What Alice Forgot

“What?”

“Nick has still got his memory.”

Chapter 10

“Nick?” said Alice.

“Sorry, sweetie, it’s just me again,” said the nurse.

They were waking her every hour to check on her and shine the light in her pupils and ask the same questions over and over. “Alice Mary Love. Royal North Shore Hospital. Hurt my head,” Alice mumbled. The nurse chuckled. “Well done. Sorry about this. Go back to sleep now.”

Alice slept and dreamed of nurses waking her up. “Wake up! It’s time for your salsa-dancing lesson!” said a nurse with a huge hat that was actually a profiterole cake. “I dreamed we were getting a divorce,” said Alice to Nick. “And we had three children, and Mum married your dad, and Elisabeth was so sad.” “Why the f**k would I care?” said Nick. Alice gasped and sucked her thumb. Nick peeled a piece of red confetti off his neck and showed it to her. He said, “Only joking!”

“Nick?” said Alice.

“I do not love you anymore because you still suck your thumb.”

“But I don’t!” Alice was so embarrassed she could die.

“What’s your name?” shouted a nurse, but this was another one that couldn’t be real because she was floating through the air, holding on to bouquets of pink balloons. Alice ignored her.

“Me again,” said a nurse.

“Nick?” said Alice. “I’ve got a headache. Such a bad headache.”

“No, it’s not Nick. It’s Sarah.”

“You’re not a real nurse. You’re another dream nurse.”

“Actually, I’m a real one. Can you open your eyes and tell me your name?”

Elisabeth’s Homework for Dr. Hodges Hi, me again, Dr. Hodges. It’s 3:30 a.m. and sleep feels like something impossible and stupid that only other people do. I woke up thinking of Alice and how she said to me, “You’re such a good big sister.”

I’m not. I’m not at all.

We still care about each other, of course we do. It’s not that. We’d never forget each other’s birthdays. In fact, there’s a weird sort of silent competition going on to see who can give the best present each year, as if we’re always jostling for the role of most generous, thoughtful sister. We see each other pretty regularly. We still have a laugh. We’re just the same as a million sisters. So I don’t even know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s just that it isn’t the same as when we were younger. But that’s just life, isn’t it, Dr. Hodges? Relationships don’t stay the same. There isn’t time. Ask Alice! She converted to the role of busy North Shore Mum like it was a religion.

Maybe if I’d been more vigilant? Perhaps it was my responsibility as the older sister to keep us on track.

But the only way I’ve been able to get through the last seven years is by wrapping myself up like a package with a tighter and tighter string. It’s so tight that if I’m talking about anything (other than how to write the perfect direct-mail package), I feel as though there is something constricting my throat, as if my mouth doesn’t open wide enough for proper, unthinking conversation.

The problem is the rage. It’s permanently simmering, even when I’m not aware of it. If I hurt myself unexpectedly, or drop a punnet of blueberries all over the kitchen floor, it bubbles over like boiling milk. You should have heard the primeval scream of rage when I banged my forehead against an open cupboard door the other day when I was unpacking the dishwasher. I sat on the kitchen floor with my back against the fridge and sobbed for twenty minutes. It’s pretty embarrassing.

Before Alice and Nick split up, I sometimes felt there were unforgivable words hovering on the tip of my tongue whenever I spoke to Alice, words like: “You think the world begins and ends with you and your perfect little family and your perfect little life and you think stress is finding the perfectly color-coordinated cushions for your new $10,000 sofa.”

And I feel like scribbling those things out because they’re nasty and not even true. I don’t think those things at all, but I could have said them, I could still say them, and if I did, those words would have been there in both our memories forever. So it was safer to say nothing and pretend, and she knew I was pretending and she pretended too, and then we forgot how to be real with each other.

That’s why when she called me to say that Nick had moved out, it was as shocking as a death. I had no idea, no inkling they were having troubles. There was the indisputable evidence that we didn’t share secrets anymore. I should have known what was going on in her life. She should have been asking me for wise, sisterly advice. But she didn’t. So I’ve let her down as much as she let me down.

And that’s why, when I got the news about Gina, I couldn’t think what the right thing was to do. Should I phone Alice? Should I drive straight over? Should I call and ask first? I couldn’t think what Alice would want. I was worrying about the right etiquette, as if this was someone I didn’t know very well. And OF COURSE I should have driven straight to her, for God’s sake. What was wrong with me that I even had to think about it?

As we were walking out of the hospital, Mum said to me in a diffident, un-Mumlike voice, “I guess she doesn’t remember anything about Gina, either, does she?” And I said, “I guess not.” Neither of us knew what to say about that.

How do you find the thread that started it all and follow it all the way back through the tangles of phone calls and Christmases and kids’ parties, right back to the beginning when we were just Alice and Libby Jones? Do you know, Dr. Hodges?

Anyway . . . maybe I should try and sleep.

No. Can’t even fake a yawn.

Tomorrow I’m going to the hospital to pick up Alice and take her home. They’re expecting to discharge her by 10. She just seemed to take it for granted that I would be the one to come and get her. If she were her normal self, she would be making a point of not relying on me. She only takes favors from other school mums, because they can be repaid with complicated playdate arrangements involving their children.

I wonder if she’ll have her memory back by tomorrow. I wonder if she will feel embarrassed by the things she said this afternoon, especially about Nick. I wonder if that was her real self, or her old self, or just a confused, banged-on-the-head self. Deep down, is she devastated about the divorce? Was that a glimpse of what she’s really feeling? I don’t know. I just don’t know.