What Alice Sees: Chapter 10

“I’m hungry, Mummy,” Alice said, her head still on her mother’s shoulder.

Mummy took a long time to respond. She put a hand to her face, and wiped away some tears.

“Look at the time. I suppose you would be.” Her mother’s voice was cold, hard.

Mummy shifted, and Alice climbed off her mother’s lap.

“Shall we see what Daddy left in the oven for us?”

Mummy stood up, and shuffled into the kitchen. Alice thought her mother looked old. She followed, both of her arms wrapped around Bubbles.

“The lasagne’s probably a bit dry now.” Mummy took the oven gloves from their hook, and opened the oven. She pulled it out, and poked at it with a knife. She sliced it up and put a portion on a plate. “Actually, it doesn’t look too bad.”

Mummy put the plate on the table and gave Alice a knife and fork.

“Want it cut up?”

Alice nodded and waited, as her dinner was made ready. Mummy sat in the seat opposite.

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

Mummy looked up, and examined the food, and then her daughter.

“I suppose so.”

She pushed the chair back, taking her time, and went across the kitchen. She was limping now. Alice didn’t like the changes in her mother.

Mummy came back with a small piece of lasagne, and pushed it around the plate as Alice ate hers.

“Can I have a drink?”

Mummy dropped her fork, and went to the fridge. She opened the door, and then suddenly fell to the floor.

“No!” she shouted. “Why, Shaun, why did you have to do this?” She collapsed further, the door swinging all the way open. “We needed you!”

Alice jumped up from the table, and ran to her mother. Inside the fridge was a bottle of wine and a single glass.

“Mummy, why are you crying?”

Mummy turned to Alice, “He’s gone, Alice. Your Daddy’s gone, and I couldn’t stop him. I didn’t even know something was wrong. I should have known, I’m his wife, I should have done the right things…” She burst into tears.

Alice stood there, watching her mother sob, the cold air from the fridge washing over her feet. Alice had an ache she didn’t remember from when David died. She felt numb, her whole body was asleep – would the pins and needles come in a little while? She reached out, her hand stretching out forever until she touched her mother’s shoulder. Mummy opened her arms, a vast space for Alice to disappear into. Pain filled her, drowning her. Did her father drown? She drew breath, aware of each one, needed to remember each time to suck in another lungful of air. She could stop. Right now, she could forget to inhale, and her angel would come, and she could go to heaven and live with Daddy and David.

Mummy pulled her forward, and into her lap. Her mother shuddered, and a sound came from her that haunted Alice for years to come. It was a long high-pitched cry that came from the very depths of Mummy’s soul, a keening scream any creature would recognise. Alice put her hands to her ears, but she couldn’t silence the howl, and it went on and on. Maybe Mummy would never stop, and they’d be sat here on the floor in front of the open fridge, with Mummy screaming and Alice trying to block out the noise forever.

“Don’t, Mummy. Don’t cry,” Alice said. Now she was crying as well, her eyes wide, and focused on her mother’s face.

The cry turned into a moan, a shuddering lament that hitched each time Mummy breathed in.

“I don’t want you to cry,” Alice took her hands from her ears, and touched Mummy’s cheek. “Don’t cry. Stop crying!” Alice wiped at the tears. “Please don’t cry, Mummy.” More tears fell, Alice and Mummy, together, in a crumpled heap on the kitchen tiles.

Mummy’s eyes met Alice’s, the whites red - the green almost fluorescent. 

“I can’t… I can’t…”

“Please, Mummy.” Alice rubbed at the tears on her face, “I don’t want you to cry,” Alice wailed.

Suddenly, Mummy stopped. Her face, previously screwed up as the tears fell, now became slack. All the emotion dropped away. The change shocked Alice into stopping as well. Her mother reminded her of the dummies they had in the shop windows, all dressed up with pretty clothes and jewellery, their faces dead and cold.

Mummy climbed up off the floor and closed the fridge. She moved across to the table and picked up her plate. Using her fork, she flipped up the lid of the bin, and slid her food into the bag. She placed the plate in the sink, and left the room.

Alice waited for a few minutes, to see if her mother was coming back. When she didn’t, Alice got a cup out of the cabinet, and took the apple juice out from behind the wine, and poured herself a drink. She drank, listening to noises coming from upstairs. Alice got a cloth, and cleaned up a splash of juice, and put the carton back in the fridge, pushing the wine to the back. She remembered her dinner, and sat back at the table and finished her lasagne.

Mummy was still upstairs, and Alice put her plate on top of the one already in the sink, and went to find her.

***

The lights upstairs were out, except for a sliver of yellow light coming from around the bathroom door. A scent of lemon cleaner filled the hall, and Alice pushed on the bathroom door and peeped inside. Mummy had rolled up her sleeves, and put on a pair of pink marigold gloves. She’d sprayed the bathtub with cleaner, until the enamel disappeared under the foam. It fizzed as the bubbles popped. Mummy was sat on the toilet where Daddy’s clothes had been. She didn’t acknowledge Alice’s arrival, and Alice watched as the foam started to slide down the sides of the tub.

For just a second, she saw Daddy lying there, floating on the foam, his ‘tea with milk’ skin grey and lifeless. She blinked and he was gone, and Mummy let out a hiccupping sigh.

“Did Daddy leave a ring around the bath?” Alice asked.

Mummy gave a weak smile. “Yes, sweetheart. He did.”

“Did my angel take him up to heaven, to be with David?”

Mummy’s eye’s filled with tears, and she nodded. Her lips moved, and when she finally spoke, her voice was thick and emotional. “Yes.”

“Is my angel going to take you?”

Alice saw movement in the corner of her eye. She turned, expecting to see Daddy there, his skin darkening to a deep charcoal grey. But the foam was running down the wall tiles.

“No!” Mummy blurted out. “He’s not going to take me. I promise you.”

She reached out with her Marigold gloved hands, and grabbed Alice. She hugged her tight, so tight Alice couldn’t breathe. She coughed and pulled away.

“Do you have a… medical problem we don’t know about?” Alice asked.

“No. I do not.”

Alice stepped up to the bath and looked in.

“I didn’t want Daddy to die.”

Mummy knelt beside Alice, a sponge in her hand. She started scrubbing, so hard her hair flew about in all directions, and clots of foam fluffed out of the tub with her mother’s effort. Alice backed up, but didn’t leave, standing by the door as her mother cleaned.

Mummy cleaned and sprayed more cleaner, and then scrubbed everything again. She doused the toilet in bleach, swilling the toilet brush around inside the bowl. Alice’s legs started to hurt, and she sat on the ground, watching as Mummy took Daddy’s toothbrush from the holder, grasping it between two fingers as if it were dirty. She chucked it in the bin, and then, after a moments consideration threw the other two brushes away as well. Alice’s eyes began to feel heavy. Each time she blinked it was harder to make her lids open again. Mummy was pouring bleach in the bathtub now. Alice blinked. The shower was on, and Mummy rinsed the tub. Alice blinked again. Mummy had a bottle of Dettox cleaner in one hand, and she was spraying the floor tiles. Alice closed her eyes. When she opened them, Mummy was slumped in the corner by the bin, crying, one arm across her face, the bottle of Dettox in the other. The Marigolds were still on her hands, they glistened in the bathroom light.

Alice opened her eyes again, and she was in her parent’s bed. Her mother lay on her back, her face turned to the window. The curtains were open, and the stars were bright, sparkling. Alice’s arms and legs were wrapped around Mummy, and the pillow under her head was damp. She closed her eyes for the last time that night.