What Alice Forgot

Chapter 18

G ina was dead?

“Oh,” said Alice.

She paused. “I didn’t kill her, did I? In a fit of jealous rage? Although I guess I’d be in jail? But maybe I got away with it!”

Elisabeth laughed in a scandalized way. “No, you didn’t kill her.” She frowned. “Are you saying you remember Nick having an affair with Gina?”

“Not exactly,” admitted Alice. It had seemed so clear. She brightened. That’s why everyone had seemed sympathetic when Gina’s name came up—because she was dead! There had been no affair at all! Now she was filled with relief and guilty love for Nick. Of course you didn’t, darling, I never really suspected you, not for a second.

And if there had been no affair, maybe Gina had been quite nice. So it was sort of terrible that she was dead.

Elisabeth took the mugs of milk out of the microwave and carried them over to the coffee table, switching on a lamp. The helium balloons that Dominick had blown up were still hovering silently. Two half-empty glasses of champagne sat on the windowsill, along with a pile of gnawed sticks from the chicken kebabs.

Alice sat cross-legged on the leather couch, stretching her nightie over her knees.

“How did Gina die?” she asked.

“It was an accident.” Elisabeth put her finger in her milk and stirred it around, avoiding Alice’s eyes. “A car accident, I guess. About a year ago.”

“Was I upset?”

“She was your best friend. I think you were devastated.” Elisabeth took a big mouthful of her milk and put the mug down quickly. “Ow! Too hot.”

Devastated. Such a big, sweeping word. Alice took a sip of her milk and burned her own tongue. It was so peculiar to think of being “devastated” by this strange woman’s death, yet apparently perfectly accepting of her divorce. She had no experience with devastation. Nothing that terrible had ever happened to her. Her dad had died when she was six, but she mostly just remembered a feeling of confusion. Her mother had told her once that Alice had worn an old jumper of her dad’s for weeks and weeks after he died and refused to take it off, kicking and screaming when Frannie finally pulled it off over her head. Alice didn’t remember that at all. Instead she remembered how at the afternoon tea after the funeral she’d got told off by one of her mum’s tennis friends for sticking her fingers in the cheesecake, and how Elisabeth had been doing it, too, even more than she was, but she didn’t get into trouble . Instead of remembering grief and devastation, she remembered the terrible injustice of the cheesecake.

There had been that night before her wedding when she had found herself crying in bed over the fact that her dad wasn’t alive to walk her down the aisle. She had been perplexed by the sudden tears and thought that maybe she was just nervous about the next day. She worried that they were fake tears because she thought she should feel that way, when in fact she couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to have a father. And at the same time she’d felt pleased, because maybe it meant part of her did remember her dad and did still miss him, and then she’d cried harder, remembering how whenever he was shaving in the bathroom, he’d squeeze a whole lot of delicious, creamy foam into her outstretched hands so she could smear it all over her face and wasn’t that cute and touching and she really hoped the hairdresser got her fringe right the next day because when she messed it up, she looked like a wombat—and there you had it, she was a horribly superficial person, actually more worried about her hair than her dead father. She had finally fallen asleep in a lather of emotion, which she didn’t know whether to attribute to her father or her hair.

Now, apparently, she had experienced real grown-up grief, for a woman called Gina.

“You were there,” said Elisabeth quietly.

“Pardon? I was where?”

“You saw Gina’s accident. You were driving along behind her. It must have been terrible for you. I can’t even imagine—”

“On the corner of Rawson and King streets?” interrupted Alice.

“Yes. Do you remember?”

“Not really. I think I just remember the feeling of it. It’s happened twice now that I’ve got all panicky, nightmarish feelings when I see that corner.”

Would those feelings stop now that she knew what they meant?

She didn’t know if she wanted to remember seeing someone killed in front of her.

They drank their milk in silence for a few seconds. Alice reached up for one of the dangling strings of the balloons and pulled upon it. She watched it bob about and remembered again those pink bouquets of balloons floating angrily about in a stormy sky.

“Pink balloons,” she said to Elisabeth. “I remember pink balloons and this terrible feeling of grief. Is that something to do with Gina?”

“That was at her funeral,” said Elisabeth. “You and Michael—that’s her husband—organized for balloons to be released at the graveyard. It was very beautiful. Very sad.”

