The Sparkle Pages

by Meg Bignell

  Later, I ended up sending Hugh a photo I found on the internet of some enormous boobs. He didn’t reply. It’s been a melon-y sort of day.

  PS It’s Alison who makes the treacle gingerbread, not me. I lied. Imagine if Alison heard me use her gingerbread as a line for another man. I probably should have checked behind me in the queue. This is Tasmania after all. You’re bound to be in a queue with your mother-in-law at some stage.

  LATER:

  I am in the wardrobe with a torch. Hugh is asleep. Or pretending to be. The good news is that we had some sex! He was home late and the children were eating dinner when he arrived so we didn’t talk about my text messages. But when we went to bed he said, ‘About those boobs,’ and reached for me. So there we go, that’s success.

  Although there’s a chance that the enormous boob picture I sent him had a lot to do with proceedings because he kissed me and I could already feel the swelling in his jeans. He ran his hand across my (no) breasts and I said, ‘Oh my goodness, they must have popped,’ and he laughed a bit. Then he wrestled with my nightie for a moment and knocked the books off the bedside table, which made the dog bark so we had to freeze for a minute and listen for awakened, incoming children. There were none, so I straddled him mounted him jumped up on him and turned so that I was facing the wall, looking over his feet. (I found the position in Joy of Sex – I know, it’s positively vintage, but this stuff never dates, does it?) It surprised him. He gasped as I guided his hard, reaching flesh into my … dammit, hole? me. As I stared at the wall (bit weird) and moved my body up and down on his, I imagined that we were both twenty again, that my book hadn’t just fallen on the floor and lost my page, and there were no children to stay quiet for. Hugh was still gasping, more so than usual. Encouraged, I moved faster. I took myself to a time when we were hungry for each other, when every moment alone together was a reason to touch. Then he grasped me around the waist and said, ‘Zannah, can we please stop for a sec?’

  That’s the bad news. He wasn’t trying to extend the pleasure, nor was he holding back for me to catch up. It was hurting him. He tried to play it down: ‘Just too different. Good different, but a bit more pain than pleasure, you know. It’s a fine line.’

  We tried some more conventional positions, our usuals, and I had one of my quite-nice-without-blowing-my-mind orgasms. But he didn’t. For the first time in all our years, Hugh didn’t come climax. And I think he made some pain noises when we got to the rolling-over-to-go-to-sleep bit. I feel mortified; I think he’s really hurt. I apologised and stroked his back until his ‘It’s really okay, Susannah’ indicated irritation. He went to sleep and now I’m in the wardrobe.

  Should I get him an icepack? A heat pack?

  This is not ideal. I should have aimed for something more conventional. Just sex is an achievement in this potential ice age, never mind complicated new positions. Perhaps my expectations are too high. Is my beaver an overachiever?

  That’s not funny. Not funny at all.

  SATURDAY 11th FEBRUARY

  Speaking of Ice Age, Hugh and I had an argument today. On the back of a bent penis, this is not good.

  We were all in the car on the way to Mum and Dad’s when we got caught in traffic on the waterfront – there was some sort of charity fun run happening and we were trying to avoid it by taking a detour. We found ourselves stuck alongside the lairy red bulk of the Antarctic icebreaker Aurora Australis. Of course. As we inched along Castray Esplanade, Hugh watched a group of people on the deck. I tried to pretend it wasn’t there.

  ‘Dad!’ yelled Mary-Lou. ‘There’s your big red boat!’

  Hugh said, ‘Yes, there she is. She’s a beauty, isn’t she?’

  ‘Are you going back on there?’ asked Jimmy.

  ‘No, he’s not,’ said Raffy. ‘Mum said he wouldn’t leave us for that long again.’

  ‘Probably,’ Hugh said. ‘If they needed me.’

  ‘What’s it like down there?’ asked Jimmy, even though Hugh had described it in great detail many times before. And shown the photos.

  ‘Like nothing you’ve ever known,’ said Hugh. ‘Magical.’

  A wallop of jealousy hit me in the solar plexus, surprising me. I looked at one of the men on deck and felt unfairly cross with him.

  We drove on a bit, then Mary-Lou said, ‘Is Antarctica your favourite place in the world, Daddy?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hugh. ‘I think it is.’

