Who the fuck is Alice?

Frank leans back in the deck chair and tries to relax. He can’t. His brain won’t shut off. What is he doing here in Bali anyway? He doesn’t even like the place. It’s too hot, the food is horrible and the locals keep trying to flog him stuff. Some of the other tourists are wearing Santa hats. It would be all right if he had somebody to talk to but there’s no one. Alice has gone. Cremated three months ago. What would Alice think? It all looks a bit scruffy to Frank but he knows Alice would have found something nice to say about it. That’s the way she was. Always looked on the bright side did Alice. Alice had been the one who liked looking through the travel brochures. It was Alice who had wanted to see exotic places like Madagascar, Fiji, and Bali.

He looks down at his white pasty body and pulls the deckchair further under the sunshade. He probably shouldn’t be getting too much sun. His skin isn’t used to it. And he should be wearing some kind of hat. A combover is no protection at all.

Nobody ever asks, but if they did, Frank would probably say his distrust of hand brakes dates from the day when his parents rolled off Beachy Head in their Morris Minor. It was misty, they’d been eating cucumber sandwiches and trying to see France. Frank instantly became the owner of a corner tobacconist in a small town in Surrey. His girlfriend, well she wasn’t really his girlfriend, Alice, got pregnant about the same time, They got married of course so Frank suddenly found himself with a small business, a wife, and a daughter who they called Cynthia.

Things worked out quite well really. It all just seemed to happen. Life was measured in newspaper sales, Cadbury’s chocolate bars, Woodbines, cups of tea. Much TV was watched in the 2-room flat (plus kitchen and bathroom) above the shop. There were occasional picnics to Woburn Abbey and Chessington Zoo. Cynthia grew up, left school at 16, worked in a bank for 6 months before packing up her Sex Pistols albums and leaving home.

As for poor Alice she couldn’t stay off the Mars Bars. She got bigger and bigger and one day she just died. Some kind of stroke they thought. Not a total surprise. It took four strong ambulance men to get her downstairs and into an ambulance. That’s life, one thing leads to another. It was the sort of situation Woody Allen might have made a joke out of. But it wasn’t funny really. They had to grease her and remove the door-frame. For Frank it was a turning point. He sat staring at cardboard boxes for a month then he sold the shop to a family from Bangladesh who turned it into a proto-mini-market. The funeral was a small affair, just Frank, a cousin or two and some neighbours.

Frank had no plan. Forty years of stacking shelves with Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut bars and packets of Senior Service hadn’t equipped him to think very far ahead. He rented a small flat but he didn’t want to get out of bed most mornings. Just looking at himself in the bathroom mirror was difficult. Now, with Christmas coming and nothing much to do, he has decided to go and visit Cynthia in Australia. The travel agent suggested he break the journey somewhere so that explains why he’s sitting on this beach in Bali.

The beach vendors are persistent. Worse than the flies in some ways. There seems to be an endless stream of the buggers selling ice cream, soft drinks, fake watches. Chewing gum? No thanks. Newspaper? No. Not even the Daily Mail, thrust uninvitingly in his face by yet another vendor, can hold his attention for very long. Hang on a sec…he buys one anyway…six more British soldiers killed in Iraq…hmmm…a mess to be sure…but Frank is more interested in watching the clouds. He isn’t looking for omens or anything but he enjoys the constantly changing and evolving shapes. Above him immense billows are forming faces of Bush, Blair and Bin Laden…potent images that dominate the news these days. He’s even seeing a few pagan gods up among the clouds…vengeful old Egyptian and Hebrew Gods…Osiris, Anubis, Set, and Yahweh, Zeus with a handful of smartbolts, Mars in his war chariot. It must all mean something thinks Frank…

American soldiers getting bumped off left and right, lot’s of angry young Muslim men with time on their hands, non-existent WMDs, Blair telling whoppers, and recently, according to the Daily Mail, pipelines blown up, helicopters crashing…it must all worry Bush surely…assuming he worries about anything. It worries Frank. Millions of Muslims soundly trounced, humiliated really but still persisting in their old ways, more Islamic than ever now probably, showing no respect for the loving Christian god come to bring them all the wonders of a democratic consumer oriented society. Do they need more fire and brimstone before they admit the error of their ways…more shock and awe?

Goodness, thinks Frank, blinking in the sunlight, where does this stuff come from? I never used to have such thoughts. Must be watching too much TV. Life used to be so simple before…before what?

Meanwhile, up in the clouds, the gods are still hard at it. The sky is full of them …all jostling for his attention…inscrutable Old Chinese deities, a procession of anthropomorphic Hindus. Buddha? Not that he was a god exactly. Is Alice up there too somewhere?

Frank starts to think about England again. But not for long. Somebody is waving something under his nose...a grilled chicken foot it looks like…er…no thank you…but I will have…let me see…a boiled egg and a slice of pineapple…

Would Frank care to be young again? Yes and no. Certainly it would be nice to have a young healthy body instead of the pear-shaped thing with it’s various run down components he’s got now. It would be nice to have perfect hearing again too, real teeth, good eyesight, a bladder that he has some control over. Nice too not to have to listen to warning murmurs from the prostate region. But to be young in today’s world? No thank you. Not with things the way they are, polluted, over-crowded and teetering on the brink of some unimaginable disaster. He pities young people in a way…their heads buzzing with all kinds of useless rubbish, the minefield of ideas and misinformation they have to navigate…the dubious quality of their role models…the pressures to conform at odds with all the pressures to be different. Things hadn’t been like that in Frank’s youth

Even young people, he’s noticed, seem to have a tired cynical edge to them nowadays as if they’ve already seen too much. Oh, they enjoy themselves Frank supposes, but with a sort of fin du monde abandon. What? Oh you again…no I still don’t want the cigarette lighter…me no bloody want OK?

