House of Sticks (28 page)

Jess didn't cry for her early feed the next morning. Bonnie woke to Louie crawling in under the covers on her side of the bed. She wriggled over, and Pete's arm went round her automatically. She lay sandwiched between them, and there was a delicious long moment before she remembered — before it came lunging at her again, snapped her completely awake.

Then Jess did start to cry.

‘What time is it?' said Pete.

She lifted her head to see the clock. ‘Quarter to seven.' When she lay back again she could feel him behind her, their bodies touching all the way down, the easy way his arm resettled around her, and her flesh shrank in shame.

Pete yawned. He gave her a squeeze and sat up. ‘I'll get her.'

She stayed where she was, Louie tucked in at her front. The guilt gave a fresh surge.
Oh god, Pete
, she thought.
Don't be extra nice — don't make this even harder
. She put her nose to the soft nape of Louie's neck. ‘You sure?'

‘Yeah. I'm up now.' Pete, in his t-shirt and boxer shorts, was groping around on the floor. ‘Are these my jeans or yours?'

There was a crash from the other end of the house, a pause, and then Edie's cry. ‘Mum!'

Bonnie sat up. ‘What was that?'

Pete didn't answer.

‘Watch out, Lou.' She pulled back the covers and climbed over him. ‘Did you hear that?' she said to Pete.

Pete was standing near the doorway, his back to her.

‘Mum!' came Edie's call. ‘I accidentally dropped the milk!'

Jess wailed.

‘Bloody hell,' muttered Bonnie. She grabbed her dressing-gown. ‘I'll get Jess then, if you can deal with Edie?'

‘She's dropped the milk,' said Louie helpfully, from the bed.

‘Pete?' Bonnie looked up from tying the belt.

No answer.

‘In the kitchen,' said Louie.

Jess was screaming now.

‘I'll get Jess,' she said again, and went out to the hallway. As she passed Pete he shuffled around, keeping his back to her, his shoulders forward, as if protecting something. She was hit by a displaced, uncomfortable feeling of having intruded on some private act, like masturbating, or an intimate hygiene ritual.
Strange
, she thought, rushing towards Jess.
What's he doing?

She heard him while she was in Jess's room, his heavy tread in the hallway. Then, back in bed, as she lay feeding the baby she could hear from the kitchen the reedy voices of the twins, crisscrossing, and the occasional deep bass note of Pete's. She closed her eyes, felt Jess's dense body against hers, listened. There was the sound of the shower starting up, Edie yelling from the living room, ‘Louie! Come and play train tracks!'

Bonnie kept her eyes closed, anchored in the warm dark by the pull of Jess's sucking. She let herself drift into hope. If she could just find the right way to tell Pete, the right thing to say, then maybe it was possible, after all, for everything to continue. The five of them, their family, spinning on, moving in the paths of their beautiful, sensible constellation. What happened in Sydney absolved, erased, dropped into the black.

She put Jess in her baby chair on the bathroom floor and showered. The smell of Pete's shaving cream was in the face washer when she used it, and the grain of guilt rose again, insistent, caught and snagged.

Jess kicked in her chair.

Bonnie pushed aside the curtain and reached for a towel.

Jess frowned and made a wet, protesting sound.

‘It's okay, Jess.' She dried herself, wrapped herself in the towel, lifted the baby. She kissed her hungrily, held her close, but it didn't work. In the cold air of the bathroom the hope was evaporating.

When she went into the kitchen Pete got up from the table, brushing past her without speaking or making eye contact.

Bonnie stood frozen.
He knows
. The certainty came dropping down inside her, quick and final, like a coin falling into a slot.

After a moment she followed. He'd gone into the bedroom and shut the door.

‘Mum,' said Edie from the living-room doorway. ‘Will Douggie work in the workshop again now?'

‘I don't know,' she said, faintly.

‘Can I have more toast?' said Edie.

‘Please?' said Bonnie, automatically.

‘Please?'

Bonnie went back into the kitchen, strapped Jess in her high chair. Her heart thumped. She moved into the hallway again, towards the bedroom door.
How could he know?
She crept closer.

The door opened. Pete stepped forward, doing up the zip of his jacket. He saw her and stopped. His face was closed, stony.

She spoke before she could think. ‘I need to talk to you.'

He didn't answer. He dropped his eyes and moved past.

Bonnie turned and went after him. ‘I need to talk to you,' she said again, hearing her voice, its desperate upwards slide.

Pete walked down the hallway, through the kitchen and out the door.

She faltered by the table. ‘Maybe later?'

But the door was shut. He was gone.

She took the children to the park.

She sat with Jess on her lap while the twins ran and climbed and swung and slid.

How could he know?

‘Look at me! Mum!'

All of a sudden, like that?

‘Mum! Mum!'

Could someone have told him? A phone call, this morning? An email?

‘Mum!'

Someone who was at the party?

‘Mum!'

Who saw the kiss?

‘Mu-UM!'

She let her mind dip into the awful shame-filled black of her recent memory — the night, the party, the man.
Who was there? Who saw you leave with him? Who would know Pete, be able to contact him?
Mickey? Would she do that?

‘Mu-UM!'

Who cares? He knows something happened, that's what matters. And he probably thinks it was worse than it actually was
.

‘Look at me! Watch this!'

He knows, and he thinks you were never going to tell him
.

‘Mu-UM!'

