Chapter 7
7
ALICE
Alice slipped a solitary pearl earring on each ear, then stood back to survey herself in the mirror. Even now, more than six months after she’d left Larry, she still hadn’t become accustomed to being happy with the person she saw reflected in the glass. For the entirety of their marriage, she had lived a lie – to the public, she was married to the successful entrepreneur who’d started his career in the bar and nightclub industry, before entering the political field and rising to become a Member of Parliament. In reality, she was trapped in a marriage hell with a man she despised, but who kept her with him using threats and manipulation, because it suited his political image.
It was only two years ago, when a newspaper exposed him as a corrupt, drug-using, disgrace to his government office that his downfall began, and his allies had scattered like rats off Larry’s sinking ship. And Alice had silently applauded every indignity and humiliation that had come his way, even if she was well and truly dragged down with him. She didn’t care. She was happy to take the fall, guilty by association.
It had taken her over a year after that to finally escape him, more than twelve months of living in poverty, ruined, desolate, destroyed – and yet every day was bearable because she knew it was one day closer to leaving him. They’d lived in a hovel, but she’d taken cleaning jobs, squirrelled money away, plotted, schemed, waited. Finally, after Larry was involved in an accident while driving a taxi when he was drunk and high behind the wheel, she had her chance and she took it. Somewhere in the midst of that time, she’d also discovered that Larry was having an affair with a work colleague called Sandra, and she’d tried to warn her what he was truly like, but Sandra had fired back with scorn and malice. Alice often wondered if she’d found out for herself yet.
Meanwhile, Alice knew that the survivor inside her own mind, that woman who’d lived for that final year in isolation, shunned by the friends she’d made in her gilded public life, only spending money on the very basics, would be over the moon to see her today. Sure, when she was out in public, some people still recognised her, judged her, assumed the worst of her, but the people that mattered knew the truth. Now, she recognised herself again. She could hold her head up and she could breathe. When she joined Rory and Sophie in Reading tomorrow, no one would have a clue who she was, and the transition to her new, anonymous life, lived on her own terms, would be complete. She’d have a family again. Privacy. Peace. And eventually, she’d have her own home too. She couldn’t wait.
‘Alice! My heels are on and my feet are already killing me, so could you get a shoogle on!’ came the holler from the bottom of the stairs.
Smiling, Alice straightened her jacket, patted the bun of hair that was its natural grey, but with subtle blonde highlights to soften it, slipped her feet into low black pumps and grabbed her bag from the knob on the front of the wardrobe. The room was small, and the navy walls and grey carpet hadn’t been changed since Val’s son, Michael, had left home a decade ago, but it was clean, comfortable and to Alice it was a haven of safety and relaxation. Apart from the occasional harassment when she was late, and Val was waiting at the bottom of the stairs in three-inch heeled boots.
By the time Alice joined her, Val already had her car keys in one hand and her handbag in the other, as she announced, ‘My wee Jeep can fairly pick up speed, but it’s not a helicopter, doll, so we need to get cracking.’ Before catching sight of Alice and adding, ‘Och, you don’t scrub up too bad, you know. Although you could always do with a bit of blue eyeliner.’ It was a standing joke, with Alice and everyone else in Val’s life having given up trying to sway her from the same Princess Diana make-up she’d been wearing for decades.
Everyone also knew that Val cared not a jot what they thought, so it gave them all free rein to dish the snippy comments right back at her.
‘But it’s no longer 1986, so I’ll pass,’ Alice fired back, grinning.
God, she’d miss this. It had taken a period of adjustment to get back into the way of amusing conversations and barbed banter and finding hilarity in the simplest conversations with genuine friends, but now, in Val’s home, it had become a way of life.
It only took a gaze to her right, where her suitcases were sitting packed and ready to go to the airport later in the afternoon, to remind her that it would soon be over, so she covered up the pit that caused in her stomach with a jokey, ‘Right, let’s go then. Can’t stand around here all day chatting.’
Her sarcasm was rewarded with a loud ‘Pfft,’ from Val, followed by the clicking of her chum’s heels all the way down the hall.
‘Urgh, my hair and my good suede boots will be ruined in this,’ Val muttered as they made their way down the slushy path towards the parked car, brushing snow off their shoulders when they finally got into the Jeep. The traffic was relatively quiet, because the schools hadn’t returned and many people took the rest of this week off to recover from the Christmas and New Year break, so despite the weather, it didn’t take long to get out of Weirbridge and onto the road to the crematorium, which was only about ten miles away on the outskirts of the nearby town of Burnbank.
‘How are you feeling? Nervous?’ Val asked her. ‘It’s a long time since you’ve seen your old friend.’
Alice watched the snow fall on the leafless trees that lined the road as they passed by. ‘Not nervous. Sad, for Audrey and the family she leaves behind. And a little regretful. I’m sure Morag and I drove Audrey crazy when we were younger and it would have been lovely to have connected with Audrey again before she passed. It seems like the thirty years since I saw them last have gone by so quickly. And also, if I’m honest, I’m a little bit hopeful about seeing Morag again, although it’s in such a sad setting. Even if we could just reconnect, then meet up again properly some other time, that would be wonderful. I know we can’t turn back time, but maybe we can just have a different time. One where we get to be in each other’s lives again.’
Val sighed, shook her head. ‘Not even out the door yet and you’re replacing me. You’re lucky I’m good-natured and thick-skinned.’
