by J. C. Grey
‘Have you decided on names yet?’ Gordon interjects into the silence, a hint of desperation in his smile.
Since Peanut became Pea and Nut, Marc and I have had numerous conversations on this topic, conversations that usually become more hilarious with each outrageous suggestion. But with just a month to go, no decisions have been made.
‘Something classic,’ Yvette says in that throaty way. ‘French, to honour Marc’s heritage.’
Marc’s eyes meet mine and we both hold back a laugh.
‘Champagne and Merlot! What a wonderful idea,’ I exclaim. ‘My favourite wines.’
Gordon starts to cough, his usual reaction to impending conflict. Marc just looks amused.
‘I didn’t—’ Yvette starts, looking appalled.
‘Inspired, Yvette.’ I heave myself up and give her a warm hug. ‘I’ll think of you every time I look at the girls.’
‘But that’s not—’
‘No, no.’ Settling back on the couch, I wave my finger at her. ‘You’re too modest. It was all your work and everyone will know it. I’ll make sure of it.’
‘Well, in that case … time we went home,’ she replies—a clear admission of defeat in my eyes. ‘Gordon?’
I can’t say she runs out the door, more of a gentle jog, dragging Marc’s father behind her, and we are finally alone again.
‘Sometimes you are positively wicked, Mrs Reed-McAllister,’ Marc says. He lifts my feet, settles down beside me and props my feet in his lap.
‘You’re no help.’
‘Do you need any?’
I shrug. ‘It is kind of fun, now she doesn’t scare me.’
He shakes his head. ‘I think you always had her measure. The issue is, what the hell are we going to call them? We can’t use Pea and Nut forever.’
I break off another piece of chocolate, munching slowly. ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll think of something.’
‘Nothing too … affected.’
‘Like Emerald, you mean? You don’t want to add Ruby and Sapphire to your collection?’
‘I prefer Em to Emerald,’ Marc replies, his eyes steady on mine. For the first time I wonder if he knows. Maybe I should say something. It’s my chance to get it out in the open. I may never get another opportunity, another time when I feel so completely that I have shed the lost, damaged girl who arrived in Sydney on the six twenty-five train from Bathurst all those years ago. Marc will understand, won’t he? He’ll understand none of it was my fault, and agree that it has nothing to do with who I am now? It can’t touch us now, can it?
But then I remember the email, and what is likely to happen if past and present collide. If I do nothing else, I must protect him from that wretchedness.
He is still watching me. ‘Do you?’ I ask.
‘You’re everyone’s Emerald, my Em.’
‘That’s kind of … pathetic,’ I tell him to hide the fact that my heart has just turned over. Either that or I am having a dark chocolate overdose.
In retaliation, he begins to tickle my feet, which is not fair as I am pretty much a beached whale and can do no more than kick and scream. To prove he’s not as pathetic as he pretends, he carefully rolls us until he is lying on the couch and I am sprawled across him, the babies between us.
‘A month to go and they’ll be here,’ he whispers in this kind of awed voice. ‘Can you believe it?’
I shake my head.
‘No doubts?’ His eyes search mine.
An ocean full of them. I shake my head.
‘Liar, liar, pants on fire,’ he murmurs, pulling the tie from my hair. It is back to the length it was before I hacked at it, although in this humid weather I have considered chopping it off again. When he combs his fingers through it, from nape to end, my neck arches back with pleasure.
By the time I have a measure of control back, my dress is scrunched around my hips and my underwear is adorning a lamp. I feel his knuckles against me as he opens the button fly of his jeans and I bite back a moan. He presses forward, his eyes on mine as he joins us.
Present day, night
‘Bloody hell.’ Marc surveys the scene of destruction. ‘Just as well nobody was walking past when that thing came down.’
‘Yes.’ My eyes are fixed on the small door but he is focused on the splintered wood and broken glass. The atmosphere is thick with more than dust.
