House of Sticks Read online

  Bonnie sat up straighter in her chair. She felt it all dissolve, the cramped irritation, the tiredness and strain.

  ‘Although … I don’t know what season it’ll be. We could save it till winter next year. Or would that be too long a wait?’

  She smiled.

  He came over and picked up the milk from the table. ‘Or Bali? Just lie on a beach somewhere for a week and eat nice food.’

  She reached out her arms. ‘Come here.’

  ‘What?’ Pete went closer. She put her arms around his waist and pulled him down, tried to make him sit on her knee. He wobbled, splayed his legs, gripped the edge of the table, laughing. ‘What’re you doing?’

  She kissed him, his face, his neck. ‘God I love you,’ she said. ‘I love you so much.’

  Pete laughed again. ‘So you want to do it?’

  ‘It sounds like the best idea ever in the whole world.’

  ‘Where should we go? When?’

  ‘Oh god, anywhere. Whenever.’

  ‘And do you think your mum’ll be okay with the kids?’

  ‘Well, she’ll just bloody well have to be.’

  ‘What’re you two doing?’ It was Edie, in the doorway.

  Pete tried to get up, but Bonnie pulled him down again. ‘I’m cuddling Dad,’ she said. ‘Because I love him so much.’

  ‘Oh.’ Edie kept watching. She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her pyjama top.

  ‘Yuck, Edie,’ said Pete.

  ‘You’re squashing Mum,’ said Edie.

  ‘She seems to want to be squashed,’ said Pete.

  Bonnie kept her arms around him, felt his solid weight on her thighs, his body pushing hers against the chair-back. She tightened her hold. ‘I do.’

  Mel rang. ‘Did you do the recording?’ she said. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘It was great.’ Bonnie stood at the clothesline with the phone tucked between her ear and shoulder. ‘I was so nervous but it was fine — it went really well.’

  ‘That’s great.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She unpegged clothes and dropped them into the basket at her feet. ‘And it was so nice to go to work! To this place where no one hassles you, where you can focus on a task and finish it, and then you can just make a cup of tea and sit down and finish that!’

  Mel laughed. ‘I know. It’s amazing, isn’t it? I couldn’t believe how easy work was when I went back, compared to being at home with Freddie.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ Bonnie moved to the other end of the line, pushing the basket over the grass with her foot. The back of her neck was cold. She pulled at her scarf. ‘Mickey wants me to play some shows with her.’

  ‘Really? Will you do it?’

  ‘I don’t know — it’s all a bit hard.’

  ‘You must miss it though? Touring? You did so much of it. You were always off on the road somewhere.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Bonnie dropped the last piece of clothing into the basket, straightened, took the phone in her hand, uncrooked her neck. ‘Sometimes, yeah. There were lots of good things about it.’

  ‘I bet.’

  ‘But, you know, when I was doing it, when I’d been doing it for ages and it was my life and took up all my time … I was sick of it then. I hated it. It’s — I don’t know — it’s kind of an empty way of life. You’re always moving, you have all these weird superficial relationships.’ She lifted the basket and went towards the porch steps. ‘You meet so many great people, interesting people, but you never really get to know them — you see them once every six months or whatever, and you just go out somewhere, get drunk, have the same old conversations, and say goodbye.’

  ‘Right.’

  Bonnie set the basket of clothes down on the kitchen table. She stood looking at the fridge, its bristle of papers, the twins’ drawings and paintings, notices from the childcare centre. ‘I remember, when I met Pete, when I went back to his place and everything was just so calm, and settled. I mean, it was just a scungy share house, with crappy furniture and everything, but — well, he’s a bit older, so it was more organised, I guess.’ Bonnie moved closer to the fridge. ‘Anyway, there was this moment, the next morning, sitting at the kitchen table. There was just something so straight about him. He wasn’t trying to play any games or anything, act cool. I said, “I have to go, I have to catch a plane.” And he just looked at me and said “Oh! I wish you could stay.”’

  ‘That’s very sweet.’

