What Alice Forgot

Thank goodness we did, of course. And who knows, maybe there will be a convenient death in our local area! Think positive! That father two doors down always looks like he’s about to drop dead when he mows the lawn.

Anyway, the day after my psychotic episode I went to my GP and asked for a referral to see a good psychiatrist. I wonder if you pay her a spotter’s fee.

So that’s how I came into your life, Jeremy.

When Alice walked into Dino’s Coffee Shop her senses were flooded with familiarity. The aroma of coffee and pastries. The rhythmic thud and hiss of the espresso machine.

“Alice, my love!” said a small, dark-haired man behind the counter. He was working the coffee machine with two hands, expertly and elegantly, as if it were a musical instrument. “I heard on the grapevine you had an accident! Lost your memory! But you never forget Dino, do you?”

“Well,” said Alice carefully, “I think I remember your coffee.”

Dino laughed as if she’d made a hilarious joke. “Of course you do, my love! Of course you do! I won’t be one moment. I know you’re in a hurry. Busy lady. Here you go.”

Without waiting for an order, he handed her a takeaway cup. “How you feeling, anyway? You all better? You remember everything? You ready for the big day on Sunday? Mega Meringue Day at last! My daughter is so excited! All she talks about is ‘Daddy, Daddy, this pie will be the biggest in the world! ’”

“Mmmm,” said Alice. She was assuming that by Sunday she would have her memory back, because she really had no idea how to bake the world’s biggest lemon pie.

She peeled off the lid of the cup and took a sip. Ewww. No sugar, and extremely strong. She took another sip. Actually very good. She didn’t need sugar. She took another sip, and another and another. She wanted to tip back her head and pour it straight down her throat. The caffeine was zipping through her veins, clearing her head, making her heart beat faster and her vision sharpen.

“Maybe you need two today?” chortled Dino.

“Maybe I do,” agreed Alice.

“How is your sister, by the way?” said Dino, still chuckling. He appeared to be a jolly fellow. He stopped and clicked his fingers. “Ah, my mind! I keep forgetting, my wife gave me something to give to her.”

“My sister?” Alice ran her finger around the edge of the cup and licked the froth while she wondered how well Dino knew Elisabeth. “She’s okay, I guess.” She is an entirely different person. She appears to be desperately unhappy. I’m not sure how I’ve wronged her.

“I went home and told my wife the whole story, about how this lady walks off with a child, and then when she collapsed like that, crying, and none of us knew what to do! I was making her coffee! That’s no help, is it? Even Dino’s coffee! Those stupid women wanting to call the police.”

Good Lord. Had Elisabeth tried to kidnap a child? Alice felt pity (Her poor darling Elisabeth, how bad must she be feeling to so publicly break a rule!), a horrified shame (How embarrassing! How illegal!) and guilt (How could she be worried about what people thought when her sister was obviously suffering so badly?).

Dino continued, “I said to those women, ‘No harm done!’ It was so lucky you showed up and made them see sense, and when you told me her story, so sad! Anyway, my wife gave me this. It’s an African fertility figurine. If you have one of these dolls, you give birth to a beautiful baby. That’s the legend.”

He handed her a small dark wooden doll with a Post-it note stuck to it saying “Alice.” The doll seemed to be an African woman in tribal dress with an oversized head.

“That’s so sweet of your wife.” Alice handled the doll reverently. Was his wife African perhaps and this was some sort of mystical tribal heirloom?

“She bought it off the Internet,” confided Dino. “For her cousin, who couldn’t get pregnant. Nine months later—baby! Although to be honest, not such a beautiful baby.” He slapped his knee, his face creased with mirth. “I say to my wife, That’s one ugly baby! Got a big head, like the doll!” He could hardly speak, he was laughing so hard now. “Big head, I said. Like the doll!”

Alice smiled. Dino handed her another coffee and he became serious again.

“Nick came in the other day,” he said. “He didn’t look too good. I said, You should get back together with your wife. I said, It’s not right. I remember when I first opened the shop and you came in every weekend with little Madison. All three of you in overalls. She used to help you with the painting. You two were so proud of her. Never saw prouder parents! Remember?”

“Hmmmm,” said Alice.

“I told Nick that you two should get back together, be a family again,” said Dino. “I said, What went so wrong you can’t fix? None of my business, right? My wife says, Dino, it’s not your business! I say, I don’t care, I say what I think, that’s just me.”

“What did Nick say?” asked Alice. She was already halfway through the next cup of coffee.

“He said, ‘I would fix it if I could, mate.’ ”

Alice drove home chanting Nick’s words in her head. He would if he could, so therefore . . . why not!

She had the takeaway cup of coffee in a handy cup holder close to the steering wheel. She found she could steer this enormous car with one hand and take sips of coffee with the other. So many useful new skills! The caffeine was making her tremble with energy. She felt like her eyes were protruding. When the light changed to green and the car in front didn’t move straightaway, she shoved it along with a bossy beep of her horn.

That sharp voice was back in her head, working out everything she had to do before she picked the children up at 3:30 p.m. “You need to be on time, Mum,” Tom had told her. “Monday afternoons are a pretty tight schedule.”

Well, you can’t spend your day lounging around eating custard tart. You won’t fit into those beautiful clothes for long, will you? Speaking of which, what about laundry? You probably should do laundry when you get home. Mothers are always complaining about washing.

What else do they complain about? Groceries! When do you shop? Check pantry. Do list. You probably have a list somewhere. You seem like the sort of person who has a list. What about dinner tonight? Snacks when they come from school? Were the children used to freshly baked cookies on arrival?