Alice played along. ‘Val, we both know you’re irreplaceable, but in some ways Morag wasn’t too different from you.’
‘A demon at the Slosh and fond of Duran Duran?’
The Slosh was a legendary Scottish version of line dancing, usually performed to a seventies track called ‘Beautiful Sunday’ by Daniel Boone. The minute the opening bars rang out at a Scottish party, the dance floor would fill, and Val had made it her speciality. Alice bowed down to her ability to do the Slosh in three-inch mules, while sipping a vodka and coke and carrying out a conversation with the six people nearest to her.
‘That too. But she was good at reading people. You know, she once tried to warn me about Larry. In fact, it was the last thing she ever said to me. Something about him not being who I thought he was. At the time, twenty-five, fearless, na?ve, I was swept off my feet by the promise of a wonderful life with him, so I just thought…’ She paused, realising this didn’t reflect well on her, before carrying on in the knowledge that Val was the kind of pal you could bare your soul to without judgement. ‘Urgh, I hate to admit it. I just thought she was maybe a bit jealous. How stupid could I have been? How could she see it and I didn’t?’
‘Because you were in love. Young. Optimistic. And, to be brutally honest, that odious horror of a man spent his whole career convincing people he was one of the good guys. Every single person who voted for him fell for it.’
That was true, and something she’d watched time and time again as Larry climbed up the political pole, but it didn’t make Alice feel any better.
Val indicated before turning into the grounds of the crematorium, then parked in the first available space. ‘Okay, pal, you’re ready?’ she said, with a supportive smile.
‘I’m ready,’ Alice said calmly, before taking a deep breath and opening the Jeep door.
It was only a few minutes before the service was due to start, so a large group of mourners were already waiting outside, under the roof canopy, adhering to the tradition that they shouldn’t go inside before the coffin and the immediate family. They didn’t have long to wait. Moments after Alice and Val joined them, a hearse, followed by two long black limos snaked up the drive towards them.
The family alighted from the cars first, and Alice scanned them for sight of Morag, but she couldn’t see her. In fact, she didn’t recognise anyone at all. Had they come to the wrong service?
Or maybe not. The older man, the one who was now making his way from one of the family cars to the hearse, could that be Cillian? She wasn’t at all convinced. It was difficult to tell from thirty yards and thirty years away.
Alice bowed her head respectfully as the coffin was taken out of the hearse and raised onto the shoulders of the pallbearers, who then, slowly, steadily, entered the building, with the rest of the mourners following behind them, to the sound of Westlife singing ‘You Raise Me Up’ coming from the speakers. Alice didn’t have to look at Val to know what she’d be thinking – that whoever chose that song had the kind of sense of humour she’d have liked to get to know. Instead, she kept her head down as they slipped into the back row.
The celebrant introduced herself, explained that this would be a humanist service and then went on to welcome everyone.
‘Thank you all, on behalf of Audrey’s family, for being here today to celebrate her life.’
Audrey. That confirmed they were at the right service. So where was…?
‘Audrey was dearly loved by her children, her grandchildren, by her beloved late sister, Morag, who passed away just a year ago…’
Alice didn’t hear the rest, drowned out by the noise of the wind being punched out of her chest. Morag was dead? Perhaps she’d been na?ve, but she hadn’t even considered that could be the case. Morag was the same age as her, barely fifty-five. No age at all, really. Alice felt a crushing wave of sadness, of heartbreak for her old friend, and of sorrow that they would never have a chance to meet up again, to reminisce, to share stories about the time in their lives when they thought anything was possible and the world was at their feet. She’d completely messed her own life up, but she sent up a silent prayer that Morag’s had been much happier, that she was loved and that she’d woken up every day glad of the choices that she’d made.
Val’s hand slipped into hers, and Alice was grateful, yet again, that she’d found this woman, and sad that Morag didn’t get to meet her too. They’d have enjoyed each other. Now that page had turned.
She listened to the rest of the ceremony, to the funny stories that Audrey’s son, Hamish, told about his mum, to the heartbreaking eulogy from her daughter, Jill, and to the beautiful words from the celebrant about life, about death and about touching the hearts of others.
Poor Morag. Poor Audrey. Alice’s heart broke for them both. But that grief came with something else – even more determination to live the years she had in front of her on her own terms.
When the final words had been said, the platform that Audrey’s coffin rested on lowered into a void in the pedestal and then the top closed on it. The heart-crushing sobs of a few of the congregation were the only sounds to be heard, until the opening bars of the final song came from the speakers.
Val leaned in close to her ear. ‘Do you still want to go to the hotel? I’m happy to do whatever you feel you need to.’
Alice gave a small shake of her head. No. She’d hoped that it would be a bittersweet reunion with an old friend. Now that wouldn’t happen, going back to spend time with a group of mourners she didn’t know just felt like an intrusion on their pain.
I’m sorry, Morag, she sent up a silent message to her pal. I wish I’d listened. I wish I’d stopped you leaving. I wish I’d come with you. I wish I’d been a better friend. I wish that I’d had the sense to keep in touch, to track you down, to find out why we drifted apart and to bring us together again.
But now it was time to go, because all she’d wanted was to see Morag again. To share the stories of their lives. And yes, maybe to ask her old friend why she’d warned her about Larry and why she’d broken off all contact. However, Morag was gone, so Alice was going to have to come to terms with the fact that there was no-one left who could give her the answers to those questions.