Back’. I couldn’t help it, I was starting to cry.

‘It’ll be sodding “Leaving on a Jet Plane” next!’ Dan grinned and put his arm around me.

‘I’m going to go through,’ Nic said, because she could see I was upset and, as she doesn’t smoke, she was quite happy to be on the other side trying out perfume in the duty free. I could tell Roz was relieved because she wanted to get outside for a fag.

And suddenly we were there at the silver doors and it’s the place I hate most on this earth.

One of my self-help books said that the universe repeats our life lessons till we’ve learnt them, or something like that. Well, I’d learnt it, thanks. I hated goodbyes. I hated this very spot, but over and over I found myself there. I hated saying goodbye to Mum, kissing her and knowing when I saw her again she’d be two years older.

If I ever saw her again.

‘It’s six weeks, Alice.’ Nicole hugged me and tried to reassure me, and I hugged her back and didn’t want to let her go.

It wasn’t six weeks.

She was going through those doors and again everything was changing.

She was changing.

She wasn’t coming back, or if she did come back it would just be to leave, and in my heart of hearts I knew that.

‘Be nice to Hugh,’ she warned. ‘You will remember to pick him up? I’m sorry Mum didn’t send a photo. You can just hold up a sign.’

I wouldn’t need a sign.

Ginger with glasses and a cousin of Nicole’s.

Oh, I wouldn’t need a sign.

She cuddled Roz.

Roz, all practical and stoic, reminded me of my mum the day Bonny had left for Australia. Overweight and trying to smile.

Lisa was right, it had unsettled me.

I didn’t want to remember that day.

But I was standing there doing just that: Bonny and Lex leaving for Australia. Mum spilling out of her shoes and skirt, trying to smile and failing, because Bonny was her baby, Bonny was her favourite and she had to let her go.

Nic had one of those hand luggage bags on wheels and she headed to the door, jaunty and shiny and ready. We waved her off and thank God Dan’s arms were around me as I did the right thing and forced a smile and made myself wave.

But I kept remembering.

Dad there with Lucy, his new girlfriend, dainty and pregnant.

Bonny bawled her eyes out and Lex hugged me, just briefly, even though I knew he didn’t want to, but it would have looked odd if he’d missed me out. I could feel the contempt and disgust as he reluctantly embraced me.

‘Take care, Alice.’ That was all he said. Lex still wasn’t able to look me in the eye and I couldn’t look at him either.

I didn’t want to think about it.

I couldn’t think about it.

So I blew my nose and I wished Dan would come back to the flat, but he had a new car and was taking it to visit his family. I couldn’t stand his father, so I was more than happy that he hadn’t asked me along.

‘I’ll come back with you,’ Roz said, because she’s nice like that.

She sort of mothered me a bit, I guess.

‘You should have used your credit card,’ Roz said, as I rummaged in my bag for money for the car-park machine. ‘It’s so much easier.’

I could see my hands shaking as I put in the coins and dropped one. I felt the impatience in the line behind me.

I couldn’t think about it.

Except I couldn’t stop thinking about.

And worse, I knew that lately, sometimes, Lex was thinking about it too.

One mistake, one stupid mistake. I wanted to live my life without having made it. I wanted to have my life back.

I didn’t want to remember, but details, details, details kept flinging themselves at me, chasing me, cornering me, and I knew they were about to catch me.

Why couldn’t Big Tits just have written up a script?

‘She’ll be back,’ Dan said, and it was a funny thing, because it was his new car that was blocking in mine. It was a sign, I was sure, that we were meant to be together perhaps, or, given how he’d parked, that he takes up all of the bed.

He gave me a cuddle as Roz waited.

I could hear the steady thud-thud-thud of his heart as mine leapt up to my throat and I wanted him to come home and lie down beside me.

‘Love you lots,’ he said to me.

‘Love you lots too.’

It’s our little thing.

‘It’s good she’s gone to see him,’ Dan added. ‘She might finally work out he’s a complete wanker.’

And I laughed, got into my car and I chatted to Roz.

Put my ticket in the machine and the boom gate went up and Roz and I headed for home, and Nicole wouldn’t be there.

Only it’s wasn’t Nicole that was upsetting me.

Somehow I knew that.

I didn’t want to think about it.

We stopped at the drive-through bottle shop on the way.

‘Are you okay, Alice?’ Roz checked when we got back to the flat.

‘I’m fine,’ I said, because I was pouring a nice glass of red, and I would be in a moment.

‘I know you’re upset about Nic going, but is there something else?’ Roz pushed. ‘Is there something on your mind?’

‘Nothing,’ I said, because I didn’t want it on my mind. I didn’t want to think about it.

Just, lately, it was all I seemed to do.

Six

As you can imagine, as I sat there in the kitchen, having my split ends trimmed and trying to block out Bonny’s moaning, another hour with Gus was such a nice thing to think of. So much so that as the hairdresser gave me a ‘little trim to tidy things up’, I wasn’t concentrating—instead I was having a lovely thought about Gus leaving miserable Celeste, and me and him setting up and playing piano and…

‘What the…?’ She’d given me a fringe… Okay, that doesn’t sound so bad if you don’t have curly hair, but if you do have really curly hair, you will know this was a crisis.

‘I’ve left plenty of length,’ the hairdresser was saying, but I could sort of hear the wobble of panic in her voice, because even if she had cut it to the bridge of my nose, as she tried to drag the wet curls down with her finger, they were already coiling up into knots in my hairline.

‘It will be fine.’ Mum was reassuring.

