For the first few weeks our dates are few and far between. Alice disappears for days at a time without warning, often returning late at night only to vanish once more the next day. The random nature of our friendship keeps things spontaneous, even if it is a nightmare planning child care for Christopher.
On the fourth time we meet for dinner, Alice has a surprise for me.
I am instructed to turn up in something smart, and that entails a ride into town to find a tailor. Town in this case is Syracuse, about an hour away by jeep. The American obsession with large four wheel drive vehicles has actually served our little community well, as we now have a fleet of diesel vehicles that run happily on our increasing supplies of biodiesel. It came as a shock to everyone when the village’s first crop of sunflower seeds provided enough fuel for half of our yearly needs. The next year some three hundred acres were turned over to fuel production, and now we’re working with enough of a surplus to consider using it as a winter supplement for domestic heating. It’s all part of Joshua’s master plan – to reduce our ecological footprint and ensure that our society is self-sustaining. Although there are more than sufficient supplies of fuel and materials to keep us running for decades, his vision has provided a sense of purpose and direction for the whole village, and sustainability is taken very seriously indeed now.
I make it back home just in time to hand Chris off to Camille and change into my new (or at least, new-ish) tuxedo. Camille gives me an approving look-over, straightening my bow tie and wishing me luck before ushering me out of the door.
I turn up at Alice’s single storey house as instructed in the early afternoon. She’s wearing a black ball gown in silk and a pair of high heels that are both out of character and extraordinarily flattering on her. Her one acknowledgement to the chill of the evening is a crimson cashmere shawl that drapes over her shoulders without spoiling the plunging neck line of the dress. We greet each other with a kiss – and share small talk about our last few days. I tell her about my tuxedo shopping trip and Christopher’s insistence that we visit a toy store whilst in town. Alice recounts details of a three day trip up to Lake Placid to see the High Gorge waterfall. During our conversation she leads me across the village to the communal motor pool, where we find a jeep fuelled and waiting for us.
Alice’s driving is reckless, bordering on demonic, and she slips off her heels to keep her foot hard on the gas pedal as we drive out of town. I recognise the route she’s taking immediately but don’t question her on it. We’re headed into New York City, and sure enough after an hour we’re speeding through the remnants of New Jersey’s Sunday night traffic and across the George Washington Bridge, down FDR, and into Manhattan.
We stop at the southern end of Mahattan, and Alice leads me down to the Staten Island ferry dock. Off to the side is a small yacht, a forty foot pleasure cruiser that she leads me towards. She climbs aboard, her heels punctuating the quiet of the evening as they strike the deck. On the fly bridge there’s a bucket of ice and a bottle of champagne.
“Wow, you’ve put a lot of effort into this, haven’t you?”
She just smiles, and starts uncorking the champagne, instructing me to cast-off. I untie the two rope lines, and hop onto the deck in time for Alice to pass me a glass of champagne. Given how cool the evening is the bucket of ice seems almost superfluous, but the champagne is great. Alice jams the throttle open and guides us out across the bay towards Liberty Island.
I’ve not yet been to the Statue of Liberty. It was one of the many things the Clare and I had planned to do from the moment of our arrival, but that we somehow never found time for. She is a magnificent sight, a pale blue patina that glows with the russet tones of sunset against the dark slate of the ocean beyond. We approach from behind, Alice taking the boat in a wide arc around her left revealing first the giant tablet cradled in her left arm, and then the giant torch held aloft in her right. The golden torch shines bright in the afternoon sun, a fire that seems undiminished with the neglect of the last five years. Alice points out the inscription on the table that says “July IV MDCCLXXVI”, the date of the American Declaration of Independence from Britain.
“The darkest day in American history.” I tell her with mock gravitas.
“I know. Imagine, being liberated by the French.” She intones the word “French” with a revulsion worthy of a Brit. It warms my heart as much as the champagne.
We moor the boat alongside the jetty on the east side of the island, and walk arm in arm around the north of its pedestal base to the large visitor entrance. The doors are open, a tradition upheld in any building used frequently by groups from the village, and we wander in to the base.
The pedestal is a large building in it’s own right, and we pick up a couple of torches from the main entrance ticket office to explore. I let out an appreciative whistle when Alice raises her torch to illuminate the glass ceiling that reveals the internal steel frame of the statue above us.
“That’s incredible.” I peer up into the gloom, trying to make out details.
“Yeah,” Alice agrees, “it’s hard to believe that this was built in the nineteenth century and shipped half way around the world.”
“Yeah, but that’s the French for you, they love their grandiose gestures, especially at the expense of the English.” I approximate a French accent, grossly caricatured: “Et voila messieurs les Americans, ve present you with zis giant statue and thank you for your efforts to piss off ze English. Hahah, take zat you silly English swine!”
