Chapter 46
ALICE
All I had was her first name and an address she once lived at, and it was enough. If only it had been this easy to find Michael. I look at the address scribbled down. One quick check on the electoral roll, a Land Registry search, a skim through social media and I’ve found her.
I lock the car behind me. The wind picks up, my hair flashing across my eyes that are drawn upwards to the white house set behind tall steel gates. I can almost hear Spence whistling sarcastically at the grandeur.
I rub my sternum with the heel of my hand.
That ache is there again, the one that’s been there since the night at the hotel, like something’s been hollowed out.
I’d messaged him after I’d left Kate’s, a simple ‘can we talk?’ He’d replied saying that he needed some space.
But the more space I have, the more I feel like I’m falling through it.
Spence has always been the one constant thing in my life, ever since I was a kid with grazed knees, sitting at the top of the stairs with my hands over my ears to block out my parents’ arguing downstairs.
But now it feels like he’s too far out of my reach.
The distance between us feels like it’s stretching, like I’m being pulled apart.
I need to speak to him, but every time I try to put into words how I feel, I can’t find them.
I can’t explain how I feel, because I don’t even understand it myself.
I love him, I always have. Am I attracted to him?
That night, my body was screaming hell yes.
But I don’t know if that’s enough. Or if I’m just scared I’m about to lose him. I can’t keep being your safety net.
I’ve lost Ryan.
I’m about to say goodbye to Michael.
What will be left without Spence too?
I could tell him where I am and keep it neutral? It would be a tentative way to close some of that distance, right?
I pull out my phone, pulse quickening as I bring up his name. My knuckles white as I grip it.
He’s typing.
I rub my chest again, watching the three dots, holding my breath.
Say something, Spence.
Please.
Anything to let me know I haven’t lost you too.
I start to type I’ve found her. You wouldn’t believe the size of her house… but my fingers pause. I want to add I miss you. Please don’t go. But that’s not what he needs from me.
I delete the message and press on the intercom.
There is a spit. A crackle.
‘Hello?’ The words are clipped but friendly.
‘Um, hi! My name’s Alice Barker. I’m here to see Alice Winters. I sent her an email?’
‘Just a second! I’ll just, hold on—’ Two yellow lights flash at the top of the posts and the gates grind open.
I glance back down at my phone, but Spence has stopped typing.
It’s like I’ve swallowed a stone. I make a ridiculous deal with myself – if I’m not watching the screen, if I put it away, he’ll reply.
I push my phone into the side pocket of my bag, sandals crunching along the gravel driveway as I walk towards the house.
My strappy blue maxi dress billows out around me as I pass a circular fountain, a mermaid spouting water.
It’s over the top, clearly expensive, but there is no magic in her expression, no hidden pain, no hint of joy on her features.
What would Michael have made of it? Somehow, I don’t think it would be a sculpture he’d find attractive.
I can almost hear him laughing. Nowt says welcome home like a mermaid spitting out water like she’s swigged a brew with sour milk.
I make my way up the stone steps, two pillars either side, before knocking on the door. The sound is more confident than my shaking hands should allow. I resist the urge to check my phone as a cacophony of yapping dogs comes from behind. ‘Stella, Stephanie! Quiet now!’
The door opens, my eyes taking in the woman dressed in a white brocade dress, two Yorkshire terriers circling her feet.
She’s tall, long, dark hair resting over her shoulders.
I do a double-take; she looks much younger than Kate.
This can’t be her. But as she smiles, her forehead remains smooth.
Her lips are slightly too wide, too full.
My eyes rove over her face, a spark of recognition running up my spine. It’s her.
‘Hi,’ I say brightly. ‘I’m Alice. Al,’ I add, stretching out my hand, hers taking it. Her skin is cold and smooth, despite the weight of the large diamond and other rings on her fingers. She smiles brightly.
‘As am I… Please, come on through.’
‘Stella, shush!’ she says, walking through the hallway. Everything is white and beige. Clean. High ceilings, generic prints on the walls. Large vases spilling with exotic flowers. None of the warmth and personality of Kate’s house.
