I Give My Marriage a Year

by Holly Wainwright

  But he was that man. And somewhere, underneath the anger, as he lay on the mattress next to his sleepless wife, there was a sliver of pride. Because he had stuck up for himself. He had, in the words of his woo-woo sister Maya, stood in his truth. He had said no to something that mattered.

  ‘Of course, she’ll never forgive you for it,’ Gretchen had said to him that day, when he’d brought Lou home from the clinic. ‘I think you were right, for what it’s worth. But she’ll never forgive you.’

  ‘I didn’t make her do it!’ he’d hissed at Gretchen, as he found her jacket on the hooks by the door and Lou hugged the girls. ‘I couldn’t make Lou do anything.’

  But Gretchen had just raised an eyebrow, patted him on the arm and left. ‘Good luck,’ she whispered as she pulled the door closed.

  Lou had turned to him from where she was crouched on the floor, tickling Stella, and given him a weak smile, and he’d decided that Gretchen was wrong. It was going to be okay. It was the sensible decision, caught early. Things were going to get back to normal. Better than normal.

  But then Lou had stopped coming home.

  The night he looked at her diary was not the night he’d found out what was really going on.

  The diary night, Stella was feverish and weak and she missed her mummy. The house was the usual evening chaos, and he’d done baked beans on toast for dinner because he was out of ideas and Stella, who was almost five, could usually be counted on to eat beans above almost anything else. But that night she’d pushed them around her plate and seemed to turn pale in front of him. Afterwards, she’d shivered in the warm bathwater, and Rita was tumbling around the place in the nude, yelling at a very specific volume that seemed to worm into his ears and stick knitting needles into his patience.

  Where was she?

  Josh had wrapped Stella in a big fluffy towel and laid her down on her bed. ‘I’m just going to find some medicine, Stell-star,’ he’d whispered, and grabbed a running Rita as she stumbled past him. ‘Come downstairs with me, you,’ he said, as sternly as he could muster. ‘I’ll put Peppa on while we sort this out.’

  ‘Peppa, Peppa, Peppa!’ Rita yelled. ‘Peppa naughty!’

  ‘Yup,’ Josh muttered, ‘just like her biggest fan.’

  He plonked her in front of the TV in the living room and fumbled around with the remote until Peppa Pig was located, and then he went into the kitchen to find the kids’ Panadol. Here’s hoping we’ve got some, he was thinking, as he rummaged through the kitchen cupboard. They didn’t.

  Josh called Lou’s phone, again. She didn’t answer, again.

  He texted: Stella sick. Can you grab Panadol on way home? And resisted adding, Where the fuck are you, anyway?

  And then he’d seen Lou’s Book of Shit on the sideboard, near the landline.

  It was quaint, really, in the age of synced calendars, that Lou was still bonded to her ten-year-old Filofax. She said that she liked having everything there, where she could see it: the days she was doing what with which classes at school; the girls’ various appointments and activities. Work Shit and Family Shit, as she called it – her Book of Shit.

  It was unusual that she’d left it behind today. And Josh felt like a creepy cliché, staring at it, weighing up whether to open it. Wondering whether it would actually tell him anything about where his wife was and what she thought these days and why she’d stopped coming home to their house with the tree.

  ‘Daddy!’ Stella called from upstairs. ‘Daddy! I don’t feel good.’

  ‘Peppa’s so naughty, Daddy,’ Rita joined in from next door. ‘She’s made a mess on the carpet.’

  Josh knew it wasn’t Peppa Pig who’d made a mess on the carpet.

  ‘Hold on, girls,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll be there in just a minute!’

  And he flipped open the red-leather-covered book. Flicked the pages to this week, this day, scanned quickly, guiltily; if his eyes didn’t linger, it was like he wasn’t really looking at all.

  Stage one staff meeting, in Lou’s loopy, large writing, 5 p.m.

  Josh’s eyes went to the clock on the oven. Seven fifteen.

  The only other thing written in the space reserved for that day was a T scrawled in the corner.

  He looked at the other days on the week’s spread. T. T. Twice this week.

