Putting Alice Back Together (11 page)

I’d have played from the moment I got in from school
till Mum told me to go to bed if I could have got away with it, that was how much I needed it—but now, rather than sustaining me, it drains me.

After half an hour I’d had enough and I would have, which is rare for me, been quite happy to go to bed. I felt depleted, but Roz was still begging for diversion from her fight with Lizzie and she suggested we play spin the bottle, which was just stupid, but we were all a bit pissed and Roz can really nag.

It was our own version and there was a lot of daring at first.

A tequila shot or three and then Roz dared Hugh to take off his top. She was giggling like a schoolgirl around him. I’m sure she fancies him—but he just laughed and did it.

And then it was my turn and I wasn’t sure if my bra was ready for inspection so when the bottle spun my way instead of saying
Dare
I said
Truth
.

‘How old were you when you lost it?’ Roz asked.

I could feel them stare at me, knew they were waiting for me to wriggle out of it, but I didn’t. I told the truth.

‘Seventeen.’

‘And?’

‘I’ve answered the question.’ I spun the bottle and it landed on Roz. ‘How old were you?’

‘Seventeen,’ Roz said.

‘And?’ Hugh asked, but Roz used my line. ‘I answered the question.’ She spun again and it landed on me.

‘And?’ Roz asked.

‘He was just a guy.’ I didn’t like this game. ‘Someone…’

‘And what was it like?’

‘Nice, I guess.’ My face was bright red. ‘It was on his living-room floor…’ I spun the bottle really fast and it landed on Hugh.

‘How old were you?’ Roz asked, and for the first time I saw Hugh blush.

‘Twenty.’ Hugh winced. ‘As you can imagine, there was a lot of wrist action—you try being ginger with glasses.’ For a second our eyes caught and I realised that neither of us were enjoying this. Only Roz was like a dog with a bone.

‘What’s your darkest secret?’ Roz asked when the bottle landed on me.

The answer was easy.

‘My credit cards.’

I was lying, apparently.

The bottle said that I was lying because it wobbled, and I laughed and did the right thing and had another shot of tequila, but I hated this game.

I fucking hated this game.

I just wanted to go to bed.

Except when I got there I couldn’t sleep.

I never can when I’ve played the piano—I mean really played—because it reminds me how much I miss it. I know I’ve got a piano and I can play it as often as I like, but I miss stretching myself, I miss learning. It should have been my career and instead I was stuck in poxy classifieds with my brain shrinking by the hour as I took down details of births, marriages and deaths and typed up funeral notices.

‘People will always die.’ Roz had grinned when I’d told her my concerns about work. ‘Anyway, you won’t always be there. You’re too smart, Alice.’ Always she
nagged me—she was thirty-four, and if she could do it then so could I.

Ah, but Roz had a massive divorce settlement.

I had massive debts.

And anyway I could never imagine taking lessons again.

I could hear Roz snoring from the sofa. My stomach was hurting, cramping actually, and I know I sound like I’ve got Münchausen syndrome or something, what with my mad dash to Emergency and everything, but I’m as healthy as an ox really—well, apart from my limited upper-body strength. Really I’ve only been to hospital five times in my entire life, three of them for my breathing. I have a lot of sick days from work but that’s only because they’re there. But I do struggle with my periods. My first one I had a seizure! That was another trip in an ambulance.

As if getting your first period in the middle of cookery lesson isn’t bad enough. I went to the school nurse and she gave me this massive pad. Well, I wore it, but at lunchtime me and my friend Louise went to town and into the chemist for tampons. I felt all pale and shaky and I can’t remember anything other than that, but according to Louise I screamed and then had a convulsion and wet my pants right in the middle of Boots. It happened occasionally with a first period apparently, the doctor had explained to my frantic mother. It didn’t mean I was epileptic, so long as I didn’t have another one, which I didn’t. My mum was really nice to me around my periods after that and always watched out for me a bit more.

She was a bit obsessed with them, actually.

I got up to the bathroom but I didn’t have my period.
This had been happening a lot lately, so I rummaged in the cupboard for some tampons (I’d rather risk toxic shock syndrome than wear a pad—see, I don’t have Münchausen syndrome). But as I went to throw away the wrapper, I changed my mind. It seemed different with Hugh here, so I bunched the wrapper in my hand and tossed it in my bedroom bin.