Alice almost collapses in giggles, and we make our way over to the stairs up the internal structure of the statue. It’s almost fifteen stories, the pedestal some eighty feet high before the stairs wind their way into the statue itself. Alice points out one more thing with her torch before we begin the climb, a plaque in bronze that bears a poem I had always thought was on the outside of the statue:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
I finish reading, and notice that Alice is regarding me with intense scrutiny.
“You’re probably the last living person that poem applies to.”
“Actually,” I tell her, “I think it applies to all of us now.”
She turns away without a word, taking my hand and leading us up the stairs.
When we reach the crown the sun is still just barely above the horizon, filling the room with a deep orange glow and long, soft shadows. In the middle of the room a small table is set with two chairs, and Alice moves around lighting candles and dragging a hamper from one corner of the room out to the table. From it she produces another bottle of champagne, assorted cold meats, salads, and breads which she sets out on the table. When she;s finished, the last item is a portable compact disc player that she inserts a disc into. I don’t recognise the music, but hazard a guess.
“Chopin?”
“Not bad, it’s Nocturne in E flat major.”
The music is beautiful, and I take Alice in my arms, pulling her close, and we dance slowly for a minute or two. She seems embarrassed by the intimacy of the moment, and pulls away gently.
“Let’s eat first,” she says, “I am starving.”
We do, polishing off the chicken and sliced ham, Alice piling my plate with potato salad which disappears in short order.
“This is amazing,” I tell her when I’ve cleared my plate for the second time, “what brought it on?”
She fiddles with the stem of her glass, a habit that reminds me of Nina all those years ago, something she used to do when nervous. I am not sure if it’s the question that has upset her, or the answer.
“I wanted to do something special, for both of us,” she says, her voice quiet. She takes a breath, looks up at me, and explains.
“When we first met I gave you a hard time about your son, and not moving on after Clare died.” I am about to interrupt and tell her she was right to do so, but she ploughs on before I can draw breath. “Well, I lost someone too, and I know what it’s like to not let go. Before, you know, well, the day before everyone died, I got married. We were high school sweeties, a walking cliche, but we were just completely infatuated with each other and barely spent a day apart from the moment we met. We even went out of our way to go to the same college together. Pete proposed to me on Christmas day, but we were both poor students so we decided to have a long engagement for a year before the wedding. It was the happiest time of my life, we were both twenty two, he was a musician pulling gigs in New Jersey, and I was working as a programmer, trying to get enough money together for a big wedding and keep both of us afloat. Our parents we pretty much opposed to the idea of us marrying so young, but they knew how we felt about each other and by the time of the wedding they turned out to be really supportive. My dad helped out with the wedding costs and Pete’s mom paid for a honeymoon in Tahiti.”
“The wedding was the happiest day of my life. I know that’s a cliche too, but it really was. I remember being sick with nerves and crying at the altar so much that I had to say ‘I do’ twice before the priest heard me, and the dress was practically a form of medieval torture, but it was just so right, you know? Pete made me feel like a whole person, and when he put that ring on my finger I knew we were going to be together until we were old and fat and happy and had dozens of loud screaming grand kids.”
“We spent all day Sunday in bed together, and then I went to get a shower about eleven in the evening. When I came out, Pete was lying face down on the bed, and I thought I’d just worn him out, so I left him. I went and tidied up our apartment a bit, and watched TV for an hour or so, there was a Cary Grant movie on and I kinda watched it until the end, and then wandered back into the bedroom to wake Pete up so we could, well…”
I put my hand on hers, and she grips my fingers, squeezing them tight.
“So you see, I wasn’t really trying to give you a hard time. I’ve spent the last five years hidden in this shell mourning the man that I loved, the life that I had and the future that we’d planned together, and after a while I didn’t really know how else to live. You know, people think I am a cold-hearted bitch because I spend most of my time alone. They think that I am broken, but I am tired of hiding away from the world.”
“I don’t think you’re broken, any more than the rest of us.” I try to reassure her, speaking softly, steady. “What happened to the world changed us all in ways that maybe we don’t understand, or don’t admit even to ourselves, but we all cope with it in different ways. I mean, look at me. I went nuts on a hill in England for six months, talking to the clouds and chasing deer with a gun. Then when I found someone who kept me sane we ended up travelling around Europe looting cultural treasures. That’s not exactly normal behaviour.”
Alice laughs, a sad, half-hearted sniff. “You’re not exactly a normal person though. I mean, who the hell teaches themselves to fly a plane and crosses the Atlantic chasing a radio beacon?”
