House of Sticks Read online

  ‘Where will we sleep?’ said Edie.

  ‘Here, on the floor.’

  ‘All of us?’ said Louie. ‘Even Jess?’

  ‘We’ve got the port-a-cot for her.’

  ‘Oh. Can we make our beds now?’

  ‘No, because then we’d be stepping on them all afternoon.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Pete from the doorway. ‘Who’s going to help me get the kindling?’

  Silence from the twins.

  ‘Let’s all go,’ said Bonnie. ‘We can have a look around.’ She went over to Pete and took his hand. ‘Come on, you guys.’ She stretched out her other hand and wiggled her fingers. Louie came first and took it. Edie took Pete’s free hand, and like that, in a chain, they stepped out and off the narrow veranda, down the steps and past the parked car with Jess still sleeping in it, blankets tucked in and the windows down. Into the sparse trees they went, lifting their feet high over the tussocks of grass.

  Pete cooked sausages in the electric frypan, boiled potatoes and broccoli over the little gas stove. They ate in front of the fire, Bonnie and Pete with their plates on their laps, the twins kneeling at the coffee table. Behind the blackened glass of the little door the fire burned, settled into a concentrated heat, red and liquid at its centre. They stared into it.

  ‘When’s our birthday?’ said Louie.

  ‘Soon,’ said Bonnie. ‘About a month away.’

  ‘And who’s coming again?’

  ‘Oscar, Frankie, Tom …’

  ‘Maya?’ said Edie, licking tomato sauce from her fork.

  ‘Yes, Maya. All your kinder friends.’

  ‘Grandma?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nan and Pop?’

  Bonnie looked at Pete.

  ‘No,’ he said, reaching forward to smooth Edie’s hair. ‘Nan and Pop live too far away. They can only come at Christmas-time.’

  ‘Are Nan and Pop your mum and dad?’ said Louie.

  ‘Yes,’ said Pete. ‘My mum and dad.’

  ‘And Grandma’s my mum,’ said Bonnie.

  ‘And your dad’s dead,’ said Edie.

  ‘Yes.’ She reached to bounce Jess in her baby chair. ‘You’re getting tired, aren’t you, possum?’

  ‘I can’t believe these guys are nearly five years old,’ said Pete.

  ‘I can’t believe it either,’ said Edie. She straightened her spine and put down her fork. ‘Lovely dinner,’ she said in an important voice. ‘Very nice.’

  Together Bonnie and Pete ducked their heads, slid sideways smiles at each other.

  Louie speared a slice of sausage and collected a gob of sauce with it. ‘Doug says when he was six he could drive a car.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ said Pete.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Louie, posting the sausage into his mouth.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Pete. ‘He must’ve been joking, Lou.’

  ‘He wasn’t joking.’ Louie’s brow knotted. He chomped furiously. ‘He told me.’

  Pete softened his voice. ‘Well, maybe —’

  ‘Actually,’ said Bonnie, ‘Doug did say that.’ She looked at Louie. ‘The world has changed a lot since Doug was a little boy,’ she said, feeling her way. ‘I’m not sure what the rules were back then. But now you have to be really quite grown up to drive a car.’

  ‘You have to be sixteen,’ said Pete. ‘And then you can have lessons. Your mum or dad has to sit in the car with you and show you what to do.’

  There was a pause. Louie kept up his chewing, eyes on his plate.

  Pete stretched, reached his arms up, elbows out, hands behind his head. ‘That’ll be you one day, Louie and Edie.’

  ‘One day,’ said Bonnie, ‘but not for a long, long time.’

  Silence. Louie chewed on, his fork stuck upright in his fist.

  Bonnie and Pete sat at the table with a bottle of wine. The children were two dark huddles on the camping mattresses in the middle of the rug, Jess quiet beyond them in the nylon travel cot. The glow of the fire threw the corners of the room into darkness. Over Pete’s shoulder she could see her own face hanging in the black window.

  ‘How could a six-year-old reach the pedals?’ said Pete.

  She shrugged. ‘He must’ve made it up.’ She poured herself more wine.

