What Alice Forgot (44 page)

“Of course not,” sighed Frannie. “But I think it might be one of our residents running the race.” She pointed to the white-haired man she’d been arguing with earlier who was wearing the shiny polka-dot waistcoat. He was racing along in a wheelchair, spinning the wheels with his hands, yelling, “You can’t catch me!”

Frannie’s lips twitched. “He’s eighty-five going on five.” She paused. “Actually, I might just take some photos for the newsletter.” She hurried off. Nick, Alice, and Ella were left together.

“Well, that was quite a performance.” Ella was carrying Billy, who had his thumb in his mouth, his head draped over her shoulder. She squinted over his head at Nick and Alice as if they were scientific specimens. “That was the last thing I expected to see.”

“Just wanted to show Dad up,” said Nick. He picked up a scone and put the whole thing in his mouth.

“Are you hungry?” asked Alice. She scanned the tables. “Do you want a sandwich? They’ve got curried egg.” Nick liked curried egg sandwiches.

He cleared his throat uncomfortably and glanced at Ella. “No, that’s okay, thanks.”

Ella was now openly staring.

“So how come you’re the only one of the sisters here tonight, Ella?” asked Alice. Normally the Flakes traveled in a pack.

“Well, to be frank, Alice,” said Ella, “they sort of refuse to be in the same room as you.”

Alice flinched. “Goodness.” She wasn’t used to provoking such violent reactions in people, although, then again, she didn’t mind the idea of having such power over the Flakes. It was sort of delicious.

“Ella,” remonstrated Nick.

“I’m just saying it like it is,” said Ella. “I’m trying to stay neutral. Of course, it would help if you gave back Granny Love’s ring, Alice.”

“Oh! That reminds me.” Alice unzipped her handbag, pulled out a jewelry box. “I brought it to give to you tonight. Here it is.”

Nick took the ring slowly. “Thank you.” He held the jewelry case in his palm as if he didn’t know what to do with it and finally stuffed it into the pocket of his suit jacket.

“Well, if it’s that easy,” said Ella, “maybe I should bring up another few issues, like, I don’t know, the financial situation.”

“Ella, this is really none of your business,” said Nick.

“And why are you being such a
cow
over the custody?”

“Ella, this is not acceptable,” said Nick.

“Moo,” said Alice.

Ella and Nick stared.

Alice recited, “Who says ‘moo’? A
cow
says ‘moo’!” She smiled. “Sorry. It just came into my head when you said ‘cow.’ ”

Billy lifted his head from Ella’s shoulder, removed his thumb from his mouth, and said, “Moo!” He grinned appreciatively at Alice before replacing his thumb and putting his head back down on Ella’s shoulder again. Ella and Nick seemed lost for words.

“I guess it must come from a book we used to read the children,” said Alice.

It had been happening a lot. Strange words and phrases and lines from songs kept appearing in her head. It seemed that those ten years’ worth of memories had been stuffed in a too-small cupboard at the back of her mind, and every now and then a fragment of nonsense would escape.

Any second now that cupboard door was going to burst open and her head was going to overflow with memories of grief and joy and who knew what else. She didn’t know if she was looking forward to that moment or not.

“I dropped something the other day,” said Alice, “and I said, ‘Oh my dosh.’ And it just sounded so familiar. Oh my dosh.”

“Olivia used to say it when she was little,” said Nick. He smiled. “We all said it for a while. Oh my dosh. I’d forgotten that. Oh my dosh.”

“Am I missing something here?” said Ella.

“Maybe it’s time you got Billy home to bed,” said Nick.

“Right,” said Ella. “Fine. I’ll see you on Sunday.” She kissed Nick on the cheek.

“Sunday?”

“Mother’s Day? Lunch with Mum? She said you were coming.”

“Oh, right. Yes, of course.”

How did Nick handle his social life without Alice? That was
her
job, telling Nick what he was meant to be doing on the weekend. He must be missing things all over the place.

“Bye, Alice,” said Ella, without making a move to kiss her. The only person in 2008 who didn’t seem intent on plastering her with kisses. She paused. “Thanks for giving back the ring. It means a lot to our family.”

In other words,
You are not our family any longer
.

“No problem,” said Alice.
You’re perfectly welcome to that horrendous ring.