  He flicked back. T. Once last week, on Thursday, right after Stella – dentist. Josh had thought about last Thursday, how Lou had asked him to take the girls to Stella’s dentist appointment, because she’d be home late.

  The week before. Two Ts.

  His phone rang. Lou’s name flashed up on it, and Josh slammed the diary closed with some force.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Stella’s sick?’ Lou’s voice. That voice. Even when it was tense, like now, it was the voice of home to him.

  ‘She’s got a fever, we’re out of Panadol. She wants you. Where are you?’

  ‘I think there’s some under the sink in the downstairs bathroom,’ Lou said. She sounded like she was in the car.

  ‘Okay.’ Again, ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’ll pick some up from the late-night chemist anyway. I’ll be home in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Good. But where are you?’

  Lou had hung up.

  ‘Daddy, Peppa’s made a big mess!’ Rita yelled.

  Let’s just get through tonight, Josh thought, as he grabbed a cloth from the draining board.

  *

  The journey between Emma’s new bungalow on the coast – her ‘happy ending’ as she called it with trademark dark humour – and Josh and Lou’s house took two hours down the tree-lined highway if the traffic was light.

  The night he drove home after delivering his mum and all her boxes into the hands of a cheery property manager and Anika, who was staying to get Emma settled in, the road was eerily empty. It was well past rush hour by then, and he was going against the commuter traffic anyway. He played music, turning it up louder than he ever could if Lou or the kids or even Mick was in the car, and he sang along.

  Happy, are we? he heard Lou saying in his head. What have you got to be so happy about?

  What, indeed.

  I’m compartmentalising, he said to himself. Things might be rough at home, but my mum’s in the place she’s always deserved, and I’m driving, alone, listening to Radiohead at an unreasonable volume. Small pleasures.

  But the phone rang.

  And he didn’t answer it, because he was doing one hundred and ten on the highway and he wasn’t an idiot, but he saw Lou’s name flash up and his stomach clenched. Because it was a week since the diary. When his mum asked what he’d found he’d only said, ‘She was at a staff meeting,’ but actually, that night, when Stella had fallen into a medicated sleep and Rita had finally run out of energy and collapsed into her bed in a sweaty tangle, he had found Lou in the kitchen and asked her, ‘What’s T?’

  She had gone quiet, looked up at him and said, ‘Not now.’ And her voice, that voice again, had struck him down somehow.

  Because here he was, with a wife who wasn’t coming home and a mysterious repeated letter in her diary that you’d have to be an idiot not to think was the name of a lover. But still, it was he who bore all the guilt. Lou’s eyes were accusing him when she avoided the question.

  Josh knew there was a toilet stop coming up on the left, before the Brooklyn Bridge across the Hawkesbury River. He’d stopped there hundreds of times before, as a Little Boy Josh travelling between his father and his mother, and as a Young Bloke Josh on his way up the coast with a mate and an untouched surfboard, as a Dad Josh, ushering a little girl in for a wee before an accident soiled the back seat. On the way home from his dad’s funeral, for fuck’s sake, with Lou breastfeeding in the back seat of the station wagon and him clearing the windscreen of an unreasonable number of dead bugs. So when he reached it, he pulled in. Sat in the ute for a moment, bathed in the blistering noise of the stereo. Then he shut off the music, picked up his phone from
the cup holder and climbed out of the cab. He sat on the kerb. There wasn’t anyone around, it was dark, except for the yellow headlights coming towards him in groups and the red tail-lights pouring away from him on the other side of the highway. It was warm, cicadas were loud. He pressed the button to call Lou.

  She didn’t say hello.

  She said, ‘I’ve been having an affair.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Lou,’ Josh said. ‘Who says that?’ He rubbed his brow, kept his hand there, head lowered, phone to his ear.

  ‘Me.’ Her voice was quiet, but matter-of-fact. ‘I’m furious with you. And I’ve been having an affair.’

  Josh wasn’t sure what he was meant to say next. His mouth was suddenly watery, like right before you vomited. His stomach clenched. His chest suddenly felt tight, as if someone was squeezing him from behind. His body knew what it was doing.

