What Alice Forgot (51 page)

Do you mind?

Well, bad luck if you do. It’s your fault anyway! Why did you need a camping trip “with the fellows” just before our wedding? You were forty years old! You shouldn’t have had any wild oats left to sow. And then you happily, idiotically, dive headfirst into a river without checking the depth first. You silly fool.

Tonight a handsome man (I may not have referred to his handsomeness previously) kissed me and it was heavenly.

Do you hear that, Phil? HEAVENLY.

Am going to bed, my dear. May have drunk a little too much sauvignon blanc at dinner.

Chapter 30

I
t was the “big day.” Alice felt like a small piece of clothing, a sock perhaps, in a large load of washing, on the spin cycle. People pulled her this way and that. At one point she literally had a person on each arm (neither of whom she recognized), trying to pull her in different directions. Worried faces, excited faces, smiley “ooh, this is it!” faces floated by and vanished. People gathered around her in worried clumps, firing questions, telling her about problems, about things that should have been delivered by now. “Where are the eggs meant to go?” “Where are the pastry ladies meant to be standing?” “The news crew wants to confirm they’ll be here by twelve. They want to interview you at twelve-thirty. Is that still okay? Are we on schedule?”

News crew? Interviewing her?

Cameras flashed like strobe lights. She should have listened more at the Mega Meringue meeting. She hadn’t fully grasped the immense scale of this production. It was . . . mega.

They were in a giant colorful marquee that had been erected on the school oval with a banner proclaiming: “Mega Meringue Day: Watch 100 Mums Bake the World’s Biggest Lemon Meringue Pie! $10 Entry. (Children Free.) All Proceeds to Breast Cancer Research.”

Inside, the marquee had been set up auditorium style, with raised benches around the sides where people could sit and watch. All around the sides of the tent were placards with the names of companies that were “proud to sponsor Mega Meringue Day.” Alice saw one for Dino’s Coffee Shop. In the middle was all the equipment for making the pie. It looked like a construction site. There was huge industrial equipment: a forklift, a concrete mixer, a
crane
, and a specially created pie dish and oven where the pie would be baked. A large round conference table had been set up with mixing bowls placed at intervals. Next to each mixing bowl was a neat selection of ingredients: eggs, flour, butter, lemons, and sugar. Maggie’s husband, the red-faced man on the treadmill, who appeared to run some sort of manufacturing company, was in charge of the equipment and was ordering around bemused workmen.

“Now, let me get this straight, we bake the pastry
without
the filling first, is that right?” he said to Alice.

Well, at least she knew the answer to that question. “Yes,” she said, and then more firmly: “Yes. That’s right.”

“Righto, boss,” he said, and hurried off.

People were filing into the tent, handing over their cash to two women from the Mega Meringue Committee sitting at the entryway. The benches were filling up fast. A group of children with brass instruments struck up a tune.

A corner of the tent had been devoted to activities for the children. All the activities had a “mega” theme. They could blow giant soap bubbles, toss around a giant foam ball, and paint on a massive canvas with oversized paintbrushes. Alice had left Madison, Tom, and Olivia to enjoy themselves.

“All coming together?” said someone.

It was Dominick. Jasper was with him, swinging on his father’s hand. Alice looked up, met Dominick’s eyes, and looked away guiltily. She felt like she’d cheated on him, which . . . well, maybe she had.

“I’m sorry about last night,” she said.

“Don’t even think about that today,” he answered. “Oh—but, ah, I wondered if you’d remember about tonight?
Phantom of the Opera
?”

Nick had taken Olivia back up to bed the night before and then left. They had agreed that their first “date” would be the following night. They were going back to their old favorite Italian restaurant. Nick had sent a text message saying he’d got the reservations.

