The Liberation of Alice Love (6 page)

“Of course, I’m sure it’ll be great for you.” Now it was Alice’s turn to be reassuring. “And you’ll finally have someone to cook for!”

Julian made a face. “Not exactly. Yasmin doesn’t really do butter, or oil.” He paused. “Fats of any kind, really.”

“Oh.” Yasmin had been with Julian for close to six months now but was still something of an enigma to Alice. She did something terribly important involving foreign buyouts at an investment bank and was forever slipping away from drinks or dinner with her BlackBerry to cajole somebody about sell rates in honeyed tones. Alice liked her, in the vaguely pleasant way she liked most of Julian’s girlfriends. Anything more was a wasted effort. But anti-butter? That didn’t bode well.

“Thanks for the help, anyway.” Alice set aside the papers and showed him to the door. “I really appreciate it.”

“It’s nothing.” Julian pulled her into another hug. “I just hate that some bastard would do this to you. You’ll call if you need anything else?”

Alice nodded.

“Hang in there.”

She closed the door behind him and slowly sank back against the hard frame. That was something she hadn’t even begun to contemplate, what with the panic and terror and rush to discover the true extent of the damage. But now that those were out in the open, the question wrapped itself around her brain.

Who had done this to her?

Rodney and Julian said that it had to be criminal gangs, taking advantage of her perfect credit rating and large savings account, but Alice couldn’t understand it. Intercepting her mail, forging her signature—even if they’d been hunting through her rubbish for months and hacking all her online accounts, it was all unnervingly personal. The things they would have had to know about her to carry on, undetected, all this time: her date of birth and contact details were only the start of it. To even access a report of her current account by phone, Alice had often had to list her mother’s maiden name, random security words, town of birth, or the name of her first pet (a sadly short-lived hamster called Snuggles). How could someone know those things?

A sudden sharp knock on her door broke through Alice’s reverie. She peered through the peephole to see her landlord waiting in the hallway, his arms folded and a scowl on his wrinkled face.

She braced herself and opened the door. “Mr. Bloch,” Alice exclaimed, trying to sound warm and friendly. “How are you?”

He glared back, unmoved. “I came to give you this.” He thrust a single sheet of paper into her hand. “I’m a reasonable man, so I’m giving you three days. That should be plenty of time to get your things out.”

Alice stared at him in confusion. “What do you mean?” She glanced at the typed letter. “I don’t under—”

She stopped, her words catching in her throat as the black ink arranged itself into letters and words, curled innocuously across the page despite their ominous meaning:
Notice to evict.

“No.” Alice looked up at him in panic. “You can’t.”

“Oh, yes I can.” Mr. Bloch puffed out his chest. “You’re four days late with this month’s rent.”

“But I told you the standing order wouldn’t go in this month,” Alice protested. “I explained, about what happened with my bank!”

“And I was understanding.” He pursed his lips. “I let you have a whole extra day to pay by check. But it bounced.”

Alice’s heart fell. “Next week—the bank said it would have my current account refunded by Wednesday, at the latest!”

Mr. Bloch was unmoved. “Your tenancy agreement clearly states all rent must be paid on time. And since you were already on probation, you’ve left me with no choice.”

“Please, I—”

“I’ll be around to inspect the property before you leave.” He shot a suspicious look past her. “I expect everything to be accounted for.”

Alice watched him march back down the stairs, her mind already buzzing with panic. What was she going to do? There were still two weeks until her next payday, and she barely had enough for day-to-day living, not a temporary rental or the security deposits on a new lease. And where could she go? Staying with Ella or Cassie was one thing, but what about her belongings—a whole flat full of books and furniture and…

With a sinking heart, Alice realized there was only one place she could go now. A place of chaos, disorder, and distraction.

She was going home.

Chapter Six

Alice woke with an ache in her back and the sound of breaking china echoing through the Sussex cottage. She yawned, bleary eyed. The muscle pain was from hoisting boxes all weekend, and sleeping in the tiny single bed in her childhood room, but the china? She could only imagine.

