Unravelling Oliver(4)

Alice surprised us all by being accepted into art college. I couldn’t believe she was going there of all places. Firstly, you’re either good at drawing or you’re not. She said it was about ‘technique’ and all, but if you ask me, the stuff she was drawing before she went in was as good as the stuff she drew when she finished. Nowadays, nearly all the young ones are at the coloured hair and the cross-dressing and you hardly know if they’re boys or girls, and maybe that’s what passes for fashion these days, but back in the seventies the art students were the only ones at that lark. Some of them were vegetarians. That says it all.

I said she wouldn’t last a week, but I guess she must have got on all right, because she was there three or four years. I was wrong about her disappearing too. She still lived at home because of Eugene, and it was Susan who pulled away from the friendship more than Alice, because Susan started going out with Dave.

Alice was certainly good with her hands. I remember a sculpture thing that she made for Susan’s birthday; some kind of ceramic swan-shaped yoke. I told her there and then that it was so good she could sell it. She smiled at me.

That was the first time I realized that she wouldn’t be going near any convent. The smile was a bit cheeky. The years in the art college must have shaken the nun out of her. Though she still dressed very modestly, I’m not sure that she had many boyfriends, or indeed any, during her college years. Maybe those fellas scared her with their drugs and loud music.

Susan disappeared off to London after Dave within a few years and got a job as a hospital cook; married there, eventually. She never came back here to live after that. Still there now, married to DIY Dave, with four grown-up children. Chiswick. The ‘w’ is silent.

I had finished my apprenticeship as a mechanic and was working in my Uncle Harry’s garage at that stage. I had a few bob in my pocket. I had moved into a flat in town. Had my own car. Lovely it was. A Ford Granada. It was enough to impress plenty of girls. I didn’t see as much of Alice any more with Susan gone and me living in town. The odd time when I called to see Mam, I would see Alice leading Eugene by the hand to the local shop. If you ask me, I’d say they did too much for him. He might have learned to fend for himself a bit more had he been let.

Mam said that Alice had some sort of job designing pictures for calendars or something like that. She said that one of the rooms in the house had been turned into a ‘studio’. There were rooms in that house that hadn’t been used in years, so it made sense.

Then Mam said I should ask her out. That was a bit of a shocker. She was Avenue. I was Villas. Mam said it didn’t look like anyone else was ever going to ask her out, so I might as well. I don’t think Mam thought we’d have any big love affair or anything; just that Alice might like the company and it would be manners. I wasn’t sure myself. I was twenty-eight by then and she wasn’t far behind me. She was such a quiet one, I wouldn’t know what to be saying to her, and besides, I wasn’t sure that we’d be able to go anywhere without Eugene, but Mam insisted, as if it would be an act of charity. But it wasn’t an act of charity. Not to me. I always liked her.

When I called to the door to ask, I realized that I was nervous. That was a bit unusual for me. I can handle myself in all sorts of situations. It’s just that she was a stranger to me really, though I’d known her all my life. She wasn’t like the other girls I’d had a fumble with in the back of the Granada.

She answered the door herself, Eugene standing behind her in the hallway. I didn’t know what words to use. I was embarrassed, like. But she smiled that smile again. Jesus, it was a lovely smile. I asked her if she’d like to come for a drive with me on Sunday, out to Killiney for a walk on the beach and then for a cup of tea in the hotel. She asked if I meant her and Eugene or just her. I said just her. She grinned then and said that would be grand and I agreed to collect her at three on Sunday.

I washed the car and had my hair cut on the Saturday. I remember because the barber nipped my left ear. Never gone back to him since. Felt like an eejit sitting in the car with Alice, making conversation, and me with a bandage on my ear. She was wearing lipstick and a brown dress with flowers on it. Very nice. Talking to her was easier than I thought it would be, though I can’t remember what we talked about. Actually, I’d say she talked more than me. I got a proper look at her when we were having our tea in the hotel. Quite good-looking, but not in a film-star way. She never went blonde like the rest of them. They nearly all go blonde in the end. From being a real skinny young one, she had filled out in all the right areas, with a kind of a rounded edge to her. Not fat, mind you. Shapely, like. Her face sort of glowed whenever she smiled, and then when she’d catch me looking at her, she’d blush and twist her fingers round each other. I realized that I really did fancy her then.

She asked if I’d teach her to drive. By God, I would.

That’s how it began.

The lessons were bloody terrifying. She was an atrociously bad driver. After the first lesson, I had to remove a hedge from the front grille of my car, my pride and joy. I was even more afraid for myself than I was for the car, but somehow it was worth it. She had become more relaxed with me, a bit chatty even. Still shy and all and not exactly flirty or anything like that, but good fun all the same, and afterwards we would often have a coffee and some cake in a cafe. Susan wasn’t wrong about her appetite.

I was sort of worried that the mother would take against me because, you know, Villas and Avenue and all that, but fair play to her, she was very nice to me and Eugene was always wanting an arm-wrestle off me. I grew fond of him as well. It wasn’t his fault that he was peculiar, but he had a way of laughing like a donkey that was hilarious, even though I didn’t know what he was laughing about. Neither did he, I’m sure.