Alice alone, p.15
Alice Alone, page 15
Peter was too surprised to say anything. He squeezed her hand, made what he hoped were a few comforting noises and tiptoed out of the room, turning off the light as he went.
27
NEW YEAR’S EVE
The prospect of a new year did not seem to be doing much to raise the spirits of either his wife or his daughter, Peter noted sadly. Both of them were wandering around as if they were certain that the approaching twelve months contained an unremitting series of catastrophes. Alice, he knew, was still suffering from an acute attack of migraine, but Robin had less justification for wearing such a long face. Coming home to their silent glumness on the evening of 31 December was almost funny.
‘Now look, something has got to be done about you two,’ he said. ‘I have never seen anything like it.’ His tone was mock-scolding, like a mother telling off a child whose crime is more amusing than serious. Nothing could quash Peter’s spirits these days. He saw everything in the light of a delightful challenge, for which he had limitless energy and enthusiasm. They had received a long letter from Simon, apologising for letting them down over Christmas and telling them much more of the Brooke girl, about whom he was clearly serious. This struck Peter as excellent news and plans for going to America really were taking shape in his mind. It was a place he had always been curious about and wanted to visit, even before Simon’s move. It would do Alice the world of good, he was sure. Added to that, there was excellent news on the work front: one of the other senior partners was leaving and the decision had been taken not to replace him. Peter was to move into the spacious office which would fall vacant, and all the partners could consequently look forward to receiving greater slices of the practice’s profits. The only existing problem in his life was how to cheer up the ladies.
‘Right. I have a plan,’ he said. ‘Both of you are to go upstairs this instant and put on your best frocks. Brush your hair and all that sort of thing, because we’re going out.’
Robin groaned and Alice gave him a pained look.
‘Those are orders. If you refuse to change, we’re going out anyway – even if I have to drag you both bodily to the car myself.’ He turned to Robin. ‘For God’s sake, try and perk up a little bit. Your mother’s not been feeling well, I know, but I really don’t know what’s got into you, Robin.’ But, having started to vent some of his frustration on her, he quickly thought better of it. ‘Come on, love,’ he said more gently, ‘it’s New Year’s Eve.’ He patted her head and added, ‘try not to smile now; you might enjoy it.’ This had been one of the things he had always said to the children when they were small and sulking. That and a bit of tickling had never failed to get a grin out of Robin’s dimply face. She now managed to stretch the sides of her mouth slightly – but it looked more like a prelude to crying than smiling.
‘Okay, Dad. I’ll go and change.’ She slouched out of the room and they could hear the slow, heavy steps with which she dragged herself upstairs.
‘Have you any idea what on earth is the matter with her?’ said Peter, sounding truly concerned.
‘It’s just a phase, I expect,’ said Alice wearily.
‘One hell of a phase if you ask me. Has she said anything to you, about what her plans are, or what’s on her mind?’
‘No, Peter, she hasn’t. I would have told you if she had, wouldn’t I?’ Alice snapped. Since receiving the fateful letter from Edward, politeness towards her husband had slipped noticeably. The migraine had made a good excuse. But now Peter gave her such a hurt look that she added, ‘I think she might be worried about her weight. She does look ever so slightly fatter than usual and she’s eating very erratically – starving herself one minute and then gorging her way through all sorts of extraordinary things the next. I have tried talking to her. But you can see how she is for yourself. If it goes on much longer, I suppose we might suggest she sees Dr Parks. It could be glandular fever or something. I believe that can make you very down.’
Peter was relieved to hear this; partly because it was a possible explanation, and partly because it was the longest speech he had got out of Alice since the migraine.
‘I’m sure you’re right, my darling. You always were right about the children.’ He kissed her on the forehead. ‘Are you going to get changed now? I’m quite serious about taking you both out; I think it will do the world of good.’
Alice could see he was determined to carry out the idea. Since the only supper she had planned was leftovers, she could think of no reason to put up any more resistance.
When they both came downstairs, half an hour later, Peter was holding two tall glasses of creamy yellow liquid in his hands, looking pleased with himself.
