Paper Chains

by Nicola Moriarty

  CHAPTER NINE

  He hadn’t intended on having a drink with her. In fact, tonight, for once he was going to get home on time. But as he had headed out of the office, he’d bumped straight in her – quite literally.

  ‘Hey, latte-boy!’ she said with a smile as they stepped back from one another.

  ‘Coffee-shop-girl,’ he responded cheerfully. He hesitated then, as there was an awkward moment as they both stood staring at one another. ‘Ahh, finished your shift for the day?’ Liam asked.

  ‘Yep. Actually, I was just thinking of stopping in at Chance Bar for a drink. Why don’t you have one with me? My shout.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Liam, caught off guard. ‘Well I was just about to . . .’

  But she interrupted him. ‘Come on, one drink,’ she coaxed and then she started walking and Liam felt as though he had no choice but to fall into step beside her. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I guess just one quick drink.’ And he thought as they headed down the street, Who says you can’t have a friendly drink with a member of the opposite sex? Completely harmless.

  Somehow one drink turned into two. And two drinks turned into three, and somewhere along the line, Liam began to realise that Paige (that was coffee-shop-girl’s actual name) wasn’t just flirting harmlessly with him, she was hitting on him. He had to put a stop to this. They were sitting opposite one another in a cosy booth. It was only a Tuesday night, but the bar was packed nonetheless.

  ‘Hey, Paige,’ he said, trying to figure out how best to word this. ‘You know that I’m married, right?’ he asked, twisting the wedding band nervously around his ring finger.

  ‘So?’ she replied.

  ‘Well it’s just that – I mean maybe I’m misinterpreting here – but I thought maybe you were expecting . . .’ he drifted off, embarrassed. Maybe he did have the wrong idea? But then her foot was against his leg under the table and she leaned forward to whisper suggestively, ‘I really don’t care . . .’

  On the same day that Liam was having a drink with a pretty girl named Paige, Hannah was in the car, driving. It had been a horrendous day, with Gracie throwing tantrum after tantrum and Ethan refusing to sleep; finally Hannah had strapped both kids into the car and started driving. She had no idea where she was going, but it seemed to be the only way to settle Ethan and even Gracie cheered up when she realised they were going out. After an hour, both children had fallen asleep and Hannah continued to drive. Another thirty minutes later, she realised her legs were beginning to feel stiff and she started peering at road signs, trying to figure out where exactly they were. A couple more turns and she saw a sliver of blue in front of her. Instantly she was struck by the sensation of a memory, a feeling of anticipation and excitement. Almost immediately she realised why. It was because when she was small, and her parents drove her up the coast for a holiday at the beach (long before they split up), there was always a competition to be the first one to spot the ocean. They would be winding through the hair-pin turns, and Hannah would be peering out of the window, scanning the view through the gaps in the bush, and usually they would round one particular corner, right at the top of the hill above Gosford, and there it would be, way off in the distance, and if the sun hit it right, it would look like diamonds on the horizon and you had to be the first to shout out those five magic words.

  I can see the water!

  Hannah had to restrain herself from calling out in triumph. She pulled up by the beach, hopped out of the car and checked a sign. Brighton-Le-Sands. She had no idea how they had ended up here, but she gently woke Gracie, popped Ethan in the stroller and they walked down to a nearby fish and chip shop to buy some dinner. They spent the late afternoon and early evening on the beach. It had been a hot day, so she stripped Gracie down to her underpants and singlet and she ran around at the water’s edge, splashing and laughing. Ethan sat unsteadily on the sand, his back propped up against Hannah’s legs and his face set with concentration and wonder as he attempted to control the movements of his hands as his fingers ran through the soft, cool sand.