‘With lots of product.’ The hairdresser was plastering on serum to weigh the curls down. I was crying, not just at the prospect of the wedding but seeing Gus, and, worse, Bonny was screaming, completely hysterical.

‘Look at it!’ She was staring at my hair in horror. It was like the day the nit nurse at school found nits in my hair and I could feel everyone staring at me in disgust. I sat there humiliated as Bonny screeched out what a shit bridesmaid I’d make, what a mess I looked, how I’d ruin the photos.

For months I’d put up with her histrionics. For months I’d shut up and put up and been good…

‘I don’t want to be your bridesmaid.’ I didn’t.

‘I don’t want to wear that disgusting pink dress.’ That was certainly true.

‘And you don’t have to worry about people talking about your ugly bridesmaid.’ I ripped off the towel from my shoulders. I was so angry, so ashamed, so embarrassed that I couldn’t even cry. ‘They’ll be too busy looking at the back end of the bride and sniggering at her massive arse. I thought brides were supposed to lose weight before the wedding.’

Mum slapped me.

We’re not talking a little slap either, she slammed her hand across my cheek, and Bonny’s screams quadrupled—not, may I add, because her sister was being beaten (well, maybe not beaten, but it bloody hurt) but because someone had dared to mention Bonny’s increasingly ample figure. Her dress had been let out four times.

It was Eleanor who stepped in.

She took Bonny through to the lounge and Mum to the dining room. I was left with the bloody hairdresser. With much running from room to room by Eleanor, urgent peace talks were under way.

I, through Eleanor, reluctantly, extremely reluctantly, mumbled that I was sorry for calling her fat—which I believe was translated to ‘She doesn’t think you’re fat at all, she’s just jealous and you know how crazy she goes if anyone talks about her hair. She thinks you look fantastic.’

I don’t think Bonny apologised. All I got from Eleanor was ‘She’s just worried about tomorrow…’

And as for Mum, well, there was no formal apology—in fact, it was I who apparently apologised, through Eleanor, for upsetting Bonny on the eve of her Fucking Special Day… And then we were all back in the kitchen.

They speared it down with pins. I was ordered not to cry any more or my face would look like a pizza. I think Mum did feel a bit bad for hitting me, because she even gave me a glass of wine to calm me down. It was not the usual thimbleful we got on a Sunday—so she can say she is sensibly introducing her girls to alcohol and it won’t be a mystery—no, I got a full glass of red. And when Bonny started getting upset again Mum pulled her aside and told her to calm down, that she was making things worse. I filled up my glass and felt calmer. It would look better in the morning.

I fell into bed, and bloody hoped that it would anyway.

I also hoped I’d have a bruise.

Enough that make-up would cover.

But enough, too, that Mum would notice.

It didn’t look better in the morning.

And, sadly, there was no sign of a bruise.

The pins came out and my hair was still orange, a mass of orange ringlets with a stupid crinkle fringe. I had a thumping headache, and just wanted to crawl back to bed and hide till it grew out (say around eight months or so), but the hairdresser was back earlier than planned and all bubbly and bright (and reeking of brandy), and had a much better idea.

‘We’ll straighten it.’ She pulled out a bottle and started squirting me with water. I protested but Mum gave me a warning look as Bonny came into the kitchen. She was even allowed to smoke inside because it was her Special Day. I sat there, as my head was dragged and jerked backwards and sideways, and my scalp burnt with the heat of the hairdryer. It took about forty minutes—I have loads of hair, just loads and loads of hair, but the strange thing was, as the hairdresser worked on, Bonny’s mood lifted. She had sworn to kill the hairdresser last night, and her entire family too, yet she was chatting away to her now, and Mum was beaming as they all stood and watched.

‘There!’ The hairdresser beamed, and so too did everyone. Even Eleanor, beautiful, stunning, gorgeous Eleanor, gaped as she walked into the kitchen.

‘Oh, my God!’ she screeched when she saw me. ‘Straight suits you.’

I ran up to the bathroom and stood there.

Yes, it was still bright orange, but it was straight, smooth and sleek and the newly created fringe fell over one eye and…

It was me.

For the first time in my life I felt as if I was staring at my reflection and recognised the person that was staring back.

Seven

I soon cheered up.

It was nice having Roz back at the flat but it wasn’t just her company I wanted. There was conversation that needed to be had.

Dan had a point.

In all honesty, I sometimes got a bit embarrassed when I went out with Roz.

It wasn’t just that she didn’t make an effort—it was as if she tried to look like she hadn’t made an effort, if you know what I mean. I knew she was hurting, I knew her ex-husband Andrew had displayed her as some sort of trophy wife and had got really narky if she put on a bit of weight or didn’t get her nails and hair done religiously, but to go so far the other way was only hurting Roz.

We chatted about Nicole. Then there was a half hour or so listening to her bang on about Andrew’s new girlfriend Trudy. Then I sat through the saga of Lizzie, her daughter, and their latest row and then, when she’d worn herself out talking about the bitch that is her daughter, she waffled on about Hugh.

‘He might be nice.’ Roz raised her eyebrows.

‘He’s living with someone called Gemma. (Nicole had told me after I’d agreed he could stay.) Nicole reckons they’re serious.’

‘Well, they can’t be that serious if he’s coming out here. He’s a consultant.’ Roz nudged. ‘You never know.’

Oh, I knew.

