Then Alice
Then
Alice
Walking through Soho with Jacob, mind like a snowstorm. I’m relieved he doesn’t try to make conversation as we pick our way through the litter of Berwick Street, polystyrene cartons spilling out the remnants of lunch – flaccid baked potato skins, bits of burger – stallholders calling out to one another as they pack away their crates of apples and oranges and pears. Jacob walks fast, fractionally ahead of me, with his feathered scarf flapping behind him, and I spot the stares as we cross Brewer Street and turn into Wardour. Is it his beauty that makes people look twice, or do they recognise him, this boy, this man I barely know?
He points out Bar Italia. There are tables outside crowded with men wearing suits and drinking coffee from little white cups; all around us the undulating, fast-paced rhythm of Italian.
‘I know this place,’ I say as we walk into the café with its terracotta floor and the vast chrome coffee machine behind the bar. At one end of the long, thin room there is a television, a crowd of customers sitting on stools in front of it, shouting. ‘They come to watch the football.’
‘For the football, the coffee, the chat. It’s a kind of religion.’
At the counter, a man wearing a waiter’s white shirt and bow tie greets Jacob.
‘Hey, Luigi. This is Alice.’
Luigi extends a hand over the top of the counter.
‘Two espressos?’
‘Alice would like a cappuccino,’ Jacob says, and Luigi rolls his eyes.
‘Cappuccino is for breakfast. Espresso now.’
‘She’s never had one. She has to try it.’
‘OK, Alice. But is not good for your digestive system.’ He waggles his finger like a schoolteacher. ‘Milk in the afternoon will make you sick.’
Sitting beside Jacob at the little red and white Formica table, I fight through a wave of self-consciousness. When he looks at me with a small smile, I wonder if he can read my mind.
‘Come on, then. Show us your etchings.’
I open up the sketchbook halfway through. I won’t bore him with the early staged tableaux: the solitary pear on a carefully pleated tablecloth, the vase of flowers, the basket of apples. As it happens, the page I show him is a portrait of Rick, drawn in the first week at college. He is sitting at his desk, chin propped in his hand, staring straight at me; it makes me smile just to see him.
‘Your friend is right. You’re very good. It’s exactly like him.’
‘It’s the first time I drew him and still the one I love best.’
‘Really not your boyfriend?’
‘No. Everyone thinks we’re together, but we’re not. Sometimes I wonder if Rick might be gay.’
It comes out before I can stop myself.
‘I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘Why? I don’t care.’
‘I might be wrong. I probably am.’
He smiles and says, ‘Alice, I believe you,’ and I feel foolish for protesting so much. But I am as confused as everyone else that nothing has developed between Rick and me. He’s indisputably handsome, he is the funniest, kindest person I have ever met and since day one we have been inseparable. We are as close as any lovers but, so far anyway, without even the tiniest spark of chemistry.
Jacob flips a few more pages and then he comes to my oak tree.
‘A tree that’s actually a man. Or a man that becomes a tree?’
And suddenly I’m telling him about my fascination for all trees, but particularly oaks. When I was a child, growing up in Essex, I spent every spare hour in the fields behind the house. And the trees, especially in the dusk light, seemed to take on their own characters. I don’t feel stupid telling him that they were like my friends. Or that even as I’ve grown older, the character of a tree – the oaks in Battersea Park, the cherries and limes lining the streets of Notting Hill – has remained visible to me, as if I perceive trees in a way that no one else does.
Luigi arrives with our coffees.
‘Cappuccino for the young lady. Espresso for you.’
I’ve had proper coffee before. My parents were devotees of Rombouts; they treated themselves to one of the little plastic filter cups every Sunday after lunch, although I wasn’t always offered one – it depended on my father’s mood. This is something different.
Jacob watches me while I take my first sip.
‘God. It’s delicious.’
Another sip.
‘It’s like – well, I’ve never had nectar, so …’ What would be the most accurate description of this creamy, mouth-exploding taste? ‘Hot ice cream.’
Jacob laughs.
‘That’s exactly what it’s like.’
I tell him about the Rombouts coffee. My father deciding whether or not I’d earned the right to one depending on my behaviour that week. Homework done the day it was set. Dressing properly for church. Being on time. A whole mental checklist for him to riffle through each week.
‘He sounds like a bit of a jerk.’
‘He’s a canon at our local church.’
‘There you go.’
‘I don’t like him very much. He’s not nice to my mother. He preaches about human kindness in church and then treats her like she’s a slave. He has a vicious temper and you never know when he’s going to lose it.’
‘Sounds like it was time to get away.’
‘I’d like never to go back.’
‘Well you don’t have to. You’re a free woman now. How old are you?’
‘Almost nineteen,’ I say, and Jacob laughs. I’ve let myself down with the ‘almost’.
‘How old are you ?’
‘How old do you think I am?’
I am confident enough now to look at him properly, examining his features as an artist might. The grooves around his eyes are quite deep, especially when he smiles. His front teeth are a little bit crooked and slightly yellowed from nicotine. Not that any of this detracts from his beauty; more I am measuring his flaws as an indicator of age. Like looking into a horse’s mouth. Or counting the rings of an oak.
‘I think you’re thirty.’
‘Cheeky. Twenty-six.’
Seven years older, I find myself thinking. Is that an acceptable gap? And perhaps he is having the same thought, because he says, ‘Quite a lot older than you.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ I say, and he smiles.
‘It doesn’t, does it?’
He looks at his watch. It’s ten minutes to seven.
‘If we walk slowly, the French House will be open by the time we get there. Are you up for it?’
More than I have been up for anything, ever. I wish I could communicate with Rick telepathically. If I could, I’d tell him that right now, right in this moment, I have never felt happier.