Alice trotted along behind her, ready for whatever new game Elisabeth must have organized, and ready to share the lollies, but not the Freddo Frogs--she loved Freddo Frogs--and as they walked past the living room, her balloon bobbing along behind her, she noticed that it seemed to be full of strange grown-ups surrounding her mum, who was sitting on the couch with her head resting back on the couch at a strange angle (odd, but maybe she had a headache). Alice didn't call out to her because she didn't want to have to talk to all the strange grown-ups, and she followed Elisabeth down the hallway to her bedroom, where Elisabeth said, "I have to tell you something that is going to make you feel very bad, so I think you should get in your pajamas and get into bed and be ready for it so it won't hurt so much."
Alice didn't say, "What? What is it? Tell me now!" because she was six and nothing bad had ever happened to her, and besides which she always did what Elisabeth said. So she was perfectly happy to put on her pajamas while Elisabeth went to fill up a hot water bottle and put it in a pillowslip so it wouldn't burn. She also brought along a spoonful of honey, the Vicks VapoRub, and half an aspirin and a glass of water. These were all things their mother did when they were sick, and Alice loved being sick. Once Elisabeth had her tucked in bed and had rubbed the Vicks on her chest, she started stroking back the hair off Alice's forehead, just like their mum did when either of them had an especially bad stomachache, and Alice had closed her eyes and enjoyed all the good parts of being sick, without the actual sick feeling. Then Elisabeth said, "Now I have to tell you the bad thing. It's going to give you a bad, surprised feeling, so be ready for it, okay? You can suck your thumb if you want." Alice had opened her eyes and frowned, because she did not suck her thumb anymore, except for when she'd had an extremely bad day, and even then it was just the very tip, hardly the whole thumb. Then Elisabeth said, "Daddy has died."
Alice could never remember what happened next, or even how she felt on hearing the words. All she remembered was how Elisabeth had tried so hard to protect her from the "bad, surprised feeling." She was twenty-four before it occurred to her with a jolt of surprise that Elisabeth had been only a little girl herself that day. She'd phoned her to talk about it, to thank her, and the funny thing was that Elisabeth had an entirely different set of memories about when their dad died and didn't even remember putting Alice to bed.
Of course, there was also the time Elisabeth had thrown a pair of nail scissors at her, which got impaled in the back of her neck. But still ...
Now Alice opened her eyes and said to Elisabeth, "You're such a good big sister."
Elisabeth took her hand away and said flatly, "No I'm not."
Neither of them said anything for a few seconds, and then Alice said, "Are you happy, Libby? Because you seem ..." Desperately unhappy, she wanted to say.
"I'm fine."
Elisabeth seemed to be thinking of things to say and then discarding them. "Just be your proper self!" Alice wanted to scream.
Finally Elisabeth said, "I guess maybe our lives haven't turned out quite the way we envisaged they would when we were thirty."
A voice interrupted them. "At last! I found you! I thought I'd never find you!"
There was a woman standing at the end of the bed, her face hidden for a moment as she ceremoniously held up a large bunch of yellow tulips.
She lowered the tulips and revealed her face. Alice blinked and blinked again in disbelief.
Chapter 9
"Mum?" said Alice.
It was Alice's mother standing at the end of her bed, but this was an extraordinarily different Barb Jones from the one Alice knew.
For a start (and there were so many possible places to start), her hair was no longer short and brown, the humble nunlike hairstyle that she'd had for as long as Alice could remember. Instead, it was a rich mahogany color and long, falling past her shoulders, with two strands pulled back on either side of her face (so her pixie ears stuck out comically) and pinned at the top with a huge, jaunty tropical silk flower. Her mother, her unassuming, fade-intothe-background mother who normally wore only an apologetic smear of the mildest pink Avon lipstick, was wearing what could only be described as theatrical makeup. Her lips were the same mahogany as her hair, her eyelids were purple, her cheeks were bright, her foundation was thick and too dark, and were those, surely not, false eyelashes? She was wearing a halterneck, glittery sequined top, pulled in tight at the waist with a big black belt, and a full scarlet skirt. Alice lifted her chin and saw the outfit was completed with fishnet stockings and high, strappy shoes.
