Telling Lies to Alice (8 page)

“I wouldn’t mind a drop more,” he said, taking it from me. After a moment, he said, “Don’t worry, I’m not . . . I’m okay. Long day, that’s all.” I didn’t answer. Jack looked irritated. “Alice, for God’s sake . . . I’m fine.”

“Are you?”

“Yes!”

He didn’t try to touch me again, just sat in the spare-room armchair, pouring scotch into his glass while I made up the bed. When I’d finished all he said was, “Good night, my darling. I’ll buy you some white sliced in the morning.”

I made a point of taking the whisky back downstairs with me. There was something about the speed with which Jack had got to the bottle, the way our hands had touched on the neck, the expression on his face . . . it reminded me
so
much of Lenny. Jack had never been much of a drinker, not that I remembered. Well, he drank, but only like most people did—not to excess. Perhaps I’d imagined it.

What the hell, I thought, and poured one for myself. I took it out into the yard. I leant against the back wall, listening to Eustace nosing about under the hedge and trying to work out how I felt. Confused, yes—worried, yes . . . but not actually frightened. Not like I’d been before. More sort of . . . distanced. Perhaps that was the scotch, I thought, taking another sip. I wasn’t used to it. I’d got the newspaper cutting on . . . when? Monday. And Jack turns up, out of the blue, on Thursday. It might be a coincidence, but after six years . . . He might have sent it himself—but why, if he was planning on seeing me? Why not just bring it with him?

I wasn’t sure how I felt about Jack. A mixture of things. Seeing him in my kitchen like that had brought Lenny’s memory back so sharply that I’d felt as if he might walk through the door at any moment, as if he wasn’t dead at all but had just nipped down to the pub or something. It wasn’t rational, but . . . just . . . what? Jack’s vitality—his force, his . . . Oh God. What am I doing? I hadn’t seen Jack since Lenny’s funeral. Too painful. He’d probably felt the same about me. All the same, I felt as if I’d been in a coma for six years and just woken up. Steady, Alice, I thought. Being with Jack—going to bed with Jack—wasn’t going to bring Lenny back, and the way he’d behaved, in the kitchen . . . His voice had sounded almost . . . as if he’d wanted to hurt me. And he had hurt me. Not much, but enough. I hadn’t imagined
that
.

But I was
still
. . . excited by him. I’d always fancied him. No point pretending otherwise. I’d slept with him, hadn’t I? Back whenever it was . . . He’d started it, but I could have said I didn’t want to. I
had
wanted to, and that made it as much my fault as his. He’d been consoling me after a colossal row with Lenny when he’d bought me a mink coat for my birthday and I’d refused to wear it. That was the first time I’d seen Lenny get really smashed, and it frightened me. He’d turned on me, called me an ungrateful bitch and told me to get out, and his eyes had looked so cold when he said it . . . Jack was at the flat—they’d been working on something—and he said he’d take me home.

We went back to my flat and I was still pretty upset so he got me some brandy and put his arm round me and one thing led to another . . . Jack had sworn blind he’d never told Lenny what happened, and Lenny’d never asked me about it, but I’d often wondered if he suspected and if that was one of the reasons they started to quarrel.

I had a sudden image of Jack holding my wrists behind my head, pinning me down on my back. He’d felt so powerful. I’d liked it, and he knew that I did. But that had been the only time. I hadn’t let it happen again.

I didn’t want to think about it. I wasn’t
going
to think about it. I finished the whisky, called Eustace inside, turned the lights off, went upstairs to bed, and fell asleep with the dog curled up behind my knees.

I was woken by a low, menacing growl. I sat up, turned on the bedside light, and saw Jack standing at the foot of my bed. Naked, with his mouth open and looking completely bewildered, as if he was half-asleep. Eustace was facing him, rumbling like a volcano. How long had he been there? I hadn’t heard him come in, but then I hadn’t thought to close the bedroom door. He walked round to my side of the bed. Eustace, vibrating with indignation, clambered over my legs to mark him.

“What’s the matter, Jack?”

Jack took a step towards me. Eustace braced his front legs, thrust his chin forward, and started to bark, ignoring my attempts to shush him. Jack—punctuated by Eustace—mumbled, “Can’t sleep—missed you—please—”

“Stop it, Eustace!”

Eustace carried on.

