What Alice Forgot (43 page)

When the crowd had settled down, Frannie tapped the microphone and said, “Our first act is Mary Barber’s great-granddaughter performing ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow.’”

A little girl in a glittery sequined dress, plastered with makeup (“See, Mummy?” hissed Olivia, leaning forward across Nick to look reproachfully at Alice), strode out onto the stage, shimmying her chest like an aging cabaret singer. “Jesus,” said Nick under his breath. She clasped the microphone with both hands and began to sing, her voice filled with exaggerated emotion, making the audience flinch in unison each time she hit the high notes.

She was followed by tap-dancing grandchildren in top hats and canes, a great-nephew’s magic show (“FYI, I know exactly how he did that,” Tom whispered loudly), and a niece’s gymnastic routine. Ella’s little boy got bored and started a game where he clambered from lap to lap, touching each person on the nose, saying, “Chin,” or touching them on the chin and saying, “Nose,” and then falling about laughing at his own wit.

Finally Frannie said, “Next up, Olivia Love, my own great-granddaughter, performing a routine she choreographed herself called ‘The Butterfly.’”

Alice was terrified. Choreographed it
herself
? She’d assumed Olivia would be performing something she’d learned at ballet school. Good Lord, it would probably be dreadful. Her hands were sweaty. It was as if she were going up there herself.

“Hmmmm,” said Olivia without moving.

“Olivia,” said Tom. “It’s your
turn
.”

“I actually feel a bit sick,” said Olivia.

Nick said, “All the best performers feel sick, sweetie. It’s a sign. It means you’re going to be great.”

“You don’t have to—” began Alice.

Nick put a hand on her arm and Alice stopped.

“As soon as you start, the sick feeling will go away,” he said to Olivia.

“Promise?” Olivia looked up at him trustingly.

“Cross my heart and hope to be killed by a rabid dog.”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “You’re so silly, Dad.” She slid down from the chair and marched down the aisle toward the stage, her tulle skirt bobbing. Alice’s heart twisted. She was so
little
. So alone.

“Have you seen this routine?” whispered Nick, as he adjusted the focus on a tiny silver camera.

“No. Have you?”

“No.” They watched as Olivia climbed the stairs of the stage. Nick said, “I actually feel a bit sick myself.”

“Me too,” said Alice.

Oliva stood in the center of the stage with her head bowed and her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes closed.

Alice massaged her stomach. She could feel the tension emanating from Nick.

The music started. Olivia slowly opened one eye, then the other. She yawned enormously, wriggled and squirmed. She was a caterpillar sleepily emerging from its cocoon. She looked over her shoulder, pretended to catch sight of a wing and her mouth dropped comically.

The audience laughed.

They
laughed.

Alice’s daughter was funny! Publicly funny!

Olivia looked over her other shoulder and staggered with delight. She was a butterfly! She fluttered this way and that, trying out her new wings, falling over at first and then finally getting the hang of it.

It was true that she probably wasn’t quite in time with the music, and some of her dance moves were, well, unusual, but her facial expressions were priceless. In Alice’s opinion, and she felt she was being quite objective, there had never been a funnier, cuter performance of a butterfly.

By the time the music had stopped Alice was suffused with pride, her face aching from smiling so much. She looked about at the audience and saw that people were smiling and clapping, clearly charmed, although they were perhaps holding themselves back so as not to make the other performers feel bad (why not a standing ovation, for example?), and she was shocked to see a woman in the middle of checking her mobile phone. How could she have dragged her eyes away from the stage?

“She’s a comic genius,” she whispered to Nick.

Nick lowered the camera, and his face, when he turned to look at her, was filled with identical awe and pleasure.

“Mum. I helped her a bit,” said Madison tentatively.

“Did you?” Alice put her arm around Madison’s shoulder and pulled her close. She lowered her voice. “I bet you helped her a lot. You’re a great big sister. Just like your Auntie Libby was to me.”

Madison looked amazed for a second, and then she smiled that exquisite smile that transformed her face.

