"Oh God," said Alice in agony. It was bad enough when you caught a glimpse of a harried middle-aged couple rushing out to their car to drive away before you went stomping through their house, making disparaging remarks about their choice of carpet. It broke Alice's heart when she saw the things they did to try to make their house sell--the fresh flowers, the kitchen counters with wet streaks from where they'd been vigorously wiped, the coffee plunger and cups placed just so on the living room table to make it look homey. Nick would snort cynically when people lit scented candles in the bathroom as if that's the way they always lived, but Alice was always touched by their hopefulness. "Don't go to all that effort to try and impress me," she wanted to tell them. And now here was this ancient, trembly old lady. Where would she go on this freezing day while they looked at her house? Had she scrubbed the floors on arthritic knees for their appointment, when they probably wouldn't even buy it?
"Hi!" called out Nick, while Alice shrank behind him, saying, "Shhh!" He pulled her out from behind him, and because she didn't want to have a full-on wrestling match in public, she had no choice but to walk along beside him toward the old lady.
"We're meeting the real estate agent here in a few moments," explained Nick.
The old lady didn't smile. "Your appointment isn't until three."
"Oh, no," said Alice. There was something a bit familiar about the time three o'clock and she and Nick were always getting things like that wrong. ("God help you if you two ever have children," Nick's mother had said to them once.)
"Sorry about that," said Nick. "We'll go for a drive around the neighborhood. It looks beautiful."
"You may as well come in now," said the old lady. "I can do a better job of showing it to you than that smarmy weasel."
Without waiting for an answer, she turned around and started shuffling up the path toward the house.
Nick whispered in Alice's ear, "She's going to put us in cages and fatten us up before she eats us."
"Leave a trail of crumbs," whispered back Alice.
Shaking with repressed laughter, they obediently followed her.
There were two stately sandstone lions at the top of the veranda stairs, guarding the house. Their eyes seemed to follow Nick and Alice as they walked by.
"Raaaah!" whispered Nick to Alice, lifting his hand like a claw, and Alice said, "Shhhh."
Inside, the house was better and worse than they'd expected. There were soaring ceilings, ornate cornices and ceiling roses, original marble fireplaces; Nick quietly kicked back a corner of fraying old carpet to show Alice wide mahogany floorboards. At the same time there was a nose-tickling smell of damp and neglect, gaping holes in plaster, ancient moldy bathrooms, and a kitchen with 1950s linoleum and a stove that looked like it came from a museum.
The old lady sat them down in front of a single bar heater and brought them cups of tea and a plate of Scotch Finger biscuits, waving away Alice's desperate offers to help. It was excruciating to watch her walk. She finally sat down with a dusty black old photo album.
"This is what the house looked like fifty years ago," she said.
The photos were small and black-and-white, but you could still see that the house was once beautiful and proud, not the shrunken skeleton it had become.
The old lady pointed a yellowed fingernail at a photo of a young girl standing with her arms outspread in the front garden. "That was me on the day we moved in."
"You were so pretty," said Alice.
"Yes," said the old lady. "I didn't know it, of course. Just like you don't know how pretty you are."
"No she doesn't," agreed Nick solemnly, who was eating his third stale Scotch Finger as if he hadn't eaten for a month.
"I should be leaving this house to my children and grandchildren," said the old lady. "But my daughter died when she was thirty, and my son doesn't talk to me anymore, and so I'm putting it on the market. I want two hundred thousand for it."
Nick choked on his biscuit. The ad had listed it at over $300,000.
"The real estate agent will tell you I want a lot more, but I'm telling you if you offer that much, I'll accept. I know I can probably get more than that from an investor who will do it up quick-sticks and sell it on, but I was hoping a young couple might buy it and take their time restoring it and bring back the happy memories. We had a lot of happy memories here. Even though you probably can't feel them, they're here."
She spat out the words "happy memories" with slight disgust.
"It could be beautiful," continued the old lady as if she were reprimanding them. "It should be beautiful. Just a bit of a spit and polish."
Later in the car, they sat and looked at the house silently.
"Just a bit of a spit and polish," said Alice.