Her mother said, "Are you all right, darling? I always said those spin classes were too hard on your joints, and now look what's happened."
"Are you going to a fancy-dress party?" asked Alice with sudden inspiration. That would explain it, although even that would be amazing.
"Oh, no, silly, we were doing a demonstration at the school when Elisabeth left the message--I came straight here without stopping to change. I do get a few stares, but I'm used to that now! Anyway, enough of that, tell me what happened and what the doctors are saying. You're as white as a sheet." Her mother sat on the side of the bed and patted her leg. Sparkly bracelets slid up and down her arm. Was Mum tanned? Did Mum have cleavage?
"A demonstration of what?" asked Alice. She couldn't take her eyes off this exotic creature. It was Mum, but not Mum. Unlike Elisabeth, she didn't have any new wrinkles; in fact, that thick layer of makeup smoothed out her face so she seemed younger.
Elisabeth said, "Alice has lost a huge chunk of her memory, Mum. She doesn't remember anything since 1998."
"Oh," said Barb. "I don't like the sound of that at all. I knew she looked too pale. You must have concussion, I suppose. Don't fall asleep! You have to stay awake after a concussion. Whatever you do, Alice darling, you must not fall asleep!"
"That's a myth," said Elisabeth. "They don't advise that anymore."
"Well, I don't know about that actually, because I think I read something in the Reader's Digest quite recently about a little boy, a boy called Andy, and he hit his head riding one of those mini-bikes out in the bush, which is exactly what happened to Sandra's grandson, and I can tell you, I would not be letting Tom on one of those, Alice, even though I bet the little devil would love it, because they're terribly dangerous, even if you do wear a helmet, which this little boy, this Andy, was not, I think it was Andy, it could have been Arnie, although that's a funny, old-fashioned name you don't hear much these days--"
"Mum?" Alice interrupted, knowing there was no way out of the Andy/ Arnie labyrinth. Her mother had always been a pathological chatterbox, although normally, when she was out in public like this, she would lower her voice in irritating deference to those around her, so you'd always be saying "Speak up, Mum!" If somebody she hadn't known intimately for at least twenty years turned up, her chatter would stop instantly mid-sentence, like a switched-off radio, and she would duck her head, avoid all eye contact, and smile an infuriatingly humble smile. She was so shy that when Alice and Elisabeth were at school, she became literally sick with nerves before their parent-teacher nights and would come home white and trembly with exhaustion, barely able to remember a word any of the teachers had said, as if the point of it had just been to show up, not to actually listen, which always drove Elisabeth insane, because she wanted to hear all the nice things the teachers said about her. (Alice didn't care because she knew most of her teachers probably didn't know who she was, because she suffered from the same shyness.)
Now Alice's mother was talking at a normal volume (actually, even a little louder than strictly necessary) and she wasn't darting cautious looks around to make sure any important strangers weren't about to turn up. Also, she seemed to have developed a new way of holding her head, her chin jutting and her neck strained, like a peacock. It reminded Alice of somebody, somebody she was sure she hadn't forgotten, somebody she knew perfectly well, although she couldn't temporarily name that person.
"But I still don't understand why you
're dressed like that, Mum," said Alice. "You look ... incredible."
Elisabeth's Homework for Dr. Hodges I was thinking to myself, "Please don't mention Roger's name, Mum. She can't take another shock. Her brain might explode.
"Well, as I said, darling, Roger and I were doing a salsa-dancing demonstration up at the school when Elisabeth left the message. I got such a shock when I heard--"
"Did you say salsa dancing?"
"You can't possibly have forgotten our salsa dancing! I'll tell you why, because you actually described our last performance as unforgettable. It was just last Wednesday night! We had Olivia up on the floor with us, of course we couldn't convince Madison and Tom to have a go, or you for that matter, Roger was quite disappointed, but I tried to explain--"
"Roger?" said Alice. "Who is Roger?"