  Pete sipped from his glass and leaned back in his chair. ‘I feel like a cigarette.’ He got up and started searching through the drawers of the single kitchen bench. ‘Maybe Jim left some.’

  She looked into her reflected face. ‘I didn’t know he smoked.’

  ‘He doesn’t really,’ said Pete, rummaging. ‘Only sometimes. Like me.’ He shut the last drawer, scanned the room. ‘No luck.’ He came over and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yeah. Why?’

  ‘You just seem a bit quiet.’

  Bonnie dropped her eyes from the reflection. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, lifting one of Pete’s hands and kissing it. ‘Just quiet.’

  He went back around the table and sat down. He drank more wine, glancing around the room. ‘This place is great. Lucky Jim.’

  ‘It is great. So peaceful.’

  Pete tapped his foot, shuffled a rhythm with both feet and one hand. ‘It’s good to get away,’ he said. Then he stopped his restless movement and sat straight in his chair. Picked up his glass and stared into it. ‘There’s something I haven’t told you. About Doug.’

  Her stomach went cold. ‘Oh.’ Her limbs were suddenly very heavy. She felt like she had when she got the phone call about her father, the accident — the suspended moments before the actual words were said; the not-yet-disclosed information looming, ready to crash down. That hopeless urge to stave it off, push it away.

  Pete looked at her, gave a twitch of a smile. ‘It’s not that serious, don’t worry,’ he said quickly, but his face was strained. His hands lay either side of his glass, palms flat to the tabletop. ‘It’s just something I …’ He swallowed, dropped his head again. ‘This thing happened, when we were young. Me and Doug. Pretty young — like eighteen, nineteen. Well, I was eighteen or nineteen, so I guess he was in his twenties.’ He glanced at Bonnie, who nodded. ‘We were living together, in this share house, with a whole gang of friends. Peter Wilson, and Simon Wright, and Deano — I think you’ve met him?’

  ‘Once, yeah.’

  ‘Anyway.’ Pete took his eyes off her again. ‘We went to this party. Some people we knew invited us — some girls. We didn’t know the people whose party it was.’

  Across the room one of the children stirred, moaned. They waited and the child settled.

  He continued. ‘Anyway, we went, and the guys whose party it was really didn’t want us there. And we were pretty messed up — stoned, and drunk.’ He breathed slowly out through his nose. His voice was quiet. ‘So we were out the back, and there was this laundry trough all filled with ice and beer. And I took a beer — you know, showing off, being a smart-arse in front of the girls. But as I did it I saw the guys, the hosts, walking up.’ Pete paused, shook his head, swallowed. ‘And I just gave the beer to Doug, shoved it in his hand.’

  Bonnie sat still.

  Pete’s voice was thick. ‘And then it all happened really fast, but, basically, the guys — and they were tough, you know, older than us; you wouldn’t want to mess with them — well, they saw Doug with the beer and they were like “You took our beer” and I just stood there like a …’ He screwed up his nose and gave a short, hard laugh. ‘Like a fucking coward and didn’t say anything, and then the next thing you know they’re … they’re just totally laying into Doug. Beating him up.’

  She heard herself make a sound, a faint little groan.

  ‘Everyone started screaming and carrying on, and trying to break
it up, get them off him. I mean he didn’t stand a chance — he wasn’t even fighting back. But’ — he breathed again, that long, controlled breath — ‘I just stood there.’

  ‘Was he okay?’ The words came out in a croak. She cleared her throat. ‘Doug?’

  Pete kept his eyes on his feet. ‘It was pretty bad. He went to hospital. Broken ribs, and his face was pretty smashed up.’

  There was a silence.

  Pete picked up the wine bottle, tipped more in his glass. He looked up. ‘You know what I think about? Still?’

  She waited.

  He lifted the glass but didn’t drink. ‘There was this moment, when they first came up, the guys, when they said “You took our beer” and everything … There was this moment, only a couple of seconds, before they started hitting him, and Doug, he did this thing, made this face, kind of’ — Pete lifted his chin with a sudden, aggressive movement — ‘kind of like “Fuck you” and he took a big swig out of the beer. And then he looked at me. He gave me this look, like, I don’t know, like he was saying, “You owe me.”’ Pete shook his head. ‘I don’t know — I don’t know how to explain it. It was weird.’

