It was Alice. She looks different these days. Less makeup, I think. Her hair is messier. She’s wearing the same clothes but in a different way, and she’s pulled out old things I haven’t seen in years. Today she was wearing a long skirt, a faded cream jersey pulled in at the waist with a big belt, and a glittery tasseled scarf that I recognized from Olivia’s dress-up box. She looked lovely, Jeremy, and for once I didn’t resent her for having the time and the money to always keep her body in such perfect shape and for not having to stick needles in her stomach every night. When I saw her, she smiled and waved and held a palm in front of her face meaning, pretend I’m not here.

For some reason, the sight of her made me feel strangely emotional. My voice quivered as I went to answer a question about postage costs from Bill of Ryde Fresh Meats.

She came up to me in the morning tea break and said breathlessly, “I feel nervous, like I’m talking to a celebrity!” I don’t think she was being sarcastic. It was sort of nice.

She said, “Why didn’t you come to Frannie’s thing last night?”

And I really did nearly tell her the truth. It was dancing away on the tip of my tongue, ready to jump off. Except that it didn’t answer her question, and, anyway, I knew she’d react exactly the wrong way.

Which isn’t her fault. Anyone would.

But seeing her reaction would push me right over the abyss into crazy-land, and I’m only just managing to stay on this side of sanity.

I guess I could tell you, Jeremy, at our next appointment.

But no. I’m not saying it out loud. I’m just going to . . . wait it out, I guess.

Pretend it’s not happening and wait for the inevitable, and not let it touch me.

Frannie’s Letter to Phil The Family Talent Night was a triumph, if I do say so myself.

Olivia did the most beautiful silly funny dance. I nearly burst with pride. And Barb and Roger performed one of their salsa dances, which wasn’t unbearable. In point of fact, it was probably the most popular act of the night. All the ladies are desperately in love with Roger. There is no accounting for taste.

Alice and Nick even got up to dance, and for a moment there, I thought I might have seen a spark of something between them. However, at the end of the night I saw Nick stomping out to the car park, obviously in a terrible mood. They take their lives so seriously, these young people. “Just appreciate the fact that you can stomp so energetically,” I wanted to say to him. I’d pay a million dollars to be Alice and Elisabeth’s age again for just one day. I’d dance like Olivia’s butterfly and bite into crisp green apples and run across hot sand into the surf, and I’d walk, as far as I wanted, wherever I wanted, in big loping, leaping strides, with my head held high and my lungs filling with air.

And I’d probably have sex!

Wasn’t sex nice, Phil?

It was extremely nice.

For some reason I’ve been thinking about it lately, and the nights we spent in your cramped little flat in Neutral Bay with the lights winking on the harbor.

I’d pay two million for just one more night with you in that flat.

Not that I have two million. Or even a million. I’d have to take out a loan.

My apologies, Phil. I’m in a peculiarly flippant mood. Goodness, I’m going to have to make sure I don’t leave this letter lying around for anyone to read. (Actually I might have to destroy it. What if I should drop dead in the middle of the night? What if Barb should find it and show it to the girls. Or far worse, Roger?)

Elisabeth didn’t turn up at the Family Talent Night. I’ve been trying to call her, but without success.

Mr. M. (I can’t seem to call him Xavier) spent a long time talking with Madison. He said, “She’s a very complex, intelligent little girl with a lot on her mind,” and I was filled with affection for him. (I wonder what’s on Madison’s mind?)

I do believe I might have found a new friend, which is a fine and wonderful thing at my age.

He’s asked me out to dinner at the local Chinese restaurant.

I automatically went to decline, and then I thought, For heaven’s sake, Frannie, why not?

“Look, Tom, police car!” cried Alice, as a police car with its siren flashing blue streaked by. “Nee nar, nee nar!”

She turned her head, ready to see an excited little face in the backseat, then realized she was alone in the car, and that Tom was too old to be excited by police cars anyway, and also, she actually didn’t remember him as a baby.

These involuntary flashes of memory, or whatever they were, were happening almost every few minutes now. It was like a weird nervous tic. Just then, at the morning tea break at Elisabeth’s seminar, she’d seen one of the butchers taking two chocolate biscuits at once and she only just managed to stop herself from grabbing his hairy wrist and saying, “One is plenty!”

She constantly found herself heading purposefully somewhere, into the study, the kitchen, or the laundry, and then realizing she didn’t know why she was heading there. Once, she was all the way across the road, walking up the driveway of Gina’s old house, when she stopped and said out loud, “Oh.” She picked up the phone and dialed numbers, before quickly dropping the phone with no idea who she was calling. One time, while waiting outside the school for the children, she caught herself rocking her handbag, patting it, and humming a song she didn’t recognize. “Yummy, yummy, yummy in your tummy, tummy!” she’d said at dinner the other night, zooming a spoonful of food toward Olivia’s mouth. “I think you might be going a bit crazy, darling Mummy,” Oliva had said, with wide eyes.