Other Alice (26 page)

‘Any more bright ideas?’ said Tabitha.

‘No.’ I gave her a cold look. ‘But if
you
have any feel free to share them.’

Gypsy went up on deck to steer. We were heading north and, though none of us had said it, we all knew that it could only be a matter of hours before we were forced to turn round and go back if
we were to make Dolly’s deadline.

‘
I’ve
got an idea.’ Piper took out his flute.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘Speeding things up.’ He walked to the steps to go up on deck. ‘If he’s anywhere within earshot, I can bring him to us.’ He vanished outside, leaving me alone with
my sleeping sister.

Moments later, a lilting tune carried down from above.

I sat down at the table, closing my eyes. Piper really could play. I’d never heard anything like it. It was more powerful than what he’d been playing the day I met him – the
tune Alice had been humming. This was richer, and I couldn’t imagine wanting to ever stop listening. I followed the tune, every note of it, in my mind. Followed Piper through the canal
waterways, through the streets, through the seasons: bright, spring daffodils; cool water washing over hot sand; filling my pockets with smooth, brown conkers; the smell of the air just before it
snows. The tune was painting all of those pictures, erasing any sense of where or who I was . . .

My eyes snapped open to a light creaking sound. I turned my head, dazed. The music had stopped and so had the boat. All I heard now was the ticking of the little clock nearby. I looked at
it . . . and did a double take.

What had felt like a few minutes had been over an hour.

I leaped up and went outside. Piper and Gypsy stood by the tiller, gazing across the water. There was a bridge behind us and another narrowboat. A solitary figure stood on it, staring straight
at us as he moored. I squinted through the sharp sunlight, trying to make out his features. His hair was shaggy and grey, resting on his shoulders, and thick, grey bristles covered the lower half
of his face. His clothes looked old and grubby.

‘What’s he staring at?’ I asked.

Gypsy nodded to the boat, her eyes wide.

‘Is that him?’ Piper said. ‘Is that Ramone Silver?’

Gypsy tugged at my arm, pointing to something she’d written.

Look at the name of the boat.

‘Can someone tell me what I’m missing?’ Piper demanded.

‘The name of the boat is the same as Gypsy’s,’ I told him. ‘
Elsewhere
. Alice must have taken the idea for the name from there.’

The man hopped off his boat and crossed the bridge. He walked with a slight limp, as if one of his hips were troubling him. His boots thudded on the wooden boards and then crunched up the
towpath. He stopped by the boat, shielding his eyes from the sun. His face was brown with deep lines, but his eyebrows were black and, beneath them, silvery grey eyes that were exactly as piercing
as Alice had described.

‘Well, well,’ he said, revealing a crooked bottom row of teeth. His gaze was fixed on Gypsy. ‘I thought that was you.’

Gypsy stared back at him, silent.

He rubbed his hand over his beard. ‘It was the name of the boat that caught me to start with, then I saw you. It’s been what . . . ? Five years now? You’ve grown
up, but I’d still know your face anywhere.’ He sighed impatiently, but there was something else mixed in, too: sadness. ‘You need to stop looking for me, Alice. You know your
mother doesn’t like it. You belong with her, not me. Go home.’

‘She’s not Alice,’ I said. ‘Her name is Gypsy.’

‘I think I know my own daughter—’

‘Good,’ said Piper. ‘Then maybe you’ll know how to help her.’

The man rolled his eyes. ‘Alice, what’s going on here? Who are these kids? Why are the three of you out here alone and, more importantly, are you going to stop gawping and actually
speak
to me?’

‘She can’t speak, because she’s NOT Alice!’ I yelled.

‘Who do you think you’re talking to?’ he snapped.

‘I know who I’m talking to,’ I said. ‘You’re Ramone Silver, Alice’s father. I’m Midge, her brother.’

His expression softened and he nodded. ‘Alice told me about you. I can see it now. You look just like her.’

‘Like Alice?’ No one had ever told us we looked alike.

‘No,’ he replied. ‘Like your mother.’

His eyes swept over Piper from head to toe. ‘And you’re a . . . friend of Alice’s, are you?’

