A Desirable Residence - By Madeleine Wickham Page 0,59

of coffee, and retreated to her bedroom before her father could say anything to her.

She shut the door and stared disconsolately at her reflection in the mirror. She was too pale, she decided, and too thin, and she had awful teeth, all pointy and crooked. She thought enviously of Ginny’s white, even teeth; of Ginny’s dimpling, infectious smile. Ginny’s gurgling laugh. If Alice ever laughed it came out either in a terrible high-pitched giggle or in great guffaws.

She scowled at herself, reached for her black eyeliner and drew a thick line on each eyelid. She drew another line underneath each eye. Then she brushed a glob of glutinous dark mascara onto each set of lashes. She batted her eyes alluringly at herself. Not too bad, if you didn’t look at the rest of her face. She tossed her hair back with a film-star gesture and pressed her lips together hard so that the blood would flow into them. ‘Hi, Piers,’ she said casually. She gave a half-smile and immediately looked at her cheeks to see if they were blushing. But they were still pale and clear. ‘You’ve got such lovely skin,’ Ginny had once exclaimed. ‘Not a single line.’

Alice thought about Ginny’s skin. It looked older than Alice’s, of course. But somehow it went with Ginny’s face. It went with her shiny blond hair and her wide smile, and the round, large-nippled breasts that Alice had seen a couple of times when they’d tried on clothes together. Alice was utterly unable to relate her own pale, thin, undeveloped body to Ginny’s creamy curves. And she knew it wasn’t just that she was younger. Never, in a million years, would she look anything like Ginny.

And it was Ginny that Piers was in love with. Or at least Alice supposed he was in love with her. The thought of Piers being in love with anyone, even if it was Ginny, not her, made Alice feel a bit overcome. And the daydream she often had, about him suddenly noticing her and pulling her towards him and giving her a long, passionate kiss—preferably with Antonia Callender watching jealously—gave her a completely delicious feeling that she could normally make last for a whole lesson.

She gave her hair a last flick, checked her back view in the mirror, and pulled on her jacket, giving her pocket a perfunctory pat to check her lighter was there. She did sometimes have a cigarette when she was round at twelve Russell Street, and Ginny and Piers were fine about it. But she had noticed she was smoking less and less when she was there. The others didn’t smoke—except perhaps dope, which they never did in front of her. And somehow it wasn’t the same, puffing away on her own, filling up an ashtray with her own solitary stubs.

Today, however, she had decided she would definitely smoke a few. Everyone looked sexier when they smoked. She would sit on the floor and lean back against the sofa and take deep drags and push a hand casually through her hair. And she wouldn’t look at Piers at all.

She picked up her rucksack and went out into the hall, smearing cherry-flavoured lip salve onto her lips as she went. Her father was still in the kitchen, engrossed in a letter. At the sight of his hunched shoulders, Alice felt a sudden guilt that she wasn’t going on that stupid parade with him.

‘Bye, Daddy,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Hope it goes well.’

‘What’s that?’ Her father looked up, a distracted expression on his face. ‘Oh, yes, thank you.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’d better start getting ready, I suppose.’ He glanced down at the letter in his hand, then looked up again, with a bright smile that didn’t look quite right. His eyes fell on her jacket, her rucksack, and the heavy-patterned cotton scarf which she was now swathing thickly around her neck. Ginny had bought that scarf for Alice; she said she’d seen it in the market and couldn’t resist it. Alice loved it.

‘Are you going out?’ her father said.

‘Yes,’ said Alice, wishing somehow that instead she could say, No, I’ve decided to come on the parade with you. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. She pushed the ends of the scarf into the collar of her jacket, and picked up her rucksack. ‘I might see you in Silchester,’ she added. ‘We might go Christmas shopping.’

‘Yes, that sounds a good idea,’ said her father vaguely. He didn’t seem to be listening to her.