What Alice Forgot (11 page)

“So I guess you don’t work there anymore?” Alice felt irritable. This was going to get tiring if everyone looked at her with awe each time she asked a simple question. How much could have changed in ten years? It seemed like everything.

“
The Treasure Chest
is a website now,” said Elisabeth. “And I stopped working there about six years ago. I worked for an agency for about four years, and then two years ago I started running these training seminars on how to write direct mail. Or junk mail, as most people would call it. They’re quite—well, they’re quite successful, actually, as strange as that may seem. Anyway, it pays the bills. I was running one today when I got the call from Jane about you.”

“So it’s your own business?”

“Yes.”

“Wow! That’s so impressive. You’re a success story. I always knew you would be a success story. Can I come along and watch you?”

“Come along and watch? Watch
me
?” Elisabeth snorted.

“Oh. I guess I’ve already done that, have I?”

Elisabeth said, “No, Alice, you’ve never shown the slightest interest in coming along to one of my seminars.” Her voice had that sharp edge again.

“Oh,” said Alice, confused. “That seems . . . well, I wonder why not?”

Elisabeth sighed. “You’re just really busy, Alice. That’s all.”

There was that “busy” word again.

“And also, I think you find my whole choice of career maybe a bit—tacky.”

“Tacky? I said that? I said that about you? I would never say that!” Alice was horrified. Had she turned into a nasty person who judged people by their choice of a career? She’d always been proud of Elisabeth. She was the smart one, the one who was going places, while Alice stayed safely put.

Elisabeth said, “No, no, you never actually said that. You probably don’t even think it. Just forget I said that.”

Maybe, thought Alice fearfully, the other Alice who has been living my life for the last ten years isn’t very nice.

Alice said, “Well, what about me? What do I do for a job?”

Alice had worked as an administrative assistant in the pay office at ABR. She didn’t love it or hate it, it was just a job. She wasn’t especially interested in a career. “You’re such a domestic goddess. You’re like a 1950s housewife,” Elisabeth had once said to her, when Alice admitted that she’d just spent the most blissful day gardening, making new curtains for the kitchen, and baking a chocolate cake for Nick.

“You don’t work.” Elisabeth gave her an inscrutable look.

“Oh, well, that sounds good!” said Alice happily.

“You’re very busy, though.” What was it with that word? “You do a lot of stuff at the school.”

“The school? What school?”

“The children’s school.”

Oh. Them. The three scary little strangers.

“Frannie,” said Alice suddenly. “What about Frannie? She hasn’t—got sick or anything, has she?” She didn’t want to even say the word “died.”

“She’s fine,” said Elisabeth. “Full of beans.”

The silver mobile phone sitting on the cabinet next to Alice’s bed burst into life.

“It must be Nick at last!” Alice lunged for the phone.

“Oh!” Elisabeth jumped to her feet. “Let me talk to him first!”

“No way.” Alice held the phone away from her, irritated. “Why?” Without waiting for an answer, she pressed the green button and held the phone to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Yeah, hi, it’s me.” It was Nick; Alice felt blissful relief running straight through her bloodstream like a shot of brandy.

“What’s happened?” His voice was deeper, rougher than usual, as if he had a cold. “Is it one of the kids?”

So Nick knew about “the kids,” too. Everyone knew about the kids.

Elisabeth was jumping up and down, waving her arms about, gesturing for the phone. Alice poked her tongue out at her.

“No, it’s me,” said Alice. There was so much to tell him, she didn’t know where to start. “I fell over at the, ah, gym, with Jane Turner, and hit my head. I was unconscious. They had to call an ambulance—oh, and I was sick in the lift all over this guy’s shoes, so embarrassing! And wait till I tell you about this bike-riding class! So funny. Hey, you’re in Portugal, I can’t believe you’re in Portugal, what’s it like?”

There was so much to tell him, she felt like she hadn’t seen him in years. When he got back from Portugal, they would have to go out for dinner at that Mexican restaurant they liked and talk, talk, talk. They would have margaritas; she could drink again, now that she wasn’t pregnant anymore. Oh, she
yearned
to be in that restaurant with him right now, sitting in a dark corner booth, his thumb caressing her palm.

There was silence on the other end of the phone. He must be in shock.

“But I’m not badly hurt!” Alice reassured him. “It’s not serious. I’ll be fine! I feel fine!”

He said, “Then why the
fuck
did I need to call you?”

Alice felt her head snap back as if she’d been hit. Nick had never, ever spoken to her like that before, not even when they were fighting. He was meant to fix the nightmare, not make it worse.

“Nick?” There was a tremor in her voice. She was going to be so mad with him later about this; her feelings were
extremely
hurt. “What’s the matter?”

“Is there some sort of strategy to all this? Because I’m not getting it, and to be frank, I don’t have time for it. You don’t want to change any of the arrangements for the weekend, do you? Is that what it’s about? Or, for Christ’s sake, tell me it’s not something to do with Christmas Day again.
Is
it?”

“Why are you talking to me like that?” said Alice. Her heart raced. This was more terrifying than anything that had happened to her today. “What did I do?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, I don’t have time for fucking games at the moment!”

He was shouting. He was actually shouting at her, and she was in
hospital
.

“Paprika,” whispered Alice. “You have to wash your mouth out with paprika, Nick.”

Elisabeth stood up. “Give it here,” she ordered.

She removed the phone from Alice’s trembling fingers, put the phone to her ear, and pressed a finger to her other ear. She turned her face away from Alice and dropped her chin. “Nick, it’s Elisabeth. This is actually quite serious. She’s had a bad head injury and she’s lost her memory. She’s forgotten everything since 1998. Do you understand what I’m saying?
Everything.
”

Alice let her head fall back against the pillow and breathed shallow gasps of air. What did it mean?