  ‘After home,’ I said loudly, with an unbecoming amount of shrill.

  Hugh looked at me and said, ‘Yes, of course. After home.’

  ‘I’m going to be an expeditioner like you, Dad,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘But you’re not a ’speditioner any more, are you?’ asked Mary-Lou.

  ‘No, I’m not any more.’

  And there was a silence, into which Mary-Lou put her little hand and patted Hugh on the shoulder. ‘Don’t be sad, Daddy,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not sad,’ he said, ‘I’ll go back.’

  ‘Not for a good ten years, surely,’ I said. Then I tried to brighten my voice to add, ‘I couldn’t manage on my own without you again.’ But the ‘again’ was heavy, and a bit sour.

  ‘If there was an opening, I’d like to take it,’ he said. ‘They so rarely need my qualifications …’

  I didn’t trust myself to speak so I stayed quiet. He must have taken that as grump (which it was, really) because he said, ‘It’s natural to want to repeat one of the best times of your life, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it’s not natural to bugger off and leave your family for six months.’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Five, then. Five months. Not natural.’

  ‘It’s okay to have things other than your family.’

  ‘Yes, but nothing too much. That’s too much. We have to sacrifice things.’

  ‘Not everything. We don’t all have to be as extreme as you, Susannah. We don’t all have to —’ he stopped short and swallowed his words.

  ‘Have to what?’ I could feel tears but willed them away. ‘What, Hugh?’

  He looked me straight in the eye and I realised too late that I didn’t want to know. ‘We don’t all have to give up altogether.’ It wasn’t quite a shout, but his voice was raised and taut. There was a horrible silence. I was glad that Eloise had her earphones in.

  After a moment, Mary-Lou said, ‘Are you having a bicker?’

  ‘No,’ we both said shortly. And we were quiet all the way through the traffic to Taroona.

  At lunch, Hugh was very quiet. I overcompensated with a lot of talk about the children: ‘Mary-Lou’s going to be a pumpkin in the ballet performance, Eloise probably needs braces, Raffy made a bottle opener in woodwork’, etc.

  Mum’s eyes darted between Hugh and me. ‘What’s the matter, Hughie? You’ve barely touched your roulade.’

  I thought about what would happen if I said, ‘Well, the other night I almost broke his penis and now I’ve gone and broken his spirit.’ But instead he said, ‘Sorry, Frannie. I must have had one too many pancakes at breakfast.’

  Re broken penis: it’s back to normal, he tells me, but it must have been bad because he was walking gingerly and even cancelled squash. He never cancels squash. He never cancels anything. Did I squash his penis? Or wrench it? Graze it? I’m too embarrassed to ask, what with all that fervent riding and visualising old shaggy days while Hugh was gasping away in pain like a bride in the regency.

  I am in a terrible mood. I shall take it with me to bed and put it to sleep. (That’s if we fit, my mood and I, with Hugh and that great block of ice between us.)

  Bloody hell … I just turned off my torch too soon, slipped on Raffy’s music book, crashed into the wardrobe and broke the hanging rail. I blame my ugg boots. No grip. These things wouldn’t happen if I weren’t such a lounge-wear fan. Must de-dag myself. A makeover? That would surely feed into the success of the resolution anyway. I’ll pop it on the list. The wardrobe breakage was likely a timely reminder to update my wardrobe
.

  THINGS TO DO

  – Have makeover (hair)

  – Call wardrobe man (it’s still under warranty so best not to let Hugh try fixing it)

  – Find computer mouse

  – Give Raffy his music folder (What is it doing in wardrobe?)

  TUESDAY 14th FEBRUARY

  I’m trying to see the funny side of things. It’s not working very well.

  Valentine’s Day was heralded by a heart-wrenching soprano coming from Valda’s house early this morning as I was making the lunches. A very moving love song – Berlioz, I think. It made me float expectantly about the kitchen before Hugh came in because anyone with a beating heart cannot help but be affected by that, I thought. But of course I was wrong. Jimmy and Mary-Lou were very busy trying to outdo one another’s mosquito bites, Hugh was on the loo, and Eloise actually closed the window and said, ‘Oh my God, is she joking? It’s practically the middle of the night.’ But I opened it again and said, ‘It’s Valentine’s Day, you pile of wet blankets. Let the romance soak into your stony hearts.’

