Telling Lies to Alice Read Online Free PDF Page A

and a feather up its bum. Mind you, the last few years . . . I don’t know if I just met the wrong men, but they all seemed to expect that you’d go to bed with them—even one or two while I was married to Jeff, although that really only lasted about three years. It was this constant pressure that it was just the thing you did . It seemed so ridiculous, and half of them I couldn’t have fancied if my life depended on it. I wasn’t interested, and I wasn’t getting anything out of it, and after a while I started to think, what sort of person does it make me, if I’m doing this? It all seemed so pointless—as if I didn’t have a compass anymore, I was just sort of drifting about with no idea what I was doing, or why. That was when I came to live here.
    I miss it, though. Not sex so much—well, a bit—but being with someone. I mean, it’s great having my dog and the horses and everything, but the talking, and . . . you know. All that stuff. I thought it was wonderful at first, being alone after everything that happened . . . but with something like this—the newspaper cutting—you suddenly realise: You’re on your own.
    Whoever sent it knows where I live and they know I was at that party, so I suppose they know about Lenny. It wouldn’t be hard to find out that I’d left Jeff, that I’m here alone . . . I’ve told myself a hundred times that they just forgot to put a note in with the cutting but I can’t make myself believe it. The nights are the worst. I keep expecting a phone call, or a knock on the door, a tap on the window. I’m even afraid to go to sleep because I don’t want to have the dream again. The really stupid thing is, I’m terrified something’s going to happen, but I’ve got no idea what, or why. It’s the way the newspaper cutting brought everything back—what happened between Kitty and Lenny, and how unhappy I was, and he was, and then the way he died—and it’s just . . . horrible. I was on the point of ringing a friend in London last night to ask if I could stay with her, but then I thought: the animals—I can’t just leave them. There’d be no one to look after them if I wasn’t here, so I’m stuck.

 
Five
    With Lenny, the fame was part of him, who he was, but I wasn’t looking to hook myself up with a rich man or anything. In those days I just thought about enjoying myself. That sounds shallow, doesn’t it? But I was twenty, twenty-one, and I thought that was what life was all about. I didn’t come to London because I wanted to get rich and famous and be the big I Am, I came because it seemed exciting and I wanted to be part of it. One of the best things about the club was that you could be whoever you wanted to be; we only knew each other by our bunny names, you see, and they weren’t always the real ones. Everyone had to have a different name, and if there was already a bunny with your name, you had to pick another one. I started life as Alison. I didn’t change because there was another one—“Bunny Alison” just didn’t sound right, so I chose Alice because it was close, but a bit more classy. I got used to everyone calling me Alice at work and I liked it, so if I did a bit of modelling or made a new friend I’d always tell them my name was Alice, and it stuck. Honestly, if I went down the street tomorrow and heard someone shouting “Alison!” I’d never think it was me they wanted. The only person who calls me Alison now is my mum.
    I don’t think I ever knew anybody’s surname at the club—well, only Suzanne Palmer. She got a bit part in a Hammer film, and I asked so I could look out for her when the credits came up at the end. It was a Dennis Wheatley thing and she was in it for about three seconds as one of the virgins they sacrificed, ha, ha. Oh yeah, and Candy Knight, the porn star. I don’t know if that was her real name, but she was always Candy, Bunny Candy. . . . When I was in London a few weeks ago I went past the Eros Cinema in Piccadilly,