What Alice Forgot (48 page)

“Madison was with you,” said Nick. “She saw it happen. You don't remember it, do you?”

“No,” said Alice. “Just the feeling of it.” Although that feeling of sick horror seemed impossible here today, with the sun and sea, ice creams and whales.

“There was a storm,” said Nick. “A tree fell on Gina's car. You and Madison were driving behind.”

A tree. So that horrible image of a black leafless tree swaying against a stormy sky was real.

“It must have been horrendous for both of you,” said Nick quietly. He lifted a handful of sand and let the grains fall through his fingers. “And I didn't—I wasn't—”

“What?”

“I wasn't as supportive as I should have been,” said Nick.

“Why weren't you?” asked Alice curiously.

“Honestly, I don't know,” said Nick. “I just felt detached. I felt like you wouldn't want my sympathy. I felt like—I felt that if you'd had the choice, you would have preferred that I'd died rather than Gina. I remember I tried to hug you and you pushed me away as if I made you sick. I should have tried harder. I'm sorry.”

“But why would you think I'd prefer you to die?” asked Alice. It seemed such a silly, childish, wrong thing to think.

“We weren't getting on that well at the time. And you two were such good friends,” said Nick. “I mean—that was great—that was fine—but . . .” His lips did something funny. “You told Gina that you were pregnant with Olivia before you told me.”

“Really?” Why would she have done that? “I'm sorry.”

“Oh, well, it was only a small thing.” He stopped. “Also, once I overheard you saying something about our sex life. Or lack thereof. I mean, I know women always talk about sex together. It was just the tone in your voice. It was such
contempt
for me. And then, when she and Mike broke up, and you were going out to bars with her, trying to help her pick up men, I got the feeling that you were jealous. You wanted to be a single woman with her. I was in the way. Cramping your style.”

“I'm so sorry,” said Alice. She felt like some other woman had been horrible to Nick. As if he were describing an awful ex-girlfriend who had broken his heart.

“And then Gina died. And that was it. You froze up. That's how it felt. You were like ice.”

“I don't understand why I did that,” said Alice. If
Sophie
had died, she would have cried for hours in the safe, comforting circle of Nick's arms.

“Is that why you didn't come to the funeral?” she asked.

Nick shrugged.

“I had to be in New York. It was a huge meeting. Something we'd been planning for months, but I told you a million bloody times I was happy to cancel. I kept asking if you wanted me at the funeral, and you said, ‘Do what you want.' So, I thought, maybe you'd actually prefer it if I
wasn't
there. I wanted to go. She was my friend, too, once upon a time. You always seem to forget that. She drove me crazy the way she bossed you around, but I still cared about her. It just got so confusing after she and Mike split up. I wanted to stay friends with him, too, and you saw that as a betrayal of Gina. So did she. She was so mad with me. Each time I saw Gina, she'd say, ‘Seen Mike lately?' and you'd both be shooting me evil looks as if I was the villain. I didn't see why I had to dump a good mate just because of one drunken—anyway, we've been over it a million times. I'm just trying to say that I felt so, I don't know,
awkward
, when she died. I didn't know how I was meant to act. I just wanted you to say, ‘Of course you should cancel the trip. Of course you should come to the funeral.' I felt like I needed your permission.”

“So all our problems were because of Gina and Mike,” said Alice. These two
strangers
had destroyed their marriage.

“I don't think we can blame them for everything,” said Nick. “We argued. We argued over the most trivial things.”

“Like what?”

“Like, I don't know, cherries. One day we were going over to Mum's place for dinner and I ate some cherries we were meant to be taking. It was the crime of the century. You would not let it go. You were talking about those cherries for months.”

“Cherries,” pondered Alice.

“I'd be at work, where people respected my opinions,” said Nick. “And then I'd come home and it was like I was the village idiot. I'd pack the dishwasher the wrong way. I'd pick the wrong clothes for the children. I stopped offering to help. It wasn't worth the criticism.”

They didn't say anything for a few moments. Next to them, a family with a toddler and a baby laid out a rug. The toddler picked up a handful of sand with a determined expression on his face and went to drop it all over his baby sister's face. They heard the mother say, “Watch him!” and the father pulled him away just in time. The mother rolled her eyes, and the father muttered something they didn't catch.

“I'm not saying I was perfect,” said Nick, his eyes on the father. “I was too caught up in work. You'd say I was obsessed with it. You always talk about the year I was working on the Goodman project. I was traveling a lot. You had to cope on your own with three children. You said once that I ‘deserted you.' I always think that year made my career, but maybe . . .” He stopped and squinted out at the harbor. “Maybe that was the year that broke our marriage.”

The Goodman project.
The words put a bad taste in her mouth.
The bloody Goodman project.
The word “bloody” seemed to belong naturally before “Goodman.”

Alice leaned back and pushed the heels of her boots deep into the sand. It all seemed so complicated. Her mistakes. Nick's mistakes. For the first time it occurred to her that maybe their marriage couldn't be put back together.