Alice tried to imagine herself talking about balloons with a bereaved man called Michael.

Michael. That was the name on that business card in her wallet. Michael Boyle—the physiotherapist from Melbourne—must be Gina’s husband. That’s why he’d written about “happier times” on the back of his business card. It was all very simple.

“Did Gina die before Nick and I separated?” asked Alice.

“Yes. I think about six months before. You’ve had a pretty hard year.”

“Sounds like it.”

“I’m sorry,” said Elisabeth.

“Don’t be.” Alice looked up guiltily, worried she’d look like she was filled with self-pity. “I don’t even remember Gina. Or the divorce.”

“Well, you’re going to have to see that neurologist,” said Elisabeth, but she spoke without conviction, as if she couldn’t be bothered pushing the point.

They sat in silence for a while, except for the intermittent gurgling sounds of the fish tank.

“Am I meant to be feeding those fish?” asked Alice.

“I don’t know,” said Elisabeth. “Actually, I think they’re Tom’s responsibility. I think nobody else is allowed to have anything to do with them.”

Tom. The fair-haired little boy with the snuffly voice on the phone. She felt terrified at the thought of meeting him. He was in charge of fish. He had responsibilities and opinions. All three children would have opinions. They’d have opinions on Alice. They might not even like her that much. Maybe she was too strict. Or maybe she embarrassed them. Wore the wrong clothes when she picked them up from school. Maybe they preferred Nick. Maybe they blamed her for driving Nick away.

She said, “What are they like?”

“The fish?”

“No, the children.”

“Oh—well, they’re great.”

“But tell me about them properly. Describe their personalities.”

Elisabeth opened her mouth and shut it again. “I feel stupid telling you about your children. You know them so much better than me.”

“But I don’t even remember giving birth to them.”

“I know. It’s just so hard to believe. You look exactly like yourself. I feel like any second you’ll get your memory back and then you’ll be saying, oh please, don’t tell me about my children.”

“For heaven’s sakes,” said Alice.

“Okay, okay.” Elisabeth held up her hands. “I’ll have a go. So, Madison, well, Madison is—” She stopped and said, “Mum would do a much better job of this than me. She sees the children all the time. You should ask her.”

“But what do you mean? You know my children, don’t you? I thought, well, I thought you’d know them better than anyone. You bought me my very first present for the baby. Tiny socks.”

Elisabeth had been the first person Alice had called after she and Nick had laid out all those positive pregnancy tests on the coffee table. She’d been so excited. She’d turned up with champagne (“For Nick and me, not you!”), a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting , and the socks.

Elisabeth said, “Did I? I don’t remember that.” She put down her mug and picked up a framed photo from the table next to her. “I used to see the children all the time when they were little. I adored them. I still do adore them, of course. It’s just that you’re all so busy. The children have so many activities. They’ve all got swimming lessons. Olivia has ballet. Tom plays soccer and Madison plays hockey. And the birthday parties! They’re always going to someone’s birthday party. Their social lives are amazing. I remember when they were little, I always knew exactly the right thing to get them for their birthdays. They’d rip off the paper in a frenzy. Now I have to ring you, and you tell me exactly where to go and what to ask for. Or else you just buy it yourself and I give you the money. And then you make the children send me a thank-you card. Dear Auntie Libby. Thank you so much for my blah blah .”

“A thank-you card,” repeated Alice.

“Yes. I know, I know, it’s teaching them good manners and everything, but I sort of hate those thank-you cards. I always imagine the kids groaning and having to be forced into writing them. It makes me feel like an elderly aunt.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“No! I can’t believe I complained about thank-you cards. I’ve become a bitter old hag. Have you noticed?”

“It sounds more like I’ve become—” Alice didn’t know how to describe the person it seemed she’d become. Insufferable?

“Anyway,” said Elisabeth dismissively. “Your children. Well, Madison is just Madison.” She smiled fondly.

Madison is just Madison. There was a whole world of memories in that sentence. If that world were lost to Alice forever, it would be unbearable.

“Mum always says, ‘Where did we get her from?’” said Elisabeth.

“Okay,” said Alice. This really wasn’t helping much.