‘He’s Nicole’s cousin,’ I said, because it covered so many things—anally retentive, frigid, uptight, driven. ‘I only agreed because if Nicole told me one more time about Aunty Cheryl and her mother’s row, and how this would really help, I’d have strangled her.’ But we weren’t here to discuss Lizzie or the impending arrival of Dr Hugh Watson, so, rather skilfully I thought, I moved the conversation around to this fabulous new body moisturiser and a hot oil hair treatment I’d bought from my hairdresser Karan as Roz pretended to listen.

Yes, pretended.

I could sense her distraction and it infuriated me. I wasn’t doing this for my benefit—I didn’t have a halo of pubic hair on my head, I wasn’t slobbing on the couch in khaki oversized cargo pants and a T-shirt you could house a Third World family in.

‘Roz!’ She jumped to attention as I held up the pack. ‘Let’s have a girls’ night in—maybe we could do each other’s hair or something…’

‘I don’t know, Alice.’ She shrugged, then flicked her cigarette somewhere near the ashtray and for an appalling moment I reminded myself of Nicole as I sucked in my breath. ‘I’m just past all that.’

‘Past all that.’ I shook my head firmly. ‘You’re only thirty-four, Roz. You’re nowhere near past it, though with that attitude…’ My voice trailed off as again Roz shook her head.

‘It’s nothing to do with my age.’ She gave a wheezy laugh, which turned into a cough. Then just when she managed to finally get her breath back, when the blue tinge left her lips and the broken veins bulging on her cheeks faded somewhat, she stubbed out her cigarette and lit another. ‘When I say past it, I mean I’m over it.’

‘Over what?’

‘Trying to please people—I had enough of it with Andrew. No matter how thin I was, no matter how good I looked, it was never enough. Look, I see how long you spend on your hair…’

‘It makes me feel nice,’ I smarted. ‘Believe me, Roz, I don’t want to spend all those hours, but better that than walking around like I’ve got my finger in a plug socket. It’s important to take care of yourself.’

‘I’m not going there again.’

‘Looking good isn’t just about pleasing people, Roz,’ I answered tartly. ‘This is about pleasing yourself, about self-respect.’

‘Perhaps,’ Roz mumbled. ‘It just seems like such a lot of work and for what?’

Okay, so softly, softly wasn’t going to work here. I’m not very good at being firm, but really I know I sound like a bitch, I know I sound superficial and I know I probably am all those things, but I truly wasn’t being bitchy or superficial at that moment. I was actually in a real predicament—one I hadn’t even told Dan about.

Roz smelt!

I would never say it to Dan because, well, with Dan it would be bitching, but it wasn’t just me who thought it. Since Roz started on my team I’d had four complaints about her personal hygiene. Yes, she smokes, but it wasn’t just that—I smoke, half the team smokes.

The fact was Roz smelt.

I really did think Roz was depressed, I mean properly depressed. I truly didn’t know what to do about it and I had no bloody idea how to approach her questionable hygiene, but I had to, because if I didn’t deal with it, I’d be complained about. One of the managers, like Claire, would then no doubt have a less than sensitive word with Roz—which would kill her.

I’d bought her smellies as presents, but that was as far as I’d got. How do you tell a good friend, and one who is very sensitive, that, on occasion, she reeks?

‘Why don’t I rub in this hair mask for you and then we can both put on face-packs and then you can have a shower…’

‘I really can’t be bothered.’

‘Come on, Roz—you have to get back out there!’ I paused for effect, gave her a wide-eyed, very direct stare. ‘I mean, I understand you might need a break after your divorce but sooner or later you’re going to want to start dating again, and when you do, well…’

‘I’ve got a date.’ Her broken capillaries darkened, and she gave a shy smile.

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow night?’

‘Who?’ My mind raced. When had this happened? The only person Roz went out with was me, and there wasn’t one person at work I could think of…

Unless.

‘Trevor.’

‘What?’

‘The computer whiz, the one who comes around…’

‘Oh, please!’ Roz was coughing again, clearly appalled at the suggestion, and in fairness I’d be appalled at the suggestion too. Trevor had Roz’s split-ends problem only his covered the whole of his face, and deodorant clearly wasn’t at the top of his shopping trolley.

‘Then who?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about it, Alice; I don’t want to jinx myself.’

I saw an opening.

‘But you want to look nice?’ I nudged the pack across the table.

‘I guess,’ she said slowly, and I felt her waver, took it as a positive sign and moved quickly to build on it. ‘I know it’s what’s inside that matters, Roz, but you’ve only got a small window of time to make that first impression. I read that it takes less that a second for a person to form an opinion, less than a second,’ I reiterated as Roz started to frown. ‘You can be the nicest person in the world but if you don’t look the part, no one’s going to come over and find out.’ She was frowning deeply now, so I put it in simpler terms: ‘It’s fabulous you’ve got a date, Roz.’ A bloody miracle really, I almost added, but held back. ‘It’s fabulous that you’re getting back into the swing of things. And whoever he is, he clearly likes you for who you are…’ She opened her mouth to speak but I overrode her. ‘Surely you want to show that you’ve made a bit of an effort for him.’

She didn’t answer, just stared into her empty glass, and for an appalling moment I thought she was going to cry. Actually, it wasn’t even a moment. About ten seconds later she started to howl, not delicately (this is Roz we’re talking about) but great throaty sobs that caught in her throat and made her cough at the same time.

‘God, Roz, I’m sorry.’ So much for softly, softly. So much for helping. Here was poor Roz blubbering on my sofa, crying her eyes out and feeling fat and ugly and worthless, and it was all my fault. ‘Don’t listen to me,’ I said, appalled at what I’d done, wrapping my arms as far around her shoulders as I could and squeezing tight. ‘What would I bloody know? You look fabulous,’ I said firmly, so firmly even I thought I sounded as if I meant it. ‘You’re going to knock his socks off…’

‘No, Alice.’