‘Don’t go too close in those bare feet. I wonder how it happened.’ He picks his way through the debris, heads to the end of the landing outside the master bedroom and looks back. ‘Everything’s out of square from the looks of it. Walls, ceiling, floor. Not unusual in an old place like this, but still. I guess the weight of that thing …’ He shrugs.
‘I’ll clear it up in the morning,’ I say, anxious to get him downstairs.
‘What’s up here?’ he asks, looking around.
‘Worried you’ve made a bad investment?’
He looks at me. ‘It’s not an investment. You were here.’
‘How much did you pay?’
‘A touch over one point five.’
While he is glancing into the master bedroom, I move so I am in front of the small door.
‘Five bedrooms and two bathrooms,’ I tell him as he passes by me, sticking his head briefly through each doorway. I say nothing of the locked room.
‘It’s on about fifteen hundred square metres, according to Val, and includes a small parcel of woodland and a river frontage.’ He cocks his head to one side, calculating. ‘It has heritage features, easy access to Sydney. Despite the fact it needs plenty of work, I think I got a bargain.’
Clearly he is not aware of the house’s history, but when I glance at him, his eyes are on me and I wonder if the last sentence is a reference to the house at all.
‘Anyway, it won’t be mine for long,’ he adds.
My throat closes. ‘What?’
‘As soon as it settles, the deeds will be transferred to you.’
I am confounded. ‘But why? Why would you do that? After everything …’
‘Because I think you feel safe here.’
Why can’t he hate me? Just tell me I am a heartless bitch, a hopeless fake, and just walk away?
‘But I must be a disappointment to you.’ There, I’ve said it, even though my lips feel stiff and my insides shaky. ‘This can’t be what you imagined your marriage, your life would be.’
‘Maybe not, but I’ve learnt that expectations have very little to do with reality.’ He sounds calmer than I think he is. ‘It is what it is.’
‘It doesn’t have to be. We could end it.’
We stare at each other across the wreckage of the armoire.
‘Is that what you want?’ His eyes boil with emotion that somehow he is holding in check after his earlier explosion.
‘I … no. I don’t know. What do you want?’
He smiles and it’s bittersweet. ‘I want my wife to be able to face what has happened.’
March this year …
In the dark, I wake. Something has changed, though I am not sure what. I turn my head towards Marc’s, close to mine on the pillow. He breathes deeply and easily.
I have been waking a lot at night recently. It is hard to get comfortable when you’re the size of a hot air balloon, and it seems the babies are always ready to play when I am ready to sleep.
Tonight, though, they are still. I groan under my breath, wishing I could take advantage of their quiet mood to get a good night’s rest.
When I shift a little, Marc mutters under his breath for a moment, his arm tightens above the rise of my belly. I know he is awake, that he too has sensed it.
The softest of March breezes sighs through the bedroom and vanishes through the open window. Summer has fled, and it is autumn.
I press a hand to my belly. Marc’s hand covers mine.
Tonight, the babies are still.
Present day, night
‘I know what happened.’ I fold my arms tight around my middle.
 
; ‘Do you?’
‘Yes.’
This is not the firefight I had imagined, but a war of stealth, which is irritating beyond belief because it gives him a distinct advantage.
‘So how do you feel about it?’
‘Don’t!’ I put up a hand as though it has the power to repel his words.
‘Do you want to know how I feel?’
‘No. No!’ In my mind I can see a little girl, hands over her eyes.
‘Em, denying feelings doesn’t mean they don’t exist.’ His voice is soft but exasperated.
‘I know that.’ Rationally, I do know it but there is a long way between knowing and accepting.
‘I don’t think you do, Em.’
I step back, feeling the bannister behind me. My hand reaches back to grip its smooth surface. ‘This is stupid.’
‘You don’t want to know how I feel but I’m going to tell you because I have to. I felt … I still feel as though the best of us has been stolen. And I want to get it back, so desperately. And I can’t.’ There is that rasp in his voice that makes me fearful. ‘I’m scared I will never be happy again.’
