‘I hate to say I warned you.’
‘But you will see me come through the fire with most of my hair and at least one intact testicle.’
They passed the garage, the church and the pub, and turned into the lane. Soon they were bumping down the track towards the gingerbread house.
She leaned across, kissed him and told him he was sadistic. ‘I sense you looking forward to this. You won’t make a fuss when I disappear, will you? You know I like to run away.’
Pulling the numerous cases she’d arrived with from the back of the car, and carrying them to the house, he informed her the locals called the place the Overlook Hotel, and that the exits were padlocked. She would not disappear.
Just then there was a shout: Liana bustled out to greet, look over and embrace Alice. Alice loved the dogs in particular, and Liana was immediately keen to give Alice the tour.
But first Harry and Alice went to their room, and he lay down on the bed. Half asleep, he watched her look through her clothes. Alice changed at least three times a day, and spent most of her money, and a good deal of his, on clothes. She obtained a lot of them cheaply from friends in the business, and looked good. Her favourite items were the ones she’d never worn — those which were waiting for the ‘right occasion’ — of which there were a great many. Clothes and accessories were a person’s creativity; how someone looked was always a free decision, like a brushstroke on a painting. He would enjoy women more, she had informed him, if he understood their clothes.
When she moved in, the parade of dressing and undressing was frequent and regular. They both liked women’s shoes, and could fill many an evening with her feet. His tiny study had become a cave of her dresses and coats. Her clothes covered his books. That was the least of it. ‘I’m in debt, Harry. I can’t stop spending. A tea set, an espresso machine, jewellery, Milan — all those little necessary things have done for me.’ She wanted to borrow money from him, but unless Rob advanced him a bit more, Harry had nothing himself. If they were to buy a house and start a family, they had to be prudent, like everyone else in Europe.
He knew no one who was not mad, and he recognised Alice was not different from anyone else at the moment: there was no shame attached to debt; in fact, the debtless and thrifty were considered foolish losers. However, he had to urge her to cut down, as one would with any dependency. But she called shopping her ‘outlet’, and was worried that if she did cut back, she’d require another means of assuaging her anxiety.
Today, once she’d settled in, Harry thought it a good idea for Alice to spend time with Liana. With her ferocious but enthusiastic mind focused on food, furniture and the mood of her man, Liana would set a good example to the young woman.
‘Liana, darling, tell me, what do you think of my girl?’ whispered Harry, when, later that morning for a moment, he was alone with the older woman. ‘Should I send her packing?’
‘Seeing her bright face has cheered me up. She is a little haughty, as you said, but fresh and delicate. I loved her from the moment she showed taste. She said a wonderful thing. “Liana, this is definitely a feminine house.” She so reminds me of myself before I had hangovers and met Mamoon that she could be my daughter. Is she a model?’
‘People used to stop her on the street and tell her to go do it. So she was, briefly. But she’s too quiet to show her ass for money.’
‘She’s so skinny I can practically see through her. And her hair, what an extraordinary colour.’
‘It’s natural.’
‘Did I say it wasn’t? Platinum blonde, I suppose you’d call it. It’s almost white.’
‘Please, Liana, don’t give her any clothes. Why are you giving them away?’
‘What point is there to them, down here? Women only wear beautiful clothes so that men will want to remove them.’
Harry said, ‘Poor Alice, she was almost shaking this morning, Liana, in terror of you.’
She clutched his arm. ‘Of me? Never say that! I only want to scare Mamoon — and you, of course. Why?’
‘She’s afraid. Your depth of experience and sophistication was intimidating.’
‘The darling child, I must help and guide her. She lights this house up.’
Alice appeared. Liana shouted and waved, the dogs rushed to the car, and Liana whisked Alice into town to shop for lunch. Afterwards, Liana showed her the kitchen, and cooked with her, the two of them drinking a bottle of wine, while Liana talked continuously. Soon Liana was calling Alice her ‘pretty long-lost daughter’, and dragging her off with the dogs for a tour of the house, barns and grounds, and then of her clothes and shoes; these things, being of an Italian vintage, interested Alice.
When an older woman met a younger one and liked her, she gave her clothes. This cemented something between them, a hierarchy perhaps, as well as understanding. Liana also gave Alice Indian and Italian jewellery, so much so that when Harry next ran into Alice in the kitchen, he did a double take because Alice — who at the station had been wearing a simple orange jacket, denim shorts and strappy shoes — now resembled, as she jingle-jangled about the house, an actress from a Bollywood film. On closer examination Harry saw that Liana had in fact fashioned Alice into a younger version of herself.
Liana said, ‘What a creative girl your Alice is. She took one look at this dying place and threw out a dozen good ideas about how to buck it up. I will speak to my agent. We could set a TV series here. I see how you look at me as if I were a vulgarian. But we are conspiring together to get the house earning its living. We will fill it with young artists.’
‘How young?’
‘Do not risk your life by telling Mamoon this. He is already scorching in his room because lunch is delayed. But, thanks to Alice, there is asparagus, figs, red snapper, ice cream and the best mozzarella in the world — burrata — sent by my sister. Oh, but I am tearing my hair out with fear that he might be rude to her. Lately he’s been wild, because of you.’
When Harry asked her if she’d prepared Mamoon, as promised, for Alice, she was unconvincing. ‘Well, I did some ground work.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I insisted that although she’d never heard of Mamoon the writer, she would come to think highly of him, as she did of the great designers.’
He shivered. ‘You compared them?’
‘It was the context.’
‘What if he says something mad to her?’
‘I’ve warned him not to start talking about his dream. Hurry now, bring the minotaur before he blows up in rage.’
Thirteen
It was the middle of the afternoon when Harry crossed the yard to Mamoon’s room to fetch the sequestered old man, who was still bent over his stick. After the incident on the tennis court, Mamoon’s doctor had diagnosed a herniated disc rather than a pulled muscle, and advised Mamoon to have an operation, not that he could guarantee that it would work at the old man’s age. While Mamoon discussed his dilemma at length, he gobbled handfuls of painkillers and, according to Liana, had become more ornery and truculent than usual over what he saw as a future of helplessness and decrepitude.
‘Another morning of nothing,’ he said as Harry brought him into the kitchen and led him to his chair. Julia bustled over with his favourite sparkling water without ice.
Alice went to him, sat down, took his hand, and looked into his eyes. ‘Thank you for having me here,’ she said. ‘What a lovely place.’
‘My dear, we’ve been waiting for you,’ he said. ‘Tell me, how is the world of fashion?’
‘It’s in not bad shape, thank you.’
‘Could you explain what the point of it is?’
‘Sorry?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘It’s business. We buy and sell and stop people getting cold. What is not the point of it?’