  Silence. She touched her fingers to the base of her own glass.

  ‘But you know what? What’s really weird?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He never said anything. I mean, we were living together — and he just came home from the hospital and he never said anything.’

  She turned her glass on the tabletop. ‘But didn’t you?’

  He shrugged. ‘No.’

  ‘But why not?’ Her voice came out too loud, and she glanced at the children and lowered it. ‘I mean — wouldn’t you apologise straight away?’

  ‘I know it sounds crazy but no — I didn’t. Well, maybe I did try to say sorry and he wouldn’t listen. It was a long time ago now, and I can’t remember all that well … But mostly, the way I do remember it, it was … he came back and there was just this vibe, like — I don’t know, it was like when he gave me that look he’d already said something, communicated something to me, and we both knew it, and we didn’t need to talk about it.’

  Bonnie got up. She went over to close the curtains. They were worn and limp, with irregular patterns. Sewn from old tablecloths maybe. Before she drew them she put her face right up to the glass but she couldn’t see anything. It was too dark.

  Pete left after breakfast. ‘You’ll be right, won’t you?’ he said, pulling on his jacket and opening the door. The morning glittered — you could almost see the warm air rolling out into it. He stepped onto the veranda, peered out and up. ‘Looks like it should be a fine day. You could go for a walk.’ He came back to the door, leaned in. ‘Or do you want to come? Should we all go?’

  ‘No.’ Bonnie lay back on the low couch with Jess propped against her knees. ‘We’ll stay. It’ll be nice. We’ll see you later.’

  ‘Okay then. I’ve got my phone.’

  She wrapped Jess in a blanket and sat with her on the veranda, watching the twins playing.

  ‘No,’ said Edie, standing on a stump. ‘I’m the princess and this is my house. Your house is over there. And when it’s morning time the rooster will go cock-a-doodle-doo and then you can get up.’

  Obediently, Louie went to his own stump and draped himself over it, pillowing his head with his arms.

  She tipped her head back and looked up into the crowns of the trees, the bunches of foliage so high up, the skinny branches like pointing arms. Somewhere down on the road a truck went past, its brakes a thin, far-off sound. She thought of Pete in the car. That thing happened, where she tried not to but couldn’t help her mind snaking into the wrong places. She saw Pete take a corner, a truck coming the other way. Metal hitting, smashing, their car hurled off the side of the road, crushed and broken. Rolling, bouncing back off a tree. Panicked birds shooting upwards. Gravel dust in a cloud. All the noises — the screeching, the bang, the thudding tumble — happening in such a tight succession and then over. And then the moments when things settled. Upturned wheels spinning, slowing, stopping. A wrenched side-mirror swinging into stillness. Some last bits of glass tinkling, detaching, pattering into the dirt. Silence. Until the door of the truck opened and the driver climbed down and went over.

  How long before she got worried and tried to call him? Or before the truck driver or someone else — police probably — used Pete’s phone and called her? Answering to the foreign voice, that dropping-away feeling, her arms and legs getting heavy.

  Or what if there were no mobile phones? How long would they wait here at the house before she took the kids and walked all the way down to the roadside to flag down a car? What if it got dark? If she kept thinking he’d come, kept looking for his headlights in the falling dusk until it was too late? Waiting longer, sitting by the stove. And then what? Would she put the children to bed? Sit up and wait by herself? Fall asleep and wake in the middle of the night, the fire died down, the chill creeping in? Getting up to put on more wood. Going to stand by the window, staring out into nothing while the kids slept behind her.

  Or would she go down sooner? That night, that evening. Knowing something must have happened. Finding a torch in a drawer. Rugging the children up, strapping Jess to her in the sling. Tottering down the unmade road with the twins clinging, fighting over who got to hold the hand without the torch. The weak beam of light giving them only a wavering little circle directly in front, the black dark pressing in on it, on them. The awful thought of the battery running out.

  The road. A car. Waving the torch.

  ‘Cock-a-doodle-doo,’ went Edie.

  Bonnie blinked and looked around, and up rose Louie off his stump.

