House of Sticks (29 page)

She stood at the back door, peered out through the glass. Pete was sitting on the porch steps. She saw the glow of the tip of a cigarette, then the flurry of sparks as he stubbed it out on the concrete and got up.

She stepped back.

He came right in before he saw her. ‘What're you doing?' he said, as if talking to one of the children. ‘I thought you were asleep.'

Bonnie drew the dressing-gown closer around herself. She felt self-conscious, ridiculous in her layers of clothing, vulnerable next to Pete in his day clothes and jacket, shoes still on.

‘You should go back to bed.' He went to the bin and threw in the cigarette butt, poured more wine.

She swallowed.
Don't cry
.
It'll just annoy him
. ‘Can we talk?' she said. ‘About what's going on?'

He sighed and picked up his glass. ‘Okay.' Annoyance did seem to show on his face, as if she really was a child making untimely demands, someone he had to both indulge and be responsible for. He didn't offer her a drink.

Bonnie followed him down the hallway and sat while he lit the heater and perched at the far end of the couch, away from her.

‘So,' he said, staring down at his glass. ‘What're you going to tell me?'

‘Pete.' Bonnie's voice blared in her own ears. She had no idea what she was going to say. In the light from the heater he looked so young. Younger than her. He could be twenty. How were you — how were they, the two of them — supposed to manage something like this? Her shoulders ached, and her back.

He didn't move or look at her.

‘I've never lied to you,' went her blaring voice. ‘You know that.'

He didn't answer.

‘In Sydney. I did something.'

‘Go on.' He was rubbing one thumb over the knuckle of the other. She could hear the rasp of his rough, dry skin.

‘I just — after what happened with the bet and everything — I just felt so horrible. I hated myself so much.' Her voice was coming back down now, sounded closer, more real. ‘After the show there was a party. I was so drunk. And this guy, some guy, I don't even know his name …' She leaned towards him. ‘I didn't even
like
him, Pete, you have to believe me.'

‘But you still fucked him.' He kept his eyes down. Bonnie had never heard his voice so thick and mean. He made it sound like the ugliest word in the world.

‘No — no!' Her hands were clenched in her lap. ‘I didn't. I … I was so drunk. He just helped me back to the hotel. And he left.'

The heater hummed and zipped, liquid orange now. One side of Bonnie's face felt scorched. She put her hand to her cheek.

‘Are you sure?'

She dropped her eyes. ‘What do you mean? Of course I'm sure. Nothing happened. We just … we left the party together and …' She crossed her legs, squeezed all the muscles in her thighs and between her legs, feeling those fingers again, the rawness of her too-dry flesh.
Oh, Pete. How can I make you understand? It wasn't sex. Or lust or fun or anything. It was the opposite
.

‘So what about the condom?' Pete's thumb kept up its rasping.

‘What condom?' But even as she said it the memory came bouncing up, as if a lid had been lifted, a button pressed. The hotel, the bathroom. Her hateful reflection in the mirror. Swivelling, her boots echoing in the tiny room. Swivelling back, swaying, leaning over the counter. Beth's make-up bag. The spill of tubes and pencils, toothbrush and paste, the strip of little squares with their perforated seams. Their padded feel under her fingers, their anonymous neat shapes.

‘The condom that fell out of your jeans pocket when I picked them up this morning.' He turned back to the heater, lifted his glass.

She could see the anger in the movement of his arm, the jerk of his head as he drank. She squeezed her muscles tighter.
Shit
. The memory floated before her, luminous. Her crumpled, drunken face, her voice slurring, begging him to stay.
Nothing happened. Nothing happened. You wouldn't have gone through with it
.

‘Pete.'

‘What?' There was an edge to his voice now.

‘I didn't mean to …'

‘What, you didn't mean to stop the taxi and go into a shop and buy condoms? Or, I don't know, get one from one of those vending machines at a pub or something? How can you not mean to get a condom, Bonnie, to put it in your pocket?'

There was a catch in her throat, a hopeless ache. ‘I was at the hotel. I went to the toilet, to the bathroom — I was sharing with the bass player — and her stuff was in there. Her make-up and stuff. In this bag, on the bench, and it was open.' Tears were in her eyes and through them her hands turned into fat, pink blurs in her lap. ‘And I just — I just took one, without thinking, you know. I was so drunk.'

‘So the guy had already left and you were just so drunk you took a condom and put it in your pocket for no reason.'

‘No.' She blinked and the tears fell onto her laced fingers. ‘No, he was still there.'

‘I thought you said he just took you back to the hotel.'