She looked over at the family with the two small children. Now the father was spinning the little boy around and the mother was laughing, taking photos of them with a digital camera.

Madison walked up from the water toward them, carrying something in her cupped-together hands, her face radiant.

Nick's hand was next to Alice's on the picnic rug.

She felt the tip of his finger lightly touch hers.

“Maybe we should try again,” he said.

G
eorge and Mildred turned up on Friday.

Alice found them at the back of the garage. George was lying on his side, as if he'd been kicked over. His once dignified lion's face was now stained a moldy green, which made him look ashamed, as if he were an old man with food all over his face. Mildred was sitting in the middle of a pile of old pots. There was a huge chip out of one paw, and she looked sad and resigned. They were both filthy.

Alice had dragged them both onto the back veranda and was scrubbing them with a mixture of bleach and water, as recommended by Mrs. Bergen next door, who was thrilled that Alice had swapped sides on the development issue, and who was once again waving and smiling when she saw her and asking Alice to send the children over to play on her piano anytime they wanted. “We're not
five
anymore,” said Tom wearily. “Doesn't she know we have a PlayStation?”

Barb had offered to take Madison for a shopping trip on the first day of her suspension. “Don't worry, I won't spoil her,” she'd told Alice. “No new clothes or anything. Unless she sees something really
special
, of course, in which case I'll put it away for her next birthday.”

As Alice scrubbed, she wondered if George and Mildred would ever look the same again. Was it too late? Were they too scarred by the years of neglect?

And would it be the same for her and Nick? Had each argument, each betrayal and nasty word built up into an ugly rock-hard layer covering what was once so tender and true?

Well, if it had, they would just chip away at it until it was gone. It would be fine. Good as new! She scrubbed so vigorously at Mildred's mane that her teeth chattered.

The phone rang and Alice put down the scrubbing brush with relief.

It was Ben. His voice on the phone was deep and slow and very Australian, as if someone from the outback were calling. He said that Elisabeth had been sitting in bed watching television for the last forty-eight hours and screaming if he tried to turn it off, and he wasn't sure how long he should let this go on for.

“It must be because she's so upset about the last IVF cycle failing,” said Alice, looking at her fridge with the photos of the children and the school newsletters, and wishing she could somehow share this life with her sister.

There was a slight pause and then Ben said, “Yeah, well, that's the other thing. I found out that it didn't fail. I got a call from the clinic about her first ultrasound. She's pregnant.”

 

 

Alice drove over to Elisabeth's place.

She had to get directions from Ben, and none of the streets or the area seemed remotely familiar. Perhaps she didn't visit Elisabeth much? Because she was so busy. Busy, busy, busy.

They lived in a red-brick cottage with a neatly mowed front lawn. It was a family neighborhood. There was a children's swing set in the front yard of the house next door, and a woman across the road was leaning into her car and unstrapping her baby from a car seat. It reminded Alice of her own street ten years ago.

She could hear the clamor of the television as soon as Ben opened the door. “She wants it up really loud,” said Ben. “Be ready. If you try and turn it off, she sounds like a trapped animal. It's freaking me out. I had to go sleep in the spare room last night. I don't know if she even slept at all.”

“So, what do you think is going on?” asked Alice.

Ben shrugged his massive bear shoulders. “I guess she's scared she's going to lose it again. So am I. I mean, in a way, I was almost relieved when I thought the blood-test results were negative.”

Alice followed Ben through the house (very clean, neat, and bare; no clutter) into the bedroom, where Elisabeth was sitting up in bed with the remote in one hand and an exercise book and pen resting on her lap.

She was still wearing the same outfit she wore at the seminar for the butchers on Wednesday, except her hair was a tangled mess and her mascara had smudged so she had thick black shadows under her eyes.

Alice didn't say anything. She just kicked off her shoes and hopped into bed beside Elisabeth, pulling the covers up and putting a pillow behind her back.

Ben hovered uncertainly at the door. “Okay,” he said, “I'll be working on the car.”

“Okay.” Alice smiled at him.

Alice glanced at Elisabeth's profile. Her face was set, her eyes fixed on the television.

Alice stayed silent. She couldn't think of the right thing to say. Maybe just being there would be enough.

An old episode of
M*A*S*H
was on the television. The familiar characters and the sudden bursts of canned laughter took Alice straight back to 1975. She and Elisabeth sitting on that old beige couch after school, waiting for their mother to come home from work, eating ham-and-tomato-sauce sandwiches on white bread.

Alice's mind drifted. She thought about this strange little period of time in her life that began when she woke up in the gym last Friday morning. It was like this past week had been a holiday in an exotic destination that required the learning of unusual new skills. So many things had happened. Meeting the children. Seeing Mum and Roger together. The Family Talent Night.

Finally, she felt Elisabeth stir next to her. Alice held her breath.