"Back," said Alice.
"You've hurt your back?" said Dominick.
No, I meant it's all coming back. My memory is coming back.
It was as if a dam wall had burst in her brain, releasing a raging torrent of memories.
"Get her some water," said someone.
Alice had needed a new friend. When Madison was about one, Sophie had broken up with Jack (such a shock) and she found a new circle of single, glossy, stiletto-heeled friends who shrieked a lot and started their nights at nine p.m., catching taxis into elegant bars in the city. She and Alice grew apart.
And Elisabeth was distracted, sad, never really listening.
So Alice's friendship with Gina grew fast. It was like falling in love. And Nick and Mike got on, too! Camping trips. Impromptu dinners that went on late into the night, while the kids slept on sofas. It was wonderful.
Gina's twin girls, Eloise and Rose, were born a few months before Olivia. Big brown eyes and snub freckled noses and Gina's bouncing hair. They all played so well together.
One year, the two families hired houseboats together on the Hawkesbury River. They moored their boats next to each other. Rowed the dinghies across in the moonlight for BBQs on the top deck. Olivia and the twins painted Alice's and Gina's toenails different colors. Gina and Alice went for a swim after breakfast, floating on their backs, admiring their toenails, while Nick and Mike and the kids played Marco Polo. They all agreed, it was the best holiday they'd ever had.
Of course she'd told Gina she was pregnant with Olivia before she told Nick.
Nick was in the UK for two weeks. He only called twice.
Twice in two weeks.
He was too busy, he said. He was distracted.
But they won the account! He got the bonus! We can afford a swimming pool!
"There," she said to Nick.
"What did you say?"
She was trying to say, You were never there.
The year of the Goodman project Nick was never there. Never there. When he came home, he smelled of the office. Corporate sweat. Even when he was talking to her, he was still thinking about the office.
Olivia had three ear infections in three months.
Tom was throwing terrifying tantrums.
Overnight, Madison became so nervous about school she was vomiting every morning. That's not normal, Nick. We've got to do something about it. I can't sleep I'm so worried about it.
Nick said, It's just a stage. I can't talk about it now. I've got an early flight tomorrow morning.
Gina said, I've found a child psychologist who might be able to help. Should you talk to the school principal about it? What does her teacher say? Could I look after the kids for you while you have some special time with her? What a worry for you.
Gina was the sort who got involved with things at the school. Volunteered for everything. Alice became that sort of person, too. She liked it. She was good at it.
Mike and Gina were having problems. Gina told Alice every cruel remark, every thoughtless gesture. Mike told Nick he wasn't happy with his life. Alice and Nick had a Christmas party one hot December night. Mike got drunk and kissed that horrendous Jackie Holloway in the laundry. Gina went in to get champagne and found them.
Nick and Alice were in bed one night talking in the darkness.
Mike is my friend.
Are you saying you approve of him kissing another woman in our laundry?
Of course not, but there are two sides to every story. Let's just stay out of it.
There are not two sides! It's not excusable. He shouldn't have kissed her.
Well, maybe if Gina stopped trying to turn him into something he's not.
She is not! What do you mean? Because she's encouraging him to get a different job? But that's because he's not happy there!
Look. Is there any point in us playing out another version of their fights? You playing Gina and me playing Mike?
They turned away from each other, carefully not touching.
It was not "cherries." It was half a fruit platter. A beautifully presented fruit platter she'd spent the morning making to take to his mother's place. She was rushing around trying to get the children dressed and instead of helping, he was reading the paper and happily eating his way through the fruit platter, as if Alice were the hired help.
After Mike moved out, Gina wanted to lose weight. So Alice and Gina decided to get a personal trainer. They joined a gym. They started doing spin classes. The weight fell off them. They got fitter and fitter. Alice loved it. She dropped two dress sizes. She had no idea exercise could be so exhilarating.
Gina went on a date with a guy she'd met on the Internet. Alice minded the kids. Nick was working late.
When Gina came home, she was all glittery and flushed. Alice, lying on the couch in her tracksuit pants, felt envious. First dates. How wonderful to experience a first date again.
When Nick came home that night he said, You're getting too thin.
When Nick heard that his dad was dating Alice's mother, he laughed out loud.
She's not his type. He goes for eastern suburbs women with fake boobs and big divorce settlements. Women who read all the right books and see all the right plays.
Are you saying my mother isn't cultured enough for your father?
I hate the sort of woman my father normally dates!
So your dad's slumming it, then? With my poor simple Hills District mother?
It is impossible to talk to you. It's like you want me to say the wrong thing. Fine. Dad is slumming it. Is that what you want me to say? Satisfied?
Elisabeth had disappeared. Her sister turned into this bitter, angry person, with a hard, sarcastic laugh. Nothing as bad had ever happened to anyone else as was happening to Elisabeth. Alice couldn't say the right thing to her. Once she asked if she'd had another embryo implanted and Elisabeth's lip curled contemptuously. The embryo is "transferred," she sneered, it's not implanted. If only it were that easy. How the hell was Alice meant to know all the right terminology? If she invited her to one of the kids' birthday parties, Elisabeth sighed, in a way that meant it would be excruciating for her, but she would still come, and she'd look like a martyr the whole time. Didn't offer to help, just stood there with her lips folded together. Don't do me any favors, Alice wanted to say. After the fourth miscarriage, she tried to talk to Elisabeth. She offered to donate her eggs. Your eggs are too old, Elisabeth had said. You really don't know what you're talking about.