“—said you’d missed me—”

“I said I’d
thought about you,
Jack,” I yelled over the noise. “It’s not quite the same—”

“You’ve never been out of my mind—please, Alice—bloody dog—let me—”

“What do you want?” I shouted.

“—be with you—can’t bear—please let me—”

“Just go back to bed, Jack, for God’s sake. He isn’t going to stop.” Jack took a step backwards, still mumbling. I heard “I need—” but the barks had turned into howls and the rest was lost.

“Jack. Why don’t you go back to bed and try to get some sleep, and we can talk about it in the morning?”

He turned away. From the back, he looked defeated, pathetic. I’d seen Lenny like that a few times, but never Jack. I almost—but not quite—got out of bed to go after him. Eustace followed him as far as the doorway and lay down straight across it like a draught excluder. After the racket, the silence felt heavy, like a blanket.

His vulnerability had frightened me. That wasn’t the Jack I knew. The business in the kitchen, that was . . . I don’t know. I could handle that better, somehow. That was more like the old Jack, even if it was a bit . . . but this new one was different. Defenceless. I’d never seen him like that. He’d always been unshakeable—nerves of steel. And totally reliable as a performer—no matter what was happening, he’d always turn up on time, make sure the audience got their money’s worth, and send them home laughing. Utterly professional. Everyone said that about him. When he and Lenny were at the Fortune doing
Gnus Before Butter
and Lenny was pissed out of his wits, Jack would go on stage night after night and cover for him. Once he’d done almost an hour of old-fashioned stand-up while Lenny was in the dressing room throwing up because of the Antabuse—or rather, because he’d been taking Antabuse and drinking at the same time. I used to go and watch—I’d changed my shift to the afternoon because Lenny wanted me at the theatre—I’d be standing there thinking, what’s going to happen this time, literally shaking, but Jack never turned a hair. . . .

But now . . . Something was wrong. Something was really, badly wrong. The blankness in his face in the kitchen—as if there was a switch inside him that had just turned off—and now this . . . Perhaps I was right, he
was
drinking. Or maybe something else—drugs? From what I’d been able to see, he was still in pretty good shape. I wondered if he was still taking the diet pills. He used to pinch them out of girls’ bathroom cabinets the same way he’d nicked bars of chocolate from Don Findlater’s secretary’s desk. That’s what started it. Don’s secretary was called Araminta. Minty, though anyone less minty you can’t imagine—she was more like an old lemon. But she always kept one drawer full of chocolate, because both she and Don had a sweet tooth. Minty was on to Jack, but she got tired of having to be on guard every time he came in, so she typed
Fatso
on a sheet of paper and stuck that in the drawer instead. Lenny thought it was hilarious, but it really got to Jack. Gave him a complex. Amphetamines stop you sleeping, don’t they? And with the whisky as well . . . But even that . . . I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there was definitely something else.

He’s in a mess, I thought. I can’t just kick him out. Besides . . . I turned off the light. It was easier to face up to things in the dark. If Eustace hadn’t been there . . . Jack needed me. Needed someone, at any rate. And—no point in being dishonest about it, not to myself, anyway—so did I. Jack was right when he said I’d been on my own for too long. As for Val . . . Jack just
is
chronically unfaithful. Some men are. Their wives either accept it or leave, and Val had stayed put. If it wasn’t me, I thought, it would be somebody else. Doesn’t make it right, but . . .

None of this is right, I thought, getting really angry. Lenny dying wasn’t
right
. Getting anonymous newspaper cuttings in the post isn’t right, either. What’s going on?

In the morning, I’ll talk to Jack. When he’s got rid of the hangover.

The room was stifling. I got out of bed and padded over to open the windows. In the doorway, Eustace raised his head for a moment, and then shifted position onto his side. I crouched next to him and rubbed his tummy. The house was silent. After a few minutes Eustace began to snore gently and I went back to bed.

Another beautiful morning. Boiling-hot sun, birds singing, blue sky, sun-scorched grass. I tiptoed across the landing. The door to Jack’s room was ajar so I poked my head round. Out for the count. Getting bathed and dressed and feeding the animals, it almost felt like an ordinary morning, except that I kept thinking, maybe he won’t remember—maybe he will remember and won’t come down—maybe he’ll just phone for a taxi and leave.