‘Yes, you are!’ I insisted as Roz took a deep breath and calmed herself, finally looking up as I cracked open a bottle of Baileys. ‘Feel better?’

She gave a sort of sorry nod, forced a bit of a watery smile and stared at me as I handed her back a very full glass.

‘Tell you what,’ I said frantically, terrified she might start crying again or—even worse—leave, ‘why don’t I ring for a pizza?’

‘You don’t eat carbs.’

‘I’ll pick at the cheese,’ I said quickly, ‘and smoke.’ I held my breath, held it so hard I thought my lungs were going to explode but finally after the longest time she nodded.

‘Better?’ I asked again, and this time she gave a firmer nod.

‘Much.’

‘You’re not just saying that?’

‘No.’ She gave a loud sniff and I thought the tears were about to start again, but to my utter relief she started to laugh, really laugh. ‘Oh, Alice!’ She shook her head and then picked up my fifty-dollar cream and started massaging it into her hooves. ‘Oh, Alice,’ she said again, and something in her eyes didn’t add up, because for all the world I felt as if she were placating me, as if she was going on with the charade just to please me, when it was the other way around.

‘Tell you what…’ Roz gave a loud sniff and picked up the hair mask and read the back. ‘How long do I have to leave this stuff on for?’

‘Half an hour.’

‘Will you play?’ Roz was always doing this—always trying to get me to play the piano. The flat has one. It was there when I first moved in. Roz starts crying sometimes when I play and goes on about how I’m wasted at the paper. But that’s Roz—I could play ‘Trotting Pony’ and she’d tell me I was fantastic.

I didn’t want to sit at the piano, with Nicole gone and everything, though if it meant that she stayed…

‘Deal!’ I grinned, dropping the mask in a cup and grabbing some towels from the bathroom.

In fact, it turned out to be a great night. I played for forty minutes—I went through some of my old exam recital and then we had a little sing-along. She even let me pluck her eyebrows and a fun time was had by all working our way down a bottle of Baileys. By the time we were at the sucking on ice cube stage, she was so pissed I even managed to persuade her to stay over and it was kind of nice hearing her snoring from Nicole’s room.

Not that I could sleep.

Playing the piano always unsettles me.

Oh, not when it’s ‘Coming Round The Mountain’ or ‘My Old Man’, but when I play the classics, when I’m stretched, when I have to reach inside myself, I feel, for a while at least, as if I’m coming apart.

Eight

‘Hey!’ Gus gave a smile of appreciation as I walked in. I had washed in the sink for two days, avoiding steam from the bath, and even dragging a couple of emerging curls out with the hairdryer myself in anticipation of this moment.

And it was worth it.

Oh, it was so, so worth it.

‘You look great,’ Gus said. ‘How was the wedding?’

‘Great.’ I beamed, because the wedding had been awful, but at the end of the reception I had got off with this guy, Lex’s best man, in fact, and finally had a decent snog and then a bit of a fumble in the loos.

Celeste didn’t comment on my lovely hair, just scowled up at me from the kitchen where she was standing. I didn’t smile back—I had heard them rowing from the street when I arrived, and it made Gus’s smile all the more worth it, that he could manage to be nice, unlike Celeste.

We went through and I set up my music.

It was my favourite piece.

Tchaikovsky, ‘January’, from The Seasons.

I’d been focusing, amongst others, on this piece for a good few months now. It was for my exam and it was so bloody hard.

Not so much technically, but my playing strength is emotion and that is the hard part to explain. At home when I was practising, every now and then I got it. Sometimes I played it so well, even I cried. I just had to work out how to do that for my exam.

You see, my sisters think it’s just a matter of playing. They can’t understand that it might take a year to learn one piece of music, but Gus understood, and he was so patient—except he wasn’t this evening.

‘You haven’t been practising.’

‘I have.’ I screwed up my face as I lied.

‘Pianissimo!’ he said. ‘It’s supposed to be soft but it’s like a herd of fucking elephants.’ I didn’t mind that he swore—it made me feel older. I knew he wouldn’t swear with some of the little kids. Over and over we went but we never got past the first page—and I could hear the mistakes and feel him wince. It must have given Celeste a thumper of a headache, because when we went over the hour, she came in.

‘How much longer, Gus?’ She didn’t even look at me.

‘When I’m done!’ Gus didn’t look at her either, just sat in silence as Celeste slammed the door.

‘I’m sorry.’ I felt as if the row was my fault; I mean, it wasn’t exactly a row, she’d just slammed the door, but I knew he was proving a point when, instead of closing my music, he told me to go from midway.

God, I loved this bit; there’s a lot of hand crossing and I ached to play it right—I yearned for the day I did it perfectly, but still I messed up. He was behind me, and he played the right hand and I played the left. He did it so much more easily, and then he mucked up too—well, he had an excuse because he was over me, and not sitting down, but he laughed at his own mistake and then I laughed too, and everything suddenly felt a bit better.

Anyway, there we were, me trying to sort out the hand-change thing and he was still leaning over and I messed up.

His hands went over mine to show me a move, just as he did in every other lesson, I guess, but it was different, I could feel his fingers. Before it was like he was showing me, but now I could feel them.

He moved his other hand so that his arms were under my armpits and he played for a moment. I could feel his arms against my breasts. They were sore; my period had finished so it wasn’t because of that. It was a nice sore, sort of heavy, and achy.