There was another crash.

Alice reluctantly went to investigate, her feet bare on the dusty floorboards. She’d only brought up a haphazard suitcase of things from the van, so she took a blanket from the hall cupboard to wrap herself up against the draft that always drifted through the house. It was a charming home, with wooden beams, an open fireplace, and an abundance of small nooks, perfect for a small child to hide away with her latest book. As a girl, she’d loved it, but now, all Alice could see were the patches of damp creeping in the corners and the original features crumbling into disrepair. And the clutter. Oh, the clutter. Between her father’s ever-expanding collection of secondhand books (hunted down at every charity shop, church rummage sale, and car-boot sale in a twenty-mile radius), and Jasmine’s hoarding for future art projects, every room and shelf in the place was loaded down with random knickknacks. Her bedroom, still papered with fading floral print, now housed three vast oak bookshelves, a broken set of mirrors, and a collection of chipped figurines showing shepherdesses in various states of repose. Alice had dreamed of porcelain sheep all night long.

By the time she reached the kitchen, there had been several more crashes. Alice paused cautiously in the doorway and peered in. Her stepmother was standing in the middle of the room, her petite frame swathed in a bright sarong, her graying curls caught back from her face as she happily hurled china at the far wall.

“Oh, hello, sweetie. I didn’t know you were up.” Jasmine paused to greet her, a green vase in her hands. Alice watched it smash on the stone-paved floor and explode in a burst of fragments. “Put something on your feet,” Jasmine warned, reaching for a large bowl. “Your father got a nasty shard of glass in his foot last week.”

“All right,” Alice answered faintly.

“There’s some quinoa if you’re hungry!” Jasmine called helpfully, now picking through the rubble for shards of particular interest. “And I made a gluten-free pasta bake the other day.”

“I think I’ll go into the village,” Alice decided, finding a lone apple in the corner of the fridge. “Is Dad in the garden?”

“I think so.” Jasmine looked up with an absent frown. For a moment, she looked identical to Flora, with the same expression of pale confusion.

“It’s OK,” Alice reassured her. “I’m sure I’ll find him somewhere out there.”

***

After waiting twenty minutes for the hot water to get going, Alice showered and pulled on some jeans and a jumper, assembling a matching pair of wellies from the mud-splattered jumble in the porch. It was a clear, sunny day, and as she ventured out into the overgrown back garden, she had to admit that being stuck in the middle of the countryside had some advantages: the house backed onto open fields, and the patchwork of grass and crooked hedges stretched in front of her, wide and windswept.

She headed toward the dilapidated shed, tucked away behind flower beds and an overgrown vegetable patch. “Hello?” Alice tapped at the peeling doorframe and peered in. As usual, her father was in his old rocking chair, surrounded by an avalanche of research notes and unfinished manuscripts. The sunlight dappled his thin face; gray hair stuck out in tufts as he pored over one of his red-and-black, spiral-bound notebooks.

“Pumpkin!” He blinked in surprise from behind large, grandpa-style spectacles, as if he’d forgotten she was even visiting. “Everything all right?”

“Good enough.” She slipped inside, careful not to disturb the mess. “Jasmine is tearing the place apart again.”

Her father smiled slightly. “Ah, yes, she said something about a new mosaic for her studio…”

“That would explain the china.” Alice looked around. The last time she’d been down, the room had been full of Revolutionary War paraphernalia, but now the muskets were being edged out by new curiosities. Small, model hot-air balloons spilled from the narrow window ledge, and blueprints trailed over his wide wooden desk. “Starting a new project?” she asked. Now that Alice thought about it, her father was looking different: his threadbare jumper had been replaced with a shirt and blue scarf, tied at his neck like a cravat, and there was a sense of energy and purpose about him that always meant he’d found some new fascination.

“Maybe, maybe…early days yet.” He tapped one finger to his lips and winked.

