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 blase."
"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!"
She tottered off.
"Will you please tell Frannie that I don't appreciate her putting photos of my children on the Net," said Nick. That detached, pompous voice was back.
"Tell her yourself!" said Alice. Nick adored Frannie. The old Nick would have been off to accost Frannie for a spirited debate. At family functions they argued about politics and played cards together.
Nick sighed heavily. He massaged his cheeks as if he had a toothache, pushing the flesh up around his eyes, causing them to crease oddly, so that his face looked like a gargoyle.
"Don't do that," said Alice, pulling on his arm.
"What?" said Nick. "Jesus, what?"
"Oh my goodness," said Alice. "How did our relationship get so prickly?"
"I should go," said Nick.
"What happened to George and Mildred?" said Alice.
Nick just looked at her blankly.
"The sandstone lions," Alice reminded him.
"I have no idea," said Nick.
Chapter 27
"Oh, Alice," said Alice to herself.
It was the morning after the Family Talent Night. The children had been safely delivered to school and she was sitting at the desk in the study, searching for things to hel
p jog her memory. She'd just stumbled upon the reason why Mrs. Bergen wasn't speaking to her.
She sat back in her chair, put her feet up on the desk, and leaned right back on the chair so she was staring up at the ceiling. "What were you thinking?"
It seemed that Alice was an active member of a residents' committee lobbying the local council to have their street rezoned to allow the building of five-story apartment blocks. Mrs. Bergen was heading up the committee of residents fighting the rezoning proposal.
She took her feet off the desk and pulled out the next piece of paper in the file, biting into a Twix bar to fortify herself. (She had stocked the pantry with essential chocolate. The children were delirious about this, even while they pretended this was nothing out of the ordinary.)
It was a clipping from the local paper with the headline KING STREET RESIDENTS CLASH, showing pictures of Mrs. Bergen and Alice. They had photographed Mrs. Bergen in her front garden, next to her rosebushes, wearing her gardening hat, holding a mug and looking sad and sweet.
"This proposal is an outrage. It will ruin the character and heritage of this beautiful street," said Mrs. Beryl Bergen, who has lived in her King Street home for the past forty years and raised five children there.
"Of course it will," said Alice out loud.
The photo of Alice showed her sitting in the very chair she was sitting in now, looking grim and officious and definitely forty.
She groaned out loud as she read her own words.
"It's inevitable," said Mrs. Alice Love, who moved into the area ten years ago. "Sydney needs high density housing close to public transport. When we purchased this home, we were told the rezoning would happen in the next five years. We took that into account as part of the property's investment potential. The council can't go back on its word and leave people out of pocket."
What? What was she talking about? They had no idea that rezoning was a possibility. They had talked about growing old in this house. They had not talked about selling it to a developer to knock it down and build some horrendous modern apartment block.
She read on, and somehow she wasn't surprised when she came to the final paragraph.
Alice Love has taken over as president of the Residents for Rezoning Committee following the tragic death of its founder, Gina Boyle.
Of course. Gina. Bloody Gina.
She stood up decisively and went into the kitchen, where a tray of freshly baked chocolate brownies was cooling.
"Have I ever made these for you?" she had asked the children the night before, showing them the photo in the recipe book. "I asked you once," said Olivia, "but you said they were full of sugar." "Well, yes, but so what?" Alice had asked, while Olivia giggled and Tom and Madison shot each other worried, grown-up glances.
She got a Tupperware container, filled it with chocolate brownies, and, without stopping to think about it, marched next door and rang the doorbell.
Mrs. Bergen's welcoming smile vanished when she saw Alice and she dropped the hand that was about to open the screen door by her side.
"Mrs. Bergen," said Alice. She pressed her hand to the screen door as if she were visiting her in jail. "I am so, so sorry. I've made a terrible mistake."
Elisabeth's Homework for Jeremy I was delivering a one-day seminar today called "Using Direct Mail to Beef Up Your Sales!" to the Retail Butchers Association.
No, I'm not kidding. Any businessperson or professional can use direct mail to their advantage. Even you could, Jeremy.
Feel like driving your car into the nearest telephone pole? Therapist Jeremy Hodges can steer you in a better direction. FREE bottle of antidepressants for the first 10 appointments.
Or something like that. I'm a bit off my game.
Anyway, the butchers were a friendly, interested lot. There was much industry banter going across the room, and some surprisingly astute questions. (I thought the butchers were going to be sort of simple, red-faced, and jolly, but I think that's an act they put on to sell more sausages.) The seminar was going well. It is impossible to feel suicidal when you're explaining how to inject personality into a letter about lamb cutlets.
Then I saw someone sitting in the audience with a very unbutcherlike appearance.