  Later, when they had finished eating, she watched as thick, dark purple clouds spread across the sky. A wind whipped up around them and she gathered their things and raced back to the car with the kids as fat drops of rain began to fall. They sat in the car and watched the storm rage around them, Ethan on her lap and Gracie kneeling in the front passenger seat, her hands and nose pressed against the window as she watched the storm in awe. Whenever the thunder clapped, the three of them would huddle together, and for those ten minutes until the storm passed over, Hannah thought, Oh this is what it’s supposed to feel like. But then they were driving back home and the kids started to get whingey because they had been in the car for too long and the thought of everything that was waiting for her at home – cleaning, washing, putting the kids to bed – made her feel stressed and sick and she wished they could have stayed by that beach forever.

  She didn’t tell Liam about their impromptu trip down to one of Sydney’s southern beaches. For some reason it felt as though she needed to keep it to herself; it felt like a magical time that she had shared with her children and if she tried to explain it, it might break the spell. She wondered if they could just do that every day.

  Liam was feeling tense. Tense and stressed and guilty and confused. Nothing had happened with Paige. He had extracted his legs from her wandering foot under the table, paid the bar tab and left. He had to leave his car in the office car park because he had had way more drinks then he intended. The long train trip home was suitably sobering though.

  You haven’t done anything wrong, he kept reminding himself. It was just a few drinks with a friendly person . . . a very friendly person.

  And anyway, could he be blamed for wanting some company from someone who actually wanted to talk with him? Who wanted to touch him? Lately he felt like he was constantly just trying to keep up with Hannah. A couple of times he’d called on the way home from work offering to pick up some takeaway for dinner. Hannah always refused, assuring him she had dinner under control. The other day he had gone to iron his work shirts only to find the washing basket empty and all the shirts hanging in his wardrobe. ‘You don’t need to iron my shirts for me, babe, you have enough on your plate,’ he’d tried to protest. ‘I don’t mind,’ she’d replied in a martyred tone that seemed to say the exact opposite.

  Walking home from the station, he tried to think of what he would say to explain the fact that he was arriving home so late – and probably smelling like spirits. As it turned out though, he needn’t have worried. When he walked in the front door, Hannah looked up from the couch. ‘Dinner’s in the oven,’ she said. ‘I’m off to bed.’

  ‘Han, I’m so sorry I’m late,’ he began.

  ‘Don’t be,’ she cut in, ‘I know you have to work long hours.’ And then she disappeared down the hall and Liam found himself wishing that she had smelt the alcohol on his breath, because maybe then they would have had a real conversation.

  On Thursday night, Hannah was feeling a bit out of control. She had fallen behind on the housework today. She didn’t have dinner sorted out yet. She looked up at the clock. Shit, Liam’s due home soon and I haven’t tidied the kitchen yet and I still need to get the kids bathed and in bed. She started the bath running (they couldn’t possibly skip a bath tonight, she’d skipped it the night before) and rushed to check that Gracie had finished her dinner. She was sitting in front of her barely touched plate, eyes on the television; In the Night Garden was on, Upsy Daisy dancing across the screen.

  ‘Gracie,’ she exclaimed in exasperation. ‘Why haven’t you eaten your dinner? I’ve started your bath; I thought you’d be finished by now.’

  ‘Don’t like it,’ said Gracie firmly.

  ‘You liked cheesy pasta yesterday,’ Hannah replied, trying hard to stay calm.

  ‘S’yuck.’

  ‘It’s not yuck, it’s a yummy dinner. Please, please will y
ou just eat it up?’

  ‘Yuck, yuck, yuck,’ Gracie chanted, picking up a piece of the pasta between two fingers and examining it with revulsion.

  ‘Stop it,’ Hannah said quietly. ‘Stop saying that. It’s not yuck, I cooked it especially for you because yesterday you said you loved it.’

  ‘Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck,’ Gracie continued to sing tunelessly.

  ‘Stop it,’ Hannah said again. Anger was boiling deep in her gut, dangerously threatening to erupt. Gracie’s voice was like a vegetable peeler, scraping away layers of her skin. ‘Gracie, please. Stop saying that right now.’ Hannah clenched her jaw. Stay in control, stay in control.

