Frannie wouldn't know but she'd research it, proudly, using her new computer, in the same way that she used to help Alice and Elisabeth find information for school projects in her
Encyclopedia Britannica
.
Her head really did hurt.
Presumably this was only the squidgiest fraction of how much labor would hurt. So that was just great.
It was not as if she'd actually
eaten
any cream cheese that she could remember.
“Alice?
Alice!
”
She didn't even really like cream cheese.
“Has someone called an ambulance?”
There was that smell of lavender again.
Once, when they were undoing their seat belts, Nick said (in answer to some fishing-for-compliments thing she'd just said), “Don't be ridiculous, you goose, you know I'm bloody besotted with you.”
She opened the car door and felt sunshine on her legs and smelled the lavender she'd planted by the front door.
Bloody besotted.
It was a moment of lavender-scented bliss, after grocery shopping.
“It's coming. I called triple zero! That's the first time in my life I've ever called triple zero! I felt all self-conscious. I nearly called 911 like an American. I actually punched in the nine. There's proof I watch too much television.”
“I hope it's not, like, serious. I mean, I couldn't, like, get sued or anything, could I?”
Was that talkback radio she could hear? She hated talkback radio. The callers were always appalled by something. Alice said once that she'd never been appalled by anything. Elisabeth said that was appalling.
“Alice, can you hear me? Can you hear me, Alice?”
Sultana, can you hear me? Can you hear me, Sultana?
Every night, before they went to sleep, Nick talked to the baby through an empty toilet roll pressed to Alice's stomach. He'd heard this idea on some radio show. They said that way the baby would learn to recognize the father's voice as well as the mother's.
“Ahoy!” he'd call. “Can you hear me, Sultana? This is your father speaking!” They'd read that the baby was the size of a sultana by now. So that's what they called it. Only in private, of course; they were cool parents-to-be. No sappiness in public.
The Sultana said it was fine, thanks, Dad, bit bored at times, but doing okay. Apparently he wished his mum would stop eating all that boring green shit and have a pizza for a change. “Enough with the rabbit food!” he demanded.
It seemed the Sultana was most likely to be a boy. He just seemed to have a masculine personality. The little rogue. They both agreed on this.
Alice would lie back and look at the top of Nick's head. There were a few shiny silvery strands. She didn't know if he knew about them, so she didn't mention them. He was thirty-two. The silver strands made her eyes blur. All those wacky pregnancy hormones.
Alice never talked out loud to the baby. She spoke to it in her mind, shyly, when she was in the bath (not too hotâso many rules). “Hey there, Baby,” she'd think to herself, and then she'd be so overwhelmed by the wonder of it she'd splash the water with the flats of her palms like a kid thinking about Christmas. She was turning thirty soon, with a terrifying mortgage and a husband and a baby on the way, but she didn't feel that different from when she was fifteen.
Except, there were no moments of bliss after grocery shopping when she was fifteen. She hadn't met Nick yet. Her heart still had to be broken a few times before he could turn up and superglue it together with words like “besotted.”
“Alice? Are you okay? Please open your eyes.”
It was a woman's voice. Too loud and strident to ignore. It dragged her up into consciousness and wouldn't let her go.
It was a voice that gave Alice a familiar irritated itch of a feeling, like too-tight stockings.
This person did not belong in her bedroom.
She rolled her head to one side.
“Ow!”
She opened her eyes.
There was a blur of unrecognizable colors and shapes. She couldn't even see the bedside cabinet to reach for her glasses. Her eyes must be getting worse.
She blinked, and blinked again, and then, like a sharpening telescope, everything came into focus. She was looking at someone's knees. How funny.
Knobbly pale knees.
She lifted her chin a fraction.
“
There
you are!”
It was Jane Turner of all people, from work, kneeling next to her. Her face was flushed and she had strands of sweaty hair pasted to her forehead. Her eyes looked tired. She had a soft, pudgy neck Alice had never noticed before. She was wearing a T-shirt with huge sweat marks and shorts and her arms were thin and white with dark freckles. Alice had never seen so much of Jane's body before. It was embarrassing. Poor old Jane.
