—What Alice Forgot—
by Liane Moriarty

Chapter 25

 

The Mega Meringue Committee turned up at Alice’s door at 1:00 p.m.

She’d forgotten all about them.

When the doorbell rang she was sitting on the living room floor surrounded by photo albums. She’d been there for hours, flipping pages, peeling photos off so she could hold them close to her and study for clues.

There were photos of picnics and bushwalks and days at the beach, birthday parties and Easters and Christmases. She’d lost so many Christmas memories! It gave her a pain in the center of her chest seeing the photos of tangle-haired children in their pajamas, their faces solemn with concentration as they unwrapped presents under a huge, gorgeously decorated tree.

Maybe she could go to the doctor and ask if she could please have all her happy memories returned, minus the sad ones.

The photos were mostly of the children and Nick. Alice would have been the one behind the camera. Nick always looked so capable when he was taking a photo, a grave, professional look on his face, but actually he was hopeless, skimming off the tops of people’s heads.

Alice had discovered she could take good photos when she was a child. After their father died nobody had taken photos of them. He had been the photographer and their mother would no more think about trying to use his camera than she would have tried to change a light globe. It was Alice who picked up his camera one day and worked out how to use it. In those years when their mother disappeared into herself and “old Miss Jeffrey” next door turned into “Frannie,” their honorary grandmother, Alice also taught herself how to change light globes, fix running toilets, and cook chops and veggies, while Elisabeth learned how to demand refunds, pay bills, fill in forms, and talk to strangers.

Whenever she came upon another rare photo of Nick she tried to read the expression in his eyes. Was it possible to track the decline of their marriage? No. She could track the decline of his hair over the years, but his smile at the person behind the camera seemed unchangingly genuine and happy.

In the ones where they were together, they always had their arms around each other, their bodies curved together. If a body-language expert were asked to objectively judge their marriage on the basis of these photo albums they would surely say, “This is a happy, loving, good-humored family and the likelihood of that couple breaking up is nil.”

She didn’t bother much with the photos of people she didn’t recognize but one face kept appearing again and again, and it dawned on her that this must surely be Gina. She was a busty, big-toothed woman with a heap of dark curly hair. She and Alice always seemed to be photographed holding champagne or cocktail glasses up to the camera like trophies. They seemed to be very physical together, which was unusual for Alice. She had never had those sorts of lavish friendships where you threw your arms around each other, but Alice and this woman always seemed to have their heads angled together so their cheeks were touching, big wide lipsticky smiles for the camera. Alice felt embarrassed by these photos. “Oh stop it, you don’t even know her,” she said out loud at a photo of herself actually planting a big, smoochy kiss on Gina’s cheek.

Alice stared at the photos of Gina for ages, waiting for the recognition— and the grief? But nothing. She looked sort of fun, she guessed, although not really the sort of woman Alice would have picked as a friend. She looked like she had the potential to be a bit overbearing. A loud, zany, tiring type.

But maybe not. Actually, Alice looked a bit loud and zany herself in some of those photos. Maybe she was loud and zany now that she was so slim and drank so much coffee.

There were photos of Alice and Nick together with Gina and a man who must be her husband. Mike Boyle. That physiotherapist who had moved to Melbourne. So these were the “happier times” he’d mentioned on his business card. There were a lot of BBQs and dinner parties (lots of empty wine bottles on the table in an unfamiliar room that must have been Gina and Mike’s house). She worked out from the pictures that Gina and Mike had two pretty dark-haired daughters—twins, perhaps?—about the same age as Tom. There were photos of the children playing together, eating giant slices of watermelon, splashing about in the pool, curled up asleep on couches.

The two families had gone on camping trips together. It looked like they’d been back regularly to some beach house with stunning ocean views.

Friendship and holidays. A swimming pool. Champagne and sunshine and laughter. It seemed like a dream life.

But maybe every life looked wonderful if all you saw was the photo albums. People always obediently smiled and tilted their heads when a camera was put in front of them. Perhaps seconds after the shutter clicked, she and Nick sprang apart, avoiding each other’s eyes, their smiles replaced by snarls.

She was just studying the photos of Elisabeth’s wedding (she and Ben looked so young and unguarded, their faces rosy, Elisabeth slender and luminous) when the doorbell rang. She jumped to her feet and left the albums with all those days and days of forgotten memories on the floor.

