She answers after only two rings. ‘Hi, Alice? It’s me.’
‘Hi, Peter.’ She’s breathless and sounds different somehow: cagey and out of sorts. Not the usual, calm, gentle Alice. Somebody caught on the backfoot. Somebody different.
‘I’m on my way back from Sheffield after an early journey this morning and was wondering if you fancied a get-together later? Nothing too spectacular, just an easy meal and a couple of beers at mine?’
She says nothing. Her breathing is the only thing he can hear.
He knows she is reluctant and rather than give her space, he does the one thing he promised himself he would not do and tries to corner her into agreeing. ‘Look, I tell you what, I’ll pull up outside yours at seven o’clock and if you’re not in the mood, feel free to come out and tell me to piss off. I won’t be offended; it’s just that I’ve had a sod of a day and, well, I’ve missed you.’
‘Outside mine?’ Her voice has a slight tremble to it. He ignores it, carries on regardless.
‘Yes,’ he replies, trying to sound laidback, affable, hoping this isn’t the end of them, his desperation becoming too much for her, overwhelming her. Scaring her off. It’s too soon. She needs to give them more time. It’s still early days. This thing can work, he knows it. Panic grips him. He visualises her face, creased with doubt and concern. Already, he can hear her voice as she says those words: sorry, Peter, this isn’t working out for me.
‘Outside yours it is then. I’ll see you at 7 p.m.’ And before she can refuse or tell him to go to hell, he hangs up, heart thumping, blood running hot through his veins.
It was wrong, what he did, cutting her off like that, forcing her to go along with his plans but tells himself that tiredness forced him to do it. If she really didn’t want to meet, she would ring back and tell him to go to hell, shouting at him that he is an arrogant bastard and that she won’t be there for him later, that she has a life of her own that doesn’t involve him. He has a feeling she won’t do any of those things but spends the next twenty minutes gripping the steering wheel, bracing himself for her return call.
It doesn’t come. He arrives home in a more buoyant frame of mind, time conspiring against him, pushing him into a tight deadline. He needs to shower, to change into clean clothes before heading off to Alice’s house.
He calls to Lauren that he’s home. She replies with, ‘Hi, Dad!’ and he goes about getting himself ready. On impulse, he pokes his head around her bedroom door to find her sitting on her bed, scrolling through her laptop.
‘I’m going to pick Alice up soon. I’ve invited her here for some food and a couple of drinks.’
Without waiting for a reply or giving her a chance to protest, he backs out again, closing the door softly. What Lauren thinks about Alice is none of his business. This is what he told himself on the drive back. He is a grown man and deserves some happiness and regardless of what his daughter’s opinion is of his new partner, he is going to take that happiness; he will snatch at it greedily and hang onto it for dear life.
He prepares the food and covers it, ready to heat up when they get back. His mood is still upbeat as he showers and gets ready. Once she gets over herself and her current mood, Lauren will soften. She will once again warm to Alice’s gentle charm. He will invite her to join them downstairs for food, lure her into the conversation and get the two of them talking again.
Alice is standing outside the gate as he pulls up, looking as radiant, as alluring as ever. He senses an air of reserve as she climbs in the car but his fears quickly dissolve when she reaches over and places her hand over his, her voice soft and gentle. ‘Lovely to see you, Peter. Thank you for picking me up.’
The remainder of the journey is quiet, the atmosphere sombre. The music is enough to quell his fears, to keep them at bay, and by the time they reach his house, she has softened and the old Alice is alive and well once more.
‘Listen,’ he says softly as he pulls up on the drive and turns to face her, ‘Lauren has been rather down lately so don’t worry if she appears a bit off. It’s definitely not you. It’s a family thing, a teenage girl thing. It’ll pass, I’m sure.’ He wants to add that she is possibly missing her mother but stops himself. Alice doesn’t need to hear about Sophia. None of them do.
‘I totally understand. Don’t worry, I remember those years all too well. And of course, she’ll be missing her mum.’
His breath becomes heavy. Erratic. He wants to wrap his arms around this woman, to hold her close for the rest of his life. So many women would shun a surly teenager, so many would lack compassion, be too fearful to mention her mother, but not Alice. Always warm and thoughtful. Always knowing what the right thing is to say and do. She is a gift and despite being a non-believer, he thanks whichever god is listening that he has her in his life.
‘Right, come on then.’ His voice is light, carefree. ‘I don’t know about you but I’m bloody starving. Let’s get inside and eat and drink ourselves senseless.’
40ALICE
Poor Peter. Poor, stupid, bovine Peter. So blind, so misguided and so desperately naïve. Child-like in his ways. Here he is thinking I am the best thing that has ever happened to him and here I am thinking of a thousand ways in which I can hurt him.
He trapped me, giving me no way of backing out of tonight but that isn’t a problem. If anything, it works well in my favour. We have unfinished business, me and the Saunders family. It’s just that they don’t know it yet. But they will soon enough.