I was looking down at his fingers, but all I could see were my breasts. The nipples were sticking out, and it was like I’d never seen them before. They were like thimbles under my dress and he was still playing the tune. I could feel his breath on my cheek but I had no breath. I wasn’t breathing; my breasts hurt and as his arms pulled back his hands brushed them.

It was like watching in slow motion. His hands had the palms facing inwards, and as they slid from my chest they stroked the sides and I don’t know if they paused; as I lay in my bed that night I wondered if they had, but I don’t think so. They just slid against the sides and I wanted them to slide back, but they didn’t.

‘Okay.’ His voice sounded normal. ‘Let’s leave it there for now. Practise, Alice.’ I was closing up my music and I dropped a couple of sheets and I turned around to pick them up—I was head level with his crotch and I saw his erection. I wanted to touch it, but of course I didn’t. I stood up.

I pretended that I hadn’t seen it.

I wasn’t even sure if I had, but as I lay in bed that night all I knew was that I was having another lesson in a couple of days.

Nine

I hated my own company.

That’s not what I said to Big Tits because I knew it wasn’t how I was supposed to be. I knew, because I’d read all the self-help books. I was supposed to have inner reserves, to be able to spend a thoughtful evening alone, lighting candles and playing music that meant something to me, as I spoiled myself by soaking in an aromatic bath with a deep and moving book. But the simple fact was, I hated being by myself.

Hated bouncing questions I already knew the answers to.

Hated watching a film when there was no one to pass the tissues to and share the ending.

And where was the fun in candles and soft music and bubble baths when you were alone?

Anyway, the flat didn’t have a bath.

Roz had taken her weary liver out on her date and Dan hadn’t returned my phone calls all day. By evening I resorted to texting him saying I was really worried about work and needed his advice and he eventually texted back and said he’d come over.

You see, Dan’s a careers counsellor: he goes around schools telling sixteen-year-olds they can be whatever they want to be and he takes it all very, very seriously, so I knew if I dangled that little carrot, he’d bite quickly. That he might manage to tear himself away from Matthew for five minutes.

Yes, Matthew.

Sorry to disappoint you—believe me I felt the same when I found out too.

Worse!

Dan, you see, was possibly the love of my life.

Lisa, I’m sure, if she knew about Dan and me, would say that I was comfortable with Dan because he was gay, that because there was no sexual tension I was able to be myself and to relax with him.

Bullshit.

I loved him long before I knew he was gay.

I wasted months, wondering what the hell I was doing wrong.

You just wouldn’t spot it—okay, the fitted shirt, the Pilates and, I guess, the fact that he exfoliates might have been missed clues—but loads of guys look after themselves now.

His friend Michelle was my flatmate at the time—they weren’t going out or anything—and Dan used to come around and I’d pull out all the stops.

Then he became more regular at the flat and I stopped pulling out all the stops and he still liked me. I could answer the door in baggy pyjamas, still orange from a new spray tan and walking with my toenails splayed with cotton wool because I was painting them, and he still liked me.

Then I got drunk and slept with some football player to make him jealous. Well, suffice to say it ended in tears—with a blotchy face and a rather fat lip (the football player did have anger issues). Dan was the one who held the ice pack.

Dan was appalled when I confessed that I’d done it to make him notice me.

And then he’d told me the truth.

And he also told me just how much he hated the truth.

That he’d rather slash his abdomen and dissect his own intestines than fess up and tell the world that he was gay.

At first it had been a whoosh of relief—so that was why he didn’t fancy me.

Then I had decided that, if I tried harder, one day he might—he had assured me he wouldn’t.

He wasn’t bisexual; he said it as a warning.

He was gay.

So I got angry…

And we fell out, but we missed each other and made it up, though we hadn’t yet come full circle. There was still this… this… bitterness there on my part.

I mean, how unlucky was I, that the perfect guy for me, the one guy who actually loves me, just wasn’t technically wired that way?

I hated all the crap about ‘Oh, I’m not homophobic—my best friend’s gay’.

I actually HATED it that he was gay.

I cried at every episode of Will and Grace.

I hated it that I would love the smell of him coming out of the shower for ever, that he could make me laugh with just a twitch of his lips, that he’s just the most amazing guy in the whole wide world, that he can pull me in his arms and make me feel safe—and that, faults and all, somehow he loves me and yet somehow he can’t.

He loves me.

Just not in that way.

However, Dan had been a bit off recently. Every time I rang he was always just on his way out, and call me paranoid if you must, but whenever I got the answering-machine I swear he was home, hovering over the receiver and not picking it up because it was me. It wasn’t fair. We’d been through everything together. When he was in the closet, he’d been only too happy to drag me to every family function imaginable and pass me off as his girlfriend and then, when he was coming out, night after night had been spent metaphorically holding his hand as he worked up the courage to tell his family and friends. And once out! Oh, yes, he’s Mr Bloody Sensible now, but he was wild for a while there, dragging me along to gay bars where I’d sit and pretend not to notice how long it took him to go to the men’s room.

Now, though, when I needed him, he was too busy being happy with Matthew.

I was making lime margaritas—there was a mountain of limes that I was juicing and I had all the ingredients lined up to whizz in the blender but Dan filled the kettle.

‘I’m not drinking,’ he said, which meant that he wouldn’t be staying.

‘I got a couple of movies, though.’ More and more it was getting like this with Dan. Since he had started going out with Matthew I was slotted in, like a dental appointment or a quick dash to the shops on a lunch break. ‘Stay the night, Dan, you haven’t for ages.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Okay.’ I knew not to push it. ‘At least stay for a while, have a drink…’

‘Actually, no.’ He looked uncomfortable, six feet two and in his suit he looked bloody gorgeous but, actually, nervous. ‘You and I…’ he gave a tight smile ‘… well, it’s causing a few problems with Matthew.’

