Kissing Alice Read online

  When they got off the bus a breeze nudged at them from the reservoir. They stood by the low stone wall looking out across the ridged water. One or two of the trees high up on the rocky slopes towards the Tor were tinged tawny with the start of autumn, but the woods closer to were still green. The cluster of people who had travelled with them on the bus gradually broke away, the children running on ahead, making noise.

  ‘Let’s walk,’ said Eddie. ‘There’s a path takes you right round, all the way.’

  ‘But what about the basket?’ asked Florrie. ‘We can’t walk with the basket.’

  Eddie took it off her to feel its weight. He huffed. ‘Blimey, Flor, what’s in it? You brought the kitchen sink?’

  She giggled. ‘Just lunch.’

  ‘What did you bring all that for, when you knew we would be walking?’

  Florrie thought about her best shoes, delicate in the heel, and the heavy wool of her Sunday coat. ‘I thought it was an outing,’ she said. ‘For a picnic.’

  ‘Well we’ll have to leave it here, behind the wall and come back for it later.’

  ‘We can’t do that. Someone’ll take it.’

  ‘What? Sandwiches. Who’s going to take blimin sandwiches?’

  ‘The basket then, as well. And I bought ham.’ This, Florrie felt, explained everything.

  Eddie kicked a stone at one of the crows scratching near the wheel of the parked bus. ‘What’re we going to do then all morning if we don’t go for a walk? We can’t just stand here.’ He looked at Alice now as he spoke, but Alice continued to look out over the water. Eddie followed her gaze.

  ‘Look at it there. Waiting,’ he said, gesturing vaguely across the reservoir to the Tor, his voice pitched high like a child’s.

  Florrie sighed. She did as she was told, and looked across the dark water, but all she saw was a lump of rock, stony and squat. Something strange had happened to the softness of the landscape, making it half wild and unfamiliar.

  ‘I’ll carry it,’ she said, picking up the basket.

  ‘What, all the way?’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  They had walked twenty minutes from the dam, and had turned off the wide even path on to one that twisted through a wood, and still Florrie was carrying the basket. She tried switching hands, again, but the weight of it brought an ache to her neck and shoulders, separate from the sharp pain in her palms, and at last she put it down. They were a few feet from the edge of the reservoir where a small sandy beach pushed out from the stones at the limit of the woods.

  ‘I’ll wait here,’ said Florrie. ‘With the basket. You can go on a bit, if you like, and then when you come back, we can picnic here. Down on the sand. It’s nice.’

  She did not, of course, expect them to go. But Eddie took the basket only long enough to carry it down to the sand and wedge it in behind a rock in the shade, and Alice just said, ‘Will you be all right, Flor, by yourself ?’ without waiting for an answer. And although they had neither of them planned it that way, Eddie and Alice were alone. They felt they had been let off something and turned back up into the dappled shadow of the woods. Florrie was hidden from view.

  ‘Stupid ruddy picnic,’ hissed Eddie.

  Eddie set off briskly, his heart set on walking a complete circuit of the reservoir. He hurried up the path, bounding over rocks and tree roots, frolicking almost when they emerged from the trees and he could see the Tor again. Alice struggled to keep up with him. She fixed her eyes determinedly on the curve of his back, and stopped seeing things around her, just the pull and snatch of his shirt over his shoulders, and a sense of green air stretching away on all sides.

  ‘You’re very quiet, my love,’ Eddie said at last, slowing for a moment when they rejoined the main path.

  Alice was trying to control the rush of her breathing and nodded.

  ‘That’s good. There’re not many girls like that. They chatter,’ he said, matter-of-factly, and set off again hard, throwing back a smile at her. And with the clamped pain in Alice’s chest and the strain of her breathing, and Eddie’s giddy delight at the high-blowing clouds and the moss shadowing the rocks and the fast-running water, silver in the rocky streams, they did not say another thing until they had passed under the Tor and were well down the path along the far side of the reservoir.

  ‘Is that you? Wheezing?’ asked Eddie then, noticing for the first time as Alice caught up with him.

  ‘It’s like that, sometimes.’

