Chapter 4
It was only natural, Alice supposed, that she might experience a shock reaction to what she had seen – strike that, what she had been involved in, earlier that day. She still shuddered slightly at the idea that her own arrogance in pushing forward to help might ultimately have had a negative impact on Jessica’s recovery. She couldn’t put her finger on why she’d done it though, and with Holly standing right there beside her! And once she’d begun to take care of Jessica, she couldn’t deny that she’d felt personally invested in that little girl’s recovery and utterly piqued when Dan had swept in and taken over.
She shivered under the blanket that her aunt Pru had wrapped around her shoulders, tucking her feet up under herself on the sofa and sipping at her cup of tea – tea being the balm for all ills, in her aunt’s opinion. With Coco fast asleep beside her, Alice tried to relax.
But it wasn’t that easy.
‘Honestly,’ she said to her aunt, who was fussing around her sitting room, ‘do leave it. I’ll get everything sorted when I get a weekend off.’ It took all of Alice’s restraint not to leap up and prise the books and photographs out of her aunt’s well-meaning hands, as she continued to ‘give the place a little tidy’.
Catching the edge in her niece’s voice, Pru sat down reluctantly – one of those women for whom sitting idle was anathema. After all, she would reason, time spent chatting could also be time spent cleaning, cooking, gardening.
‘Alice, love,’ she began tentatively, casting her eye around the sitting room, ‘I really think you need to take some time to unpack properly. You’ve been in this house for months now and you’ve storage boxes everywhere. How long would it take for the two of us to really knuckle down and get you properly settled?’ She waved a hand at the large wall behind the sofa. ‘A nice bookshelf from that Swedish Eekoo place would do just the job.’
Alice couldn’t help but smile at her aunt’s earnest expression. ‘Do you mean Ikea, Aunty Pru?’ she offered, without judgement. She was well used to her aunt’s propensity for muddling up words – indeed this habit had often been the only highlight of family get-togethers when Alice had been small and the only child in the family, not a cousin in sight.
‘I think I’ll wait until I’ve time to do it properly,’ she said, taking a sip of tea and trying not to let the panic show on her face. The very idea of somebody else unpacking her boxes or decorating her sitting room made the skin on her neck prickle. She attempted to soften her abrupt tone as soon as she saw the hurt expression on Pru’s face. ‘It is my very first home of my own, after all. Even if it is just a rental. I want it to be fun and take my time with it – get it just the way I want it. Maybe head into Bath for the Antiques Market and sniff out a bargain?’
‘Of course,’ her aunt nodded, mollified at least that Alice had a plan in place. ‘You’re quite right.’ As Pru stood up yet again to go and fiddle in the kitchen, a running narrative floated through the archway that divided the ground floor of this terraced cottage in two, with Alice only picking up half the monologue. The other half of her attention was focused on ways to keep her aunt downstairs; if she thought this looked bad, there was no way Alice was going to allow her to see the bedrooms upstairs.
‘You know, I’m so grateful for you bringing me home,’ Alice began, pushing off the blanket and wandering through to the kitchen, ‘but I think a good night’s sleep is probably just what the doctor ordered.’ She didn’t specifically ask her aunt to leave, couldn’t bring herself to be that blunt, but the message was clear, as she let the sentiment dangle.
Pru wiped her hands on a tea towel and cast one more glance around the newly sparkling kitchen. ‘Well, at least I don’t have to worry about you starving,’ she said, with an attempt at humour. She waved a hand at Alice’s over-stocked larder. ‘In fact, with all that food in there, you’re probably covered through to Christmas.’ She leaned in and kissed Alice on the cheek, brushing away the stray frond of hair that always tumbled forward into her eyes. ‘I’ll give you a ring tomorrow, love, okay? Just to make sure there’s no ill-effects from your heroics?’
As the front door slammed shut behind her, there was a moment of suspended silence, before Alice’s anguished sobs could be restrained no longer. She slid down against the cabinets in the kitchen, her bizarre bunny slippers sticking out in front of her, as the roiling anxiety in her stomach was allowed free rein. Holding it together in front of her aunt had only served to exacerbate the angst – not just about poor little Jessica Hearst or the unexpected trauma of the afternoon, but all of it compounded by the stress of having someone, anyone really, rootling through her things.
She knew it wasn’t a proportionate reaction, just as she knew it was a sentiment best kept to herself. She simply couldn’t stand to share her space and incur judgement. And judgement was inevitable really, if anybody looked too closely.
Coco’s sniffing attentions brought her back into the moment, as they always did. There was only ever unconditional love and acceptance from her little spaniel – and for Alice, this was one of the greatest gifts of all.
Hours later, as Coco lay diagonally across Alice’s bed, the only light in the bedroom came from the flickering glow of Alice’s laptop. An early night may have seemed like the best recovery plan, but her body refused to comply. With her blood sugar fluctuating more than usual, Alice felt the ever-present nervousness about submitting to sleep. She knew that Coco was there to alert her to any problems in the night, but that wasn’t always enough to take away the fear. Especially after a day like today.
She missed Tilly, her best friend, confidante and social conscience. Tilly brought focus and perspective to Alice’s life, even though their friendship these days was mainly conducted via Skype and Facebook, while Tilly was busy travelling around the world, taking her medical skills to wherever needed her most. She was in South America right now and, to Alice, had never felt further away. She clicked onto Skype in hope more than expectation of finding a little green tick next to her name. No such luck.
