Chapter 44
ALICE
My eyes are raw when I wake.
Sounds from outside screech into the room.
I squint as my hand fumbles with my phone beside my bed.
Half-seven. Nothing from Spence. Al, please…
just go. I picture the hurt in his eyes, the pain, the plea for me to let him go.
A wave of nausea flips in my stomach. I lean back, phone clutched against my chest. I replay every moment of last night over again, just as I have since I left his room. Everything he said, everything we did.
The tears come again.
Spence left in the middle of the night. I heard his door close, and all I could do was stand with my hand against the door, willing myself to open it. But I couldn’t, because everything he said was true.
I push off the covers, and sit with my head in my hands, my nose leaning into the collar of the shirt, still smelling of Spence.
The images come again and again: the feel of his mouth, the weight of his body on mine, the longing for more of his touch.
I pull the shirt off, unzip my bag and start throwing things in.
I can’t go after him… can I? I stop moving.
I could. I could get on the train and beg him not to…
No. I need to let him move forward. I push the thoughts away, even though every movement I make feels like I’m being pulled back to the room across the hallway, back into his arms.
* * *
Kate is smiling as she swings the door open. Her eyes scan behind me. ‘No Spence?’
I feel the ghost of his hand at the bottom of my back, his warmth at my shoulder.
‘No… he had to get back.’
‘Oh.’ I push my sunglasses onto my head, and her face softens. ‘Come in, let me get you a brew, eh?’
I follow her into the kitchen, an Echo Dot playing in the background. The Smiths playing ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’.
I smile up at her. ‘Michael loved them, didn’t he?’
She turns her head as she fills the kettle. ‘Yep. Slit-your-wrists music, I used to call it. But he liked the irony… looking for a job and not being happy when he found it? That was Mike.’ She smiles and shakes her head.
Spence’s voice whispers in my ear. Christ. Liked a good wallow, didn’t he, your old man? ‘You listened to the tape he sent you?’
I push the thought of Spence away. I need to focus on Michael. On his story. Not the mess I’ve made of my own.
‘Yes, well, I made a playlist.’
‘Every year he’d make one for the summer. Hours, it’d take him. I’ve got a whole box of them upstairs. You can have a look in a bit if you’d like?’ She busies herself with the tea, placing a packet of biscuits on the table and joining me.
‘Carl gave me these,’ I say, pulling out the stack of drawings from my bag. ‘He kept his rubbish. Thought he could sell them if Michael ever became successful.’
She laughs. ‘Sounds about right. He hid it, but deep down he thought the sun shined out of Mike’s arse.
Wouldn’t let Mike know that, but it was obvious to anyone with half a brain.
He was never the same kid after. It changes you, doesn’t it?
Losing someone so close to you, so young.
He went off the rails for a few years. Pulled himself back though. In the end.’
Her hand reaches across and she lifts a drawing of her laughing, a spatula in her hand.
‘Well, I never!’ She laughs as I push more of the drawings forward. ‘I had no idea he drew me.’
‘He drew you a lot. Look…’
We go through the stack, Kate giving me stories of how he would draw while she worked, the way he saw things that others didn’t.
We talk about the letters some more, and she brings down the box of tapes.
I begin taking photos, making sure to capture the heart of his art.
His music. She tells me about his favourite films, the clothes he used to wear.
‘I’m going to find her – Alice. If I can.’
She nods. ‘He would have liked that.’
We’re lost in our thoughts for a moment, her hand running along the ring along her chain.
‘Carl… mentioned a ring?’ She looks down at her fingers, releasing it.
‘She dropped it, the night he met her. Was desperate to get it back, wore it on his chain like a bleedin’ St Christopher.’
‘Carl mentioned he found a message with her correct address?’
‘Aye. But… you have to understand, I was, well, angry with her. For a long time. If it hadn’t have been for the idea of her waiting there that day, maybe he wouldn’t have gone.
He offered to stay and help me with some furniture, but I knew he wanted to go.
It was the hope, you see. That she’d be there that had him still going.
Well, that and his daft ritual with his mates. ’
‘You blamed her?’ I don’t say it like an accusation, just a fact.
