What Alice Forgot (31 page)

The Green Room had been turned into a study, which had always been their plan. There was a computer on a desk and bookshelves lined the walls. She walked in and sat down at the computer. Immediately, without thinking, she leaned down and pushed a round silver button on a black box sitting on the floor. The computer whirred to life and she pressed another button on the monitor. The screen turned blue. White letters ordered her “To begin, click your user name.” There were four icons: Alice, Madison, Tom, and Olivia. (Did that mean the children used this computer? Weren’t they too little?) She clicked on her own name and a colorful photo filled the whole screen. It was the three children. They were all rugged up in parkas and scarves, sharing a toboggan that was flying down a snowy incline. Madison was at the back, Tom was in the middle, and the little one, Olivia, was at the front. Madison had hold of the control rope. Their mouths were open as if laughing or shrieking, and their eyes were wide with fear and exhilaration.

Alice put a hand to the base of her throat. They were extraordinarily beautiful. She wanted the memory of that day back so bad. She stared at the photo and for a second she thought she heard the faint sounds of children shouting, the feeling of an icy-cold nose and fingertips . . . and as soon as she tried too hard to grab hold of it, it slipped deftly away.

Instead, she clicked on an icon that said E-mail. It asked for a password.

Naturally, she didn’t know it, but as she held her hands over the keyboard, her fingers went ahead and inexplicably typed out the word OREGANO.

What in the world? But it seemed her body remembered more than her mind because the screen was obediently vanishing, to be replaced by a dancing image of an envelope and a message saying, “You have 7 new messages.”

What inspired her to choose an
herb
for her password?

There was an e-mail from Jane Turner with the subject heading:

“How’s the head?”; another one from a Dominick Gordon (Who? Oh, of course. Him. Her
boyfriend
) with the subject heading: “Next weekend?” and five from names she didn’t recognize, all with the heading: “Mega Meringue Mother’s Day.”

Mega Meringue Mother’s Day. It made her want to snort with derision. It seemed like something Elisabeth—the old energetic Elisabeth—might have arranged. Not her.

There was also an e-mail from Nick Love, with no subject heading, dated Friday, the day of her accident. She clicked on it and read:

Well a lot of traditions are going to have to change now, aren’t they? What a load of crap. XMAS Day WILL be different whatever we do. You can’t reasonably expect to have them for the morning AND the night, so I only get them for five fucking minutes in the middle of the day. It makes perfect sense for them to stay at Ella’s on XMAS eve. They love being with their cousins. Can’t YOU think of THEM for a change? This is all about YOU. As usual.

PS. Please make sure they pack their swimming costumes for the weekend. I’m taking them to the Aquatic Center on Sunday when I get back from Portugal.

PPS. I had two sisters on the phone in tears last night about Granny Love’s ring. Can you please be reasonable about this? It’s not like you ever wore it that often. If you’re thinking of selling it, you’ve really sunk to a new low. Even for you.

“Even for you.” Alice struggled to catch her breath. It was like being winded. The coldness. The viciousness. The dislike.

It was impossible to believe that this was written by the same man who got tears in his eyes when she said she would marry him; who would crashtackle her onto the bed and lift her hair and kiss the back of her neck; who told her when it was safe to look back at the television because the blood and guts had gone now; who sang all the words to “Living Next Door to Alice” to her in the shower.

And why was she refusing to give back Granny Love’s dreadful ring? It was a family heirloom. Of course the Love family should get it back.

She scrolled down and saw that Nick’s message was part of a whole conversation that had been going on for days.

There was one from herself dated just three days ago.

The children should wake up in their own beds on Christmas Day this year. I’m not moving on this matter. Obviously, I want to keep all the same traditions for them—putting out their Santa Sacks at the end of their beds, etc. They’ve had to go through enough disruption as it is. This is just another power game for you. All you care about is winning. I couldn’t care less what points you win over me—just don’t win at the expense of the children. By the way, I have asked you at least twice before now not to give the children, especially Olivia, so much junk food over the weekend. I’m sure it makes you feel like a wonderful father to say yes to whatever they want, but they’re tired and irritable every Monday after a weekend with you—and I’m the one who has to deal with it.