“How did I get such talented children?” said Alice, and her voice shook. Why had Madison looked so surprised?

“Comes from their father,” said Nick.

Olivia came dancing back down the aisle and sat up on the chair next to Nick, grinning self-consciously. “Was I good? Was I excellent?”

“You were the best!” said Nick. “Everybody is saying we may as well just pack up our bags and go, now that Olivia Love has performed.”

“Silly,” giggled Olivia.

They sat through another four acts, including a comedy act by someone’s middle-aged daughter that was so incredibly unfunny it was sort of funny, and a little boy who lost his nerve and got stage fright halfway through reciting a Banjo Paterson poem until his grandfather came unsteadily up onstage and held his hand, and they read it together, which made Alice cry.

Frannie walked up to the microphone again. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this has been such a special night and in a moment you can enjoy supper, but we have just one final act for you and I hope you’ll forgive me, but it’s another one of my own family members. Please put your hands together for Barb and Roger performing the salsa!”

The stage went dark. A single spotlight revealed Alice’s mother and Nick’s father in full Latin costumes, standing completely still. Roger had one knee thrust between Barb’s legs, his arm around her waist. Barb was leaning back, exposing her neck. Roger’s head was bowed toward hers, his face dramatic, frowning tremendously.

Nick made a sound like something was stuck in his throat. Ella made a sympathetic choking sound back.

“Grandma and Grandpa look like people on TV,” said Tom happily. “They look
famous
.”

“They do not,” said Madison.

“They do so.”

“Shhhh,” said Alice and Nick together.

The music started and their parents began to move. They were good in a horrendous sort of way. Swiveling their hips proficiently. Moving in and out of each other’s arms. It was just so mortifyingly
sexual
—and in front of all these
old
people!

After five agonizing minutes of dancing, Roger stopped at the microphone while Barb danced around him, flicking up the sides of her skirt and stamping her feet provocatively. Alice could feel an attack of giggles about to sweep over her. What on earth are you
doing
, Mum?

“Folks!” said Roger in his best plummy radio-announcer voice. The spotlight lit up the beads of sweat on his yellow-tanned forehead. “You may have heard that my lovely wife and I will be offering salsa-dance lessons every second Tuesday. It’s great exercise, and a lot of fun to boot! Now, anybody can do the salsa, and to prove it, I want to invite two people out of the audience who have never salsa-danced before up onto the stage. Let’s see now . . .”

The spotlight began bouncing around the audience. Alice watched the light, hoping Roger had the sense to choose a couple who could actually walk.

The spotlight stopped on Alice and Nick and they both held up their hands to shield their eyes.

“Yes, those two blinking like rabbits in the headlights look like the perfect victims, don’t you think, Barb?” said Roger.

Olivia, Tom, and Madison jumped from their seats like lottery winners. They began pulling at their parents’ arms, shrieking, “Yes, yes! Mum and Dad dance! Come on!”

“No, no! Pick somebody else!” Alice swatted away their hands in a panic. She never, ever volunteered for this sort of thing.

“I think they’d be perfect, Roger,” said Barb from the stage, with a big game-show-hostess smile.

“I’m going to kill them,” said Nick quietly. Then he yelled, “Sorry! Bad back!”

The old people weren’t buying that. They were the ones with arthritis.

“Bad back, my foot!” cried out an old lady.

“Have a go, you mug!”

“Don’t be party poopers!”

“Don’t worry, the sick feeling will go away, Daddy,” said Olivia sweetly.

“Dance, dance, dance!” shouted the old people, stamping their feet with surprising energy.

Nick sighed and stood up. He looked down at Alice. “Let’s just get it over with.”

They walked up onto the stage, Alice pulling self-consciously at her skirt, worried it was riding up at the back. Frannie shrugged from her place in the front row and held up her hands in a “nothing to do with me” gesture.

“Facing each other, please,” said Roger.

Roger stood behind Nick and Barb stood behind Alice. Their parents maneuvered them so that Alice’s hand was on Nick’s shoulder, his around her waist.