There were two women at the door, and another three were walking up the driveway. A couple were complete strangers but she recognized the rest from the party and from dropping off the children at school that morning.

“Mega Meringue meeting?” guessed Alice as she held open the door for them. They were carrying folders and notebooks and looked terrifyingly efficient.

“Only six days to go!” said a tall, elegant, gray-haired woman, making her eyebrows pop up and down above her square-framed glasses.

“How are you?” said another one with dimples who kissed her warmly on the cheek. “I’ve been meaning to call all weekend. Bill said he couldn’t believe it when he was on the treadmill and he saw you go past on the stretcher. He said he never expected to see Alice Love flat on her back. Oh dear, that doesn’t sound quite right.”

Alice remembered the red-faced man on the treadmill saying he would get “Maggie” to call.

“Maggie?” she tried.

The woman squeezed her arm. “Sorry! I’m in a silly mood today!”

Without being asked, the women all trooped into the dining room and sat themselves around the table, placing their notebooks in front of them.

“Tea, coffee?” said Alice faintly, wondering if she fed them.

“I’ve been hanging out for your muffins all morning,” said the eyebrow popper.

“I’ll come and help you bring it all in,” said Maggie. Oh dear. It appeared they were used to a spread.

Alice registered Maggie’s look of surprise when she saw the state of the kitchen. Last night’s dinner plates and the children’s breakfast dishes were still lying around. Alice had meant to clean up after she had the laundry on but the photo albums had distracted her. There were splashes of milk and hamburger mince all over the counters.

As Alice hurriedly checked through the freezer for muffins, Maggie put the kettle on and said, “I saw Kate Harper this morning. She said you and Nick were getting back together.”

“Yes!” Alice pulled from the freezer a container labeled “Banana Muffins” and dated two weeks earlier, feeling quite fond of herself. Oh, you’re a trouper, Alice.

“Well, I was a bit surprised,” said Maggie.

Alice looked up at the tone of her voice. She sounded wounded.

“It’s just that I know Dominick is pretty keen,” continued Maggie, sounding as if she were trying to be diplomatic.

“Are you and Dominick friends?” asked Alice.

Maggie jerked her head in surprise. “I’m just saying, he’s my big brother, and he’s sort of vulnerable. If it’s not going anywhere, maybe you should tell him?”

Oh Lord, she was his sister. Now that Alice looked, she could see a slight resemblance about the eyes. That Kate Harper was a real piece of work.

“And I don’t know, Alice,” continued Maggie. “All that stuff you were saying the other day, about how Nick never respected your opinion, and made you feel like you were stupid, and how you and Dominick had a much more equal relationship, and you loved the way he talked to you about the school, because Nick never talked to you about his work. What was that all about, then? And I don’t mean to be rude, but I wondered, could this possibly be related to your head injury? I mean, I know that sounds like, ‘Oh, you must be nuts not to want my brother!’ But I just think that, well, you know, don’t rush . . .”

Her voice drifted away, just like Dominick’s did.

Nick didn’t respect her opinion? But of course he did! Sometimes he thought she was a bit foolish about current affairs, but only in an adorable way.

Alice went to open her mouth, without knowing what she would say, when the doorbell rang again.

“Just a sec,” she said, holding up her hand.

She ran down the hallway past the babble of female voices from her dining room and opened the door.

“So sorry I’m late,” said a tiny red-haired woman with a sweet, childlike voice.

It was the woman who kissed Nick on the washing machine.

Elisabeth’s Homework for Jeremy So I called and got the blood-test results.

 

“Come in!” said Alice.

Her body definitely remembered this woman. The sound of her sugar-sweet voice actually made her feel slightly sick, like the way avocado always made her feel, because of that time she got violently ill after eating guacamole.

“I heard you fell over at the gym,” said the woman. “Told you exercise was bad for you.” Oh Lord, she was leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. This cheek-kissing thing was out of control. It was a Mega Meringue meeting! Shouldn’t they keep things a bit more professional?

The woman was unraveling a scarf from her neck, casually looping it over Alice’s hat stand and looking at Alice artlessly, without a shred of guilt. Could she do this if she had kissed Alice’s husband in the laundry of this very house? “I never looked at another woman. I never kissed another woman,” Nick had said. So why did she remember it so clearly? And how did he know what she meant when she talked about it happening on the washing machine?