  Bonnie smiled. ‘Yeah. It was. And only Pete could get away with something like that. Anyone else and I reckon I would’ve run a mile. But I remember thinking, Wow, I really like this guy, and feeling like all I wanted to do was race back into his bedroom and jump under the covers and never come out.’

  ‘I remember the two of you,’ said Mel. ‘You were so in love.’

  The sound of Jess crying came from down the hallway. In the middle of the fridge door, half hidden by a magnet, was a photo of Bonnie and Pete, from their early days. Their faces, younger, fuller. Arms around each other.

  ‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’ said Mel. ‘How our lives seem to fall into these two time periods — before and after.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She looked at the photo. Pete unshaven, wearing that old brown jumper. The mottled bark of a tree behind, the soft grey-green leaves, filtered sunlight.

  ‘And they seem so distinct, so separate from each other.’

  ‘Yeah.’ The dappled light on her skin. Her cheek against Pete’s chest. ‘But … towards the end, with the touring, it was like I knew something was going to change. I remember I had this … loneliness.’ She laughed. ‘I was surrounded by people, I couldn’t get a moment to myself, and I was so, so lonely. Like the worst kind of homesickness, except I didn’t really have a home — I just had that room at your place with all my stuff in it, remember?’ Jess’s crying was getting louder. Bonnie pushed the magnet higher so the top of Pete’s head was visible, his sticking-up hair. ‘It was like I was homesick for Pete, and I hadn’t even met him yet. And then when I did, it was like suddenly that homesick feeling had a — I don’t know — a reason or something, a target — and then it really kicked in. Every tour. And I just knew I was going to stop. It was only a matter of time.’

  ‘Mum.’ It was Louie.

  ‘Yes, Lou?’

  ‘Jess is crying.’

  ‘Yeah — thanks, Lou. I’ll get her in a minute.’ She turned away from the fridge. ‘Sorry, Mel,’ she said into the phone. ‘I’d better go.’

  ‘Okay, you guys. Got your bathers on?’ Bonnie sifted through the piles of clean laundry on the couch, pulling out towels and stuffing them in a bag. ‘Oh, Jess, it’s okay,’ she said to the baby whingeing on her mat. ‘We’ll go in a minute.’

  ‘Let’s make another cubby,’ said Edie to Louie, and started to pull one of the cushions out from under the laundry pile.

  ‘Not now, you guys. Come on. We’ve got swimming.’ She rescued the toppling mountain of clothes and shoved the cushion back in. ‘Edie, come on — you’re making everything fall down on the floor.’

  ‘But we want to make a cubby,’ wailed Edie.

  ‘Look.’ Bonnie zipped the swimming bag and swept Jess up into her arms. She stood with her leg pressed against the couch, holding the cushion in. ‘Do you want to go to swimming or not?’

  ‘I do.’ Edie tugged at the cushion. ‘But I just want to make a cubby first.’

  ‘Edie, listen.’ Bonnie reached down, tried to take her hand, but Edie pulled away. ‘If we want to get there in time for the class we have to go now. The class doesn’t just start when we get there. If we’re not on time we’ll miss it.’

  Edie folded her arms and bared her teeth. ‘But I want to make a cubby now.’

  ‘When we get home from swimming you can make cubbies for as long as you want.’ She went ov
er to the door. ‘Come on, let’s get in the car. Grandma’ll be waiting.’

  ‘Let’s go, Edie,’ said Louie and followed Bonnie.

  They paused in the doorway. Edie glowered. And then — ‘All right’ — she stomped after them.

  Bonnie strapped Jess into her capsule and the twins in their booster seats. ‘Oh, bugger — I forgot the snacks. Hang on one sec, you guys.’

  She shut the door, cutting off Jess’s crying. She dashed back into the house, down the hallway and into the kitchen, where a packet of rice cakes and two apples sat on the bench with a bottle of water. Bonnie grabbed them and turned. Something — a difference, an absence — caught her eye and she stopped. Went over to the door. Put her face right up to the glass. Looked down at the blank bit of concrete to the left of where the steps went down. The pot plant was gone. Only a mark, a left-behind dark ring full of silvery snail tracks.

  ‘What’s …?’ she said aloud. But then she glanced at the clock. It was nearly ten-thirty. They were late.