  ‘Josh?’ Lou said, still quiet. She was in the kitchen, he could tell. He pictured the kids’ plastic dishes on the draining board. The faint splatter of baked bean juice on the inside of the microwave door. Empty water glasses still on the wooden table he’d made for them all. A discarded kid’s shoe near the back door. A little red jumper tossed over a chair. A couple of empty bottles next to the bin. He could hear the sudden silence their house took on when the girls were asleep, when you tiptoed down the stairs and exhaled.

  ‘Josh?’

  He shook his head, as if to shake the kitchen out of it.

  ‘Are you leaving me?’ he asked.

  Lou didn’t say anything.

  Josh squeezed his eyes closed and held his breath.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to.’

  He exhaled, opened his eyes. The traffic on the highway kept going. Headlights. Pause. Tail-lights.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me about it?’ Lou asked. ‘Don’t you want to know?’

  ‘I do not want to know,’ Josh said, fast. It was something he was certain of.

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Not yet, Lou,’ Josh said.

  ‘But I feel like I need to explain . . .’

  ‘Is it over?’ He held his breath as he waited for the reply.

  There was a pause, then, ‘Yes. It’s over.’

  A bright red car pulled in behind the ute and two young men got out. Ignoring the toilet block right in front of them, they walked over to the trees behind and pissed in unison. One of them threw Josh, sitting on the kerb outside the lit-up dunnies, a suspicious look.

  ‘Where are you?’ Lou asked.

  ‘I’m driving,’ he said. ‘I pulled over.’

  ‘Are you coming home?’

  Josh breathed in, out. ‘Yes, I’m coming home.’

  He sat there on the kerb with the phone to his ear, Lou with the phone to hers in their kitchen, for a long minute.

  ‘I think we need to see someone,’ said Lou eventually. ‘To help us through this.’

  A mosquito buzzed at Josh’s ear. The night suddenly felt heavy around him.

  ‘I just need to see you,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get back in the car and drive home now.’

  There was another long moment.

  Then Lou said, ‘Okay. I’ll see you soon.’

  Lou

  ‘Five months.’

  While he was still inside her, Josh had said into Lou’s ear, ‘How long have we got now?’

  They were pushed up against the bedroom window, Lou’s bum on the sill, Josh’s arms on either side of the glass.

  It was sex with her husband like she couldn’t remember, not in Sex Month, not in years. Lou felt every part of it, like she was covered in Josh’s firm fingerprints, like his lips and teeth were branding marks into her skin.

  The night was black outside, there were no lights on in the bedroom. The lopsided tree still shielded the window. It felt like they were invisible. Like it was just the two of them again, the pair who had eaten under the covers on the floor in Redfern.

  They stayed there, in the window, afterwards. Holding on to each other, her face in his neck, his in her hair. ‘We should know better,’ Lou said into his skin. ‘We’re middle-aged.’

  ‘You are nowhere near the middle of your age,’ Josh replied. ‘I won’t hear of it.’

  Lou laughed. Breathed him in, the smell of him like no-one else, so familiar, so warm. ‘You smell like wood,’ she said. ‘You always smell like wood.’

  She knew that neither one of them wanted to turn the light on and change everything.

  ‘That really was some breakthrough today,’ Lou said. ‘I think Sara’s proud of us.’

  ‘We’re her star fucking pupils,’ said Josh.

  And he kissed her again.

  *

  That afternoon, Lou had been running late to the appointment with the therapist because she’d been offered a new job.

  ‘Well,’ she was saying to Rob on the phone as she walked to the car, ‘I’ve been asked to apply for a new job.’

  ‘Is that how it works?’

  ‘That’s how it works. No headhunting in public education – just an invitation to come and tangle with the red tape.’ Lou was trying to sound light. She didn’t feel light. Her heart was racing too quickly and she couldn’t quite hold a thought in her head.

  ‘Do you want it?’ Rob asked.

  ‘I’ve wanted it for my whole career,’ she said. ‘It’s just . . . there’s a lot going on. This might not be the right time.’

  ‘I thought you were thinking about leaving that school,’ Rob said. ‘Something about one of your workmates.’

