Telling Lies to Alice by Laura Wilson Page A

got a family. . . .” Jack stopped and closed his eyes as if he was trying to stop tears coming, then said thickly, “I just shouted at him. I said, ‘Go ahead and kill yourself, I couldn’t give a fuck. . . .’ They replaced him with a comic named Bugsy Duffit, an American. Old-fashioned. He wasn’t W. C. Fields, but he was all right. Don’t know what happened to him after—not much, I shouldn’t think. They reshot all of Lenny’s scenes, but they must have known the film was a lost cause because it was never released in America, let alone anywhere else. I was on autopilot. I’d got to the point where I didn’t know what I was saying anymore.”
    I knew I’d start to cry if I talked about Lenny, so I said, “But if this is a good play—funny—then why don’t you—”
    “Jesus, Alice! I. Can’t. Have. Another. Failure. Got it?”
    “But why should it be a failure?”
    “You don’t know what it’s like. Night after fucking night, going through the motions . . . I don’t think I can, that’s all.” Jack leant forward with his arms on his knees so I couldn’t see his face, and said, “Those kids we met, they didn’t have a clue who I was. Five years ago, they’d have recognised me straightaway. This”—he waved a dismissive a hand at Charley’s Aunt —“it’s my last chance. I know that.”
    “Well, perhaps . . . if you had a go at learning the lines . . . you might feel better about it. I can help. I mean, if that’ll make it easier.”
    Jack put his arm round me. “You are sweet . . .”
    It made me realise quite how much I’d missed being in bed with somebody, being cuddled, touched . . . I suddenly had a picture of myself lying next to Lenny, both of us saying the silliest-sounding words that came into our heads, laughing and laughing . . . and then the other images crowded in before I could stop them, Lenny crashing upstairs in the early hours and falling into bed in a haze of boozy breath and pawing, not listening, assuming I wanted to as much as he did, and then not being able to . . . how it happened less and less and finally stopped and I missed it, not because I’d liked it but because . . . it was contact, and . . . and because I did love him very, very much, and I tried really hard not to blame him, and, thinking back, I probably did everything wrong, but I didn’t know what else to do . . . and when he died, I thought it was my fault . . . I shut my eyes tight, trying not to cry.
    “Alice? Are you all right?”
    “What? Sorry, I was miles away.”
    “Be a good girl and fetch my cigarettes, would you? They’re in the kitchen.”
    “Okay.” I was so glad to have an excuse to leave the room that I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs without stopping to put anything on. There was no one to see except Eustace, who was conked out in the hall. He opened one eye to check who it was, then shut it again.
    A trail of discarded clothes led from the kitchen door to the foot of the stairs—Jack’s shoes, his trousers, my flip-flops, my shorts, his shirt, my top . . . Like a little story about what had happened. Or rather, hadn’t happened. There was a bulky brown paper bag on the table, right in a patch of sun: Jack’s chicken and bacon. Hoping they hadn’t already gone off, I took them over to put in the fridge. Jack’s trousers were in a heap in front of the door so I picked them up and felt in the pockets for his lighter. It wasn’t there. Instead, I found an envelope. Opened. I pulled it out—nosy—and glanced at it. It was addressed to me.

 
Eleven
    Jack had lied. When I’d asked, he’d told me there hadn’t been any post. The handwriting looked vaguely familiar, but I didn’t recognise it. I turned it over, but there was no return address. Then I heard a noise on the stairs. Jack was coming down.
    I was still holding the letter. There’s nowhere to hide anything when you’re naked and I couldn’t put it back in Jack’s trousers in case he wanted to put them