  ‘Funny.’ Bonnie started the engine.

  ‘What’s funny?’ said Louie, over Jess’s crying.

  ‘My pot plant.’

  ‘What pot plant?’

  She drove to the corner of the next street, put on the indicator, waited for another car to pass.

  ‘You know, my special pot plant. My great-aunt Jean gave it to me. It was just a geranium, but it was in this beautiful ceramic pot, sort of glazed green.’

  ‘What’s grazed green?’

  ‘Glazed. Glazing’s a way of finishing off a piece of pottery or ceramic. It goes over the colour and makes it shiny. And sometimes it sort of gets all these tiny cracks in it that look really beautiful.’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Louie.

  ‘Me too,’ said Edie.

  Bonnie grabbed the packet of rice cakes and opened them awkwardly against the steering wheel. She took four out and passed them back to Louie. ‘Give two to Edie, please. And don’t drop any on Jess.’

  The twins munched. Drizzle spattered on the windscreen. Jess wound back down to a whinge and then went quiet.

  She put on the windscreen wipers and turned onto the main road. ‘I wonder what happened to it?’

  ‘How’s Pete’s new job going?’ Suzanne bounced Jess on her lap.

  Bonnie sat, her breath still short from the swim, her eyes on Edie and Louie ducking for plastic rings thrown by the teacher. ‘Oh, good, I think,’ she said vaguely. ‘Yeah, good.’

  Suzanne looked at her sharply. ‘Has he got rid of that feller yet? What’s-his-name?’

  ‘Doug?’ She sighed. ‘No.’

  Suzanne gave a disapproving click with her tongue. ‘Silly boy. He’s too much of a soft touch, if you ask me.’

  She didn’t answer. She watched Edie’s pale legs kick up out of the water, skinny and frog-like. Her own leg and arm muscles throbbed with satisfying weariness. She leaned back and breathed the dense, unnatural air of the overheated building.

  Suzanne yawned. ‘I always get drowsy in these places.’

  ‘Me too.’ Then Bonnie sat up straight. ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you. Guess what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pete got his first pay from the new job and we’re putting a chunk of it aside so we can go on a holiday.’

  ‘What a wonderful idea.’ Suzanne bounced Jess again. ‘When?’

  ‘Oh, not for ages.’ Bonnie noticed Louie duck under for longer than usual, and half stood to watch. But then he bobbed back up, chin barely above the surface, arms working, misted goggles like two milky reptile eyes. She put her hand to her chest. ‘God — tell you what, I’ll be relieved when these guys can actually swim.’ She sat back down. ‘We were thinking maybe even next winter.’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ said Suzanne. ‘Escape the cold. And the children will love it.’

  ‘Actually, we were thinking of not taking them.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Bonnie looked at Suzanne. ‘I mean — Pete and I, we haven’t had anything like that since the twins were born. I think we need it.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, you do. It’s important to keep your relationship going — keep the spark.’

  ‘So …’ She squeezed up her eyes. ‘We were thinking maybe we could get you to look after the kids.’

  ‘Me?’ Suzanne’s head went up.

  ‘Well, yeah. You could come and stay at our place.’

  Jess started to grizzle, arching her back in Suzanne’s arms. Suzanne bounced her higher. ‘How long for?’

  ‘We were thinking maybe’ — she squeezed up her eyes again — ‘a week?’

  Suzanne made a face. ‘A week?’

  Bonnie felt uncomfortably hot. She took a breath. You can ask her. She’s their grandmother, for god’s sake. ‘Well,’ she said, trying to keep her voice level, ‘we’re thinking of going overseas, and with the flight time and everything, I mean, a week’s not actually all that long …’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Jess was throwing back her head, her small body stiff in Suzanne’s arms. ‘She’s getting sick of me.’ Suzanne handed the baby to Bonnie and settled back on the bench. ‘Yes, of course I can look after them,’ she said, and flashed Bonnie a smile that seemed almost nervous. ‘You’ll have to show me what to do though.’