Frank must have dozed off. When he wakes the sky is still there but the gods have scattered…replaced by early BBC icons. Andy Pandy, Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men and Muffin the Mule, soft fluffy childhood memories. Frank had watched the new black and white miracle along with thousands of other middle-class English children but it’s hard to say what he felt. He had watched the images mainly because they moved, not because he was particularly engrossed in the activities of a few primitive puppets or because he wanted to see what they did next. It was the potential of the medium that intrigued him…the feeling that if he watched enough of it something important might occur, with luck someone might even pop up and explain what life was supposed to be about…but no…Bill, Ben, Andy, Muffin et al. were all eased out, gently, by Tiswas and the Teletubbies.

You could say Frank was born at the tail end of Empire. He wouldn’t necessarily disagree. He’s certainly lived through a lot of social changes. He remembers when there was a class hierarchy nobody questioned, a rigid school system, National Service, Brylcreem. The war years had changed everything, the bombed cities, the primrose banks, the steam engines, the solid continuity of rural England before the Empire came home to roost…and oh dear…there’s quite a tussle going on up in the clouds now…bearded Assyrians from first form history books being chased by teenaged Mexican rappers in HUMVs, four star generals fighting it out with Phantom Flan Flingers...

The Qantas plane banks over dry antipodean hills and Frank has no idea what to expect down under. He hasn’t had much contact with Cynthia over the years and she didn’t come over for the funeral. He isn’t even sure what she looks like but he needn’t worry. She spots him as he emerges from the custom’s hall at Melbourne Airport and introduces him to her husband Ron.

Cynthia and Ron live in a suburb of Melbourne. It’s called something that sounds like Booroobonga. ‘So how’s England these days?’ Ron asks on the drive home.

Frank tells Ron it’s OK but there have been a lot of changes as they pull up in front of a spacious ranch style house. He hasn’t seen any kangaroos yet. There’s another car in the driveway and people are pouring out.

‘Well what d’yer know,’ says Ron, ‘it’s Des and Charlene and their lot. Don’t look so worried Frank. I like Poms meself. Married one of the buggers didn’t I.’ Ron gives Cynthia a hug.

Ron is a jolly swagman. All Ron’s mates are jolly swagmen too. At Christmas they camp out by the swimming pools drinking beer and barbecuing big lumps of meat. Sometimes they sing drunken songs. One of the songs they sing is about Alice. Who the fuck is she? they wonder. Frank tries hard but he can’t get into the swing of things. Ron offers him a Santa hat. Sensing his discomfort Cynthia suggests a trip somewhere. It would get his mind off mum she says.

‘Plenty to see round here,’ says Ron. ‘Ned Kelly country.’
‘Ned Kelly?’
‘Famous outlaw,’ says Cynthia, ‘Mick Jagger did him in that film.’
‘Or you could try the outback.’ Says Ron. ‘Give you an idea of the size of the place. Might see some roos. Those Big Reds are quite something.’
‘Maybe I will.’ Says Frank.

A McCafferty’s bus takes Frank on a long drive to a town called Alice. As near as Frank can tell it’s in the middle of nowhere. Frank thanks the driver and wanders out of the bus station into a shopping mall. He buys an ice cream, sits down on a bench and tries to remember who he is supposed to be. All around him Aussies in shorts are wandering in and out of shops. Except for some black ones who are sitting on patches of grass under eucalyptus trees. Those must be aboriginal people thinks Frank. A strange sort of cultural collision is going on here.

He wanders around the mall for a bit. It isn’t very different from shopping malls back in England but the contrast when he gets outside is amazing. The street is like an oven.

Frank walks through the town until the buildings stop. Beyond is nothing but red desert and scrub, a hazy distant mountain range. Frank keeps walking. He doesn’t know why. It just seems like the thing to do. It is very hot. The sun is blinding.

Frank wanders aimlessly until he comes to an area of broken glass and old beer cans. There are abandoned vehicles everywhere. Flies by the swarm. Scraps of cloth hanging limply in no breeze. By this point Frank is more or less delirious. Then he spots what looks like a small oasis, blue gums round a billabong, a Toyota minivan with no wheels. Frank collapses on the ground in front of a fridge with no door. Hard to say how long he’s out of it. When he eventually recovers the first thing he sees is a fat, black, unkempt woman with matted hair. A vision of loveliness.

‘G’day.’ Says Frank (he picked up a bit of Strine in Melbourne).
‘Merry Christmas,’ says the vision. She is wearing half a tracksuit and a large politically incorrect bra. ‘Going walkabout?’
‘Yes I suppose I am.’ Says Frank.
‘I’m Alice. Fancy a beer?’
Alice? That’s odd. His head is still spinning and the warm beer doesn’t help much. Alice has a broad flat nose and a lovely smile. She seems like a kindly soul thinks Frank.
‘There’s no ice.’ Says Alice.
‘That’s alright.’ Says Frank.
‘And no TV neither. The power’s off.’
‘Really it’s OK,’ says Frank, ‘don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. Just need to sit down for a bit.’
‘Take your time luv.’
‘Will you marry me Alice?’
‘Alright.’
This is madness, thinks Frank. I must get a grip. I’m not even in Australia for God’s sake. I’m sitting in a deckchair on a beach in Bali. Where does all this stuff come from?

‘Frank!’ says a voice, hackneyed ending alert, he really has been dreaming. Some things never change. But he’s not in Bali either. He’s back above the shop and here’s Alice with a nice cup of tea.