Still I couldn’t sleep.

Roz and her bloody questions.

I hated that stupid game; I wished we’d never played it, wished I’d gone to bed when I intended to as I was never going to get to sleep now, because every time I closed my eyes, I remembered.

Fifteen

His hand was inside my bra and I was still playing, though I don’t know how.

I was still playing and his palms were soft and warm on my skin.

‘God, Alice,’ he breathed, his head burrowing under my hair and kissing my neck. ‘What the hell are you doing to me?’ I didn’t know. I was still playing the bloody tune, chord after chord. I could feel one hand move to my knee and I opened my legs, felt it climbing up, and for a minute I thought I’d wet myself, my panties were soaked. I could see his fingers creeping inside, saw him push my knickers, saw the red flare of my bush and I hated my pubic hair, hated it, but I wasn’t looking at it now. Stunned I looked at where his finger was stroking. I didn’t even know I had a clitoris but there it was—sticking out like a tiny penis—and it was so exquisitely tender. I wanted to push his hand off, it hurt it was so raw, but at the same time I liked it. My bum was sort of shaking on the seat. I could see my knees opening and trembling, but my eyes were on his fingers, watching
with morbid fascination as he slipped them deep inside me, the palm of his hand now on my clitoris.

‘Stay there.’

I could feel his cock on my back, his other hand wasn’t on my breast now, but I knew where it was, knew he was stroking himself, and I felt sick, excited but sick. For a second I thought of Celeste and knew it was wrong, but then something else took over. I felt it; it was exciting; I felt myself all warm down below, and I didn’t think about Celeste but instead all the girls who had teased me for being a nerd, and how Louise would hate that I’d done it first if she knew.

‘Alice.’ His mouth was off the back of my neck and then he turned me around on the piano stool and I stared at his cock. He was stroking it up and down and I heard the crash of the keys as I leant backward.

‘I won’t put it in.’ He was kneeling right between my legs now, stroking it against me, right against me. There was a trickle of silver running down, and he was making deep, breathy noises. His eyes were all sort of glazed, and all I could think was that I was doing this to him—that he really wanted me, that I must somehow be beautiful. He was right at my entrance now, my knickers the barrier, and he was pushing, stroking against them, just a little way in, and I wanted it all.

‘We mustn’t.’ For a second he stopped, and I thought it must have been something I’d done, that maybe I wasn’t sexy enough, pretty enough, that my boobs weren’t as big as Celeste’s.

I pulled down my knickers.

And he pushed his fingers inside, he was sliding them in and out, and his thumb was on my clitoris. My legs
were apart and he was kneeling up. His hands weren’t doing it to me now, instead he was stroking his cock against me, and I wanted it in. I wanted him to take me there, I wanted to watch, I wanted to see it. It was the most scary, beautiful thing. He pulled me down to the floor and I remember bumping my head on the stool. I remember crying out a bit, because it hurt, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t check if I was okay.

We were on the floor—I can remember his legs in between mine, his mouth on my tits, and he bit me so hard I cried out, but he wasn’t listening. I could see his erection and I was scared. His jeans were down. This bloody angry thing was aimed at me and I wanted it to stop, but I wanted it to go on—knew that to lose it to a teacher meant I was sexy. He was heavy on me, his full weight on me, his knees pushing my thighs apart. One hand pushed and parted at my bush and sort of guided his cock, then he was in me and I knew the first time hurt, but this
really
hurt. He wasn’t kissing me, he was just grinding inside me and it hurt so much I thought I was going to be sick. It was like every bit of hatred he possessed was being served up inside me. Every row he’d had with Celeste was being terminated with each painful thrust.

‘You got your period again?’ I can still see Mum delivering my laundry to my room. ‘We should go and see Dr Hanson if it happens again.’

I bled for two days. I was so fucking torn I bled for
two days. But all I could think about was when I’d see him again.

All I could think about was what he was thinking of me.

Sixteen

God, I needed a drink.

I could hear Roz coughing on the sofa as I padded past. Walking into the kitchen, just about to flick the light on, I realised that it already was on. I jumped out of my skin as I saw him at the kitchen table, chatting into his mobile phone.