  Bonnie’s irritation melted. ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ Suzanne crossed her legs and smoothed her pants. ‘But just make sure you consult with me when you set the date so I can get organised with work and bridge and things like that.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Bonnie kissed Jess’s head, her eyes on the twins in the water. Her excitement at the thought of the holiday, the bravado she’d needed to summon in the face of Suzanne’s unavailability — both were gone. She found herself dropping into unexpected panic. Visions tumbled through her mind: Jess falling off the change table; Jess drowning in the bath; one of the twins pulling the boiling kettle down onto themselves; one of them running out in front of a car. ‘Anyway,’ she said quietly, holding Jess’s small, solid body closer. ‘It won’t be for ages.’

  She strapped Jess in her capsule, checked Louie’s seatbelt and shut the door.

  On the other side of the car Suzanne leaned in, kissed her fingertips and dabbed them in the direction of each child. ‘Bye, gorgeous children,’ she sang, then straightened up and pushed the door closed.

  ‘Bye, Mum.’ Bonnie went round and met her at the back of the car. ‘Thanks for your help today.’

  ‘Bye, darling, lovely to see you.’ Suzanne’s kiss barely connected with her cheek. ‘And that’s wonderful news about your holiday.’

  ‘Yeah, it is.’ Bonnie ran her thumb over the ridge of the car key. ‘I think we need it — me and Pete.’

  Suzanne took a pair of sunglasses from her handbag and put them on. But instead of turning to her own car she just stood, gaze lowered, running the zip of the bag slowly back and forth along its track. ‘You know,’ she said in a breathy voice, ‘we didn’t do enough of that — your father and I. I thought …’ She lifted one hand and adjusted the glasses, pushed them further up her nose. ‘I thought it was all still to come — ahead of us.’

  Bonnie stood in silence. She could see the top of her mother’s head, the evenly spaced highlights and the regrowth of grey at the roots.

  Suzanne’s fingers kept working at the bag, drawing the zip closed and then open again. ‘I was so angry when he died. I felt like I’d been robbed. I was looking forward to those times … once all the hard work was over.’ She made a snuffling little sound, half laugh, half sob. ‘All my life — for our whole marriage — I thought he was waiting, like me, that our life together hadn’t really started.’ She raised her head. In each lens of the glasses hung the tiny white circle of Bonnie’s face. ‘I was furious that
he hadn’t retired earlier — that he wanted to keep working.’

  Bonnie didn’t move. She pushed down with the pad of her thumb on the key.

  ‘And the funny thing is,’ said Suzanne, drawing herself up, ‘I’m pretty sure he was happy the whole time. Content.’ She pulled her lips back in a closed-mouth smile. ‘You think you know someone.’

  Bonnie drove out of the car park.

  ‘My seatbelt’s not on properly,’ said Edie.

  ‘What?’

  ‘My seatbelt. It’s all twisted and it’s not done up.’

  ‘Shit. Hang on.’ She pulled the car over and got out. She went around and opened Edie’s door.

  ‘See?’ Edie shook the tangled straps, the metal clip dangling above its empty plug.

  She straightened the harness and clicked the belt in. ‘I thought Grandma did it.’

  ‘She did.’ Edie’s fingers went up to tangle in Bonnie’s hair, which was drying in clumped locks. ‘But she didn’t do it properly.’

  Pete stood in the middle of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his work pants. ‘So I’ve got this reunion thing.’

  ‘Oh, is that tonight? I forgot.’

  ‘Yeah. Will you be okay? With dinner and everything?’

  ‘Sure.’ Bonnie opened the fridge and looked in. ‘If I can think of something to cook. The shopping situation’s getting dire again.’

  Pete bent to kiss Jess in her baby chair. ‘You’ll get a chance tomorrow, won’t you, with the twins at kinder?’

  ‘I guess so.’ She felt her usual wave of exhausted apathy at the idea of shopping. Pete didn’t understand, she knew. He really couldn’t see how she could go off with the list and manage to come back with only half the stuff and even then not enough of certain things, or anything for dinner that actual night. She didn’t understand it herself. It was a sort of paralysis. Once she was in there, with all the bright lights and the towering shelves, the people and stacks of goods and signs and specials and god-awful music, all she wanted to do was get out as fast as possible.