‘Homemade Pina Coladas – I’m half way through mine and it’s delicious.’
Alice and Robin had no option but to accept the drinks.
‘And here’s the first toast of the evening: ‘To the coming year. May it be the best year of all of our lives!’
‘To the coming year,’ mumbled the women. And they all chinked glasses.
Due to the effect of the cocktails on two empty stomachs, followed by aperitifs before dinner, the meal itself turned out to be surprisingly successful. Robin, especially, opened up for the first time in days, showing some of the liveliness and humour that normally governed her character. Even Alice managed to smile during some of her daughter’s accounts of behind-the-scenes disasters in the apparently chaotic world of fringe theatre in Birmingham.
To celebrate everybody’s new-found high spirits, Peter ordered a bottle of champagne to accompany their desserts. By the time the bill came, Robin was very giggly.
‘Oh God, he’s brought it in a box!’ she gasped, stuffing her napkin in her mouth, as the waiter placed a miniature wooden chest in front of Peter, its lid inlaid with elaborate swirls of silver and mother-of-pearl. ‘And such a big, grand box! I suppose because their bills are always so bloody enormous!’ She could hardly get the words out, she was laughing so much.
‘Shh… honestly, Robin,’ said Alice, letting out an involuntary giggle herself.
Peter, who had held back on drinking because of driving, felt even more sober when his eyes focused on the bill. He was extremely pleased with the way the evening had gone however, and consoled himself with this thought as he placed a wad of notes in the box.
Robin waved to their waiter as they left the restaurant and wiped an imaginary tear from her eye with exaggerated movements.
‘Such a nice man,’ she said. ‘Shame about the big box…’
‘Now come on, Robin. Save your theatrics for the stage,’ said Peter, laughing in spite of himself, ‘or at least until we get home.’
‘Home? Home? But the night is young,’ she said, skipping off down the pavement ahead of them. ‘We must go on and on and on…’ She danced off round the corner.
‘Oh dear,’ said Alice. ‘I think she may be just a little…’
‘We’re all just a little,’ put in Peter, ‘and it’s not doing us any harm at all.’
‘I found the car, I found the car,’ sang Robin, reappearing. Obviously inspired by the sound of her voice, she then went on in shrill but tuneful tones:
I’m Diana Dors and I’m a movie star,
I’ve got a cute, cute figure and a motor car.
I’ve got the hips, lips,
Legs in style,
I’m Diana Dors and I’m a movie star.
She waggled her bottom and pouted her lips as she sang, hopping out of her parents’ way as they tried to restrain her.
‘That was wonderful, darling,’ said Peter, thankful that the street was virtually empty, ‘and now let’s all get into the car you’ve so cleverly found for us.’
She went very quiet suddenly and sidled up to him. ‘Can we have more champagne when we get home, Daddy?’ she asked, looking up at him from under her long eyelashes.
‘Let’s wait and see, shall we?’ Peter kissed her nose and she got into the car obediently.
‘I think we ought to see in the New Year properly, don’t you, Alice, my love? There’s only half an hour to go till midnight and we’ve still got a bottle of champagne left from Christmas. We don’t have to drink it all.’
‘Hurray! Champagne!’ called Robin from the back seat, on which she was lying fully stretched, shoes off, her stockinged feet pressed up against the window.
‘Lovely idea,’ murmured Alice, ‘but I feel so sleepy suddenly.’ It did indeed feel as if troops of invisible fairies were dancing along her eyelids, their tiny feet tickling her skin and their combined weight forcing the lids down like shutters. She rubbed her eyes and opened the window to get a blast of the cool night air. Robin’s feet appeared at her left shoulder. She tickled them affectionately, causing squeals of delight from behind.
‘Honestly, I can’t take you two anywhere,’ said Peter happily.