‘No. He came up to the room.'

‘Bonnie.' Pete shifted abruptly on the couch, licked his lips. He spoke slowly, as if having to let each word out with restraint in order to prevent an avalanche of anger. ‘Can you just please tell me the fucking truth because I can't — I really can't sit here much longer trying to piece it together, okay?'

‘Okay.' She was crying properly now but she didn't try to stop it. Her face felt raw and strained. ‘Okay. We went to the hotel, just to have a drink. And he was about to go and I went to the toilet and I saw the condoms and I took one because I — I don't know why.' A sound burst from her, a kind of choked flat laugh. ‘I didn't like him. I wasn't attracted to him. He didn't turn me on. When he said stuff to me it made me want to laugh. When he touched me it was embarrassing.'

Pete sat with his head down.

‘I was so drunk, Pete. I didn't know what I was doing.'

He didn't move.

Bonnie's words were blurred with her sobbing. ‘Nothing happened, Pete. Nothing actually happened.'

He stood up. He didn't look at her.

She put her hands over her face. ‘I know you probably don't want to hear this right now and I don't know if it'll make any difference, but I love you. I love you so much, and the kids, and everything, our life together. I don't want to lose any of it.'

She pressed her fingers to her eyes. She heard him move. He was going to the door.

‘I can't listen to any more of this,' he said in a low voice.

Bonnie lay in the dark. She took one hand in the other and squeezed it, pushed at the scabbed-over cut. A jab of soreness, but not enough. She dug with her nail, dug till pain came shooting and fresh tears popped into her eyes.
Fuck
, she thought.
Fuck, fuck, fuck
.

She woke to the sound of Jess crying. She pulled back the covers and sat up, but there was movement in the hallway and the crying stopped.

Pete came in carrying the baby. He was still in his clothes.

‘What time is it?' She reached for the clock. ‘Jesus, Pete, it's five-thirty. Have you been up all night? What've you …?'

Pete passed Jess down. ‘I'm going.'

‘What?' she said, thickly. ‘Where?'

‘I don't know. To stay with friends.' He wasn't looking at her. ‘For a while.'

Bonnie sagged back into the pillow with Jess grabbing at her, rubbing her face on her top, making hungry sounds.

Pete went back across the room.

‘Wait!' She sat up. ‘How long for?'

‘I don't know.' He pulled his overnight bag from under the chest of drawers and stuffed clothes into it.

Jess started to cry.

‘But where are you going? Which friends?'

He didn't answer. He zipped the bag and went out.

‘
HE'S
WHAT
?'

Bonnie held the phone further away from her ear. ‘It's probably just for a little while,' she heard herself say. ‘It's not —'

‘What happened?'

‘Nothing!' She glanced down the hallway. ‘Nothing actually
happened
, but …' She went into the bedroom and half shut the door. ‘Mum.' She stood in the middle of the room, head down, spare arm clamped across her body. She tried to speak quietly. ‘In Sydney. The other night. I — Pete and I, we'd been fighting, and I just …'

Don't tell her
.

Bonnie gulped, struggled, but the words were coming out. ‘I just hated myself so much.'

Suzanne's tongue-click sounded through the phone.

Don't tell her
.

But she was sliding towards confession now, the collapsing relief of it. ‘I got really drunk, and there was this guy, at a party.' She spoke in a rush. ‘And I took him back to the hotel …'

The click again.

‘And, I mean, nothing really happened, in the end. I mean, we didn't, you know, have sex.'

‘Bonnie!'

‘But I still — I betrayed Pete.' She tried to control the crying, to keep it quiet — she could hear one of the children running past — but it was getting away from her.

‘Bonnie.' Suzanne's tone was firm. ‘Calm down. I'm sure this isn't as bad as you think.' There was a moment's pause, and Bonnie pictured her mother glancing at her watch. ‘Look.' A brief sigh. ‘I'll come over, okay? I'll be there soon.'

‘Mu-um!' It was Edie, out in the hallway.

‘Okay?' said Suzanne. ‘Darling?'

Bonnie's whisper wobbled and scraped. ‘Okay.'

‘Mu-UM!'

Bonnie hung up the phone and crouched by the bed, trying to breathe evenly, to rein herself in.

‘MUM!' yelled Edie. ‘Where are you?'

She flattened herself to the floor and pressed her face into the crook of her arm.

‘What did you
tell
him for?' Suzanne pulled out a chair and brushed her hand over the seat before sitting down.

‘Well, he kind of … It's complicated, but he would've found out anyway.' Bonnie stood at the back door.