I took Pablo for a ride to give Jack the chance to leave without seeing me if he wanted to, but when I got back he was sitting on a chair outside the kitchen door, drinking coffee and watching the chickens behind his sunglasses. “You left me alone with that monster,” he said, jerking his thumb at Eustace, who was sunning himself on the cobblestones. “I thought it was going to attack me. It kept backing into the furniture and barking.”

“He likes the sound of his own voice, that’s all.”

“Well, I don’t. I’ve got a headache. That thing clomping about doesn’t help, either.”

Pablo tossed his head up and down and Jack got up and retreated to the kitchen doorway.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing, he’s just hot.” I slid off. Pablo took himself over to the trough.

“You’re not going to let it wander about like that, are you?”

“Course not. He’s going in the field with the other one.”

Jack watched while I untacked Pablo and sponged the sweaty bits, then followed us to the gate where my old grey horse was dozing in the sun with his back sagging like a hammock and his chin resting on his favourite fence post.

“What’s that one called?”

“Nelson. He’s blind in one eye.”

“He’s got all four legs, though. Unless one of them’s wooden.”

“He laughs when you kiss him. Watch this.” I brushed Nelson’s pink, whiskery nose with my lips. Immediately, he lifted his head and curled his lip, showing his teeth.

“That’s laughing?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps I should start telling jokes to horses. Humans don’t seem to find me funny anymore.”

We stood together by the fence and looked across the field. “How did you find me, Jack?”

“Looked in the phone book. I was quite surprised you were listed.”

“From before. When I thought I was going to live here. But if you found my number, why didn’t you just ring?”

“I thought you’d tell me to get lost.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Would you have?”

“I don’t know. No,” I said quickly. “I wouldn’t.”

“Why did you marry that cunt?”

“Jeff? He isn’t.”

“Isn’t what?”

“What you said he was.”

“Say it.”

“No.”

“Don’t be such a prude.” Jack nudged me hard in the ribs. “Say it!”

“Stop being childish.”

“He gave you a hard time, didn’t he?”

“He’s got nothing on you, Jack, believe me.”

“Touché. But you can tell me—if you want to, that is.”

“Oh, just . . .” The bizarre thing was, I almost did want to tell him. I’ve never really talked to anyone about what happened with Jeff, not even girlfriends. When I married him, two years after Lenny died, I thought I wanted to settle down—security, children, all that stuff . . . a normal life. But somehow the . . .
impetus
. . . to have all those things . . . just wasn’t there. For either of us. When I told Jeff I’d found out about his girlfriends, he said, “I’m surprised it took you so long to guess,” as if we’d been playing some sort of game. I think he was angry about being found out, more than anything—certainly not apologetic: I remember him leaning against the draining board in our kitchen and saying, “Come on, Alice, you know the score.” Which I evidently hadn’t, but I’d thought, you know, we were
married
and everything, so . . . I hadn’t slept with anyone else. Hadn’t wanted to. Actually, I think that was part of the problem—I’d gone off the whole thing, really. I don’t mean just sex, although that was pretty much going through the motions. I’m fairly sure Jeff never noticed, he wasn’t that kind of guy, but I think he knew that my heart wasn’t in the relationship, and that must have hurt. . . . Yes, he’d behaved badly, but I should never have married him in the first place. Jeff wasn’t Lenny, and I should never have tried to pretend that he was.

Don’t,
said a little voice inside my head. Don’t tell Jack anything. “It didn’t work out, that’s all,” I said. “We didn’t have much in common.”

“Touched a nerve, didn’t I? I didn’t mean to.”

“Yes you did.”

“Don’t say that, sweetheart. Some people just aren’t meant to be together. Val and I . . . we’ve never had a lot in common, either, except the children. Do you know what she did once?” Jack grinned. “She made me a cake, for my birthday—I came back late from the theatre and she’d had to take the girls somewhere, so she’d left a meal on the dining-room table with this thing in the middle, on a stand. I didn’t really look at it until I’d eaten the other stuff, and then I thought I’d better have a bit because it looked great, icing and little flowers and all the rest of it. But what she’d written across the top—not
Happy Birthday
or
Many Happy Returns
or anything like that—she’d put
You Selfish Bastard
in bright pink icing. Very well done. She told me afterwards she’d been taking classes. Cake decoration. That’s Val—never does anything by halves.”