Alice sat up. “No I don’t.”

“She’s only got eight questions to go. It’s obviously more difficult when you’re all together in a small apartment. Also we didn’t quite finish Tom’s reading. And we spent three hours doing Madison’s science experiment today. Tom wanted to do it for her.”

“Nick.”

He stopped talking, took a mouthful of his wine, and looked at her.

“What?”

“Why are we getting a divorce?”

“What sort of question is that?”

“I just want to know.”

The longing to stand up and touch him was so strong, she had to press her hands against her thighs to stop herself from leaping up and burying her head under his chin.

“It doesn’t matter why we’re getting a divorce,” said Nick. “I’m not having this conversation. What is the point of it? I’m not interested in playing games tonight, Alice. I’m exhausted. If you’re trying to make me say something you can use against me, it’s not going to work.”

“Oh,” said Alice.

Would her capacity for shock ever run out? She realized that ever since Elisabeth had first uttered the word “divorce” at the hospital, she’d been waiting to see Nick so that he could take it away, make it nothing to do with them.

“Maybe I should just go home,” said Nick, putting his glass down on the coffee table.

“You told me once that if we were ever having trouble with our relationship, you would move heaven and earth to try and fix it,” said Alice. “We were at that new Italian restaurant when you said that. We were peeling the wax off the candlestick. I remember it very, very clearly.”

“Alice.”

“You said we were going to get old and grumpy together and go on coach tours and play bingo. The garlic bread was cold but we were too hungry to complain.”

Nick’s lower lip had dropped, so he looked stupid.

“One night, we were standing in Sarah O’Brien’s driveway waiting for a taxi and I asked if you thought Sarah looked even more beautiful than usual that night, and you said, ‘Alice, I could never love anyone the way I love you,’ and I laughed and said, ‘That wasn’t the question,’ but it was the question, because I was feeling insecure, and that’s what you said. You said that. It was cold. You were wearing that big woolly jumper that you lost at Katoomba. Don’t you remember?”

She could feel her nose starting to block.

Nick was holding his palms up in a panicky fashion, as if there were a fire starting right in front of him but he couldn’t see anything handy to extinguish it.

Alice sniffed noisily. “Sorry,” she said, and looked at the floor because she couldn’t bear to look at his familiar but strange face.

She said, “These tiles are the absolute perfect color. Where did we get them?”

“I don’t know,” said Nick. “It must have been ten years ago.” She looked back up at him. He dropped his hands by his sides and his eyes widened as comprehension swept his face. He said, “Alice, you did get your memory back, didn’t you? I just assumed—I mean, you’re home from the hospital. You don’t still think it’s 1998, do you?”

“I know it’s 2008. I believe it. It just doesn’t feel like it.”

“Yes, but you remember the last ten years, don’t you? That’s not why you’re asking these bizarre questions, is it?”

Alice said, “Did you have an affair with that woman who lived across the road? The one who died? Gina?”

“An affair? With Gina? You are joking.”

“Oh. Good.”

He said, “You don’t remember Gina?”

“No. I remember the balloons at her funeral.”

“But Alice . . .” Nick leaned forward urgently. He looked around the room to make sure they were alone and lowered his voice. “You do remember the kids, don’t you?”

Alice met his eyes and silently shook her head.

“Not at all?”

“The last thing I remember properly is being pregnant with the Sultana. I mean, Madison.”

Nick slammed his palms against his knees. (He had all these new grown-up grumpy gestures.) “For God’s sake, why aren’t you still at the hospital?”

“Did you have an affair with someone other than Gina?” asked Alice.

“What? No, of course not.”

“Did I ?”

“Not that I know of. Can we get back to the point?”

“So there were no affairs at all?”

“No! Jesus. We didn’t have time for affairs. We didn’t have the energy. Well, I didn’t. Maybe you did, in between your precious aerobics classes and beautician appointments, in which case, good luck to you.”

Alice thought about how she’d kissed Dominick.

She said, “Do you have a girlfriend now? Oh, don’t answer that. I can’t bear it if you’ve got a girlfriend. Don’t answer it.” She put her hands over her ears, took them away, and said, “Do you?”

Nick said, “You must have hit your head really hard, Alice.”

For a moment it seemed like the real Nick was back. He was shaking his head in comical disbelief, the way he did when he caught her crying over that margarine ad with the ducklings, or hopping around swearing because she’d hurt herself kicking the washing machine, or down on her knees frenziedly pulling everything out of the fridge in the hope of finding a forgotten bar of chocolate.