What Alice Forgot (47 page)

They sat on the harbor-side beach at Manly, near the ferry stop, in the same spot where they'd had coffee that early morning after they drove Madison through the night when she was a baby.

They even had the same blue-and-white-checked picnic rug. It was in the boot of Nick's car. The blue wasn't as bright as it was in Alice's memory, but her palms remembered its nubbly feel.

“Where did we get this rug?” asked Alice as they sat down.

“I don't know,” said Nick. He sounded defensive. “You can have it if you want. I didn't realize it was in my car.”

Oh, for heaven's sake. She hadn't meant she wanted it. It was yet another glimpse of how stupid their lives had become. Would she really have wanted to make a point about who got the picnic rug?

Madison plonked herself down and sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, chin down, lank hair falling down on either side of her face. (Alice itched to snip it off. She would look so much prettier with short hair. Actually that could be the perfect “punishment”!
You cut her hair, kid, so I'm going to cut yours.
)

After her tears in the schoolyard, Madison hadn't said a word. Nick had driven in his shiny car, and he'd spent a lot of time talking on his hands-free mobile. He laughed. He listened. He gave short, sharp instructions. He said, “Let me think about it.” He said, “Well, that's a disaster,” while glancing over his shoulder to switch lanes. He said, “Well done. That's great news.” He was such a boss.

“Do you enjoy work at the moment?” Alice asked him at one point in between calls.

Nick glanced over at her. “Yes,” he said, after a few seconds. “I love it.”

“That's great,” said Alice, happy for him.

Nick raised an eyebrow. “You really think so?”

“Of course,” said Alice. “Why wouldn't I?”

“Nothing,” said Nick, and Alice could sense Madison listening carefully from the backseat.

Nick had turned his phone off now and had left his jacket and tie in the car. Now he was taking off his shoes and socks. Alice looked at his bare feet digging into the sand. His feet were as familiar as her own. How could she not be with someone forever when even their
feet
—his huge, not especially attractive feet, with their long hairy toes—felt like home?

“Beautiful,” said Nick, gesturing at the smooth, hard, yellow sand, the huge turquoise sky, the ferry chugging its way across the harbor to the city.
“Beautiful.”
He said it in the same satisfied tone that he would use to describe a good meal at a restaurant, as if the weather and the beach had been prepared especially for him, and presented on a plate, and yes, thank you, it was all up to his high standards and there would be a generous tip as a result. It was so typical Nick. He held up his face to the sun and closed his eyes.

Alice took off her own boots (beautiful—her taste was impeccable, if she did say so herself) and pulled off her socks.

“They're Tom's soccer socks,” said Madison, looking up from her knees.

“I was in a rush,” said Alice.

Madison gave her a look. “And that scarf you're wearing is from Olivia's
dress-up box
.”

“I know, but it's so beautiful.” Alice lifted up the gauzy material.

Madison gave her an inscrutable look and lowered her chin again.

Nick opened his eyes. “Well, Madison—”

“You
promised
ice creams,” said Madison, glaring at Alice, as if this was to be yet another in a long line of broken promises.

“That's right, I did,” said Alice.

Nick sighed. “I'll go.” He put his shoes back on and looked down at Madison. “Don't you be telling your brother and sister that you got ice cream on the beach, will you? Or next thing, we'll have all the Love children suspended from school.”

Madison giggled. “Okay.”

As Nick walked off, Madison said, “I don't want to say what happened in front of Daddy.”

It must be girl stuff. “All right. Just tell me.”

Madison dropped her chin back to her knees and said in a muffled voice, “Chloe said that you and Mr. Gordon had—”

Alice didn't catch the last word.

“Pardon?” she said.

“Sex!”
Madison choked out. “She said that you and Mr. Gordon probably did sex in his office. Like, a hundred times.”

Mr. Gordon. Oh.
Dominick.

“Darling,” began Alice, wondering where to start. For one thing she wasn't sure if it was true. Surely they wouldn't have had sex in his office? Would they?

“I nearly threw up. I had to take sort of deep breaths and put my hand over my mouth. You
didn't
, did you? You never took off your clothes in front of Mr. Gordon, did you?”

Well, if she had, surely Chloe wasn't privy to the information. Presumably Dominick hadn't made an announcement about it at school assembly.

“Chloe Harper is a horrible liar,” said Alice decisively.

“I
know
,” said Madison with relief. “That's what I said!” She looked out at the water and pushed her hair back behind her ears. “Then she said that I was the ugliest girl in the whole school, but that part wasn't a lie, that part was true.”

Alice's heart broke for her. “It certainly was not true.”

“I got this feeling,” said Madison. “A feeling like my head was going to explode. She was standing in front of me and I got out my scissors for art and I cut off her plait. I just went, snip! And it fell straight to the ground. And then when she turned around, I threw my cake at her. It wrecked the cake. Nobody even got to taste it. It was the best cake I ever made.”

“Did you threaten to stab her with the scissors?”

“No! She just made that bit up so I would get into more trouble.”

“Is that the truth?”

“Yes,” said Madison.

“Okay,” said Alice. Well, that was something.

Alice said, “You know, Madison, people are going to say mean things to you all through your life, and if you keep reacting like that, you're going to end up in jail.”

