House of Sticks

by Peggy Frew

  ‘The top, Mum.’ Louie picked it up and tried to stuff it back in.

  ‘Oh, no, I actually don’t think I will take that one after all. Thanks anyway though, Louie.’

  ‘But it’s my favourite.’ Louie shoved it right down into the bag, gazed up at her with satisfaction.

  ‘No, really, Lou — I think I’ll have a bit more of a look at what else I’ve got.’ Bonnie bent to pull the top out again.

  ‘No.’ Louie kept his arm stuck in the bag, his hand pressing down on the top.

  ‘Come on, Louie. I’m trying to get packed here.’

  ‘Na-na-na-na-na! Na-na-na-na-na!’ went Louie in a chatter of protest, resisting her efforts, bearing down with all his weight.

  ‘Louie. Lou.’ She gave up and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Can you please go and see what Edie’s up to? I’d really like to do this by myself.’

  ‘Na-na-na-na-na!’

  ‘Oh god, Louie. Come on. Please?’

  ‘Na-na-na-na-na!’

  ‘Forget it.’ She stood up and pulled her jeans back on. ‘I’ll do it another time.’

  On Sunday she tried to go clothes shopping. Mel came over with Freddie, and Bonnie left all the kids with her and caught the tram into the city.

  She was so early none of the shops were even open. She got a coffee in a laneway cafe and sat looking out at the passers-by — middle-aged or elderly, all of them — who seemed to share the same tentative, hesitant movements. Cautiously they crept, as if aware of their status as trespassers in this half-asleep city whose rightful owners — younger people — had only temporarily receded and would soon return. A grey-haired couple in sturdy khaki pants walked with backpacks. An elderly woman in an immaculate wool suit and a hat took on the cobblestones with her twiglike legs. As she passed she turned her head, and Bonnie saw the careful placement of colour on her face — the coral lips and dabs of blush.

  Young people, Bonnie realised, would still be asleep, or only just waking for the day. She thought of the time, one early morning, when the twins, still babies, had been up screaming since five and in desperation she’d stuck them in that horrible double pram that never fitted through any doorways and taken them out for a walk. The muted, secret colours of a winter dawn. Everything brittle with cold. Waiting gardens and the sleeping windows behind them. She’d gone all the way to the 7-Eleven and bought the paper, and it had been on her way back that she’d passed the two girls walking arm in arm, inadequate jackets buttoned, gauzy scarfs floating, make-up and hair still holding some of the glossy promise of the night before. For a second she’d actually thought, They’re up early, before the realisation hit and in the same moment she saw herself as she would appear to them: heavy-thighed and pale, hair tucked into her beanie, the pram before her like some kind of giant prosthesis, an extension of her body, of her, the person she was. The girls passed, heels clipping on the pavement, stepping around Bonnie and the pram heedlessly, as if around a tree or a rubbish bin. Bonnie found herself slowing, twisting to look round after them, full of a kind of irate sorrow. Hey, she wanted to call. Stop — wait! She came to a halt, stood and watched their backs, their easy passage past and away. Before she knew it they’d gone. Wait! The dew on the empty street shone. The words sat in her mouth like stones.

  She finished her coffee and wandered until the shops began to open. Then she went into them, one after the other, riffling through the racks of clothes, taking things out and putting them back again, her heart beating harder, the time seeming to leap relentlessly further forward every time she looked. Only forty minutes till she’d need to start heading back. Then only half an hour. Twenty minutes.

  She made the mistake of thinking about Jess, and her milk let down so she slunk in and out of the shops with her coat pulled close and her arms folded.

  ‘Need some help?’ a sales girl might ask, and Bonnie would smile apologetically and creep out again. Or, possibly worse, the girls, leaning on their counters, gazing at their phones, wouldn’t even acknowledge her. One stood at a mirror, adjusting her own outfit with such intimate absorption that Bonnie felt embarrassed and left without even looking around.

  At last she got back on the tram empty-handed and dropped into a seat with a mixture of panic and relief. Sat and watched the buildings flick by — shops, cars, people. The industrious, impersonal world full of girls that cut swathes, that negotiated with aplomb.

