What Alice Forgot (50 page)

Elisabeth smiled and looked back at the television. The cooking show host pulled something out of the oven and sniffed rapturously. “Voilà!”

Elisabeth said, “I should have driven over straightaway when Gina died, and I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

How strange, thought Alice. Everyone had to apologize for something to do with Gina’s death.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t know if you’d want me there,” said Elisabeth. “I felt as if I’d say the wrong thing. You and Gina were such a pair, and you and I, we’ve . . . drifted.”

Alice moved closer to Elisabeth, so their thighs were touching. “Well, let’s drift back.”

The credits were rolling on the cooking show.

“I’m going to lose this baby,” said Elisabeth.

Alice put a hand over onto Elisabeth’s stomach.

“I’m going to lose this baby,” said Elisabeth again.

Alice put her face down close. She said, “Come on, little niece or nephew. Why don’t you just stick around this time? Your mum has been through so much for you.”

Elisabeth picked up the remote, turned off the television, and began to cry.

Frannie’s Letter to Phil

He kissed me. Mr. Mustache, I mean. Xavier. In the backseat of a cab.

And I kissed him back.

You could knock me down with a feather, Phil.

“I like the lions,” said Dominick.

It was nine o’clock at night and he was standing at the front door, holding a packet of chocolate biscuits, a bottle of liqueur, and a bunch of tulips. He was wearing jeans and a faded checked shirt, and he needed a shave.

Alice looked at George and Mildred, back in their old places, guarding the house. It had been an exhausting effort, cleaning them up, and then she’d had to use a wheelbarrow to get them out to the front of the house. Now she couldn’t decide if they looked quirky and fun, or grubby and tacky. “I just thought I’d drop by on the off chance you felt like some company,” he said. “If you’re too busy planning for tomorrow . . .”

Alice hadn’t been doing anything, except lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, and thinking vague thoughts about Elisabeth’s baby, and Nick: “trying again.” Nick seemed to think they should start out with a “date.” “Maybe a movie,” he’d said, and Alice had wondered how hard they would have to “try” as they sat in the movie. Would they have to eat their popcorn really enthusiastically? Have an especially animated conversation afterward? Score each other on how many times they’d been funny, their levels of affection? Would they have to
try
to kiss as romantically as possible? No, she didn’t want any of this “trying.” She just wanted Nick to move back home and for everything to be the way it should be. She was tired of all this nonsense.

It had been an exhausting day. All the children had sports, one after the other. Olivia played netball (lots of histrionic leaping about but not much actual contact with the ball), Tom played soccer (excellently—scored two goals!), and Madison played hockey (abysmally, miserably). “Do you enjoy it?” Alice had asked her as she came off the field. “You know I hate it,” Madison had answered. “So why do you play it?” “Because
you
say I have to play a team sport,” she’d answered. Alice had gone straight up to the coach and pulled Madison from the team. Both the coach and Madison were thrilled.

Alice had various duties at each game that she had somehow fulfilled smoothly, almost as if she wasn’t an impostor in her own life. She’d kept score at Madison’s hockey game. She’d helped cook the sausage sizzle at Tom’s soccer game. Incredibly, she’d even
umpired
Olivia’s netball. Someone had handed her a whistle, and even as Alice was saying, “No, no, I couldn’t possibly,” the cool shape of the whistle felt right in her hand. Next thing she was striding up and down the sideline, blowing sharply on the whistle, while strange words and phrases flew from her mouth. “Step!” “Held ball!” “Goal attack, you were off side.” The children obeyed without question.

Nick had been there at all the games. There had been no time to talk. He had duties, too. He had to be the referee for Tom’s soccer game. We’re such
parents
, Alice had thought with a mixture of pride and fear—because, was that the problem? Was that why they would have to “try”? Because she was a “mum” and he was a “dad,” and mums and dads were generic, boring, and not very sexy. (That’s why kissing still went on in laundries at parties? To remind them that they were once randy teenagers?)