“Um, well, I had actually forgotten,” began Alice. She really needed to break up with this kind, but essentially irrelevant, man. “The thing is, Dominick—”

“Alice, my
dear
!” It was Kate Harper, looking especially glossy in the morning sunlight streaming through the tent. An unhappy-faced man trailed behind her, along with a sullen Chloe. Chloe’s shorn hair had been cut into a stylish bob, but, it had to be said, she wasn’t nearly as pretty without her flowing locks.

“That’s all right, we’ll talk later,” said Dominick. “Let me know if you need me for anything. I’m right here for you.”

“I’m right here for you too, Alice!” piped up Jasper.

“I was surprised to see Madison here,” said Kate, her voice steely. “I thought you might have kept her at home, in light of . . . the incident.”

“Yes, well . . .” began Alice. It really would have been more comfortable if she’d been in the right in this situation, instead of the indisputable, shameful wrong.

“Madison is being very severely punished,” she said. Well, she would be, eventually, once Alice got around to thinking of something appropriate. She glanced over and saw Madison looking entranced as she had a turn blowing the giant soap bubbles. It was just that Madison was in such a lovely mood these days. It seemed a pity to spoil it.

“I hope so,” said Kate. She lowered her voice. “Because Chloe is
traumatized
. She’s not eating or sleeping properly. This will be something that will mark her for life.”

“Kate, give the poor woman a break,” said Kate’s husband. “She’s got her hands full at the moment.”

Kate’s nostrils flared, as if it had been Alice asking for the break for herself. “I realize you’re busy, but I’m not sure you fully appreciate the seriousness of this. Your phone message sounded almost flippant. What Madison did was outrageous.”

“Sorry! I’m afraid we need to steal Alice away from you.”

It was Maggie and Nora, her friends from the Mega Meringue Committee, scooping up Alice by the elbows and smoothly dragging her away.

“You’re not one of our Mega Meringue Mums, are you, Kate?” said Nora. “You might want to take a seat.”

As Alice looked back over her shoulder, she saw Kate talking furiously into her husband’s ear, her hand like a claw on his arm.

“I don’t know what I’m meant to be doing,” she admitted to Nora and Maggie. “I’m just nodding when people ask me questions.” This wasn’t like the netball umpiring, when her mind had somehow switched to autopilot.

“It’s all right,” said Maggie. “Everything is running like clockwork thanks to you.”

She waved a sheet of paper in Alice’s face with a running sheet for the day and notations in her own handwriting that she didn’t remember writing. She could see she’d written, “STICK TO SCHEDULE!!” in full capitals and underlined it twice.

A disgusted expression crossed Maggie’s face. “Oh dear, your
ex
is here. What’s he doing here? Trying to look like an involved father, I suppose.”

Ex. At the word “ex” Alice immediately visualized her most recent exboyfriend before Nick. Peter Bourke. The patronizing one who broke her heart. But when she turned around, it was Nick coming through the marquee entrance, looking gorgeous in a blue shirt. She’d told him once he should always wear blue.

“I invited him,” she said to Maggie.

Maggie studied her. “Oh. Well, all right.”

“By the way, we’re assuming one of us should take over as MC?” said Nora. “We could say you haven’t been well. Of course, our resident troll, Mrs. H., would love to get her hands on the microphone and take credit for the whole event if we don’t stop her.”

“Microphone?” said Alice, confused.

Nora gestured toward a microphone on a stand in the center of the marquee.

Good lord. The idea had been for
Alice
to get up in front of all those people.

“Oh, no, absolutely not, I mean absolutely
yes
, one of you can do it,” she said.

“No problem,” said Nora. Her face became neutral as Nick reached them. “Hi, Nick.”

“Hi, Nora, Maggie. How are you both?” Nick nodded uncomfortably at the two women. It made Alice feel protective of him to see poor Nick in the unpopular ex-husband role. Just like she’d been the “cow” of an ex-wife with his sister at the Family Talent Night.

“Happy Mother’s Day,” said Nick, as Nora and Maggie disappeared into the crowd. “Did you get breakfast in bed?”

