CAROL MARINELLI - Putting Alice Back Together

She gave a sort of sorry nod, forced a bit of a watery smile and stared at me as I handed her back a very full glass.

‘Tell you what,’ I said frantically, terrified she might start crying again or—even worse—leave, ‘why don’t I ring for a pizza?’

‘You don’t eat carbs.’

‘I’ll pick at the cheese,’ I said quickly, ‘and smoke.’ I held my breath, held it so hard I thought my lungs were going to explode but finally after the longest time she nodded.

‘Better?’ I asked again, and this time she gave a firmer nod.

‘Much.’

‘You’re not just saying that?’

‘No.’ She gave a loud sniff and I thought the tears were about to start again, but to my utter relief she started to laugh, really laugh. ‘Oh, Alice!’ She shook her head and then picked up my fifty-dollar cream and started massaging it into her hooves. ‘Oh, Alice,’ she said again, and something in her eyes didn’t add up, because for all the world I felt as if she were placating me, as if she was going on with the charade just to please me, when it was the other way around.

‘Tell you what…’ Roz gave a loud sniff and picked up the hair mask and read the back. ‘How long do I have to leave this stuff on for?’

‘Half an hour.’

‘Will you play?’ Roz was always doing this—always trying to get me to play the piano. The flat has one. It was there when I first moved in. Roz starts crying sometimes when I play and goes on about how I’m wasted at the paper. But that’s Roz—I could play ‘Trotting Pony’ and she’d tell me I was fantastic.

I didn’t want to sit at the piano, with Nicole gone and everything, though if it meant that she stayed…

‘Deal!’ I grinned, dropping the mask in a cup and grabbing some towels from the bathroom.

In fact, it turned out to be a great night. I played for forty minutes—I went through some of my old exam recital and then we had a little sing-along. She even let me pluck her eyebrows and a fun time was had by all working our way down a bottle of Baileys. By the time we were at the sucking on ice cube stage, she was so pissed I even managed to persuade her to stay over and it was kind of nice hearing her snoring from Nicole’s room.

Not that I could sleep.

Playing the piano always unsettles me.

Oh, not when it’s ‘Coming Round The Mountain’ or ‘My Old Man’, but when I play the classics, when I’m stretched, when I have to reach inside myself, I feel, for a while at least, as if I’m coming apart.

‘Hey!’ Gus gave a smile of appreciation as I walked in. I had washed in the sink for two days, avoiding steam from the bath, and even dragging a couple of emerging curls out with the hairdryer myself in anticipation of this moment.

And it was worth it.

Oh, it was so, so worth it.

‘You look great,’ Gus said. ‘How was the wedding?’

‘Great.’ I beamed, because the wedding had been awful, but at the end of the reception I had got off with this guy, Lex’s best man, in fact, and finally had a decent snog and then a bit of a fumble in the loos.

Celeste didn’t comment on my lovely hair, just scowled up at me from the kitchen where she was standing. I didn’t smile back—I had heard them rowing from the street when I arrived, and it made Gus’s smile all the more worth it, that he could manage to be nice, unlike Celeste.

We went through and I set up my music.

It was my favourite piece.

Tchaikovsky, ‘January’, from The Seasons .

I’d been focusing, amongst others, on this piece for a good few months now. It was for my exam and it was so bloody hard.

Not so much technically, but my playing strength is emotion and that is the hard part to explain. At home when I was practising, every now and then I got it. Sometimes I played it so well, even I cried. I just had to work out how to do that for my exam.

You 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.

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.