  When Hugh did finally complete his morning ritual and join us in the kitchen, he said, ‘Valda’s into it early,’ and closed the window again.

  ‘It’s Valentine’s Day,’ hissed Eloise and gave him a nudge.

  ‘Oh. Happy Valentine’s Day,’ he said, opening the window again. He tried humming along for a bit, then gave up, kissed me on the forehead and reached for his coffee cup.

  ‘Dad, you’re meant to give roses and chocolates and stuff, aren’t you?’ said Eloise.

  Yeah, I thought, in a whiny teenage voice.

  ‘Commercial bollocks,’ said Hugh. ‘Mum and I’ve never worried about Valentine’s Day.’ He’s right, we never have. Only this year, I am worried about it. This is the trouble with resolutions. Expectations soar. ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I’m never bothered. I only got you a card.’ And I pulled a large envelope from my handbag. He did look worried then. The card had sparkles all over it and inside it said:

  We might have seen debacle,

  And a bit of argle bargle,

  But I am very partial

  To Hugh.

  When I have lost my marbles,

  And have swollen metacarpals,

  I won’t have lost my sparkle

  For you.

  Hugh laughed a proper Hugh laugh. Making him laugh, I realise, is one of my favourite things. I looked at the laugh crinkles and the dashing silver flecks in his hair and felt a flurry behind my sternum. A butterfly?

  ‘Josh gave Isobel a diamond tennis bracelet on Valentine’s Day last year,’ said Eloise.

  Hugh stopped laughing and frowned at her. ‘Mum doesn’t need a tennis bracelet,’ he said. ‘What’s a tennis bracelet?’

  ‘Dad gave Mum a pot of chalk paint last year,’ I added with a sigh. ‘In her favourite blue.’

  Hugh put up a hand and said, ‘All right, all right. I’ll come up with something by this afternoon.’ He grabbed his computer and an apple, kissed me and said, ‘Thanks. Good card,’ then left before anyone could ask him for anything else.

  ‘So we’re not going to the Revolving Restaurant, then?’ I called after him.

  ‘Thought you didn’t like the cauliflower!’ he called back with a smile.

  I did a hammed-up ‘Oh, you’ face that turned into real dismay when he’d gone. ‘Actually, it was the cauliflower that I liked,’ I said to myself. ‘If you’d only pay attention to my details.’ He’s so brilliant with engineering details …

  I shouldn’t be thingy. He has to rush to work so someone can get him a proper coffee. Also he must be stressed from having to find some socks and a tie. Poor love.

  I’m being a grouch because herein began one of those nightmare school mornings. Valda’s Valentine soundtrack became an underscore to chaos of unprecedented proportions. Soon after Hugh left I realised that Raffy hadn’t even got out of bed yet, and that our scheduled departure was mere moments away if we wanted to make it to Eloise’s bus in time.

  ‘Rafferty!’ I shouted at the lump in his bed. ‘GET UP. What are you doing? It’s seven thirty. Oh my GOD.’

  ‘I’m listening to the music,’ said the lump in muffled tones.

  ‘Well, listen with skates on. HURRY!’

  ‘But you’re still in your nightie,’ he said, his tousled black hair emerging from the bedclothes. And so I was. Bugger, I thought.

  Seventeen minutes later I’d stuffed my nightie into a pair of shorts, broken up an argument between Mary-Lou and Jimmy about whether green jellybeans are apple-flavoured or lime, fished Raff’s sports uniform out of the dirty wash pile and flapped it out the bedroom window to freshen it up, taped up the grip on Eloise’s tennis racquet, signed Mary-Lou’s excursion slip, found Raffy’s laptop charger, eaten a small beetle that I thought was a sultana from the muesli, sponged yoghurt from Jimmy’s shirt, given Barky his arthritis medicine and found Eloise’s bus pass, which wasn’t in the washing pile but in her blazer pocket all along.

  ‘Mum, I’ll just go to the bus stop alone. Then you won’t be in such a rush,’ Eloise said.

  ‘No, no, we’re ready,’ I said. ‘Nearly.’

  She looked at my hair. ‘Please just let me walk myself. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said, locating a substantial but quite delicate bird’s nest at the back of my head. ‘I like the walk. It’s important chat time.’