‘Great!' called Bonnie, weakly. She held Jess closer against the cold wind and stared out at the street, the passing traffic. A van went by, yellow, shabby, rust-spotted. Her scalp prickled. She pictured Doug sitting on the end of Louie's bed, holding out the little carvings, the warrior and the sly-smiling woman. Her two children in their pyjamas, arms reaching, receiving. Doug's own sly grin, his cigarette stink and dirty clothes, his presence reaching into every corner of the room. Her children's bedroom. Rage and fear tore at her. She stood, clutching Jess. The wind blew her hair into her eyes and mouth. Why was she so hopeless? She should have done something ages ago, stood up to Doug, forced him out. A sound broke from her, a wild, despairing sob. She sank back down on the bench. She was hopeless, hopeless; she'd fucked it all up.

When she returned to the house there was a note on the kitchen table. Pete's writing, but unsigned.
Back later
, was all it said.

She marched into the living room and put on the television, found a kids' show.

‘TV?' said Edie.

‘TV!' said Louie.

Like zombies they stood before the screen, arms dangling.

‘Sit on the couch,' she said, and slowly, stares fixed, they reversed up to it, climbed on.

She went to the bedroom, lay on her side in the bed, feeding Jess. The baby looked up at her, one hand gripping the edge of the covers. She watched her daughter fill up, her sucking slow, her long and searching look waver, her eyelids drop, once, twice, slowly, reluctantly, and then a final time, into sleep.

She waited a bit and then pulled away gently. Jess's mouth made a languorous empty sucking motion, and then she sighed and slept on. Bonnie rolled over and faced the other way. She lay gazing at Pete's pillow. What was she going to say, to tell him, when the time came?
Think, think
, she told herself, but a great, desolate blankness settled in her. She tried to let go, to feel, but nothing came — she didn't even want to cry. After a while she closed her eyes and slept too.

‘Mum?'

It was Edie, standing by the bed. Bonnie gasped, half sat up.

‘I'm hungry.'

Jess was stirring, frowning and stretching out her arms, eyes still shut.

‘Shh.' Bonnie put her finger to her lips.

‘I'm hungry,' Edie whispered.

Jess's eyes opened.

‘She's awake,' whispered Edie.

Bonnie sighed. ‘I know.' She drew back the covers and picked up the baby, glanced at the clock. ‘Oh my god,' she said. ‘It's two-thirty.'

Edie flopped onto the bed and kicked her legs up. ‘We watched
so
much TV,' she said in a satisfied voice.

Bonnie groaned and stood up.

She went out into the hallway. No sign of Pete. In the kitchen she checked her phone, and the home phone. No messages, no missed calls. She walked around the room with the baby in her arms.

‘I'm hungry,' said Edie.

‘Okay, okay,' she said, pacing. ‘I'll get you something to eat. Hang on.' She went to the fridge and opened it, stared into it, closed it again.

‘Mum!'

‘What?' She tried to focus on Edie's face, but her head felt too fuzzy. Jess wriggled and she switched her to the other hip.

‘I'm hungry!'

‘Okay, okay.' Bonnie opened the fridge again and took out a block of cheese. She set it on the bench and picked up a knife, struggling to pull back the wrapping from the cheese with Jess in one arm. The knife fell to the floor. ‘Oh god.' Her voice sounded like someone else's, a feeble whine. ‘What am I doing?'

She went around the table and tried to put Jess in her baby chair, but the child clung to her arms, grizzling.

‘Mum?' It was Louie now, coming in from the living room. ‘I'm hungry.'

‘I know!' She knelt, still holding the baby. ‘I know!' Tears rose at last, hot in her eyes. ‘I can't …' She put her head back, looked up at the ceiling and away from the watching faces of her children. ‘I just can't deal with this!'

Pete didn't come back. Neither phone rang, and there were no text messages. She stumbled through the afternoon and into the evening, making cheese on toast, cutting up fruit, leaving the mess on the table, wiping noses, doing up shoes, reading stories in automatic mode, staring sightlessly at the pages. She paced, unable to keep still, wandering from room to room, driven by some mindless, restless energy, the thinking part of her brain switched off. It was like being in labour. What she might actually say to Pete, how to explain herself — coming up with any kind of plan — was unreachable, beyond her.

She heated baked beans for dinner, bathed the children, put them to bed.

‘Where's Dad?' said Edie at one point.

‘I don't know.'

But Edie was waiting, and Bonnie saw that more was expected of her.

‘Out somewhere,' she said, trying to sound normal. ‘He'll be back later.'

It seemed to be enough.

She stood with the phone in her hand. She selected the
recent calls
icon and
Pete mobile
came up, top of the list. She hovered her thumb over the
call
button.

But then she saw his note on the bench, the two stark words.
And don't call me
, it might as well have said — and she took her thumb away, put the phone back down.

She woke, and it was dark. The house quiet. The bed empty beside her. She fumbled for the bedside lamp. Outside the pool of light the edges of the room retreated. A terrible thought came to her: what if Pete had returned, taken the children and gone? What if she was alone in the house? Fear wrenched at her.

She got up. The floorboards were cold. She pulled on her ugg boots, tugged the old blue dressing-gown off the edge of the chair and put it around herself. Crept out into the hallway. Silence. The tangle of kids' clothing where she'd left it outside the bathroom door. Shoes kicked off.

She went to Jess's room. Turned the knob in practised silence and opened the door. There she was. Sleeping. Arms up either side of her head. Blankets tucked in. The side of the cot up. The heater on, ticking comfortably. She closed the door again. Went to the twins' room. Checked them, a head on each pillow, their slow sleepers' breaths.

In the hallway again she stood and listened. Silence and darkness in the living room. She went to the kitchen. Light on but empty. The dishes as she'd left them, half done. Crumbs on the table. But a bottle of wine on the bench, open. And a pack of tobacco and papers.