‘Not really.’ Piper shifted from one foot to the other, using his sleeve to polish his flute. ‘Can’t say we’ve met, not properly anyway.’

‘None of you are making any sense,’ said Ramone. ‘So, if you’re going to waste my time, I’ll leave now.’ He turned away from us.

‘His name is Piper,’ I said quickly. ‘And he’s a character from one of Alice’s stories. So is Gypsy.’

Ramone froze, then slowly turned back. ‘
What?’

‘A story Alice couldn’t finish,’ I said. ‘You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’

His face had gone as grey as his beard. ‘Are you telling me the truth?’

‘We can prove it,’ I said. ‘Please. We don’t have much time and we need your help. Alice is this way.’

He stepped aboard shakily and followed Gypsy down the steps. She led him to Alice’s side. He stared at her, wide-eyed, then looked back at Gypsy. He opened his mouth, then shook his head
and closed it again without saying a word. Finally, he turned back to Alice. I waited for him to touch her, to talk to her, to
anything
 . . . but he was paralysed with
shock.

‘Help her,’ I pleaded. ‘She said you’d know what to do!’

He rubbed his chin with one hand, unable to take his eyes off her. They were stormy, troubled.

He knelt, taking her hand. ‘Alice? It’s me, your . . .’ He broke off. ‘It’s Ramone.’ He looked up at me. ‘What is this, a fever? How long
has she been like this? Where’s your mother?’

‘Away, working,’ I said, in a small voice. ‘Alice was supposed to be looking after me, but she was having trouble with this . . . this story. She said she was
stuck. Then she went missing and these people kept showing up. When I saw Gypsy, I thought she was Alice at first, like you did. It was only when I found Alice’s notebook that I realised the
truth about the story.’ I hardly paused for breath.

‘But why isn’t she waking?’ Ramone shook Alice’s arm.

‘You mean y-you don’t know?’ I stammered. ‘But that’s why we came looking for you. We thought you’d know how to break the curse!’

He laughed, but it was a choked, angry bark of a noise. ‘How can I do that when I can’t even break my own?’

‘But it must have happened to you surely?’ Piper said. ‘If you’re a writer, too, then you must have had this before. Why else would Alice have told us to find
you?’

‘You don’t understand,’ Ramone said. ‘Alice’s curse . . . it’s different to mine, as mine was different to my grandfather’s.’

‘
Your
grandfather?’ I asked.

‘It happens in threes, changing from one generation to the next. Always the firstborn.’

‘Tell us,’ I pleaded.

‘It began . . .’ He hesitated before continuing. ‘It began with my grandfather. He wasn’t a good man. He was a con artist, a swindler. An excellent liar,
too. He told tall tales to captivate large audiences for money. He had no patience for the written word; he spoke his stories, making them up as he went along. Word soon reached the ears of a
wealthy Romany traveller. My grandfather was persuaded to meet him.

‘The traveller explained that his elderly mother, who had a great love of stories, had recently gone blind and was no longer able to read. However, she didn’t wish someone to simply
read to her, she wanted her own stories. They offered my grandfather a position as her storyteller, for a great deal of money. He accepted, of course, and regaled the old lady for weeks, months on
end, with his never-ending supply of tales.

‘Now this little arrangement suited my grandfather down to the ground at first. He was handsomely paid and the old woman was a good audience, for she enjoyed his stories no matter what he
served up from the darkest corners of his imagination. He had heard talk that she had once been a powerful worker of Romany magic, but this didn’t bother him.

‘Over time, the old woman became ill and it was plain to see that she didn’t have long to live. It was at this time that two things happened. My grandfather was told that he should
prepare to find other work. Being stubborn and greedy, however, he decided he would keep going as long as possible and squeeze every last penny from the family. He told a new and exciting story
that evening, but ended it at a point where the character might easily have another adventure. The old lady, being as much a glutton for stories as he was for money, insisted he continue the next
night with another story about this same character, which he did. The same thing happened the following night, and the one after, and soon the old woman was so caught up in the adventures that my
grandfather did not even bother to fully end them each night, but began framing each one as a chapter in an ongoing tale.