“You’re late, Mrs. Holloway!” a voice called out from the dining room.

Holloway. Holloway. Alice mentally snapped her fingers. This was the deputy principal. She was far too tiny and pretty and sugary to be a deputy principal.

Mrs. Holloway waltzed into the dining room as if she owned the place while Alice went back into the kitchen. Dominick’s sister had put Alice’s muffins into the microwave and the smell of banana filled the kitchen.

“Mrs. Holloway,” said Alice.

“Bleh,” said Maggie, making a face without looking up from the boiling water she was pouring into a row of coffee mugs. She put down the kettle and winked at Alice. “You make sure you keep Mrs. H. in line if she tries to take over again. It’s your meeting. You’re in charge.”

“About that,” said Alice. “I can’t run this meeting.”

“Why not?”

“Dominick obviously didn’t tell you—”

“Dominick doesn’t tell me anything. You know brothers. Oh, right, you don’t. Well, they’re not like sisters.”

Alice explained yet again about her memory loss, and how, yes, she would be seeing a doctor, and no, she didn’t think she should be in bed, and no, she wasn’t joking, and yes, it must have been quite a thump on the head.

Someone called out from the dining room, “What’s going on in there? We can smell muffins!”

“Hold your horses!” called out Maggie. She turned back to Alice and said happily, “So that’s why you’ve been talking about getting back together with Nick! You’ve forgotten the last ten years! Gosh. It must be the weirdest feeling. I’m trying to imagine it. What was I doing when I was twenty-six?”

Alice realized with a start that Maggie, who seemed so middle-aged, was actually four years younger than she was. In fact, all these grown-up women here today were probably in her age group.

Maggie chortled. “I’d say, ‘Oh my God, how did you end up marrying the chubby guy who services your car!’ And then I’d look down at my hips and think, ‘What happened there?’ ”

She slapped herself on what looked to Alice like perfectly slim hips.

“It’s getting boring in there.” The tall, gray-haired woman with the glasses came into the kitchen and swung herself up onto the counter, swinging long, slim, blue-jeaned legs.

She lowered her voice. “You need to get in there fast, Alice, before Mrs. H. plans a coup. Don’t worry, I’ve been subtly undermining everything she says.” She lowered her voice even further. “If she thinks we’ll ever let her live down the shame of the laundry incident, she’s very much mistaken. The evil little troll.”

“You know about the laundry incident?” Alice gripped the knife she was holding to cut the muffins.

“Alice has lost her memory,” said Maggie. “She probably doesn’t even know who you are. Alice, meet Nora.” She paused. “Actually, you mustn’t even know who I am! I’m Maggie! Did you even know that?” She had that disbelieving, self-conscious expression on her face that Alice had seen so many times now. People couldn’t quite believe you could forget them.

“There’s a rumor going around you lost your memory,” said Nora. “I didn’t believe it. I heard someone in Dino’s Coffee Shop talking about it, but I thought it was just the village grapevine gone haywire. Geez. What do the doctors say?”

“Did Nick kiss that Mrs. Holloway in the laundry?” asked Alice, feeling juvenile to be discussing kissing with this elegant gray-haired woman.

“Nick?” said Nora. “No, honey. It was Michael. Gina’s husband. Gina walked in on them.” She looked at Maggie. “She really has lost her memory.”

“She doesn’t remember anything,” said Maggie, excitedly taking a huge bite of muffin. “It’s like she’s Rumpelstiltskin in the fairy tale.”

“I think you mean Rip Van Winkle.”

“Do I?”

“But I remember it so clearly,” said Alice slowly. “I remember it as if it was me.”

“Well, you were so upset for Gina,” said Maggie. “Oh God, I just still cannot believe Gina isn’t about to walk in here right this minute, carrying another bottle of champagne. Whenever I hear the pop of a champagne cork I think of her. I don’t think I’ve accepted it yet.”

“Unless, of course, the troll kissed Nick as well,” said Nora thoughtfully.

“Can I take something in?” chimed a childlike voice.

“Mrs. H.!” said Nora calmly. “We were just talking about you.”

“All good, I hope?”

“Of course! I’m sure our fine deputy principal doesn’t have any dirty laundry that needs airing,” said Nora.

