Alice Through the Plastic Sheet Read Online Free PDF

explosions. He was laughing so much. Alan told him to get away from it, get inside the house. It wasn’t theirs, it was rubbish, get away. Bobby looked so hurt—but couldn’t he play in it, couldn’t he and Daddy play in it together? “It’s not safe,” said Alan. “You stupid boy, you idiot. It isn’t
clean
.”
    And Bobby still looked hurt. His mouth hung down in a sad little pout. But then the pout became a scowl. His face contorted. It actually contorted. And slowly, Bobby raised his hand, he raised a single finger. He held it out defiantly at his father.
    That night Bobby wasn’t allowed to play golf on the Xbox.
    Alan and Alice slept wearing ear plugs. But Alan thought he could still hear the music. He couldn’t be sure. Whether the thumping was the bass beat, or his own heart.
    And he dreamed about the mannequin next door with her fake plastic body and tits, and her fake plastic smile. “Oh, Barbara,” he grunted one night, as he took her from behind, bending over like that, arse pointing up to the heavens, just asking for it. He liked to call her Barbara. With his heart thumping away like the drums of ‘Winter Wonderland.’
    Bobby still played in the garden. Alan would watch him from the window, catching pieces of polystyrene on his tongue like snow. He’d knock on the glass, try to get him to stop, but Bobby couldn’t hear, or wouldn’t hear, and he looked so happy, like an eight year old on Christmas morning. Tilting back his head, mouth wide open, the white specks of packaging floating down on to his face. Spitting them out, or swallowing them down, whichever way the fancy took him.
    Alice worked out that the barking next door stopped if no one made a sound. So they tried not to provoke the dog, they trod gently, tried not to walk on floorboard creaks, they kept the television on mute. They talked in whispers, if they talked at all.
    “Do you fancy a game of golf, champ?” whispered Alan to Bobby one evening. “We haven’t played golf in ages.” And Bobby shrugged. “You can be Tiger Woods if you like,” said Alan. And so they played golf together, one last time, and Bobby didn’t try very hard, and still won anyway. “We can play real golf one day, if you like,” said Alan. “Real golf, not just this fake version, the real one in the fresh air. We can go and have a pint together in a pub. We can be friends.”
    At work, Old Man Ellis summoned Alan to a meeting. It was just the two of them, in that airless little office. Ellis told Alan that if he couldn’t handle his staff, he’d find someone who could.
    One night Alan came home with a good idea. The idea had been buzzing around his head all afternoon, it had kept him happy. “Let’s give them a taste of their own medicine!” he cried, and he didn’t even bother to whisper, let’s see what they make of
that
! And he and Alice got together all their favourite CDs, and they played them in the hi-fi, and turned the volume up as far as it would go. Alice played her Abba, Alan his Pink Floyd. And next door went crazy—the dog began barking like nobody’s business, the retaliatory Christmas music was deafening. But it didn’t matter, it was
fun
, Alan and Alice rocking out to ‘Voulez-Vous’ and ‘Comfortably Numb.’ Even Bobby joined in, and Bobby was grinning, and Alan hadn’t seen Bobby smile for such a long time, and his heart melted, it did. “Can I play some music too?” asked Bobby, and Alan laughed, and said, “Sure!” And Bobby played something his parents didn’t recognize, and it had a few too many swear words in it for either to approve—but they were all jumping up and down to it, and Alan said, “I’m not sure you can dance to it, Bobby, but it’s got a good beat!” And for some reason they all found that simply hilarious. At last, of course, they had to give up; they had no more music to play; they were exhausted. And it hadn’t done any good, Bing Crosby was screaming out apoplectic rage, and their