The Perfect Match (29 page)

Then, inevitably, Bella would ask, in a tentative, indirect way, mostly consisting of ‘And are you and – er – Michael – er – you know?’

And Alice would say, no, actually, as utterly lovely as the weekend had been, she and Michael were just friends really, and that was that. She wouldn’t say it was because he was emigrating, until she’d had time to get used to the idea and could rely on herself not to cry. And tomorrow she’d think what to do with the rest of her life. Alice liked to have a plan.

She hadn’t thought to look at her phone, and only now saw there were two texts from Bella. Then when she got into the kitchen, there was the note saying she was staying with her mother. Alice found this unexpectedly disappointing. While she and Bella often went for days without seeing each other much, she felt she needed company now. On the other hand it did mean she had lots of time to think up a good story as to why she and Michael weren’t going to become anything permanent.

After tea, Alice went into her garden. She looked at every bed, then every plant and considered them all. She remembered how she’d come by each one – bought at a garden centre, sent off for from a specialist catalogue, or given in a plastic bag from a friend. Quite a few of her favourites had been bought at plant sales and fêtes, and a couple had been ‘liberated’ from the gardens of derelict buildings. Every plant had a little story behind it. She took the opportunity to say goodbye to each one. For, without even thinking about it consciously, Alice had come to a conclusion. Her trip with Michael had reawoken her love of travel, her need for new adventures. Even if he wasn’t going to be part of her life, she still needed the change he had instigated. She had decided she needed to leave this house and move on.

Alice refused to think of herself as heartbroken, she was too old for that. But she did feel horribly betrayed, abandoned, bereft and lonely, which probably was pretty much the same as heartbreak. However, the decision she had made in the garden the previous evening still felt right.

Years ago she heard of someone who chose to give up smoking at the same time as she was going through a tricky divorce, the theory being that she was suffering so much anyway, she wouldn’t notice a bit more. Thus she decided to tackle the hardest part of moving house immediately: clearing out the loft. And even if this decision wasn’t entirely logical, it would be a distraction.

Alice knew from tales Bella had told her that people glibly booked removers for their furniture having taken a brief survey of the bits they could see, completely forgetting the huge amount of stuff tucked up under the insulation in the attic, in the garage and the garden shed. And her loft had all her parents’ clutter in it as well as her own. The access to it had never been easy, involving pull-down ladders, cobwebs and spiders, which is why she’d allowed things to accumulate. Now, when she was so miserable, she would take all those little inconveniences in her stride.

As a gesture to Bella’s demands for health and safety in the home, she left a note on the kitchen table saying where she was, in case she broke her ankle and no one could find her. She sent Bella a text saying the same thing, in case Bella didn’t come home for a while. Then she opened the hatch and pulled down the ladder. Clutching a handful of bin bags she mounted the ladder, clinging to both it and to the theory that misery could be constructive.

Alice wasn’t finding it easy to focus. She’d spent a lot of time peering into old tea chests and moving things from one end of the loft to the other, and then decided she needed entertainment and had gone downstairs for a radio. She wasn’t remotely hungry so hadn’t bothered with lunch and gradually, she managed to fill a few bin liners with rubbish. She was sitting on the floor with a folder full of old school reports on her knees, when she heard a noise over the sound of the radio. Instantly fearing rats or mice, although she’d found no sign of any, she snapped off the radio and closed the folder, ready to run if she had to. Then she saw Michael, standing at the top of the ladder, looking up at her.

Although her brain knew instantly she had no reason to be frightened her body was slower to catch on and she screamed, although not very loudly.

‘Oh, darling,’ he said. ‘I realise I behaved appallingly, but is it that bad? I know I should have explained everything but I couldn’t bear to ruin our weekend.’

Alice wanted to cry or murder him, and was not sure which, but she was determined to do neither. Instead she resorted to dignity – not easy when covered in dust and wearing very little make-up, not to mention some old linen trousers that might well have embarrassing splits in the fabric. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, in a husky voice; tears were not far away.

‘Just calling by,’ he said. ‘The note on the kitchen table told me where you were.’

Alice stiffened. ‘How did you get as far as the kitchen?’