Maggie choked on her muffin.

“Here you go,” said Nora. “You can take those mugs in for Alice.”

“Sure thing.” Mrs. Holloway seemed unruffled. “Will we be getting started soon, Alice?” She looked at her watch. “It’s just that I’ve got to be back at the school.”

“Won’t be long,” said Nora briskly, her eyes hard.

Mrs. Holloway took the mugs and left.

As soon as the deputy principal walked out the door, Maggie slapped Nora on the back of her head, ruffling her smooth hair. “You’re a shocker.”

It was just like being with girls at school, except with wrinkles and gray hair and talk of children. Alice felt comforted by this. It seemed you still got to be silly when you grew up.

“But I don’t understand,” she said. “How can this Mrs. Holloway be deputy principal if she’s . . .”

“Kissing dads in the laundry?” finished Nora. “We’re the only ones who know about it. Gina made us promise not to tell anyone. Mrs. H. has got children herself at the school. Gina said she didn’t want to be responsible for breaking up another marriage.”

“You don’t know how often I’ve had to bite my tongue whenever Dominick talks about her,” said Maggie. “He thinks she’s so professional. But anyway, I guess she just had too much to drink that night. We all make mistakes.”

“Don’t go all forgiving on us, Maggie,” said Nora. “She doesn’t deserve forgiveness. The bitch didn’t even flinch when I said ‘dirty laundry.’”

“She might have forgotten about it,” said Maggie. “It’s been three years.”

“Were Mrs. Holloway and Mike having an affair?” asked Alice, and realized she was steeling herself for the answer. Even though she knew it hadn’t been Nick, that raw, betrayed feeling remained.

“As far as we know, it was just that one drunken kiss,” said Maggie. “But it seemed to trigger all of Gina and Mike’s problems. It never seemed fair. Gina and Mike break up, and meanwhile the Holloways still look like the golden couple. I saw them holding hands, do you mind, at the Trivia Night the other week and I thought, ‘Someone please bring me a bucket.’”

“Maybe they’ve got an arrangement,” mused Nora. “It could be an open marriage.”

“Do you think?” said Maggie with wide eyes. Then she shook herself. “We’d really better go do this meeting.”

“Maybe I should stay here,” said Alice. “Tell them I’m sick.” She had no idea how to “do a meeting.”

“I’ll run through the agenda,” said Nora. “Just nod along. Anyway, you’ve had everything organized so well in advance, we all know exactly what we’ve got to do. You’re the most efficient person I know, Alice.”

“I wonder how that happened,” sighed Alice. She licked her finger and pressed it against the muffin crumbs on the plate in front of her. She saw the two women were studying her, as if she were behaving oddly.

Instead of sucking her finger, she let it drop by her side and said, “Why are we making the world’s biggest lemon meringue pie, anyway? Why not a cheesecake or something?”

“It was Gina’s signature dish,” said Maggie. “Remember? You’re dedicating the day to Gina.”

Of course she was. In the end, everything circled back to Gina.

Once she remembered Gina, she would remember everything.

 

Elisabeth’s Homework for Jeremy I feel like I could easily do one of two things.

I could drive out of Sydney. Maybe down that long winding ribbon of highway on the South Coast with the lush green hills and the flashes of turquoise sea. That would be cheerful.

And then I could find a long empty stretch of road with an appropriate telephone pole. One that’s begging for a memorial cross.

And I could drive at it very fast.

Alternatively!

I could drive back to the office. And I could ask Layla to buy me a Caesar salad, yes, with anchovies, and a Diet Coke, or perhaps a banana smoothie, and I could eat my lunch while I prepare my keynote address for next month’s Australian Direct Marketing Association conference.

I could do one. Or I could do the other.

The telephone pole or the office.

It seems no more important a decision than whether or not I will have the Diet Coke or the banana smoothie.

 

“Oh, Alice, glad I caught you, I was wondering, the weekend after this I’ve got that thing I was telling you about, so I was thinking, what if I picked up Tom for you from Harry’s party, because I know you said you had that thing, so I could keep the boys before soccer and then you could pick them both up after the game?”

“Excuse me please, Mummy. Excuse me please, Mummy. Excuse me please, Mummy.”