‘Yes. At first. And then… Well, time passed. Bobby and me got together and then life got in the way. I did try to find her, when my Billy was about five. Went to the right address but she’d already moved on.’
She changes the subject, and before I know it a few hours have passed, and I feel like I have enough to be able to do his story justice. She brings out the letters, wrapped in a small piece of fabric.
‘Thank you, for leaving the letters. I can’t tell you how nice it’s been to hear his voice again.’
‘You’re welcome. He… he really helped me.’ I sigh, dragging my hands through my hair. ‘I’ve been going through a bit of a bad time, to be honest – lost my job, my home… my fiancé.’
My best friend.
She reaches out, taking my hand. ‘I’m sorry.’
I nod.
‘He talked about you a lot.’ I bring the subject back to her.
She looks down at the letters, her hand resting on them.
‘He did. We were close.’
Her eyes meet mine, and it’s like she wants me to say the words for her.
‘You were in love with him…’ I say softly.
A small noise comes from the back of her throat, tears filling her eyes before giving a short nod.
‘He never knew though. Always oblivious to things staring him in the face. It’s the hardest thing, to be in love with someone who doesn’t see you.’
My pulse rushes in my ears as she reaches over for the teapot and tops up her cup. ‘It’s my biggest regret, not telling him before…’
I take a breath, Spence’s words from last night still echoing through my thoughts. ‘Do you think he might have felt the same way?’
She pauses, fiddles with the chain. ‘Yes. I think maybe he did. He called me… when he was on his way to Whitby. It wouldn’t have been long before the accident.
Asked me if I wanted to go out for dinner.
But…’ She sniffs, putting on a smile. ‘I don’t know.
Wishful thinking on my part, probably. He was all Alice then. Alice this, Alice that…’
I reach out and take her hand, squeezing it.
She squeezes my hand back, then reaches for a tissue and blows her nose. ‘So you think this will all help, with your job?’
‘I’m hoping so. This, Michael, it’s all helped me see how much I love research, telling life stories, breathing life back into the past.’
‘And Spence…?’ She meets my eyes, understanding there.
‘Spence is… moving. To Scotland, with his daughter. And her mum.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No need.’ I put on a brave smile, reaching for one of the tapes, trying to read Mike’s playlist from 1984.
‘Forgive me, love, and you can tell me to shut my big gob if you want, I won’t take offence. But I watched how you were together, the way he looks at you, the way you finish each other’s sentences, instinctively know what the other is thinking. It reminded me, well, of Mike… and me.’
I keep my eyes down, slotting the tape back in the shoebox.
‘Love.’ She leans forward. ‘I left it too late. Don’t make the same mistake, eh? You never know when you’re going to lose those you love.’
I swallow. ‘Thanks, but… He has a new life ahead of him. And I…’ I look at the clock on the wall with a shaky smile. ‘Need to get going.’
She stands, helps me with my bags, the portfolio clutched in my hand. ‘And you’re sure you don’t mind me borrowing all this?’
‘No, love. It’s right you should have them for a bit.
His letters got to you for a reason, and I’ll be proud as punch to see his work, the person he was, there for all to see.
He deserved it. He always did say Van Gogh wasn’t famous ’til after he died.
Reckon Mike’d get a kick out of it all, to be honest.’
We hesitate at the door. Kate pushes her lips together then slowly reaches behind her neck. She pulls out the chain and holds it up, letting the ring land in her palm, clutching it briefly before opening her hand.
‘Bout time this got back to the right person. Tell her, when you find her, that meeting her changed his life, made him see himself differently. He found something of himself that night, and… well. Just tell her thank you.’
Tears burn at the back of my eyes as I take the ring.
It’s still warm from her skin. This ring is so much more than a piece of jewellery.
It’s history, life, everything that was said and not said.
Love, loss and all the messy things in between.
I close my fingers around it, feeling the weight of the past. The future.
‘And don’t be a stranger, eh? You’re welcome here anytime, love.’
My throat closes as I grip the ring tightly. ‘Thank you.’
She opens the door and I step through.
‘Alice?’ she adds, a little urgency in her voice. ‘Don’t forget what I said, eh? Life’s too short to not tell someone you love them.’
As I walk away, it feels like I’m taking another step towards my future. So why does it feel like I’m being pulled back into the past?