Work Text:
ALICE - in capital letters.
________________________________________
- Oxford circus Line
William met Alice Lamberton while waiting for the tube ‚ Oxford circus lane ‘.
Being compressed by all the other people around him. His thumb slowly scrolling through Instagram.
Every person in this grounded space was waiting eagerly to go home or to the pub, after another work day.
Wet coats, tripping umbrellas left the low-ceiling, badly illuminated tube station in a humid
and uncomfortable atmosphere.
„Wow! Hey dip shit! Stop looking at your phone and regain control of your feet.
Mine doesn’t like it to be smashed.“
In front of him, bright brown eyes looking at his own. Forceful.
When they got the last short glimpse of exhaustion and sadness in his eyes,
before going cold but not rude, the gaze of the person staring him down got softer.
But only slightly. The deep furrow between the girls brows prevailed.
An expecting face making him come back to the tube platform. The dark, brown-reddish head
had turned fully now and stood directly in front of him, cramped by other bodies, still waiting obviously.
„Unnskyld meg“ he let out.
„What?“ An amused face, waking him up. A small smile still radiating.
„Excuse me.“ His voice firmer, one cheek slowly lifting into a slight grin.
„So?“ A wave of hair moving in the hollow of a neck, a head titled slightly. Freckles.
"Well, I get why you would come close,..but how do you Britains say - „mind the gap?“.“
His words barely drowning the mumble and coughing around them. Eyes had woken up.
„Very cocky.“ With arched eyebrows commented, and an amused, but also disregarding view in her gaze.
She turned.
A small inner smile escaping himself.
William, now inspired, leaning forward, almost touching her hair with his face.
This time only for her comprehensible „What are you going to do about that foot?“
The incoming tube, scratching shrill over metal.
Oxford Circus
He had lost her shortly after getting in the wagon, but when his eyes found her again
in-between the people, she was leaning against the windows, obviously lost in a book.
Legs crossed in white snickers.
The dress ending shortly above her knees. Tanned skin contrasting blue cotton.
Slightly round hips. An elbow resting on her arm and hip. Colored bands on her wrists.
And higher.
Her fingers absently playing with the next unread page.
She was standing there like a still-shot in time. The woman next to her was talking loudly
in her phone but that girl didn’t seem to mind.
King's Cross St. Pancras Underground Station
His eyes wandering up her thin collar bone on which full brown reddish hair had curled.
Her lower lips between her teeth.
Concentration changed into a small soundless smile. Her hand turned to the next page.
Doors opening, bringing fresh hair in and letting people out.
Highbury & Islington Rail Station
„Highbury & Islington Rail Station“ the soft female speaker voice waking her up.
He himself beginning to move in the direction of his wagon exit.
Canonbury Rail Station
She is leaning against the precisely opposite window now. In the exact same line.
The book leaving her hand and falling into her bag.
She looks up. Sighting the tube crowd.
He is standing right across from her.
Jacket in his hand, arms both resting relaxed on the handle behind him,
his back leaning at it.
A tall guy watching her with concentrated mimics.
The wagon in line London Overground emptier now.
A white shirt, highest button unmade. No tie. Brown eyes.
Dalston Junction Rail Station
She leaves. He watches the doors close.
So less people left than before. The tube starts to move and the sight of this girls back
leaving the platform, is abruptly replaced with the black of the tunnel outside the windows.
Noora hitting him bluntly. A forceful pushed thought which lets his body sink against the handle.
Blue eyes.
Hoxton Rail Station
Tonight, Hoxton didn’t look like the neighborhood he woke up to every morning, anymore.
Different. He could see the people in the chairs. In front of the store stairs. Laughter.
Warm blue shadows, dimmed soft orange light in dangling lampions.
While he walked home on the pavement, a rapid, upsetting mess of feelings about what just happened in his head.
_________________________________
- ALICE - in capital letters
William saw Alice the second time at a party of his friend Ed.
Chris visiting for the weekend, had sparked his own mood, and they had accepted the invitation.
When he got into the long, narrow kitchen, a familiar voice making him look up.
A girl, slightly drunk, swaying while gesticulating enthusiastically and laughing.
Ed and his girlfriend trailed out in the hallway, to introduce themselves to Chris.
Alice focus shifted on William.
A look of recognition followed by a small smile around her mouth.
The taste of beer on his tongue.
A bit irritated she takes her tipsy passionate speech up again, now addressing him.
How hetero- and homosexual love are just the pure and simple same thing. If he would break
it free from cultural perception, he could see just two people loving each other.
Before she could return to her recollection of an Robin Morgan book from prior, William let out:
„I’m gonna change your name in my phone now“.
His eyes laughing, leaning against the counter top.
„You don’t know my name or number.“ she lets out dryly.
A crocked, defiant look on her face.
„What is it going to be?“
The muscles in her face softening, into a more natural smile.
