Page 67 of The Alpha Escort Agency
“I’m fine, Mum." If she says it enough then it must be true.
“Always fine,” her mum mutters. “When will you be good? Fantastic? Or, I don’t know, bloody awful?”
Alice stares at her.
“What?” her mum says. “Aren’t I allowed to be concerned that my oldest daughter seems to be sleepwalking through life?”
“Sleepwalking?” Is she hearing her mum right? She can’t be serious, can she? “I work bloody hard. I’m working bloody hard all the time to be successful.”
Her mum waves her hand. “Yes, yes. But you’re already successful and I’m very proud. How about the rest of your life?”
“What do you mean?” She's tired and she doesn't want to bicker.
“What do i mean?” Her mum shakes her head. “Your social life, Alice.”
“My social life? How about your social life?” she says incredulously.
“From what I can tell, I have a much better social life than you. Do you know I had three different invitations for Christmas day? And I have another four for New Year’s Eve. What are your plans?”
“I’m going over to Ed and Maria’s.”
“Not out out then?” Her mum raises her eyebrows, assessing her.
“I don’t want to go out out.”
“And do you have a date?’
“No … I ….” She shakes her head and rubs her temples. “Wait, what do you mean you had invitations for Christmas lunch?”
“Well, of course I did. My girlfriends are getting together today. And then Tom from bridge asked if I fancied lunch with him. And my cousins Ann and Jonathon invited me too.”
“You play bridge?” She stares at her mum.
“Yes, twice a week. I am pretty good at it, actually.”
“And who are these girlfriends?”
“Only the same bunch of friends I’ve had since before you were born.” Her mum tosses her head in obvious annoyance.
“But I thought ….”
“You thought what, Alice?” her mum asks gently.
“That since Dad died, you’d been, I don’t know, lonely.” She's spent years worrying about it. Years.
“Yes, I have been lonely. I miss him an awful lot." Her mum swallows. "But life goes on. My life goes on. You know that. You wouldn’t want me sitting around moping after him.”
“No, no.” That is the opposite of what she’s wanted, but exactly what she thought her mum had been doing. They've never talked about these things before. She’d imagined her sitting alone in her house.
She glances at the Christmas tree. It’s the same artificial one her mum has had since she was little. Its branches are a bit on the bare side and its coloured lights out of fashion. They blink erratically at her and, as her vision glazes over, the red and blue and yellow lights bleed into one another.
“I’ve been trying not to end up like you,” Alice says quietly, eyes still fixed on the lights. Her mum says nothing. “I didn’t want to build my whole life around another person, for them to leave me all alone.”
“We did build our lives around each other. That’s what you do when you’re in love, when you’re partners. And it hurts an awful lot when they are gone. But I would rather have had all those happy years with your dad and suffered the heartbreak of losing him, than never have had that time at all.” She picks up the remote and switches off the television, the bright colours of the screen swallowed by darkness. “You were such a brave child, Alice, do you remember? Always giving me and your dad heart attacks — climbing up trees to the very top branches and racing down hills full speed on your bike. You’d go up to the biggest scariest dogs and pat them, and even at the zoo you were happy to press your nose right up against the glass and stare down at the snakes. But something happened. I don’t know if it was losing your dad. But you lost some of that courage.”
“I miss him,” she says, feeling the wetness of tears on her cheeks and the sob in her throat. The sadness is like a wave crashing over her head, leaving her gasping for breath and battered and bruised. She’d seen it coming, lurking on the horizon, getting closer and closer and bigger and bigger. She’d pretended it wasn't there, but now finally it hits her.
She frowns. Who does she miss?
