What Alice Forgot (41 page)

Alice explained yet again about her memory loss, and how, yes, she would be seeing a doctor, and no, she didn’t think she should be in bed, and no, she wasn’t joking, and yes, it must have been quite a thump on the head.

Someone called out from the dining room, “What’s going on in there? We can smell muffins!”

“Hold your horses!” called out Maggie. She turned back to Alice and said happily, “So
that’s
why you’ve been talking about getting back together with Nick! You’ve forgotten the last ten years! Gosh. It must be the weirdest feeling. I’m trying to imagine it. What was I doing when I was twenty-six?”

Alice realized with a start that Maggie, who seemed so
middle-aged
, was actually four years younger than she was. In fact, all these grown-up women here today were probably in her age group.

Maggie chortled. “I’d say, ‘Oh my God, how did you end up marrying the chubby guy who services your car!’ And then I’d look down at my hips and think, ‘What happened there?’ ”

She slapped herself on what looked to Alice like perfectly slim hips.

“It’s getting boring in there.” The tall, gray-haired woman with the glasses came into the kitchen and swung herself up onto the counter, swinging long, slim, blue-jeaned legs.

She lowered her voice. “You need to get in there fast, Alice, before Mrs. H. plans a coup. Don’t worry, I’ve been subtly undermining everything she says.” She lowered her voice even further. “If she thinks we’ll ever let her live down the shame of the laundry incident, she’s very much mistaken. The evil little troll.”

“You know about the laundry incident?” Alice gripped the knife she was holding to cut the muffins.

“Alice has lost her memory,” said Maggie. “She probably doesn’t even know who you are. Alice, meet Nora.” She paused. “Actually, you mustn’t even know who I am! I’m Maggie! Did you even know that?” She had that disbelieving, self-conscious expression on her face that Alice had seen so many times now. People couldn’t quite believe you could forget
them
.

“There’s a rumor going around you lost your memory,” said Nora. “I didn’t believe it. I heard someone in Dino’s Coffee Shop talking about it, but I thought it was just the village grapevine gone haywire. Geez. What do the doctors say?”

“Did Nick kiss that Mrs. Holloway in the laundry?” asked Alice, feeling juvenile to be discussing kissing with this elegant gray-haired woman.

“Nick?” said Nora. “No, honey. It was Michael. Gina’s husband. Gina walked in on them.” She looked at Maggie. “She really has lost her memory.”

“She doesn’t remember
anything
,” said Maggie, excitedly taking a huge bite of muffin. “It’s like she’s Rumpelstiltskin in the fairy tale.”

“I think you mean Rip Van Winkle.”

“Do I?”

“But I remember it so clearly,” said Alice slowly. “I remember it as if it was me.”

“Well, you were so upset for Gina,” said Maggie. “Oh God, I just still cannot believe Gina isn’t about to walk in here right this minute, carrying another bottle of champagne. Whenever I hear the pop of a champagne cork I think of her. I don’t think I’ve accepted it yet.”

“Unless, of course, the troll kissed Nick as well,” said Nora thoughtfully.

“Can I take something in?” chimed a childlike voice.

“Mrs. H.!” said Nora calmly. “We were just talking about you.”

“All good, I hope?”

“Of course! I’m sure our fine deputy principal doesn’t have any
dirty laundry
that needs airing,” said Nora.

Maggie choked on her muffin.

“Here you go,” said Nora. “You can take those mugs in for Alice.”

“Sure thing.” Mrs. Holloway seemed unruffled. “Will we be getting started soon, Alice?” She looked at her watch. “It’s just that I’ve got to be back at the school.”

“Won’t be long,” said Nora briskly, her eyes hard.

Mrs. Holloway took the mugs and left.

As soon as the deputy principal walked out the door, Maggie slapped Nora on the back of her head, ruffling her smooth hair. “You’re a shocker.”

It was just like being with girls at school, except with wrinkles and gray hair and talk of children. Alice felt comforted by this. It seemed you still got to be silly when you grew up.

“But I don’t understand,” she said. “How can this Mrs. Holloway be deputy principal if she’s . . .”

“Kissing dads in the laundry?” finished Nora. “We’re the only ones who know about it. Gina made us promise not to tell anyone. Mrs. H. has got children herself at the school. Gina said she didn’t want to be responsible for breaking up another marriage.”

“You don’t know how often I’ve had to bite my tongue whenever Dominick talks about her,” said Maggie. “He thinks she’s so professional. But anyway, I guess she just had too much to drink that night. We all make mistakes.”

“Don’t go all forgiving on us, Maggie,” said Nora. “She doesn’t deserve forgiveness. The bitch didn’t even flinch when I said ‘dirty laundry.’”

“She might have forgotten about it,” said Maggie. “It’s been three years.”

“Were Mrs. Holloway and Mike having an affair?” asked Alice, and realized she was steeling herself for the answer. Even though she knew it hadn’t been Nick, that raw, betrayed feeling remained.

“As far as we know, it was just that one drunken kiss,” said Maggie. “But it seemed to trigger all of Gina and Mike’s problems. It never seemed fair. Gina and Mike break up, and meanwhile the Holloways still look like the golden couple. I saw them holding hands, do you mind, at the Trivia Night the other week and I thought, ‘Someone please bring me a bucket.’”

“Maybe they’ve got an
arrangement
,” mused Nora. “It could be an open marriage.”

“Do you think?” said Maggie with wide eyes. Then she shook herself. “We’d really better go do this meeting.”