„Beaming being“ He laughed out loud.
„But beautiful“ added quickly, in a quieter flirtatious tone.
Her hand slightly going up and in a small wink.
„It’s Alice.“
After a second he reaches his hand out to her, across the small distance „William Magnusson“
„What do you Norwegians say: „Herregud“?“ Her counter, repeating his first, close, provocative sentence.
She knew he was Norwegian?
„Okay ALICE“ Taking every single letter of her name in his mouth, letting the counter top behind him go and
moving slowly towards her, across of him.
Her voice in a small but in a slightly excited manner:
„ALICE“ she repeats him.
He got closer but there was still enough space left between them.
The alcohol of his last drink making his movements freer.
In an unexpected move she reaches forward, around him and takes his phone from his pack pocket.
This, being the first of its kind he encountered since Noora, shocked him. Surprised him.
He had danced with girls, but stopped after mistaking one for the blonde at a very drunk night.
He didn’t know if he liked Alice coming closer and actually touching him, or if the bristling part of his brain,
connected with Noora, was supposed to take over.
She hadn’t answered. Not the next day or the following week. Not in months.
Utter silence. Thoroughly and soundly breaking him.
Getting his phone handed snaps him out of his train of thoughts.
Mechanically he opens ‚adding a new contact.‘
Alice he repeats in thoughts, looking back at her.
He types: „ALICE“
She watches the screen „In capital letters?“. A smiling amused question.
„Yes. Unmistakable.“
- What does arrogant mean in Norwegian?
A few weeks later.
Alice flat was sizable smaller than his loft. Cramped with pictures on the wall in her bedroom.
No industrial chic, but an old English attic flat-feeling.
„Hvordan har du det?“
She was trying out Norwegian words. Leaning on his chest fully clothed, her face close, eyes smiling quietly.
He laughed slightly.
But in the back of his mind, Nooras voice, lingering. Pronouncing this question at him,
lovingly and in her Scandinavian way.
A slight nudge with her nose.
„What? Was that it? Or did I do it wrong again?“ A laugh.
„No“ he shook his head and laughed.
Pulling her up and kissing her temple.
Sleepovers at hers had occurred with a rising frequency recently. Fridays after the pub. Sundays.
Eating Kebab on the walk home, when Londons nightlife came to a sleepy and drunken end.
They themselves drunk and it was fun,
but they just didn’t take it further than making out in her bed.
- The Road not taken - FREDAG, 04:37 am, 02.June 2017
William saw Alice Lamberton the last time on the second of June, in his London apartment.
His chest leanings leaning forwards, bent. Arms, between his bent legs limp. The mobile phone,
lying in the duvet gap, unmoved, shining harsh, bright white light up on him.
Every sound tuned out.
A slight movement next to him. Brown- reddish waves moving on a pale neck.
Alice hums and relaxes her chest, against the mattress, deeply drifted off in sleep.
His eyes pinned on the book on the floor. Robert Frosts „A selection of poems“.
___________________________________
She had read it to him. In the evening light, leaning on his chest.
Himself sunken into the pillows of his own bed, for once.
They never had been to his apartment before.
But tonight, when they walked through Victoria Market, they’d met his father.
The smaller brownish red head, undoubtedly able to respond to the mans questions
and making him seemingly satisfied, to have found a worthy opponent to his words.
It seemed to have left her unfazed.
A thought of Noora crashing him and making his thoughts stumble right between the two of them.
Standing on the wet pavement, across of his father.
_
The blondes chin high. A sense of protection radiating in her body language.
She stands slightly in front of him, right next to her fallen chair.
The Restaurant around them quiet. Shocked, awkward glances in their direction.
Noora.
In her long black flowered skirt and black t-shirt, the wavy hair agitated.
The bag in a firm grip between her fingers.
The other hand reaching behind, in a short search for his arm. Not to hold back, but just to touch.
Piercing his Father and Nico with her eyes.
Leaving him breathing heavily, and his nose holding, behind her.
_
Nico . The chaos of his mind just added raging anger.
„Hey you?“
Alice next to him had caught him out of his thoughts, and brought him back to her.
They had left his father behind them and William had fallen into a quiet speechlessness while walking.
Her hand in his palm.
„He is a douchebag, alright, you were not kidding“. She squeezed his hand, letting it sound like a joke,
but her eyes looking at him with kindness.
She had squeezed his hand. In an almost similar way like Noora once did;
And right in this second he had a thought.
That maybe it could be Alice from now on. That maybe it had to be.
________________________________
Later, after they had arrived at his flat, which he had proposed to her surprise, she was slowly strolling
through the big three rooms of the loft.
Alice had found a black and white picture series of a blonde girl with William.
Pinned to a corner of the bedroom mirror.
She had left the wide kitchen and living room area curiously and had peaked through the open door of his bedroom.