When Roger proposed to Alice's mother, Nick was angry.
Well that's just fabulous. Wonderful. How is that going to make my mother feel?
As if it were somehow Alice's fault. As if her mother had somehow trapped Roger into marrying her.
They stopped having sex. It just stopped. They didn't even talk about it.
"Let's get her outside into the fresh air."
She was dimly aware that she was being half carried, half dragged out of the marquee. People were staring, but she couldn't focus on anything but the memories rushing through her brain.
When she felt her first labor pain with Madison, she thought to herself, They must be joking. They can't expect me to put up with this. But it seemed they did. Seven hours later, when the baby was born, neither she nor Nick could believe it was a girl. They'd both been so ridiculously convinced it was a boy. It's a girl, they kept saying to each other. The surprise made them euphoric. She was extraordinary. As if a baby girl had never been born before.
Tom was in the posterior position. She kept screaming at that midwife with the soft, worn face--it's my back, the pain is in my back. And the whole time she was promising herself, I will never, ever go through this again.
Olivia was the worst. Your baby is in distress. We need to do an emergency cesarean, they told her, and suddenly the room filled with people, and she was being wheeled down a long corridor, watching the ceiling lights flash rhythmically by, and wondering what she'd done to distress her poor baby before it was even born. When she wo
ke up from the anesthetic, a nurse said, You have the most beautiful baby girl.
Madison got her first tooth when she was eight months old. She kept touching it with her finger and frowning.
Tom refused point blank to ever sit in the high chair. Never ever sat in it.
Olivia didn't walk until she was eighteen months old.
Madison's little red hooded jacket with the white flowers.
Tom's filthy blue elephant that had to come everywhere with him. Where's Elephant? Have you seen his damned elephant?
Olivia ran into the schoolyard on her first day of school shrieking with joy. Madison had to be dragged out of Alice's arms.
Alice walked into the kitchen one day and found Tom carefully stuffing his nose with frozen peas. I wanted to see if the peas would come out of my eyeballs, he told the doctor.
They lost Olivia at Newport Beach. The panic made Alice hyperventilate. You were meant to be watching her, Nick kept saying. As if that were the point. That Alice had made a mistake. Not that Olivia was missing, but that it was Alice's fault.
"Alice? Take big deep breaths."
She ignored their voices. She was busy remembering.
It was a really cold August day. She and Gina were driving in separate cars home from the gym. Normally, they would have driven together, but Alice had taken Madison to the dentist beforehand. The dentist said there was nothing wrong with Madison's teeth. He didn't know what was causing that ache in her jaw. He'd sent Madison to the waiting room and asked Alice quietly, Could it be stress?
Alice had looked at her watch impatiently, desperate to get to the gym. She didn't want to miss the beginning of the spin class. She'd already missed a class yesterday because Olivia had some school presentation. Stress? What did Madison have to be stressed about? She was just impossible. She probably just wanted to get out of school.
As they were driving home Madison was whining about having to stay in the gym day-care while Alice and Gina did their class.
I am too old for the creche. It is just stupid crying babies.
Well, you should have gone to school today instead of making up stories about toothaches.
I didn't make it up.
It was a black stormy day. Lightning cracked across the sky. It started to rain. Heavy drops splattering on the windscreen like pebbles.
Mum. I didn't make it up.
Be quiet. I'm trying to concentrate on the road.
Alice hated driving in the rain.
The wind was howling. The trees were swaying about as if they were performing some sort of ghostly dance.
They pulled into Rawson Street. Alice saw Gina's brake lights turn red.
Gina was driving her wildly impractical fortieth-birthday present to herself. A little red Mini with white stripes along the side and personalized number plates. Not a family car. It makes me feel young and crazy, said Gina. She drove it with the sunroof open and Elvis on full blast.
Alice watched the Mini in the rain and knew that Gina would be singing along lustily to Elvis.
That tree looks like it's going to fall right over, said Madison.
Alice looked up.
It was the liquid amber on the corner. Beautiful in the autumn. It was rocking back and forth, making a horrible creaking sound.
It won't fall.
It fell.
It was so fast and violent and unexpected. Like a dear friend suddenly punching you in the face. Like some cruel god had done it on purpose. To be nasty. Picked up the tree and slammed it across the Mini in a fit of temper. The sound was tremendous. An explosion of terrifying sound. Alice's foot jammed on the brake. Her arm flew sideways protectively across Madison's chest, as if to save her from the tree. Madison screamed--Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!
And then silence, except for the sound of the rain. The beeps for the oneo'clock news came on the radio.
There was a massive tree trunk lying on the road in front of them. Gina's little red Mini looked like a squashed tin can.