It was May! Why were they even talking about what would happen on Christmas Day?

Some impostor had been living her life. She was stunned by her sanctimonious, contemptuous tone.

She scrolled down further and bitter words and phrases jumped out at her.

May I remind you . . .

You are so small-minded . . .

You are so sanctimonious . . .

You must be out of your mind if you think . . .

What is WRONG with you?

Can we just try and be rational about this?

You’re the one who . . .

There was a scrunch of gravel and a flicker of headlights. A car pulled up in the driveway. Alice stood up, her heart beating like a jackhammer. She pushed a hand back through her hair as she walked down the hallway toward the front door. She was such an idiot for not doing her makeup again. She was about to see a man who hated her.

Car doors were slamming. A child was whining, “But Dad, that’s not fair!”

Alice opened the front door. Her legs were shaking so badly, she thought she might collapse. Maybe that would be a good thing.

“Mummy!”
A little girl came hurtling up the stairs and threw her arms around Alice, her head colliding hard with her stomach. She talked straight into Alice’s T-shirt, her voice muffled. “Is your sore head better? Did you get my card? What was it like sleeping in the hospital?”

Alice hugged her back and couldn’t speak.

I don’t even remember being pregnant with you.

“Olivia?” she croaked and put her hand on top of the little girl’s tangled white-blond curls. There was sand in her hair and a crooked line revealing a pink scalp. Her hair was soft and her skull was hard, and when she looked up, she was impossibly beautiful: smooth skin with a cinnamon dusting of freckles and enormous dark-lashed blue eyes.

They were her own eyes staring back at her, but much bigger and definitely much more beautiful. Alice felt dizzy.

“Oh Mum,” crooned Olivia. “Are you actually still feeling a bit sick? Poor darling Mum.
I know!
I’ll listen to your heart and be your nurse! Yes!”

She was gone, slamming the screen door behind her, pounding down the hallway.

Alice looked up and saw Nick leaning over to pull out stuff from the boot of a swish silver car.

He straightened. Both his arms were filled with backpacks and soggy beach towels.

“Hi,” he said.

His hair seemed to have disappeared. As he walked toward her, she saw that it was completely gray and cropped close to his head. His face had got thinner but his body was somehow thicker: his shoulders chunkier, his stomach paunchier. There were spiderwebs of lines around his eyes. He was wearing a green T-shirt and shorts she’d never seen before. Well, of course, but it was still unsettling.

He walked up the stairs toward her and stood in front of her. She looked up at him. He was different and strange but he was still essentially Nick. Alice forgot everything that she’d just read on the computer and the way he’d talked to her on the phone the other day and was filled with the pure simple pleasure of Nick coming home after a long trip away. She smiled joyously at him. “Hi yourself.”

She went to step forward toward him and Nick stepped back. It seemed involuntary, as if she were an unpleasant insect. His eyes were blank, and they seemed to be fixed on her forehead.

“How are you?” he said. His tone was the frosty one he used when he was being mucked around by incompetent tradespeople.

“Mum! You should have seen the wave I caught today! It was, like, twenty feet tall. It was, like, as high as the roof there. Look. No, look, Mum, at the roof there. Yeah, there. That’s how high it was. Or maybe a few centimeters less. Anyway, Dad took the best photo! Show Mum the photo on your camera, Dad. Can you show her the photo?”

So this was Tom. He was wearing long board shorts and a cap that he pulled off so he could rub the top of his head hard. His hair was the same color as Olivia’s—so blond it was almost white. Nick had that color hair when he was a child. Tom’s limbs were skinny and tanned and strong. He was like a miniature surfie teenager. Good Lord. He had Roger’s nose. It was definitely Roger’s nose. It made her want to laugh. Roger’s nose in this vibrant little boy’s face. She wanted to hug him, but she wasn’t sure if that was appropriate.

Instead, she said, “Yeah, let me see the photo, Nick.”