‘But I thought you said nothing actually happened.'

She put her face closer to the glass. ‘Yeah, but …' The twins digging in the dirt were two blockish shapes, bright red and blue in their jumpers, the garden around them layers of watery grey and green, the black workshop hulking behind. Bonnie let her gaze float past them all, up into the cold white sky. ‘I still … It was a betrayal.' Her voice was high and caught at the back of her throat. ‘I've fucked everything up. I mean, I didn't even
like
the guy.'

‘But, Bonnie … Look.' Suzanne shifted in her chair. ‘These things happen. You'd be surprised how often they happen. And you'd be surprised who does them.'

‘But —'

‘What I'm saying is, it's not the end of the world.'

‘But how can he … how can … I mean, if Pete did something like that to me I don't know if I could ever …'

‘Don't start thinking about that. None of that matters. You have a life together. You have children. There's a lot at stake.'

‘Yeah, but, Mum —'

‘So what's going to happen now?'

Bonnie put her hands over her face. ‘I don't know.'

Suzanne drew a breath in through her nose. ‘Well, the two of you would be fools to throw it all away — everything you've got.'

‘I realise that.'

‘It's not easy on your own, with kids.'

‘Jesus, Mum, I know.' Bonnie could feel her face getting hot.

‘Remember Jan? I mean her life was bloody miserable — cooped up in that council flat all on her own. Those kids just constantly —'

‘I know! I know how hard it is, Mum. I don't want to break up with Pete.'

‘Bonnie. Listen. These things happen. You need to get Pete back, you need to both just forget about all this, and you need to just … get on with it.'

She lay on the bed. She could hear Suzanne and the twins in the living room.

‘No — Edie. You stay here with me, please. Mummy's just having a lie-down. She needs a bit of a rest. Now. Who can do this puzzle?'

Bonnie closed her eyes.
Think
, she told herself. But nothing came. None of it seemed real.

Sleep then. Rest
. But every time she closed her eyes they opened again. She stretched out her neck, made her arms and legs soften into the mattress. Then felt them all draw back into tightness again, as she stared at the ceiling.

‘Where's he gone anyway?' said Suzanne later, as they hung clothes on the line.

Bonnie looked up into the grey sky. ‘I don't know.'

‘Well, where did he say he was going?'

‘To stay with friends.'

‘But he didn't say which friends?'

Bonnie sighed. Her throat hurt. ‘No,' she said in a low voice.

Suzanne clicked her tongue. ‘Well, did you ask?'

‘Yes, I did.' She picked up more clothes from the basket. ‘But he didn't tell me.'

Suzanne clipped pegs on briskly. There was the sound of the twins shrieking in the house.

She thinks you're hopeless
. She felt her ears go hot. ‘He just said he was staying with friends,' she repeated.

‘Not what's-his-name,' said Suzanne.

‘Who?' Bonnie could feel the heat creeping into her face, and at the same time a shrinking feeling in her stomach, the tender trembling of her own suspicions. Pete's words, the other night.
Doug came round. He's looking for a flat
.

‘You know — the lame duck, what's-his-name? The one who was helping in the workshop, making a pest of himself.'

She swallowed. ‘Doug.' Her voice shook.

Suzanne made a sharp, frustrated sound. She turned to Bonnie, a towel in her hands. ‘Why didn't you do something about that, that … situation?'

Bonnie kept her eyes on the line, on her own hands spreading a pillow case. ‘I don't know.'

‘Why didn't you bloody well get rid of that feller? Pete was never going to — you knew that.'

In her head Bonnie saw Pete and Doug, the two of them, together in a flat with no furniture. Drinking and staying up late. Watching the races on some crappy little TV. A record player set up maybe, a crate of old records from their punk days. Eating toast and takeaway, getting the newspaper from the local milk bar. Like old times. Two men with nothing to worry about but their own immediate needs. Going on with their unfathomable, unexamined friendship as if more than ten years hadn't passed. As if she and the kids, Pete's business — none of it — had ever happened.

Suzanne bent to the basket. ‘Someone has to take charge, with these things. You can't just drift along and trust everything will be okay.'

Bonnie stood staring at nothing.

Suzanne clipped up the last towel and turned. ‘Can you? Darling?' She came closer, reached out and touched Bonnie's arm. ‘Never mind,' she said. ‘It'll be all right. Come on. I'll make you a cup of tea. God knows, I need one myself.'

Jess had a fever. She whinged all afternoon, protested during her usual naptime. Her eyes and nose ran, she rubbed at her ears.

