What Alice Forgot (40 page)

“Kissing a woman in the laundry?”

“Yes. At a party. I came in to get a drink.”

There was silence and then Nick laughed sharply.

“Sitting on the washing machine, right?”

“Yes,” said Alice, wondering how he could sound so smug, as if this point went to him, when it so clearly went to her.

“You remember
me
kissing a woman sitting on our washing machine?”

“Yes!”

“You know what? I never even looked at another woman while we were together. I never kissed another woman. I never slept with another woman.”

“But I remember—”

“Yeah. I know exactly what you remember, and I find that very interesting.”

Alice was baffled. “But—”

“Very interesting. Look, I’ve got to go, but clearly you haven’t got your memory back properly yet and you need to see a doctor. If you’re not capable of looking after the children, you need to let me know. You’ve got a responsibility to them.”

Oh, but it was fine to leave her with them last night when he knew perfectly well that she didn’t even recognize them, let alone know how to look after them. It wasn’t logical, and yet, he was speaking in that pompous, I’m-so-rational-you’re-so-irrational voice, each word stuffed with his own rightness. She could remember that voice from arguments in the past, like that morning when they didn’t have milk for breakfast, and the night when they ran late for his sister’s first baby’s christening, and the time neither of them had enough cash for the ferry tickets, and each time he had put on that voice. That superior, crisp, businesslike voice, with a hint of a sigh. It drove her bananas.

Each time he used that voice it brought back the other occasions he’d used it before and she would think, That’s right, I can’t stand it when you talk like that.

“You know what?” she said. “I’m
glad
we’re getting a divorce!”

As she slammed the phone down, she could hear him laughing.

Chapter 25

T
he Mega Meringue Committee turned up at Alice’s door at 1:00 p.m.

She’d forgotten all about them.

When the doorbell rang she was sitting on the living room floor surrounded by photo albums. She’d been there for hours, flipping pages, peeling photos off so she could hold them close to her and study for clues.

There were photos of picnics and bushwalks and days at the beach, birthday parties and Easters and Christmases. She’d lost so many Christmas memories! It gave her a pain in the center of her chest seeing the photos of tangle-haired children in their pajamas, their faces solemn with concentration as they unwrapped presents under a huge, gorgeously decorated tree.

Maybe she could go to the doctor and ask if she could please have all her happy memories returned, minus the sad ones.

The photos were mostly of the children and Nick. Alice would have been the one behind the camera. Nick always looked so capable when he was taking a photo, a grave, professional look on his face, but actually he was hopeless, skimming off the tops of people’s heads.

Alice had discovered she could take good photos when she was a child. After their father died nobody had taken photos of them. He had been the photographer and their mother would no more think about trying to use his camera than she would have tried to change a light globe. It was Alice who picked up his camera one day and worked out how to use it. In those years when their mother disappeared into herself and “old Miss Jeffrey” next door turned into “Frannie,” their honorary grandmother, Alice also taught herself how to change light globes, fix running toilets, and cook chops and veggies, while Elisabeth learned how to demand refunds, pay bills, fill in forms, and talk to strangers.

Whenever she came upon another rare photo of Nick she tried to read the expression in his eyes. Was it possible to track the decline of their marriage? No. She could track the decline of his
hair
over the years, but his smile at the person behind the camera seemed unchangingly genuine and happy.

In the ones where they were together, they always had their arms around each other, their bodies curved together. If a body-language expert were asked to objectively judge their marriage on the basis of these photo albums they would surely say, “This is a happy, loving, good-humored family and the likelihood of that couple breaking up is nil.”

She didn’t bother much with the photos of people she didn’t recognize but one face kept appearing again and again, and it dawned on her that this must surely be Gina. She was a busty, big-toothed woman with a heap of dark curly hair. She and Alice always seemed to be photographed holding champagne or cocktail glasses up to the camera like trophies. They seemed to be very physical together, which was unusual for Alice. She had never had those sorts of lavish friendships where you threw your arms around each other, but Alice and this woman always seemed to have their heads angled together so their cheeks were touching, big wide lipsticky smiles for the camera. Alice felt embarrassed by these photos. “Oh stop it, you don’t even
know
her,” she said out loud at a photo of herself actually planting a big, smoochy kiss on Gina’s cheek.

Alice stared at the photos of Gina for ages, waiting for the recognition— and the grief? But nothing. She looked sort of fun, she guessed, although not really the sort of woman Alice would have picked as a friend. She looked like she had the potential to be a bit overbearing. A loud, zany, tiring type.

But maybe not. Actually, Alice looked a bit loud and zany herself in some of those photos. Maybe she
was
loud and zany now that she was so slim and drank so much coffee.

There were photos of Alice and Nick together with Gina and a man who must be her husband. Mike Boyle. That physiotherapist who had moved to Melbourne. So these were the “happier times” he’d mentioned on his business card. There were a lot of BBQs and dinner parties (lots of empty wine bottles on the table in an unfamiliar room that must have been Gina and Mike’s house). She worked out from the pictures that Gina and Mike had two pretty dark-haired daughters—twins, perhaps?—about the same age as Tom. There were photos of the children playing together, eating giant slices of watermelon, splashing about in the pool, curled up asleep on couches.

The two families had gone on camping trips together. It looked like they’d been back regularly to some beach house with stunning ocean views.

Friendship and holidays. A swimming pool. Champagne and sunshine and laughter. It seemed like a dream life.

But maybe every life looked wonderful if all you saw was the photo albums. People always obediently smiled and tilted their heads when a camera was put in front of them. Perhaps seconds after the shutter clicked, she and Nick sprang apart, avoiding each other’s eyes, their smiles replaced by snarls.

