Suddenly and quite inexplicably the woman looked up at Alice’s window. Alice was astounded and jumped back from the glass bashing her hip against the dining table. She had been seen through the curtain.
The next morning Alice had waited for the woman to arrive. Once again, with her brandished keys catching the winter sunlight, the woman – Alice had realised she was the new estate manager – glanced at Alice’s window and this time she smiled and made a slight movement with her hand that could have been a wave.
By the end of the week, against her better judgement, Alice was waving back and even dreading the end of the working day, once her favourite time, when the manager would go home leaving the office dark and empty.
When a Christmas card was put through her door, Alice had found out the woman’s name was Jane. Alice thought the name suited her. Nevertheless the card disturbed her. It was too informal, presuming too much. Alice didn’t want to place Jane in the midst of life and she couldn’t afford to be placed there herself. She had stared at the card, trying to guess what Jane’s second name might be. There must have been a letter of introduction when she took over from the dowdy man with dandruff shoulders and plastic shoes who had always behaved with Alice as if he doubted her. Alice had probably thrown the letter away unopened. She avoided the post. This propelled her into the admission that she knew nothing about Jane. Everything she knew she had made up. Alice didn’t want to think of Jane having a life beyond the archway; beyond her control.
She had chucked the card in the bin.
Halfway through the morning Alice had found a reason to retrieve it. Just as she was about to toss her used tea bag away, she pretended to spot the card as if thrown there by someone else, propped against a crushed milk carton. She lifted it out and wiped it down with the dishcloth. Then she read the message properly:
‘Have a lovely Christmas with your daughter. Perhaps in the New Year we could meet for coffee in the office. I could come and fetch you, if you liked. Best wishes Jane.’
Alice analysed the words. She appreciated the fact that Jane hadn’t said ‘my office’ which would have put her off. She must know about the agoraphobia, but she was tactful. This disturbed Alice who tried so hard to be private. She decided not to reply. She would not go for coffee. There was always the chance that he had got to Jane. It made perfect sense as a first step. He would guess how to get to her.
One January morning Jane didn’t turn up. After she had been absent four days, and just as Alice was weighing up the consequences of calling the head office of the housing association with a query about her rent, a postcard arrived from an island in Greece.
‘Taken the flu bug with me! But being ill in Athens beats being ill in Bermondsey! See you soon, all best Jane.’
Alice had tucked the card into the frame of her pin board under the brochure for a new Chinese takeaway.
A week later on the morning when Alice had guessed that Jane would return to work her anticipation had reached a ringing pitch of visceral anxiety.
Chris had mixed feelings of relief and dismay when Alice wasn’t at the window to wave her off, but stayed at her dressing table, laboriously applying make-up as if she did so every morning. As she saw her mother soften the blotches of blusher with upward flicks of face powder Chris had hung about seriously considering staying off school to look after her until Alice got annoyed and shooed her out.
Alice was at the window long before nine.
When Jane didn’t appear, Alice began to worry that she had been wrong about the date. It was twenty past nine and the office remained shut with the blinds down. Alice grew angry, and abandoning caution she went away to find the number of head office. This meant she nearly missed her. She was carrying her briefcase under her arm, already getting her keys out of her coat pocket by the time Alice returned to the window with the telephone directory under her arm. Jane had a suntan. Alice dropped the book and in a burst of excitement was about to pull back the lace curtains and wave to her. She had unlocked the window in advance because today she had planned to pluck up the courage to lean out and suggest she came down to the office and accept Jane’s offer of coffee. She couldn’t let him rule her life. But as Alice took hold of the lace she had heard a distant tune: a crude snatch of Mozart playing on a child’s toy. She let the curtain drop and getting well back out of sight checked the quadrangle. There was no one else there. Then Jane fished into her bag and pulled out a mobile phone. Alice wasn’t used to mobiles. She never had need of one. She had bought Chris one for security reasons, but had been annoyed when it became a way for people to bypass her when they communicated with her daughter. Few of Chris’s friends called on the home telephone any more. Because of this Alice viewed mobile phones with antagonism. Her body had turned to sand as she saw Jane laughing and smiling, her head cocked to one side, wedging the handset on her shoulder while she opened the office door. She had not looked up at the window for Alice. The door swung shut behind her with a bang.
Later that morning Alice’s own telephone had rung. Jane had invited her to coffee. Again she offered to fetch her. She did know about the agoraphobia, it was in Alice’s tenant file. No, it wasn’t common knowledge. Everything was on a ‘need to know’ basis. It was simply that Alice had been marked down as requiring help leaving the flat in case of fire. At first Alice had refused, she was still smarting from the phone incident, which she had taken as a personal slight. Then she had pulled herself together. Jane had sounded genuine. Her allusion to the housing association’s confidentiality policy must mean Jane hadn’t been talking about her. Perhaps she could trust her.
The estate office was only about twenty steps outside the flat. She told Jane she could manage the distance by herself, but made sure to sound sufficiently hesitant. She would check that the coast was clear beforehand so there was surely no risk.
After she replaced the receiver, Alice imagined Jane’s rich, deep voice and reflected that talking to her had been easy; they might have known each other a long time.
After that the two women met in the office about twice a week. Alice hadn’t told Chris. She couldn’t think how to. She was ambivalent about a friendship with Jane. It was dangerous to get close to anyone. If she confessed to Chris about leaving the flat to see Jane it would commit her to continuing. At the moment she could stop at any time. If Chris knew, she would try to make Alice go out with her too and she might even guess that Alice wasn’t agoraphobic at all.
When Alice read about what happened to Doctor Ramsay, Jane was the only person she had to talk to about it. But she must keep silent. If anything, his death confirmed that she had been right to keep her distance. In the end, because she was sure Jane would see something was wrong, Alice said her uncle had died, but that she hadn’t seen him since she was eighteen; he lived in New Zealand so she wasn’t grieving. Jane behaved, as she always did, with sensitivity and kindness. Then Alice worried that Jane would mention it to Chris who knew there was no uncle and would say so. So she had to tell Jane to keep quiet because Chris hated talking about death. It was getting complicated; Alice began to wish she had stayed in her living room.
Despite all the deception and fabrication, Alice was herself with Jane. After so many years, she had forgotten her real self.
So when Alice saw Jane outside the office a moment before she was about to step outside the flat, she was furious with herself. Only a few minutes longer upstairs and she would have been there if Jane had rung. She could have given herself an alibi, should she need one. She could have said she was ill and would be asleep all day and so would not answer the telephone. She ought to go back and call Jane now, but there wasn’t time. Now Jane would be worried if she rang and got no answer. When she had made her meticulous plans Alice had not included Jane because she belonged in a different part of her life. Now it was too late.