‘Sorry.’ I went to go, but he’d ended the call.

‘For what?’

‘I didn’t realise you were here… on the phone…’ My heart was still hammering in my chest. All I wanted was a drink, but I couldn’t now, couldn’t because it was two a.m. and what the hell would he think? ‘I just wanted a drink.’

I headed to the tap and poured myself a glass of water, as if that was what I had meant to do. It was nice, actually. I gulped it down in one go and I filled the glass again.

‘It’s the middle of the day in England.’ He walked over to the fridge and pulled out a beer, and I didn’t get it. I didn’t get why it was okay for him to have a beer
and not me. At least I couldn’t unless he suggested it. ‘Want one?’

I shook my head, gave a casual shrug as if I was doing him a favour. ‘I’ll have a small wine with you.’

There weren’t any clean glasses left so I found a mug, which was good, because hopefully he didn’t see how far I filled it.

‘Have you been crying?’

‘No.’

Had I been?
I could feel the damp on my face, eyes that felt swollen when I blinked, and I realised then that I must have been. That I must look a right bloody sight.

Bloody Roz—why did she have to have come? We were all awkward again.

‘Jesus!’ It was the first time I’d heard him snap, but when his phone bleeped a text he hissed the word out and he turned the phone off. ‘We’re supposed to be taking a break and she texts or rings every five fucking minutes.’ Embarrassed, he sort of gave a half-smile of apology.

‘Why
are
you taking a break?’ I took a large gulp of wine.

‘To work out what we want—well, I know what Gemma wants…’ he took a gulp of beer ‘… and given we’ve been going out eight years, it’s fair enough, I guess.’

‘Marriage?’

‘Yup.’

‘And that’s not for you?’

‘I’m not against it. I just…’ He gave a helpless shrug. ‘You’re not seeing anyone?’ he checked, because it was already complicated.

‘Not at the moment.’ (I didn’t tell him not for about a year.)

‘Have you ever been serious about anyone?’

‘I’m not serious about anything!’ It was one of the lines I used regularly, made me sound sort of happily single, I thought, but Hugh didn’t smile.

‘I don’t know about that.’ He frowned at my swollen eyes. ‘You’re okay?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Because if you want to talk…’

‘Then I’ll book in for a consultation.’ I stood up and filled up my mug. I didn’t care at that moment what he bloody thought—unconsciousness was my only aim. ‘‘Night.’

He was standing too.

‘Alice…’

I didn’t want to talk, so I didn’t. I just ignored him and walked to my room, but then I’d forgotten my mug of wine so I turned back for it, but I got Hugh instead.

I sort of landed on his chest and just stood there, because he didn’t let me past. He held me, and I didn’t cry, but I was crying inside. My head felt like a war zone; I didn’t want to go to bed and think, I wanted to close my eyes and just forget.

Forget.

And his mouth let me do that. He kissed me, and the weight of his mouth was sheer relief. It was a slow, lazy kiss and his fingers were in my hair and his tongue stroking mine and it felt so good to forget.

Just so very good.

Seventeen

I was horribly untogether when I woke up the next day. Roz was still crashed on the sofa and even though I didn’t have to be in to work till twelve I had somewhere I needed to be.

Two paracetamol didn’t make a dent in my headache, add to that cramping pain even though I
still
didn’t have my period, and my stomach was jumping as bit by bit I recalled the events of the previous night.

Truth or dare.

Me crying in the kitchen.

I grabbed a skirt and top and some clean undies and then staggered to the bathroom. I put on a cap and had a shower and spent ages on my make-up, trying to transform the cadaver in the mirror into a healthy, glowing thing who hadn’t made a complete fool of herself and wasn’t jangling with a hangover.

And then I remembered.

We’d kissed.

I doubled over in embarrassment and thank God the
tap was running because otherwise he’d have thought I had Tourette’s I was cursing so much.

Had I kissed him or had he kissed me first?

Shit!

I had no idea how to face him.

Had he had to peel me off him?

I turned off the tap and it all sounded quiet outside so I dashed to the kitchen. My handbag was there and I punched out a couple of Valium, the last two actually, washing them down with a very gratefully received glass of water as I boiled the kettle.