Then Alice
Then
Alice
Had my father been watching the flat, waiting for Jake to leave, witness to our long-drawn-out goodbye on the doorstep as he headed off for the European tour? Did he see the way he crouched down to kiss my eight-months-pregnant belly – ‘Goodbye, baby, be good, don’t come out before I’m back’ – or our final kiss, which lasted longer than any I can ever remember?
The prospect of being apart is unbearable to both of us. Jake because he is obsessed with every aspect of this, my third trimester of pregnancy, the final countdown until our baby is born. Me because despite his efforts to hide it, I sense a creeping darkness in him, silences that last too long, a listlessness that is entirely out of character. Apart from the gig at St Moritz, he’s managed to stay away from alcohol. But I can’t help worrying about the damage he could do to himself without me to keep him stable.
After he’s gone, I walk around our flat picking up things that belong to him. The half-finished book by his side of the bed – Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 , Hunter S. Thompson’s vitriolic coverage of Nixon’s second win. Jake, Eddie, Tom, Rick and me – in fact everyone I know – are violently opposed to Nixon, to the continuation of the Vietnam War, its senseless wasting of life. Jake’s black army boots, discarded at right angles to one another, still seem to contain his essence. I’m staring at them, wondering if I should sketch them, when the doorbell rings. It takes a moment for me to register it. Another pressing of the bell, longer, more insistent.
As I walk towards the stairs, I pick up an apple from the fruit bowl – an unusual Snow Whitish red – and take a bite of it, thinking only of Jake and how much I already miss him. I fling open the front door, and there, hovering on the doorstep, black shirt and trousers, the off-duty-vicar garb he favours, is my father. The apple falls from my hand, bounces onto the doorstep and rolls to a stop at his feet.
‘Are you going to invite me in to the love nest?’ His mouth twists on the words.
I am eight months pregnant, no Jake or Rick to protect me, alone with this man who has cowed and persecuted me for most of my life. I don’t say no, I don’t slam the door in his face and double-lock it from the inside. I stand aside and let him into the dark corridor where once upon a time Jake kissed me so passionately my sketchbook slammed to the floor.
He follows me upstairs and into our flat, door opening into the orange, red and purple room that has become my home.
‘Dear God,’ he says. ‘It’s even worse than I thought. Like some kind of bordello, I’d imagine.’
‘It’s called fashion, but it probably hasn’t reached Essex yet.’
‘If you can’t be civil, I’ll just come straight out with it. Sit down, Alice.’
‘I’d rather stand.’
‘In your condition?’ Again the twist of distaste. ‘I’ll cut to the chase, shall I? Your mother and I want you to have this child adopted so you can get on and finish your degree. After all, you’re doing rather well, aren’t you, according to the papers. There will be plenty of time for children with this musician of yours if that’s what you want. But you must not throw your life away. We won’t allow it. You’re not quite twenty and you have many opportunities ahead.’
‘Since when did you care about my opportunities? I thought I was a disappointment – academically and otherwise, according to you.’ I am clasping my stomach as I speak, for comfort, for reassurance, but aside from that, I feel calm. For the first time in my life I’m not afraid.
My father has his leather folder with him, a zipped thing he takes wherever he goes. I watch as he unzips it and brings out some kind of document.
‘Sure you won’t sit down?’ he says.
He is in his late forties – twenty-eight when I was born – but he looks much older. His hair has thinned since I last saw him, greased wisps combed over a naked pate, the lower half of his face dragged downwards, too much flesh around his chin.
‘No thanks.’
He hands over the papers.
‘Have a look through these forms. I’ve taken the trouble to get in touch with a very good adoption agency, one with an excellent reputation. They have a couple in mind, respectable middle-class people from Yorkshire who would be perfect. So if you and your … lover decide you want to have the baby adopted, which in my mind—’
My scream, long and shrill, surprises me as much as him.
‘Get out! Get out of here.’
‘For goodness’ sake. Don’t overreact.’
‘How dare you? How fucking dare you?’
My father strikes me hard with the back of his hand, a sharp smack to my left cheek that lands just beneath my eye, the sound of flesh meeting flesh. I crumple to the floor. He hauls me up.
‘Foul-mouthed little … whore .’
Violent eyes too prominent for their sockets, skin an alcoholic purple. I have seen my father’s rages many times, but this is the first time he has hit me. And the strength of the blow, his choice of insult, reveals the depth of his scorn.
I turn away from him, throw myself down on the sofa, face buried in the cushions. My sorrow is acute.
‘Just go.’
When I force myself to look up again, he is still there, staring at me, a concentration of disgust gathered in his face.
‘You will leave,’ I tell him, ‘or I will call the police. You are not welcome here.’
I curve my hands around my stomach. I do not think the fall will have hurt my baby, but the surge of poison, the stress and anger coursing through my blood, what of that?
My father points at the papers before he leaves.
‘I’d advise you to look over these,’ he says, and I hold my breath until I hear the click of the front door closing behind him.
How many hours pass? One, two? I sit motionless on the sofa, too shocked, too downcast, to think of crying. I miss Jake with a savage ache, but I won’t tell him about my father’s visit. I will never share the things that might push him down. I feel I can guard him when we are together, I can watch over him with vigilance and make sure he is safe. But I have no control with him away on tour. All I can do is make sure each phone call we have is a good one, and he hangs up feeling positive, calm, reassured.
‘What’s wrong?’ Rick says when I call an hour or two later.
For a second or two I am too choked to speak.
‘My father came.’
‘What did the bastard say?’
Rick knows my father as a bully, not an abuser; I hadn’t realised that myself until today. Not that I care, not that it matters. I’m a little flattened by it, that’s all.
‘Can you come over?’
‘On my way.’
I haven’t bothered to look in the mirror, and when I open the front door, Rick takes a step back and yelps in surprise.
‘Alice! Your face!’ He screeches it and then he makes a sequence of noises I’ve never heard him make before, a gasping, wheezing sound that turns out to be Rick crying.
We sit on the sofa with a bowl of ice and water and a flannel that Rick presses against my swollen cheek, tears running down his face until I tell him, ‘This isn’t really helping, you know.’
‘You’re right, I’m sorry. But I hate the fact that he did this when Jake was away. He’ll kill your father when he finds out.’
‘He won’t find out. Rick, you have to promise me that. He couldn’t handle it.’
‘I think you underestimate him sometimes.’
‘Hardly. Are you forgetting how he disappeared on a bender for almost a week? He’s so fragile, I’m only starting to realise how much. I hate him being away.’
‘You’ve got to stop stressing, it can’t be good for the baby.’
‘I just need him home.’
‘And he will be. Come on, let’s forget about your father. Stop worrying about Jake. Can’t we do something normal and everyday? Just you and me.’
I watch as he lights all the candles in the sitting room, the way Jake usually does, so that this orange and red space is filled with a calming night-time glow. He makes tea in the cream and gold pot I bought at Portobello Market and flips through the stack of records, selecting The Dark Side of the Moon , a perfect choice.
While we drink our tea, he flips through our book of baby names, reading out the most outlandish ones. Jake and I have already chosen our names: Charles for a boy, Charlotte for a girl, both shortened to Charlie. But I indulge Rick while he suggests Aristotle and Prospero, and Cassiopeia for a girl.
And soon I’m laughing, the horror of today almost forgotten as I sit drinking tea and laughing with my best friend and his pitch-perfect interpretation of ‘normal’.
The last time, as it turned out, that my life would ever be normal again.