“Well, ever since she was a baby, she’s always been so intense. She feels everything very deeply. On Christmas Eve she’d become almost feverish with excitement, but then she couldn’t stand it when Christmas was over. You’d find her sobbing in a corner because she had to wait a whole year for Christmas to come again. What else? She’s accident prone. She ran through those French doors last year and had to have forty-two stitches. It was very traumatic. A lot of blood. Apparently, Tom called an ambulance and Olivia fainted. I didn’t know it was possible for a five-year-old to faint. But Olivia has a blood phobia. Well, she did. I don’t know if she’s still got it. Actually, didn’t she get all excited about becoming a nurse for a while there? When Mum bought her that nurse’s uniform?”

Alice just looked at her.

“I’m sorry,” said Elisabeth, flustered. “I can’t imagine how weird this must feel—and I keep forgetting.”

Alice said, “Tell me more about the Sultana. I mean, Madison.”

“Madison likes to cook,” said Elisabeth. “Well, I assume she still does. I believe she’s been a bit moody lately. She used to make her own recipes. They were good, too. Except the kitchen always looked like a bomb had exploded and she wasn’t so good at the cleaning up part. Also she was a bit of a prima donna about her cooking. If the recipe didn’t turn out exactly the way she wanted, she’d cry. I once saw her throw this triple-layer chocolate cake she’d spent hours decorating in the bin. You went ballistic. ”

“I did?” Alice tried to readjust yet again to this new picture of herself. She never got angry. She was more of a sulker.

“Well, apparently you’d gone on some special shopping trip to find exactly the right ingredients for this cake, so I don’t really blame you.”

“Madison sounds like one of the Flakes,” said Alice. It had never occurred to her before that Nick’s sisters’ genes could infiltrate her child. She had always assumed that if she had a daughter, it would be a miniature version of herself, a fresh new Alice she could improve upon, maybe with Nick’s eyes thrown in for interest.

“No, she’s not like the Flakes,” said Elisabeth definitely. “She’s just Madison.”

Alice pressed her palms to her stomach and thought about how fiercely she and Nick had loved the Sultana. It had been such clean, simple, almost narcissistic love. Now the Sultana ran through glass doors and threw cakes in the bin and made Alice “ballistic.” It was all so much more complex and chaotic than she’d ever imagined.

“And Tom? What’s he like?”

“He’s smart,” said Elisabeth. “And surprisingly witty at times. He’s a suspicious kid. You can’t put anything over him. He goes and checks it up on the Internet. He gets obsessed with things and learns everything there is to know about them. It was dinosaurs for a while. And then roller coasters. I don’t know what he’s into at the moment. He does really well at school. He gets awards, and he’s class captain. That sort of thing.”

“That’s good,” said Alice.

“It was probably a relief after Madison.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh. Well, it’s just that Madison has always had problems at school. ‘Behavioral problems’ you call them.”

“Right.”

“But I think you’ve got it all under control. I haven’t heard of any dramas for a while.”

Dramas. Alice had a life with “dramas.”

“And then there’s Olivia,” said Elisabeth. “She’s just one of those children everyone adores. When we took her out when she was a baby, people used to stop you in the street to compliment you. Even serious middle-aged businessmen rushing along to meetings would smile when they saw Olivia sitting in the stroller. It was like being with a celebrity, heads turning everywhere. And she’s still so cute. We keep waiting for her to turn into a monster, but she doesn’t. She’s very loving—maybe too loving. I remember her squatting down in the kitchen saying, ‘Hello, little fella,’ and we all looked down and saw she was trying to pat a cockroach. Mum nearly dropped dead on the spot.”

Elisabeth stopped talking and yawned enormously.

“You’d probably describe them differently,” she said, and her tone was defensive. “You’re their mother.”

Alice was thinking about the first time she’d set eyes on Nick. She was wearing a striped apron, sitting on a high stool at a long counter, ready to learn Thai cooking. Her friend Sophie was meant to be there but she’d twisted her ankle and missed the first class. Nick came in late with a girl who Alice assumed was his girlfriend but later turned out to be the flakiest of his sisters, Ella. When they walked in, they were both laughing, and Alice, who was newly, sadly single, was immensely irritated. Typical. Here comes another happy, laughing, loving couple. Alice remembered how her eyes had met Nick’s as he looked about the class for free spots (while Ella gazed reverently and weirdly at the ceiling, entranced for some reason by the ceiling fan). Nick had raised his bushy eyebrows questioningly and Alice had smiled politely, thinking yes, yes, fine, come and sit here, lovebirds, and let’s make boring conversation.