‘Through the side door. I tried the conventional ringing the bell thing first. I tried your phone. Then I hammered on the back door. I knew you were here – your car was here, and anyway I could just tell. When I couldn’t make you hear me I decided something bad had happened and I broke in. Only I didn’t actually have to break anything.’

‘Oh,’ said Alice, still dignified. ‘I must have left the side door unlocked last night. Very remiss of me.’

‘Very,’ agreed Michael. He regarded her. ‘Are you going to come down?’

‘No. I’m busy.’ Then she sneezed. While she was groping for a tissue, Michael arrived in the loft.

‘Darling, we do need to talk and I need to apologise properly. I should have told you about the job, and I should have done it yesterday, if not over the weekend. But I had to go to London, I had meetings all day and another couple this morning. I actually suggested we had one of those where you don’t sit down, to make it go more quickly.’

‘Right,’ said Alice, non-committal.

‘Do you really want me to explain everything here?’

‘I don’t think we need to talk.’ She gave her nose a final wipe. ‘Although I expect I forgot to say thank you for a lovely holiday. Thank you.’

‘Alice, my darling girl, you said thank you about a zillion times and you wrote it in the note. That’s not what I meant, as well you know.’

Alice tucked the tissue in the pocket of her shirt. ‘Really, there’s nothing to say. I realise you have a life, a job, a career, things I no longer have, and you must pursue it.’ She hesitated. ‘I now have to confess to eavesdropping. I know you’re emigrating.’

‘Didn’t your mother ever tell you that eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves?’ Michael set off across the loft towards Alice, and she backed away a little; she took refuge behind a tea chest, squatting down as if to sort through it.

‘You weren’t talking about me!’

‘No, but it did affect you.’

‘Not at all! It’s your life!’ Alice said. She felt another sneeze coming and got out her tissue. She really hoped he wouldn’t think she was crying. ‘It’s the dust,’ she went on. ‘It’s making me sneeze.’ The sneeze threw her off balance so she stuck out her leg to stabilise herself.

‘Please, let’s go downstairs,’ said Michael. ‘There’s lots we need to discuss.’

‘No. If you have anything to say, say it here, and quickly. I’m busy.’

‘OK. I brought your rug. The one we got in the souk?’

‘Oh.’ Alice felt a glimmer of pleasure. A new rug would be cheering.

‘And I meant to talk to you about everything but the moment never came up.’

‘No,’ she agreed, although as she hadn’t known he needed to tell her he was emigrating she couldn’t have spotted a good moment.

‘The trouble was – is . . .’ He paused.

She was starting to get cramp and wanted to move her leg but as she didn’t want to look old and creaky, she put up with the pain. ‘Come on then, spit it out.’

He laughed. ‘You’re a bit crabby today, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. Possibly. So would you be if you had cramp like I have.’

‘Then get up! Stop curling up like a baby gorilla.’

‘Are you calling me a gorilla?’

‘A baby one. It’s quite different. Now get up.’

He grabbed a hand and pulled. With his help she got upright. She rubbed her aching leg. ‘That was agony.’

‘I did suggest we went downstairs before now.’

Now she was in less pain she felt more belligerent. ‘And I said I was busy! Now say what you want to say.’ Something caught her eye and a quick squint made her fairly sure her face was smeared with dust. She was even more determined to stand her ground.

‘OK. Well, as you gathered I’ve been offered a job abroad.’ He paused.

She nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘One of the reasons I wanted to take you away, apart from the usual . . .’

He seemed to need prompting. ‘Which were?’

He looked pained. ‘Don’t make me spell it out! It’s embarrassing! But it’s to do with perfectly normal male urges and very attractive women.’

Alice thought this was a compliment but as she wasn’t sure she decided not to push it. ‘OK, let’s go with the first reason you mentioned. Tell me that.’

‘I wanted to ask you to come with me.’ He bit his lip. ‘You see, it is a big ask.’

‘You want me to emigrate? Where to? Outer Mongolia? New Zealand? Or somewhere further away?’

He shook his head, beginning to smile. ‘I’m not sure there is anywhere further away than New Zealand, and I didn’t say anything about emigrating. Bill did.’

‘So where is it you’re not emigrating to?’

‘Brussels.’

‘What, Brussels? In Europe?’ She frowned. ‘Who on earth emigrates to Brussels?’