Tomorrow was Mother’s Day. Mega Meringue Day. The “big day.” Probably Alice should have been preparing things—finishing off paperwork, making last-minute phone calls to check people had done what they were meant to do, but she wasn’t especially interested in Mega Meringue Day. Anyway, the committee had seemed to have things under control the other day.

“Come in,” she said to Dominick, her eyes on the chocolate biscuits.

“The children asleep?” he asked.

“Yes, although—” She was about to say something lighthearted about Tom probably still playing with his Nintendo under the covers, but the haircutting experience with Madison made her stop. It would be like ratting on her son to the school principal.

“How was Kate about Chloe’s hair?” she asked.

“Predictably hysterical,” said Dominick.

“I left a message apologizing,” said Alice. “She never called back.”

“You understand that I didn’t have any choice but to suspend Madison?” said Dominick, as Alice took the flowers out of his hands. “I didn’t want . . .”

“Oh, yes, of course, don’t worry about it. These are beautiful, by the way. Thank you.”

Dominick put down the biscuits on the counter and twisted the bottle of liqueur around and around in his hands.

He said, “I’ll know when you get your memory back.”

“How?” said Alice.

“By the way you look at me. Now you have this friendly, polite way of looking at me, as if you don’t really know me, as if we never even . . .”

Oh God, little Chloe Harper was right. They had “done sex.”

He put down the bottle of liqueur and moved closer to her.

No, no, no. Not another kiss. That would be wrong. That would not be within the spirit of “trying.”

“Dominick,” she said.

The doorbell rang.

“Excuse me,” said Alice.

It was Nick at the front door.

He was holding a bottle of wine, cheese, biscuits, and a bunch of tulips identical to the ones Dominick had brought over. They must be on special at some local shop.

“You’ve fixed the lions,” said Nick, delighted. He bent down and patted George on the head. “Gidday, old mate.”

“I should be going.” Dominick had come to the front door. Alice saw his gaze take in the flowers and wine.

“Oh, hi.” Nick straightened, his smile disappearing. “I didn’t realize, I won’t stop—”

“No, no. I was just going,” said Dominick firmly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He touched Alice on the arm and ran lightly down the steps.

“Was I interrupting something?” Nick followed her down the hallway and saw Dominick’s bunch of tulips. “Oh. Everyone is bringing offerings tonight.”

Alice yawned. She longed for her life to be normal again. A Saturday night at home. She wanted to say, “I’m tired. I think I’ll go to bed,” and for Nick to say, without turning his head from the television, “Okay, I’ll just finish watching this movie and I’ll be up.” And then she wanted them to read their books together and switch off the lamps and fall asleep. Who have thought that a Saturday night at home would ever seem so impossibly exotic?

Instead, she opened Dominick’s chocolate biscuits and ate one and watched Nick standing awkwardly in his own kitchen.

“Shall I open this?” he said.

“Sure.”

He opened the wine and poured them both glasses. Alice put the cheese on a plate and they sat down on opposite sides of the long table.

“Are you coming tomorrow?” asked Alice, eating another chocolate biscuit. “To Mega Meringue Day?”

“Oh, no, I wasn’t. Do you want me to go?”

“Of course!”

Nick laughed, in that slightly flabbergasted way. “All right, then.”

“I think it will all be over by lunchtime,” said Alice. “So you’ll be able to make it to your mother’s place.”

Nick looked blankly at her.

“For the Mother’s Day lunch,” said Alice. “Remember? You told Ella you were going at the Family Talent Night.”

“Oh. Yeah. Right.”

“How do you cope without me?” said Alice lightly.

Nick’s face closed up. “I cope fine. I’m not totally useless.”

Alice flinched at his tone. “I never said you were.” She took a piece of cheese. “Or have I said that?”

“You don’t believe I’m capable of looking after the children for half the time. According to you, I wouldn’t remember all their after-school activities, sign their permission notes, or whatever. I’d forget to read the all-important school newsletter. Not sure how I manage to run a company.”

Well, you have a secretary to handle all the pesky details.

She wasn’t sure which Alice said that: Snippy Alice from the future or real Alice. Nick had always been a big-picture man.

