Kissing Alice Read online

  ‘It’s always like that. It’s the washer or something,’ he said. ‘I had a look at it once, but couldn’t do anything with it. I’m sorry, Alice – I should have done something before. Florrie always wanted to change it.’

  She did not look away as he spoke Florrie’s name.

  ‘I’m fine. It stung, that’s all,’ she said.

  Eddie flicked out the tea towel. ‘I’d better finish up,’ he said. ‘You sit down. There’ll be a film on if you like.’

  And she passed through the partition so that he could breathe again. She sat on the edge of the sofa rubbing a spot on her calf where a drip of water had splashed against her tights.

  Eddie remembered Maggie. He listened for her, and thought he heard the scratch of her record player, but could not be sure. The first thing he did, when he finished in the kitchen, was to call up the stairs but she did not hear, or at least did not respond.

  ‘She’ll be asleep, I reckon,’ he said to Alice, half turned away from her, holding the door to the hall still open so that they could feel the cold air rolling over them.

  ‘Florrie all over, that’s what she is,’ said Alice.

  It was not a compliment.

  ‘Still, she’s a good girl,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Keep the draught out, Eddie. Come and sit down,’ said Alice, flinging a gesture vaguely towards the other end of the sofa.

  But Eddie went to sit apart, in his armchair.

  Maggie turned up her music and they heard the faint trickle of it.

  ‘With her mother – well, you know, she’s…’ Eddie looked at the ceiling. ‘I want to tread carefully with her, Alice.’

  Not quite understanding, Alice nodded.

  ‘She doesn’t know anything. She hasn’t seen the letter or anything,’ Eddie added, leaning forward. He reached for his tin of tobacco and turned it in his hands many times before speaking again. ‘You’ve never said about it, Alice – the letter at the front of the book. What you wrote there, to me.’

  Alice frowned. It all seemed a long way off. ‘But that was for Florrie, Eddie not for you.

  The book was for both of you, I suppose, at the wedding, but the letter, that was meant for Florrie – surely you could see that when you read it.’ Her voice fell. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t really matter, in the end, because, well, we never…’

  Eddie put the tin on his knees. He was adamant. ‘That was never to Florrie, my love. It was to me. Addressed to me. You must remember. It was – you know, a love letter, Alice.’

  ‘Eddie, I think I would know.’ Alice clipped her words.

  ‘It was a long time ago. If you don’t remember…’

  ‘Eddie, I do remember – of course I remember. Everything. But…’ She puffed at him. ‘Look, you’ve still got it? The letter?’

  ‘Of course. Upstairs.’

  ‘Well then. We’ll read it. I’ll show you,’ said Alice.

  Eddie flipped the tin and began to roll a cigarette. ‘Not now. Not with Mags here,’ he said, licking along the paper, concentrating on the folds of it.

  ‘Oh come on, Eddie – it can’t be that bad. It’s not going to… she’s not a child.’

  Eddie shook his head and held the new cigarette between them. ‘You really don’t remember, do you?’

  He sat back and lit the roll-up, blue smoke twirling around his fingers. Alice saw that she had let him down somehow; he was hunched and awkward, dissatisfied. If she lost him again, she knew it would be a failure. She nudged herself from the sofa and came to crouch on the floor at Eddie’s feet, her arms on his knees, looking up at him in a way Florrie, with her extra height, rarely had. She was taut and strange in the growing shadows of the December afternoon, the smoke twisting over her.

  ‘Come on, Eddie,’ she said. ‘I forgive you for spoiling my book.’

  Eddie thought it was a pleasantry. He blew the smoke away and smiled at her. ‘You were always a funny girl, Alice Craythorne.’

  And then Alice took her hands from Eddie’s knees and leaned forward, her weight pushing his legs apart, her lips firm. What she did next seemed to seal it, finally, between them.

  Eddie’s cigarette burnt through and dropped ash on the arm of the chair. After Alice had pulled away again, solemn, drawing her arm across her mouth, he flicked it off and tipped the spent dog-end into the ashtray.

  ‘Well,’ he said, prefacing something, but then they heard Maggie on the stairs and Alice sprang to her feet and went to the window, and Eddie brushed himself down and the length of Florrie’s room extended between them.