‘What?’ I was about to turn on the blender, but instead I laughed. ‘How, for God’s sake? We’ve established you don’t fancy me. Can never fancy me… Surely to God you’re allowed friends.’

‘Of course I am…’ He was working his way up to telling me something and suddenly I didn’t want to hear it, so I turned the blender on instead, but you can only blend a margarita for so long and after a moment or two I had no choice but to stop. I could feel his chocolate-brown eyes on me, but I didn’t turn and look at them, instead focusing a great deal of attention on salting two glasses as he spoke to my back.

‘Every time I come here I get smashed and end up staying.’

I had the salt in lovely perfect lines, the glasses were icy cold from the fridge, and I slowly poured two drinks before I answered.

‘Don’t get smashed, then.’ Now I did turn and look at him, angry, because how the hell was it my fault? Since when did his boyfriend decide it was up to me to police him? ‘I’m hardly pouring drinks down your throat and tying you to the bed, Dan.’

‘I know that.’

‘If you don’t want to be here, don’t use Matthew as an excuse.’ He closed his eyes and I could hear him drag in a deep breath.

‘I do want to be here.’

‘Then tell Matthew that.’ I was near tears, I was so angry I felt like crying—bloody Matthew was so jealous he hated Dan out of his sight for anything more than five minutes. Every time we went out he texted about a gazillion times and if Dan did have the guts to stay over, his phone would start bleeping at the crack of dawn.

‘I have told him,’ Dan said. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? It’s just…’ His voice trailed off and then, because he knows me, because he knew that even if I wasn’t boohooing, even if there were no tears, I was actually crying. We had promised, promised that no relationship would ever come between our friendship, and now it seemed one was.

Dan gives the nicest cuddles.

I stood in the kitchen and I just leant on him, I smelt him and it was the nicest place in the world to be and I didn’t want to let him go, I didn’t want him going back to Matthew, but I knew if I stamped my foot too hard, then it would be a long time till I saw him again. That Matthew would up the bloody curfew, so I trod carefully.

‘Make me a coffee, then,’ I said to his chest.

‘Serious?’

‘Sure.’ I felt him smile, felt him relax as I made it easier for him. ‘Anyway, I’ve got to ring Mum tonight and sometimes she talks for hours.’ He kissed the top of my head and then he loosened his arms and smiled down at me and I smiled back.

Dan, the only guy on this planet I can look straight in the eye.

‘I love you, Alice.’

‘I know.’

‘I am here for you.’

‘I know.’ Yeah, take that, Matthew, I thought, you can bitch and moan and whine, but you’ll never break up our friendship.

‘One won’t kill, I guess…’ He picked up the margarita and rolled his eyes in bliss as he took a sip.

‘You’ll get me in trouble with Matthew,’ I warned.

‘We just won’t tell him.’

I felt a rush of relief as he came back to me, a whoosh of euphoria as whatever crisis had loomed was somehow averted.

Dan was back and together we always had a ball.

We just didn’t that night.

He asked about my work, but I didn’t want to just talk about that. ‘I’m worried about Roz,’ I said, hoping that would get him going. He loved a gossip, but Dan rolled his eyes.

‘I really think she’s depressed.’

‘I’d be depressed if I looked like that,’ Dan said. ‘No wonder her husband left—you’d slash yourself if you had to wake up to that face every morning.’

‘But he didn’t leave her.’ I frowned as much as my Botoxed forehead would allow. ‘It was the other way around—Roz left him. Though God knows why, he was gorgeous. Gorgeous,’ I added for effect, and Dan shot me a look of disbelief. ‘She says they married way too young and that she felt stifled, that she needed to find herself.’

‘Find a bigger McDonald’s outlet more like.’ Dan pursed his lips and then he glanced at his watch and I felt a flutter of panic, so I quickly changed the subject to Dan’s favourite.

Me!

That was a joke.

My career, or lack of it.

I hated my job. I knew, I knew, in these times it was good to have a job—but, frankly, I didn’t know if I would for much longer. I did the website as well sometimes, thanks to Dan pushing me to do a course, but mainly I sat with headphones on, typing up birth, marriage and death notices, announcements, stuff for sale, jobs, that sort of thing. We used to do more dating ads, that was fun, but everything was moving to the internet, not just dating—and what with eBay (love it, love it), I couldn’t see my job lasting much longer.

So I told him all about my worries, that I was sure management was up to something, hoping he’d be so consumed by my problems, that he’d fill up his glass. ‘I’m probably just being pessimistic.’

‘You’re being realistic,’ Dan said, which made the knot in my stomach tighten. ‘Everyone’s cutting back. You need to get some real qualifications.’ I hadn’t really wanted a doom-and-gloom careers appraisal. I wanted him to say that I’d been there nine years, that of course my job was safe, but Dan had said all he was going to. He looked at his watch again and I knew, despite the win with the margarita, I was about to lose my audience. ‘I’ve got to go, Al,’ he said. ‘I’m exhausted.’

It wasn’t even nine, but I followed him to the door, determined not to push him to stay again, and I accepted his hug and kiss goodnight.

‘Think about it,’ Dan said.

‘Think about what?’

‘What we spoke about the other week—you really need to think about going back to your studies.’

‘I could never afford it.’ I thought of my credit cards, the rent, the car payments, but Dan disagreed.

