What Alice Forgot (42 page)

But then, really, deep down (or maybe not even that deep down) she'd always thought of her own family as inferior to Nick's.

The Love family was from the eastern suburbs. “I rarely cross the Bridge,” Nick's mother had once told Alice. She sometimes went to the opera on a Friday night, in the same way that Alice's mother might pop along to Trivia Night at the church hall on a Friday night (and maybe win a meat tray or a fruit box!). The Love family knew people. Important people, like MPs and actresses, doctors and lawyers, and people with names you felt you should know. They were Anglicans and went to church only at Christmas, languidly, as if it were a rather charming little event. Nick and his sisters went to private schools and Sydney Uni. They knew the best bars and the right restaurants. It was sort of like they owned Sydney.

Whereas Alice's family was from the stodgy northwest, home to happy clappy Christians, middle managers, CPAs, and conveyancers. Alice's mother rarely crossed the Bridge either, but that was because she didn't know her way around the city. Catching the train into town was a big event. Alice and Elisabeth went to local Catholic girls' schools, where the students were expected to become nurses and teachers, not doctors and lawyers. They went to church every Sunday, and local kids played the guitar while the congregation sang along in thin, reedy voices, following the words projected up on the wall above Father's bald head while the light from the stainedglass windows reflected off his glasses. Alice had often thought it would have been preferable to come from the proper western suburbs. That way she could have been a gritty, tough-talking westie chick. Maybe she would have had a tattoo on her ankle. Or, if only her parents could have been immigrants, with accents. Alice could have been bilingual and her mother could have made her own pasta. Instead, they were just the plain old suburban Jones family. As bland as Weet-Bix.

Until Nick came along and made her feel interesting and exotic.

“So what do you actually
confess
at confession?” he'd asked once. “Are you allowed to tell?” He'd looked at pictures of Alice in her pleated Catholicschool uniform hanging well past her knees and said into her ear, “I am crazy with lust right now.” He'd sat on Alice's mother's floral couch, with a square brown coffee table next to him (the biggest one from the “nest” of coffee tables) with an embroidered doily on top, eating a thickly buttered piece of bun with bright-pink icing and drinking his tea, and said, “When was this house built?” As if their red-brick bungalow deserved such a respectful question! “Nineteen sixty-five,” said Barb. “We paid twelve thousand pounds for it.” Alice had never known that! Nick had given their house a
history
. He'd nodded along, making some comment about the light fittings, and he was exactly the same as when he was sitting at his mother's antique dining room table, eating fresh figs and goat cheese and drinking champagne. Alice had felt faint with adoration.

“Will we sit with Daddy when he gets here?” Olivia tugged at Alice's sleeve. “Will you two sit together? So when I'm dancing, you can say to each other, ‘Oh, that's our darling daughter. How proud we are!'”

Olivia was dressed in a leotard with a frothy tulle skirt and ballet slippers, ready for her performance. Alice had done her makeup for her, although according to Olivia she hadn't applied nearly enough.

“Of course we'll sit together,” said Alice.

“You are the most embarrassing person alive, Olivia,” said Madison.

“No, she's not,” said Ella, hugging Olivia to her, and then she pulled at the hem of Madison's long-sleeved dark red top. “That top looks gorgeous on you. I knew it would.”

“It's my favorite,” said Madison fiercely. “Except Mum always takes
ages
washing it.”

Alice watched Ella watching Madison and saw how her face softened. It seemed that Nick's sister loved Alice's children, and judging by the way Billy was still hopefully trying to grab at Alice's bag, searching for Smarties, Alice loved her little boy. They were aunties to each other's children. Even if they hadn't become stepsisters, they were family. Alice was filled with affection for her.

“You've grown up so beautiful and elegant,” said Alice to Ella.

“Is that a joke?” Ella stiffened and her jaw set.

“You might find Mum a bit weird tonight, Auntie Ella,” said Tom. “She's had a traumatic head injury. I've printed some stuff out from the Internet if you want to read it. FYI. That means
for your information
. You say it when you want to tell somebody something. FYI.”