Elisabeth's Homework for Dr. Hodges Who was I kidding? It's not like she ever goes more than five minutes without mentioning Roger's name.
"Yes, Roger, of course. Now, you can't have forgotten Roger. Can you?" Her mother looked frightened and said to Elisabeth, "This is quite serious, isn't it. I knew she looked too pale. She is literally bleached of color."
Alice was trying to think of other names that sounded like Roger. Rod? Robert? Her mother had a habit of getting people's names just slightly wrong, so that Jamie became Johnny, Susan became Susannah, and so on.
"The only Roger I know is Nick's dad," said Alice, with a little laugh because Nick's dad was a little laughable.
Her mother stared at her. She looked like a doll with those spiky black eyelashes. "Well, that's the Roger I'm talking about, darling. My husband Roger."
"Your husband?"
"Oh, give me strength," sighed Elisabeth.
Alice turned to her. "Mum married Roger?"
"I'm afraid so."
"But ... Roger? Really?"
"Yep. Really."
So here was another wedding that the other Alice had attended in her place, but this was a wedding Alice couldn't even begin to envisage.
For one thing, her mother had always refused to consider the possibility of dating other men. "Oh, I'm too old for all that," she'd say. "You need to be young and pretty to date! And besides, you only have one love of your life, and that was your father. How could any man ever measure up to him?" And although Elisabeth and Alice had continually tried to convince her that she was still young and attractive, and that Dad would never have expected her to mourn him forever, Alice had been secretly proud of her mother's devotion. It was sort of beautiful and moving, even though it was also annoying because it meant Alice and Elisabeth were responsible for her entire social life.
So okay, fine, she'd overcome her fear of dating (and probably that's what it had been, rather than eternal devotion), but to marry Nick's father of all people?
"But why?" said Alice helplessly. "Why would you marry Roger?"
That's right, she thought, it's Roger who has that peacock way of holding his head.
Barb widened her eyes and pursed her lips together coyly, with an expression that was so bizarrely unlike her that Alice had to avert her eyes as if she'd interrupted her mother doing something perverse and sexual.
She said, "I fell madly in love with him, you remember, of course you remember, it all started at Madison's christening, when Roger mentioned to me that he was thinking of taking up salsa dancing and would I be interested, and he didn't actually give me a chance to say no, he just seemed to be under the impression that I was coming along, and I didn't want to let him down, it seemed so rude, and even though I was in a state about it, and I actually thought about making an appointment to see Dr. Holden for a prescription for something to calm my nerves, and you girls got so cranky about that, as if I was going to become a crack cocaine addict or something, for heaven's sakes, just a little Valium was all I was thinking, which apparently just gives you a lovely floaty feeling, but I couldn't get an appointment, typical of course, that new receptionist is so snooty, I do wonder what happened to that lovely Kathy--"
"How long have you been married for?" Alice interrupted. The terror of not knowing the facts of her own life gripped her again. She was on one of those amusement park rides that slammed you left, then right, then turned the whole world upside down, giving you unfamiliar glimpses of familiar things. Alice hated amusement park rides.
"Well, it's coming up to five years. You remember the wedding, Alice, of course you do. Madison was flower girl. She looked so adorable in that yellow dress, she looks so nice in yellow, not many people do, I've bought her a yellow top for Christmas, but whether she'll wear it or not is another matter--"
"Mum," said Elisabeth tersely. "Alice doesn't even remember Madison. The last thing she remembers is being pregnant with her."
"She doesn't remember Madison," repeated Barbara in a hushed voice. She took a deep breath and put on a nervous, merry voice as if to jolly Alice out of all this silliness. "Well, I can understand you wanting to forget Madison at this particular moment, the little grumble-bum, although I'm sure she'll snap out of it soon, but of course, you remember Tom and darling Olivia, don't you? Well, I can't believe I'm asking the question. Of course you do. You can't forget your own children! That would be ... unthinkable."
There was a tremor of fear in her voice that Alice found strangely comforting. Yes, Mum, this is scary. Yes, this is unthinkable.
