What Alice Sees: Chapter 9

Mummy opened the door, and stopped. Every light on the ground floor was on. A song played on the stereo, softly. Alice followed her mother into the lounge, as she searched for Daddy.

“Please forgive me?” Mummy muttered.

“What, Mummy?”

She smiled, and grabbed Alice’s hand. “It’s a song, the one that’s playing. It’s by Bryan Adams.”

“Oh.”

In the kitchen, the lighting was dimmed, the oven on, and the table set. A single rose in a cut glass vase sat near the middle of a blood red tablecloth.

“Oh, Shaun. You shouldn’t have.” Mummy leaned over and breathed in the scent, a curious smile on her lips. Next to the vase lay an envelope. Mummy picked it up and carefully opened it.

“What does it say?” Alice asked stretching onto her tiptoes to see.

“Please forgive me.”

“Like the music?”

“Yes…”

The smell of food filled the kitchen, and Mummy opened up the oven to peer in. On the rack was a homemade lasagne. Alice rubbed her belly, and trailed behind as her mother went to find Daddy. They went up the stairs. Alice followed, her tummy rumbling. On the stereo, the song ended and after a few seconds pause, restarted.

“Shaun?”

Mummy checked the bedroom, and then put a hand on the handle for the bathroom.

“Stay back, he might not be prepared.”

“You don’t want me to see his winks.”

Mummy laughed. “Exactly.”

She cracked the door. A cloud of steam bellowed out, turning the air in the hall muggy and scented, of soap and shampoo. Mummy leaned forward and peeked in.

“Shaun?” she said. “Shaun!”

Mummy slammed the door.

“What’s wrong, Mummy?”

Mummy rested her head against the wood.

“Is Daddy on the toilet?”

Mummy slid down to her knees, and twisted her face towards Alice.

“Sweetheart, this is super important. I need you to stay here. In the hall. Can you do that?”

Alice nodded. Mummy had gone a very pale shade, her green eyes standing out like lights.

“Don’t move.” She put out a hand in a stop position. “It’s very important.”

Mummy slipped into the bathroom, leaving Alice alone in the hall. She fiddled with the buttons on her school dress. Her mother stayed inside for a few seconds. Alice counted, something she’d stopped after David died. When she got to thirty-five-one-thousand, Mummy came out. A grey sheen covered her face, and it looked like the skin on her face had sagged while she was in there.

“We need to go downstairs.”

Alice did as her mother ordered. Mummy put Alice on the sofa, and went into the kitchen to make a phone call. Alice tried to listen, but the door was closed, and Mummy’s voice was muffled. At eighty-seven Alice lost count. She waited, kicking her legs against the sofa, until Mummy she came out and put the phone back in its cradle.

“Do you want Bubbles?”

Alice nodded.

Mummy went up the stairs slowly. She took a long time, but came down eventually with the teddy. She gave him to Alice, and went to stand by the window. The summer sun flooded in, and Alice followed the shadows as they moved across the carpet. Mummy didn’t move or speak. She stood by the window, watching the cars drive by.

Alice got off the sofa, and tiptoed out of the room and to the stairs. Mummy didn’t move. Alice put a foot on the bottom stair, and one-by-one, ascended. Her mother stood so still, Alice thought she’d been turned into a statue. Upstairs, Alice opened the bathroom door a crack, as she had seen her mother do, and peeped inside.

“Daddy?” Alice asked.

He lay in the bath, silent.

“Daddy?” She stepped into the bathroom, breathing in the steam. The room smelled of lavender and roses. On the sink were two tea lights in coloured glass holders. They’d burned out. Alice walked further towards the bath. She passed Daddy’s clothes, folded and placed on the closed lid of the toilet. A towel hung off the radiator. On the floor lay two packets of medicine. Alice knew what medicine was, and that she should not touch pills. She crouched down, and peered into the boxes. Both were empty, the sleeves that had been inside were nearby, discarded. Every pill was missing. Alice tried to read the name on the box, but the words were long, and the only bit she understood was, “Keep medicines out of the reach of children.” That meant don’t touch, and she backed away, looking over at her father.

“Daddy?” she asked again, but she didn’t expect him to respond. He had that grey look David got before she’d been rushed out of her bedroom. But Mummy wasn’t by Daddy’s side, trying to kiss the breath back into him.

Alice put a hand on his forehead, like Mummy did when Alice felt ill. His skin was clammy. The bath was still warm, and she thought the heat might be making Daddy sweat. She reached out, and teased his hair so the top stood up. Then she leaned across and hovered over his face for a few seconds. Normally Daddy was ‘white tea’ coloured, as Mummy sometimes said. Today he’d gone a funny grey colour, with dark circles under his eyes. The lids were closed, and Alice mouthed a silent thank you. She leaned further, and placed a kiss on his lips. She tilted her head, and watched to see if his chest would rise and fall, but nothing happened. She kissed him again, but her kisses weren’t working.

Alice stood back up, trying to remember the night when David stopped breathing. Alice put one hand on top of the other, and pressed down in the middle of Daddy’s tummy. He sloshed about in the water. A wave of bubbles rose, and slopped over her feet. She waited to see if that made him breathe. He rocked about, suds sloshing over his chest, but his skin stayed grey. She gave him one more kiss, lingering before she stood back.