  Eddie saw how strange her cheeks were, blotted red. ‘I’m going too fast,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t think.’

  Alice, waiting to speak, looked across the reservoir, trying to pick out the sandy inlet where they had left Florrie. She saw for the first time how far they had come and how long it would take them either to turn back or to continue around the circuit.

  ‘We’ve come a long way,’ she said, still breathy.

  Eddie thought she was regretting it. He sat down on a hump of granite, full in the sun, looked up at her and winked.

  ‘We’ll have a rest,’ he said. ‘We’ll be fine then.’

  Alice did not sit down.

  ‘Do you think she’ll be all right?’ she said.

  ‘She’ll be fine.’

  Eddie stretched back on the rock, his feet wedged into a gnarled stem of heather. He closed his eyes. A bee hummed close to him, but he did not seem to mind. He was very still.

  With the burr of the breeze, with the birds and the insects and the soft irregular splash of the water, the scrape of Alice’s wheezing irritated Eddie. It made him want to prod her. He sat up.

  ‘Can’t you stop that? Now we’re having a rest, can’t you make it stop?’ he said.

  Alice did not apologize. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I don’t remember it, from before.’ Eddie tried to think back to the regatta. He could not remember much.

  ‘It comes and goes,’ said Alice. ‘Some times of year, too.’

  She was tense as well, she knew, being with Eddie, seeing her chance, but she could not tell him this.

  ‘It’ll not bother you, after a while. You’ll get used to it,’ she said.

  ‘I suppose.’

  There was a pause while they both looked out across the reservoir. A small grebe ducked down into the water not far from them and seemed to disappear.

  ‘Look at that,’ said Eddie. ‘Look how long it’s staying under. Catching fish, I warrant.’

  Alice did not look at the grebe. She was thinking of the right thing to say. She was trying to find the apt phrases, something that would beguile him. She felt the grip of the words as she tried them out in her head.

  ‘You know, Eddie,’ she said. ‘I know what men like. Even boys like you. I’m not like Florrie.’

  She spoke flatly, and Eddie could not be sure what she meant. He blinked in the sun.

  ‘I know what to do,’ she said. ‘If you want, while you’re sitting there…’

  She moved forward, her hand out, offering. Eddie, staring at her, did not see the grebe pop up. ‘You’d like it,’ she said, sure.

  Eddie scuttled up the rock, bringing his feet up high as though from an encroaching wave, protecting himself. Alice stopped then.

  ‘Blimey, Alice. You’re… you want to…’ Eddie did not know how to put it.

  She was twisting a stem of heather in her fingers. She could think only of touching him and what she could make this mean.

  ‘It’s not like Florrie, being religious and all,’ she said. She spoke steadily, though he could hear the flicker of her breathing, stuttered and fast, and in the end, she looked up at him. She wanted to smile, he could see that. She wanted to reassure him. But she was shy, and only her eyes were giveaway soft.

  Eddie took a moment to look at her. She was not flirting with him, not flouncing or flicking, but, still, she was drawing him to her. He peeled into a grin.

  ‘What are you trying to do?’ he said, shifting on the rock.

  ‘Nothing, just talking.’

 
; ‘Do you think, if you talk like that, I’ll…’ He slid down to the ground. ‘Are you always like this?’

  ‘I’m not like anything,’ said Alice, not understanding the way he was looking at her. ‘I just wanted to be nice to you. I like you.’

  She expected his face to clear then. She expected him to rush at her, anxious and eager, perhaps rough. But he stood apart.

  ‘But being nice – like that – it’s unusual though,’ he said.

  He moved to her very slowly and patted her gently on the shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Alice, ‘if I’ve – I didn’t mean to upset you. I just thought…’

  ‘It’s fine, by me,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind, you see.’

  He was surprised how just that could make her smile. He smiled broadly back, his dark eyes shining. It was a long moment. Alice’s breathing was quiet.

  ‘Backwards or onwards?’ said Eddie.

  ‘It looks about the same.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Onwards then,’ said Alice. ‘We might as well finish. But she’ll be waiting ages.’

