Dirty Life's Dirty History

May 2002

Alice was sitting in traffic. Heavy traffic, stocked with holidaymakers and elderly women dragging their husbands out for the first real month of stately home tours. Heavy traffic over the first sunny weekend since the previous autumn. And Alice was stuck behind four rows of cars jammed behind a red light, inhaling exhaust and exhaling frustration, on her way to work, sick from the chemotherapy. Her hands were shaking on the wheel, though after a half hour of trying to complete what should have been a ten minute drive, she couldn’t be sure if it was effects of the treatment or the onset of a breakdown. Either would have been welcome, just to have the excuse of ringing an ambulance and getting out of the maze.

If an ambulance could get into the maze to begin with.

Another minute ticked by. The green light came and went. One row of cars was knocked off. Alice was feeling dizzy from the sun shining into her eyes. She hadn’t brought sunglasses, and there was a lingering shadow of a headache that had plagued her all weekend now threatening to fall across her eyes and blind her.

She sighed, elbow grinding into the window sill, airconditioning blasting as much as it could at the lowest setting. Direct sunlight and black, leather seats were cooking her where she sat, melting her legs, confined in trousers, to the fabric.

( Flicking grey hair out of her eyes, she sighed again and contemplated blasting her horn until the road expanded or the cars parted. )

6 April, 2002, about two days after Robert crossed.

I should be used to disappointment.

There was one small problem. Alice wanted to die.

Wanting to die wasn’t the problem. It was that she couldn’t. Physically, she could try. But what would happen if she did? She had an eighteen-year-old, promiscuous son to chase—and if she crossed over, if she did what Robert did, where would she fit? Robert had crossed over to get away from her, from earth. She would be a burden.

She could go to her parents. Her mother wouldn’t like it. Her father might be upset. Fabian would be happy he didn’t have to listen to her nag, at least. As a mother, that was all she became good for—ignoring. Even Robert ignored her when she told him not to go—don’t go. Don’t leave us here.

I should be used to disappointment. She picked up the pieces of a coffee mug, one that had hit the kitchen floor and shattered into shards and dust at her bare feet. Her fingers were shaking too violently to pick them up, but she tried, and cut herself in the process. She could barely get the tap to work. The rivulet of blood broke free and dripped down her hand, splattering quietly at the bottom of the sink. Alice wiped her eyes with her left wrist and turned the water on so violently that it hit the sink’s surface and sprayed her.

( And every minute of this was killing her. )