‘Sorry about these two little beasts, they always get a bit over-excited when I have visitors.’ She smiles again.
Despite the formality of the home, there is something warm in her voice.
‘Please, take a seat.’ She perches on the edge of a pale white sofa.
God, I hope I don’t sweat blue dye onto the fabric.
‘Tea?’ she asks, leaning forwards and pouring from a silver teapot.
‘Please.’
‘Lemon? Honey?’
I think of the workman’s tea Kate served. How she said Mike would drink it so strong it was a wonder it didn’t stain his teeth.
‘Just milk, please.’ She nods and pours milk from a matching silver jug.
‘So, you’d like to talk about an article you’re writing?’
I take a sip of tea. Earl Grey. Mike whispers into my ear, ‘Tastes like bloody perfume, if you ask me.’ I nod.
It hadn’t taken me long to find out more about Alice Winters.
She’d moved to Shropshire in the mid-eighties.
Got a job as an intern at a regional finance company.
Made her way up the corporate ladder. Developed an impressive portfolio and started her own investment company in the early nineties.
Her résumé felt so at odds to the woman he described.
A capitalist never fitted with what I’d had in mind for Michael’s dream girl.
I didn’t mention him in my email, preferring to keep that detail until we were face to face.
‘That’s right. I’m writing about a man I think you met, back in the eighties? In Yorkshire?’
She frowns, tilting her head, putting her cup back down.
‘His name was Michael Jones?’
Her hand reaches out to stroke one of the dogs curled up beside her. ‘Michael…’ She takes a moment. As though trying to place the name.
‘He was an artist?’ I prompt. Something changes, like a lightbulb has just popped on over her head.
‘I did meet a Michael, but goodness, that was years ago.’
‘I know. He… You asked him to write to you?’
She leans back, nodding.
‘That’s right. He was something of a dish, if I remember rightly.
Had the kind of cheek bones that could break hearts, beautiful eyes.
He never wrote to me; I was a bit put out about that, if I recall.
Sorry, I’m confused… Why would you be contacting me about him?
We barely knew each other. I thought this piece was about my career? ’
I don’t reply. I hadn’t actually said that, just mentioned I’d like to talk to her about her early life and what happened once she moved to the Midlands.
I reach into my bag and pull out the letters.
‘Michael… He did write to you. He had the wrong address. You just didn’t get them. But they’ve found their way to me.’
‘Really?’ Her voice has a breathless tilt to it. She lets out a small laugh. ‘Well, I never. I always wondered why he didn’t. We had one of those nights… I missed my bus; he stayed with me. We had fun, you know?’
Fun. The word hits me. It was so much more to him.
‘A bit of a…’ She clicks her fingers trying to find the right word. ‘Spark.’
‘He… felt that too. He tried to find you.’
The corner of her mouth lifts, eyes somewhere far away as she seems to fall into the past.
‘I did see a card, back then, a little shop around the corner. It was a little obtuse, it said a Michael had found something of mine. I’d lost a ring that night and I tried to call a few times but never heard anything back. Gosh, I haven’t thought about him for years.’
I swallow. The air feels too thin. ‘He found your ring. Kept hold of it for you.’
I take the ring from my finger and pass it over.
She lifts it, turning it in the light spilling into the room from the large windows. ‘Wow.’ She lets out a small bubble of laughter. ‘I never thought I’d see this again. I’d borrowed it off a friend. The sapphire matched my dress. She was so cross when I lost it.’
My hands grip the letters, still tied together with Kate’s ribbon.
I think of his words, the brutal honesty in them, the longing, the way the ring hung around his neck like a talisman that was then passed to Kate.
She shifts forwards. I realise I’m holding them tightly.
I don’t want to let them go. But this is why I’m here.
This is why they came to me, so I could find her and pass them on.
She takes them from me. I hold the tea in my hands, warming them.
Something is cracking inside my chest. She scans the first letter, her mouth lifting into a smile.