There had been another free spot at the front of the class. If her eyes hadn’t met his, if she’d looked down at the fish cakes recipe in front of her, or if Sophie had walked two centimeters to the left and therefore missed twisting her ankle in that pothole, or if they had decided to do the wine tasting course instead, which they very nearly did, then those three children would never have been born. Madison Love. Thomas Love. Olivia Love. Three little individuals who already had their own personalities and quirks and stories.

The moment Nick raised his hairy eyebrows in her direction, they all got their stamps of approval. Yes, yes, yes, you will exist.

Alice was filled with elation. It was amazing. Of course, a billion babies were born every second or something, so it wasn’t that amazing, but still. Why weren’t they just overcome with joy every time they looked at those kids? Why in the world were they divorcing?

She said, “So, Nick and I are fighting over custody of the children?” Such a grown-up, alien concept.

“Nick wants them with him half the time. We don’t know how Nick thinks he can do it, when he works such long hours. You’ve always been their ‘primary caregiver,’ as they say. But it’s all got—well, it’s all turned so nasty. I guess it’s just the nature of divorce.”

“But does Nick think—” Alice was overwhelmed with hurt. “Does he think I’m not a good mother?” And was she a good mother?

Elisabeth lifted her chin and her eyes flashed like the old Elisabeth. “Well, if he thinks that, he’s wrong, and we’ll have a million witnesses ready to stand up in court and say otherwise. You’re a great mother. Don’t worry. He’s not going to win. He hasn’t got a chance. I don’t know what he’s trying to prove. It’s just a power game for him, I think.”

It was confusing because although it gave Alice pleasure to see Elisabeth angry on her behalf, at the same time she felt automatic loyalty for Nick. Elisabeth had always adored Nick. If Alice and Nick ever had an argument, Elisabeth took Nick’s side. He was a “catch,” she said.

Elisabeth was getting herself worked up. “I mean, it’s just so stupid . He doesn’t know the first thing about looking after them. He doesn’t cook. I doubt he’s ever used the washing machine. He’s always traveling, anyway. He’s just so—”

Alice held up her hand to make her stop. She said, “I expect it’s just that he can’t stand the idea of being a part-time dad like his own father. He used to hate it when Roger came to take him and his sisters out. He said Roger always tried too hard, you can just imagine, and it was awkward and strange, and the girls squabbled and took advantage of his credit card. Whenever we go out to a restaurant and Nick sees a man alone with his children, he always says, ‘Divorced dad,’ and shudders. I mean—that’s what he did. Ten years ago.”

She tried to get control of her voice. “He wanted to be there every night for his children, and hear about what they did at school, and make breakfast with them on the weekend. He talked about that a lot. It was like he was going to make up for his own childhood, and I loved it when he talked like that because it was making up for our childhood, too, and not having our dad around. He had such lovely, romantic ideas about how we’d be a family. Well, we both did. I can’t believe—I can’t believe —”

She couldn’t talk anymore. Elisabeth came over and sat on the couch beside her. She hugged her awkwardly. “Maybe,” she said tentatively. “Maybe this memory loss is sort of a good thing because it will help you see things more objectively without your mind being cluttered with everything that’s happened over the last ten years. And once you get your memory back, you’ll still have a different perspective and you and Nick will be able to work things out without all the fighting.”

“What if it never comes back?”

“Oh, of course it will come back. You’re already remembering bits and pieces,” said Elisabeth.

“Maybe my old self has been sent from the past to stop the divorce,” said Alice only half flippantly. “Maybe I won’t get my memory back until I’ve done that.”

“Possibly!” said Elisabeth too brightly. Then she paused and said, “Dominick seemed nice. Really nice.”

Alice thought of how she’d let Dominick kiss her on this very couch and felt suffused with guilt. She said, “He is perfectly nice. He’s just not Nick.”

“No. He’s very different from Nick.”