And then of course, there is little Luke to think about. Lovely, gentle Luke who is currently asleep in the spare bedroom of my home, dosed up with sleeping tablets. I had no choice. Not coming here to Peter’s house wasn’t an option. I have an opportunity to confront Lauren, to find out what she wants from me, find out why she was hanging around outside my house earlier today. I don’t care for people spying on me and I don’t care for her. My life is my business and nothing to do with an interfering teenager who has a high opinion of herself and ideas well above her station.
It’s becoming tiresome, keeping up this pretence, being the sweet, docile, little woman, the mousy creature that Peter wants me to be. Perhaps that’s how it was with Sophia. Maybe they lived their lives as a lovestruck couple, continually whispering words of affection into each other’s ear. Although I doubt it. Lovestruck wives don’t fall into the arms of other women’s husbands, do they? They stick with the one they have. So why didn’t Sophia stick with Peter? If he had taken better care of her, made her happier, loved her a bit more then she wouldn’t have sought it elsewhere. If Peter had been a decent husband to his wife, my husband would still be here with me.
I think of how he treats Lauren, like she is some sort of precious bird in a gilded cage and then think of how my parents treated me, and swallow. We are worlds apart. Memories of the many arguments we had and the acrimony that followed me into adulthood after the death of my sister filter into my brain. I try to stuff them down out of reach but they keep clambering back up, clawing their way out of the darkness. Memories of me as a child, being scolded at every opportunity, memories of me as an adult being told that I needed help, that the things I did weren’t normal, that I was dangerous. Possibly unhinged. A coroner’s report stating accidental death wasn’t proof enough for my parents. That incident has followed me every single day, tainting me, taunting me, poisoning my life.
And then came the professional help I received as an adult, the forced assistance that achieved nothing. The very idea, the memory of it makes me want to retch. All that talking, raking over the worst times of my life, looking for clues, reasons why my brain doesn’t work as it should. Sometimes, there are no reasons. Sometimes, we just are what we are.
I don’t suppose Lauren will ever have to undergo any type of psychiatric assessments. She is too smart for that, too savvy and too damn perfect. Her life – up until losing her mother – has been a textbook existence. Completely and utterly faultless.
And then Sophia died. At that point, our lives took on a common theme – we have both lost somebody close to us either to death or to a life sentence in prison. I suppose that should make us alike, bring us closer together. Allies and partners. Except it doesn’t. We are different. Very, very different.
She loves her father. I don’t. I am here for a reason. I have a job to do here, in this house. All I’m doing is righting some wrongs, tipping the scales back and readjusting them accordingly.
I’ve got Luke now, and Peter and Lauren. I have plans for them all. It’s just a case of rebalancing those scales. If Sophia hadn’t got involved, then none of this would have happened. My world wouldn’t have fallen apart. She came on the scene and that was the end of my little family. I was left with a gaping hole in my life. Why should the Saunders still have their own happy little family when I have nothing?
As we enter the house, I’m struck by how different it is to my own little place – warm and full of ambience. How have I not noticed this before now? The contrast is so stark, it stops me in my tracks, making me realise that I deserve some of this warmth in my life. Luke and I deserve it. He is my way out of this dispassionate, lifeless existence.
After I leave this house in a few hours, we can escape, Luke and I. We can leave this town, move south and live in anonymity in some decent village where nobody will recognise us. I’m not stupid. I know that the police will be out by now, searching for him, my boy. They can’t have him. The Downeys don’t deserve to have him back. He’s better off with me. The crying and whining when I told him he was stopping over and spending the night at my house is just a phase. He’ll soon become accustomed to his new life. Besides, the sleeping tablets soon stopped his protestations. I have my little ways of making everything perfect.
He’s better off with me. I mean, his parents didn’t even bother checking my true identity and references, for heaven’s sake. What kind of people would do that? They were so desperate for a nanny, so desperate for somebody to look after their children that they agreed to pay me cash if I could start straightaway. Finding these people is easy. They’re all out there, advertising in local newspapers, unwilling to go through the proper channels to avoid paying more than they need to for someone to take care of their children and do their cleaning and laundry: chores they deem to be beneath them. I got lucky. I found things they would rather had stayed hidden and managed to get enough money out of them to keep me going for a short while.
‘I asked Lauren to join us but as I said, she’s a bit out of sorts at the minute.’ Peter is watching me, his words cutting into my thoughts, jolting me back to the present.
We are standing in the dining room. I have no memory of getting here. The table is set for just two people. It is surreal. Everything is odd and dreamlike, as if I’ve stepped through a portal into another universe, one where everything lends itself to my needs. I nod, smile, go through the array of expected social niceties, my movements soft and effortless.
‘I’ve done enough food for all of us but she’s adamant that she’s staying put.’ He eyes me cautiously. I suspect he thinks I’m upset by her absence. I smile and touch his hand softly, a reassuring stroke to counterbalance his anxious tone.
‘Tell you what,’ I say breathlessly. ‘Why don’t you put some on a plate and I’ll take it upstairs to her room?’ Eagerness grips me, an explosion of exhilaration pumping through my veins at what lay ahead.
His eyes are wide, dewy with gratitude. ‘Would you? That would be great. I think perhaps a friendly face delivering it might be just the ticket.’