"Mum," said Elisabeth again. "Please try and get your head around this. She doesn't remember anything since 1998."
"Nothing?"
"I'm sure it's just temporary."
"Oh! Of course. Temporary!"
Her mother lapsed into silence and ran a fingernail around the edge of her thickly lipsticked mouth.
Alice tried out this new fact in her mind: My mother married my husband's father.
It was as unforgettable a fact as I have three children and My husband whom I adore has moved out of our house, but somehow she'd forgotten it.
None of it could be true. It must all be an absolutely huge, elaborate practical joke. It must be an incredibly realistic dream. A vivid hallucination. A nightmare that kept going and going.
Roger! What could have possessed her sweet, cautious mother to "fall madly in love" (Mum never said extravagant things like "madly in love") with someone like Roger? Roger with his overpowering aftershave, his radio-announcer voice, and his habit of saying "methinks" and "mayhaps"? Roger, who after a few drinks at family parties would pin Alice in a corner and treat her to a monologue all about himself and his eternal fascination with the intricacies of his own personality. "Am I an athletic person? Yes, definitely. Am I an intellectual? Okay, maybe not in the strictest la-di-da Ph.D. sense of the word. But put it another way, am I an intelligent person? The answer would have to be yes; I've got a Ph.D. from the University of Real Life, Alice. You may well ask, am I a spiritual person? Methinks the answer would have to be yes, most certainly."
Alice would be nodding helplessly, taking shallow breaths so she didn't feel sick from the scent of his aftershave, until Nick would appear, saying, "Methinks the lady needs a drink, Dad."
And what about Nick? What would he think about this development? He had such a weird, fragile relationship with his father. He imitated him mercilessly behind his back and there was something close to hatred in his voice when Nick spoke about the way his dad had treated his mother during their divorce, but at the same time Alice noticed that whenever he was in Roger's company, his voice would become deeper, his shoulders squarer, and he would often casually bring up some big deal he'd negotiated at work, or some other accomplishment that Alice didn't even know about, as if deep down he still wanted his dad's approval, even though he would have denied this vehemently, angrily even.
Alice couldn't think what his reaction would be to this news. And didn't it mean she and Nick were related? He was her stepbrother! Her first thought was that she and Nick would have laughed themselves silly over that, turned it into a stupid game, made lecherous remarks about incest, and pretended th
ey were Greg and Marcia Brady. But maybe it hadn't been funny at all. He might have been angry on behalf of his mother, even though his mother seemed to treat her ex-husband like a bumbling distant uncle.
And what about Nick's sisters, the Flakes? Oh God, the Flakes. Nick's nutty sisters were now her stepsisters. There was no way they would have reacted calmly to this news; they didn't react calmly to anything--they fainted, they sobbed, they stopped talking to each other, they were offended by the most innocuous comments. There was always at least one sister in the middle of a crisis. Alice had never realized family life could be so dramatic until she met Nick's family, with all those sisters, in-laws, boyfriends, aunties, and cousins by the dozen. Her own quiet, polite, mini-sized family had seemed boring and sedate in comparison.
Alice said, "Is this why Nick and I are ... ? Because he's upset about his dad marrying Mum?"
"Of course not!" Her mother was reenergized. "This divorce is a terrible mystery to all of us, but it's certainly got nothing to do with Roger and me! Roger would be devastated to hear you even thought about such a thing. Of course Roger does have his own theories about the divorce--"
Elisabeth cut in. "Mum and Roger got together years ago. You and Nick were a bit funny about it at the time, and the Flakes were all in hysterics of course, but it settled down and nobody thinks twice about it now. I promise you, Alice, all these things that seem so shocking aren't really that shocking. When you get your memory back, you'll be laughing at yourself."
Alice did not want to get back a self who thought there was nothing shocking about the fact that she and Nick were divorcing; she couldn't believe how casually her mother had referred to "the divorce," as if it were something solid and real, as if it were a thing.
"Well, I'm not getting a divorce anymore, actually," said Alice. "There is no divorce."
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