Putting Alice Back Together

I didn’t really get it. I laughed and said goodnight. I knew what a blow job was, sort of—I hadn’t even kissed a guy. I even told Bonny the joke when I got home but she wasn’t too impressed.

It was only that night as I lay in bed that I sort of got it, that I realised he was talking about Celeste.

I lay there feeling grown up—thought about Mandy Edwards and her snog with Scott, thought about Jacinta Reynolds and her fumble with Craig, a boy in lower sixth.

Gus was twenty-two.

It made me feel very grown up indeed.

Four

I was expecting offices. Nice, bland offices, but as I turned into the street I saw that it was a house, and better still there was a large sign that displayed to all and sundry that I was entering a psychologist’s practice.

Really. You’d think they’d be more discreet and write ‘Life Coaching’ or something.

A very bubbly receptionist greeted me and handed me a form to fill in. She told me to take a seat with the other psychopaths and social misfits and that Lisa would call me in soon.

God, I so did not belong here. There was a couple, sitting in stony silence, who were presumably here for marriage counselling (and from the way he rolled his eyes when she had the audacity to get up and get a drink from the water cooler, I didn’t fancy their chances much). Then there was a huge guy with a face like a bulldog who had probably been sent by the courts for anger management. There was, though, one fairly normal-looking guy, who was reading a magazine. He was rather good looking and he gave me a smile as he caught my eye, but I quickly looked away—I mean, normally I’d have been making conversation by now, but I had some standards, and refused to be chatted up in a psychologist’s waiting room. I mean, God alone knows what he was there for.

And what would you say when people asked where you met?

Mind you, I did feel guilty for snubbing him and when I saw him look at me again, I gave him a sort of sympathetic, understanding smile, just in case he was normal and was here for grief counselling. I started on the form and the disclaimers, telling them who my GP was, my job (er… why?) and filling in all the little boxes. I ticked my way merrily through the form—though it was completely unnecessary. What business of theirs was it where I worked? Or if I was at any risk of blood-borne diseases or had heart problems or had been involved in a workplace accident. I was here for a chat, not cardiac surgery. Mind you, I almost ticked ‘No’ to allergies, but quickly moved my pen to the ‘Yes’ box and in the bit below, where I had to elaborate, I wrote: ‘Hazelnuts—cause shortness of breath and lips to swell.’

And on the bit about current medication I made sure to remind this Lisa why I was here and boldly wrote my order.

Valium.

I put Roz down as my emergency contact, even though she had no idea I was here.

A woman, presumably Lisa, opened the door and gave me a patronising smile as she took my forms, then invited me to follow her.

On sight I didn’t like her.

I certainly couldn’t imagine myself relating to her, or her to me. She was a big woman, about sixty, with massive, pendulous breasts. Worse, she wore a really low-cut olive top, so you could see her crêpe chest and cleavage. Add to that a flowing A-line, snot-green skirt, green sandals. And she had accessorised with—in case we hadn’t noticed her colour choice for today—a huge jade necklace.

There were four seats for me to choose from. No doubt the one I chose would mean something, and I hesitated for a moment, before settling for the one in the middle.

‘Excuse all the furniture…’ She gave a pussycat smile. ‘I had a family in before you.’

Lucky them, then.

I put down my bag, checked my keys were there, zipped it up and sat back. There was a bowl of sweets on her desk, cola bottles, snakes, wine gums, all my favourites really, and I stared at them instead of her.

‘So…’ Lisa finally broke the silence. ‘What brought you here today?’

I so did not need this. Last night had been a one-off drunken mistake, I’d by now decided, and I’d learnt my lesson—I was never mixing alcohol with Valium again.

‘Okay,’ she said to the ensuing silence. ‘Why don’t you tell me about Alice?’ I could feel a really inappropriate smile start to wobble on my lips. I couldn’t believe I was sitting in a psychologist’s office being asked to discuss me in the third person. ‘Alice is English?’

‘She is,’ my twitching lips answered.

Well, we skirted around for a bit, I told her I had to leave promptly, that my flatmate was going to the UK and I had to take her to the airport.

‘Nicole’s English as well?’ Lisa checked.

‘She’s been here five years,’ I said. ‘She’d never leave.’

Lisa wrote a little note but I couldn’t make out what it was.

‘You’ll miss her?’

‘I guess,’ I admitted. Though lately we hadn’t been getting on too well. Not that I’d tell Lisa that, so instead I mentioned that Nicole’s cousin Hugh, a doctor, was arriving in a couple of days and staying till he found somewhere near the hospital to live.

‘You don’t look too pleased.’

‘I like my own company.’ I shrugged. ‘I was looking forward to a few weeks to myself.’

Actually, that had nothing to do with it.

Normally I’d be thrilled to have the good doctor to myself, but I’d found out from Nic that he was a redhead—need I say more?

I know that sounds anti-redhead, but I’m allowed to be, because I am one.

Think Ronald McDonald meets Shirley Temple.

I had the kind of hair that stopped old ladies in the street, made them pat it as they chattered away to my mother.

‘Beautiful hair. Of course, she’ll hate it later.’

I hated it already. By the time I was six it regularly reduced me to tears. Hour after hour was spent in front of my mother’s dressing-table mirror trying to brush out the curls. Night after uncomfortable night was spent sleeping with pins speared into my scalp in the hope of producing a straight fringe by morning. And as for the colour! I’d barely hit puberty before I bought my first hair dye and even now a very significant portion of my monthly pay cheque is spent on foils, serum, ceramic straighteners, regular blow-dries and, if I ever save up enough, I’m getting that Brazilian keratin treatment.

Though I digress, there is a point—my hair is now strawberry blonde and straight. For the first time in my life I’m actually pleased with my hair and I do not need a reminder of the au naturel version of myself walking around the flat.

Not that Lisa needed to hear that.

Honestly, it was the most boring, pointless hour of my life.

Yes, I suppose sometimes I did get a bit homesick.

Yes, I’d been here for nearly ten years now since my sister Bonny had got married and emigrated.

‘But you only initially came to Melbourne for a year?’

‘That’s right.’ I nodded. ‘I just loved it, though. I got a good job…’

‘Doing what?’

‘Working on the classifieds section at the newspaper. Well, it was a good job at the time.’