It was a moment of lavender-scented bliss, after grocery shopping.

‘It’s coming. I called triple 0! That’s the first time in my life I’ve ever called triple 0! 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? I didn’t think my choreography was that difficult, was it?’

‘I do think that last spin pirouette was a bit much when you’re already dizzy from the reverse turn after the double kick.’

‘This is an advanced class! People complain if you make it too easy. I give options. I teach in layers. God, I get complaints whatever I do.’

Was that talkback radio she could hear? She hated talkback radio. The callers were so cranky and nasal. They were always appalled by something. Alice said once that she’d never been appalled by anything. Elisabeth had said that was appalling.

She kept her eyes closed and said out loud, ‘Have you got the radio on, Nick? Because I think I have a headache.’ Her voice came out petulant, which wasn’t like her, but after all, she was pregnant and her head hurt and she was cold and she didn’t feel quite . . . right.

Maybe this was morning sickness? Was it even morning?

Oh, Alice.

‘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 recognise 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 he was fine thanks Dad, bit bored at times, but doing OK. 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 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 hot – so 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 flat 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 OK? 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 unrecognisable colours 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 to 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 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 pre-dinner 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 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 had forgotten 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 glad 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 bleached blonde ponytail, shiny lycra shorts and a cropped red top with the words STEP 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 had spent most of fourth grade practising, 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!’

Step 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.You shouldn’t have been so shy. I would have suggested modifications.’

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 sakes! ‘Do? What do you mean, what I am 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 realised 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 each other as if they were at a party. They seemed to be in a long, fluorescent-lit room. She could hear tinny music somewhere in the distance, clanking metal sounds and a sudden burst of loud masculine laughter.

‘Although you shouldn’t really be doing high-impact exercise 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 taking 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 concussion,’ said somebody excitedly. ‘Concussed people are dazed and disoriented.’

‘Oooh, listen to the doctor!’

‘I just did a first-aid course up at the school. I remember that exact phrase. Dazed and disoriented. You’ve got to watch for cerebral compression.That’s very  dangerous.’

Step Crazy Girl looked frightened and stroked Alice’s arm. ‘Oh dear, sweetie, YOU MIGHT BE JUST A LITTLE BIT CONCUSSED.’

‘Yes, but I don’t think that makes her deaf,’ said Jane tersely. She lowered her voice and bent her head towards Alice. ‘It’s OK. You’re at the gym, you were doing your Friday step class, the one you’ve been wanting to drag me along to for ages, remember? Can’t quite see the attraction actually. Anyway, you had a spectacular fall and hit your head, that’s all. You’re going to be fine. More importantly, why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?’

‘What’s a Friday step class?’ asked Alice.

‘Oh, this is bad,’ said Jane excitedly.

‘The ambulance is here!’ someone said.

Step Crazy Girl became goofy with relief. She bounded to her feet and shooed at the ladies like an energetic housewife with a broom. ‘OK, 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 towards 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 of 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 during the step class.’ Jane adjusted her bra strap beneath her top. ‘I saw it happen. She did quite an impressive backflip and her head smashed against the floor. She’s been unconscious for about ten minutes.’

Step Crazy Girl reappeared, ponytail swinging, and Alice stared up at her smooth long legs and hard flat stomach. It looked like a pretend stomach. ‘I think she lost concentration for a minute,’ said Step Crazy Girl to George Clooney in the confidential tone of one professional talking to another. ‘I really don’t recommend this sort of class to pregnant women. I did ask if anyone was pregnant.’

‘How many weeks are you, Alice?’ asked George.

Alice went to answer and to her surprise found a blank space in her head.

‘Thirteen,’ she said, after a second. ‘I mean, fourteen. Fourteen weeks.’ They’d had the twelve-week ultrasound at least two weeks ago. The Sultana had done a peculiar little jump, like a disco dance move, as if someone had poked him in the back, and afterwards Nick and Alice had kept trying to replicate the movement for people. Everyone had been polite and said it was remarkable.

She put a hand to her stomach again and for the first time she noticed what she was wearing. Runners and white socks. Black shorts and a yellow singlet top with a shiny gold foil sticker stuck to her top. It seemed to be a picture of a dinosaur with a balloon coming out of its mouth saying, ROCK ON. Rock on?

‘Where did these clothes come from?’ she asked Jane accusingly. ‘These aren’t  my clothes.’

Jane raised a meaningful eyebrow at George.

‘There’s a dinosaur stuck to my shirt,’ said Alice, awestruck. ‘What day of the week is it today, Alice?’ asked George. ‘Friday,’ answered Alice. She was cheating because Jane had told her they were doing a ‘Friday step class’. Whatever that was.

‘Remember what you had for breakfast?’ George gently examined the side of her head while he talked. The other paramedic strapped a blood-pressure monitor to her upper arm and pumped it up.

‘Peanut butter on toast?’

That was what she generally had for breakfast. It seemed a safe bet.

‘He doesn’t actually know what you  had  for breakfast,’ said Jane. ‘He’s trying to see if you remember what you had for breakfast.’

The blood-pressure monitor squeezed hard around Alice’s arm.

George sat back on his haunches and said, ‘Humour me, Alice, and tell me the name of our illustrious prime minister.’

‘John Howard,’ answered Alice obediently. She hoped there wouldn’t be any more questions about politics. It wasn’t her forte. She could never get appalled enough.

Jane made a strange explosive sound of derision and mirth.

‘Oh. Ah. But he’s still the prime minister, isn’t he?’ Alice was mortified. People were going to tease her about this for years to come. Oh, Alice, you don’t know the prime minister! Had she missed an election? ‘But I’m sure he’s the prime minister.’

‘And what year is it?’ George didn’t seem too concerned. ‘It’s 1998,’ Alice answered promptly. She felt confident about that one. The baby would be born next year in 1999.

Jane pressed her hand over her mouth. George went to speak, but Jane interrupted him. She put her hand on Alice’s shoulder and stared at her intently. Her eyes were wide with excitement. Tiny balls of mascara hovered on the ends of her eyelashes. The combination of her lavender deodorant and garlic breath was quite overpowering.

‘How old are you, Alice?’

‘I’m twenty-nine, Jane,’ Alice was irritated by Jane’s dramatic tone. What was she getting at? ‘Same age as you.’

Jane sat back up and looked at George Clooney triumphantly.

She said, ‘I just got an invitation to her fortieth birthday.’

That was the day Alice Mary Love went to the gym and carelessly misplaced a decade of her life.