  This isn’t true. Ever since Eloise was born I’ve had to find ways to distract my brain from visualising all the terrible things that could happen to her. The other children feature in my nightmares as well, but mostly Eloise. She’s the one my brain harps on about the most. An oft-repeated refrain, I suppose: a tune so familiar you don’t even know you’re whistling it. It’s worse since she started catching the bus to St Catherine’s. Sometimes at night I have to get up and look at recipe books to stop myself thinking about bus crashes, pervy men, etc. It’s the only time I look at recipe books.

  When everyone was finally ready we were still behind time, so I abandoned the walk-to-school idea and hurried everyone into the car, a feat that was hampered by the discovery of a dead kitten on the nature strip.

  ‘Mum!’ gasped Jimmy.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ I said, catching Jimmy’s arm and steering him towards the car, hoping that the rest of us might sail past without noticing. But Mary-Lou was on our heels. She saw the kitten, stopped in her tracks, opened her mouth and screamed.

  ‘Oh, darling. It’s all right. Poor little pussy cat.’ I crushed her face to my middle, mostly to muffle the din. ‘Please calm down. It’s the way of the world.’ But she wailed on.

  ‘Shouldn’t we do something?’ asked Jimmy, through tears of his own.

  ‘But it’s dead,’ said Eloise.

  ‘And we’re late,’ I said. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Don’t leeeaavvve himmmmm,’ wailed Mary-Lou, stomping her feet on the grass.

  ‘We can’t just leave him there,’ said Jimmy in despair.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I said, pulling a plastic bag from my pocket (kept there for Barky’s messes). ‘Get in the car.’

  I gathered the (very cold, bit stiff) kitten into the bag and got in the car with it on my lap, then popped it into the compartment inside the door next to my drink bottle.

  We drove on, Mary-Lou still sobbing, Eloise in the front seat, looking like she needed to be put in foster care with a normal family.

  When I got home again (forty-five minutes later because Mary-Lou blubbered to the teacher and I had to convince them that she didn’t need the school counsellor), Isobel was jogging past as I was moving from car to house with kitten. I had to put it in my handbag. She stopped and did a bit of small talk before asking, ‘Are you going out for a lovely Valentine’s dinner or anything?’ And I said, ‘Oh, no. We don’t worry too much about Valentine’s Day. You know. All a bit much.’ I looked on her wrist for a tennis bracelet but there wasn’t one. Replaced by a yacht this year, probably.

 
; ‘Oh, fantastic,’ she said. ‘Would you mind having Ava and Thomas for a few hours tonight? I wouldn’t ask but our sitter is having her wisdom teeth done …’

  ‘Of course!’ I said quickly because the rule is you don’t pause for too long when asked to have other people’s children or you get a reputation for being stand-offish. Also, I was trying to get away because dead cat in handbag.

  ‘Oh, thank you. Great. We won’t be late. Josh is taking me to the Revolving Restaurant.’

  Later (once I’d buried the kitten in the garden) Isobel phoned and said, ‘Would you mind having one more? My friends are doing Valentine’s too and they don’t have a babysitter either.’ I think Hugh and I are the only people not ‘doing Valentine’s’. Alison and Laurence are eating at the Astor Grill and Mum’s watching Singin’ in the Rain on Netflix and ‘snuggling in’ with Dad.

  So anyway, fast-forward to five o’clock this afternoon and there are seven children in the house. Mary-Lou was beside herself with joy to have newcomers.

  Eloise said, ‘Can’t we go to Ava’s for a swim instead?’ And then, ‘What are we all going to have for dinner?’

  I realised she was embarrassed. I’d got a bit carried away with the whole neighbourhood-mama thing and made fruit sticks and honey joys. I also set up the badminton net (bit wonky – there seems to be a piece missing) and cleaned the bird poo off the trampoline (I feel so neighbourly, I thought. Soon people will be putting me down as the support person on their school enrolment forms). I should have just stuck with the honey joys.

  Barky was also displeased with our visitors. Ava brought an enormous pink teddy bear with her that Mary-Lou was instantly smitten with.

  ‘His name is Strawberry-Baby,’ she said. ‘Ava got him for Christmas and she’s getting another one next week even though it’s not Christmas or her birthday.’ She hugged it and patted it and spoke to it in the voice she reserves for Barky. He was very put out (dog, not bear).