Sarah pulled the sheet gently away from her body and placed it softly back behind her, tapping it twice around Andrew’s rump before padding into the study to flick on the computer. Its bright light bounced off the walls, its start-up jingle metallic and comforting.
She did another check of the boys asleep in their room as she waited for the kettle to boil and stood at the doorway, admiring their mouths, their slightly parted lips. Every night, she became transfixed with a different body part: eyelashes, toes, sweaty heads, knees, the curves of ears, the creases on their knuckles, their chests rising and falling, rising and falling, making energy for another day.
It was 10 pm on Wednesday, and the house had shut down. She could hear the refrigerator making high-pitched whistling sounds and the dishwasher finishing its cycle. She scrawled on a Post-it note to check her Visa statement for the rental-car bill from Dubbo airport earlier in the day. Not thinking straight after the first real wake in her life, and her biggest hangover since having Sebastian four years ago, she had thrown the keys in the letterbox for another car-rental agency and only realised on the plane on her way back to Sydney.
She surfed the internet for a while, her clicks and keystrokes echoing, and checked in on her favourite community sites, stopping to read about why men cheat. Lots of anger here, she thought, taking a sip of peppermint tea as she read about Megan getting back with her ex for the children’s sake and Guest wondering why?. ‘Oh, Guest, relationships are not two 30-cm rulers,’ Sarah said, pleased with her analogy. ‘Relationships are never equal.’ Sarah nimbly navigated pages on stillborn births, a forum about what age is the right age to let your daughter get her ears pierced and a slanging match on childcare. Working mums versus stay-at-home. Nothing new there.
She flicked through some pictures of celebrities at play, and her heartbeat began to race. She checked down the hallway, being careful not to step on the squeaky floorboard near the bookshelf, and closed the door, turning the handle slowly so it didn’t snap when shut. All she could hear was water being pumped into the dishwasher from pipes hidden in the wall. She’d forgotten to put it on the economy cycle and shook her head at herself. All the little things add up, she had read time and time again. The little things over time can have big consequences.
When Sarah sat at her desk, she took great care to move two bills and a drawing of what was supposedly a rocket into her desk drawer. She didn’t like any reminders.
Sarah went to favourites and clicked on a forum on overweight children. That was how it started, anyway – the latest scientific facts and health implications about overweight and obese children in Australia – but the forum soon moved on to fat kids and irresponsible, lazy parents. Here, she went by the name of Ocean. She liked that it immediately sounded relaxed and easy-going. Everyone liked the ocean. Some people listened to ocean sounds to get to sleep at night.
She scrolled down until she found a post and sign-off from someone called Scrummymummy, trying her hardest to explain herself and her family. There were lots of fires in the comments, but she was drawn to the exchange between Scrummymummy and Butterflyeffect. Scrummymummy sounded so resigned to her weaknesses, so powerless, and Butterflyeffect had no time for her excuses.
Scrummymummy: People judge me and it’s not right. I make my kids eat right and exercise but we are a big family, all of us carry weight. We fight it every day. I can see the looks other people give us. If they only knew that we tried.
Suddenly, Sarah slammed down the lid of her laptop. She thought she could hear something. She stopped still and tilted her ear towards the door. She heard it again. A thump. Another thump. It was coming from inside the study. She turned in her chair to the high rectangular window behind her and saw the grey twisted outline of a branch. Its fingers were tapping at her every time the night wind grew strong. She breathed in and pulled up her screen. The glow washed over her face.
Butterflyeffect: I’m so over people saying they are naturally fat. You are kidding yourself and making your children sick. Wake up. Do something. Eat less. Exercise more. It’s not going to happen lying around watching TV. Do you know how much money you and your family are going to cost the health system? For your choices.
Butterflyeffect and Scrummymummy continued to exchange excuses and accusations. Sarah turned her mug this way and that in her hand and let Ocean out.
Ocean: Scrummymummy, I know we are all doing our best for our children. Keep on trying. Ignore people who want to bring you down and concentrate on bringing your kids up. Let’s make the thread supportive. Peace everyone.
