What Alice Forgot (28 page)

“You always keep it like this,” Elisabeth had said. “You’re very organized, Alice.”

That hardness had come back in her voice. Alice didn’t know what it meant. She was starting to feel irritated by Elisabeth.

She crept down the carpeted hallway and nearly missed her footing at the top of the stairs, grabbing for the banister. Maybe it would be convenient if she fell and banged her head again. It might bring back all her memories.

She walked down the stairs, clinging to the banister. As she got to the bottom, she saw that there was a light on in the kitchen.

“Hi,” she said.

“Oh, hi.”

Elisabeth was standing at the microwave.

“Hot milk,” she said. “Want some?”

“Yes, please.”

“Not that it ever really cures my insomnia.”

“No—me neither.”

Alice leaned back against the counter and watched Elisabeth pour milk into a second mug. She was wearing a huge man’s T-shirt that must belong to Ben. It made Alice feel prissy in her long silk nightie.

“How are you feeling?” asked Elisabeth. “How’s your—memory?”

“Nothing new,” said Alice. “I still don’t remember anything about the children or the divorce. Although I’ve worked out it’s got something to do with Gina.”

Elisabeth looked at her with surprise. “What do you mean?”

“It’s okay, you don’t need to protect me,” said Alice. “I’ve worked out that he had an affair with her.”

“
Nick
had an affair with
Gina
?”

“Well, didn’t he? Everybody seems to know about it.”

“It’s news to me.” Elisabeth looked genuinely shocked.

Alice said nonchalantly, “He’s probably in bed with her now.”

The microwave bell dinged but Elisabeth ignored it.

She said, “I really doubt that, Alice.”

“Why?”

Elisabeth paused and then looked her in the eye. “Because she’s dead,” she said.

Chapter 18

G
ina was dead?

“Oh,” said Alice.

She paused. “I didn’t kill her, did I? In a fit of jealous rage? Although I guess I’d be in jail? But maybe I got away with it!”

Elisabeth laughed in a scandalized way. “No, you didn’t kill her.” She frowned. “Are you saying you
remember
Nick having an affair with Gina?”

“Not exactly,” admitted Alice. It had seemed so clear. She brightened. That’s why everyone had seemed sympathetic when Gina’s name came up—because she was dead! There had been no affair at all! Now she was filled with relief and guilty love for Nick.
Of course you didn’t, darling, I never really suspected you, not for a second.

And if there had been no affair, maybe Gina had been quite nice. So it was sort of terrible that she was dead.

Elisabeth took the mugs of milk out of the microwave and carried them over to the coffee table, switching on a lamp. The helium balloons that Dominick had blown up were still hovering silently. Two half-empty glasses of champagne sat on the windowsill, along with a pile of gnawed sticks from the chicken kebabs.

Alice sat cross-legged on the leather couch, stretching her nightie over her knees.

“How did Gina die?” she asked.

“It was an accident.” Elisabeth put her finger in her milk and stirred it around, avoiding Alice’s eyes. “A car accident, I guess. About a year ago.”

“Was I upset?”

“She was your best friend. I think you were devastated.” Elisabeth took a big mouthful of her milk and put the mug down quickly. “Ow! Too hot.”

Devastated. Such a big, sweeping word. Alice took a sip of her milk and burned her own tongue. It was so peculiar to think of being “devastated” by this strange woman’s death, yet apparently perfectly accepting of her divorce. She had no experience with devastation. Nothing that terrible had ever happened to her. Her dad had died when she was six, but she mostly just remembered a feeling of confusion. Her mother had told her once that Alice had worn an old jumper of her dad’s for weeks and weeks after he died and refused to take it off, kicking and screaming when Frannie finally pulled it off over her head. Alice didn’t remember that at all. Instead she remembered how at the afternoon tea after the funeral she’d got told off by one of her mum’s tennis friends for sticking her fingers in the cheesecake, and how Elisabeth had been doing it, too, even more than she was, but
she didn’t get into trouble
. Instead of remembering grief and devastation, she remembered the terrible injustice of the cheesecake.

There had been that night before her wedding when she had found herself crying in bed over the fact that her dad wasn’t alive to walk her down the aisle. She had been perplexed by the sudden tears and thought that maybe she was just nervous about the next day. She worried that they were fake tears because she thought she should feel that way, when in fact she couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to have a father. And at the same time she’d felt pleased, because maybe it meant part of her
did
remember her dad and did still miss him, and then she’d cried harder, remembering how whenever he was shaving in the bathroom, he’d squeeze a whole lot of delicious, creamy foam into her outstretched hands so she could smear it all over her face and wasn’t that
cute
and
touching
and she really hoped the hairdresser got her fringe right the next day because when she messed it up, she looked like a wombat—and there you had it, she was a horribly superficial person, actually more worried about her hair than her dead father. She had finally fallen asleep in a lather of emotion, which she didn’t know whether to attribute to her father or her hair.

Now, apparently, she had experienced real grown-up grief, for a woman called Gina.

“You were there,” said Elisabeth quietly.

“Pardon? I was where?”

“You saw Gina’s accident. You were driving along behind her. It must have been terrible for you. I can’t even imagine—”

“On the corner of Rawson and King streets?” interrupted Alice.

“Yes. Do you remember?”

“Not really. I think I just remember the feeling of it. It’s happened twice now that I’ve got all panicky, nightmarish feelings when I see that corner.”

Would those feelings stop now that she knew what they meant?

She didn’t know if she wanted to remember seeing someone killed in front of her.

They drank their milk in silence for a few seconds. Alice reached up for one of the dangling strings of the balloons and pulled upon it. She watched it bob about and remembered again those pink bouquets of balloons floating angrily about in a stormy sky.