When Ella had gone, Nick looked at Alice and said, “Still haven’t got your memory back, then?”

“Not quite. Any minute now.”

“How are you coping with the children?”

“Fine,” said Alice. No need to mention her daily failures with lost permission notes, unwashed school uniforms, and forgotten homework, or how she didn’t know what to do when they fought with each other over the computer or the PlayStation. “They’re lovely. We made lovely children.”

“I know we did,” said Nick, and his face seemed to collapse. “I know we did.” He paused, as if not sure whether he should speak, and then said, “That’s why the thought of only seeing them on weekends kills me.”

“Oh, that,” said Alice. “Well, if we don’t get back together, then of course we should do the fifty-fifty thing. One week for you. One week for me. Why not?”

“You don’t mean that,” said Nick.

“Of course I do,” said Alice. “I’ll sign something!”

“Fine,” said Nick. “I’ll get my lawyer to draft something. I’ll have it couriered over to you tomorrow.”

“No problem.”

“Once you get your memory back, you’re going to change your mind,” said Nick. He laughed harshly. “And you’re not going to want to get back together, I’d put money on that.”

“Twenty bucks,” said Alice, holding out her hand.

Nick shook her hand. “Done.”

She still loved the feel of his hand holding hers. Wouldn’t her body tell her if she hated him?

“I found out it was Gina’s husband who kissed the woman in the laundry,” said Alice. “Not you.”

“Oh yes, the infamous laundry incident.” Nick smiled at an old lady with a walking stick in one hand attempting to hand around a sagging plate of sandwiches. “Oh, all right, you twisted my arm!” He took a sandwich. Alice noted it was curried egg.

“What did you mean when you said you found it interesting that I thought that was you?” asked Alice, taking a sandwich herself to save it from sliding onto the floor.

“Because I was always saying to you, ‘I’m not Mike Boyle,’” said Nick. Even with his mouth full of sandwich, she could hear the leftover anger in his voice. “You identified so strongly with Gina, it was as if it was happening to you. I said to you, ‘But it wasn’t me.’ You got so caught up in that ‘all men are bastards’ thing.”

“I’m sorry,” said Alice. Her sandwich was ham and mustard, and the taste of mustard was reminding her of something. This constant feeling of fleeting memories was like having a mosquito buzzing in your ear when you’re asleep, and you know that when you turn out the light, it will have vanished, until you lie back down, close your eyes, and then . . .
bzzzzzzz
.

Nick wiped his serviette across his mouth. “You don’t need to be sorry. It’s all water under the bridge now.” He paused and his eyes went blank, looking back on a shared past that Alice couldn’t see.

He said, “I often think the four of us were too close. We got all tangled up in Mike and Gina’s marriage problems. We caught their divorce. Like a virus.”

“Well, let’s just get better from it,” said Alice. How dare this stupid Mike and Gina come into their lives, spreading their germy marriage problems?

Nick smiled and shook his head. “You sound so . . .” He couldn’t find the right word. Finally he said, “Young.”

After a pause, he continued: “Anyway, it wasn’t
just
Mike and Gina. That’s too simplistic. Maybe we were too young when we got together. Mmmm. Do you think fame might have gone to Olivia’s head?”

Alice followed his gaze to see Olivia back onstage. She had the microphone held close to her mouth and was doing a grandiose performance of some song they couldn’t hear because the sound was turned off. Tom was on his hands and knees next to her, following the microphone lead back to the power plug. Madison was sitting in the front row of the empty chairs in the audience, next to the white-haired wheelchair-race organizer. They were deep in conversation.

“Tell me a happy memory from the last ten years,” said Alice.

“Alice.”

“Come on. What’s the first thing that comes into your head?”

“Ummm. God. I don’t know. I suppose when the children were born. Is that too obvious an answer? Although not the actual births. I didn’t like the actual births.”

“Didn’t you?” said Alice, disappointed. She’d imagined herself and Nick sobbing and laughing and holding each other while a movie soundtrack played in the background. “Why not?”

“I guess I was in a crazy panic the whole time, and I couldn’t control anything, and I couldn’t help you. I kept doing the wrong thing.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.”

Nick glanced at Alice, then looked away again quickly.

