Chapter 208 Alice

• Alice
• The next day passes in a kind of dream. It feels surreal having Kip here in Gisborne, in my house. Whenever he walks into the room, my eye is drawn to him, as if he’s too big for the room, like he’s taken a bite from the ‘Eat Me’ cake and grown to twice his normal size.
• At first I was anxious about what he was going to think of the house in particular, and my life in general. I was nervous he was going to be bored and restless. Although we spent three days together at his place, when we weren’t in bed, we were busy. Here, of course, much of my day is devoted to looking after Mum. On the first morning, we all have breakfast together out on the deck, but then it’s time to help Mum get washed and dressed, and I come back into the living room expecting to find him on his phone or laptop. Instead, I discover him lying on the sofa, listening to one of our Pink Floyd albums on the record player, reading.