  When she got home she sank onto the bed with Jess. Closed her eyes against the still-not-packed bag crouching on the floor. Tipped her head back against the wall, empty of everything except the even, hungry drag of Jess’s sucking.

  ‘You okay?’ Pete turned towards her in the bed. ‘You crying?’

  For the first time since the night of the race his voice sounded normal again, unguarded, and it pulled Bonnie undone, sent her into real, proper sobbing.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, pushing up to him, butting blindly against his chest with her face.

  His arms went around her. She heard him sigh, felt it against her skin. ‘It’s okay.’

  They lay still for a while.

  She let herself cry, taking in big hungry sniffs of Pete’s warm smell. But there was a tightness in her shoulders and across her temples that didn’t go away. She lifted her head. ‘I just feel so overwhelmed,’ she said. ‘I don’t feel like I can manage all this, trying to get organised for this show, and … everything. I feel like I’m falling apart.’

  ‘You don’t have to do it.’ He moved his hand up and down her back.

  ‘But I want to.’ Bonnie struggled to see his face in the dark. ‘I want to help, you know, because …’

  ‘Yeah, I know. And’ — his hand stopped, he moved slightly, away from her, and his voice changed — ‘I appreciate you doing that, Bon. It will help.’

  ‘I really am sorry.’ She was still crying.

  He rolled onto his back, letting go of her. ‘Let’s not talk about that.’

  The pillow was cold and wet under her cheek. She let out a breath, long and tired and trembling. ‘It just … it just seems so ridiculous that I can’t even, you know, get my bag packed, or think about what to wear, or — I don’t know — print out the set list and stuff.’

  Pete reached for her hand. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘It’s hard to get anything done with the kids around. You just have to accept it — factor it in; plan for things to take four times as long.’

  ‘But it’s not just the kids. It’s like … it’s almost like I get paralysed. I can’t do anything. It’s like I don’t know how to do things any more — anything in the outside world. It’s like I’ve lost the knack. I mean, remember when I did those really long tours? Before the kids? For months I wouldn’t even come back to Melbourne. I just lived out of a suitcase. And now it’s like the opposite. I feel like I’m — I don’t know — submerged or something. Like I’m in quicksand.’

  ‘It gets easier. Everyone says. When the kids are older. You get your life back.’

  ‘I’ll be too old by then. To go on tour.’

  ‘You could do other stuff. Recording. Soundtracks.’

  She slid lower under the covers. The tight feeling around her head was getting worse. ‘Oh god,’ she said. ‘Can you just stop being so reasonable for a minute?’

  Pete laughed. ‘Sorry.’ He moved down as well, put his arms around her. ‘I’m trying to be nice.’

  She rolled over to face the other way. He is — he’s trying. Just be nice back. Be grateful. ‘Yeah, I know. I’m sorry I’m being such a bitch. It must be hormones.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ He reached into her top and put his hand on her breast.

  Before she could help herself Bonnie clamped her arm down.

  He pulled his hand away. ‘God,’ he said in an injured voice. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Oh, Pete, I’m sorry.’ She faced him ag
ain. ‘I just — I can’t stand one more thing touching my boobs at the moment. Between Jess and the pump I seriously feel like a cow. They really don’t feel …’ She sighed. ‘I’ve never felt less sexy.’

  ‘Yeah, okay.’ He switched on his bedside lamp and picked up his book. Now he turned away.

  You’ve ruined it now. Idiot. She tried to curl into him, reached her arm around his waist. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry. I actually do have a headache. Can’t we just, you know, have a cuddle?’

  Pete flipped a page, adjusted his pillow. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ said Suzanne on Wednesday, at the swimming pool. ‘You need to buy a new outfit. Something that makes you feel good.’

  She looked at her mother’s crisp white slacks, the cashmere jumper and soft leather shoes with little heels, like a child’s dance shoes. Her fingernails painted a mild pink. Her blow-dried hair. ‘It doesn’t matter really,’ said Bonnie. ‘I’ve got clothes. I’ll dig something out.’

