Catching Alice by Clare Naylor

Author:Clare Naylor [Naylor, Clare]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-46430-9
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

“Do you play the piano?” Lysette leaned over and whispered to Alice. They were back in the hotel bar, night-capping. Helen and Jamie were smooching in the corner, much to the dismay of the ninety-year-olds but most definitely not to Alice.

“Only ‘God Save the Queen’ and ‘Frère Jacques,’ ” Alice said regretfully. Lysette was silent for a second, then called over a waiter, whispering in his ear. Before Alice had a second to wonder what was going on, she was being dragged wrist-first toward a baby grand in the corner, where the waiter was cracking his knuckles in a Godfather fashion.

“You can sing with me instead,” Lysette said benevolently. Years of torment in the choir welded Alice to the spot. Her body wasn’t taking her a step closer to humiliation, her mind was making sure of that. Miss Bull tapping her head as the perfect demonstration of tone deafness was a memory that would never leave her. Even if by some supernatural accident she was imbued with the spirit of Kiri te Kanawa, she wasn’t going to reveal her larynx to strangers, and most definitely not to Jamie, who’d had more access to her tonsils than he’d ever deserved.

But Lysette tugged harder and before Alice could make a dash for the loo, the piano was belting out, “For you and I have a guardian angel …” It was a song that Alice vaguely remembered from High Society, but she’d been so preoccupied with poor Grace Kelly enduring Bing Crosby’s legendary bad breath that she certainly hadn’t taken in the lyrics. And now she was expected to harmonize. She tried to do it quietly at first, but Lysette, who was now sitting atop the piano, kept kicking her.

“On high with noooothhing to ddooooo, and I giiivee to yoooo …” God, Alice sounded like a caterwauling tomcat. She surreptitiously shut up just as Lysette had come to the conclusion that Alice’s profession to be tone deaf was not mere modesty. Lysette let her be and Alice sat back and watched as her friend’s wonderful voice enthralled the assembled oldies and her sex appeal distracted Jamie from matters at hand. Alice longed for a talent. A gift. Though she baked good cakes, she supposed. The smell of Chanel No. 5 began to make her woozy and she suddenly realized just how tired she was. She slipped out to a side corridor to the main staircase and left Lysette to woo them all with selected highlights of Edith Piaf.

The next morning Alice woke feeling slightly disappointed at not having heard a peep out of the ghost. She rolled over, expecting to find Lysette sprawled out on the bed next to her, but she obviously hadn’t been back. Alice’s feather boas had left a trail across the floor and she sneezed as she extricated one from her nose. Oh well, she’d be bound to turn up sooner or later, thought Alice as she purged herself of Chanel No. 5 and tried not to think of the ghost.

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