  Maggie pushed hard at the door. ‘I thought there might be a film on,’ she said, not looking at her aunt.

  ‘I’ll walk you to the bus, Alice,’ said Eddie. ‘I’ll just get my coat.’

  But Alice was sharp with him. ‘There’s no need. I’ll be fine. You stay, Eddie. You stay with Maggie.’

  Eddie went to shake his head. He had things he needed to say to her. But Maggie moved across to her father and took his hand. ‘You can stay and watch with me, Dad,’ she said, claiming him.

  Mary came to see Eddie one Thursday afternoon on her way back from a shift at the hospital. She was still wearing her uniform, though she had a duffel coat unbuttoned over it. At first, seeing her warped by the pear-shaped window in the front door, Eddie did not recognize her. He had not been expecting anyone. With the call of bluetits bouncing in the spring air, he was making a bird-table for the back garden and had a head full of fractions.

  ‘Eddie, it’s me. Mary Baker,’ she said through the door, after she had rung the second time.

  ‘Mary?’

  The door was on its safety chain and only opened a crack. Eddie was clumsy unfastening it.

  ‘Are you all right, Mary? Is everything all right, my love?’

  Mary puffed her way through the hall and into the lounge. She did not take off her coat and she did not sit down. There was something stiff and urgent about her. Eddie was sure that a calamity had happened.

  ‘The boys? And Charlie? They’re all right?’

  ‘They’re fine,’ said Mary, sharp-edged. ‘Eddie, it’s you I’ve come about. You and Alice.’

  ‘Alice?’

  The name sounded strange like that, apart from her. Eddie shuffled. He wanted to sit down, but Mary remained tight, hardly through the door, waiting.

  ‘You found her, I heard,’ she said. It was a way of starting it.

  ‘Yes, before Christmas – by chance,’ Eddie said. ‘I’d given up, you see – I’d tried everything. And then there she was.’

  ‘Eddie, it’s Alice.’

  ‘It was in the Continental of all places. She was just sitting there,’ said Eddie. Still, even now, it struck him as miraculous. He thought perhaps Mary would see that too. But Mary did not seem impressed.

  She stepped further into the room. ‘Eddie, I’ve been wondering – what made you think of her, after Florrie? What made… it’s not like… you didn’t find… ?’

  She did not move. Eddie edged past her. ‘It was like I said. I bumped into her, at the Continental. Shall I take your coat, Mary?’

  ‘But before that, Eddie? When you were looking for her? What made you look for her?’

  He reached out a hand, but Mary clung to the lapel of her duffel coat and Eddie shrugged. ‘Something put me in mind of her, that’s all.’

  ‘Something?’ Mary’s voice was brittle.

  ‘Some poems,’ he said. ‘Something of Florrie’s – a book. Nothing really.’

  Mary knew then what she had done and seeing him in front of her, swaying from one foot to the other in front of the television, flicking the loose end of his tape measure with his thumb, puffed-up, she did not care if she offended him.

  ‘Well, it’s disgusting, Eddie. Don’t you see that? Don’t you see it’s… it’s… sick?’

  Eddie said nothing. He recalculated the arithmetic for the bird-table.

  ‘When I first heard, I thought it might be nice to have Ally back, to see her again. I was
going to ring you and invite you both over, and Maggie. I was going to have a family thing. But then when they said it was something more. When they saw you kissing. Kissing, Eddie. At the bus station. There, in front of people, kissing Alice…’

  The idea hung in the room. Eddie tried to put the knot of calculations from his head. He thought he should say something.

  ‘I don’t know that can be right, Mary.’

  She huffed. ‘Of course it’s right.’

  Eddie ran the tape measure smoothly across his palm. ‘No, I don’t think so. You see we’ve only been into Cornwall, that’s all, on the bus. They can’t have seen us, at the bus station, doing that – really, Mary, they can’t. We didn’t.’

  ‘You haven’t kissed her then?’

  Eddie stepped away slightly. ‘Who told you all this, Mary?’

  ‘Never mind that. A friend of mine. It doesn’t matter. What matters is… did you kiss her, Eddie?’

  Mary spat the words at him, and he closed his eyes for a moment.

  ‘It’s a rumour,’ he said then. ‘That’s all. Why would we be like that, at the bus station, at our age?’

