What Alice Forgot

A nothing sort of person. The girl had said it so casually, without malice, as if it were a fact, and at fourteen Alice had felt cold with the official confirmation of what she’d always believed. Yes, of course she was boring, she bored herself silly! Other people’s personalities were so much more substantial. That same year, a boy at the bowling alley leaned in close with the sweet smell of Coke on his breath and said, “You’ve got a face like a pig.” And that just confirmed something else she’d always suspected; her mother was wrong when she said her nose was as cute as a button; it wasn’t a nose, it was a snout.

(The boy had a skinny, tiny-eyed face like a rat. She was twenty-five before it occurred to her that she could have insulted him back, but the rule of life was that the boys got to decide which girls were pretty; it didn’t really matter how ugly they were themselves.)

Maybe Nick had been bringing her a cup of tea one morning and all of a sudden a veil lifted from his eyes and he thought, Hey, wait a second, how did I end up married to this lazy girl with her boring nothing personality and piglike face?

Oh Lord, were all those terrible insecurities really so fresh and close to the surface? She was grown up; she was twenty-nine! It was only recently that she’d been walking home from the hairdresser’s, feeling gorgeous, and a gaggle of teenage girls walked by, and the sound of their strident giggles made her send a message back through time to her fourteen-year-old self: “Don’t worry, it all works out. You get a personality, you get a job, you work out what to do with your hair, and you get a boy who thinks you’re beautiful.” She’d felt so together, as if all the teenage angst and the failed relationships before Nick had all been part of a perfectly acceptable plan that was leading to this moment, when she would be twenty-nine years old and everything would finally be just as it should be.

Thirty-nine. Not twenty-nine. She was thirty-nine. And that day with the teenagers must have been ten years ago.

Elisabeth came back in and sat back down next to Alice. “She’s going to try and get the doctor to come around again. Apparently that’s a very big deal, because you’re just under observation now and the doctor is ‘extremely busy,’ but she’s going to ‘see what she can do.’ So I think our chances are probably zero.”

Alice said, “Please tell me it’s not true. About Nick.”

“Oh, Alice.”

“Because I love him. I properly love him. I love him so much.”

“You did love him.”

“No, I do. Right now. I know I still do.”

Elisabeth made a “tsk” sound that was full of sympathy, and lifted her hands in a hopeless sort of gesture. “When you get your memory back—”

“But we’re so happy!” interrupted Alice frantically, trying to make Elisabeth see. “It’s not even possible to be happier.” Tears slid helplessly down the sides of her face and trickled ticklishly into her ears. “What happened? Did he fall in love with someone else? Is that it?”

Surely not. It was impossible. Nick’s love for Alice was a fact. A fact. You were allowed to take facts for granted. Once, a friend was teasing Nick for agreeing to go with Alice to a musical (although he actually quite liked musicals). “I can see the thumbprint in between your eyes,” the friend said, and Nick shrugged. “Mate, what can I do? I love her more than oxygen.”

Sure, he’d been drinking a lot of beer, but he said that in a pub, when he was trying to be blokey. He loved her more than oxygen.

So, what—the boy didn’t need oxygen anymore?

Elisabeth put the back of her hand to Alice’s forehead and stroked her hair. “He didn’t meet anyone else as far as I know, and you’re right, you were happy together and you did have a wonderful, special relationship. I remember it. But things change. People change. It just happens. It’s just life. The fact that you’re getting a divorce doesn’t change the fact that you had all those wonderful times. And I swear to you that once you get your memory back, you’ll be fine with this.”

“No.” Alice shut her eyes. “No, I won’t. I don’t want to be fine with it.”

As Elisabeth continued to stroke her forehead, Alice remembered the day from her childhood when she’d been dropped home after a birthday party still fizzing from winning the Simon Says competition. She was carrying a balloon and a basket made of shiny cardboard and filled with lollies. Elisabeth had met her at the front door and ordered, “Come with me.”

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.”