‘You can’t afford not to, Alice. You’ve got talent. Don’t waste it. Take a package if one’s offered and get yourself to university.’

I knew he was right. I guess he’d said what I wanted deep down to hear, even if I didn’t really want to hear it now.

I tried to ring Mum but the line was busy, so I tried Bonny, but her line was busy too.

I tried Mum again and guessed she must be talking to Bonny.

I even contemplated ringing Eleanor, but she was so much older, we just weren’t that close and it was always awkward when I called.

So I tried Bonny again and I got Lex.

‘Oh, hi.’ I was surprised. Normally Bonny answered the landline.

‘Bonny’s in the bath,’ Lex said. ‘Do you want me to get her to call you?’

‘It’s nothing important. How are the kids?’

‘Feral! Look, while I’ve got you…’ And then there was a pause. ‘Let me just close the door.’ I felt my insides turn to liquid. ‘Sorry, I don’t want her to hear.’

My hand was shaking so much I could barely get my drink to my mouth. ‘You haven’t forgotten about next Saturday.’

‘Of course not.’

‘It’s just…’ And then I heard Bonny’s voice in the background and Lex lowered his. ‘Can you make a special effort?’ And then his voice was back to normal. ‘It’s your sister.’

I chatted to Bonny, but my heart wouldn’t stop thumping and thankfully, given she was dripping wet, we didn’t talk for long.

I was all unsettled. I took the blender over to the computer and filled up my glass. I searched universities and entrance criteria and it was just too confusing so I checked my horoscope, which said now was a good time to give up bad habits but there was nothing about my finances or love life improving.

So I checked another and I checked another and then something caught my eye.

Cosmic Love by Yasmin Boland.

A step-by-step guide to cosmic-ordering the perfect guy.

It was all about manifesting, apparently.

Build it and they will come sort of thing.

It was an eBook, which was just as well, because I’d have been too embarrassed to go into a shop and buy it. I typed in my details and waited for my credit card to be declined, but—well, the universe must have wanted me to have it because, despite my late payment, or rather no payment, there it was in my inbox.

I loved it.

It was so positive. All I had to do was write lists (well, there was a bit more to it than that, but I went straight to the good stuff) and tell the universe what I wanted in a partner.

And not some vague wants either, a specific order.

So I did.

I did everything Yasmin told me.

Well, except the clearing-out stuff part, but Nicole had had a big tidy before she left. And I didn’t bother with the cleansing shower to get rid of past loves, and visualising and snipping the threads that bound and letting them go and all that mumbo-jumbo crap.

Be sure that you are ready, Yasmin warned, and that you’ve done your preparation.

Oh, I was ready.

I loved this book—I toddled off to the kitchen and made another jug and got some scissors so I could cut out the pyramid that came with it.

If I had ink in the printer.

I did.

It was all aligning that night.

I had to write what I wanted—I could be as specific as I liked and for a second there my mind did flick to Dan, though Yasmin had warned me not to manipulate—and really, even if I could turn Dan straight, would I want to? I mean, you’d never relax, would you? Anyway, Yasmin said it was better to trust the universe, that the right guy would always come back if he was the one.

I had to print out the pyramid again because when I was cutting it out I chopped off the end.

God, I was pissed.

And, yes, I trusted the universe and everything, but not completely.

I wanted blond or raven, not someone with my affliction. I mean, I had to think of our children and, anyway, people might think we were brother and sister when we went out. So I knew it couldn’t be Hugh. Nicole’s cousin held no charm for me, but perhaps he was a means to an end. One look at me, and Hugh’s eyes would widen. ‘There’s the type of girl to take to the neurosurgeons’ Christmas party. That’s the type of girl who would look marvellous at the Kids with Cancer Christmas fundraising ball.’

Well, maybe not Kids with Cancer, just underprivileged or burn victims or something and I’d be there, radiant and smiling all ready to meet the love of my life.

I added a few little extra requests, and then I wrote MR.

It stood for Mr and Massive Ring.

Clever, huh? No one, if they found my list, would work that out.

I followed the instructions as best as I could, but I didn’t have a compass, so I guessed as to the south-west corner of the flat. And then, given I was sorting out my love life, I decided I might as well go the whole hog so I went back to the computer and read again the application procedures and the qualifications required to be a music teacher. I even filled in some forms to ask for them to send me some forms. It was all so daunting—the more I looked, the more overwhelming it seemed. Impossible, actually.

I had barely scraped through my exams at school. Even if by some miracle I was accepted, how could I give up my job? I was in debt to the eyeballs as it was.

I thought of the pile of unopened envelopes stuffed in my drawers and under my mattress, the credit-card statements that were too scary to open—let alone think about—so I didn’t.

While my credit card was behaving I bought an online tarot reading and then poured another margarita instead.

Ten

I woke at two.

Just shot awake, wondering what had woken me, my heart racing and trying to catch my breath, sure that I must have had a nightmare—except I still couldn’t breathe.

I was soaked in sweat, and I dragged myself into the bathroom, gulped icy water from the tap—it didn’t help. I had to concentrate on breathing. It wasn’t happening. Every breath was an effort and I couldn’t seem to get enough in.

I rang Roz—I knew she was on a date, but surely she’d be home by now. I didn’t even care at that point.

‘Roz…’ I could barely get the word out as her voice came on the phone. ‘I can’t…’

‘It’s okay…’ I could hear she was groggy and asleep but just the sound of her voice calmed me. At least someone knew, I mean, if I collapsed this second Roz would send for help. ‘I’m on my way.’

