I said, "Alice!" and nearly swerved the car as I turned my head to look at her.
She said, "I'm sorry I didn't ask earlier, I think I was just in shock. I would have rung Mum to ask her but I wasn't sure whether she still had the same phone, and then I thought, What if Roger answers the phone?"
I said I thought she had her memory back, and she said, "Well, not exactly."
I started insisting that we go straight back to the hospital and asking did she lie to the doctor to get herself discharged, and she stuck her chin out (she looked just like Madison). She said if I took her back to the hospital, she would just say that she didn't know what I was talking about because her memory was perfect and then the hospital would have to decide which one was crazy and she bet they'd choose me and next thing they'd have me in a straitjacket.
I said I didn't think they used straitjackets anymore. (Do they, Dr. Hodges? Have you got an emergency one in your drawer, ready to whip out at a moment's notice?)
Alice folded her arms across her chest and writhed about as if she was in a straitjacket, saying, "Let me out! My sister is the nutter! I'm the sensible one!"
I was flabbergasted. She was being so ... silly. So old Alice.
Next thing we were giggling like schoolkids. We laughed and laughed and I kept driving her toward her house because I didn't know what else to do. It was so strange, laughing like that with Alice. It was like tasting something delicious I hadn't eaten for years. I'd forgotten that drunken, euphoric feeling of being rocked with laughter. We both cry proper tears when we laugh hard enough. It's a family trait we inherited from our dad. How funny. I'd forgotten that too.
Eventually they stopped laughing and became quiet.
Alice wondered if Elisabeth would return to the subject of going back to the hospital, but she didn't say anything. Instead she wiped under each eye with a fingertip, sniffed, and reached over to turn on the car stereo. Alice steeled herself; Elisabeth enjoyed the sort of loud, angry, heavy metal music that normally appealed to teenage boys in hotted-up cars and made Alice's head ache. Instead, slow chords and a mellow female voice filled the car, as if they were in a smoky jazz bar. Elisabeth's taste in music had changed. Alice relaxed and looked out the window. The streets of Sydney looked pretty much as she remembered them. Had that coffee shop always been there? That block of units looked new, although it was entirely possible they'd been there for twenty years and she'd just never noticed them before.
There was an incredible lot of traffic, but all the cars looked the same. When she was little, she had assumed that by the year 2000 they'd be living in a space-age future complete with flying cars.
She glanced at Elisabeth's profile. She still had a leftover smile from their laughing fit.
Alice said, "Last night I dreamed again about that woman with the American accent, and this time I remembered you being there. Are you sure it doesn't mean anything to you?"
The leftover smile vanished from Elisabeth's face, and her cheeks, which had been puffed out and pink from laughing, seemed to collapse inward; Alice regretted saying anything.
Finally, Elisabeth said, "It was six years ago."
Elisabeth's Homework for Dr. Hodges So I told her all about it, as if it was a story. Actually, all of a sudden I was desperate to tell her before she remembered for herself. Before she could write it off as a tiny, sad incident that had happened a long time ago.
This is what happened, Dr. Hodges. FYI.
Alice and I were both pregnant at the same time. Her baby was due exactly one week after mine.
Alice's third pregnancy was another accident of course, something complicated and typically Alice (typically old Alice; not the new and improved pedicured, manicured, peeled, waxed, and tinted Alice) to do with swapping brands of the pill.
My pregnancy was not an accident. The very idea of an "accidental pregnancy" seems so flippant and free. It makes me think of summer holidays, kissing for hours, smooth young skin, and ... I don't know, pina bloody coladas. It feels like something that would always have been impossible for me, not just because of my stupid body, but because I don't have the right personality. I'm not whimsical enough. I don't get caught up in the moment. I want to say to people, "Why didn't you just use CONTRACEPTION?" Alice told me once that if she'd just stretched her fingertips a bit further she would have found the condom in her bedside drawer and Madison would never have been conceived. I found that immensely irritating because how hard is it to stretch your fingertips, ALICE?