Nick laughed. "Yeah, gallons of spit and truckloads of polish."
"So what do you think?" asked Alice. "Should we forget it? We should just forget it, shouldn't we?"
"You go first. What do you think?"
"No, I want you to go first."
"Ladies first."
"Okay, fine," said Alice. She took a breath and looked at the house, imagining fresh paint, a mowed lawn, a toddler running around in circles. It was madness, of course. It would take them years to fix it all up. They didn't have the money. They were both working full-time. They didn't even own a car! They had agreed they would not buy a house that needed anything but superficial renovations.
She said, "I want it."
Nick said, "I want it, too."
Alice was in seventh heaven. Everywhere she looked there was something new and wonderful to see. The big square sandstone pavers leading up to the veranda (Nick's idea); the glossy white wooden window frames with glimpses of cream-colored curtains; the pink bougainvillea climbing frothily up the trellis at the side of the veranda (she could swear she'd only just thought of that idea the other day--"We'll have our breakfast there and pretend we're on a Greek island," she'd told Nick); even the front door, for heaven's sake--at some point they must have finally got around to stripping it back and painting it.
"We had a list," she said to Elisabeth. "Do you remember our list? It was three foolscap pages of things we needed to do to the house. There were ninety-three things on that list. It was called "The Impossible Dream." The last thing on that list was "white stone driveway." She bent down and picked up a smooth white stone and showed it to Elisabeth in the palm of her hand. Had they crossed everything off on that list? It was nothing short of a miracle. They'd achieved the Impossible Dream.
Elisabeth smiled tiredly. "You made a beautiful home--and wait till you see inside. I assume you've got your keys in your backpack there."
Without needing to think, Alice bent down and pulled out a fat jangle of keys from a zippered pocket at the side of the backpack. The key ring was a tiny hourglass; she knew where it would be, but she had never seen it before.
She and Elisabeth walked up onto the veranda. It was beautifully cool after the heat. Alice saw a set of cane chairs with blue cushions (she loved that shade of blue) and a half-empty glass of juice sitting on a round table with a mosaic top. Automatically, she went over and picked up the glass, hefting her backpack over her one shoulder; she kicked against something with her foot and saw it was a black-and-white soccer ball. It rolled away and hit the wheel of a child's scooter lying on its side, with shiny ribbons tied around the handles.
"Oh," she said in sudden panic. "The children. Are the children in there?"
"They're with Nick's mother. It's his weekend for the kids. Nick is back from Portugal tomorrow morning. So he'll drop them back to you Sunday night, as usual."
"As usual," repeated Alice faintly.
"Apparently that's your usual procedure," said Elisabeth apologetically.
"Right," said Alice.
Elisabeth took the glass of orange juice from Alice's unresisting fingers. "Shall we go inside? You probably need to lie down for a while. You still look so pale."
Alice looked around her. Something wa
s missing.
"Where are George and Mildred?" she said.
"I don't know who George and Mildred are," said Elisabeth in a gentle, dealing-with-crazy-person-here voice.
"That's what we called the sandstone lions." Alice gestured at the empty spot on the veranda. "The old lady left them for us. We love them."
"Oh. Yes, I think I remember them. I expect you got rid of them. Not quite the look for you, Alice."
Alice didn't understand what she meant. She and Nick would never have got rid of the lions. "Just off to the shops, George and Mildred," they'd say as they left the house. "You're in charge."
Nick would know. She would ask him. She turned around and lifted the keys to the door. The locks were new to her. There was a solid-looking gold dead bolt, but her fingers instantly found the right key, holding down the door handle and pushing with her shoulder against the door in a practiced, smooth movement. It was extraordinary the way her body knew how to do things--the mobile phone, the makeup, the lock--without her mind remembering her ever having done them before. She was about to comment on this to Elisabeth, but then she saw the hallway and she couldn't speak.