Butterflyeffect tried to return fire, but every time she did Ocean was there, ready, her virtual body thrust in front of Scrummymummy. Ocean kept at the adroit defence until Butterflyeffect could stand it no longer. Scrummymummy thanked Ocean for her kindness, and Sarah left the site. Why would she call herself Scrummymummy if she is obviously fat, Sarah wondered as she trawled around this world. That’s just making yourself a bigger target.
On a high from her victory, Sarah, as Sarebear, finished off a message of support to Tara on a parenting site from the United Kingdom. Tara had just been diagnosed with breast cancer at thirty-eight with twin boys. She sounded like a nice woman, Sarah thought.
Some bright spark suggested that Tara think positive thoughts, perhaps remind herself with positive affirmations on Post-it notes around the house and make herself a chicken soup. She could cheat; there were some good ones in the supermarket these days, the black type said.
Sarah shuddered. She thought of boiling the chicken carcass and adding the bouquet garni, some carrots and celery, the salt and pepper and watching the steam swirl above the pot. She thought of blowing on the spoon until it cooled and then tasting exactly what it needed. When she had her catering business, before she had the boys, she felt an intoxicating sense of confidence in the kitchen. The way she moved around it was light and fluid and assured, reaching and bending and adding and combining with purpose and skill. She had a touch, people kept telling her. She had started to cater for big events – two society weddings and the odd society bar mitzvah– and then she started vomiting into anything with an indent one week before she found out she was pregnant with Sebastian.
She pushed her chair back from the desk and looked out the dark window lit up by a steady stream of car headlights, their bursts of radiance testimony to the fact she practically lived on a freeway. It had been Andrew’s idea: if they wanted to live in a good area, they would have to buy a house on a main road. Sarah thought she would be used to the constant mechanical buzz and whirr by now. She thought she would have stopped pressing too hard on the accelerator every time she exited the driveway. She thought she would have stopped praying silently that the cars behind would understand she was slowing to turn into her drive and not run into the back of her every time she put the indicator on when she was coming home. She shut her eyes and could smell chicken soup.
She decided to make a batch tomorrow afternoon. Chicken soup and carrot cake. The carrot cake was for Peggy. Poor Peggy. On Friday, Peggy arrived at the childcare centre bearing a tray of tiny cupcakes for her son’s birthday, neatly lined up in pastel iced rows under thick clear plastic with cursive handwriting on a sticker pressed on top reading ‘Twee Bees Cupcakes’. Peggy ran past a group of mothers out the front. She was late for work, and her grey suit had a thread hanging off the shoulder that needed to be cut off. Just as she ran past Sarah, her heel caught in a crack between the pavers that six fathers and one mother had laid two years ago and the cupcakes nearly went flying. Sarah managed to catch them, but Peggy landed on the ground.
‘Peggy, are you okay?’ Sarah asked, moving away from a group of women who had been discussing the new teacher. She helped Peggy up with her one free hand. ‘The cupcakes are fine, anyway. Lucky I never let food go to waste,’ she added, trying to make light of the situation. ‘They’re beautiful. They do such beautiful cupcakes – these chocolate ones with the vanilla icing are my favourite.’
&nbs
p; Peggy dusted herself off and thanked Sarah in a staccato, ‘not quite sure what the hell I am doing on the pavement running late for work with a tray of cupcakes at a childcare centre’ kind of way. ‘God. Thanks, Sarah. I didn’t bring Jack anything for his birthday last year, and everyone bloody does it,’ she said, trying to explain herself. ‘I was the only mother all year who forgot. That would have been a great start to the day, running late and losing the cupcakes. Failed again.’
Sarah didn’t understand why Peggy found it a chore. She loved the tradition of bringing in cupcakes or doughnuts or treats for your child’s birthday to share with the class. She was so good at icing.
Peggy collected herself and the cupcakes from Sarah and headed for the door just as Marina whispered too loudly to the two women next to her, ‘Oh, so that’s how you show love these days? With store-bought cupcakes.’