Ben and I tried to get pregnant naturally for two years. We tried all the stuff people try. The temperature-taking, the charts, the acupuncture, the Chinese herbs, the holidays where we pretended not to think about it, the kits where you check your saliva under a microscope for the pretty fern pattern that meant you were ovulating.
The sex was still nice. It was before I became a dried apricot, you see, Dr. Hodges, and I was thin and fit. Although sometimes I would notice that Ben had the same grimly determined expression on his face as when he was trying to fix something tricky on his car with a wrench.
I was upset that we couldn't get pregnant, but I was still pretty upbeat, because I was an upbeat sort of person. I read a lot of self-help books back then. I even went along to weekend seminars and found the power within and hollered and hugged strangers. Oh yes, I was a believer. If someone gave me lemons, I made lemonade. I had inspirational quotes stuck on the noticeboards in front of my desk. This was my mountain and I was going to climb it. (I was a nerd.)
So we started IVF.
And we got pregnant on our very first cycle. That hardly ever happened! Well, we were ecstatic. We were giddy with happiness. Every time we looked at each other we laughed we were so happy. It was the proof of positive thinking! It was the miracle of modern science! We loved science. Good old science. We loved our doctor. We even loved those daily injections--they'd been no problem at all, didn't even hurt, weren't that scary! The medication hadn't really made me that moody and bloated. Actually, the whole process had just been interesting and fun!
I despise our old selves and at the same time I feel indulgently fond of them, because we didn't know any better (and, what, do I think everyone should lead their lives pessimistically, expecting the worst so they don't end up looking silly?). I can hardly bear to think of ourselves hugging and crying and making giggly phone calls, like we were in some inane sitcom. We actually discussed names. Names! I want to shout back through the years at myself, "Just because you're pregnant doesn't mean you get a baby, you idiots!"
There is a photo somewhere of Alice and me standing back-toback with our hands pressed meaningfully to our stomachs. We look pretty. I'm not doing my stupid teeth-gritting fake smile and Alice hasn't got her eyes closed. We were thrilled when we found out our due dates were only days apart. "They could be born on the same day!" we said, pop-eyed by the coincidence. "They'll be like twins!" we cried. We were going to take photos of ourselves every month in the same position to record the progress of our bellies. It was so fucking sweet. (I'm sorry to swear, Dr. Hodges. I just wanted to sound cool and angry for a moment. A spoonful of paprika for me. That's what Mum used to give us when we swore as children, instead of washing our mouths out with soap and water, which she felt was unhygienic. I can never say "fuck" without tasting paprika. Ben laughs whenever I swear. I don't do it right. Neither does Alice. It's something to do with the paprika. I think we screw our faces up in preparation for the horrible taste.)
Alice came with me for my twelve-week ultrasound because Ben was away in Canberra at a car show. Madison was at preschool, but Tom was with us, sucking on a rusk in his stroller, sitting up very straight and alert and monitoring the world. I was completely besotted with Tom's laugh when he was a baby. I used to do this thing where I would keep my face completely straight and then, without warning, puff out my cheeks and shake my head from side to side like a dog. Tom thought it was hysterical. He'd watch me closely, his eyes dancing, and when I did my headshaking thing, he'd fall
straight back in his stroller and laugh with his whole body, slapping his knee in imitation of Nick's dad, because he thought that was a rule when you laughed. He had two tiny front teeth and the sound of his laugh was as delicious as chocolate.
Alice wheeled Tom into the room with us, parked the stroller in the corner, and I took off my skirt and lay down on the chair. I wasn't taking all that much notice of the wispy-haired woman with the American accent who was rubbing cold jelly on my tummy and typing things into her computer, because I was making eye contact with Tom, ready to make him laugh again. Tom was looking straight back at me, his solid little body quivering all over with anticipation, and Alice was chatting to the wispy-haired woman about how they'd both rather the weather was cold than muggy, although not too cold of course.
