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Description
In a room hazy with cigarette smoke and Etta James, our heroine prepares herself. Her elbow resting on the dresser's only empty space, in one movement she pulls the brush over the full arc of her lip. Through the cracks in the mirror she can tell the red is too harsh but she likes how it's alien against her milk and honey looks. Her clear blue eyes set in a creamy open face, all framed by tumbling schoolgirl curls, once spoke of innocence. Now weariness hides in the depths of those blue pools and a tightness in her jaw reveals the carefree days of childhood are longer behind her than chronology allows. She paints the rest of her lips in a series of fluid strokes then presses them together, looking down to find a space for the brush amongst the weekend's debris of burnt-out matches and business cards. As she looks up she catches her own eye; her lips relax and part, their natural curve pulling them down into a sulky pout. She examines herself.

Alice is almost unrecognisable. The darkened eyes, flushed cheeks and bitten lips she has carefully created sit heavily on her face, absorbing her delicate features. It belongs, though – here with the bare floorboards piled high with poetry and bottles; the scattered candles that compensate for the single, shadeless bulb; the lace and silk-effect slips littered over the metal bed frame shedding dirty white paint at every touch – lit by the Parisian moonlight filtered by the scum-rinsed window, she belongs.

She steps over the jumble on the floor to the chipped porcelain basin where, holding her hair away from her face, she dips her head to the tap. It splutters and heaves with exertion then the water is stale and sharp on her tongue. The steady rhythm of its flow helps calm her breathing and she stays with her head against the cool metal after she's done drinking. Etta James makes way to the gentle crackle of needle against vinyl and Alice slowly raises her head. Her hair falls back around her shoulders, grazing her neck and sending shivers down her spine. As she goes to remove the record her stocking catches on an exposed nail sending a web of ladders crawling up her leg.

Shit . Her hands fumble over the suspender's clips shit. When she's finally free, she hurls the stocking across the room. It hits a pile of canvas and glass which clatters to the floor leaving a ringing in the air. To Alice it sounds like an alarm and stood there in one-stockinged foot, shaking like a deer in the snow, she feels alone.

'Marie?'
The shape on the bed moves.
'Marie.'
The shape rolls over, dislodging the threadbare blanket under which Marie lies huddled.
'Quoi? Tu connais que j'ai besoin dormir, laisse-moi tranquille!'
'Marie, j'ai peur.'

Marie sits up and stretches, each vertebrae slowly rolling into place in a chorus of hollow cracks. She runs a hand through her dark hair and, head cocked, considers Alice.

'Everyone's afraid, cher. Everyone in every room of every house on every street in all of Paris. And the rest of France. And Spain and England and Italy and America and-- Everyone is afraid.'

Her speech is slightly slurred with sleep but her words comfort our Alice, who sinks onto the edge of the bed.

'What if he doesn't like me?' she asks the particularly worn corner of blanket she rolls between her fingers.

'Well, he's already there... and why shouldn't he like you?'

Alice looks up and again sees her painted face in the mirror.