Elisabeth paused, listening, her forehead furrowed. “Yes, yes, I understand, but she doesn’t actually remember any of that.”

Another pause.

“They’re with Ben. He’s taken them to their swimming lesson, and I guess we’ll stay over with them tonight, and then—”

Pause. “Yes, okay, and then your mum can pick them up exactly as per the arrangements, and I’m sure by Sunday night Alice should be back on her feet and everything will be back to normal.” Pause. “No, I haven’t talked to a doctor yet, but I will soon.” Pause. “Right. Okay, well do you want me to put Alice back on?”

Alice held out her hand for the phone—surely Nick would be himself again now—but Elisabeth said, “Oh. Okay. Well, bye, Nick.”

She hung up.

Alice said, “He didn’t want to talk to me? He actually didn’t want to talk to me?” She could feel stabbing pains all over her body, a long witchy finger poking her cruelly.

Elisabeth clicked the phone shut and put her hand on Alice’s arm. She said gently, “You’ll remember soon. It’s okay. It’s just that you and Nick aren’t together anymore.”

Alice felt a sensation of everything around her plummeting toward the central point of Elisabeth’s moving lips. She focused on those lips. Raspberry lipstick with a darker line around the edge. Elisabeth must use lip liner. Fancy that. She must
line her lips
.

What was she saying? She could not be saying—

“What?” said Alice.

Elisabeth said again, “You’re getting divorced.”

Well, fancy that.

Chapter 8

A
lice had one glass of champagne with her bridesmaids while they were getting their makeup done, another half a glass in the limo, three and a quarter glasses at the wedding reception (including strawberries), and another glass sitting up with Nick on the king-size bed in their hotel room that night.

So she was somewhat sozzled, but that was no problem because she was the bride and it was her wedding day, and everyone had said she looked beautiful, and so this was a beautiful, romantic drunkenness that would probably not result in a hangover.

“Do you love and adore my wedding dress?” she asked Nick for what could have been the third time, as she ran her hand across its rich, lustrous fabric. It was called Ivory Silk Duchess Satin, and touching it gave her the same sensuously satisfied feeling as when she was a little girl and she used to run her finger over the plush pink lining of her music box, except this was even better because back then she really wanted to be
in
the music box, rolling around on pink satin. “I love my wedding dress. It sort of looks like golden, magical ice cream, doesn’t it? Couldn’t you just
eat
it?”

“Normally I’d tuck in,” said Nick. “But I’m full of cake. I had three pieces. That was outstanding cake. Everybody will be talking about the cake at our wedding for years to come. Most wedding cake is boring, but our cake! I’m so proud of our cake. I didn’t make the cake, but I’m proud of it.”

It seemed Nick had drunk quite a bit of champagne, too.

Alice set her glass on the bedside table and lay down on her back with a rich rustle of fabric. Nick slid down beside her. He’d taken off his tie and undone the buttons of his white dinner shirt. He had the beginnings of a five-o’clock shadow and slightly bloodshot eyes, but his hair was still perfect with a ridgelike wave at the part. Alice touched it and pulled her hand back. “It feels like straw!”

“The sisters,” explained Nick. “Armed with gel.”

He stroked her hair and said, “That’s a nice synthetic feel you’ve got going there, wife.”

“Hairspray. A lot of hairspray, husband.”

“Is that right, wife?”

“Yes it is, husband.”

“How interesting, wife.”

“Are we going to talk like this forever, husband?”

“No way, wife.”

They looked up at the ceiling and said nothing.

“What about Ella’s speech!” said Alice.

“I think it was meant to be touching.”

“Ah.”

“What about your Aunt Whatsie’s dress!”

“I think it was meant to be, um . . . stylish.”

“Ah.”

They snickered quietly.

Alice rolled onto her side and said, “Imagine,” and her eyes filled with tears. She always got emotional when she drank too much champagne. “Imagine if we never met.”

“It was fated,” said Nick. “So we would have met the next day.”

“But I don’t believe in fate!” whimpered Alice, reveling in the luxurious feeling of hot, wet tears rolling down her cheeks; those triple coats of mascara would be streaked all over her face. It seemed truly frightening that it was only by sheer chance that she had met Nick. It could so easily not have happened, and then she would have had a shadowy, half-alive existence, like some sort of woodland creature who never sees sunlight, never even
knowing
how much she could love and how much she could be loved. Elisabeth once said—very definitely and severely—that the right man didn’t complete you, you have to find happiness yourself, and Alice nodded agreeably, while thinking to herself, “Oh, but yes he does.”

“If we’d never met,” continued Alice, “then today would just be like any other day and right now we’d be watching television in separate homes, and I’d be wearing
tracksuit pants
and, and . . . we wouldn’t be going on honeymoon tomorrow.” The full horror of what could have been struck her. “We’d be going to work!
Work
!”

“Come here, my darling inebriated bride.” Nick pulled Alice to him, so that her head was resting beneath his shoulder and she breathed in the scent of his aftershave. It was much stronger than usual; he must have slapped on extra that morning, and the thought of him doing that was so unbearably sweet, it made her cry even harder. He said, “The important point here is this—wait for it, it’s a very important and intelligent point—you ready?”

“Yes.”

“We
did
meet.”

“Yes,” conceded Alice. “We did meet.”

“So it all turned out okay.”

“That’s true,” sniffed Alice. “It all turned out okay.”

“It all turned out okay.”

And then they had both fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep, with Alice’s Ivory Silk Duchess Satin wedding dress swirled all over them, and a single red dot of confetti stuck to the side of Nick’s face, which would leave a red circle that would stay there for the first three days of their honeymoon.