  ‘No,’ said Suzanne. ‘You can’t go off to Sydney feeling second-rate. This is important. And I’m not going to make all the bloody effort to …’ She grimaced, broke off, then worked her face into a smile. ‘You know,’ she leaned towards Bonnie and dropped her voice, ‘when you were three weeks old —’

  ‘I know,’ said Bonnie in a flat tone, rolling her eyes. ‘You left me with Granny and went and got a Vidal Sassoon haircut.’

  ‘Yes.’ Suzanne sat back, looked out over the pool. She put one hand to her hair and smoothed it. ‘And it did me a world of good. I think women these days feel too much at the mercy of their children. You’re not doing them any favours being a drudge, you know. You need to have some life of your own.’

  Bonnie breathed the muggy air and tried to will away the familiar stab of annoyance. I don’t see you putting your hand up to babysit while I get my hair cut. ‘Well, I do have a life of my own,’ she said aloud. ‘I just — I’m having trouble getting everything else organised around it.’

  Suzanne reached to the pram, pushed a dangling toy back within reach of Jess’s hands. ‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go this afternoon, just for a couple of hours. I’ll come back and take care of the children.’ She glanced at the narrow gold watch on her wrist. ‘I’ll need to get going by half-past two at the latest.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Bonnie watched Jess clutch at the toy.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Well, thanks, Mum. If you’re sure. That would be really great.’

  Suzanne crossed her legs and brushed at the fabric of her pants. ‘I think it’s important you make the most of this opportunity.’

  Bonnie watched her. Into her head came Suzanne’s words from nearly six years earlier. Oh well, you might as well do it now, I suppose. I really enjoyed getting properly back into my career in my forties. She remembered putting the phone down, going to the mirror. A hotel room in Brisbane. The savage sun through the slatted blinds. The glitter of the river behind, the faint rush of cars on the bridge. Her guitar case and gear bag at the foot of the bed with her jacket dropped over them. The thin scatter of her travelling possessions, ready to be scraped together and taken, leaving no trace. The white stick of the test lying on the bedcovers with its two pink lines. And in the foreground herself, her body, just the same, not yet betraying any secret. She’d run her hands over her breasts, her flat belly, her hips and her thighs. Leaned in to study her face. This belongs to you, she’d said to that face. You and Pete. It hadn’t mattered then what anybody else thought.

  In a boutique she tried on a long top, a kind of tunic. Black floaty silk with a textured pattern. It hung, it drifted, it skimmed. She checked the price tag. It was on sale; her heart surged. She turned in front of the mirror in relief and a flurry of hope.

  ‘Got the day off?’ The sales girl folded the top and nestled it in tissue paper.

  ‘Not really.’ Bonnie stood at a rack of belts. ‘Just a couple of hours. My mum’s looking after the kids.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ The girl pulled out a stiff paper bag. ‘How many kids have you got?’

  ‘Three.’ Bonnie glanced at her and waited.

  ‘Three! Wow.’ There was a pause, and Bonnie felt her heart wilt. But then the girl passed the bag across and smiled. ‘You don’t look old enough to have three kids.’

  She strode out into the watery sunshine. She bought a takeaway coffee and walked with it back to the car, the shopping bag hooked over one arm. In the plate-glass windows of the shops her reflection, narrow and light, leaped up to flash alongside her, again and again.

  On Thursday night she checked again the lists of instructions for Suzanne, the rows of bottles and teats. She opened the fridge and felt the bags of milk that sat there, defrosting, ready for the morning. Closed the fridge. Stood in the house full of sleeping children, listening to the lonely grind of a power tool from the workshop.

  In the bedroom she refolded the floaty tunic, placed it gently on the top of the overnight bag. Checked again her toiletry bag with its cache of make-up untouched in years, toothpaste and toothbrush, bobby pins and hair elastics. Hotel soaps with their pleated paper wrappings. Mini bottles of shampoo and conditioner. All still there in their little slots, the make-up jumbled in its separate case. More than she could possibly need for one night. She pulled the zip around the whole thing and tucked it in the side pocket of the bag.