“Yeah, well, what can I say. It was a cute voice and I couldn’t resist.”
Alice laughs properly this time. “Brian, do you think it’s possible for people like us to have a normal life?”
I lean forward, letting her perfume wash over me. Our eyes are locked together, the music has stopped and the only sound in the silence is the rise and fall of our breathing.
“I don’t know,” I reply, “but then what’s normal now?”
Alice leans forward, just enough to kiss me. We hold there for a moment, lips barely touching.
“Good answer.”
She stands and walks over to the CD player, taking out the disc of Chopin and putting something new in. I recognise it as Air’s first album, something I haven’t heard in over a decade. Alice refills our glasses and I follow her over to the windows, looking out east over the Atlantic Ocean. The horizon is tinged with the deepening blues of twilight, whilst the last traces of the setting sun sparkle on the tips of the waves, hundreds of feet below. Alice steps in close next to me, leaning against my shoulder, her heels bringing her almost to my height. I slip an arm around her waist, and she raises her glass to propose a toast.
“What are we drinking to?”
“The future,” she replies, “and whatever it holds for us.”
We drink, and she turns towards me a little, placing her hand on my shoulder.
“Your turn,” she says.
“Hmm, put me on the spot, why don’t you?”
“Well, if you’ve got nothing work drinking to…”
“No, I think I have something.” I raise my glass, and she mirrors my movement. “To the past. It may be what defines us, but it should never control us.”
We drink again, Alice draining her glass, which she places on the window ledge. I barely have time to finish my drink before she wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me.
“That was just the right thing to say. Now, how quickly do you think we can get back down the stairs?”
“I am not sure,” I say, “what do you have in mind?”
“Well, we’re out of champagne up here.”
“I don’t mind…” I begin.
“Also, the boat has a bed in it.” She looks at me expectantly. I kiss her, pulling her waist tight against me, my hands moving up her sides and around lifting her off the ground so that she stand on tip toes.
“Well, we better go and get some champagne then.”
We tidy up the table and chairs, stacking them in a corner. Alice brings the CD player and I grab the hamper, and we race down through the body of Lady Liberty, stopping every few dozens steps to kiss briefly before carrying on down into the darkness. Our laughter echoes through the copper-plated body long after we’ve descended into the pedestal.
The boat rocks wildly as we leap aboard it, Alice throwing her shoes onto the deck and passing me the CD player before jumping across the gap. I catch her with one arm, and we practically fall down the steps into the main cabin. The boat is small but boasts a large double bed in the main cabin, and we practically drag each other on to it. Alice expertly removes my jacket, bow tie and shirt whilst I fumble wildly with the assortment of catches and zippers that hold the body of her dress in place. I manage to disguise my ineptitude at disrobing her with a constant stream of kisses around her neck and arms until at last the dress falls away. Beneath it she’s wearing block stockings that are mercifully of the type that don’t have a suspender belt. I take my time rolling them down to her ankles, then tracing back up the inside of each leg with my tongue. Her skin is smooth and uniformly tanned, her legs soft and warm despite the freezing weather. She shivers as I reach the inside of her thighs, pulling me up to kiss her more. I oblige, and she slips my belt off and removes the rest of my clothes.
We pull each other in close, legs tangled and every movement a lingering touch or stroke, our breathing deep, the scent of skin, sex and sweat drawing us into the moment. Alice bites gently on my ear lobe, runs her tongue around my ear, her fingers digging into the back of my neck. I respond by sliding my hand between her legs, tips of my fingers teasing up and along her thighs and flicking over her black cotton g-string. I tug the thin material aside, and she bites harder on my ear, kissing me and gripping tighter with her arms. She’s already wet, and welcomes my fingers with a drawn out moan. I start slow, with delicate motions that soon have her pushing her hips against my hand whilst she grabs my cock with one hand, finding that she doesn’t need to make much effort to get me hard. With a swift, sure movement she kneels up over me and sits down smoothly, pushing me deep inside her. We both gasp with the sheer intensity of the stimulation, Alice rocking backwards and forwards with a motion that increases in strength and speed with every passing second. I can barely contain myself, holding back as long as possible, trying to keep myself from coming until her body shudders and a scream escapes her lips. I gasp, coming hard as Alice grinds herself against me, leaning down to kiss me and hold our sweat-coated bodies together.
We lie together like that, she still pressing down with my cock inside her, my arms wrapped around her back, kissing constantly and grinning at each other. After a while Alice starts moving her hips back and forth again, and to my surprise I can feel myself growing hard once more. She just grins at me, then laughs and sits up straight. I grab her hips and slow her down, wanting this to last longer.
We’re still laughing and making love hours later, when the sun rises once more over the ocean.