"Okay, listen to me, because I am a visionary," Nick had said standing in the musty, dark hallway in the first shell-shocked week after they'd moved into the house. (His mother had cried when she saw the house.) "Imagine sunlight flooding through this hallway because of the skylights we'll put here, here, and here. Imagine all this wallpaper gone and the walls painted something like a pale green. Imagine this carpet gone somewhere far, far away and the floorboards varnished and shiny in the sunlight. Imagine a hall table with flowers and letters on a silver tray, you know, as if they've been left there by the butler, and an umbrella stand and a hat stand. Imagine photos of our adorable children lined along the hallway--not those horrible portrait shots--but real photos of them at the beach or whatever or just picking their noses."
Alice had tried to imagine but she was suffering from a bad cold and one nostril was stinging so badly it was making her eyes water and they had two hundred and eleven dollars in the bank and twenty minutes ago they'd just discovered the house needed a new hot water system. All she could say was "We must have been out of our minds," and Nick's face had changed and he'd said, desperately, "Please don't, Alice."
And now here was the hallway exactly as he'd described it: the sunlight, the hall table, the floorboards shining liquid gold. There was even a funny old antique hat stand in the corner covered with straw hats and baseball caps and a few draped beach towels.
Alice walked slowly down the hallway, not stopping, only touching things with a vague caressing fingertip. She looked at the framed photos: a fat baby crawling on hands and knees in the grass, gazing huge-eyed up at the camera; a fair-haired toddler laughing uncontrollably next to a little girl in a Spider-Man suit with her hands on her hips; a skinny brown boy in baggy wet board shorts, caught ecstatically midair, bright-blue sky behind him, arms and legs flailing in every direction, droplets of water on the camera lens as he crashed down into unseen water. Every photo was another memory Alice didn't have.
The hallway led out to what had been the tiny living room where the old lady had given them tea and biscuits. Their plan had been to knock down three walls in this back area--it was Alice's idea; she'd drawn it up on the back of a Domino's Pizza napkin--so that it would create a huge open space where you could be cooking in the kitchen and see right out to the jacaranda tree in the back corner of the yard. "You're not the only visionary around here," she'd told Nick. And now here it was, almost exactly as she'd drawn it, but even better. She could see long, sleek marble countertops in the kitchen, a huge stainless-steel refrigerator, and complicated appliances.
Elisabeth walked into the kitchen--as if it were just an ordinary kitchen!--and poured the glass of orange juice down the sink.
Alice dropped her bag on the floor. There was no way this "divorce" talk could be serious. How could they be anything but blissfully happy living in this house?
"I can't believe it," she said to Elisabeth. "Oh look! I knew white shutters would be perfect on that back window. Nick wanted timber. Although, I see he won on the tiles. No, but I have to admit he was right. Oh, and we found a solution to the weird corner! Yes! Perfect! Oh, I don't know about those curtains."
"Alice," said Elisabeth. "Have you actually got any of your memory back?"
"Oh my God! Is that a pool out there? A swimming pool? An in-ground swimming pool? Are we rich, Libby? Is that what happened? Did we win the lottery?"
"What did you tell them at the hospital?"
"Would you look at the size of that television? It's like a movie screen."
She knew she was babbling, but she couldn't seem to stop.
"Alice," said Elisabeth.
Alice's legs felt wobbly. She went and sat down on the brown leather couch (expensive!) in front of the television. Something dug into her leg. She pulled out a tiny plastic toy, a figure of a murderous-looking man carrying a machine gun under one arm. She placed it carefully on the coffee table.
Elisabeth came and sat next to her. She handed her a sheet of folded paper. "Do you know who this is from?"
It was a handmade card with glitter stuck to the front and a drawing of a stick-figure woman with a turned-down mouth and a Band-Aid on her forehead. She opened it and read out loud, "Dear darling Mummy, get well soon, love from Olivia."
"It's from Olivia of course," said Alice, fingering the glitter.
"And do you remember Olivia?"
"Sort of."
She had no memory whatsoever of "Olivia," but her existence seemed indisputable.
"And what did you tell them at the hospital?"
Alice pressed her hand to the still tender spot at the back of her head. She said, "I told them that some things were a bit hazy, but I remembered most things. They gave me a referral for a neurologist and said if I kept having any significant problems to make an appointment. They said I should expect to feel totally back to normal within a week. Anyway, I think I actually do remember bits and pieces."
