Putting Alice Back Together. Carol Marinelli

‘What do you think, Hugh?’

      Only I didn’t want to hear what Hugh thought.

      I didn’t want his educated opinion.

      Do you know, every time some poor cow flushes a baby down the loo, or it turns up in a rubbish dump, or she arrives in Emergency with abdo pain and produces a babe, or pops a foetus into her hand luggage and tries to head for home, the comments are the same—she must have known.

      No.

      No.

      No.

      She didn’t know.

      She couldn’t know.

      Because once she did, then it was real.

      I didn’t need Hugh’s opinion and I didn’t need Roz’s either.

      I could see how it happened.

      I knew how it happened.

      Because, Once Upon a Time, it had happened to me.

       Two

       Alice

      It’s not something you can just blurt out, though.

      I mean, when do you slip that little gem into the conversation?

      You can’t.

      Ever.

      Not to anyone.

      You just learn to live with it.

      To run from it.

      To live your life around it.

      There’s so much that hinges on silence.

      I don’t really know where to start.

      If I go back even just a few weeks, it wasn’t something at the forefront of my mind. Really, I didn’t think about it at all, or I did everything I could not to—I was too busy being normal. I had a job, a fantastic wardrobe, brilliant friends, massive credit-card debt, all the usual stuff. Okay, I had a few problems, but don’t we all? I spent a lot of my lunch breaks in the self-help section at the bookshop, looking for the book, the answer, the reason. I’d tried Reiki, hypnosis, Indian scalp massage…

      Forgive me if it’s jumbled at first, I suppose I was too.

      Nic was leaving for the UK; her cousin Hugh was coming to stay at the flat. There was a small leaving do for her, which I was a bit late getting to—see, I was just busy being normal.

      ‘You’ve met Christopher,’ Nicole said, as she made the introductions, and though I’d heard her moan about her boss often enough, we’d never actually met, which Christopher quickly pointed out.

      ‘Actually, no.’ His voice had that bitchy upper-class ring to it and I wasn’t sure if he was English, as Nicole and I are, or if he’d been privately schooled here in Australia. As he shook my hand he held on for just a fraction too long. ‘I’d certainly remember.’ He smiled that capped smile and I returned it, but only briefly. I mean, he was way past forty, for God’s sake—I was so not flirting with him.

      ‘Where’s Dan?’ Nicole asked.

      ‘He’s working.’ Christopher’s eyes were still on me as I made Dan’s apologies, but there was no real need—I could see the relief on Nic’s face when I told her that Dan couldn’t make it.

      ‘And Roz?’

      ‘She’ll be here soon,’ I said, and I knew Nicole wished that Roz wasn’t coming—Nicole hates her friends and colleagues being together. She jumps out of her skin if we meet someone we know out shopping or at a bar. It is as if she’s terrified they might find out she actually has a life outside law—that she isn’t always this poised and groomed.

      That she can actually talk about something other than work.

      Oh, God, you should have heard them. It was Nic’s leaving do. Well, she’s not leaving—Nicole’s been in Melbourne for five years and she’s taking six weeks’ annual leave to catch up with her family and new boyfriend, who she met while he was on holiday here. But, instead of enjoying the party, they’re talking about some sub-clause in some clause or something. And for all their money, they were mean. No one offered to buy a drink. They just sipped on their tasteful choices and I knew it was going to be a long, mind-numbingly boring night or worse, as I saw a couple of them glancing at their watches, it was going to be a short, complete fizzler of a night, which would kill Nicole.

      Why did I feel that it was my problem?

      That I had to make conversation, do something to entertain—that it was up to me to salvage the night from being a disaster?

      Because Nicole’s my best friend, I guess.

      I went to the bar and looked at the wine list. My pay should have gone in and though I knew I couldn’t afford it, I ordered two of the second cheapest bottles of sparkling wine and ten glasses.

      ‘I’ll take care of that.’ Christopher made his way over and I felt a mixture of annoyance and relief as he changed my order and took out his credit card. ‘You’re Nicole’s flatmate?’

      ‘That’s right.’ I felt a bit awkward, obliged to stay and talk to him now that he was paying for the drinks.

      ‘You’re English too?’ he checked as he waited to sign the bill and, instead of noticing his blond hair or blue eyes, I saw the fan of lines around his eyes and the acne scars on his jaw.

      ‘I am.’

      ‘Nicole never said.’

      I gave him a very brief smile, thanked him for the wine and made my way back to the group. Normally, there would have been a quick reminisce, or a moment taken to find out where the other was from, how long they’ve been over, that sort of thing, but he’d got that sharky look, like a real estate agent sensing a deal, so I headed back to the table and took a seat on the sofa furthest away from him.

      Nicole seemed to have developed a tic—her head kept twitching in the direction of the toilets and once the champagne had arrived and we’d all wished her well for her trip back home, I excused myself and headed over there. Maybe fifteen seconds later Nic flew in.

      ‘Where the hell were you?’

      ‘I had to go back to the flat and get changed.’

      ‘Any messages?’ she asked, and I shook my head as I touched up my lipstick. Peering into the mirror, I could see a good quarter of an inch of ginger roots, so I fiddled with my parting to mess it up a little and made a mental note to see Karan. ‘Thank God, you’re here,’ Nic carried on, and even if she didn’t want Roz and Dan along, clearly she was relying on me. ‘It’s been awful. They’re all just sitting there. Any minute now they’ll go.’

      ‘Nobody’s going,’ I soothed. ‘Let’s just get out there and have a good time.’

      ‘Alice, you have to do something…’

      See—it was my problem. As much as Nic didn’t want her worlds colliding, I was supposed to be the entertainment. I was the one who had to ensure that everyone had a brilliant time. I just didn’t get why it always fell to me.

      ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We can’t have a party in here.’

      ‘Don’t let me drink too much,’ Nicole begged, and that made me smile. Nicole practically gave up drinking the day she met Paul. She used to love a night out, or a night in with a couple of bottles. Now she was constantly putting her hand over her drink, terrified you might fill it.

      ‘And please, Alice, be nice to Christopher.’

      ‘He’s awful.’

      ‘I know.’ Nicole cringed. ‘But please, just be nice.’

      ‘I am being nice.’

      ‘You just gave