‘What a blast from the past!’ She reads the first letter quickly, moving on to the next. I pass over one of his drawings.
‘Oh my…’ She tilts the paper, lifting it up to the light. ‘It’s me…’
‘Yes. He—’ I clear my throat. ‘He drew you often. Applied to art college.’
She nods. ‘He drew me that night too. I don’t know where it is. Drew it with my eyeliner of all things. I’ll have to see if I can find it.’ She moves on to the next letter. ‘He was lovely…’ She looks up, eyes bright.
‘Yes. Yes, he was.’
She folds the letters and places them back on the table. I reach forward moving them away from the teapot and milk jug.
‘And where is he now?’ She takes another sip of her tea. ‘It would be great to catch up.’ She places her cup gently on the table, turning her attention back to her dog.
‘He… passed away. In 1985.’
She looks back up, hand covering her mouth. ‘No… That’s… that’s so tragic. He was… Goodness. I don’t know what to say.’
I wait a beat. She fiddles with the rings on her fingers. ‘I did think of him from time to time. I didn’t know anyone here when I first moved, felt very alone. I wish I’d got these, that we’d kept in touch.’
‘What can you tell me about him?’
‘Not much really, other than he was—’ she frowns as if trying to bring him to mind ‘—serious, but funny too. And handsome. I remember thinking that he seemed a bit… lost. Goodness, I even think I might have told him that.’ She grimaces playfully, shaking her head. ‘Ah, the confidence of youth.’
Something rings inside of me, like a bell chiming. It wasn’t Alice that made that night so special, it was the way she made him feel about himself. She turned the spotlight back at him, made him see himself differently.
‘He said you liked salad cream with your chips?’ I don’t know why this springs to mind, but I’m desperate to disprove this feeling of sadness that’s spreading through me.
She laughs. ‘I did! Back in the days when I would eat carbs without knowing why I could never lose that extra half a stone I was always carrying.’ She says this as if it’s a great conspiracy that she’s sharing with me.
It strikes me how different this woman is to the goddess he’d built up in his mind.
Alice is pretty, friendly enough, but she’s, well, ordinary.
Despite her wealth, her poise… I look around the room again.
There is nothing that tells me about her personality.
Even the books on the coffee table are there for show, a white cover about interior decorating.
There is no real art on the walls, the room smells of strong perfume and reed diffusers.
He spent months almost worshipping this woman, but now, as I sit here, I can’t help but think she wasn’t at all who he’d built up in his mind.
It’s frightening, really, shaping your life around someone who would barely recognise you if you passed them in the street.
The hour passes quickly, but there is very little she can add to the details that I already have.
She trails off, telling me more about her life after she moved here, her accomplishments, meeting her husband.
She’s inspiring, confident, capable… there is no doubt about that.
I show her the mural he painted of her, and she’s attentive, looks closely, her focus on the way she looked back then: how big her hair was; the weight of her earrings, and that she wore electric-blue eyeliner.
But not much about the man who poured his heart and soul trying to capture her.
Michael’s voice comes back to me: Maybe it’s like you said and you are my muse, after all.
She was his muse, but not in the way he thought she was.
‘It was lovely to finally meet you, Alice,’ I say as I stand, reaching for the letters and tucking them safely in my bag.
‘You too! What a trip down memory lane it’s been.’ She smiles brightly as we make our way to the door, the dogs yapping around her ankles again.
‘And you’re happy for me to include you in my article?’ I prompt, hand reaching for my phone. Holding it tightly in my palm. Please have replied, Spence.
‘Of course! And do pass on my condolences. To his family.’
I nod.
‘Well…’ She reaches out, shaking my hand. ‘Good luck with it all. And please send me a link to the article.’
‘Will do.’
She closes the door and I open WhatsApp, my heart sinking as Spence’s earlier message stares up at me.
I need space.
I’ve never felt more connected to Michael than in this moment.
He was chasing a ghost. Just as I’ve been chasing his.