After You'd Gone Read Online Free PDF Page B

not particularly talented. She tries hard but her playing is average, really.'
I left the hall and walked through the kitchen. With my right hand I was testing the springiness of my little
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finger. It felt frail, britle. I could have broken it with one cruel flick.
It was as if a large bowl of warm liquid I had been carrying around inside me had sprung a leak. All that warmth was draining away. I was furious with myself for being so gullible and with my mother for planting such ideas in the first place only to dash them by idle chat with some tedious neighbour. It was almost dark outside but I tore around the garden in a rage, ripping leaves off plants until my hands were bleeding.
My grandmother happened to come into the bathroom with a pile of clean towels while I was bathing my hands in tepid water. She put down the towels on the side of the bath when she saw me and began stroking my hair, tucking loose strands behind my ears. 'Alice Raikes, why is it that you rail against life so?'
I said nothing. Bitter-tasting tears were rolling rapidly down my cheeks.
'Can you tell me what it is that's making you cry? Or would you rather not? Did something bad happen at school today?'
I looked up, so that my face and hers were framed by the mirror. 'I'm just so ugly and horrible,' I burst out, 'and I'm no good at anything. ' My sobs were beginning to choke me.
'Well, my dear, I have to say that I've seen you look ing better. '
I looked at my face and laughed. My eyes were swollen and bloodshot and my cheeks streaked with mud and the green ooze of leaves. My grandmother squeezed my shoulders with her powerful hands.
'Do you not know how bonny you are? Is it blonde curls
like your sisters that you want?' I hung my head. 'I see it is.' She turned me round to face her. 'Alice, I'll tell you a secret. In here,' she pressed her hand against my solar plexus, 'right here, you have a reservoir oflove and passion to give someone.
     
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You have such a huge capacity for love. Not everyone does, you know. '
I listened solemnly. She tapped me on the nose. 'Just you make sure you don't give it all away to the wrong man. ' She turned to pick up the towels. 'Now, away up to bed. You'll be worn out with all that crying.'
I didn't give up. I still went once a week to Mrs Beeson's flea-infested front room to be drilled in my scales and touch. Somehow my mother's proclamation released me. I stopped galloping through exams and played what I wanted. Mrs Beeson phoned my mother to report that I had lost my motivation and that I could be a 'nice wee player' if I tried a bit harder. But I had no interest in that any more.
     
Alice looked down at Mario's flushed and grinning face. She had already made up her mind that she was going to sleep with him at some point, but was convinced that it wouldn't be good for his already considerable ego for them to do it whenever he decided the time was right. Right now he had his hands inside her shirt and he was struggling with the clasp of her bra. She tried to get hold of his arms. They grappled.
'Mario, stop it. I am not going to sleep with you today. I mean it. '
He smacked his head with his palm and shouted, 'Then when? I have to sleep with you! I must!'
'I have to work. I've got this essay to write.'
He cast himself face down on the floor and began rolling about, groaning.
'I am going to sleep with you, ' Alice noticed that Mario was ·suddenly still, 'but not now.'
'OK. Just make it soon. I've got balls like watermelons.' She laughed and turned back to her books. After a while
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she realised Mario had gone to sleep. Later they went out to the party.
     
John took the stairs two at a time. Trust Alice to have an office on the top floor of a five-floor building. When he got there he could see through the glass door that the room was deserted, apart from Alice. She was sitting, straight-backed, with her hand on the telephone, as if she'd just finished a call. He strode in, slipped his arms around her