Alice nodded. “Pancakes. I think they started cooking them at five a.m. There were bangs and crashes and yells. You should see the kitchen now. But I have to say, the pancakes were outstanding. I think Madison is going to be a chef one day. A really messy, bossy, noisy one.”

“Sorry I wasn’t there to supervise,” said Nick. “Your first Mother’s Day without me.”

“Hopefully my last,” said Alice.

“Definitely,” said Nick. His eyes held hers. “I think definitely.”

“Well, well, well, what have we here, Barb? Methinks it’s our fine young salsa students!” Nick’s father and Alice’s mother were upon them. Roger clapped them on the shoulders car-salesman style, the familiar scent of his aftershave drifting across their faces like a filmy scarf, while Barb stood to the side, shiny with pride, as if Roger were once again performing a rather tricky feat.

“How are you, darling?” said Barb to Alice. “You look lovely, of course, but you’re so pale. And shadows under your eyes. There must be something going around at the moment, because Elisabeth is pea
green
.”

“Is Libby here?” said Alice with surprise.

“She’s there with Frannie,” said Barb, pointing up to one of the bench seats, where Elisabeth was sitting with Ben. She did look quite ill. Nausea. That must be a good sign. At least she wasn’t watching television.

Sitting next to Ben was Frannie, and next to her the white-haired man from the Family Talent Night who had organized the wheelchair races. Frannie was sitting very upright, glancing around self-consciously, but as Alice looked at her, the man said something in her ear and she clapped her hands together and burst out laughing.

“That’s Frannie’s
gentleman friend
,” said Barb. “Xavier. Isn’t it lovely! After all these years of holding a candle for her silly dead fiancé!”

“Her what?” said Alice. She pressed a fingertip to her forehead. She didn’t think her head could handle any fresh new surprises today.

“Her fiancé died just two weeks before their wedding. It wasn’t all that long before your father died,” said Barb calmly, as if this weren’t a huge revelation. “He went away with some mates on a camping trip and he broke his neck diving into a river. That’s why I was always telling you girls to never, ever dive
anywhere
without checking the depth.”

“Are you saying you knew about this all these years?” said Alice. She looked up at Frannie smiling at Xavier and tried to incorporate this sad new information about her grandmother. “And
you
kept it a secret?”

“No need to look so surprised,” said Barb crisply. “I can keep secrets. Frannie didn’t like to talk about it. She’s so private! She admitted to me once that she had kept on writing to him all these years, as if he was still away on holiday. She said she felt silly about it, because she knew perfectly well that he’d died, but that it was nice to keep writing to him. She’d seal the letters up and put them in a drawer. She told me she’d address them but she didn’t go so far as to waste her money putting stamps on them. So we agreed that proved she wasn’t completely deluded! It was just a funny little quirk of hers.”

“And you never said a word,” marveled Alice. The fact that her mother had kept a secret was more surprising than the secret itself.

“Although she has let the cat out of the bag now,” chortled Roger.

“Only because Frannie told me she intended to tell the girls now!” retorted Barb. “Apparently she started to tell you and Elisabeth the whole story just a few weeks ago, but then you had to go pick up the children.”

“I don’t remember,” said Alice. Her catchcry.

“Anyway, she’s finally found love again!” Barb sighed and shook her head regretfully. “If only it hadn’t taken so
long
!”

“She’s probably just fussy,” said Roger. “Needed to find the right fellow. Like you.”

“Oh, you!” said Barb flirtatiously, and she gleamed with happiness. “I was lucky to find you!”

“Dad was lucky to find you,” said Nick, suddenly serious. Alice’s mother looked up at him with surprise, her cheeks pink with pleasure. “Well, that’s a lovely thing to say, Nick.”

Maggie appeared again wearing a long apron that said
Mega Meringue Day
on the front, with a picture of a huge lemon meringue pie. Underneath it said,
Mother’s Day, Sydney, 2008.
She was holding another one for Alice.