He refilled their wineglasses. “I can’t stand only seeing them on weekends. I can’t be natural with them. Sometimes I hear my father’s voice come out of my mouth when I see them. Fake jolly. I’m driving over to pick them up and I find myself preparing jokes for them. And I think—how did I end up here?”

“Did you spend a lot of time with them during the week?”

“Yeah, I know the point you’re trying to make. Yes, I work long hours, but you never seem to remember the times I
did
come home early. I went bike riding with Madison that time, and Friday nights in summer I played cricket for hours with Tom—well, you always say it was just one Friday night, but I know it happened at least twice, and I—”

“I wasn’t trying to make a point.”

Nick twirled the stem of his wineglass and looked up at Alice with an “I’m going to come clean” expression. “I haven’t been very good at achieving a life-work balance. I need to work on that. If we work things out, I’ll get better at that. I’m committed to that.”

“Okay,” said Alice. She wanted to make fun of him for saying “I’m committed to that,” but Nick was acting as though it was some sort of breakthrough moment. It just didn’t seem that big a deal to her. So he had to work long hours sometimes. If that’s what he had to do for his career, then fair enough.

“I guess my competition doesn’t work such long hours,” said Nick.

“Competition?” The wine was going to Alice’s head. Her mind was filled with hazy half-thoughts, glimpses of people’s faces she didn’t know, and vague memories of intense feelings she couldn’t describe.

“Dominick.”

“Oh, him. He’s nice, but the thing is, I’m married to you.”

“We’re separated.”

“Yes, but we’re
trying
.” Alice giggled. “Sorry. I don’t know why I find it funny. It’s not funny. It’s not at all funny. I might actually need a glass of water.”

She stood up, and as she walked by Nick, she suddenly plonked herself down on his lap like a flirty girl at a party.

“Are you going to
try
, Nick?” she gurgled into his neck. “Are you going to try really, really hard?”

“You’re tipsy,” he said, and then he kissed her, and at last everything was as it should be. Her body melted against his with exquisite relief. It was like sinking into a hot bath after being caught in the rain, like sliding under crisp cotton sheets after an exhausting day.

“Daddy?” said a voice from behind them. “What are you doing here?”

Nick’s legs jerked up so that Alice was catapulted onto her feet.

Olivia stood in the kitchen in her pajamas, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles, her cheeks flushed with sleep. She yawned hugely, stretching her arms above her head. She frowned, perplexed, and then an expression of pure delight crossed her face.

“Do you love Mummy again?”

Frannie’s Letter to Phil

Kissing! At my age! Is it allowed? Is it unseemly? I feel as though I’ve broken a rule. I’ve gone full circle and I’m fourteen again.

We had a lovely night at the Chinese restaurant. It’s been so long since I’ve eaten Chinese. (I used to take Elisabeth and Alice when they were little for a special treat. They adored it. Of course now they would be horrified at the thought. Too many calories. Or “carbs” or something.)

We shared a nice bottle of white wine and the steamed dim sums were fabulous. Mr. M. was his ridiculous self. After we paid the bill, he asked the waitress if we could go to the kitchen and “pay our compliments to the chef”!

The little girl looked alarmed. (She probably thought we were undercover health inspectors.) I was saying to her, “Just ignore him, darling,” but next thing, Mr. M. marched out to the kitchen and dragged out three young Chinese men dressed in white. There he was, clapping them on the shoulders, loudly telling them a long story about a meal he’d eaten at a fancy hotel in Hong Kong in 1954, and how this was even better than that meal, while all the other diners put down their chopsticks and stared.

I got such an attack of the giggles watching those poor young chefs with their polite, bemused smiles, nervously bobbing their heads up and down, obviously thinking this man was quite deranged. In the end, Mr. M. convinced the whole restaurant to give them a round of applause. (The food wasn’t
that
good!)

I giggled in the cab the whole way home until finally Mr. M. said, “I think there’s only one way to shut you up,” and next thing he was kissing me.

I’m very sorry, Phil.