“Closer now,” boomed Roger. “Don’t be shy. Now look into each other’s eyes.”

Alice looked miserably up at Nick. His face was blankly polite, as if they were two strangers who had been pulled out of the audience. This was excruciating.

“Come on now, are you a man or a mouse?” Roger clapped his son on the shoulder. “The man has got to take charge! You’re the leader. She’s the follower!”

Nick’s nostril twitched, which meant he was highly irritated.

In a sudden movement, he put his hand on Alice’s lower back and pulled her close to him, frowning masterfully in an over-the-top imitation of his father.

The audience erupted.

“I think we’ve got a natural here, folks!” said Roger. His eyes met Alice’s and seemed to be sending her some sort of kindly message. He was a pompous old twit, but he meant well.

“Okay, light on your toes!” said Barb, demonstrating to Nick. “And forward on your
right
foot, back with your
left
foot, rock back onto your
right
foot, step back with your
left
foot. Shift your weight to your
left
foot, step back with your
right
foot. That’s it! That’s it!”

“And let’s get those hips moving!” cried Roger.

Alice and Nick didn’t dance much in public. Alice was always too self-conscious, and Nick wasn’t fussed either way, but sometimes at home, if they’d had wine with dinner and they had the right sort of CD on while they were packing the dishwasher, they danced in the kitchen. A silly, hamming-it-up dance. It was always Alice who initiated it, because actually, she quite liked to dance, and actually, she wasn’t bad.

She began to move her hips in imitation of her mother, while trying to keep the top half of her body still. The crowd roared its approval and she heard a child, probably Olivia, shout, “Go,
Mummy
!” Nick laughed. He was stepping on her toes. Barb and Roger were grinning like Cheshire cats. She could hear their children shouting out from the audience.

There was still chemistry. She could feel it in their hands. She could see it in his eyes. Even if it was just a memory of chemistry. There was still something. Alice’s head was dizzy with hope.

The music stopped. “See! Anyone can learn to salsa!” cried Roger as Nick dropped his hands from her waist and turned away.

Elisabeth’s Homework for Jeremy

We were driving to the Family Talent Night when I had a sudden craving for television.

House
was on. I needed to see Dr. House being nasty and sarcastic while he diagnosed impossible medical conditions. What would Dr. House say about me? I wish you were more like Dr. House, Jeremy. You’re so nice and polite. It’s annoying. Niceness doesn’t cure anyone. Why don’t you just bring me face-to-face with a few home truths?

“You’re infertile. Get over it,” House would sneer, brandishing his cane, and I’d be shocked and invigorated.

“Can we turn around?” I told Ben.

He didn’t try to change my mind. He is being very gentle and careful at the moment. The adoption application forms have disappeared from the kitchen counter. He’s put them away. Temporarily. I can see the idea still shining in his eyes. He still has hope. Which is exactly the problem. I cannot afford any more hope.

I rang him after I got the blood-test results and when I went to speak, I found no words came out of my mouth, and when he didn’t say anything, I knew he was trying not to cry. You can always tell when he’s trying not to cry. Like he’s fighting off something invisible trying to take over his head.

“We’ll be okay,” he finally said.

No we won’t, I thought. “Yes,” I said.

I almost told him the truth.

Actually, no I didn’t. Not even close.

After
House
I watched
Medium
, and then
Boston Legal
and then
Cheaters
! That’s the show where they spy on real people cheating on their spouses and then confront them with television cameras. It’s seedy and gray and trashy. We sure do live in a seedy, gray, trashy world, Jeremy.

It’s possible my mental health is poorly at the moment.

The show was over and the adults were standing around, drinking tea and coffee from paper cups and balancing pikelets on serviettes in the palms of their hands.

A huge gang of grandchildren and great-grandchildren were whooping with joy, racing on wheelchairs down the front of the hall.

“Should they be playing on those?” Alice asked Frannie, trying to be a responsible grown-up, as she saw Madison pushing a chair with Olivia and Tom squished in side by side, their legs stuck straight out in front of them.