“Are you lost now, Daddy?”

He swayed less now, but the bubbles still rose and fell against his stomach. They caught in his sparse chest hair, like the spume in the waves at the beach in Brighton. Her mother had taught her that word – spume – while her father floated in the sea, on a plastic lilo that took ages to blow up. Mummy sat under an umbrella. She said her skin didn’t agree with the sun like Alice and Daddy’s.

“I love you Daddy,” she whispered, and backed out of the room.

Mummy was still at the window. The sun hung low in the sky now, and fewer cars passed by. Alice sat back on the sofa, and closed her eyes. Daddy floated there, behind her eyelids. In her mind, her kiss worked, and his chest started going up and down. His mouth opened, and he drew in a long raspy breath.

The sound of the front door opening stole Alice away from her father’s awakening. A blue light flashed into the room in short pulses. Mummy stood by the door, not moving. Alice thought she’d win a prize for musical statues, if she wanted to play.

Two men strode up the garden path, both carrying cases and equipment. Mummy turned to Alice for a moment. She didn’t say anything, simply stared at her, through her, with watery green eyes. Her mother left the living room and opened the front door. Without a word she started to climb the stairs. The two men came in and followed her. No one ran like when David died. Didn’t Daddy matter as much?

Alice curled up on the sofa, and alternated between waiting for Lizzy to sweep through the front door, and take her to sleep on Jessie’s trundle bed, and watching for the two men and Mummy to come downstairs. Maybe they could kiss him back to life. Maybe Mummy needed a special potion, and then her kiss would work. Daddy would walk slowly down the stairs, a few steps behind the others, and he’d smile at her.

The music played on. Did Daddy want them to forgive him for something? Did he do something bad? Alice listened to the man sing. He sounded very sad. Her father was sad. When they woke him up, she’d give him a big cuddle, and make him smile.

Mummy hadn’t closed the curtains yet. People passed by on the pavement, only meters from the house. The men who came in left the door open a bit, and Alice could hear the people outside walk; the click of heels, the muted thud of trainers, the clack of brogues. Her father wore brogues when he went to work. He liked to look smart. He always combed down the hair at the back that liked to stick up. Alice liked his tuft, Daddy reminded her of David like that. Her mother said they should never forget David. Her father said he was lost.

The sun crept lower down, shining over the top of Mrs Jackson’s roof across the street and into the living room. Mummy and the men were still upstairs when the pain in Alice’s tummy erupted in a series of loud rumbling growls. She thought about trying to take the lasagne out of the oven, help out, and serve everyone. They must be doing lots of work up there, and wouldn’t they all want to eat as well? Her stomach grumbled. Mummy said she couldn’t touch the stove. Hot things burned. If she used the oven gloves, the heat wouldn’t hurt her. She jiggled about on the sofa, Bubbles in the crook of one arm while she decided what to do. Beside the telly her mother kept a bowl of fruit. Alice got up, and went to see what was inside. She didn’t like the look of the bananas. They were spotty, and she didn’t like them when they got too soft. Underneath was an apple. She picked it up. This type was called a Pink Lady. Her mother said that was because only ladies wearing pink were allowed to work on those orchards.

Mummy came down the stairs alone. She pulled the front door so it was fully open, and put the umbrella stand against the edge to make sure it didn’t close. Her head tilted, and she walked across the room. She didn’t seem to notice Alice, and went to the stereo. She reached up to the power button, just as one of the men stepped down the stairs. He took each step carefully. He grasped the handles of something that went out behind him. As he got lower, Alice noticed the other man a few steps back, and between them, they carried a stretcher. A bulky shape was strapped to it.

The men took the stretcher out, and as the second one left the house, Mummy switched off the stereo, her eyes on the empty doorway. Bryan Adams stopped singing Please Forgive Me. The silence rang in Alice’s ears. It hurt and made her eyes water.

“Was that Daddy?” she asked.

Mummy nodded.

“Is he lost now?”

Mummy nodded again.

“Can I say goodbye?”

Mummy twisted her head around, so her eyes fell on her daughter. She nodded, just a little, and Alice jumped off the sofa, and ran outside.

The men were sliding the stretcher into the back of an ambulance. A few of her neighbours milled about, whispering in groups, pointing as Alice stepped up to the van.

“Didn’t your kisses work, either?” she asked.

The man frowned, and then shook his head. “Shouldn’t you be inside, with your mum?”

Alice ignored him, and stepped up to the open doors. She whispered, “Take care of David, please.”

Alice turned away from the ambulance, and walked back up the garden path. Mummy stood in the doorway. She waited there until Alice was in the house, and shut and locked the front door. She then closed the living room curtains, and sat on the sofa.

“Your daddy died,” Mummy said quietly. “Something went wrong with him, and he died.”

Alice sat on her mother’s lap and put her arms around Mummy’s neck.

“He had a medical problem we knew nothing about, and the paramedics said he probably didn’t feel any pain.”

Alice laid her head on Mummy’s shoulder.

“He fell asleep, and his heart stopped. There was nothing anyone could do.”

Mummy put her arms around her daughter.

“He’s in a better place, with Gramma and Pappi… and David.” Her voice cracked a little, and she took a couple of deep breaths. “Just you and me now.”