“Listeria, wisteria,” said Alice, to be humorous.
“You're delirious,” said Jane. “Don't try and sit up.”
“Hmmph,” said Alice. “Don't want to sit up.” She had a feeling she wasn't in bed; she seemed to be lying flat on her back on a cool laminated floor. Was she drunk? Had she forgotten she was pregnant and got
deliriously drunk
?
Her obstetrician was an urbane man who wore a bow tie and had a round face disconcertingly similar to that of one of Alice's ex-boyfriends. He said he didn't have a problem with “say, an aperitif followed by one glass of wine with dinner.” Alice thought an aperitif must be a particular brand of drink. (“Oh,
Alice
,” said Elisabeth.) Nick explained that an aperitif was a predinner drink. Nick came from an aperitif-drinking family. Alice came from a family with one dusty bottle of Baileys sitting hopefully in the back of the pantry behind the tins of spaghetti. In spite of what the obstetrician said, she'd only had a half a glass of champagne since she'd done the pregnancy test and she felt guilty about that even though everybody kept saying it was fine.
“Where am I?” asked Alice, terrified of the answer. Was she in some seedy nightclub? How could she explain to Nick that she forgot she was pregnant?
“You're at the gym,” said Jane. “You fell and knocked yourself out. Gave me an absolute heart attack, although I was sort of grateful for the excuse to stop.”
The gym? Alice didn't go to gyms. Had she woken up
drunk
in a
gym
?
“You lost your balance,” said a sharp, jolly voice. “It was quite a fall! Gave us all a shock, you silly sausage! We've called an ambulance, so don't you worry, we've got professional help on the way!”
Kneeling next to Jane was a thin, coffee-tanned girl with a bleachedblond ponytail, shiny Lycra shorts, and a cropped red top with the words SPIN CRAZY emblazoned across it. Alice felt instant dislike for her. She didn't like being called a silly sausage. It offended her dignity. One of Alice's faults, according to her sister Elisabeth, was a tendency to take herself too seriously.
“Did I faint?” asked Alice hopefully. Pregnant women fainted. She had never fainted in her life, although she spent most of fourth grade practicing, in the hope that she could be one of those lucky girls who fainted during church and had to be carried out, draped across the muscly arms of their PE teacher, Mr. Gillespie.
“It's just that I'm
pregnant
,” she said. Let her see who she was calling a silly sausage.
Jane's mouth dropped. “Jesus, Alice, you are not!”
Spin Crazy Girl pursed her mouth as if she'd caught Alice out being naughty. “Oh dear, sweetie, I did ask at the beginning of the class if anyone was pregnant. I would have put you up front near the fan. You shouldn't have been so shy.”
Alice's head thumped. Nothing anybody said was making sense.
“Pregnant,” said Jane. “At this time. What a disaster.”
“It is not!” Alice put a protective hand to her stomach, so the Sultana wouldn't hear and be offended. Their financial situation was none of Jane's business. People were meant to be delighted when you announced a pregnancy.
“I mean, what are you going to
do
?” asked Jane.
For heaven's sake! “Do? What do you mean, what am I going to do? I'm going to have a baby.” She sniffed. “You smell of lavender. I knew I could smell lavender.” Her sense of smell had been extra strong because of the pregnancy.
“It's my deodorant.” Jane really didn't look like herself. Her eyes didn't look right. It was quite noticeable. Maybe she needed to start using some sort of eye cream.
“Are you all right, Jane?”
Jane snorted. “I'm fine. Worry about yourself, woman. You're the pregnant one knocking yourself out.”
The baby! She'd been selfishly thinking about her sore head when she should have been worrying about the poor little Sultana. What sort of a mother was she going to be?
She said, “I hope I didn't hurt the baby when I fell.”
“Oh, babies are pretty tough, I wouldn't worry about that.”