“Alice! Has Olivia decided what she’s wearing to Amelia’s fancy-dress party? Have you heard? There’s a drama. Seven kids want to go as Hannah Montana, and apparently Amelia wants to go as Hannah Montana, and after all, she is the birthday girl, so apparently all other Hannahs are banned!”

“Big day coming up, Alice!”

“Mum, I said excuse me and you just keep ignoring me!”

“Mum, can Clara come over this afternoon? Please, please, please, please? Her mum said it was okay!”

“Mummy?”

“Mum?”

“Not long now, Alice!”

“Mrs. Love?”

“Can I talk to you, Alice?”

 

Alice stood in the school playground and the world of canteen duty and playdates and birthday parties whirled around her like a spinning top.

She didn’t remember any of it.

Yet it all seemed oddly familiar.

 

Elisabeth’s Homework for Jeremy Just in case you’re wondering, I decided to go to the office today.

The Caesar salad wasn’t very nice. A lackluster attempt. Wilted lettuce. Stale croutons. Very disappointing. Like life.

I wasn’t really serious about the telephone pole.

I would never do that. I’m far too sensible and dull.

By the way, I have canceled our next session. I do apologize for the inconvenience.

 

Frannie’s Letter to Phil Mr. Mustache has a name, and I guess I should use it now that he no longer has a mustache.

It’s Xavier. It doesn’t suit him at all, does it? What was his mother thinking? Xavier is far too elegant a name for a man who “places bets on the doggies” and loves beer and “the footie season” and tomato sauce and dreadful right-wing talkback radio.

We have nothing in common, obviously. Not like you and I! Remember the plays we saw, the books we shared, the—well.

Did we like the same books? I might be making that part up. Sometimes the details become a little hazy. I couldn’t tell you, for example, whether you liked tomato sauce or not. Did you?

While I was having my shower this morning, I was thinking about how just last week Alice said to me, “Frannie, when will I stop being shocked that Gina isn’t alive?”

I was full of grandmotherly wisdom about how “time heals,” but I understood.

It was the same when my dear, silly Barb lost their father. She must have said it a million times: “But Frannie, he ate a mandarin that morning. He was fine.”

Because how is it possible for your husband to eat a mandarin at eight a.m. and be dead by ten a.m.?

And how is it possible to watch your best friend hop into a car and then for you to never hear her voice again? (And goodness, that Gina had a loud voice!)

And how is it possible to believe your lovely fiancé isn’t still gallivanting around Queensland when a letter full of love and jokes and a pile of snapshots arrives the day after his coffin is lowered into the ground?

Your mind resists death with all its might.

Oh, Phil, it’s completely foolish that I’ve kept writing back to you all these years. It’s become one of those habits I can’t seem to break. Writing to a memory.

 

Someone was screaming.

“Mum! Stop it! Make it stop! Mummy!”

Alice was catapulted up and out of her bed and was walking rapidly, blindly, down the hallway, before she woke up properly, her mouth dry, her head fuzzy with interrupted dreams.

Who was it? Olivia?

The hysterical screams were coming from Madison’s room. Alice pushed open the door. In the dark, she could just make out a figure on the bed thrashing about and screaming, “Get it off! Get it off!”

Alice’s eyes adjusted enough to make out the lamp on the bookshelf next to Madison’s bed. She switched it on.

Madison’s eyes were shut, her face screwed up tight. She was tangled up in her sheets and her pillow was on her chest. She batted it away.

“Get it off!”

Alice took away the pillow and sat down on the bed next to her.

“It’s only a dream, darling,” she said. “It’s only a dream.” She knew from her own nightmares how Madison’s heart would be racing, how the words from the real world would slowly infiltrate the dream world and make it fade away.

Madison’s eyes opened and she threw herself at Alice, pushing her head painfully into Alice’s ribs and clutching her tightly.

“Mummy, get it off Gina! Get it off her!” she sobbed.

“It’s only a dream,” said Alice, stroking back sweaty strands of hair from Madison’s forehead. “I promise you, it’s only a bad dream.”

“But Mummy, you need to get it off her! Get it off Gina.”

“Get what off her?”

Madison didn’t answer. Her hands loosened and her breathing began to slow. She burrowed herself more comfortably into Alice’s lap.

Was she falling back asleep?

“Get what off her?” whispered Alice.

“It’s only a dream,” said Madison sleepily.