“Darling Daddy!” cried Olivia.

Nick had just walked in the door of the hall and was scanning the crowd. He was dressed in an expensive-looking suit, his collar unbuttoned, and no tie. He looked like a successful, sexy, older man. A man who made important decisions, who knew his place in the world and no longer dropped toast on his shirt before a presentation.

Nick saw the children first and his face lit up. A second later he saw Alice and his face closed down. He walked toward them and Olivia threw herself into his arms.

“Oh, I've missed you three roosters,” said Nick into Olivia's neck, his voice muffled, while he reached out with one hand to ruffle Tom's hair and the other to pat Madison on the shoulder.

“Hey, Dad, guess how many kilometers it was from our place to here,” said Tom. “Guess. Go on guess.”

“Umm, fifteen k.”

“Close! Thirteen kilometers. FYI.”

“Hey kid,” said Nick to Ella, using the nickname he'd always given Ella. Ella looked at him adoringly. Nothing had changed there. “And the kid's kid!” He scooped up Billy into his arms, so he was holding both Olivia and Billy. Billy chortled and repeated, “Kid's kid! Kid's kid!”

“How are you, Alice?” His eyes were on the children. He didn't look at her. Alice was last to be greeted. She was the least-favorite person. He used his polite voice for her.

“I'm well, thank you.”
Do not under any circumstances cry.
She found herself longing, bizarrely, for Dominick. For someone who liked her best. How horrible it was to be despised. To feel yourself to be despicable.

A familiar quavery voice came over the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys, it's my very great pleasure to welcome you all to the Tranquillity Wood Retirement Village Family Talent Night. Could I ask you all to take your seats?”

“Frannie!” said Olivia.

It was Frannie up onstage, looking rather beautiful in a royal-blue dress and speaking calmly into the microphone, although she was putting on a posh voice.

“She doesn't look nervous,” said Madison. “If it was me, I would be so nervous talking to all these people, I would probably faint.”

“Me too,” agreed Alice.

Madison curled her lip. “No, you wouldn't.”

“I would!” protested Alice.

There was some confusion as they all settled into their seats. Madison, Tom, and Olivia all wanted to sit next to their father, and Olivia needed to be at the end of the row so she could be ready to go up when her name was called, and she also wanted Nick and Alice to sit together, while Billy wanted to sit on Alice's lap, which Ella clearly did not want. She finally gave in and Alice found herself with Madison on one side and Nick on the other, and Billy's warm little body snuggled into hers. At least
he
liked her.

Where was Elisabeth? Alice twisted around in her seat to look for her. She was meant to be coming tonight, but maybe she'd changed her mind. Mum had called to say that the blood-test results had been negative and Elisabeth seemed fine, although a little peculiar. “I actually wondered if she was drunk,” Barb had said. Alice still had Dino's fertility doll in her handbag to give her. Would it just upset her now? But what if she was depriving Elisabeth of its magical powers? She would ask Nick what he thought.

She glanced over at Nick's stern profile. Could she still ask his opinion on things like that? Maybe not. Maybe he didn't care.

When the crowd had settled down, Frannie tapped the microphone and said, “Our first act is Mary Barber's great-granddaughter performing ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow.'”

A little girl in a glittery sequined dress, plastered with makeup (“See, Mummy?” hissed Olivia, leaning forward across Nick to look reproachfully at Alice), strode out onto the stage, shimmying her chest like an aging cabaret singer. “Jesus,” said Nick under his breath. She clasped the microphone with both hands and began to sing, her voice filled with exaggerated emotion, making the audience flinch in unison each time she hit the high notes.

She was followed by tap-dancing grandchildren in top hats and canes, a great-nephew's magic show (“FYI, I know exactly how he did that,” Tom whispered loudly), and a niece's gymnastic routine. Ella's little boy got bored and started a game where he clambered from lap to lap, touching each person on the nose, saying, “Chin,” or touching them on the chin and saying, “Nose,” and then falling about laughing at his own wit.