It was Alice. She looks different these days. Less makeup, I think. Her hair is messier. She's wearing the same clothes but in a different way, and she's pulled out old things I haven't seen in years. Today she was wearing a long skirt, a faded cream jersey pulled in at the waist with a big belt, and a glittery tasseled scarf that I recognized from Olivia's dress-up box. She looked lovely, Jeremy, and for once I didn't resent her for having the time and the money to always keep her body in such perfect shape and for not having to stick needles in her stomach every night. When I saw her, she smiled and waved and held a palm in front of her face meaning, pretend I'm not here.
For some reason, the sight of her made me feel strangely emotional. My voice quivered as I went to answer a question about postage costs from Bill of Ryde Fresh Meats.
She came up to me in the morning tea break and said breathlessly, "I feel nervous, like I'm talking to a celebrity!" I don't think she was being sarcastic. It was sort of nice.
She said, "Why didn't you come to Frannie's thing last night?"
And I really did nearly tell her the truth. It was dancing away on the tip of my tongue, ready to jump off. Except that it didn't answer her question, and, anyway, I knew she'd react exactly the wrong way.
Which isn't her fault. Anyone would.
But seeing her reaction would push me right over the abyss into crazy-land, and I'm only just managing to stay on this side of sanity.
I guess I could tell you, Jeremy, at our next appointment.
But no. I'm not saying it out loud. I'm just going to ... wait it out, I guess.
Pretend it's not happening and wait for the inevitable, and not let it touch me.
Frannie's Letter to Phil The Family Talent Night was a triumph, if I do say so myself.
Olivia did the most beautiful silly funny dance. I nearly burst with pride. And Barb and Roger performed one of their salsa dances, which wasn't unbearable. In point of fact, it was probably the most popular act of the night. All the ladies are desperately in love with Roger. There is no accounting for taste.
Alice and Nick even got up to dance, and for a moment there, I thought I might have seen a spark of something between them. However, at the end of the night I saw Nick stomping out to the car park, obviously in a terrible mood. They take their lives so seriously, these young people. "Just appreciate the fact that you can stomp so energetically," I wanted to say to him. I'd pay a million dollars to be Alice and Elisabeth's age again for just one day. I'd dance like Olivia's butterfly and bite into crisp green apples and run across hot sand into the surf, and I'd walk, as far as I wanted, wherever I wanted, in big loping, leaping strides, with my head held high and my lungs filling with air.
And I'd probably have sex!
Wasn't sex nice, Phil?
It was extremely nice.
For some reason I've been thinking about it lately, and the nights we spent in your cramped little flat in Neutral Bay with the lights winking on the harbor.
I'd pay two million for just one more night with you in that flat.
Not that I have two million. Or even a million. I'd have to take out a loan.
My apologies, Phil. I'm in a peculiarly flippant mood. Goodness, I'm going to have to make sure I don't leave this letter lying around for anyone to read. (Actually I might have to destroy it. What if I should drop dead in the middle of the night? What if Barb should find it and show it to the girls. Or far worse, Roger?)
Elisabeth didn't turn up at the Family Talent Night. I've been trying to call her, but without success.
Mr. M. (I can't seem to call him Xavier) spent a long time talking with Madison. He said, "She's a very complex, intelligent little girl with a lot on her mind," and I was filled with affection for him. (I wonder what's on Madison's mind?)
I do believe I might have found a new friend, which is a fine and wonderful thing at my age.
He's asked me out to dinner at the local Chinese restaurant.
I automatically went to decline, and then I thought, For heaven's sake, Frannie, why not?
"Look, Tom, police car!" cried Alice, as a police car with its siren flashing blue streaked by. "Nee nar, nee nar!"
She turned her head, ready to see an excited little face in the backseat, then realized she was alone in the car, and that Tom was too old to be excited by police cars anyway, and also, she actually didn't remember him as a baby.
These involuntary flashes of memory, or whatever they were, were happening almost every few minutes now. It was like a weird nervous tic. Just then, at the morning tea break at Elisabeth's seminar, she'd seen one of the butchers taking two chocolate biscuits at once and she only just managed to stop herself from grabbing his hairy wrist and saying, "One is plenty!"
She constantly found herself heading purposefully somewhere, into the study, the kitchen, or the laundry, and then realizing she didn't know why she was heading there. Once, she was all the way across the road, walking up the driveway of Gina's old house, when she stopped and said out loud, "Oh." She picked up the phone and dialed numbers, before quickly dropping the phone with no idea who she was calling. One time, while waiting outside the school for the children, she caught herself rocking her handbag, patting it, and humming a song she didn't recognize. "Yummy, yummy, yummy in your tummy, tummy!" she'd said at dinner the other night, zooming a spoonful of food toward Olivia's mouth. "I think you might be going a bit crazy, darling Mummy," Oliva had said, with wide eyes.
Her memory was coming back any moment now. She could feel it creeping up on her, like the fuzzy head and ticklish throat that heralded a cold. She just couldn't decide if she should resist it or encourage it.
Now she was on her way from Elisabeth's seminar to "help in the library" at the school. This was something she apparently did every third Thursday, which seemed excessively generous of her.