So instead, Alice trawled the internet as she always did, erratically clicking from one designer website to another, with no particular goal in mind. The very action of hunting out a bargain soothing in itself.
As she compared prices on a particularly lovely MaxMara bracelet she categorically did not need, Alice’s focus was so absolute that she finally felt that ‘give’ – the release she’d been hoping for. It was hard to know when this habit had become a ritual, but Alice tried not to think about it. All she cared about was that it worked.
She clicked through the checkout, her card details already saved, but barely missing a beat when the font changed to red and her transaction was declined. She reached across a slumbering Coco for her wallet on the bedside table, ignoring the little dog’s groans of protest at being disturbed. Without hesitation, Alice picked a different credit card at random and typed the numbers in by the light of the screen. As her order confirmation number flashed up and the bracelet became rightfully hers, she sighed. Maybe this time, her pick-me-up purchase would actually do its job when it arrived.
The phone beside her trilled into the darkness, jolting Coco awake, startling them both – who could be phoning at this time of night, Alice cursed. ‘Hello?’ she answered curtly, before noticing the digits on the clock beside her – it was only ten o’clock.
‘Alice? It’s Jamie. Everything okay?’
Typical of him to notice every nuance of her tone, she thought as she hurriedly tried to regroup. ‘Fine, honestly fine,’ she said. ‘I just grabbed an early night, that’s all.’
‘And I woke you up? Shit. And here was me trying to be helpful and supportive!’ When Alice didn’t reply he blundered on. ‘I just saw the local news, that’s all. I wanted to see if you were alright?’ The openness and ease in his voice was something Alice envied – his motivations always transparent. If he said he was phoning to see how she was, that was actually what he was doing – this was no late-night booty call.
If only, Alice sighed, before sharply reining in her thoughts. Jamie Yardley was categorically not the answer to her problems. But he was her friend, one of her best friends really, and she appreciated their relationship more than he would probably ever know. ‘That’s very sweet,’ she replied, her tone softening. ‘And you only woke up Coco, so she’ll be expecting restitution when she sees you next.’
Jamie’s laugh rumbled down the phone line. ‘She can have some extra bacon, how’s that? I imagine she’s earned it today—’ The humour barely disguised the concern in his voice. After all, as Coco’s dog trainer, he was utterly au fait with the nightly balancing act that Coco and Alice endured, knowing only too well how much stress and adrenalin could throw a Type One diabetic off balance. There were certainly very few other people in her life who realised, truly realised, what she went through every day just to appear normal and functional. ‘How are you two really doing?’
Jamie was never one to be fobbed off lightly and Alice struggled with that – some days it was exactly what she needed, longed for even, but others? Well, it was only a small click over to intrusive.
‘We’re okay, Jamie,’ Alice replied, after a pause, where she had weighed up the options of bullshitting him. ‘It might be a long night though.’
She could almost hear him nod down the line, his phone wedged under his chin as always, another chronic multitasker. ‘The news said Jessica’s making a good recovery,’ Jamie said gently, ‘so you can relax now. Your part is over and, by all accounts, Walker, you did good.’
Alice took a breath, about to interrupt, about to tell him that she’d had no business stepping forward to help that girl in the first place, but something stopped her. She didn’t want him to see all her insecurities after all. ‘I might watch a movie,’ she proffered.
‘Do you want me to stay on the line and watch the same one, Harry-met-Sally style?’ he suggested teasingly, knowing exactly what kind of movie Alice always reached for. He’d tried to widen her horizons, offering DVDs of epic spy movies, Marvel superheroes or even Star Wars trilogies, but Alice was firmly wedded to the Happy-Ever-Afters – anything by Working Title, or starring Hugh Grant, and Alice was happy. It was the only area of her life where she was content to be a cliché.
‘Night, Jamie,’ she said instead, unable to disguise the smile in her voice at his suggestion. ‘Thank you though.’
‘You’re very welcome,’ he said, registering the change and seemingly content that all was now well. ‘Phone me if you get bored of Julia Roberts.’ He hung up with a click and Alice stared at the receiver in her hand, the dialling tone loud in the darkness.
She sighed. There was something about Jamie Yardley that made her smile every time; he seemed to know without prompting exactly what she needed. Just like every best friend should.
She scrunched up her eyes tightly in the darkness, as though by doing so she could ignore the room around her, the chaos around her.
And therein lay the solitary problem with Jamie – he was altogether too local. And if Alice’s dating life had one parameter, it was distance. Not so much the old adage that absence made the heart grow fonder, more that the likelihood of somebody sharing her personal space was dramatically reduced.
She opened her eyes, ignoring the shapes looming in the darker recesses of her bedroom, and stared intently at her laptop screen, clicking on the windows until her profile appeared and she could access her messages. Her heart did a small flip-flop as she saw that Ollie was already online.
Hey – she typed – how was the surf this morning?
They had nothing in common.
They would, in all likelihood, never meet.
But chatting with Ollie Turner online was the closest that Alice got to dating these days.
And, of course, it helped that Sydney, Australia was just far enough away to discourage any thoughts of sleepovers or spontaneous visits.