Now, what exactly did that mean? Should she be offended on Nick’s behalf? Anyway, she wasn’t going to have a conversation comparing their pros and cons, as if they were competing boyfriends. Nick was her husband. She changed the subject instead. She said, “Well, speaking of men, I liked Ben.”

“It’s funny to hear you talk about him as if you’ve only just met him.”

“What did Ben mean when he said he’d been thinking about our discussion the other day?” Alice knew there was something controversial about this topic; it was time to get to the bottom of whatever this thing was between her and Elisabeth.

“Ummm.” Elisabeth yawned and stretched. “Do you want a glass of water?”

“No thanks.”

“I’m really thirsty.” She stood up and went into the kitchen. Alice watched her go and wondered if she was pretending not to have heard her.

She came back with the glass of water and sat back down on the single couch in front of Alice.

“It’s late,” she said.

“Libby.”

Elisabeth sighed. “On Thursday—the day before your accident—Ben came over to help you with some problem you were having with your car. Except apparently there wasn’t really a problem at all. It was a little setup.”

Good grief. What had she done? Alice sat up straight. She could feel her face flushing. Surely she hadn’t made a move on her sister’s husband? (For one thing, the man was freakishly large.) Had breaking up with Nick sent her over the edge?

“You gave him banana muffins straight out of the oven. He loves your banana muffins.”

Oh my Lord.

“With lots of butter. I never let him have butter. He’s got high cholesterol, you know. I mean, you’re the health-conscious one.”

She’d seduced her brother-in-law with butter . Alice’s heart pounded.

“And then you gave him your little speech.”

“Little speech?” said Alice faintly.

“Yes, your little speech about why we should stop IVF and adopt. You had brochures. Application forms. Website addresses. You’d done all this research.”

Alice couldn’t get her head around it for a few seconds. Her mind had been filled with horrific images of herself going upstairs to “freshen up” and appearing in red lingerie.

“Adoption,” she repeated confusedly.

“Yes. You think we should pop over to a Third World country like Angelina and Brad and help ourselves to a cute orphan.”

“That was very presumptuous of me,” said Alice sternly, weak with relief that she hadn’t tried to seduce Ben. “Meddlesome. Nosey!”

Then again, she thought, wasn’t adoption actually a pretty good idea?

“Well,” said Elisabeth. “I was angry. When Ben came home and told me, I rang you and we got into a big argument about it. You think it’s time we ‘faced reality.’”

“Did I really say that?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I guess you meant well. It’s just that you made me feel as if you thought I was stupid. As if you would never have let things get so far. As if you would never be so messy as to keep having miscarriage after miscarriage. As if, I don’t know, as if I’ve been overly emotional about the whole thing.”

“I’m sorry,” said Alice again. “I’m really sorry.”

“You don’t even remember it,” said Elisabeth. “Once you remember it, you’ll feel differently. Anyway, I said some pretty nasty things to you.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not saying them again! I didn’t even mean them. This lets me off the hook.”

They were silent for a few seconds. Alice said, “Are Angelina and Brad friends of yours?”

Elisabeth snorted. “Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. You’ve forgotten all your celebrity gossip, too.”

“I thought Brad Pitt was engaged to Gwyneth Paltrow.”

“Ancient history. He’s married and divorced Jennifer Aniston since then, and Gwyneth has had a baby called Apple. I’m not kidding. Apple.”

“Oh.” Alice felt unaccountably sad for Brad and Gwyneth. “They seemed happy in the photos.”

“Everyone looks happy in photos.”

“What about Bill and Hillary Clinton?” asked Alice. “Did they stay together?”

“You mean after the Lewinsky thing?” said Elisabeth. “Yes, they did. I don’t think anyone even thinks about that much anymore.”

Alice looked at Elisabeth. “So,” she said with wild abandon, “I take it you don’t want to adopt a baby?”

Elisabeth smiled a sick sort of a smile. “I would have considered it years ago, but Ben couldn’t stand the idea. He’s always been ideologically opposed to adoption because he’s adopted himself, and his mother is—difficult. He didn’t have a great childhood. My charming mother-in-law told him that his real mother couldn’t afford to keep him, so Ben saved up his money. He thought once he had a hundred dollars, he could write to his real mum to tell her he could be self-supporting now, so could she please take him back. On his birthday he always ran to the letterbox, thinking that maybe this year, out of the blue, his real mum might decide to send him a card.