Finally Frannie said, “Next up, Olivia Love, my own great-granddaughter, performing a routine she choreographed herself called ‘The Butterfly.'”

Alice was terrified. Choreographed it
herself
? She'd assumed Olivia would be performing something she'd learned at ballet school. Good Lord, it would probably be dreadful. Her hands were sweaty. It was as if she were going up there herself.

“Hmmmm,” said Olivia without moving.

“Olivia,” said Tom. “It's your
turn
.”

“I actually feel a bit sick,” said Olivia.

Nick said, “All the best performers feel sick, sweetie. It's a sign. It means you're going to be great.”

“You don't have to—” began Alice.

Nick put a hand on her arm and Alice stopped.

“As soon as you start, the sick feeling will go away,” he said to Olivia.

“Promise?” Olivia looked up at him trustingly.

“Cross my heart and hope to be killed by a rabid dog.”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “You're so silly, Dad.” She slid down from the chair and marched down the aisle toward the stage, her tulle skirt bobbing. Alice's heart twisted. She was so
little
. So alone.

“Have you seen this routine?” whispered Nick, as he adjusted the focus on a tiny silver camera.

“No. Have you?”

“No.” They watched as Olivia climbed the stairs of the stage. Nick said, “I actually feel a bit sick myself.”

“Me too,” said Alice.

Oliva stood in the center of the stage with her head bowed and her arms wrapped around herself, her eyes closed.

Alice massaged her stomach. She could feel the tension emanating from Nick.

The music started. Olivia slowly opened one eye, then the other. She yawned enormously, wriggled and squirmed. She was a caterpillar sleepily emerging from its cocoon. She looked over her shoulder, pretended to catch sight of a wing and her mouth dropped comically.

The audience laughed.

They
laughed.

Alice's daughter was funny! Publicly funny!

Olivia looked over her other shoulder and staggered with delight. She was a butterfly! She fluttered this way and that, trying out her new wings, falling over at first and then finally getting the hang of it.

It was true that she probably wasn't quite in time with the music, and some of her dance moves were, well, unusual, but her facial expressions were priceless. In Alice's opinion, and she felt she was being quite objective, there had never been a funnier, cuter performance of a butterfly.

By the time the music had stopped Alice was suffused with pride, her face aching from smiling so much. She looked about at the audience and saw that people were smiling and clapping, clearly charmed, although they were perhaps holding themselves back so as not to make the other performers feel bad (why not a standing ovation, for example?), and she was shocked to see a woman in the middle of checking her mobile phone. How could she have dragged her eyes away from the stage?

“She's a comic genius,” she whispered to Nick.

Nick lowered the camera, and his face, when he turned to look at her, was filled with identical awe and pleasure.

“Mum. I helped her a bit,” said Madison tentatively.

“Did you?” Alice put her arm around Madison's shoulder and pulled her close. She lowered her voice. “I bet you helped her a lot. You're a great big sister. Just like your Auntie Libby was to me.”

Madison looked amazed for a second, and then she smiled that exquisite smile that transformed her face.

“How did I get such talented children?” said Alice, and her voice shook. Why had Madison looked so surprised?

“Comes from their father,” said Nick.

Olivia came dancing back down the aisle and sat up on the chair next to Nick, grinning self-consciously. “Was I good? Was I excellent?”

“You were the best!” said Nick. “Everybody is saying we may as well just pack up our bags and go, now that Olivia Love has performed.”

“Silly,” giggled Olivia.

They sat through another four acts, including a comedy act by someone's middle-aged daughter that was so incredibly unfunny it was sort of funny, and a little boy who lost his nerve and got stage fright halfway through reciting a Banjo Paterson poem until his grandfather came unsteadily up onstage and held his hand, and they read it together, which made Alice cry.

Frannie walked up to the microphone again. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this has been such a special night and in a moment you can enjoy supper, but we have just one final act for you and I hope you'll forgive me, but it's another one of my own family members. Please put your hands together for Barb and Roger performing the salsa!”