A woman came running out from her house. She stopped when she saw the tree, her hands pressed to her mouth.
Alice pulled over to the side of the road. She put the hazard lights on. Stay here, she said to Madison. She opened the car door and ran. She was still wearing her shorts and T-shirt from the gym. She slipped and fell, hard on one knee, stood up and kept running, her arms flailed uselessly at the air, trying to pull back time to just two minutes ago.
"Get her a blanket. She's shivering."
Nick didn't come to the funeral. He didn't come to the funeral.
He didn't come to the funeral.
The school principal was at the funeral. Mr. Gordon. Dominick. He said, I'm so sorry, Alice. I know you were such close friends. And he hugged her. She cried into his shirt. He stood close by her while they released pink balloons into the gray sky.
She didn't know how to live her life without Gina. She was part of her daily routine. Gym. Coffee. Taking the kids to swimming lessons. Personal training. Minding each other's kids. Movie nights. Laughing at stupid things. Sure she knew lots and lots of other mums at the school, but not like Gina. She was her one true friend now that Nick was too busy with work.
All the joy had gone.
Everything seemed pointless. Each morning in the shower she cried, her forehead against the bathroom tiles, the shampoo sliding into her eyes.
She fought with Nick. Sometimes she deliberately picked fights because it was a good distraction from the grief. She had to stop herself from hitting him. She wanted to scratch and bite and hurt him.
Nick said one day, I think I should move out. She said, I think you should, too. And she thought, As soon as he goes, I'll phone Gina. Gina will help me.
The nastiness seemed to begin so quickly and easily, as if they'd always hated each other, and here at last was their opportunity to stop pretending and let each other know how they really felt. Nick wanted the children to be with him fifty percent of the time. It was a joke. How could he possibly take care of them on his own with the hours he worked? It would be so disruptive for them. He didn't even really want them. He just wanted to reduce the amount of maintenance he would have to pay. Luckily, she remembered that her old work friend Jane had become a family lawyer. Jane was going to take him on.
Four months after Nick moved out, Dominick asked her out on a date. They went for a bushwalk in the National Park and got caught in the rain. He was easy and kind and unaffected. He didn't know the right restaurants. He liked unpretentious cafes. They talked a lot about the school. He respected her opinions. He seemed so much more real than Nick.
They had made love for the first time just the other night at his place. The children were with her mother.
(The night before she hit her head.)
It was beautiful.
Well, okay, it was awkward. (For example, he seemed to think he should lick her toes. Where had he got such an idea? It tickled unbearably, and she accidentally kicked him in the nose.)
But still, it had been so, so lovely to have a man appreciating her body again. Right down to her toes.
Dominick was the right sort of man for her. Nick had been a mistake. How can you pick the right man when you're in your twenties and stupid?
The grief started to ease a little. It was still there, but it wasn't an impossible weight crushing her chest. She kept herself very busy.
She stopped by at Dino's one afternoon for a coffee and found a small crowd of solemn-faced people surrounding a woman having some sort of attack on the footpath. Even Dino was out there. Alice went to avert her eyes--it seemed like the poor woman might be mentally ill--when she saw to her horror that it was her sister. It was Elisabeth, and when Dino told her what had happened, her first feeling was shame. How could she not have seen that it had got so bad? As she was explaining to Dino what Elisabeth had been going through, she felt a growing anger at herself. It was like she'd just come to accept Elisabeth's miscarriages as part of life. She'd led Elisabeth to her car and left her sitting in t
he passenger seat, staring straight ahead, and then she'd gone back and managed to soothe the mother of the child Elisabeth had apparently tried to kidnap. (It was Judy Clarke. Judy had a son in Madison's class.) On the way home Elisabeth said, "Thanks," and nothing else.
Well, enough was enough. This endless cycle of miscarriages had to stop. They were just beating their heads against a brick wall, and Elisabeth was losing her mind. Alice had lost her best friend and her marriage had fallen apart but she was still getting on with things. Someone needed to talk sense to Elisabeth. As soon as she got home, Alice got on the Internet to research adoption. Last Thursday she made a fresh batch of banana muffins and then she rang up Ben and told him she was having trouble with her car. He said he'd be right over.
"I wonder if we should call a doctor?"
"No," said Alice out loud, her eyes shut. "I'm all right. Just give me a minute."
Now she was remembering the past week. It was as if she'd been permanently drunk. She was mortified.
She hadn't had time for breakfast the morning of the spin class with Jane, and actually, now she thought about it, she hadn't even had any water, which was stupid, no wonder she'd fainted. Her last memory was pedaling hard, sweat dripping, listing off in her head everything she had to do for Mega Meringue Day, only half listening to Narelle (the annoying instructor: Spin Crazy Girl) going on about "the finish line" and "the semi-trailer holding you up." Instead, she was watching the television screen playing soundlessly above Narelle's head. There was a commercial on that always irked Alice, featuring a woman looking flirtatiously at the camera while licking a glob of cream cheese off the tip of her finger (she looked a bit like Jackie Holloway) and Alice was feeling sick at the very thought of eating cream cheese.