  And he might have left it at that, but Mary pressed in on him. ‘You shouldn’t get it in your head, Eddie, that she ever… you shouldn’t think she loves you, you know.’

  Eddie moved away to the bureau, lifted down the front flap and took out a stubby pencil with which he wrote his bird-table measurements on a strip of paper, to free his mind from them.

  ‘Mary, I don’t think you know about it,’ he said then, suddenly sharp.

  ‘Believe me, Eddie – I know all about it. Everything.’

  ‘It’s between us, the two of us. Between Alice and me. If I kissed her, it’s just between us.’

  ‘And did you? Did you kiss her, Eddie?’

  Eddie looked straight at her, nodding slightly, stubborn. ‘I might have done,’ he said. ‘Once. But not at the bus station, Mary – not like that.’

  Mary squealed. ‘Good God, Eddie, it’s Florrie’s sister.’

  ‘Florrie’s dead, my love.’

  ‘Exactly. Florrie’s dead. And here you are, running round like this…’ She spread her arms as if that would explain it.

  Eddie’s voice was flat and firm. ‘Look, we’re doing no harm, Mary. We’re just – it’s something from a long time ago. I can’t see it’s anything to do with you.’ He wanted to tell her that everything was justified by the letter, by words that had been written into his history, but Mary was desperate with him.

  ‘Of course it’s to do with me. She’s my sister. And I feel responsible.’

  ‘I know Alice is your sister—’

  ‘And Florrie! Florrie. Have you forgotten her Eddie?’

  Mary took a deep breath that swelled her duffel coat and that she did not seem to let out. Her next words came strongly.

  ‘I’ll tell Maggie,’ she said. ‘If you don’t stop, if you go on with this, then Maggie needs to know. It’s only fair on the girl. And I’ll tell her, Eddie, so help me I will. If you can’t stop this… this… mess.’

  Eddie folded his strip of paper neatly, over and over, until it was just a tiny square, straight-edged and symmetrical.

  ‘I’ll tell Maggie myself,’ he said. ‘She’s seen Alice here – she saw her at Christmas. She won’t mind.’

  ‘Then why haven’t you told her before?’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell, Mary.’ He looked up from his origami, resisting her desperation.

  ‘No? She doesn’t need to know that you and her aunt, her mother’s sister, are – are, what, Eddie? In love?’ Mary smiled crookedly at the thought.

  Eddie put his hands flat towards her, as though preparing for a push. ‘Just go, Mary. Just leave it.’

  ‘No, Eddie. I won’t just leave it. I need to know. I need to be sure you’re not going on with it. If not…’ She glanced vaguely in the direction of Maggie’s empty bedroom. ‘And she’ll hate you, Eddie, when I tell her. She’ll feel left out and let down. She’ll think it’s disgusting – it’s not natural. It’s weird. It’ll make her sick. It makes me sick.’

  Eddie pictured Maggie, as he had once imagined her, when he had been a long time at sea and she was small and undiscovered, landlocked.

  ‘You know what I feel about Maggie. You know she’s the world to me now,’ he said.

  ‘Well then.’ Mary shrugged her coat higher on to her shoulders.

  ‘You don’t have the right to come in and make me choose against her, Mary. It’s not like that. Alice… Alice wants us to be together,’ he said, intractable.

  Mary grunted a half laugh. ‘Alice? Oh, and that’s all right, is it, what Alice wants – it doesn’t matter about Maggie and Florrie and me and… Why is it always Alice?’

  ‘It’s both of us,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Bah!’

  Mary looked around her. The room appeared much as it always had done, in Florrie’s time, but shabby now and suddenly old-fashioned. There were some gaudy new pictures on the wall, hung unevenly over the fireplace, freakish and creepy. But she could see no obvious sign of Alice. That, at least, was something.

  ‘Look, this thing, with Alice,’ Eddie began. He was surprised, now that he had to stand up for her, how faint Alice’s face was in his head, how dingy with memories, with Florrie standing tall, away from them. But there was the covenant of the letter between them, binding them, making an irrevocable claim on him, and his words came strongly. ‘Look, it’s not weird,’ he said. ‘Not at all. You’ve not seen her for years. You hardly know her. You can’t say.’