They made a strange drinking trio that night. Robin lay on the floor of the sitting room, her hands behind her head, her champagne glass balanced precariously on her stomach. Alice had thrown herself on to the sofa, where she was propped amongst the cushions like some latter-day Cleopatra. Her hair – which for several weeks she had been allowing to return to its original steely grey – was tucked severely behind her ears, curling under them and inwards to frame her jawline; she had kicked her shoes off and her skirt was half hitched above her knees. Beside her, Peter sprawled in his favourite armchair, his feet on the coffee table and a big grin on his face. Not even the knowledge that his thatch of hair had gone completely awry – it hung down the wrong side of the absurdly low parting, exposing the dreaded bald patch – could disturb his sense of contentment. Centre stage was the champagne bottle, which had been uncorked on the stroke of midnight and quickly drained of its contents. Reflected in its green sides were ugly, distorted images of the three figures who had turned to it for a final boost to their spirits.
Peter had by now joined Alice in the sleepy phase of over-indulgence. Robin – perhaps because of the resilience of a younger blood system – was still very talkative.
‘Men, horrible things. I hate them. Don’t you, mother?’ She hooted with laughter.
‘Yes, darling, quite horrible,’ said Alice. She gave Peter a prod. ‘Wake up, darling, your daughter is about to tell us why men are so horrible. Something I knew already but have never fully understood.’ Peter reluctantly opened his eyes, too bleary to perceive that a new, sour note was in danger of entering his happy evening. As yet, it hung over their heads, like a drop of poison, gathering head before falling.
‘They fuss and flatter, fuss and flatter, till a girl collapses adoringly at their feet. Like an airplane diving into a crash landing.’ Robin carefully put her glass down in order to give an impression of an airplane doing just this, by making a squeaky, whining noise through her teeth and flapping her arms in the air. Since she remained lying on the floor, the performance bore an unhappy resemblance to someone attempting a poor rendition of an epileptic fit. ‘And then, of course, the crash comes. You crawl around maimed for a bit, begging for life and love, and then finally give up. Flop. Dead.’ She twitched and then lay still.
‘Robin, what are you talking about? You’ve lost me completely,’ said Alice, genuinely disappointed that her daughter had not explained her thoughts on men better.
‘You never had me at all,’ came Peter’s slurred voice from the depths of the armchair.
‘What I am talking about,’ said Robin, now enunciating the words in an unnaturally crisp, brisk manner, ‘is Mr Bob Tupper, comedian extraordinaire – comedian of life, that is, not stage. Darling, darling Bob. Just couldn’t keep his hands off, could he? What was it we used to call his problem at school? Oh yes, I remember…’ She paused to giggle. ‘…W-H-T… that was it! Most of the boys were sufferers. You don’t know what W-H-T stands for, do you, Mum? Well, let me tell you. It’s jolly simple really. It stands for wandering hand trouble. It’s fine and dandy, of course, when the hands you want wander over the places you want. But Bob’s trouble was that they wandered all over me and various other lithe young bodies as well. Not always female ones either.’
‘Oh, Robin, my darling…’ Alice was horrified.
Even Peter, who had been struggling with a gravitational pull towards oblivion, was jerked back to consciousness by these words. Dimly, he sensed that more horrors were about to be revealed. He wanted either to stop his daughter or to get out of the room. But the muscles controlling his mouth seemed to have solidified and his legs felt paralysed with fatigue.
‘Oh no, but it’s funny really. Listen to this. I put up with it, even though I knew. I put up with it! Have you ever heard anything so hilarious?’ She had wriggled into a sitting position, her eyes now blazing with hurt and anger. ‘But then came the special surprise. Bob’s Christmas present to me. He let me find him in bed with his latest starlet – Fiona Waring, if you’re interested – on purpose. What daring! What imagination! What pig-shit!’
All Alice and Peter could do was look, open-mouthed, at Robin. She had now folded her long legs elastically in front of her and was clutching her knees with her hands, her eyes staring unblinkingly back at the horrified expressions of her parents.