‘No one! Well, at least, I’m sure some people do. But I do wish you’d stop talking about emigrating, when I’m not.’

She sighed. Her devastation was seeping away a little, but slowly. ‘So what are you doing?’

‘I’m going to work there for three years, possibly.’

‘You mean, possibly it’s longer?’

‘No, possibly I won’t go.’

‘What is it depending on?’

‘Whether you come with me.’

Alice took a few seconds to take this in. ‘Are you mad?’

‘I do realise it’s terribly early in our relationship and that I—’

‘No,’ Alice interrupted. ‘What’s the big deal asking me to go there? It’s only at the end of the Eurostar line or something.’

‘But it would be for three years.’

‘I expect I’d get time off for good behaviour – wouldn’t I?’ When she thought of the agony she’d been through, and he only wanted to ask her to live in Brussels. ‘You’ll have the internet, won’t you?’

Half laughing he said, ‘I didn’t feel I could ask you to leave all this . . .’ He made a gesture, serious now.

Alice started to giggle. ‘What? All this?’ She indicated the boxes, the bin bags, the dust and the mess.

Michael frowned. ‘Obviously I hadn’t pictured you in exactly this setting. I had you more in the garden, under a rose bush or something.’

‘I think you mean gooseberry bush and I haven’t been under one for years – well, since I was born, really.’

Michael stopped trying to explain himself. He stepped forward and took her into his arms. ‘I adore you, Alice, and I want you to come to Brussels with me. If you could face marrying me, that would be all the better.’

His body against hers was exciting and familiar at the same time and she felt she could never get enough of his kisses.

When at last he let her go she said, ‘Let’s go downstairs. What are we doing in this dusty attic?’

He held on to her. ‘I want a picture of you exactly as you are now.’

‘That means I’m covered in dust, doesn’t it?’

He nodded. ‘And you’ve got cobwebs in your hair.’

‘Agh! I’m getting out of here immediately.’

A glance in a decent mirror as they went downstairs made her say, ‘You go and put the kettle on or open a bottle, whatever you want. I’m going to have a quick shower.’

‘Don’t be long.’

‘I won’t.’

She was back with him in five minutes and found him on the phone. ‘So, are you happy now?’ he was saying. Then he laughed. ‘Yes, all done.’ Then he ended the call.

She was desperate to ask whom he was talking to but it was none of her business. ‘Are you hungry?’ she said instead.

‘Starving. I didn’t have lunch.’

Feeding people was where she felt comfortable. ‘Nor did I. Forgot.’ She didn’t want to say she’d been too miserable to think of food. ‘What would you like?’

‘Biscuits and cheese and a glass of wine,’ he said promptly.

‘Not a problem.’ She began getting things out of cupboards.

‘Alice – you are sure about coming with me, aren’t you?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘I could easily ring them back and say you’ve changed your mind.’

She stopped. ‘Are you telling me that you’ve just rung and told them you’ll do the job? You really didn’t before?’

‘I rushed up to London and signed everything, but I said they couldn’t act on it until I got back to them. I didn’t want a job that took me away from you for three years – even if Brussels isn’t quite as far as New Zealand.’

‘So, supposing I’d said no? What would you have done?’

‘Found another job in England,’ he said promptly. ‘Or become a consultant or something.’

‘You don’t seem to take your career very seriously,’ she said, peering into the fridge so he wouldn’t see her expression.

‘Oh, I do. I have. But there comes a time in your life when you realise there are more important things. You are more important.’

Alice swallowed. ‘For that I shall give you my very best Saint Agur.’

‘You mean you wouldn’t have anyway?’ He seemed offended.

‘Of course I would!’

‘So you do love me?’

‘Of course I do,’ she said softly. Then she exhaled. ‘Now I think we should eat, otherwise we’ll start on the wine and fall into a stupor.’

When they did start on the wine he raised his glass to her. ‘Here’s to you, my darling girl.’

She smiled in return. She found she couldn’t speak. Her throat was closed up by tears of happiness.

BELLA DROVE BACK
to Alice’s after leaving her mother, feeling tired and anticlimactic. All the adrenalin she had relied on as she had confronted Celine had gone. Now she didn’t know what to do next. She hoped the drive would give her time to think about things.