It was another woman's voice. For the first time Alice looked up and realized a crowd of red-faced, middle-aged women in sports gear surrounded her. Some of them were leaning forward, staring at her with avid road-accident interest, while others had their hands on their hips and were chatting to one another as if they were at a party. They seemed to be in a small, fluorescentlit room. She could hear tinny music somewhere in the distance, clanking metal sounds, and a sudden burst of loud masculine laughter. As she lifted her head, she saw that the room was filled with stationary bikes, all crammed together and facing the same direction.
“Although, you shouldn't really be doing exercise that gets your heart rate up too high if you're pregnant,” said another woman.
“But I don't do
any
exercise,” said Alice. “I should do more exercise.”
“You, my girl, couldn't do any more exercise if you tried,” said Jane.
“I don't know what you're talking about.” She looked around at the strange faces surrounding her. This was all so . . . silly. “I don't know where I am.”
“She's probably got a concussion,” said somebody excitedly. “Concussed people are dazed and disoriented.”
Spin Crazy Girl looked frightened and stroked Alice's arm. “Oh dear, sweetie, YOU MIGHT BE JUST A LITTLE BIT CONCUSSED,” she yelled.
“Yes, but I don't think that makes her deaf,” said Jane tersely. She lowered her voice and bent her head toward Alice. “Everything is fine. You're at the gym, you were doing your Friday spin class, the one you've been wanting to drag me along to for ages, remember? Can't quite see the attraction, actually. Anyway, you must have got dizzy, or fainted or something, because one minute you were riding like a madwoman and next thing you were crashing to the floor. You're going to be fine. More importantly, why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?”
“What's a Friday spin class?” asked Alice.
“Oh, this is
bad
,” said Jane excitedly.
“The ambulance is here!” someone said.
Spin Crazy Girl became goofy with relief. She bounded to her feet and shooed at the ladies like an energetic housewife with a broom. “Right, gang, let's give them some space, shall we?”
Jane stayed kneeling on the floor next to Alice, patting her distractedly on the shoulder. Then she stopped patting. “Oh, my. Why do you get all the fun?”
Alice twisted her head and saw two handsome men in blue overalls striding toward them, carrying first aid equipment. Embarrassed, she struggled to sit up.
“Stay there, honey,” called out the taller one.
“He looks just like George Clooney,” breathed Jane in her ear. He did, too. Alice couldn't help but feel cheerier. It seemed she'd woken up in an episode of
ER
.
“Hey, there.” George Clooney squatted down next to them, big hands resting between his knees. “What's your name?”
“Jane,” said Jane. “Oh. Her name is Alice.”
“What's your full name, Alice?” George gently took her wrist and pushed two fingers against her pulse.
“Alice Mary Love.”
“Had a bit of a fall did you, Alice?”
“Apparently I did. I don't remember it.” Alice felt teary and special, as she generally did when she talked to any health professional, even a chemist. She blamed her mother for making too much of a fuss over her when she was sick as a child. She and Elisabeth were both terrible hypochondriacs.
“Do you know where you are?” asked George.
“Not really,” said Alice. “Apparently I'm in a
gym
.”
“She fell off her bike during the spin class.” Jane adjusted her bra strap beneath her top. “I saw it happen. I'm pretty sure she fainted. Her head smashed against the handlebars of the bike next to her. She's been unconscious for about ten minutes.”
Spin Crazy Girl reappeared, ponytail swinging, and Alice stared up at her smooth long legs and hard flat stomach. It looked like a pretend stomach. “She can't have had her feet strapped to the pedals properly. I
do
make a point of reminding everyone about that at the beginning of the class. It's a safety issue,” said Spin Crazy Girl to George Clooney in the confidential tone of one professional talking to another. “Also, I really don't recommend spin classes to pregnant women. I
did
ask if anyone was pregnant.”
“Don't worry, we'll sue if necessary,” said Jane quietly to Alice.
“How many weeks are you, Alice?” asked George.
Alice went to answer and to her surprise found a blank space in her head.