‘He actually wanted me to find them together. And do you know why? Because all other ways of getting rid of me had failed!’ Her laugh cracked round the sitting room, hard and hollow. ‘Yes, Robin Hatton, the devoted moron, had insisted on forgiving him every time – giving him the benefit of the doubt and understanding his multifarious urges. So the poor darling had no option. The only way to kill me off was to shatter my pride so completely that not even I – with all my capacity for self-mortification – could go crawling back for more.’ She retrieved her glass, swigging the last mouthful of champagne, and grabbed the bottle from the table.
‘Haven’t you got any more of this stuff?’ She waved the bottle around like a weapon. Peter shook his head dumbly, his mouth still frozen.
‘Darling, I know. Believe me, I know.’ Alice swayed forward from the sofa with an air of confidentiality. She wanted so badly to tell Robin that she too had been used and abandoned by a man. If they had been alone, she would have done. But, in spite of her befuddled state, she could not bring herself to do it, not with Peter in the chair beside her. Perhaps if he had fallen asleep…
‘Are you asleep, dear?’ she said in a loud voice. Peter, who had his eyes shut, opened them slowly, shaking his head.
‘We must talk alone, Robin. There’s so much I can tell you that will make you see that I know so well what you are suffering. You’re so right, my darling,’ Alice went on in a lower voice, ‘it’s men, they’re horrible.’ She spat the last word in a loud whisper of disgust and promptly fell back into the cushions.
‘But I haven’t told you the final joke yet. I want you both to hear it. You see Bob had yet another trick up his sleeve – a secret, secret present, that I would only discover after I’d packed my things.’
They both kept their gazes fixed on at her, wondering what more humiliations could possibly be in store.
‘This one was not so much a Christmas present as a gift for the New Year.’ A part of Robin was half enjoying having such a spellbound audience. She reached out to drain the last, considerable gulp from Alice’s glass before going on: ‘Because I only found out about it yesterday – found out for sure, that is.’
‘Oh Robin, no.’ Alice had already seen where the story was leading.
‘What do you mean, Robin no, like that,’ spluttered Peter, finding his voice through sheer infuriation. ‘What are you talking about, child?’
‘I’m pregnant, Dad. That’s what I’m talking about.’ Her voice, so bold till now, was suddenly small and forlorn. She hung her head, studying the empty champagne flute still clutched in her hands. ‘I am pregnant. Bob Tupper is the father. And I am never going back to Birmingham again.’ The thin glass, gripped so furiously, suddenly shattered.
‘Fuck. Oh, fucking hell.’ She crooned the words, rocking slowly backwards and forwards, carelessly brushing at the tiny sharp crystals on her clothes, until spots of blood were dotting her fingers.
‘Robin…!’ Alice scrambled onto the floor to help. Shock had made her sober. ‘My darling heart, what have you done? My poor darling. Get up. It’s all right. Come on, I’ve got you. There’s my lamb. Come on now. Let’s wash your hands. It will be all right. That’s it. My poor, poor darling.’ So, Alice, rising spectacularly to meet the crisis, coaxed her daughter, now sobbing breathlessly, out of the sitting room. At the door, she looked back over her shoulder at Peter, who was staring blankly at the shards of glass and tiny blood-drops marking the spot where Robin had been sitting.
‘Could you have a go at clearing that up do you think, Peter? I’m going to put Robin to bed. Cold water is the best thing for blood.’
Like a sleep walker, Peter obediently got up from the chair and went to look for a cloth and a dustpan.
Half an hour later, just as he was getting into bed, Alice put her head round their bedroom door.
‘She’s still very upset. I’ve given her a sleeping pill and have made up the sofa bed, so I can stay in there with her. We can talk in the morning. I’ve got my things. Goodnight, Peter.’
‘Alice…’ he began, but she was already shutting the door.
28
POSSIBILITIES
The next morning, Peter was woken with a steaming cup of tea. Alice looked annoyingly refreshed and active. His head ached terribly. He watched her draw the curtains and screwed his eyes up at the unwelcome intrusion of light. At first, he could not remember why he felt depressed other than because he was hung over. Then the memory of Robin’s revelation flashed into his mind like the stab of a knife. He groaned.
