Elisabeth said, “You’re not just pretending you don’t remember, so you can make some sort of point, are you?”

Alice felt the same punched-in-the-stomach feeling as when Nick had yelled at her on the phone. He’d said something about her making a point, too. Had she become a person who had points to make?

“What sort of point?”

“Forget it. I was just being paranoid.” Elisabeth stood up and walked into the kitchen. She stopped in front of the refrigerator. It was covered with magnets, notices, photos, and children’s drawings. “I wonder if there is an invitation here for this party of yours.”

Alice twisted on the couch to watch her. Her head ached.

“Libby. Please. What sort of point? I don’t understand. Sometimes you talk to me like you—well, it’s almost like you don’t like me anymore.”

“Ha!” Elisabeth picked up something off the fridge and brought it over to her. “Here’s the invitation. There’s another woman’s name on it for the RSVPs. You should ring her and ask if she can change the party venue.”

She went to hand it over, but Alice ignored it.

Elisabeth sighed. “Of course I still like you. Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing to worry about. Here—this woman’s name is Kate Harper. Actually, I think I’ve heard you talk about her before. I think you’re quite good friends with her.”

She looked expectantly at Alice.

“I’ve never heard of her,” said Alice dully.

“Okay, then,” said Elisabeth. “Well, why don’t I call her and you can go upstairs and lie down. You look like death warmed up.”

Alice looked at Elisabeth’s lined, anxious face.

Have I let you down? Have I lost you and Nick?

Chapter 14

Alice stood in the middle of her unfamiliar bedroom, looking for something—anything—that belonged to Nick. There was no sign of him. No pile of books or magazines on his bedside table. He liked bloodthirsty thrillers (they both did), war histories, and business magazines. No cylindrical piles of coins taken from the pockets of his trousers each day. No ties draped over the door handle. No giant dirty sneakers. Not even a lone crumpled T-shirt or sock.

They were both messy. Their clothes were normally tangled together on the floor in flamboyant embraces. Sometimes they purposely asked people over just to give themselves the incentive to clean up in a frantic rush before they arrived.

But the carpet (dark maroon—she had no memory of choosing it) was pristine, newly vacuumed.

She went to the wardrobe (they’d found it lying on its side outside someone’s house for council pickup; it was autumn, like now; they brushed away a layer of crackly brown leaves to reveal patterned mahogany). It was filled with spaced-out good heavy hangers containing beautiful clothes that presumably belonged to Alice. Although it gave her fleeting pleasure to feel the lustrous fabrics as she flipped through the hangers, she longed to see just one of Nick’s shirts. Even a boring white business shirt. She would wrap its sleeves around her like his arms. Bury her nose in the collar.

As she closed the cupboard door and slowly looked around the bedroom, she realized it smelled and felt essentially feminine. There was a white lacy duvet on the bed and a row of small shiny blue cushions. Alice thought the bed looked absolutely beautiful (actually it was her dream bed), but Nick would have said that all that prettiness would render him instantly impotent; so, fine, if that’s what she wanted, he was just warning her. There was a Margaret Olley print hanging above the bed that Alice knew would have made Nick wince as if hit by a sudden attack of nausea. The dressing table had rows of different-colored glass bottles (What exactly is the point? Nick would have said) and a crystal vase containing a big bouquet of roses.

This was the bedroom she would have created for herself if she were living on her own. She’d always wanted to collect beautiful glass bottles and thought it was something she would never do.

Except for the roses. She remembered how the image of exactly those roses had popped into her mind while she was in the ambulance yesterday. She went over to the dressing table and studied them. Who gave her those? And why was she keeping them in her bedroom when she hated that sort of arrangement?

There was a small square card sitting next to the vase. Nick? Nick wanting her back and forgetting she didn’t like roses? Nick making a point by sending her roses he knew she would hate?

Alice picked it up and read: “Dear Alice, I hope we can do that again one day—next time in the sunshine? Dominick.”

Oh God. She was dating.

She plunked herself down on the end of the bed, holding the card between disbelieving fingers.

Dating was meant to be something from her past, not something from her future. She’d never enjoyed it that much anyway. The self-conscious, trapped feeling when you were sitting in the car together for the first time; the constant horrifying possibility of food caught in between your teeth; the sudden feeling of exhausted boredom when you realized it was your turn to come up with the next stilted topic of conversation. So what do you like to do on the weekends?

Oh, sure, yes, there was nothing better than when a date actually worked. She could remember the euphoria of those early dates with Nick. There was a night where they’d watched Australia Day fireworks from a bar in the Rocks. She was drinking a huge creamy cocktail, and Nick was telling a story about one of his sisters and he was so funny and so sexy and Alice’s hair looked nice and her shoes weren’t hurting and there were curls of shaved chocolate floating on top of her cocktail and Nick’s hand massaging her lower back and she felt such an intense sensation of happiness it frightened her, because surely there was a price to pay for this sort of bliss. (And was this the price? All these years later? Nick swearing at her on the phone from the other side of the world. Had she finally been sent an exorbitant bill?)

A date with any man other than Nick would be boring and awkward and stupid. Dominick. What sort of a name was Dominick?

In a sudden rage, she took the card and tore it into tiny pieces. How could she betray Nick like that by keeping these flowers in her bedroom?

And then there was that other man—that physiotherapist from Melbourne—who had sent her the card with the mention of “happier times.” Who was he? Was she already on to her second relationship after breaking up with Nick? Had she turned into a hussy? A point-making hussy who went to the gym and upset her beloved sister and hosted “Kindergarten Cocktail Parties”? She hated the person she’d become. The only good part was the clothes.