Putting Alice Back Together. Carol Marinelli

see, my sisters think it’s just a matter of playing. They can’t understand that it might take a year to learn one piece of music, but Gus understood, and he was so patient—except he wasn’t this evening.

      ‘You haven’t been practising.’

      ‘I have.’ I screwed up my face as I lied.

      ‘Pianissimo!’ he said. ‘It’s supposed to be soft but it’s like a herd of fucking elephants.’ I didn’t mind that he swore—it made me feel older. I knew he wouldn’t swear with some of the little kids. Over and over we went but we never got past the first page—and I could hear the mistakes and feel him wince. It must have given Celeste a thumper of a headache, because when we went over the hour, she came in.

      ‘How much longer, Gus?’ She didn’t even look at me.

      ‘When I’m done!’ Gus didn’t look at her either, just sat in silence as Celeste slammed the door.

      ‘I’m sorry.’ I felt as if the row was my fault; I mean, it wasn’t exactly a row, she’d just slammed the door, but I knew he was proving a point when, instead of closing my music, he told me to go from midway.

      God, I loved this bit; there’s a lot of hand crossing and I ached to play it right—I yearned for the day I did it perfectly, but still I messed up. He was behind me, and he played the right hand and I played the left. He did it so much more easily, and then he mucked up too—well, he had an excuse because he was over me, and not sitting down, but he laughed at his own mistake and then I laughed too, and everything suddenly felt a bit better.

      Anyway, there we were, me trying to sort out the hand-change thing and he was still leaning over and I messed up.

      His hands went over mine to show me a move, just as he did in every other lesson, I guess, but it was different, I could feel his fingers. Before it was like he was showing me, but now I could feel them.

      He moved his other hand so that his arms were under my armpits and he played for a moment. I could feel his arms against my breasts. They were sore; my period had finished so it wasn’t because of that. It was a nice sore, sort of heavy, and achy.

      I was looking down at his fingers, but all I could see were my breasts. The nipples were sticking out, and it was like I’d never seen them before. They were like thimbles under my dress and he was still playing the tune. I could feel his breath on my cheek but I had no breath. I wasn’t breathing; my breasts hurt and as his arms pulled back his hands brushed them.

      It was like watching in slow motion. His hands had the palms facing inwards, and as they slid from my chest they stroked the sides and I don’t know if they paused; as I lay in my bed that night I wondered if they had, but I don’t think so. They just slid against the sides and I wanted them to slide back, but they didn’t.

      ‘Okay.’ His voice sounded normal. ‘Let’s leave it there for now. Practise, Alice.’ I was closing up my music and I dropped a couple of sheets and I turned around to pick them up—I was head level with his crotch and I saw his erection. I wanted to touch it, but of course I didn’t. I stood up.

      I pretended that I hadn’t seen it.

      I wasn’t even sure if I had, but as I lay in bed that night all I knew was that I was having another lesson in a couple of days.

       Nine

      I hated my own company.

      That’s not what I said to Big Tits because I knew it wasn’t how I was supposed to be. I knew, because I’d read all the self-help books. I was supposed to have inner reserves, to be able to spend a thoughtful evening alone, lighting candles and playing music that meant something to me, as I spoiled myself by soaking in an aromatic bath with a deep and moving book. But the simple fact was, I hated being by myself.

      Hated bouncing questions I already knew the answers to.

      Hated watching a film when there was no one to pass the tissues to and share the ending.

      And where was the fun in candles and soft music and bubble baths when you were alone?

      Anyway, the flat didn’t have a bath.

      Roz had taken her weary liver out on her date and Dan hadn’t returned my phone calls all day. By evening I resorted to texting him saying I was really worried about work and needed his advice and he eventually texted back and said he’d come over.

      You see, Dan’s a careers counsellor: he goes around schools telling sixteen-year-olds they can be whatever they want to be and he takes it all very, very seriously, so I knew if I dangled that little carrot, he’d bite quickly. That he might manage to tear himself away from Matthew for five minutes.

      Yes, Matthew.

      Sorry to disappoint you—believe me I felt the same when I found out too.

      Worse!

      Dan, you see, was possibly the love of my life.

      Lisa, I’m sure, if she knew about Dan and me, would say that I was comfortable with Dan because he was gay, that because there was no sexual tension I was able to be myself and to relax with him.

      Bullshit.

      I loved him long before I knew he was gay.

      I wasted months, wondering what the hell I was doing wrong.

      You just wouldn’t spot it—okay, the fitted shirt, the Pilates and, I guess, the fact that he exfoliates might have been missed clues—but loads of guys look after themselves now.

      His friend Michelle was my flatmate at the time—they weren’t going out or anything—and Dan used to come around and I’d pull out all the stops.

      Then he became more regular at the flat and I stopped pulling out all the stops and he still liked me. I could answer the door in baggy pyjamas, still orange from a new spray tan and walking with my toenails splayed with cotton wool because I was painting them, and he still liked me.

      Then I got drunk and slept with some football player to make him jealous. Well, suffice to say it ended in tears—with a blotchy face and a rather fat lip (the football player did have anger issues). Dan was the one who held the ice pack.

      Dan was appalled when I confessed that I’d done it to make him notice me.

      And then he’d told me the truth.

      And he also told me just how much he hated the truth.

      That he’d rather slash his abdomen and dissect his own intestines than fess up and tell the world that he was gay.

      At first it had been a whoosh of relief—so that was why he didn’t fancy me.

      Then I had decided that, if I tried harder, one day he might—he had assured me he wouldn’t.

      He wasn’t bisexual; he said it as a warning.

      He was gay.

      So I got angry…

      And we fell out, but we missed each other and made it up, though we hadn’t yet come full circle. There was still this… this… bitterness there on my part.

      I mean, how unlucky was I, that the perfect guy for me, the one guy who actually loves me, just wasn’t technically wired that way?

      I hated all the crap about ‘Oh, I’m not homophobic—my best friend’s gay’.

      I actually HATED it that he was gay.

      I cried at every episode of Will and Grace.

      I hated it that I would love the smell of him coming out of the shower for ever, that he could make me laugh with just a twitch of his lips, that he’s just the most amazing guy in the whole wide world, that he can pull me in his arms and make me feel safe—and that, faults and all, somehow he loves me and yet somehow he can’t.

      He loves me.