Chapter 39
ALICE
The door swings open into a large hall, air filled with the scent of fresh laundry and coffee.
Primrose walls give way to a high ceiling, and a black-and-white-checked floor leads towards a kitchen.
It would look like a show home save for the clothes folded on the stairs ready to be put away.
The woman standing in front of us double takes. Her mouth opening then closing.
‘Kate?’ I ask tentatively. She’s attractive. Honey blonde strands threaded through chocolate lowlights. No sign of the purple rinse I’d somehow conjured up in my mind. A soft fringe hangs over a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. Her make-up is soft, natural.
Kate gathers herself. ‘I… Yes. Sorry, I was expecting someone older.’ Spence catches my eye, an unspoken conversation flitting between us.
‘Come in, come in…’ She’s small, about five feet, but walks with solid purpose.
Spence gives me a smile of encouragement as we make our way into a small lounge.
A wood-burner is sitting in the centre of the wall.
Low, comfortable sofas edge the walls, opposite the burner.
‘Can I get you a tea? Coffee? Juice… or wine?’ She reaches for the chain around her neck, running a small ring up and down. She glances to the clock on the mantlepiece. ‘It’s six o’clock somewhere in the world…’
‘Wine would be lovely,’ I say. I don’t actually feel like drinking, but she seems pleased with my response.
‘Water would be great,’ Spence adds.
‘Back in a tick.’ She rushes out of the room.
‘Wine?’ Spence pops an eyebrow.
‘Shush, it looks like she needs it,’ I reply, but his focus is on a painting on the wall, his throat bobbing. I follow his gaze. Next to the bay window, beside a set of heavy green curtains, is a painting. My heart quickens as I step closer.
The angle is different to the mural, the head facing forwards. There is something different about her expression. In the mural, her eyes always felt distant, like they were looking for answers, but in this version, they’re playful, teasing. I reach up, finger outlining the jawline.
‘You all right?’ he asks, his hand on the base of my spine.
I swallow, nodding, but I can tell he can see right through me. Can sense the tangle of emotions inside.
‘She does look a bit like you…’ He trails off.
‘Do you—?’ Kate stops in the doorway, her eyes on us, a tray with three glasses clinking.
Spence strides forward and takes the tray from her hand and places it on the coffee table.
Kate watches him, then her eyes fall back to me.
She takes a step, then stops. ‘Is she a relation?’ she asks, a tremor in her voice.
‘No. I don’t know who she is. Not, well… It’s complicated.’ She looks back at the painting, then gestures to the sofas, reaching for a glass and taking a large sip. Spence waits for me to sit, his reassuring warmth seeping into me through the outside of his jeans pressing softly against mine.
‘Jenna said you wanted to know about Mike?’ she begins, crossing her legs on the opposite sofa.
‘This is going to sound a bit… well, strange, I guess?’ I begin.
Spence rubs his thumb over my knuckles. Kate’s eye snags on the action. I pull my hand away, opening my bag and pulling out the stack of letters. ‘I have these… Letters. From Michael. To Alice.’
Her eyes widen, confusion etched across her face as she reaches out, taking them, eyes filling as she opens one and quickly scans the page. The paper is shaking in her hands as she strokes the surface, following the shape of his name at the bottom.
‘How do you have these?’ Her eyes flick up to me.
‘Well,’ I begin gently. ‘I moved into a new house, number 76 Pinewood Road. It wasn’t built back then, in eighty-five. And I don’t know why or how they found their way to me, but they’ve been delivered… almost weekly.’
She shakes her head, her eyes focused on something in the distance. ‘That doesn’t make sense. He sent these years ago, not long before he… Before we lost him.’
‘I know,’ I say, my voice filled with understanding. I lost him too, I want to say, but sitting here, opposite his best friend, my grief doesn’t feel real. It’s like I’m stepping all over her grief, like I’m an intruder. This isn’t about my loss. It’s about hers. Her grief fills the room.
I find my voice.
‘I don’t understand it either. I’ve even been in touch with Royal Mail to ask how this happened, and they say the letters would have been destroyed years ago.
I’ve asked my postman too and he has no idea.
All I know is that, well, it feels like they were meant for me, somehow.
Like they came at the right time in my own life. I know that sounds ridiculous.’
She lets out a small sigh, the corner of her mouth lifting. ‘He always believed they would get to her. Even though he knew the address was wrong. He was like that, Mike, always believed in fate and things happening for a reason. That nothing happened by accident.’
‘I…’ My throat tightens. ‘It felt like he was talking to me, like he knew me somehow. I’ve… taken great comfort in his words.’
‘Aye, he always had a knack for that. For saying the right things at the right time.’
‘I even tried writing back.’ Her eyes flash back up to me. ‘But his house doesn’t exist any more.’
‘No.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘No, they tore it down years ago.’ She turns the page, placing it beside her, and opens the next. Spence and I exchange glances.
‘He got in, you know,’ she says quietly, hands gripping the paper. ‘To the art college. He never knew. His life would have been so different.’
I take a sip of wine, Spence resting his hand over my other hand. I hadn’t noticed it shaking. Kate looks up, her gaze sliding from my face to our hands.
‘Can you… tell us a little about Alice? The woman in the painting, right?’ Spence begins.
Kate blows away a stray hair and folds the letters in her hand.
‘There’s not much to tell you. Mike, he…
he only met her once. But he was smitten.
She was tall, I remember that, had legs up to her armpits.
Long, dark hair. A lot like you, actually.
’ She frowns, eyes scanning my face. ‘I don’t understand how you have these…
’ She trails off. ‘She never wrote back. We even went to the address.’
I pull out the photo. ‘I know.’ I pass it to her.
Her face lifts, despite the tears. ‘He was so determined to find her. I took this. It was… a good day.’ Her thumb runs across his face.
She snorts a small laugh, and I can see the young woman she was in the lightness in her expression.
‘His mam had ironed creases in those jeans. Drove him bonkers.’
Her eyes flit up at me then back to the photo.
‘We even put up notices in the local shops, pubs.’ She pulls at the ring around her neck again, running it left and right.
She drops the necklace, gets up, and unhooks the picture and places it back in her lap.
‘The similarity is uncanny, don’t you think?
’ She looks over at us. ‘The eyes are wrong, though. He never could get them right, he said.’
But the more I look at the image, the more I see the differences. Her face is more heart-shaped than mine, the nose more prominent, the hair thicker, waves that I don’t have without the aid of a curling tong. It hits me then. A short, sharp pain pinches in my stomach.
It’s not me.
It never was.