Sarah froze. She saw Peggy pause with her hand on the doorknob, her other hand balancing her store-bought cupcakes, and then she opened the door with that thread still on her right shoulder. The thread seemed to have grown. It was as though her grey suit was unravelling, beginning at the loose thread, and by the time she entered the primary-coloured room with tin-foil stars hanging from string she had left a puddle of grey thread behind her and was naked bar a tray of cupcakes.
Sarah would drop the carrot cake over to Peggy in the afternoon. It was Peggy’s day off work, and often they caught up with the boys on a Thursday. She would probably love something home-made.
She opened her Facebook page and found more photo updates of friends having the time of their lives out at restaurants and themed picnics and ski trips overseas. She felt hot and undid the top button of her pyjamas, thinking maybe she should have taken some pictures at Meg’s funeral and updated her photo albums. Show everyone how much fun she was having. Then she finished by pulling up Marina’s page and complimenting her on her new profile picture.
She had just pressed ‘Share’ when Andrew appeared at the doorway. She jumped in fright and clutched her heart like a thirties film actress. ‘You scared me.’
‘Who else was it going to be?’
‘I didn’t hear you open the door. Did you sneak in?’
‘No.’ Andrew breathed heavily out of his nose as an exclamation mark. ‘I walked in, like a normal person, and you didn’t notice.’
Sarah adeptly flicked off the internet and brought up a Word document without taking her eyes off Andrew.
‘Sarah, you’ve been in here for two hours. It’s 12.30 am.’
‘No, it’s not.’ Sarah glanced quickly at the time in the corner of her computer. He was right, and she hid her surprise.
‘12.30 is not late, Andrew. Some people are only just going out at 12.30.’
‘What’s that got to do … they’re not up at 5.30 am.’
As if on cue, the neighbours’ car pulled into the driveway, and they could hear the garage door clunk open, doors slamming and footsteps fading.
‘You’ve had a big day, a big couple of days. You coming to bed soon?’ he ended with a yawn.
‘In a minute.’
‘You okay?’
‘Yeah.’ Sarah turned to fully face him. ‘I don’t want to do that again in a hurry. Poor Meg. There was hardly anyone at her funeral. I mean hardly anyone, Andrew. She only had her dad, really, and when he died, I suppose …’
‘She’s been alone for a long time, Sarah. He must have died five years ago.’
‘Nine. We’re starting to sound like our parents. He died nine years ago – 23 November – nine years ago. I can still see Meg at the funeral. It was a nightmare, remember? I found her in the toilets, and she’d worn a dress for Bill, and she couldn’t take down her stockings. Her hands were shaking so much that she couldn’t take them down. I had to pull them down for her so she could go to the toilet. It was the only time Eve and Meg weren’t together at the funeral or the wake – Eve was paying the caterers or something– and when she came into the toilets and saw Meg and me in the cubicle together and the bloody stockings, with Meg so helpless, Eve started slamming one of the toilet doors so much it came off the hinges. It must have been an old door. It fell on the floor and on Eve’s foot. Remember? She broke one of her toes. Meg and Eve just started laughing when they realised what had happened. It was crazy.’
‘That’s right. Jesus. I can’t believe it was nine years ago.’
‘It was just after she graduated. That was the last time Bill came to the city – after she graduated. We all went out to dinner. Italian. I had home-made gnocchi. Meg and me and Eve and Bill. Eve was back from London, and the dinner was, was … we knew Bill as girls and we were all adults. It was different. He was a lovely man. Always lovely. He used to be such a big man. The restaurant didn’t have any peppermint tea and Eve ran down the street and found some because Bill liked peppermint tea. He didn’t want to be a burden, and by then he liked his own company.’
‘Sounds like Meg,’ Andrew said.
‘Mmm. She would dip in and out of people. She moved around a lot. My address book has more than a dozen listings for Meg.’
There were the fingers of that tree again, behind Sarah. Scraping on the glass. A whistle of wind and then a scratch. Sarah turned.
‘We really should cut that tree back soon. Next thing it will go straight through the window.’