She didn’t even dress—mind you, Roz’s sleepwear is pretty much the same as her day wear: tracksuit bottoms and a vast T-shirt, except, horror of horrors, she wasn’t wearing a bra.

All this I noticed as she bundled me into her little car. My breathing was a bit better. Since I had known help was on the way, it had improved a fraction. And as we drove to the hospital I managed to get my breathing into some sort of a rhythm right till we got to the doors. Security was waving her on.

‘You can’t park here, love.’

‘She can’t breathe!’ Roz said.

‘Then she’s in the right place, but patient drop-off is down there.’

Roz was muttering and swearing and then I saw my hands do this strange thing: they were tingling but it was like my hands were spastic, my fingers all curling up, and I couldn’t straighten them.

‘She’s going unconscious…’ I could hear Roz panicking, but the security didn’t panic, he rolled his eyes and got a nurse, who helped me out of the car. She didn’t seem to be particularly worried either.

They took me straight into the triage room; the nurse put a little probe on my finger and told me to calm down.

‘I can’t breathe…’

‘Your oxygen saturation is ninety-nine per cent’ There was a bored note to her voice which infuriated me as she wrapped a blood-pressure cuff around my arm. Did she have any idea how hard it was to get it to that? Breathing should be natural, you shouldn’t have to think about it, but I did. I had to pull in air and hold it in, and it still didn’t go deep enough. My hands were doing strange things, and she was giving me a bloody paper bag and telling me to breathe in and out slowly.

‘You’re having a panic attack.’

‘No!’ I pushed the bag away.

‘How much have you had to drink tonight, Alice?’

What did that have to do with anything? ‘I’m allergic…’

‘To what?’

‘Hazelnuts.’

‘Okay…’ the nurse said, ‘you can wait in the waiting room. Just keep breathing into your paper bag.’

‘I can’t.’ I couldn’t. I could not face going out there, but the fucking nurse wouldn’t budge. ‘Your girlfriend can let us know if you get worse.’

Now, a quick explanation here. In Australia, and it took me a while to get used to this, but a friend who’s a girl is called your girlfriend. I’ve been back to London and it’s used more that way there too now, but there was something about the way she said girlfriend that had me frown. I looked over at Roz, who was blushing bright red and then she led me out.

‘She thinks we’re…’

‘I know,’ Roz mumbled, blushing to her roots. ‘Just breathe into the bag.’

It wasn’t helping. My lips were tingling, there was just so much noise, so much going on, I couldn’t stand it. I stood up and paced. I honestly didn’t feel safer in the hospital. I actually thought I might die here, and then they’d be bloody sorry. Panic attack indeed!

I was up at the big plastic shield that separated the staff from the waiting room now, and the nurse was refusing to look over. I could see stars and spots and I was like a cartoon character then, pressed to the glass. I thought I was dying and Roz was calling for help. Finally they realised that I wasn’t putting it on, that their stupid paper bag wasn’t going to work, because a buzzer went and a nurse came with a wheelchair and I was sped through.

Okay, not sped, and I didn’t end up in Resus with George Clooney saying, ‘On my count…’

Instead I was given a gown and told to get undressed and put it on, and Roz helped. I couldn’t have done it on my own. My lips were completely numb now. Then this twelve-year-old that was dressed up as a male nurse asked me to explain what had happened.

I wheezed away as he put an IV into the back of my hand, which hurt, I might add, as Roz did the talking for me.

‘We were in with the same last week. She’s got a nut allergy…’ And finally I got a response, because the twelve-year-old looked worried. He checked my blood pressure then dashed off to get a doctor as Roz wrapped her arms around me and told me I was going to be fine.

‘Just keep breathing into the bag, Alice.’

‘It’s not helping.’

Well, my ten seconds of concern lasted till the arrival of the emergency registrar, which coincided with the arrival of my old notes. He listened to my chest and confirmed the triage nurse’s diagnosis.

‘She’s having an anxiety attack.’

‘No…’ I shook my head. I was crying, and not able to breathe. ‘I woke up and my lips were swollen and tingling…’ Well, they hadn’t been then but that was what they had asked me last time. The emergency doctor sort of hummed and haaed for a minute before he wrote me up for 10 mg of diazepam and some oral steroids. ‘In case a mild allergic reaction triggered the anxiety attack.’

Bastard.

Still, I didn’t argue, I didn’t have the breath. And in a moment the twelve-year-old had returned with a little plastic cup with six pills. The white ones, he explained, were prednisolone and I would have to take a reducing dose for the next few days. The blue one was Valium.

I took the blue one first.

It took about twenty minutes—actually, maybe a bit less. Roz was so kind and reassuring, and the bright lights and all the equipment were starting to reassure me too, and when twelve-year-old took my pulse and said it was slowing down, I forgot about my breathing for a moment. I lay back and it was such a relief to not have to remember to breathe. Of course, as soon as I remembered, my breathing got harder and I had to remind myself to do it, but gradually it was just happening, even when I thought about it.

I lay there thinking about hypnosis tapes as Roz held my hand.

I’d bought loads, I had the lot, but I hated that they all, at some point, told you to concentrate on your breathing and the natural rise and fall of your chest, or the effortlessness of breathing. As soon as they said that, I swear, it didn’t happen naturally. If I could find a shagging self-hypnosis tape that didn’t tell you to concentrate on your breathing, I would have given up fags and booze and kept all my new year’s resolutions years ago.

‘Better?’

The doctor roused me from my slumber. Roz had just gone to the loo, he explained, and he wanted to have a word with me. Now that I wasn’t dying I noticed that he was actually nice looking, in a sort of Hugh Laurie House

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