‘Can't you just dose her up with something?' said Suzanne impatiently as they stood at the kitchen bench, Bonnie jiggling the baby on her hip. ‘Panadol? Or what's that other one — that makes them sleep?'

‘Phenergan?' Bonnie allowed herself a dry laugh. ‘I think they've changed the rules on that one. I don't think it's actually very good for kids.'

‘Well, you had it.' Suzanne lined up a handful of green beans on the chopping board and sliced off their tops. ‘You turned out all right.'

Bonnie took a careful breath. ‘I'll give her Panadol if she can't sleep tonight,' she said. ‘But they say it's best not to, if they're not suffering too much — it's best to let the fever do its work, fighting the bug or whatever.'

Suzanne sniffed.

Jess put the backs of her little fists to her face and began to cry.

‘You're not feeling too good, are you, possum?' Bonnie sat down and put the baby to her breast.

‘Didn't you just feed her?' Suzanne brought the knife down on another bundle of beans.

She didn't look up. Her neck ached.
Just ignore it
, she told herself. She smoothed the moist hairs back from Jess's forehead.

‘I'm sure you just fed her only half an hour ago. Won't she have some dinner? Doesn't she have solids now?'

Ignore it
. Bonnie tried to sit straighter in the chair, to ease her neck and shoulders.

Suzanne lifted the chopping board and swept the beans into the top of the steamer. ‘Surely you don't need to be wearing yourself out breastfeeding all the time. Shall I pop her in the pram and take her for a quick walk? Would that settle her?'

Bonnie touched the backs of her fingers to Jess's burning cheek.
If it was up to you
, a voice inside her shouted,
you'd shove her in a room and shut the door and leave her to cry, like you probably did with me
. She breathed slowly. ‘Thanks, Mum, but I think I'll just feed her and try to put her to bed.'

There was quiet for a while — the muted burble of the twins' talking book from down the hall.

Suzanne pulled open a drawer. ‘Well, you're not helping anyone being a martyr. Least of all yourself.'

Bonnie adjusted her grip on the baby and, with her still attached, stood up and left the room.

They fed the children and got them to bed, side by side, cool and careful, not looking at each other.
This is ridiculous
, thought Bonnie.
Someone else to feel weird around
. But the prospect of a confrontation exhausted her. It was easier just to press on like this, to retreat into wounded distance. To let her tiredness push aside the frustration, the guilt, the whole tricky mess of feelings.

‘Where's Dad?' said Louie as he lay in bed.

Bonnie looked down into his waiting face. ‘He's — just gone away for a little while.'

‘To get more wood?'

‘No.' She smoothed the covers, tucked them in around his compact little shoulders.

‘No,' said Edie from the other bed. ‘Of course not. He's got so much wood. He doesn't need any more.'

‘Dad just …' Bonnie sat up straight and spoke into the middle of the room, the space between the two beds. ‘He just needs a bit of time to himself.'

Silence from the children.

‘Okay?' Her voice trembled, but she recovered. ‘Okay?'

‘He might've gone to get more wood, Edie,' said Louie. He got up on his elbows. ‘You don't know everything.'

‘He's got heaps of wood!' Edie's voice rang against the ceiling.

‘Shh.' Bonnie pushed Louie gently back down. ‘Okay, quiet now. Time to go to sleep.'

‘He just needs some time to himself!' said Edie.

‘Shh.' Bonnie crossed to Edie's bed and bent to tuck her in. ‘Night-night. Sweet dreams.'

‘Louie's stupid.' Edie kicked up her covers and thumped her heels on the mattress.

Bonnie rearranged the bedding. ‘Edie — come on. Lie down properly and be quiet, please.'

‘Well, he is.'

‘Shh. No, he's not.'

‘I'm not!'

‘Yes, you are. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.'

‘Na-na-na-na-na!'

‘Enough!' Bonnie stood up. Her hands were shaking. ‘Lie down both of you and go to sleep! Or I'll have to turn off the hallway light and shut the door!'

The phone rang later that evening — the landline. A man. ‘Is Pete there, please?'

‘Um, no — sorry.' Bonnie's heart started to race. She didn't recognise his voice.
What to say?
‘He's … not here just now.' She felt she was speaking ridiculously slowly, the words oozing out. ‘Did you try — have you got his mobile?'

‘Yeah, I tried it. It went straight to voicemail.' He had a faint accent.

‘Who … who is this?'

‘Sorry.' He laughed. ‘It's Glenn. I've got some joinery for him. He was in a hurry for it, kept calling me all last week, but now it's ready I can't get a hold of him.'