"Bits and pieces?"
The doorbell rang.
"Oh!" said Alice. "That's beautiful! I hated that old doorbell!"
Elisabeth lifted her eyebrows. "I'll get it." She paused. "Unless you want to get it."
Alice stared at her. Why shouldn't Elisabeth answer the door? "No, that's fine."
Elisabeth disappeared down the hallway and Alice laid her head back against the couch and closed her eyes. She tried to imagine what it would be like when Nick dropped the children off on the following night. Her natural instinct would be to throw her arms around him like she did when he'd been away. (She had a distinct feeling that she hadn't seen him in ages, as though he'd been away for weeks and weeks.) But what if he just stood there, without touching her back? Or what if he gently pushed her away? Or shoved her away? He would never do that. Why was she even thinking such a thing?
And "the children" would all be there. Milling about. Doing whatever kids do.
Alice whispered their names to herself.
Madison .
Tom.
Olivia.
Olivia was a pretty name.
Would she tell them? "Sorry, I know your face, I just can't quite place you." But she couldn't do that. It would be terrifying for a child to hear their mother didn't remember them. She'd have to pretend until her memory did come back, which it would, of course. Soon.
She'd have to try and talk to them in a natural voice. Not one of those jolly, fake voices people put on for children. Kids were smart. They'd see right through her. Oh heavens--what would she say to them? This felt worse than trying to think up appropriate conversation topics before going to one of Nick's scary work parties.
She heard voices coming down the hallway.
Elisabeth came in, followed by a man pushing a trolley piled with three cardboard boxes.
"Apparently they're glasses," said Elisabeth. "For tonight."
"Wher
e do you want 'em?" grunted the man.
"Um," said Alice. For tonight?
"I guess just here in the kitchen," said Elisabeth. The man lifted the boxes onto the counter.
"Sign here," he said. Elisabeth signed. He ripped off a sheet of paper, handed it to her, and looked around him briefly. "Nice house," he said.
"Thank you!" Alice beamed.
There was a shout from down the hallway. "Alcohol delivery!"
"Alice," said Elisabeth. "I don't suppose you remember anything about hosting a party tonight?"
Chapter 13
Together, they flipped to the date in Alice's diary.
"Kindergarten Cocktail Party," read out Alice. "Seven p.m. What does that mean?"
"I'd say it means that it's all the parents from Olivia's class," said Elisabeth.
"And I'm hosting it?" said Alice. "Why would I host it?"
"I believe you host a lot of these sorts of things."
"You believe? Don't you know? Don't you come to all these 'things'?"
"Well, no. This is to do with the school," said Elisabeth. "It's all mothers. I'm not a mother."
Alice looked up from the diary and said, "You're not?"
Elisabeth seemed to flinch. "No, I'm not. I haven't had any luck in that regard. So, anyway"--she seemed desperate to get off of the subject--"what are you going to do about this party?"
But Alice didn't care about the party. There was no way she was going to host any "kindergarten cocktail party." She said, "So will you tell me what happened? Please? Did you try again to get pregnant after you had that miscarriage?"
Elisabeth's eyes slid away.
Frannie's Letter to Phil So, the village minibus was pulling out of the driveway, and all of a sudden there was a commotion. It was Mr. Mustache, do you mind, running alongside the bus, rapping his knuckles on the window, shouting, "Wait for me!"
I thought there must have been some crisis, but no, he was just running late. He leapt aboard, all breathless and excited, as if we were off somewhere far more thrilling than the local shopping center. He announced to the entire bus that he'd been held up on the phone "placing a bet on the doggies." I think that means greyhound racing, Phil. Charming.
There were plenty of spare seats, but for some reason, he chose to plonk himself down next to me. It was uncomfortable. He's not a large man, but he did seem to take up a lot of room. I found I was pressing myself against the side of the bus, so our thighs didn't touch. Also, he was close enough that I could smell some sort of aftershave or cologne. I'm not saying it was unpleasant. It just seemed overly personal.