She smiled. “I’m just going into the village to stock up. Did you want anything?”

“Hmm…” He paused. “Maybe some twine, and peppermint creams?”

Alice raised her eyebrows.

“The Montgolfiers were big believers in peppermint creams.” Her father nodded. “Look out for the good sort, would you? They should have some at Bishops.”

“Peppermints and twine, coming up.”

***

Alice decided to walk the half-mile into the village, and set out along the winding country lane with one of Jasmine’s tie-dyed cloth bags over her shoulder and a long list in her pocket. She was relieved the revolutionary period was over; for months, she’d been half expecting a call from Jasmine to say he’d accidentally shot himself in the leg with one of those antique muskets. Not that hot-air balloons were much better. God knew what damage he could do if he took it on himself to actually build one…

Her father had always been an eccentric. The question “And what do your parents do?” would bring a different answer every year. He wasn’t an academic, or a writer, or anything so easily defined. No—Alice considered him more of an enthusiast. From eighteenth-century botanists to alchemy in the ancient Ottoman Empire, he would become gripped with a new passion, immersing himself completely in the subject for months, sometimes years. Once mastered, he would give a series of lectures, or write a book, or even—in one case—oversee the planting of a thirty-acre garden in the style of renegade gardener William Robinson. Then a new topic would catch his eye, and he would be off again.

She had to be grateful for his commitment to his subjects, Alice supposed; otherwise, she would never have been born. Because her father didn’t simply research the topic, no, he seemed to take on the lifestyle and characteristics of his subjects as well. Hence her mother (a glamorous American breezing through London) was wooed by the dashing man quoting Byron and Keats as if he were one of the Romantic poets himself and not just knee-deep in old texts. By the time he tired of poetry and switched his allegiance to exploring sewage systems of the early industrial age, Natasha Scott already had a ring on her finger, a child on the way, and a ramshackle cottage to call home.

Faced with such a bait and switch of her dramatic, romance-filled dreams, Alice often wondered how her mother even lasted the eleven fractured years she did before abandoning them both to the leaking pipes, overgrown garden, and distinct lack of local cocktail bars. If she was truly honest about it, her mother’s leaving was something of a relief. By then, Alice had witnessed enough dress rehearsals to know—and fear—that the more permanent version was on its way, so when her mother finally packed up every designer dress and expensive, unworn shoe and disappeared for good, Alice told herself it was better this way. At least there was no more of Natasha dragging her to London for days on end or disappearing for summers at somebody’s house in Cannes, or Morocco, leaving Alice, uncertain, to await her return.

***

Alice bought a loaf of bread, still warm from the bakery, and sat on the war memorial bench, tearing chunks off to share with the sparrows that nested nearby. The village had changed little in the past ten years: home to three pubs, an organic farm collective, and a revolving parade of antiques, children’s clothes, and crystal jewelry boutiques. She must have sat in this exact spot a hundred times as a girl, waiting for her father to finish browsing old curios in the antiques shop, and later, as a bored teenager trapped by the sporadic bus timetable and lack of any actual place to go.

And here she was again, with all her worldly possessions stored in the back of the garage as if she’d never left. Alice watched the birds fluttering at her feet and thought bleakly of how quickly everything had changed. Homeless, broke—in a single week, her life had been turned upside down, and she was still reeling, trying to understand how it could have happened. Was there something she should have done differently?

Her phone lit up, and Alice reached for it, glad of the distraction from her own self-doubt.

“How are you holding up?” The phone suddenly went silent, and there was a muffled rustling noise. “Sorry,” Ella said breathlessly. “I’ve been stuffing these envelopes all day. Two hundred gift packs have to be ready by the launch.”

“No interns around?” Alice relaxed, just a little.

“I wish,” Ella laughed. “Apparently you can’t make them work weekends if you’re not even paying them.”

“Wimps.”