  They walked behind the shack this time, uphill. Jess in the sling blowing bubbles and grabbing at Bonnie’s hair, her cheeks bright with the cold. Edie tramping ahead, gumboots swishing, beanie bobbling. Louie dragging a fallen branch that collected ribbons of bark in a jiggling pile. It was easy walking, the spaces wide between the trees, the ground uncluttered, the grass tussocks scattered evenly as if sown by hand.

  Up they went in a serious procession. ‘Here?’ she said, and Edie looked around and shook her head. ‘Here?’ she said a bit later, and Edie shook her head again. ‘What’s wrong with here? There’s a nice flat spot, and we can look back down at the house and watch the smoke come out the chimney.’

  ‘Not quite right.’ And Edie stamped on. Up and up between the trees, until behind them enough of the spare bush was aligned to screen the house and it became just a darker blob amongst all the other dark blobs.

  ‘Oh.’ Edie stopped. It was the fence. Drooping wire and leaning posts, a wattle sapling thrusting through it — but a fence still.

  ‘Well,’ said Bonnie. ‘That’s it. That’s the end of Jim’s land.’

  ‘But whose land is on the other side?’ said Louie, poking the wires with his branch.

  ‘I don’t know. Somebody else’s.’

  ‘But what’s their name?’

  ‘I don’t know. Jim might know.’

  ‘But who are they? Is it a boy or a girl?’

  ‘I don’t know, Lou. I don’t know everyone in the world.’

  ‘Can we go and visit them?’ said Edie.

  ‘No. I don’t even know if there’s a house on that land. It might just be bush.’

  ‘But where do the people live?’

  ‘Well, there might not be anyone living there. It might just be bush — trees and stuff, and animals and birds. But the land still belongs to somebody and we don’t know that person and that’s why we can’t go on it.’ She turned back to where the smoke from their fire rose in a string above the treetops. ‘So,’ she said, ‘where shall we have our picnic then?’

  Edie sighed. ‘I s’pose it’ll have to be here,’ she said in a world-weary tone.

  Bonn
ie plonked down the bag. She spread the canvas-backed picnic rug in a clear spot and knelt on it. She took Jess out of the sling and put her down on her tummy on the rug. She set out plastic plates and the bottle of water. Sandwiches in a Tupperware container. Apples and pears. A little tub of dried apricots and sultanas. Everything tilting on the grass tufts and sticks underneath.

  They ate and looked back down at the scrub and the string of smoke. The sun came out and warmed them. She stretched out her legs. A bird hopped nearby, angled its eye at them, sprang into the air and away.

  ‘What if there are people on that land?’ said Edie. ‘If there are people, can we visit them?’

  Bonnie put her head back, her face to the sun. She closed her eyes. ‘No. You can’t visit people you don’t know.’

  ‘But what if they came down here, to the fence, and invited us?’

  She sat up and reached for the water. ‘Well, then it would be okay.’ She drank. The water from Jim’s tank was sweet, with a slight taste of ti-tree.

  Pete came back in the late afternoon.

  ‘I found some good timber.’ He sat down at the table. ‘Eastern mahogany. Two big fallen trees — be almost enough for the whole job.’

  ‘Great.’ She filled the kettle and switched it on.

  Edie climbed onto Pete’s lap. ‘We had a picnic, Daddy.’

  ‘Did you?’ Pete kissed her, but Bonnie who was watching from the bench could see him gazing off, out the window. ‘It’s beautiful wood,’ he said, resting his cheek against the top of Edie’s head. ‘Should work really well with just a bit of Vic ash as trim.’

  ‘Great,’ she said again, opening the tea canister. ‘Good on you.’

  ‘And it’s quite cheap too. He’s ready to mill it on Monday and he can deliver, maybe even on Tuesday, so I could get started this week.’

  ‘That’s so good.’ She took mugs from the drying rack. ‘Will it all fit in the workshop?’

  ‘Just. I’ll have to move some things around.’

  ‘We found a fence,’ said Edie to Pete. ‘It was nearly falling down, but Mum said we couldn’t go on the other side because we didn’t know the people.’