I get home some forty minutes later, the traffic a little heavy out of town, but once I’m on the B road to Little Dray, it’s a clear run. As I pull into the drive, I’m relieved to see two empty spaces in the carport. Mum and Alice have gone out. I think Mum said something yesterday about them going to Beachy Head. I ignore the suggestions that spring to mind as to what I’d like Alice to do at Beachy Head. Luke will have gone to collect Chloe from the nursery attached to the primary school in Budlington. I have about thirty minutes, tops, alone in the house.
Although I’m pretty certain the house is empty, I call out and do a quick sweep of the ground floor. Upstairs, I call out again and, confident everyone is out, I find myself standing in front of Alice’s bedroom door. There is always the possibility that she’s in there, resting or watching the TV, or whatever it is she does in there. I step forward and tap on the bedroom door.
‘Alice? It’s me, Clare. Are you in there?’
I’m met with silence. I place my hand on the doorknob and turn it slowly to the right. The spring inside the brass knob squeaks in protest. It’s squeaked for as long as I can remember. As a child, I always knew when Alice got up in the night, the squeak was a dead giveaway. The oak door brushes against the thick carpet as I push it open. I poke my head round into the room. The bed is made, the quilted blue-and-white eiderdown folded neatly down. The curtains are open and the sash window is raised a little, the net curtain flutters gently against the breeze.
I look further into the room at the door opposite. It’s the en suite. It used to be a big walk-in wardrobe, but it was converted as part of Dad’s renovation programme. He’d had a lot of things brought up to date in the old house, starting with en suites in all the rooms. I have a vague recollection of him and mum arguing one night in the kitchen. Something to do with bed and breakfast. I didn’t understand at the time but, looking back, as an adult, I think Dad wanted to open the house up as a B&B, but Mum didn’t. It was all academic, as it turned out. Dad was gone a few months later.
The en-suite door is ajar and I walk into the room, giving one more call of Alice’s name, just to be doubly certain she’s not in the bathroom.
The first thing I do is open the wardrobe. There are quite a few clothes hanging up and it strikes me Alice keeps her wardrobe in the same sort of order that I keep mine in. All the tops together, all the skirts, all the jackets, although Alice’s is a depleted version of mine. I reach for the tops and push apart the coat hangers. And there it is, the blue top with the green-and-white fish pattern is hanging up, right in the middle. So, Pippa was right, not that I ever doubted my friend, but it was something I needed to see with my own eyes. I’m then struck by the top hanging next to it. The blue-and-white striped t-shirt with the red piping on the sleeve. I have the exact-same one. I start to rummage through the rest of the clothing. A blue denim skirt, just like the one I wore with the fish-patterned top.
I take a step back from the wardrobe, as if I’m stepping away from the edge of a cliff. My head swims and I take a moment to steady myself as I feel off-balance. I close my eyes for a second and when I open them. I take another, more measured, look at the clothes. They are definitely the same as mine. Are they mine?
I dart out onto the landing and into my room, the next one along in the hallway. I yank open my wardrobe and pull at the garments, shoving the coat hangers apart, looking for the clothes I have just seen in Alice’s wardrobe. None of them are there.
‘They’re my bloody clothes,’ I say out loud.
The sound of my own angry voice pulls me up short. I can feel my pulse thumping in my neck and my breathing is coming fast and heavy. I need to get a grip. So what my clothes are in Alice’s room? She’s just borrowed them, like she did before.
I walk back to Alice’s room and go to retrieve them, but pause. Of course, I could play this to my advantage. I rearrange the coat hangers as neatly as I found them and close the wardrobe.
Looking around the room, my attention is suddenly drawn to the dressing table. In particular, the bottle of perfume on the side. It has a sliver top and the bottle is shaped like an hourglass. I know, without even smelling it, that it’s the Avon perfume I have on my dressing table. I smell it all the same to be certain. Where the hell did she get another bottle of that? It’s like gold dust, having been discontinued a couple of years ago. This will be just more proof.
I sit down on the dressing-table stool and although I know it’s wrong, I feel totally justified in looking in the drawers. Her underwear is even laid out neatly in order, the same way as in mine. Somehow, I’m not surprised. I close the drawer and look at my reflection. I think back to the photograph Alice sent me and mum of herself and her friend and how happy we were to have finally been contacted by her.