“And all the blood, and you screaming your head off, and that incompetent obstetrician who didn’t turn up until it was all over with Madison, I was going to knock him out. If it wasn’t for that midwife—she was great, the one we said could have been Melanie Barker’s twin sister.”

He looked distractedly down at his hands. Alice wondered if he knew he was twisting the skin beneath the knuckle on his finger where his wedding ring should have been. It had become a habit of his, fiddling with his ring when he was thinking. Now he was still doing it, even though he wasn’t wearing the ring.

“And when they had to do the emergency cesarean with Olivia”—Nick shoved his hands in his pockets—“I genuinely thought I was having a heart attack.”

“How horrible for you,” said Alice. Although she guessed maybe it hadn’t been a barrel of laughs for her either.

Nick smiled and shook his head in wonder. “I remember, I didn’t want to distract them from you and the baby, you know, like some man in a movie who faints. I thought, I’ll just die discreetly in this corner. I thought you were going to die, too, and the children were going to be orphans. Have I ever told you that before? I must have.”

“I thought we were talking happy memories.” Alice was appalled. Without those memories, it felt like all that blood and screaming were still ahead of her, still to be endured.

“The happy part was when it was all over and quiet, and they left us alone, with the baby all wrapped up, and we could talk about which doctors and nurses we hated, and have a cup of tea, and just look at the baby for the first time. Count their tiny fingers. That new little person. That was—special.” He cleared his throat.

“What’s your saddest memory of the last ten years?” said Alice.

“Oh, I’ve got lots of contenders.” Nick smiled strangely. She couldn’t tell if it was a nasty smile or a sad one. “Take your pick. The day we told the children we were separating. The day I moved out. The night Madison rang me up, sobbing her heart out and begging me to come home.”

All around them people talked and laughed and drank their cups of tea. Alice could feel the warmth from the heaters beating down upon her head. She felt as though the top of her head were melting, softening like chocolate. She imagined Madison on the phone, crying for her dad to come home.

He should have put down the phone and come right home that second, and they should have watched a family video together, snuggled on the couch, eating fish-and-chips. It should have been
easy
to be happy. There were poor Elisabeth and Ben, desperately trying to have a family, while Nick and Alice had just let theirs fall apart.

She stepped closer to Nick.

“Don’t you think we should try again? For them? For the children? Actually, not just for them. For us. For the old us.”

“Excuse me!” It was another old lady, with a blue-gray perm and a wrinkled, happy face. “You’re Nick and Alice, aren’t you!” She leaned toward them confidentially. “I recognize you from Frannie’s Facebook page. She mentioned that you were separated now, and I just want you to know that I think you two belong together. I could tell it was true love by the way you danced just then!”

“Frannie has
photos
of us on the Internet?” said Nick.

The old lady turned to Alice. “Have you got your memory back yet, love? You know, a similar thing happened to a friend of mine in 1954. We could not convince her that the war was over. Of course, she ended up forgetting her own name, which I’m sure won’t happen to you.”

“No,” said Alice. “It’s Alice. Alice, Alice.”

“Tell me she doesn’t post photos of the children on the Internet,” said Nick.

“Oh, your children are just beautiful,” said the old lady.

“Great. An open invitation to murderers and pedophiles,” said Nick.

“I’m sure she doesn’t actually
invite
people to murder the children,” said Alice. “‘Murderers, check out our delicious little victims here!’ ”

“This is serious. Why do you always think bad things can’t happen to us? It’s just like that time you let Olivia go missing at the beach. You’re so blasé.”

“Am I?” said Alice, bemused. Had she really let Olivia go missing?

“We’re not immune from tragedy.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Alice, and Nick’s face gave an actual spasm of irritation, as if he’d just been bitten by a mosquito.

“What?” said Alice. “What did I say?”

“Is your sister here?” said the old lady to Alice. “I wanted to tell her that I think she should adopt a baby. There must be lots of lovely babies up for adoption after that cyclone in Burma. Of course, in my day a lot more babies were left on church doorsteps, but that doesn’t seem to happen so much anymore, which is a pity. Oh, there’s your mother!” The old lady spotted Barb, still in her outfit and makeup, holding a clipboard and surrounded by eager old ladies. “I’m going to sign up for salsa! You two have inspired me!”