The Liberation of Alice Love(17)
Author: Abby McDonald

Alice giggled. “I’m guessing it’s too late to be his captive virgin bride.”

“Hmm, maybe by about twelve years!”

They laughed.

“Anyway, I better get back to this.” Ella sighed. “The bloggers of the beauty world need their freebies. Speaking of which, how about I pick you up some goodie bags?”

“Ooh, that would be lovely.” Alice slowly got to her feet again. The street was busier now, with people out to run errands before everything closed down for lunch. Ah, village opening hours. “Call me when you get back. We’ll have cupcakes at that place in Soho.”

“It’s a plan.”

***

Alice tried to view the next few days at home as an unexpected break: taking walks out in the forest and snuggling in the sitting room with a book, but relaxation was impossible with her financial nightmare looming over her head. Back in London, her life was tangled in the worst kind of mess: one completely out of her control. How long had this been going on? What other kind of damage had the thief done? The questions chilled her. She wasn’t irresponsible or careless with her affairs. She didn’t use default passwords and leave her papers lying around, but still, somebody had managed to infiltrate her life, rifling through her personal details the same way a burglar would shuffle through drawers. Only a simple burglary would be over with and done by now, not stretching out with such terrible uncertainty.

She gave up on idle activities and turned her attention to the dusty floors instead, cleaning in a focused whirl of energy. She needed a distraction. Jasmine was as bad as her father when it came to single-mindedness; she flitted from one art project to another, practically living in the studio they’d built onto the far end of the house. It was a wonder Flora had managed to fend for herself at all, but knowing how things magically worked out in her stepsister’s favor, small birds and woodland creatures had probably fed and clothed her all those years.

“You don’t have to do that.” Her father appeared just as Alice was on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. Jasmine had disappeared, leaving a mess of pottery remains to clear—on top of the regular layer of grime.

“It’s fine,” Alice insisted, wringing out her cloth in the paint-splattered bucket. “It needs doing anyway.” She looked up to find him gazing hopefully at the fridge. “There’s bread, and bacon. If you want, I can make you a sandwich.”

“Oh, no.” Her father shook his head and pushed his glasses up with a determined gesture. “I can manage.”

Alice only lasted two minutes of his general faffing—clattering the pan, hunting for a knife, staring uselessly around for the butter—before taking over. Swiftly putting the bacon on the grill, she sliced the bread and made him a cup of tea while he waited.

“Thanks, pumpkin.” He watched her from the table. “It’s good to have you home. We haven’t seen you in a while.”

Alice concentrated on buttering. “It’s been pretty busy, with work, and the move.” She caught herself and sighed. “Well, it was.”

“Don’t you worry.” He smiled at her absently. “I’m sure it’ll all turn out fine in the end.”

It was the same comforting reassurance Julian and Ella had been giving her all week, but her father’s tone was so laid back that Alice felt a flutter of irritation. He never did understand what it took to live in the real world. “It’s not going to ‘turn out’ fine.” She tried to keep her reply measured. “I’m going to have to spend weeks straightening it out, and even then, I might still find it hard to get any kind of credit card, or new mortgage.”

Her father nodded, but it didn’t seem like her words had any impact. “Ebb and flow, Alice.”

Alice tried not to slam the plates down and give Jasmine any more material for her mosaic. He always did this. Any problem, every success—it was all just ebb and flow. Ebb and f**king flow.

“Have you seen Flora?” he asked, oblivious to her annoyance. “Jas was saying she’d love to spend more time with you.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Alice murmured noncommittally, flipping bacon onto the plates and adding a squelch of ketchup from the almost-empty bottle. Another thing to add to the shopping list. “I went to her party, just the other week—remember?”

“Ah, that’s it.” He nodded as she set his food down in front of him. “I saw the photos. Lovely.”

“You couldn’t make it?” Alice asked, a little arch. He didn’t wait or make room for her before starting to eat, so she pulled up a chair herself, clearing a stack of old newspapers she still needed to take to the recycling station.

Her father looked puzzled for a moment. “No…What was it? Oh yes,” he brightened. “I was waiting for a delivery. Those old models—did you see them? Mint condition, perfect working order. Such a find.” He beamed, a smudge of ketchup on his chin, and Alice couldn’t help but feel a tug of affection.

“You’ll have to show me,” she told him, getting up to find him a napkin. He hadn’t always been this scattered. While her mother had seemed to find parenting an unwelcome distraction, her father had filled the gaps: propping Alice on his knee as he jotted notes in those journals, watching over her as she laboriously practiced her handwriting, and reading to her every night (even if it was from A History of Slavic Warfare rather than her favorite ballet stories). It was only after Natasha left that he began inching away from reality, year by year, until by the time she was eighteen, she was the only one in that house with any grasp of what it took to function—stack the bills on his desk by due date, and make sure they weren’t out of laundry detergent, and forge signatures on her class-trip forms.

Yes, he had earned his absence, Alice reminded herself, watching as he hummed under his breath and scanned the nearest (three-day-old) newspaper, oblivious to the dirty plate he’d discarded and the stack of unread post. And she couldn’t say the same about her other parent, wherever she was.

***

Alice’s cleaning frenzy had extended through the living room, front hall, and up the back stairs by the time she got the call from Rodney at the bank asking her to come in and look at CCTV footage. She barely paused to strip off her rubber gloves before dashing to catch the next train, her nerves growing as the countryside sped by, until by the time she pushed through the familiar smudged glass doors, she was breathless with anticipation. Finally, she would put a face to the crime.