Madison seemed to consider that. Alice wondered whether her wise, tough-love words were sinking in.

“Actually, I'm too young for jail,” said Madison.

“Well,
now
you are, but when you're grown up—”

“When I'm a grown-up it won't matter.”

“You mean, you won't care if you go to jail? I think you will.”

Madison rolled her eyes. “No. I won't care if people say mean things to me, because I'll be grown up. I can just say, ‘Who cares? I'm going to France.' ”

Ah. Of course. Alice could remember thinking something similar when she was a child. Once you were a grown-up nobody could hurt your feelings because how could your feelings possibly be hurt when you could
drive a car wherever you wanted
.

Before she could think of a way to answer without disillusioning her (what was there to look forward to otherwise?), a shadow fell over them.

“Ice cream delivery.” Nick was standing above them, holding three ice cream cones.

“I assume you still like rum and raisin,” he said to Alice.

“Of course.” Fancy having to ask her that.

They sat and ate their ice creams, looking out at the water.

“Madison has just told me what Chloe said to her,” said Alice. “And it was something nasty and untrue.”

“Okay,” said Nick carefully. He licked his ice cream and looked at them both.

“So, I guess we need to help Madison find some better ways to react when she feels angry.”

“I always take ten deep breaths before I say anything when I'm angry,” said Nick.

“No you don't,” said Madison. “You just yell straightaway. So does Mum. And what about that time Mum threw that pizza box at you?”

Oh my, they'd been setting fine examples for their children.

Alice cleared her throat. “Well, the thing is—”

“Are you going to come home, please, Dad?” said Madison. “I think you should come home now and be Mum's husband again. I'm pretty sure then I would stop being angry. Then I would never do another bad thing in my whole entire life. I could write that in a
contract
for you. So that means you could, like,
sue
me if I was ever bad, which I would not ever be.”

She looked at her father with desperate entreaty.

“Sweetheart,” began Nick, his face screwed tight as if he had a toothache. Then he stopped, distracted by some sort of disturbance on the beach. There were shouts and people running. Alice could see a small crowd of people forming up on the cliff above the aquarium, pointing at something in the water.

“Humpback whales in the harbor!” a man cried at them, running along with a camera bouncing on his chest.

Nick immediately leapt to his feet, still holding his ice cream. Madison and Alice looked up at him.

“What are you waiting for?” he said, and next thing the three of them were running breathlessly along the beach, up onto the foreshore, and running around the walkway, their ice creams held precariously in front of them.

They had to run a steep set of concrete steps and Alice drew ahead, one hand holding her ice cream, the other holding up her skirt as she effortlessly leapt up the steps, two at a time.

As she reached the top, she was in time to see a massive plume of water shoot up from the water below them.

“It's a mother and her calf,” said a woman to Alice. “Watch. Just there. You'll see them again.”

Nick and Madison pounded up the stairs behind her. Nick was breathing heavily. (How did he get so unfit?)

“Where? Where?” said Madison. Her face was pink and anxious.

“Just watch,” said Alice.

For a few seconds there was nothing but silence. The surface of the harbor rippled in the breeze and a seagull squawked plaintively.

“They've gone,” said Madison. “We've missed them. Typical.”

Nick looked at his watch.

Come on, whale,
thought Alice.
Give us a break.

The water erupted as a massive creature shot straight into the air. It was like something prehistoric had crashed through an invisible barrier into ordinary life. Alice caught a glimpse of a barnacle-encrusted white front. It seemed to hover in the air before slamming back into the water, with a flurry of icy, salty raindrops against their faces.

Madison grabbed hold of Alice's arm. Her face was radiant with joy, speckled with droplets of water. “Look, Mum! Look!”

The whale rolled luxuriously about, revealing huge curves of velvety black skin, its tail slapping the water, as if enjoying a hot bath.

“Madison, Alice, over there—it's the baby!” shouted Nick, and he sounded like a sixteen-year-old boy.

The calf was splashing about in miniature imitation of its mother. Alice could almost imagine it gurgling with laughter.

“Ha!” said Nick idiotically. “Ha!”

All around them were faces full of joy and wonder. The sea air was cool on their faces, the sun warm on their backs.

“Do it again!” said Madison. “Jump up again, mother whale!”

“Yeah!” agreed the man with the camera. “One more time.”

And right on cue, she did.

 

 

As they walked back to the picnic rug, Madison danced around them. She was euphoric. Skipping. Jumping. Swinging on Nick's hand, then Alice's, then both. People walking by smiled at her.

“That was the best thing I've ever seen!” she kept saying. “I'm going to blow that photo up into a poster and put it over my bed!”

The man with the camera had taken Nick's e-mail address and was going to send him the photo he'd taken.

“Let's hope he didn't miss it,” said Nick.

“No, he got it,” said Madison. “He definitely got it. Can I go paddle? Just to feel the water?”

She looked at Alice, and Alice looked at Nick. He shrugged.

“Sure,” said Alice. “Why not?”

They watched her run down toward the water.

“Do you think she needs counseling?” said Alice.

“She's been through a lot,” said Nick. “Gina's accident. You and me. And she always feels things so deeply.”

“What do you mean, Gina's accident?” Alice thought about Madison's nightmare.
Get it off her.