“Pink balloons,” she said to Elisabeth. “I remember pink balloons and this terrible feeling of grief. Is that something to do with Gina?”

“That was at her funeral,” said Elisabeth. “You and Michael—that’s her husband—organized for balloons to be released at the graveyard. It was very beautiful. Very sad.”

Alice tried to imagine herself talking about balloons with a bereaved man called Michael.

Michael. That was the name on that business card in her wallet. Michael Boyle—the physiotherapist from Melbourne—must be Gina’s husband. That’s why he’d written about “happier times” on the back of his business card. It was all very simple.

“Did Gina die before Nick and I separated?” asked Alice.

“Yes. I think about six months before. You’ve had a pretty hard year.”

“Sounds like it.”

“I’m sorry,” said Elisabeth.

“Don’t be.” Alice looked up guiltily, worried she’d look like she was filled with self-pity. “I don’t even remember Gina. Or the divorce.”

“Well, you’re going to have to see that neurologist,” said Elisabeth, but she spoke without conviction, as if she couldn’t be bothered pushing the point.

They sat in silence for a while, except for the intermittent gurgling sounds of the fish tank.

“Am I meant to be feeding those fish?” asked Alice.

“I don’t know,” said Elisabeth. “Actually, I think they’re Tom’s responsibility. I think nobody else is allowed to have anything to do with them.”

Tom. The fair-haired little boy with the snuffly voice on the phone. She felt terrified at the thought of meeting him. He was in charge of fish. He had responsibilities and opinions. All three children would have opinions. They’d have opinions on Alice. They might not even like her that much. Maybe she was too strict. Or maybe she embarrassed them. Wore the wrong clothes when she picked them up from school. Maybe they preferred Nick. Maybe they blamed her for driving Nick away.

She said, “What are they like?”

“The fish?”

“No, the children.”

“Oh—well, they’re great.”

“But tell me about them properly. Describe their personalities.”

Elisabeth opened her mouth and shut it again. “I feel stupid telling you about your children. You know them so much better than me.”

“But I don’t even remember giving birth to them.”

“I know. It’s just so hard to believe. You look exactly like yourself. I feel like any second you’ll get your memory back and then you’ll be saying, oh please, don’t tell
me
about
my
children.”

“For heaven’s sakes,” said Alice.

“Okay, okay.” Elisabeth held up her hands. “I’ll have a go. So, Madison, well, Madison is—” She stopped and said, “Mum would do a much better job of this than me. She sees the children all the time. You should ask her.”

“But what do you mean? You know my children, don’t you? I thought, well, I thought you’d know them better than anyone. You bought me my very first present for the baby. Tiny socks.”

Elisabeth had been the first person Alice had called after she and Nick had laid out all those positive pregnancy tests on the coffee table. She’d been so excited. She’d turned up with champagne (“For Nick and me, not you!”), a copy of
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
, and the socks.

Elisabeth said, “Did I? I don’t remember that.” She put down her mug and picked up a framed photo from the table next to her. “I used to see the children all the time when they were little. I adored them. I still do adore them, of course. It’s just that you’re all so busy. The children have so many activities. They’ve all got swimming lessons. Olivia has ballet. Tom plays soccer and Madison plays hockey. And the birthday parties! They’re always going to someone’s birthday party. Their social lives are amazing. I remember when they were little, I always knew exactly the right thing to get them for their birthdays. They’d rip off the paper in a frenzy. Now I have to ring you, and you tell me exactly where to go and what to ask for. Or else you just buy it yourself and I give you the money. And then you make the children send me a thank-you card.
Dear Auntie Libby. Thank you so much for my blah blah
.”

“A thank-you card,” repeated Alice.

“Yes. I know, I know, it’s teaching them good manners and everything, but I sort of hate those thank-you cards. I always imagine the kids groaning and having to be forced into writing them. It makes me feel like an elderly aunt.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No! I can’t believe I complained about thank-you cards. I’ve become a bitter old hag. Have you noticed?”

“It sounds more like I’ve become—” Alice didn’t know how to describe the person it seemed she’d become. Insufferable?

“Anyway,” said Elisabeth dismissively. “Your children. Well, Madison is just Madison.” She smiled fondly.

Madison is just Madison. There was a whole world of memories in that sentence. If that world were lost to Alice forever, it would be unbearable.

“Mum always says, ‘Where did we get her from?’” said Elisabeth.

“Okay,” said Alice. This really wasn’t helping much.

“Well, ever since she was a baby, she’s always been so intense. She feels everything very deeply. On Christmas Eve she’d become almost feverish with excitement, but then she couldn’t stand it when Christmas was over. You’d find her sobbing in a corner because she had to wait a whole year for Christmas to come again. What else? She’s accident prone. She ran through those French doors last year and had to have forty-two stitches. It was very traumatic. A lot of blood. Apparently, Tom called an ambulance and Olivia fainted. I didn’t know it was possible for a five-year-old to faint. But Olivia has a blood phobia. Well, she did. I don’t know if she’s still got it. Actually, didn’t she get all excited about becoming a nurse for a while there? When Mum bought her that nurse’s uniform?”

Alice just looked at her.

“I’m sorry,” said Elisabeth, flustered. “I can’t imagine how weird this must feel—and I keep forgetting.”

Alice said, “Tell me more about the Sultana. I mean, Madison.”

“Madison likes to cook,” said Elisabeth. “Well, I assume she still does. I believe she’s been a bit moody lately. She used to make her own recipes. They were good, too. Except the kitchen always looked like a bomb had exploded and she wasn’t so good at the cleaning up part. Also she was a bit of a prima donna about her cooking. If the recipe didn’t turn out exactly the way she wanted, she’d cry. I once saw her throw this triple-layer chocolate cake she’d spent hours decorating in the bin. You went
ballistic.
”