‘Marc …’
‘I still see them …’
I squeeze my eyes shut to ward off an image that I cannot bear to see.
‘I miss them, Em.’
‘Stop it, Marc.’ I can feel the fluttering of panic at my throat. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘You need to. You can’t just push it away forever. Push me away.’
I feel like I can’t breathe. I need to get away. Blindly, I turn to head for the stairs, but he is there, pulling me around to face him.
‘Em, you need to face this. You need to—’
You don’t know what I need! I want to yell. You don’t know who I am! The sound echoes around us and I realise that I haven’t only said the words in my head but in fact.
Marc’s hands drop to his sides. ‘I’ve always known her. The person who doesn’t know her is you.’
‘That’s ridiculous. I know who I am. What I am! I know I’m vain, self-serving, bitchy, flaky, sneaky. I’m a coward. I let people down. I don’t keep promises.’
Marc counts off against his fingers as though he has a mental list. ‘You make me laugh. You’re a good friend, most of the time. You’re sweet, when I least expect it. Passionate.’
‘More crosses than ticks.’
‘It’s not all black and white, positives and negatives. I love your bad bits, Em, even though they drive me insane, because they’re your bad bits. It doesn’t make any sense but it just is.’
What do you do when the man you love disarms a hand-grenade without turning a hair? I don’t know about you, but pushed to the edge, I pick up the rocket launcher.
‘I’m a liar,’ I tell him baldly. ‘I’ve lied since the very start. You don’t know me! How can you? You don’t even know my name!’
Twenty
March this year …
The one saving grace, for me, is that most of what happens is a blur. I am locked inside my head, and the physical ordeal is nothing. I’m aware that people are there, telling me things and asking me questions. I think I answer lucidly enough because they seem satisfied. Then there is nothing for a while.
When I wake up in a hospital bed, Marc is beside me—in shock, I think. His shirt is inside out, I notice, and his hair is sticking up on one side. His eyes are fixed on my face.
‘Em,’ he says, clutching my hand. ‘Em.’
‘Good drugs,’ I manage through a throat as dry as dust. ‘You should take some. You look terrible.’
‘Love, our girls—’
I turn my head and close my eyes, finding oblivion in sleep.
It seems only moments later that I wake again, but it is broad daylight. He is still there. I am desperately thirsty and he pours water for me.
‘Em, you know—’
I drink thirstily. ‘Yes.’
‘They’re beautiful, Em. Perfect, except … when you’re ready, I’ll bring them in so you can hold them for a bit.’
‘No.’
‘Just let me bring them in and see how you feel. Please.’ The hand not holding mine shakes as it tunnels through his mussed hair. His voice is unsteady. ‘I can take them straight out again if …’
Strangely calm, I say again ‘no’.
There are voices at the door and Marc is telling them to give us a minute. When they insist, he tells them to fuck off.
It makes me smile. ‘Thank you,’ I tell him when the voices are gone.
He is crying and I reach out to wipe a tear from his face. ‘It’s okay,’ I tell him because it’s what you do when your husband is sad and nothing will comfort him except a lie.
‘Sweetie, you need to see them before they take them away. It’s important. Please. If not for you, for me.’
But even for him I won’t look at those still, still faces. After a while, he leaves for some time. And when he comes back, I know from the look on his face that he has done what has to be done, and it is over.
Present day, night
At midnight, we sit on opposite sides of the kitchen table. Marc has topped up our wine glasses but neither of us has touched them.
‘Why don’t you tell me who you are,’ Marc starts.
When I say nothing, he sighs. ‘Very well. I’ll tell you. You are Emma Ashley Reed.’
I am frozen, unable to say anything to stop him. All I can think is that he knows. He knows! Of course he knows! How could I be so stupid? People like the McAllisters don’t marry without doing a background check.