  Mary buttoned her coat with quick hands. ‘Finish it, Eddie. You can’t love her. Not a woman like that.’ She raised her eyebrows, damning her sister.

  Eddie flicked the square of paper nimbly through his fingers, like some kind of trick. They both watched the dance of it.

  ‘I need to catch Harper’s now before they shut. I need some two-by-two,’ he said, holding out the folded note as evidence.

  He stepped towards her, forcing her towards the door.

  ‘But you’ll do it, Eddie? You’ll finish it?’

  He picked up his hat from the shelf in the hallway. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he conceded.

  ‘Promise me. Promise me, Eddie. I can’t have this going on any longer. Not when I think of poor Florrie.’

  She touched Eddie very lightly on the arm.

  ‘I can’t promise, Mary. I won’t do that,’ he said, fitting his hat. His face was unreadable.

  They were nice to each other as they went down the front path together, although Eddie was so tight inside himself that he did not know what was being said. Nor did he see anything as they stood for a moment by the gate, Mary picking out landmarks across the river. Everything was inside him, twisted. Beyond that there was nothing. But it happened anyway that Mary turned up the hill for her bus, pulling her coat close across her chest, and Eddie turned downhill, walking quickly, not looking back. And when she got home, Mary told her husband what had happened while she was standing up cooking tea, and he patted her on the shoulder, so that she would know she had done right. And Eddie, when he got to Harper’s, argued intensely with the shop boy about what size and cut of timber was best for his job, leaving in the end with none at all, and feeling so ashamed of himself as he climbed the hill back home that he looked up at the cloud-trimmed sky and wailed.

  He wanted to take Alice something. He spent the lengthening evenings in his shed making the bird-table, fixing the roof with felt so that it would be waterproof, and sanding off the edges so they were smooth. He made a little plaque out of chipboard and painted it white. Then he carefully traced the letters of her name on to it and went over them in blue paint, exact and symmetrical. He liked the shape of it. He nailed the plaque to the front of the bird-table, wrapped the whole thing in plastic, and put it carefully into a sturdy bag.

  Alice was in the garden of her prefab, bending to take out the browning stems of winter-dead plants. He watched her for a moment,
stooped and garden-gloved, before she saw him. When he began to explain, he did not mention Mary. He did not want Alice to think he had given in.

  ‘I just need time, before we go on. I need to think about Maggie,’ he said.

  ‘About Maggie. What’s the matter with the girl? For pity’s sake, Eddie…’ She stopped herself.

  ‘But with her mother. With it being like it is, Alice…’

  Alice let the stems fall from her hand into the small bucket by her feet. ‘She doesn’t like me I suppose,’ she said, without rancour.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s not that – she hasn’t said.’ Eddie picked up a dropped twig with his free hand and threw it into the bucket with the others. ‘I think it’s just – it’s just Florrie.’

  ‘Ah, Florrie.’ Alice nodded. ‘Come inside. We’ll talk about it inside.’

  ‘I can’t – I can’t come in. It wouldn’t do.’

  Alice laughed. ‘Wouldn’t do?’ she prodded. ‘Eddie, don’t be such a fool.’

  Eddie thought about Mary’s friends, on a pavement somewhere, shaking their heads at his transgression, disgracing him. ‘I don’t want it to start up again. That’s what I’ve come to say. I’m not coming in, Alice.’

  ‘What do you think’ll happen? What do you think I’ll do to you if you come in?’

  Alice leaned one foot against the tin wall of her house, shaded her eyes from the sun, and looked at Eddie. He did not answer.

  ‘I don’t know why you’ve come,’ Alice said flatly.

  ‘I had to.’

  ‘To say we couldn’t go on together? That Florrie wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘No. Not that. Alice, listen… I know it’s what you’ve always wanted. I know you’ve been thinking of it, for ages…’

  ‘Me!’

  Eddie ignored her. ‘But I have to think of Maggie. I have to be fair to her. And you know we’ve never really – it’s been strange between us, Alice.’

  Alice shrugged. ‘I thought it was going pretty well.’ She remembered the way he had looked at her in the sparkle of the Christmas decorations. ‘I didn’t think you’d give me up. I didn’t think you’d still be fretting about Florrie.’