  ‘Yuck, yuck, yuck . . .’

  ‘STOP IT, STOP IT, STOP IT!’ As Hannah began to scream she lost control of her body; she picked up Gracie’s plate and hurled it against the wall. The plate smashed and pasta and vegetables flew everywhere. Ethan, who had been lying on the floor happily playing with his toes, burst into tears. A second later Gracie joined in with him. ‘My food is on the wall!’ she sobbed uncontrollably. ‘My food is on the wall! Get my food off the wall!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hannah whispered, looking from the broken pieces of the ceramic Peter Rabbit dish to her two crying children to the smears of food across the wall. Some had even splattered right up to the ceiling. She collapsed onto the floor and buried her face in her hands. ‘I’m sorry,’ she cried through her tears, ‘I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

  As all three of them continued to sob, Hannah reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. This had to end. She couldn’t go on like this. She typed a text message with shaking hands:

  please, please, could you please just come home on time tonight. In fact, could you come home now? Right now. I really need you.

  She would send this message to Liam and then she would sit here, on the floor, surrounded by the mess and the broken pieces of the little plate that had been her own before it was Gracie’s. She would sit here by her crying children and she would wait. And when Liam came home he would see all of this and he would finally know the truth.

  She was just about to press send when her phone beeped with a text. She opened up the new text instead.

  So sorry, babe, but it’s going to be a late one tonight. Probably won’t be home before midnight so better have dinner without me. I’ll eat takeaway at the office. Love you.

  Hannah stared at the message with burning eyes. What would have happened if she had sent hers first? Would he still have stayed back anyway? And what would he do if she still sent the text anyway? Would he drop everything and rush home? Maybe. But then again, maybe not. His work was important, after all. It didn’t matter though, because she hadn’t sent it and she wasn’t going to, and she certainly couldn’t sit here on the floor until midnight. This was a second chance to pull herself together all on her own. To fix things before Liam ever found out what was going on. She wiped her tears away and looked around at the scene. She stood up. ‘Come here, sweetheart,’ she said, picking Gracie up from her chair and hugging her close. She walked over to Ethan and scooped him up with her other arm and then she sat down on the couch with the two of them, stroking Gracie’s hair and rubbing Ethan’s back until they had both settled down. She didn’t remember that she had started the bath running until ten minutes later. When she realised, she leapt up and raced to the bathroom. But by this time most of the bathroom was flooded. The floor mat was soaked through and bright yellow rubber ducks floated by across the tiles.

  A thought struck Hannah. What if she had put Gracie in the bath and then forgotten to turn off the taps? If she could lose chunks of time so easily – if she could forget to give Gracie lunch, or strap her into the car – wasn’t it possible that she could let something much, much worse happen? The possibilities crept up her spine and she pressed her fingers hard against her temples.

  Hannah, you need to do better.

  By the time Liam arrived home, a little after one, all evidence of the mini-disaster that had occurred there that night had vanished. Once the kids were in bed, Hannah had mopped the bathroom and scrubbed at the living room wall until all the food was gone. She had dragged a chair over and stood on it so she could reach up to the ceiling and clean that too. She had cried quietly as she cleaned and had thought to herself, When is it all going to end?

  When Liam left the office, Paige was actually waiting for him, leaning casually against the wall, checking something on her phone. ‘Hey there, latte-boy,’ she said when she saw him. ‘I was wondering if you were ever coming down.’

  Does she even know my real name? Liam wondered distractedly.

  ‘Coming for another drink?’ she asked.

  He opened his mouth to decline, but somehow the wrong words came out. ‘Why not?’ he said, and they walked together down to the pub.

