Free Telling Lies to Alice by Laura Wilson

He’d probably felt the same about me. All the same, I felt as if I’d been in a coma for six years and just woken up. Steady, Alice, I thought. Being with Jack—going to bed with Jack—wasn’t going to bring Lenny back, and the way he’d behaved, in the kitchen . . . His voice had sounded almost . . . as if he’d wanted to hurt me. And he had hurt me. Not much, but enough. I hadn’t imagined that .
    But I was still . . . excited by him. I’d always fancied him. No point pretending otherwise. I’d slept with him, hadn’t I? Back whenever it was . . . He’d started it, but I could have said I didn’t want to. I had wanted to, and that made it as much my fault as his. He’d been consoling me after a colossal row with Lenny when he’d bought me a mink coat for my birthday and I’d refused to wear it. That was the first time I’d seen Lenny get really smashed, and it frightened me. He’d turned on me, called me an ungrateful bitch and told me to get out, and his eyes had looked so cold when he said it . . . Jack was at the flat—they’d been working on something—and he said he’d take me home.
    We went back to my flat and I was still pretty upset so he got me some brandy and put his arm round me and one thing led to another . . . Jack had sworn blind he’d never told Lenny what happened, and Lenny’d never asked me about it, but I’d often wondered if he suspected and if that was one of the reasons they started to quarrel.
    I had a sudden image of Jack holding my wrists behind my head, pinning me down on my back. He’d felt so powerful. I’d liked it, and he knew that I did. But that had been the only time. I hadn’t let it happen again.
    I didn’t want to think about it. I wasn’t going to think about it. I finished the whisky, called Eustace inside, turned the lights off, went upstairs to bed, and fell asleep with the dog curled up behind my knees.
    I was woken by a low, menacing growl. I sat up, turned on the bedside light, and saw Jack standing at the foot of my bed. Naked, with his mouth open and looking completely bewildered, as if he was half-asleep. Eustace was facing him, rumbling like a volcano. How long had he been there? I hadn’t heard him come in, but then I hadn’t thought to close the bedroom door. He walked round to my side of the bed. Eustace, vibrating with indignation, clambered over my legs to mark him.
    “What’s the matter, Jack?”
    Jack took a step towards me. Eustace braced his front legs, thrust his chin forward, and started to bark, ignoring my attempts to shush him. Jack—punctuated by Eustace—mumbled, “Can’t sleep—missed you—please—”
    “Stop it, Eustace!”
    Eustace carried on.
    “—said you’d missed me—”
    “I said I’d thought about you, Jack,” I yelled over the noise. “It’s not quite the same—”
    “You’ve never been out of my mind—please, Alice—bloody dog—let me—”
    “What do you want?” I shouted.
    “—be with you—can’t bear—please let me—”
    “Just go back to bed, Jack, for God’s sake. He isn’t going to stop.” Jack took a step backwards, still mumbling. I heard “I need—” but the barks had turned into howls and the rest was lost.
    “Jack. Why don’t you go back to bed and try to get some sleep, and we can talk about it in the morning?”
    He turned away. From the back, he looked defeated, pathetic. I’d seen Lenny like that a few times, but never Jack. I almost—but not quite—got out of bed to go after him. Eustace followed him as far as the doorway and lay down straight across it like a draught excluder. After the racket, the silence felt heavy, like a blanket.
    His vulnerability had frightened me. That wasn’t the Jack I knew. The business in the kitchen, that was . . . I don’t know. I could handle that better, somehow. That was more like the old Jack, even if it was a bit . . . but this new one was different. Defenceless. I’d never seen him like that. He’d always been