  ‘No, brother, you obviously weren’t listening; I really like it here.’

  ‘Oh, maybe it was something Gretchen said. Forget it.’

  ‘You’ve seen Gretch?’

  ‘We bump into each other out sometimes,’ he said. ‘You know, the gay mafia and all that. Have you seen that girl she’s dating? She has more than a hundred thousand Instagram followers.’

  ‘Stop it, Rob, you sound twelve,’ Lou scolded. ‘How are you, anyway? It seems like it’s been ages.’

  ‘Sad, alone and forty.’ His voice was light, but Lou knew he wasn’t joking. Rob had broken up with Toby, his first long-term boyfriend since he’d split with Peter four years ago, and he was struggling.

  All of our siblings are single now, thought Lou. Is that a sign?

  ‘Is there any chance you and Toby will . . .’

  ‘Stop it, nope.’

  ‘Oh, Dr Rob, I’m sorry.’

  ‘We all know who isn’t sorry, right?’ Rob said. He sounded like he was walking somewhere quickly, just like her. ‘Mum. She’s stoked.’

  ‘She thinks maybe you’ll grow out of this lifelong gay phase of yours.’ Lou gave a dry laugh. ‘Finally get it out of your system in midlife.’

  ‘She’ll be pleased about your job, Lou. The last time I saw her happy was at the opening of my practice.’

  ‘Come on, Rob, you know she doesn’t care about my job, only yours.’

  Bitching about our mother is the activity that most bonds us, thought Lou. ‘What will we talk about when we can’t talk about how terrible Mum is anymore?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll talk about how terrible she was,’ Rob said, quick as anything. ‘You know it.’

  ‘I imagine that’s accurate.’ Lou climbed into the car. ‘I have to go, Rob, I’m late for an appointment.’

  ‘How’s Josh? Gretch pulled a face when I asked her.’

  Bloody Gretchen.

  ‘Not great, to be honest,’ Lou said eventually. ‘But we’re trying to fix it.’

  ‘Of course you are,’ Rob said, and she could hear his smile. ‘Just as well; the family can’t handle any more splits at the moment. Thank God you two have been together for a hundred years.’

  Lou suddenly felt like crying. You have no idea, she thought. And it’s my fault you have no idea.

  ‘Yes.’ Lou paused. ‘I really have to go.’

  ‘See you Sunday at Mum’s birthday lunch
,’ said Rob. ‘Fucking kill me now.’

  ‘Bye, brother.’

  *

  ‘I think we should separate.’ It was the first time she’d said that out loud, and she was saying it to Sara the therapist, in the blindingly bright office, with Josh sitting next to her on the couch.

  Another release.

  It was what she’d written into her phone today, her pulse racing, after her interview with Gabbie, the school principal: 7. Trial separation. Let’s see what happens when we have some space to breathe. To think. To see.

  Josh didn’t respond.

  ‘Not forever,’ Lou said. ‘But to give ourselves some room. See what changes.’

  He still didn’t respond.

  Over the past month, things in the house had moved from the brightness of the try-hard, best-behaviour phase into an almost icy, punishing silence. The turning point for Lou had been her birthday, when she’d opened her present from Josh. She could tell straight away that it was a shoebox and realised, with a rush of pleasure, that it was a new pair of running shoes.

  But it wasn’t. It was a pair of stunning strappy heels, gold with crystal-studded straps. The kind she never wore and had never owned.

  ‘I bought them to take you out on a date,’ Josh said.

  Lou had tried so hard to look delighted, but she wasn’t delighted. She didn’t want date nights to places she could wear heels. That wasn’t what was going to fix this.

  Of course, Josh read it in her face in a heartbeat. ‘You hate them,’ he said, when the girls were out of earshot. ‘You really hate them.’

  ‘I don’t,’ she said, but she knew it sounded like she did. ‘I just . . . I don’t think I can walk in heels!’ She tried to laugh, but it sounded like a strangled yelp. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for trying.’

  But it seemed as if this small thing, the wrong pair of shoes, had pushed Josh into a darker place. A place of resignation. A place of sleeping in the guitar room.