‘You were born the second child of Jaclyn Hobbs and her de facto, Wesley Reed, in Orange. After your father was sentenced to prison for armed robbery, when you were four years old, your mother moved with you and your elder sister, Vanessa, to Lithgow to be with Darryl Marlon, a known drug manufacturer. Your mother and Marlon had three children, two boys and a girl.’ He paused. ‘How am I doing so far?’
When I am mute, he shrugs.
‘It was a chaotic, dysfunctional household. You and your half-siblings often missed school, and when you attended, teachers noted that you were always hungry, dirty and poorly dressed. Despite obvious signs of neglect, and regular reports by teachers to welfare authorities, you were not removed. Other cases were deemed a higher priority.’ He seems to have memorised a report.
I feel numb. Everything I’d put behind me—the grubby history I’d tried to keep from my new life and shiny, perfect husband—has returned to smother me. ‘Enough, Marc,’ I say faintly.
‘We need to finish this,’ he says. ‘Finally, the authorities act when one of your younger half-siblings finds the heroin your stepfather has left lying around. He is left brain-damaged and removed, aged eight, and shortly afterwards Vanessa is also taken into care, for underage prostitution.’
‘Stop it! I don’t want to hear it!’ I have the urge to cover my ears with my hands to block out his voice, but that will not protect me from the memory he has restored—of coming home to find Jacki and Darryl off their faces, oblivious to Ryder’s violent fitting and the little ones’ screams.
‘At age seventeen, you leave in the middle of the night and take a train to Bathurst. Two days later, authorities receive emailed photos of you trying to protect your youngest half-siblings from assault by their vicious father, while your mother looks on, drunk.’ His voice is thick with disgust. I can’t take it. I just can’t.
‘Stop now, Marc. Please. Just stop.’
‘No.’
‘Please.’
He shakes his head. ‘Did he hurt you?’
I don’t want to remember the raised fist, the mad eyes and spitting mouth, or the whimpers of terrified children. I don’t want to remember my terror that he would wrench the broom I picked up to defend myself, and use it against me.
‘No.’ Not that time.
‘In Bathurst, you call yourself Erica and work in cafés and do other cash-in-hand work for more than eighteen months before leaving f
or Sydney.’
‘What is the point of this?’
‘Your half-siblings all have good homes now, if you’re interested. Vanessa works in a bar at Port Stephens and is studying beauty therapy.’
‘I’m not interested.’
‘All right. Back to you. You change your name to Emerald, drift from share house to squat to share house, working in casual hospitality and retail jobs. You have friends and boyfriends, but don’t allow anyone to get too close. Your unusual looks, style and don’t-give-a-damn attitude are starting to attract some attention. You do some modelling work, become the face of rising fashion designer Claire Vincent and the muse of photographer Brendan Hughes.’
‘How dare you have me investigated?’ My voice is low but without heat. I should be incandescent with rage but I just feel drained.
‘I haven’t finished. Age twenty-four, you marry wealthy funds manager Marc Lucien McAllister, thirty-one, after a whirlwind romance. You leave him briefly, a few months later, and reconcile shortly after.’
‘Stop it. Stop it now.’ I lift my wine glass and drain it, then slam it down again so hard it is surprising it does not break. ‘Why are you doing this? Because you hate me?’
He shakes his head. ‘Because I love you.’
‘Loving someone doesn’t give you the right to invade their privacy.’
‘You’re right and I didn’t. My mother did when you returned after leaving me the first time. I shouldn’t have read the report, but I did. And I told her if she wanted to maintain a relationship with me, she would not breathe a word. As far as I know she hasn’t.’
Why doesn’t it surprise me that Yvette was involved?
‘That was my old life.’ I am surprised to hear the words emerge through my stiff lips. ‘I didn’t want it to touch us.’ I think of the email, glad I deleted it. ‘You don’t know what they’re like, my mother and stepfather.’
He utters an abrupt, brief laugh, laced with bitterness. When his dark eyes meet mine I know then that I have been fooling myself to think I could keep the old poison from spreading.