The woman tapped away at the keyboard as she rubbed the plastic probe back and forth. I glanced briefly at the screen and saw my typed name in the right-hand corner over the top of the lunar landscape that apparently had something to do with my body. I was waiting for the woman to start pointing out the baby, but she was silent, tapping at her keyboard and frowning. Alice stared up at the television screen and chewed her nail. I looked back at Tom, widened my eyes, lifted my chin, and shook my head about.
Tom fell back in his stroller in an ecstasy of mirth, and the woman said, over the top of his laughter, "I'm sorry, but there is no heartbeat." She had a soft Southern accent, like Andie Mac-Dowell.
I didn't understand what she meant, because Ben and I had already heard the heartbeat when we went for our first visit to the obstetrician; it was a strange, eerie sound like the beat of a horse's hooves underwater and it didn't seem quite real, but it seemed to please Ben and my doctor, who both grinned proudly at me as if they were responsible for it. I thought the wispy-haired woman must mean that there was a problem with her machinery; something had broken down. I was about to say politely, "That's no problem," but then I looked over at Alice, and she must have understood right away because she'd curled her hand into a fist and pressed it against her mouth and when she turned around to look at me her eyes were red and watery. The woman touched me on the arm with her fingertips and said, "I'm so sorry," and it was slowly dawning on me that maybe something quite bad had happened. I looked back at Tom gnawing on his rusk and grinning, thinking, "She's going to do that crazy thing again soon!" and I smiled involuntarily back at him, and said, "What do you mean?"
Afterward, I felt guilty because I hadn't been concentrating on my own baby. I shouldn't have been playing with Tom when my poor little baby was trying to have a heartbeat. I felt that it must somehow have known I wasn't concentrating. I should have had my eyes fixed on that screen. I should have been helping it along, thinking: Beat. Beat. Beat.
I know this is irrational, Dr. Hodges. I'm never going to give you the professional satisfaction of hearing that story so you can point out it's irrational and pat yourself on the back for a good day's work at the office.
I know it's irrational, and I know there is nothing I could have done.
But I also know that a good mother would have been concentrating on her baby's heartbeat.
I never pulled that silly face for Tom again. I wonder if some part of his baby mind missed it. Poor little Tom. Poor little lost astronaut.
"Remember?" asked Elisabeth. "The woman with the wispy hair? Tom had rusk smeared all over his face. It was a really hot, humid day and you were wearing khaki pants and a white T-shirt. On the way home you had to stop and get petrol and when you came back to the car, both Tom and I were crying. You'd bought a Twix in the service station and you handed out pieces, and a man behind you waiting for the pump tooted his horn at us, and you put your head out the window and shouted at him. I was proud of you for shouting."
Alice tried to remember. She wanted to remember this. It seemed a betrayal of Elisabeth to have forgotten. She strained her mind with all her might, like a weight lifter, heaving to lift something huge that had lodged itself in her memory.
Scenes came into her head of a baby laughing in a stroller, Elisabeth crying in the car, a man angrily tooting his horn; but she couldn't tell if they were real memories or just her imagination painting pictures as Elisabeth talked. They didn't feel like real memories; they were insubstantial and shadowy, without context.
"You remember now?" said Elisabeth.
"Maybe a bit." She didn't want to disappoint her; she looked so hopeful.
"Well. Good. I guess."
Alice said, "I'm sorry."
"What for? It's not your fault. You didn't throw yourself headfirst at the floor at the gym."
"No, I mean, I'm sorry about your baby."
Chapter 12
Alice groped for the right thing to say next. The obvious thing to ask was, "Did you try to get pregnant again?" but that would be like saying, "So! Moving right along!"
She glanced over at Elisabeth. She had put on sunglasses, so Alice couldn't see her eyes, and was steering with one hand while she used the other hand to rub compulsively at something on the side of her face.