Nick and Tom stared at her. Her tone must have been wrong. Too flippant?

Tom said, “You sound a bit funny, Mum. Did you get stitches at the hospital for your head? I asked Auntie Libby if it was a brain tumor and she said it definitely was
not
. I did a lie-detector test on her.”

“It definitely was not a brain tumor,” said Alice. “I just fell over.”

“I’m starved to death,” sighed Tom.

“I’m making hamburgers for dinner.”

“No, I mean, I’m starved right now.”

“Oh.”

A girl walked up onto the veranda. She dropped a wet towel on the veranda, put her hands on her hips, and said, “Did you say you’re making
hamburgers
for dinner?”

“Yes,” said Alice.

Madison. The Sultana. The two blue lines on all those pregnancy tests. The flashing heartbeat on the screen. The mysterious invisible presence listening to Nick’s voice through the toilet roll.

Madison had very fair, almost translucent skin. There was a patch of angry red sunburn on her neck with white fingerprints as if someone had given up on putting on the sunscreen too soon. She had lank, dark brown hair that was falling in her eyes and beautiful strong white teeth. Her eyes were the same shape as Nick’s but a darker, unusual color, and her eyebrows were someone’s—Elisabeth’s as a child! They were subtly raised at the corners, like Mr. Spock. She wasn’t adorable like Olivia and Tom. Her body was chunky. Her lower lip jutted out sulkily. But one day, thought Alice, one day I think you might be striking, my darling Sultana.

“You
promised
,” the Sultana said to Alice. Her eyes were murderous. She was formidable. She filled Alice with awe.

“I promised what?”

“That you would buy the ingredients so I could make lasagna tonight. I
knew
you wouldn’t do it. Why do you pretend you’re going to do something when you know that you’re
not
.” She punctuated the last sentence with rhythmic stamps of her foot.

Nick said, “Don’t be so rude, Madison. Your mother had an accident. She had to spend the night at the hospital.”

Alice wanted to laugh at Nick’s stern dad voice. Madison lifted her chin. Her eyes blazed. She stormed into the house, slamming the screen door behind her.

“Don’t slam the door!” called out Nick. “And come back and pick up your towel.”

Silence. She didn’t return.

Nick sucked in his lower lip and his nostrils flared. Alice had never seen him pull a face like that. He said, “Go inside, Tom. I want to speak to your mother. Will you take Madison’s towel inside, too?”

Tom was standing at the front wall of the house, tracing the brickwork with his fingertips. He said, “Dad, how many bricks do you reckon there are in this whole house?”

“Tom.”

Tom sighed theatrically, picked up Madison’s towel, and went inside.

Alice took a deep breath. She couldn’t imagine living with those three children twenty-four hours a day. She’d never imagined them actually talking. They fizzed and crackled with energy. Their personalities were right there on the surface without that protective sheen of adulthood.

“The Sultana,” began Alice, but words eluded her. Madison could not be put into words.

“I beg your pardon?” said Nick.

“The Sultana. I could never have imagined her growing up to be like that. She’s so . . . I don’t know.”

“Sultana?” He didn’t know what she was talking about.

“You remember—when I was pregnant with Madison, we used to call her the Sultana.”

He frowned. “I don’t remember that. Anyway, I wanted to see if we could work out this thing with Christmas Day.”

“Oh, that.” She thought of all those nasty e-mails and got a bad taste in her mouth. “Why are we even talking about Christmas now? It’s
May
!”

He stared at her as if she were crazy.

“I beg your pardon? You’re the one obsessed with your precious spreadsheet. You said you wanted everything in black-and-white for the whole year ahead. Every birthday. Every concert. You said that was best for the kids.”

“Did I?” Did she even know how to do a spreadsheet?

“Yes!”

“Right. Well. Whatever you want. You can have them on Christmas Day.”

“Whatever I want,” he repeated suspiciously, almost nervously. “Is there something I’m missing here?”

“Nope. Hey—how was Portugal?”

“It was fine, thank you,” he said formally.