  They set off side by side, ignoring the thought of Florrie.

  ‘You talk like you know things,’ said Eddie, before they had got their rhythm back.

  Alice laughed.

  ‘You can talk to me some more, if you like,’ he said, unable to resist.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I don’t know. Anything. What you know.’

  ‘I’m not sure I know very much; not really,’ said Alice, still laughing.

  ‘Well, whatever you like then,’ said Eddie.

  Alice wanted to talk about love, but it was something unfathomable and she did not have the words. There was everything she had read, but now she needed it, this didn’t seem to touch her. Which left her with only what she had learned from her father, his broken-phrased longing. And so these were the words she brought out now instead, hoping, letting them pour molten off her tongue.

  It was a few hundred yards before the bus stop, as they were walking along by the fence, that Eddie finally flushed her talk out of him with a low groan. There were people around now and he turned quickly to hide the small dark stain that began to leach through his trousers.

  ‘Here, you’ll need this,’ said Alice bluntly. She took her handkerchief from her pocket and stuffed it down his waistband, reaching briefly behind the fly with cool fingers. Her hands were quick and Eddie hardly felt them, but the thought of them, for the first time, embarrassed him.

  ‘I look… swollen.’ He grimaced, trying to adjust the handkerchief without attracting attention.

  ‘You’re fine. No one’ll notice. Who looks down there?’ said Alice.

  She seemed tired out now. They finished the circuit of the reservoir in silence.

  Florrie had fallen asleep long before, her head propped up against the bank and her feet in the sand. The sun had moved around and was now shining full on the picnic basket, and half across her arm, which was flung out at an angle. She did not hear Eddie and Alice approach and woke with a start when Eddie picked up the basket.

  ‘I’m starving,’ he said.

  Florrie blinked at him. She was sorry to have slept; she felt the day had slipped away from her. ‘Have you been all the way round?’

  ‘All the way.’

  ‘And you too, Ally. All that way?’

  Alice nodded.

  ‘So what time is it? Have you… ?’ began Florrie, but she was distracted by Eddie rummaging through the lunch and taking a long swig from a bottle of lemonade. ‘You’ll spill it. It’ll spoil. Be careful,’ she said, and she snatched the basket from him, peeling back the lid and laying things carefully in the sand around her. ‘Look, you’ve already got some of it on your trousers.’

  Eddie, despite everything, was surprised and looked down.

  ‘It’ll wash,’ said Alice.

  Eddie lay back in the sand as soon as he had finished eating, and closed his eyes, though he did not sleep. As he stretched out, the wedge of Alice’s handkerchief was obvious. Florrie packed things away, chattering.

  ‘They say that you can hear the bells from the village under the water. Like ghost bells,’ she said.

  ‘What village?’

  ‘They drowned a village, to make the reservoir. Everything. People’s houses and shops and the school and the church, all under there still, just like it was.’

  ‘Only wetter,’ said Eddie, without moving.

  Florrie ignored him. ‘And if you listen carefully, you can hear the church bell tolling the hour, that’s what they say. I listened when you were gone, ever so hard, all the time. But I didn’t hear anything.’

  Alice didn’t quite know what to say to this. ‘It must just be a legend, Flor. The kind of thing people make up.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Florrie, unconvinced. ‘But you would think it might happen, wouldn’t you? That the bells would still ring.’

  ‘It might be like farting in the bath,’ said Eddie. ‘Perhaps only bubbles come up.’

  This made Florrie laugh. ‘Oh don’t, Eddie,’ she said. ‘Don’t make me laugh – I have to pee.’

  ‘Go on then. We won’t look.’ Eddie sat up and opened his eyes. ‘Go into the trees somewhere.’

  Alice could not believe her sister would consider this. ‘No, Flor – don’t you dare. What if someone comes?’

  ‘They won’t,’ said Eddie, winking. ‘And anyway, I’ll look along the path. I’ll whistle.’