There were no other signs of the blonde anywhere in the flat. It was furnished, and a guitar,
and some pictures making it not feel empty, but in a way there was still personality missing.
No coats on the racks, no earrings or perfume in the bathroom, no notes written pinned to the fridge.
The images of the two of them, were the only sign of the blondes existence and at least some homey
feeling in this apartment.
Alice remembered his expression the first time she met him.
His ever so slight hesitation when he flirted with her, or moved in closer.
She dropped the thought.
But keeping his smile, next to the face of the pretty girl, stored in the back of her mind.
William had observed Alice face closely in the mirror while standing in the door frame.
„You flat is .. nice?“ She turned around after hearing his feet on the wooden floor of the bedroom.
„High praise“ he let out in a tone not quite identifiable for her.
_________________________________________
Quiet emotions had hushed over her face while reading to him. Londons June weather actually leaving them
with the aftermath of a nice warm day, well spent.
She had closed the book and put it beside them, her head nestled on his chest.
His view sighting the individual brick wall stones on the opposite side of the room.
A memory of his first night in this very apartment with Noora popping up.
( 5. One last thing before I go )
They had been strolling through antique shops and markets all day.
Finally, after the man who had delivered the couch were gone, Noora was left splayed out,
with one arm behind her head, on said new grey couch.
William chuckled tiredly and walked over to her.
„I’m gonna take you up on that offer now“ laughing. Hands reaching under her torso.
While she is being lifted up „What offer did you had in mind?“ Exhausted, but amused chuckling next to his ear.
_
The bathroom fluorescents glared a rude contrast to the bedroom’s closed curtains and dim lighting this morning.
Noora blinked through her search for a tube of Colgate; blinked again at the sound of William’s steps behind her.
By the time she had her fingers curled around her toothbrush, he had his arms wrapped around her waist.
“Don’t get up,” he murmured into her neck, his lips warm on her pulse, his palms warm on her waist.
She leaned into the bare, toned span of his chest, let her eyes drip closed and her head lull back for just a second,
and then smiled. “But I’m already up.”
The mirror caught William’s dark, sleepy eyes when he unburied his lips from her hair to say, “I can fix that.”
As though slow, searing kisses would make her forget the clock, forget the morning, forget the world beyond their flat.
(Noora nearly let them, before remembering to shake her head.) “It’s our first day in London, we can’t spend it in bed.”
William pressed a hushing noise into her neck, then another kiss. And another, and another, and—his teeth grazed her skin.
Noora set her toothbrush down on the counter before he could have the satisfaction of making her drop it. “William…”
He sighed, looked up again, toyed with the hem of her sleep shirt. (His t-shirt, once.) (Same difference.)
“We don’t have to spend it in bed,” he said, resting his palms on her hips and pulling her even closer to him.
“There’s the couch.” His mouth brushed her jaw. “The window seat.” Her cheek. “The bathtub. We’ve never had a tub before.”
True—not in his first apartment, not in his second, and not in hers.
In spite of her resolve, Noora turned her head so that his lips could catch hers. Just for a second. Just long enough for her to whisper,
“Come to Portobello Market with me. Then we’ll take a bath,” against them.
(She felt his nod hit her chin when he kissed her again.)
_
„Do you remember?“ his hand clapping her hips. A satisfied smile on his face, in contentment with himself.
Caring her laughing body over his shoulders.
Aiming in the direction of the bathroom door.
________________________________
William thoughts were slowly focusing.
The beaming light of his mobile phone faded, until he was left in the darkness of his bedroom.
He had had sex.
With Alice.
She had moaned his name in English in her own urgent, admiring way.
There were some distances, he’d been willing to cross for her.
Like the proximity of their lips when he first kissed her hesitantly. Or when her arms reached
for his shoulders, pulling him closer.
When he actually could feel her warm naked chest against his own.
But some distances were not meant for her, still.
And now his mind was on an endless playback at 4 am in the morning, like a broken record.
Letting the nights events collide with the sentence he just read in an email.
_
From: Noora A. Sætre
Date: 01. June 2017 at 00:52:05 MESZ
To: William Magnussonn <[email protected]>
[no subject]
Jeg elsker deg, og hvis du elsker meg, kom til Oslo.
Sent from Iphone.
__
There hadn’t been the need to check his phone or mails throughout the whole day.
It was Thursday and a bank holiday weekend had just begun.
So he was almost promised at least 4 days without work messages or texts from his father.
He simply hadn’t checked it. And he hadn’t expected anything.
‚I love you, and if you love me, come to Oslo.‘
Crumbled in his bed now, he was confronted with a kaleidoscope of thoughts.
The very real past, and the acknowledgment of what he had done a few hours prior.
__________________________________________
The London Loft, in the young and upcoming borough of Hoxton, still not personalized, still cold
- was empty by 07:39 am on this June morning.