She was just studying the photos of Elisabeth’s wedding (she and Ben looked so young and unguarded, their faces rosy, Elisabeth slender and luminous) when the doorbell rang. She jumped to her feet and left the albums with all those days and days of forgotten memories on the floor.

There were two women at the door, and another three were walking up the driveway. A couple were complete strangers but she recognized the rest from the party and from dropping off the children at school that morning.

“Mega Meringue meeting?” guessed Alice as she held open the door for them. They were carrying folders and notebooks and looked terrifyingly efficient.

“Only six days to go!” said a tall, elegant, gray-haired woman, making her eyebrows pop up and down above her square-framed glasses.

“How are you?” said another one with dimples who kissed her warmly on the cheek. “I’ve been meaning to call all weekend. Bill said he couldn’t believe it when he was on the treadmill and he saw you go past on the stretcher. He said he never expected to see Alice Love flat on her back. Oh dear, that doesn’t sound quite right.”

Alice remembered the red-faced man on the treadmill saying he would get “Maggie” to call.

“Maggie?” she tried.

The woman squeezed her arm. “Sorry! I’m in a silly mood today!”

Without being asked, the women all trooped into the dining room and sat themselves around the table, placing their notebooks in front of them.

“Tea, coffee?” said Alice faintly, wondering if she fed them.

“I’ve been hanging out for your muffins all morning,” said the eyebrow popper.

“I’ll come and help you bring it all in,” said Maggie. Oh dear. It appeared they were used to a spread.

Alice registered Maggie’s look of surprise when she saw the state of the kitchen. Last night’s dinner plates and the children’s breakfast dishes were still lying around. Alice had meant to clean up after she had the laundry on but the photo albums had distracted her. There were splashes of milk and hamburger mince all over the counters.

As Alice hurriedly checked through the freezer for muffins, Maggie put the kettle on and said, “I saw Kate Harper this morning. She said you and Nick were getting back together.”

“Yes!”
Alice pulled from the freezer a container labeled “Banana Muffins” and dated two weeks earlier, feeling quite fond of herself. Oh, you’re a trouper, Alice.

“Well, I was a bit surprised,” said Maggie.

Alice looked up at the tone of her voice. She sounded wounded.

“It’s just that I know Dominick is pretty keen,” continued Maggie, sounding as if she were trying to be diplomatic.

“Are you and Dominick friends?” asked Alice.

Maggie jerked her head in surprise. “I’m just saying, he’s my big brother, and he’s sort of vulnerable. If it’s not going anywhere, maybe you should tell him?”

Oh Lord, she was his
sister
. Now that Alice looked, she could see a slight resemblance about the eyes. That Kate Harper was a real piece of work.

“And I don’t know, Alice,” continued Maggie. “All that stuff you were saying the other day, about how Nick never respected your opinion, and made you feel like you were stupid, and how you and Dominick had a much more equal relationship, and you loved the way he talked to you about the school, because Nick never talked to you about his work. What was that all about, then? And I don’t mean to be rude, but I wondered, could this possibly be related to your head injury? I mean, I know that sounds like, ‘Oh, you must be nuts not to want my brother!’ But I just think that, well, you know, don’t rush . . .”

Her voice drifted away, just like Dominick’s did.

Nick didn’t respect her opinion? But of course he did! Sometimes he thought she was a bit foolish about current affairs, but only in an adorable way.

Alice went to open her mouth, without knowing what she would say, when the doorbell rang again.

“Just a sec,” she said, holding up her hand.

She ran down the hallway past the babble of female voices from her dining room and opened the door.

“So sorry I’m late,” said a tiny red-haired woman with a sweet, childlike voice.

It was the woman who kissed Nick on the washing machine.

Elisabeth’s Homework for Jeremy

So I called and got the blood-test results.

“Come in!” said Alice.

Her body definitely remembered this woman. The sound of her sugar-sweet voice actually made her feel slightly sick, like the way avocado always made her feel, because of that time she got violently ill after eating guacamole.

“I heard you fell over at the gym,” said the woman. “Told you exercise was bad for you.” Oh Lord, she was leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. This cheek-kissing thing was out of control. It was a Mega Meringue meeting! Shouldn’t they keep things a bit more professional?

The woman was unraveling a scarf from her neck, casually looping it over Alice’s hat stand and looking at Alice artlessly, without a shred of guilt. Could she do this if she had kissed Alice’s husband in the laundry of this very house?
“I never looked at another woman. I never kissed another woman,”
Nick had said. So why did she remember it so clearly? And how did he know what she meant when she talked about it happening on the washing machine?

“You’re late, Mrs. Holloway!” a voice called out from the dining room.

Holloway. Holloway. Alice mentally snapped her fingers. This was the deputy principal. She was far too tiny and pretty and sugary to be a deputy principal.

Mrs. Holloway waltzed into the dining room as if she owned the place while Alice went back into the kitchen. Dominick’s sister had put Alice’s muffins into the microwave and the smell of banana filled the kitchen.

“Mrs. Holloway,” said Alice.

“Bleh,” said Maggie, making a face without looking up from the boiling water she was pouring into a row of coffee mugs. She put down the kettle and winked at Alice. “You make sure you keep Mrs. H. in line if she tries to take over again. It’s your meeting. You’re in charge.”

“About that,” said Alice. “I can’t run this meeting.”

“Why not?”

“Dominick obviously didn’t tell you—”

“Dominick doesn’t tell me anything. You know brothers. Oh, right, you don’t. Well, they’re not like sisters.”