‘The old woman grew weaker, but clung to life until it was clear that the story was the only thing keeping her going. Still he refused to finish it, despite instructions from her son to
end her suffering, for the old woman overruled him. Then came the time when she begged for the end, and still he told her, “
Just one more night
.” And then she finally knew that he
had no intention of finishing the story. Perhaps he himself didn’t even know how it ended.

‘The old lady had just enough fire left in her to get angry. And just enough anger to summon up a dying wish, which was to be a curse. She told him:

‘So you see,’ Ramone continued, ‘that it’s been true for three generations. After the Romany woman’s death, my grandfather had no more stories. Just the one
he’d been telling when she died. He couldn’t finish it, no matter how he tried, and it plagued him until the end of his days. From him, it passed to me—’

‘What about your own father?’ Piper asked. ‘Surely, it would have gone to him first?’

‘It was my mother’s side actually,’ said Ramone. ‘Luckily for her, she wasn’t a writer but a painter. It skipped her and came to me.’

‘So you were the Second?’ I asked. ‘Something about your birthplace?’

He nodded. ‘I can only write whenever the five-legged stag is in sight. It’s where I was born, on that hill. My mother had tried to get up to the big house for help, but I arrived
before she could walk any further.’

‘What happens if you write anywhere else?
’ Piper asked.

‘Nothing. I’ve tried, believe me. It’s just not possible. Pens dry up, typewriters jam, or I just plain can’t think. If that stag isn’t within viewing distance, I
can’t write a word.’ He paused, his breath ragged. ‘And a writer I am, through and through.’

And Alice is the Third,
Gypsy wrote.
Who must finish every story she begins.

‘Yes.’ Ramone lowered his head, almost shamefully. ‘I tried so hard to discourage her from telling stories, but she chose to do it anyway. So all I could do was insist that she
must finish every story she began, even if I couldn’t tell her what would happen if she didn’t. I didn’t know myself.’

‘Well, now you know.’ I gestured to Piper and Gypsy. ‘You should have tried harder!
This
is what happens. Characters come out. People who aren’t just paper, people
who are real and have feelings—’

‘And not just people.’ The cat sat up and yawned. ‘I’m here, too, you know.’

Ramone jerked backwards. ‘Did that cat just . . . ?’

‘Yes, I did,’ said Tabitha. ‘And who might you be?’

‘Alice’s father,’ said Ramone, recovering himself. ‘And it’s no good saying I should have tried harder.’ His eyes remained fixed on the cat. ‘I did all
I could to stop Alice from writing. I encouraged her to draw instead, or be creative in other ways, but still she always,
always
came back to stories. So I deliberately lost her work. Pretended
to be so bored that I fell asleep as she read it out. Even told her . . . told her it was no good once or twice.’ His face flushed with shame. ‘All it did was made her
try harder. Someone who is born to tell stories always will, no matter what. It’s like telling a lion it can’t roar, or a cat not to—’ He broke off in alarm as Tabitha made
a horrid noise and coughed up a slimy mass of black fur at the foot of the bed.

‘Cough up a hairball?’ said Piper.

‘Beg your pardon,’ said Tabitha. ‘Better out than in, though.’

Ramone glared at the cat. ‘As I was saying, I tried to stop Alice from writing. When that didn’t work, I cut her off, even though it nearly killed me to do it. I’ve always
thought that if she isn’t near me then she might have a chance—’

‘Hang on.’ My cheeks felt hot. ‘That’s why you left in the first place?’

I wondered if somewhere, somehow it was possible that Alice could hear all this. I didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing. All these years, she had just wanted to know her father
and had been pushed away. We both had Mum, but I had Dad, too, and, even though he loved Alice and she loved him, I guessed now that it hadn’t been enough for her. My heart hurt at the
thought of the pain Alice must have felt and kept to herself.

‘You left Mum and Alice because you thought it could stop the curse?’

‘Yes.’ His eyes clouded. ‘I thought that she stood the best chance if I wasn’t around her . . .’ His voice faltered. ‘I would have lived with
my curse, stopped writing even, if it meant I could stay with them. But I could see it was still passing to Alice, whether I continued to write or not.’