‘I’ll organise it on the weekend.’
‘Thanks.’
‘It’s getting windy out there,’ Andrew said. ‘I like hearing the wind at night.’
‘I hope I don’t end up having a funeral like that,’ Sarah said, not hearing him and looking again at the tree.
‘That’s not going to happen to you.’ Andrew realised the ridiculousness of his statement and corrected himself. ‘Well, not like that, and not for a long time, anyway. Come to bed. Get some sleep. Please.’
Neither of them was skilled at talking about death or funerals. They were preoccupied by the other end of the life cycle.
‘I should have made more of an effort to see her,’ Sarah said, moving on to the comfort of what should have been. ‘I didn’t try.’
‘In a perfect world, Sarah. We’ve had the busiest four years of our lives with the boys. It’s not like you deliberately went out of your way not to see her. These things just happen.’
Sarah wasn’t after logic. Logic had a habit of taking things away from women.
‘That’s when it goes wrong. When things just happen.’
‘You’ve lost me.’
Sarah rubbed her forehead, then looked up at Andrew. ‘I’m exhausted. I don’t know what I mean either.’
Andrew looked squarely at the benign-looking silver machine in front of Sarah’s head. His wife of six years pretended not to notice. It was her computer. Sarah suddenly sat up, her lethargy replaced by vigour. She grabbed a pen from her green coffee mug filled with three pens, a rubber and two data sticks. She held the pen and looked at Andrew, the perfect boss waiting for the not-so-perfect employee to come into her office for a 10 am meeting.
‘C’mon, Sarah. Please.’
With the pen still in one hand, Sarah began typing with the other.
Andrew had begun to go soft around the middle, and patches of errant hair were sprouting on his chest, making a move for his neck. His second ‘please’ irritated her. It was so needy.
‘I’ll be in soon. I just need to finish something I’m working on. I won’t be long.’ About three months ago, Sarah had a bright idea to compile her favourite recipes and maybe self-publish a cookbook. She had collected seven, but at least it gave her a rubbery occupation to present to those who asked what she did at barbecues or Andrew’s work functions. She couldn’t say she had her own catering business – that went when the boys came along. It was logical to let the business ‘go’.
She turned away from him and began typing as though he had already left the room, and before he had reached the bathroom down the hallway she quickly called out, ‘Andrew? How about we take the boys to the
water park on the weekend? I’ll pack a picnic. It will be fun.’
‘Okay,’ she heard him say. Sarah was good at finding – or, if need be, making – bright spots. A bright spot was always a wonderful distraction from a black hole. And if you had enough of them, maybe you could cover the black hole forever.
When Sarah Partridge was ten, after a long Sunday lunch of roast lamb and packet gravy, her uncle asked her if she believed in heaven and hell.
‘I believe in heaven, but I don’t believe in hell,’ Sarah replied, her red hair flowing around her face, always in a dramatic exclamation point despite her best efforts.
‘If you believe in heaven, you have to believe in hell,’ Uncle Steve chided. He was one of those bachelor uncles with no children who wore an expression of ‘Children aren’t hard, what’s all the fuss about?’. He had a simple formula to gauge his success. He would tease his niece and nephew, maybe over their haircut, choice of music, the way they held their fork, then he would get a reaction. Reaction, interaction: the uncle with the two-door car outside didn’t know the difference.
‘You can’t just choose one and not the other. It doesn’t work like that. It’s a belief system,’ Uncle Steve said patronisingly. ‘A package sold by Christian faith. You can’t choose which parts to believe in. It’s all or nothing.’
‘Why not? I don’t have to believe in hell. I’m choosing – I believe in heaven,’ Sarah said, proud of her clear stance. Then she turned on her bare feet to go into the laundry to get a tropical Zooper Dooper iceblock out of the deep freezer.
She knew not to go in the kitchen. She could hear her mum whispering the words ‘1950s housewife … packet gravy … you make it from fucking scratch … headache’. The whispering turned to silence. Amanda had gone to her bedroom for an afternoon rest.
Under the Influence Page 13