  And Florrie climbed the bank and found a spot close by a silver birch, and Eddie, as he had promised, kept his eyes fixed on the dirt path ready to whistle a warning. And Alice, even though she wanted to look away, could not help seeing everything, the way Florrie squatted, toppling backwards once and having to stretch out a hand against the tree to steady herself, the way she hitched up her skirt high around her thighs, the dull sheen of the nylon in the late light and then, worst of all, the slight wisp of steam rising from between her legs.

  ‘I’ve never done that before,’ said Florrie, when she had come back. ‘I’ve never peed outside like that.’ She glowed with achievement.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ said Eddie, ebullient. He reached for her hand and kissed it extravagantly, making a show of it.

  ‘It’ll not do at home, nipping out into the yard.’

  ‘But out here it’s different,’ said Eddie. ‘It’s fine, Flor, to let yourself go, out here. No one’ll blame you for it.’ He nuzzled then in the crook of her neck, pushing his nose against her ear.

  Alice was curled up inside. ‘You’re disgusting, Flor,’ she spat, and she said nothing more for the rest of the afternoon.

  Eddie and Florrie sat together on the bus on the way home, close, the lengths of their legs touching. Alice had the empty picnic basket. By the time the bus pulled into the city station it was dusk and a flock of starlings pulsed around the high chimneys. As Eddie came down the steps by the driver, Alice noticed that the slight bulge of her handkerchief had disappeared.

  ‘I’ll walk you both home,’ said Eddie, even though the Continental Hotel was closest by far.

  ‘Not me,’ said Alice. ‘I’m fine. I’ll get another bus.’

  ‘Right you are,’ he said, relieved. ‘I’ll take the basket then.’

  He stood back as the sisters kissed goodbye, but as soon as Florrie was free he took her hand. And because of the way things had been, it seemed a great comfort to be walking up the grey streets with her, both of them quiet, feeling weary.

  ‘That was nice, Eddie,’ Florrie said, when they got to the gate. She stood still waiting to be kissed in the soft amber light from the streetlamp. He reached up to do it.

  ‘It’s a good place out there,’ he said. ‘We’ll go again perhaps, my love, one day.’

  Which Florrie took for a commitment on his part, a promise. She could not have known that, try as he might to rein it back, his mind kept sliding away to the path around the reservoir, the ridges and the pebbles and the root-rucked steps perf
ectly remembered and every word of Alice’s dirty monologue hard and bright in his mind, like another world.

  Barely a week after the outing Alice and Eddie passed each other in the street in a rainstorm. The wind was pushing hard against Alice’s back and with her umbrella clamped tight behind her she saw Eddie coming. He had his cap low and his head down, and was walking fast. She stopped him by putting a hand on his arm.

  He had thought so much about her that he could not, for the moment, be sure she was real. It was something about the rain, perhaps, dripping fast off the brim of his cap that blurred the edges of her, making her shimmer. He blinked. And then there was nothing at all dreamlike about her, smudge-eyed, sodden around the shoulders and with her fringe flat under her scarf.

  ‘Just my luck to have to go out for baccy in this,’ he said.

  They moved in close to the entrance of the building alongside them, but the rain still hit them hard, pummelling off Alice’s umbrella like stones. They didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Have you seen Florrie again then?’ It was Alice who thought of something first.

  ‘No… I was waiting,’ he said, scuffing a gathering puddle with his shoe. ‘Have you?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a long quiet. Alice thought it might be a prelude to something, and did not dare interrupt. Eddie was confused by the girl who looked so ordinary.

  ‘Well, then,’ he said at last. ‘Well.’

  ‘Do you want to come under?’ Alice tilted the umbrella slightly and a thick trickle of water poured from one edge. Eddie shook his head.

  ‘It’s not like this, with Florrie,’ he said, and Alice thought, for a moment, that he meant the weather. ‘She’d have been chattering away nineteen to the dozen by now. The rain, the wet clothes, where she’s been, what’s for supper… you name it.’ He shrugged. ‘You’re a quiet one, I’ll give you that. When you want to be.’

  Alice brushed her wet fringe to one side. ‘Sounds like you’ve fallen for her,’ she said.

  ‘Well, sometimes… maybe… I don’t know.’ If Eddie was blushing, the tip of his cap concealed it.