“Maybe I should stay here,” said Alice. “Tell them I’m sick.” She had no idea how to “do a meeting.”

“I’ll run through the agenda,” said Nora. “Just nod along. Anyway, you’ve had everything organized so well in advance, we all know exactly what we’ve got to do. You’re the most efficient person I know, Alice.”

“I wonder how that happened,” sighed Alice. She licked her finger and pressed it against the muffin crumbs on the plate in front of her. She saw the two women were studying her, as if she were behaving oddly.

Instead of sucking her finger, she let it drop by her side and said, “Why are we making the world’s biggest lemon meringue pie, anyway? Why not a cheesecake or something?”

“It was Gina’s signature dish,” said Maggie. “Remember? You’re dedicating the day to Gina.”

Of course she was. In the end, everything circled back to Gina.

Once she remembered Gina, she would remember everything.

Elisabeth’s Homework for Jeremy

I feel like I could easily do one of two things.

I could drive out of Sydney. Maybe down that long winding ribbon of highway on the South Coast with the lush green hills and the flashes of turquoise sea. That would be cheerful.

And then I could find a long empty stretch of road with an appropriate telephone pole. One that’s begging for a memorial cross.

And I could drive at it very fast.

Alternatively!

I could drive back to the office. And I could ask Layla to buy me a Caesar salad, yes, with anchovies, and a Diet Coke, or perhaps a banana smoothie, and I could eat my lunch while I prepare my keynote address for next month’s Australian Direct Marketing Association conference.

I could do one. Or I could do the other.

The telephone pole or the office.

It seems no more important a decision than whether or not I will have the Diet Coke or the banana smoothie.

“Oh, Alice, glad I caught you, I was wondering, the weekend after this I’ve got that thing I was telling you about, so I was thinking, what if I picked up Tom for you from Harry’s party, because I know you said you had that thing, so I could keep the boys before soccer and then you could pick them both up after the game?”

“Excuse me please, Mummy. Excuse me please, Mummy.
Excuse
me
please
, Mummy.”

“Alice! Has Olivia decided what she’s wearing to Amelia’s fancy-dress party? Have you heard? There’s a drama.
Seven
kids want to go as Hannah Montana, and apparently
Amelia
wants to go as Hannah Montana, and after all, she is the birthday girl, so apparently all other Hannahs are banned!”

“Big day coming up, Alice!”

“Mum, I
said
excuse me and you just keep ignoring me!”

“Mum, can Clara come over this afternoon? Please, please, please, please? Her mum said it was okay!”

“Mummy?”

“Mum?”

“Not long now, Alice!”

“Mrs. Love?”

“Can I talk to you, Alice?”

Alice stood in the school playground and the world of canteen duty and playdates and birthday parties whirled around her like a spinning top.

She didn’t remember any of it.

Yet it all seemed oddly familiar.

Elisabeth’s Homework for Jeremy

Just in case you’re wondering, I decided to go to the office today.

The Caesar salad wasn’t very nice. A lackluster attempt. Wilted lettuce. Stale croutons. Very disappointing. Like life.

I wasn’t really serious about the telephone pole.

I would never do that. I’m far too sensible and dull.

By the way, I have canceled our next session. I do apologize for the inconvenience.

Frannie’s Letter to Phil

Mr. Mustache has a name, and I guess I should use it now that he no longer has a mustache.

It’s Xavier. It doesn’t suit him at all, does it? What was his mother thinking? Xavier is far too elegant a name for a man who “places bets on the doggies” and loves beer and “the footie season” and tomato sauce and dreadful right-wing talkback radio.

We have nothing in common, obviously. Not like you and I! Remember the plays we saw, the books we shared, the—well.

Did we like the same books? I might be making that part up. Sometimes the details become a little hazy. I couldn’t tell you, for example, whether you liked tomato sauce or not. Did you?

While I was having my shower this morning, I was thinking about how just last week Alice said to me, “Frannie, when will I stop being shocked that Gina isn’t alive?”

I was full of grandmotherly wisdom about how “time heals,” but I understood.

It was the same when my dear, silly Barb lost their father. She must have said it a million times: “But Frannie, he ate a mandarin that morning. He was
fine
.”

Because how is it possible for your husband to eat a mandarin at eight a.m. and be dead by ten a.m.?

And how is it possible to watch your best friend hop into a car and then for you to never hear her voice again? (And goodness, that Gina had a
loud
voice!)

And how is it possible to believe your lovely fiancé isn’t still gallivanting around Queensland when a letter full of love and jokes and a pile of snapshots arrives the day after his coffin is lowered into the ground?

Your mind resists death with all its might.

Oh, Phil, it’s completely foolish that I’ve kept writing back to you all these years. It’s become one of those habits I can’t seem to break. Writing to a memory.

Someone was screaming.

“Mum! Stop it! Make it stop!
Mummy!
”

Alice was catapulted up and out of her bed and was walking rapidly, blindly, down the hallway, before she woke up properly, her mouth dry, her head fuzzy with interrupted dreams.

Who was it? Olivia?

The hysterical screams were coming from Madison’s room. Alice pushed open the door. In the dark, she could just make out a figure on the bed thrashing about and screaming, “Get it off! Get it off!”

Alice’s eyes adjusted enough to make out the lamp on the bookshelf next to Madison’s bed. She switched it on.

Madison’s eyes were shut, her face screwed up tight. She was tangled up in her sheets and her pillow was on her chest. She batted it away.