“Now, the hard bit,” said Nora. “Line the pie dish.”

We’ll never do it, thought Alice, as the women gathered around the sheet of pastry and lifted it into the air, with their palms flat, as though they were carrying some sort of precious canvas. Every woman had the exact same expression of terrified concentration on her face.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” said the woman with the birthmark, as the pastry began to sag in the middle. Another woman rushed to try and save it. They were treading on each other’s toes, calling out sharp orders like “Be careful there!” and “Watch that part there!”

No one smiled or laughed until the delicate sheet of pastry was safely placed in the massive pie dish. They’d done it. No serious tears or cracks. It was a miracle.

“Hooray!” cried the crowd, and the women shared ecstatic grins as they used their thumbs to push the pastry against the sides of the dish. Next they covered it with sheet after sheet of baking paper and weighted it down with rice, and the workmen lifted the dish and placed it into the oven.

“We’ll bake that for ten minutes,” said Nora smoothly, as if it weren’t at all surprising that they had got this far. “And in the meantime our clever mums will make the meringue.”

The ladies went back to their tables and began to whisk egg whites, gradually adding the sugar as they did so.

The tent filled with heat from the giant oven. Alice could feel her face flushing and beads of perspiration forming at her hairline. The fragrance of cooking pastry filled the air. Her head ached. She wondered if she was coming down with the flu.

The smell of the pastry was making her want to remember something. Except it was somehow too large to remember. It was like the huge sheet of pastry. Too big for one person. She couldn’t find an edge to grasp so she could pull it in front of her. But there was definitely something there.

“Are you okay?” Maggie’s face loomed in front of Alice.

“Fine. I’m fine.”

The pastry shell was pulled from the oven to a round of applause. It was golden brown. The baking paper and rice were removed and the vat of lemon-colored filling was poured into the pastry. Next came the meringue. The women seemed tipsy with relief. They danced around the pie like schoolgirls, pouring their frothy white meringue mixtures over the filling and using wooden spoons to create snowy peaks.

More cameras flashed.

“Alice?” said Nora into the microphone. “Do we have your approval?”

Alice felt like the world had been wrapped in some sort of gauzy material. Her vision was slightly blurred, her mouth felt full of cotton wool. It was as though she’d just woken up and was trying to clear her head of the previous night’s dreams. She blinked and considered the pie. “Can someone just smooth the meringue over in that corner?” she said, and was surprised that her voice came out sounding quite normal. A woman rushed to obey her.

Alice nodded at Nora.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, we bake,” said Nora.

Maggie’s husband gave the thumbs-up signal to the forklift driver. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the magnificent pie as it was lifted by the forklift and slid into the oven. There was a round of applause.

“Year 4 has kindly offered to keep us entertained while the lemon meringue pie is baking,” said Nora. “As many of you will remember, our dear friend Gina loved Elvis. Whenever she was cooking, she always had Elvis playing. You couldn’t get her to play anything else. So Year 4 is going to perform a medley of Elvis hits for us. Gina, honey, this is for you.”

There was a burst of laughter and cheers as thirty miniature Elvises swaggered into the center of the marquee. They were wearing dark glasses and white satin jumpsuits complete with sparkly rhinestones. A teacher pressed a button on a stereo and the children began to dance, Elvis style, to “Hound Dog.”

There was nowhere for the Mega Meringue mums to sit, so they all leaned back against the long tables. Some of them took off their pink aprons. Alice’s legs ached. Actually, everything ached.

Oh, this song is so . . . familiar.

Yes, that’s because it’s Elvis. Elvis is familiar to everyone.

The song switched to “Love Me Tender.”

The sweet lemony smell of the baking pie was overpowering. It was impossible to think of anything else but lemon . . . meringue . . . pie . . .

That smell is so . . . familiar.

Yes, that’s because it’s a lemon meringue pie. You know what a lemon meringue pie smells like.

But there was something more than that. It meant something.

Alice’s face had been feeling flushed and hot. Now she felt cold, as if she’d stepped into an icy wind.

Oh, dear, she wasn’t well. She really wasn’t well.

She looked desperately into the audience for someone to help.

She saw Nick suddenly lift Olivia off his lap and stand up.

She saw Dominick bounce to his feet, frowning with concern.

Both men were making their way past people’s knees, trying to get to her.

Now the song was “Jailhouse Rock.”

The scent of lemon meringue was becoming stronger and stronger. It was going straight up her nostrils and trickling into her brain, filling it with memory.

Oh, God, of course, of course, of course.

Alice’s legs buckled.

Elisabeth’s Homework for Jeremy I missed seeing Alice collapse because I’d gone outside to the toilet.

They had a row of those blue plastic Port-a-loos.

I was bleeding.

I thought, How fitting. That I should be losing my last baby in a Port-a-loo.

Trashy and slightly laughable. Like my life.

Chapter 32

“Hi!”

The woman who opened the door was smiling delightedly, wiping her hands on a floury apron, as if Alice were a very dear friend.

Alice hadn’ t wanted to come. She hadn’ t been at all thrilled when this “Gina” had moved into the house across the road and turned up the very next day, knocking on their door to invite Alice for “high tea.” For one thing, shouldn’t Alice have been the one doing the asking—seeing as she was the one already living there? That made her feel guilty, as if this woman already had some sort of etiquette point over her. And she could tell just by looking at Gina that she wasn’t her sort of person. Too loud. Too many teeth. Too much makeup for the middle of the day. Too much perfume. Too much everything. She was one of those women who drained Alice of her personality. And “high tea”? What was wrong with just ordinary old afternoon tea?