“He thought his baby photos were ugly—he was a funny-looking baby— and he wondered if maybe his real mother hadn’t liked the look of him when he was born. He always felt that his parents wished they had chosen a smaller, smarter son. He’d spent his whole childhood keeping his room tidy, not saying much, feeling like a big clumsy visitor in his own home. It breaks my heart to think of it. When you were saying earlier that Nick wanted to be a good father to make up for his own father leaving, well, Ben was similar. He wanted his own biological child. He wanted to have someone who looked like him, who had the same eyes or whatever. And I was so looking forward to giving him that. I so badly wanted to give him that.”

“Of course you did.”

“So I was always very respectful of Ben’s views on adoption.”

“Yes. I can imagine.”

Elisabeth gave a wry half-smile.

“What?”

“On Thursday you told Ben that he needed to get over it.”

“Get over what?”

“Get over his problem with adoption. You said that plenty of people didn’t get on with their biological parents and that it was a lottery, but that any kid who got Ben and me as parents would hit the jackpot. Thank you, by the way. That was a nice thing to say.”

“That’s okay.” At least she’d said one thing right. “But Ben must not have appreciated me saying that.”

“Well, that’s the thing. Yesterday when I came home from lunch he said he’d been thinking about what you said, and he thinks you’re right. We should adopt. He’s all excited. He’d done all this research on the Internet. Apparently all I needed to say to him five years ago was ‘Get over it.’ Silly old me. All that unnecessary tiptoeing around his traumatic childhood.”

Alice tried to imagine herself telling that big grizzly man to “get over it” while she fed him banana muffins. (Banana muffins. She wondered what recipe she used. Also, she must own a muffin tray.) She had never had opinions about how Elisabeth should run her life, although Elisabeth had plenty of opinions about how Alice should run hers. That was fine because she was the big sister. It was her job to be the sensible, bossy one who did her tax returns on time, got her car serviced regularly, and had a career, while Alice could be whimsical and hopeless and make fun of Elisabeth for her motivational posters of mountains and sunsets. Actually, now she thought about it, it had been Elisabeth who had bullied her into doing that Thai cooking course with Sophie, instead of wasting her life moping over that sneering IT consultant.

Now Alice was the one doing the bullying.

“So if Ben is considering adoption now, isn’t that maybe a good thing?” she said hopefully.

“No, it’s not.” Elisabeth’s voice became flinty. She sat up straight. Here we go, thought Alice. “It’s not at all. You don’t know what you’re talking about, Alice.”

“But—”

“It’s too late now. You don’t seem to realize how long adoption takes. What you have to go through. You don’t just order a kid online. We’re not Brad and Angelina. We’ve got to jump through hoops and pay thousands of dollars, which we don’t have. It takes years and years, and it’s stressful and things go wrong, and I don’t have the energy for it. I’ve had enough. We’d be nearly fifty by the time we got a child. I’m too tired to start dealing with bureaucrats and trying to convince them why I’d make a good mother and how much money we earn and blah, blah, blah. I don’t know why you’re suddenly taking this interest in my life, but you’re too late.”

“I’m suddenly taking an interest?” Alice was wounded, desperate to defend herself, except she had no facts at her disposal. She didn’t believe it. She would never have not been interested in Elisabeth’s life. “Are you saying I haven’t been interested before?”

Elisabeth breathed out noisily, deflating like a balloon, and sank back in her chair.

“Of course you have.”

“Well, why did you say it?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I’ve felt it. Look, I withdraw the comment.”

“We’re not in court.”

“I didn’t even mean it. Anyway, you could probably say the same thing about me. I don’t see the children as much as I did. I should have done more for you after Gina, and after Nick. But you’re always so . . . I don’t know. Busy. Self-sufficient.” She yawned. “Just forget it.”

Alice looked down at her strange wrinkled hands. “What’s gone wrong between us?” she asked quietly.

There was no answer. Alice looked up and saw that Elisabeth had closed her eyes and put her head back against the couch. She looked exhausted and sad.

Finally she spoke without opening her eyes. “We really should go to bed.”