“So, are you OK?” Ella sounded concerned. “Any news yet from the bank? I can’t believe they’re being so incompetent.”

Alice sighed. “Nope, nothing yet. The account the money went to is protected with all kinds of anonymity. But they’re pulling CCTV tapes, seeing if they can match anyone to the cash withdrawals. I should know soon.”

“Aw, sweetie.” Ella was sympathetic. “So what are you going to do? You know I’d have you stay here, but I leave for Rome tomorrow for the launch and my landlord’s been threatening to repaint.”

“No, it’s fine,” Alice assured her. “I’m taking a couple of days off work, to get things sorted down here, and then Cassie’s back from filming. I’ll stay with her.” She let out a long breath. “And then, who knows? Maybe the bank will get its act together.”

“I’m sure it will. But you’re holding up?” Ella checked. “Surely they can’t find you liable for any of this.”

“No,” Alice agreed, moving her feet out of the way as a woman walked past with a stroller and two resistant toddlers. “At least not the bank: this is their mistake. Thirty two thousand pounds worth of mistake.”

Ella sucked in her breath. “I still can’t believe it. I mean, what would you do with that kind of cash?”

“Buy a flat?” Alice said drily.

Ella laughed. “Ever the sensible one.”

“So, Rome…” Alice stretched, her back still aching from moving all those boxes. “That should be fun.”

“Sure.” Ella’s tone was wry. “Four days in an industrial exhibition center, trying to convince people that the pseudoscience crap in our face cream is better than everyone else’s.” She sighed. “No, it should be OK. At least I’ll get to drool over the sexy CEO again. I swear, Alice, he belongs on the cover of a romance novel.”

Alice giggled. “I’m guessing it’s too late to be his captive virgin bride.”

“Hmm, maybe by about twelve years!”

They laughed.

“Anyway, I better get back to this.” Ella sighed. “The bloggers of the beauty world need their freebies. Speaking of which, how about I pick you up some goodie bags?”

“Ooh, that would be lovely.” Alice slowly got to her feet again. The street was busier now, with people out to run errands before everything closed down for lunch. Ah, village opening hours. “Call me when you get back. We’ll have cupcakes at that place in Soho.”

“It’s a plan.”

***

Alice tried to view the next few days at home as an unexpected break: taking walks out in the forest and snuggling in the sitting room with a book, but relaxation was impossible with her financial nightmare looming over her head. Back in London, her life was tangled in the worst kind of mess: one completely out of her control. How long had this been going on? What other kind of damage had the thief done? The questions chilled her. She wasn’t irresponsible or careless with her affairs. She didn’t use default passwords and leave her papers lying around, but still, somebody had managed to infiltrate her life, rifling through her personal details the same way a burglar would shuffle through drawers. Only a simple burglary would be over with and done by now, not stretching out with such terrible uncertainty.

She gave up on idle activities and turned her attention to the dusty floors instead, cleaning in a focused whirl of energy. She needed a distraction. Jasmine was as bad as her father when it came to single-mindedness; she flitted from one art project to another, practically living in the studio they’d built onto the far end of the house. It was a wonder Flora had managed to fend for herself at all, but knowing how things magically worked out in her stepsister’s favor, small birds and woodland creatures had probably fed and clothed her all those years.

“You don’t have to do that.” Her father appeared just as Alice was on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. Jasmine had disappeared, leaving a mess of pottery remains to clear—on top of the regular layer of grime.

“It’s fine,” Alice insisted, wringing out her cloth in the paint-splattered bucket. “It needs doing anyway.” She looked up to find him gazing hopefully at the fridge. “There’s bread, and bacon. If you want, I can make you a sandwich.”

“Oh, no.” Her father shook his head and pushed his glasses up with a determined gesture. “I can manage.”

Alice only lasted two minutes of his general faffing—clattering the pan, hunting for a knife, staring uselessly around for the butter—before taking over. Swiftly putting the bacon on the grill, she sliced the bread and made him a cup of tea while he waited.