  He drank far too much again. At some point he sent Hannah a text, telling her that he was working late again, telling her he loved her. He pressed send with a slightly sick feeling in his gut. And when Paige took him by the hand and led him out of the pub and into a cab, he followed her blindly. As they climbed into the back of the taxi, he tried to keep his mind blank. Tried to convince himself that this wasn’t his fault. How was he supposed to say no when she was coming on so strong? How was he supposed to turn down the prospect of having a warm body pressed against his when his wife kept turning the cold shoulder on him?

  It was as they were crossing the harbour bridge that Paige slid across the back seat of the cab and began to stroke his neck. She was leaning in and her breath smelled of creamy cocktails and then she was kissing him. And he was kissing her back. That’s when he saw it. His eyes opened, just for a fraction of a second, and in that moment he saw the bright lights of Luna Park. The place where he had met his wife. All of the emotions that he had been squashing down came racing back.

  What the fuck was he doing? He loved Hannah.

  He pulled back from Paige and as the taxi left the bridge he said quickly, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t do this.’

  He had the driver drop him off in North Sydney and he walked to the train station feeling revolted with himself, but resolved to figure out what was going on with Hannah. There was something she wasn’t telling him and he needed to find out what it was.

  When he arrived home though, at quarter past one, Hannah was fast asleep. Saturday, he told himself, I’ll sit down with her on Saturday morning and we’ll talk this all out and we’ll figure out what’s going on.

  Friday afternoon and Hannah was heading back home from picking up Gracie from preschool – late, yet again. She touched the back of her head tenderly and felt a small lump there. When she had been placing Ethan back in the car, he had decided that no thank you, he did not want to get into the car seat again so soon. He was actually quite capable of exerting a surprising amount of strength for such a small baby and he had arched his back and screamed and wriggled and writhed as Hannah tried to strap him in. When she had finally managed to snap the buckles together, she’d pinched the skin of her thumb along with them, causing her to jump back and violently smash her head on the roof of the car.

  As they made their way through the traffic, Gracie asked her to put on one of her nursery rhymes CDs. As the inanely happy music filled the car, Hannah began to think about the past few months.

  What the hell has been going on with me?

  ‘Old MacDonald had a farm . . .’

  I don’t think I can do this any more. I really don’t think I can.

  ‘And on that farm he had a chicken . . .’

  What if I’m not meant to be a mum?

  ‘Eee-eye-ee-eye-Oh . . .’

  What if I was never supposed to be a mother or a wife?

  ‘With a berk-berk here and a berk-berk there . . .’

  What if they really would all be better off without me?

 
‘Eee-eye-ee-eye-Oh . . .’

  ‘Eee-eye-ee-eye-Oh . . .’

  The familiar taste of salty tears reached her lips and she looked down at the CD player and jabbed at it to stop the music. To stop these crazy, frightening thoughts. The button jammed and she slammed her hands down on the steering wheel in frustration.

  She looked back up from the stereo just in time to see the red light right in front of her as she crossed into the intersection, and the black four-wheel drive flying towards her from the left at a good seventy kilometres an hour.

  The following morning Hannah sat in the back of the taxi and told herself yet again that she was doing the right thing.

  ‘Going on a holiday are you, love?’ The taxi driver peered at her through the rear-vision mirror.

  ‘Umm, yes. Sort of,’ she replied.

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Uh, the airport.’

  ‘No, I mean where are you going after I drop you off, you know, up in the . . .’ He motioned a plane taking off with his hand.

  ‘Not sure yet,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Right then.’ The taxi driver seemed a little taken aback by this and fell quiet.

  Hannah looked out of the window and tried not to cry. She had cried enough these past few weeks. But she had no other choice. Yesterday afternoon when she had driven straight through that red light, when that four-wheel drive had had to screech its brakes as it swerved to avoid her, when she had risked her children’s lives, all because she was busy throwing a little tantrum because she couldn’t get Gracie’s damn nursery rhymes CD to stop playing – she had known.

  I have to leave my family.

  Before I do something to hurt them.