Alice looked away and saw that they were only a block away from the house. She and Nick had gone for so many walks around this area in the twilight, stopping to look at other people's houses to steal renovation ideas for their own. Was that really ten years ago? It didn't seem possible. The memory was so clear and ordinary it could have happened yesterday. Nick always said hello first to other neighborhood walkers. "Beautiful evening!" he would call out with a cheery lack of cool, and then he'd stop and chat, as if these people were old friends, while Alice stood there, smiling tightly, thinking, "Why are we bothering with these strangers?" But she was so proud of Nick's uninhibited sociability, the way he could walk straight into a party full of people they didn't know and stick his hand out to a stranger and say, "I'm Nick. This is my wife, Alice." It was as though he had an amazing skill, like playing a complicated musical instrument, that Alice could never hope to master. The best part was that she could coast along safely beside him at any social event, so that parties became glittery and giggly instead of excruciating torture, so much so that she wondered if she'd ever really been that shy in the first place. Even when he wasn't right by her side, she always knew that if the person talking to her drifted off, she wouldn't be stranded in the crowd; she could go and find Nick with a purposeful expression on her face, and he'd put an arm around her shoulder and draw her smoothly into the conversation.
Did she have to go to parties on her own again now?
She remembered that raw sensation she'd felt after previous relationships had ended. For months afterward, it had felt like she'd lost a layer of skin. If she'd felt like that after those meaningless boys, what would she feel like after breaking with Nick? She'd been so cozy in the cocoon of their relationship. She assumed she got to stay there forever.
Alice looked up from her lap, where she'd been fiddling with her bracelet, and saw they were turning into Rawson Street. As she watched the long line of leafy liquid ambers and the car ahead putting on its right-hand indicator to turn into King Street, she felt a sudden sense of horror. Her heart palpitated as if she'd woken up in the middle of a nightmare; something grabbed her throat and squeezed; pure fear rammed her hard against her seat.
She went to reach out for Elisabeth, to touch her arm to let her know that she might be dying, but she couldn't move. Elisabeth braked and looked left and right to turn onto King Street. Alice was having a heart attack right next to her and Elisabeth didn't even realize.
They turned the corner and Alice's heart began to slow. She could breathe again. She made a whooshing sound of relief as air filled her lungs once more.
Elisabeth glanced over at her. "You okay?"
Alice spoke, her voice high. "I felt really, really strange for a moment there."
"Dizzy? Because I can take you straight back to the hospital right now if you like. It's no problem."
"No, no, it's gone now. It was just--nothing, really."
The fear had vanis
hed, leaving her weak and shaky as though she'd just stepped off an amusement park ride. What did these huge tidal waves of feeling mean? First there had been that unimaginable grief. Now it was terror.
As they drove down Alice and Nick's street, she saw a For Sale sign on the house directly opposite theirs. "Oh, are the Pritchetts selling?" she asked.
Elisabeth glanced at the sign and a strange, inscrutable expression crossed her face. "Um. I think they sold years ago. The family who bought it from them is selling it now. So, anyway--" She turned into Alice and Nick's driveway and pulled on the handbrake. "Home sweet home."
Alice looked out the window at her house and pressed her hand to her mouth. She threw open the car door and jumped out, the smooth white gravel driveway crunching beneath her shoes. White gravel! "Oh," she said ecstatically. "Look what we did!"
They first saw the house on a gloomy July day.
"Oh dear," they both said simultaneously when they pulled up in front of it, and then as they sat there in Nick's sister's car, gazing at it for a few seconds, they both made rising "ummm?" sounds, which meant, "But maybe it's got something?"
It was a ramshackle two-story Federation house with a sagging roof, blankets hanging in the windows instead of curtains, and an overgrown junkyard lawn. It looked sad and battered, but if you squinted your eyes, you could see the stately home it had once been.
The For Sale sign out front said POTENTIAL PLUS, and everyone knew what that meant.
"Too much work," said Nick.
"Far too much," agreed Alice, and they gave each other sidelong suspicious looks.
They got out of the car and stood shivering on the street, waiting for the real estate agent to arrive. The front door of the house creaked open and a bent old lady wearing a man's jumper over a checked skirt, long socks, and sneakers came shuffling up the footpath toward the letterbox.