donât actually remember the last ten years of my life.â There was a quiver of hysteria in her voice.
âI think we might try and organize a nice cup of tea and sandwiches for you.â The nurse looked at the photo lying in Aliceâs lap and said, âYour kids?â
âApparently,â said Alice, and gave a little laugh that turned into a sob, and the taste of tears in her mouth felt so familiar, and the thought came into her head, Stop it! Iâm so sick, sick, sick of crying, but what did that mean, because she hadnât cried like this since she was little, and anyway she couldnât stop even if she wanted.
Chapter 6
Elisabethâs Homework for Dr. Hodges
In the afternoon tea break I called Ben on his mobile and he said, over a babble of noise that sounded like twenty kids, not three, that heâd picked up the children from school and he was driving them to their swimming lessons now. He said heâd been informed it was impossible to miss even one swimming lesson because Olivia had just become a crocodile or a platypus or something and I heard Oliviaâs gurgling laugh as she shouted, âA DOLPHIN, silly billy!â I could also hear Tom, who must have been in the front next to Ben, saying monotonously, âYou are now five kilometers OVER the speed limit, you are now four kilometers OVER the speed limit, you are now two kilometers UNDER the speed limit.â
Ben sounded stressed, but happy. Happier than Iâve heard him in weeks. Picking up the children and driving them to swimming is not something Alice would normally ask (trust) us to do and I knew that Ben was probably exhilarated by the responsibility. I imagined how people glancing over at traffic lights would see a standard dad (maybe a bit bigger and bushier than average) with his three kids.
If I think too much about this, it will hurt a great deal, so I wonât.
Ben told me that Tom had just spoken on the mobile to Alice and according to Tom she didnât say anything about falling over at the gym and she sounded âjust like Mum except maybe ten to fifteen percent grumpier than usual.â I think heâs learning percentages at school right now.
Weirdly, Iâd never even thought of just ringing Aliceâs mobile myself. So I immediately dialed her number.
When she answered, she sounded so strange that I didnât recognize her voice and thought that a nurse must have picked up the phone. I said, âOh, sorry, I was just trying to reach Alice Love,â and then I realized it was Alice and she was sobbing, âOh, Libby, thank God itâs you!â She sounded terrible, hysterical really, babbling about a photo and dinosaur stickers and a red dress that couldnât possibly fit her but was really beautiful and being deliriously drunk in a gym and why was Nick in Portugal and she didnât know if she was pregnant or not and she thought it was 1998 but everybody else said it was 2008. It gave me a fright. I canât remember when I last saw or heard Alice cry (or call me Libby). Even though she has had so much to cry about over the past year, she doesnât cry in front of me, and there is such a horrible polite restraint in all our conversations recently, with both of us putting on these oh-so-reasonable voices.
It actually felt sort of good to hear Alice cry. It felt real. Itâs been such a long time since she needed me, and that used to be such an important part of my identity, being the big sister who shielded Alice from the world. (I should save my money and analyze myself, Dr. Hodges.)
So I told her not to worry, that I was coming straight there and we would sort everything out and I went straight back onstage and said that there had been a family emergency and that I had to leave but that my very capable assistant Layla would be taking over and when I looked at Layla to see her reaction, she was pink and radiant, as if sheâd just got religion. So
Legs McNeil, Jennifer Osborne, Peter Pavia