  She took out the guitar and wound the strings slack, ready for the flight. Laid it back down. Let the lid of the case fall with its whoosh of cool smoky-pub air. Clicked the latches. Opened the gear bag and checked leads and pedals, spare strings, batteries.

  When she finally went to bed she couldn’t sleep. Pete’s words from the other night kept sounding in her ears. Pretty much back where we started. The shapes of her packed baggage hulked behind the door. She had an urge to get up and kick them, send them slamming into the far wall. Tear open the zips of the two bags and fling their contents out all over the floor. Jump on the guitar case until it caved in. She turned onto her other side so she couldn’t see them.

  In the early morning, after she’d fed Jess and come back to bed, she lay watching Pete’s sleeping face in the thin grey light. The helplessness ran through her again. Her limbs felt stretched by it, the joints weakened. It was as if she could sense, heaped in the space between their two bodies, all the small horrible moments of the past two weeks — the banal string of tensions laid in a coil, the ignoring, the resentments. And, beneath them, the greater, lurking weights of blame and anger.

  It suddenly felt very important to do something now, before she went, to get Pete to look at her softly again, with love. To reach through the air between them, stir it up, send everything flying, so they could be with each other properly again, openly.

  But there were dark circles under his closed eyes, and she couldn’t bear to wake him.

  And then she heard Edie crying and calling out — a nightmare — and by the time Bonnie had gone in and settled her, lain with her in her narrow bed for a while, it was too late, and Pete was up and busy.

  He came to the door while she was in the shower.

  ‘Your mum called,’ he said, and her stomach shrank at his tone.

  ‘Yeah?’ She tried to see his face through the shower curtain, but it was a blur.

  ‘She’s running late.’

  ‘Shit.’ She turned the taps off, pulled back the curtain, reached for a towel. ‘Why?’

  ‘Da-ad!’ came a voice from the kitchen. ‘I need some more toast.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He stood with the phone in his hand, his thumb on the call button, pressing it on and off in regular stabs. Bonnie could hear the tiny bursts of dial tone.

  ‘Da-AD!’

  ‘Coming.’ Pete pushed himself up off the doorframe.

  Bonnie caught sight
of her own drawn face in the mirror, and looked away. ‘Well, what did she say?’

  ‘I don’t know, some excuse. Traffic.’ He was turning back to the kitchen. His work shirt had a rip at the elbow. ‘I knew this would happen,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, to his back.

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Fuck,’ whispered Bonnie. She picked up the moisturiser and the bottom of the plastic jar fell from the unsecured lid, plopping upside down onto the tiles. ‘Fuck!’ she said out loud. She straightened, stuck her face out towards the empty hallway. Rage throbbed in her, hot up her spine. ‘I’m SORRY!’ she yelled.

  Bonnie held the spoon to Jess’s lips. ‘Did she say how long she’d be?’

  Pete said nothing.

  She watched him leaning over the bench, his back to her, stubborn and unfriendly. ‘I’m sure she won’t be too long.’

  Pete unfolded an old newspaper.

  ‘Come on,’ she murmured to Jess. She had that tired, scratchy feeling she always got before catching a plane: the bad night’s sleep, waking up worrying that she’d forgotten to pack something or — an outdated fear from her life before children — that she’d somehow sleep in and miss the flight.

  ‘Are you going on a plane, Mum?’ Louie spooned up some porridge and slurped the milk from around it.

  ‘Yes. I’m going to Sydney.’ She took the spoon back out of Jess’s mouth and used the edge of it to scrape rice cereal from the baby’s chin. ‘But only for one night. I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  ‘What’re we doing?’

  ‘Grandma’s coming.’ Bonnie flicked a glance at Pete. ‘Dad’ll be here though. Out in the workshop. And he’ll put you to bed and everything.’

  ‘What’re we doing, Dad?’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘What’re we doing today, with Grandma, while Mum’s on the plane?’

  Pete kept reading.